Good thing we nipped it in the bud, he thought. Perhaps it was no coincidence that he’d jumped at the chance to leave the country at the first sign of anything serious between them.
“About another half hour,” said Rene.
Theo grumbled and went back to sleep. Over the next few miles, the road turned into dirt tracks. All signs of forest disappeared, giving way to row after row of cultivated cacao trees. Thousands of them stretched for miles up the hills and into the valley, each one about twenty feet tall with large, glossy green leaves.
“Slow down,” said Rene.
Jack cut his speed to a crawl as she pointed to a group of workers in the field. The team leaders were shirtless young men, each of them armed with a long pole that had a mitten-shaped knife at the end. It was their job to select the ripe cacao pods, slice them off the tree, and let them fall to the ground. Behind them were even younger-looking men, more likely boys, machete in hand and a cigarette clenched between their teeth as they performed the stoop-labor ritual of gathering the pods and cracking them open for a handful of cocoa beans.
“That boy over there,” she said. “Probably no more than ten years old.”
Again, Jack thought of Nate. “Where do these kids come from?”
“All over. Mali, Burkina Faso. The poorest countries you can imagine.”
“How do they get here?”
“Sometimes they’re stolen. Usually they’re tricked. Locateurs-recruiters-will go to bus stations, city markets, wherever, and promise these kids the good life. It’s all a con. That team of five over there-Sally’s ex-husband probably paid some locateur sixty bucks for the lot of them.”
“This is his plantation?”
“One of his. One of twenty thousand.”
“Twenty thousand?” he said with surprise.
“Sounds like a lot, but there are over six hundred thousand coffee and cocoa farms in this country.”
“That’s a lot of beans.”
“A lot of money,” she said, her gaze drifting back toward the workers in the field. “And a lot of kids.”
He glanced in her direction, catching a glimpse of the genuine concern in her eyes. He felt a strange rush of conflicting emotions, both sadness over the tragedy she was fighting and admiration for the passion with which she fought. It seemed like a strangely selfish thought, coming to him as it did while mere boys toiled in the fields around him, but Rene was definitely the kind of woman who could make a divorced man feel alive again.
“Turn down this road,” she said.
The dirt tracks turned into paved highway, and Jack realized that their little detour was over. “Where to now?” he asked.
“Almost as far as Daloa. Jean Luc has a house there.”
Jack had to think a moment, having almost forgotten that Jean Luc was the name of Sally’s rich second ex-husband. “Have you ever met him?”
“No.”
“Know anything about him?”
“He’s a French citizen, but he’s lived most of his life here.”
“Obviously wealthy.”
“Obviously. I just gave you some idea of his labor cost.”
“Good money in chocolate, I guess.”
“Depends on what you mean by ‘good.’”
“I assume Sally wasn’t unaware of his wealth when she set her sights on him.”
“He was reasonably handsome in the one photograph I’ve seen. But he was in his mid-sixties. Draw your own conclusions.”
They stopped at the gate at the end of the paved road. An armed guard emerged from the guardhouse.
Theo stirred in the backseat and said, “You want me to take care of this?”
“I’ll handle it,” said Rene. “This is one instance where looking like my sister should definitely be an advantage.”
“Like it’s ever a disadvantage,” said Theo.
She gave a little smile, then got out of the truck. The guard approached and met her halfway. Jack could hear them talking, but they were speaking French.
“What’s she saying?” asked Theo.
“Who do I look like, Maurice Chevalier? At this point, all we can do is trust her.”
“You’re cool with that?”
“I am.”
“Good. Cuz if she fucking sells me to this guy, I’m coming after your ass with that machete.”
Jack started humming “Thank Heaven, for Little Girls.” Rene and the guard finished their conversation with an exchange of smiles and multiple expressions of merci, merci, all of which Jack took as a good sign. She got back in the car, and the guard opened the gate to let them pass.
“What did you tell him?” asked Jack.
“A magician never reveals her tricks,” she said.
“Tricks, my ass,” said Theo. “You promised him fifty bucks on the way out.”
“Twenty-five. How did you know?”
“These things I know,” said Theo.
“Drive on,” she said. Jack followed the road past more cacao trees, small ones that grew in the shade of larger banana and coffee trees. After a half mile of ruts and dust, the road flattened into a relatively well-maintained driveway. It curved around a pond, leading to a huge house on the river at the foot of the mountain. It was the nicest house Jack had seen since landing in Africa, but it was a far cry from the mansion he had expected.
“Pretty simple digs for a multimillionaire,” said Jack.
“Typical,” said Rene. “You flash money here, you draw bandits. It’s the inside that looks like the lap of luxury.”
They parked in front beside two other SUVs. Jack brought along a dossier holding his legal papers. An African man came out and greeted them on the covered porch. The guard had apparently radioed ahead to alert him of visitors. He and Rene conversed in French, and then she turned to Jack and said, “This is Mr. Diabate, Jean Luc’s personal assistant. He wants to know the purpose of our visit.”
Jack opened the dossier and showed him a copy of Sally’s will and death certificate. “Tell him that I’m an attorney from the U.S., and that I have some questions for Sally’s ex-husband.”
Rene translated, then looked at Jack and said, “What kind of questions?”
“Tell him that it has to do with the money-”
“Jack, cork it,” said Theo. “Rene, do your trick again. Ask him if he wants to meet Andrew Jackson several times over.”
“It couldn’t hurt,” the man said in English.
Jack did a double take, but it was worth a few bucks if the guy could speak English. Jack checked his wallet, then pulled back. “Is Jean Luc even here?”
“In a manner of speaking,” the man said.
“What does that mean?”
Diabate tapped his foot, waiting. Jack handed over a few bills and watched him count in silence. The man stuffed the cash in his shirt pocket, seemingly satisfied, then looked at Jack and said, “Monsieur, Jean Luc is dead.”
Thirty-five
Tatum knew he shouldn’t do it. But with the lawyer away, the client plays. Especially when his brother goes with him.
Jack had given him a stiff warning before leaving for Africa: Under no circumstances was Tatum to have any communication with Sally’s other beneficiaries. Doing so would be a direct violation of the restraining order. Tatum promised “to lay low” and “not to do anything stupid.” Technically speaking, he never actually promised to heed Jack’s advice. Besides, there was only one beneficiary he wanted to talk to, which meant that there were four others he wouldn’t contact, which translated to 80 percent compliance with his lawyer’s instructions. In Tatum’s book, that was something to be pretty damn proud of.
Gerry Colletti was down the street from his house, walking his dog, when Tatum caught up with him. It was early morning, and Colletti was wearing his robe and slippers, the unwrapped morning paper tucked under one arm. Tatum approached from behind at a moment when he’d be most off guard, just as Colletti stooped down to collect fresh poodle droppings with his pooper-scooper.
/> “Thought you only talked shit, Colletti. Didn’t know you collected it.”
Colletti dropped the newspaper and looked behind him, obviously startled. He scooped the droppings into a plastic bag and said, “You’re in violation of your restraining order. Get away, or I’m calling the judge.”
“I’m not hurting anybody.”
“You’re within five hundred yards of me. It doesn’t matter if you hurt me or not.”
“Doesn’t matter? If that’s the case, I might as well beat you to a pulp. No sense doing time in jail just for talking.”
Colletti took a half-step back, trying to put more space between them. His little dog growled and bared its teeth. “Easy, Muffin.”
“Your dog’s name is Muffin?” said Tatum, taunting.
“Come near me and she’ll chew your leg off. What do you want to talk about?”
“I was hoping that you and me could come to an understanding.”
A modicum of tension drained from his expression, as if he liked the sound of Tatum’s approach. “What are you proposing?”
“First, you need to understand it wasn’t me who attacked you in the parking lot.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“What do you mean, you don’t care?”
“I already made the judge believe it was you. I can make the cops believe it, I can make a jury believe it, I can probably even make your own lawyer believe it. Doesn’t matter if it’s true, so long as I can prove it.”
“You can’t prove anything. You’re like that bag of dog shit in your hand.”
“You’re dead wrong about that, Mr. Knight. I put my best investigator on your trail. He’s uncovered some pretty interesting things about you.”
Tatum smiled and shook his head. “So I got an impressive résumé. Big deal. That don’t change the facts. It wasn’t me who pummeled you.”
“You’re missing my point. If you don’t step aside and renounce your claim to this inheritance, a guy like me can create a ton of problems for a guy like you.”
“You think it’s that easy?”
“My offer still stands. In fact, I’ll make it even sweeter. Three hundred thousand dollars cash is yours, no strings attached.”
“That’s it, huh? I’m supposed to give up my shot at forty-six million dollars just because you say so?”
“No, because you’re going to land in jail if you don’t.”
Tatum wasn’t smiling anymore. He could feel his anger rising. “You’re out of your league, Colletti.”
“To the contrary. You’re out of yours. This is business as usual for me.”
“You think you’re that good, do you?”
Colletti picked up his dog, stroking its head as he cradled the ball of white, curly fur in his arms. “How do you think I ended up in this game in the first place?”
“It’s pretty obvious. Sally Fenning was trying to dish out her own version of revenge to her enemies. You represented her husband in their divorce.”
“You think that’s what got me on the list?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“Oh, Tatum, you are stupider than I thought. Miguel told me to go easy on Sally, which left me with a ton of ammunition and no way to use it. It seemed like such a shame to dig up all that dirt on Sally and then let it go to waste. Then the brainstorm hit me. If Miguel didn’t want to use it for his own benefit, I could use it for mine.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“All it took was a simple warning to Sally: If she didn’t give in to my demands, I’d make it a matter of public record that Sally was having an affair with the man who murdered her daughter, and that she was covering up for him.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“None of your business. But again, you miss the point. I was even less sure of my accusations against her than I am about my charges against you. But I still pulled it off.”
“Pulled what off?”
He flashed a thin, satisfied grin. “Ask any divorce lawyer who’s ever had a wounded wife as a client and he’ll tell you, getting her in the sack is like shooting fish in a barrel. But getting the wife to spread her legs when she’s the client of the opposing lawyer…Well,” he said smugly, “now that’s a good day’s work.”
“You think I’m just going to spread my legs, too?”
“No,” he said, his smile fading into a more serious glare. “You look more like the type to just bend over and take it.”
Tatum went at him and grabbed his throat. With his other hand he tried to contain the dog, but it leaped from Colletti’s arms and bit Tatum on the wrist. Tatum flung the animal across the road and recoiled in pain. He was bleeding as he backed away.
Colletti massaged his throat. Tatum hadn’t held him long, but it was a hard, martial arts-style hit. He caught his breath and said, “See that, Tatum? Even Muffin gets a piece of you.” He gathered up his precious dog and walked away.
Tatum just stood there, seething, watching, and holding his wrist.
Thirty-six
They traveled halfway back to Korhogo before stopping at a hotel for the night. It would have been much easier to drive around big Lake Kossou and take the main highway north, but they opted for the scenic route through Parc National de la Marahoué, as Jack wasn’t about to leave Africa without seeing some form of wildlife besides Theo.
“They’re throwing kids,” said Theo.
“What?” said Jack.
They were having dinner at another maquis, eating grilled chicken and attiéké, a local side dish made from grated roots. A crowd had gathered in the town square across the street. A group of teenagers was moving rhythmically to the beat of a drum, but most of the audience seemed focused on a spectacle of some sort.
“I swear to God,” said Theo. “There’s kids flying through the air over there.”
“It’s the child jugglers,” said Rene.
“They juggle kids?”
“It’s an old tradition under the Guéré, Dan, and I think the Wobé peoples. Jugglers train for months. The girls are specially selected from the tribe. They have to be skinny, supple, and definitely not prone to crying. Five years old is a prime age.”
“And they throw them through the air?” said Jack.
Theo was standing on his chair for a better view. “It’s amazing. Let’s go watch.”
Rene said, “Africa has some wonderful traditions, but this one doesn’t exactly jibe with my pediatric training.”
“I think I’ll pass, too,” said Jack.
“Suit yourself,” said Theo. He stuffed a piece of grilled chicken into his mouth and started across the street.
Jack tilted back another glass of palm wine. After half a bottle, he was beginning to acquire a taste for it. Rene refilled her glass, then raised it and said, “Well, here’s to Jean Luc. May he rest in pieces.”
Jack met her toast, fully understanding that she wouldn’t want to wish “peace” on Sally’s ex, even in death. “That was some surprise, huh?”
“Not really. Daloa can be a dangerous place, even if you’re careful.”
“Obviously he wasn’t careful enough.”
“It only takes one mistake. The Red Cross chose Daloa as this year’s center of activities for World AIDS Day. What does that tell you?”
“I guess he had a weakness for the local women.”
“Or some of the boys he bought.”
There was bitterness in her tone, and Jack didn’t even want to think about how often that must have happened. Jack asked, “When did he and Sally divorce?”
“A few months ago. Why?”
“I was thinking on the car ride here. The fact that he died of AIDS may shed some light on Sally’s state of mind.”
“I was thinking about that, too.”
“Did Jean Luc give her AIDS?”
“I don’t know.”
“It would fit with some of the things I’ve been hearing about her.”
“What have you been heari
ng?”
Jack couldn’t tell her that Sally tried to hire Tatum to shoot her, since that was a privileged communication from his client. He had to keep it general, as he had in their first meeting in Korhogo. “She just didn’t seem to be terribly afraid of death. And I don’t say that lightly. I understand what she went through. My sense is that she had no reason to go on living after the murder of her daughter. If she had AIDS, she might have felt as though there was no point in prolonging the inevitable.”
“Are you back on that theory you mentioned to me before-that Sally might have hired someone to kill her?”
“It’s not much of a stretch to believe that she’d hire someone to kill her under these circumstances.”
She looked away, and sadness came over her. “I’d be lying if I told you that I hadn’t worried about Sally. But this idea that she would have hired someone to shoot her, I don’t really understand. Why go to all that trouble? Why wouldn’t she have just shot herself?”
“You could have been the reason.”
“You’re blaming me?”
“No, no. Quite the opposite.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Here’s something that might help you understand. A few years ago, I saw a story on television about some Academy Award-winning actress. I forget who it was, but that’s not important. The point is, before she made it big, she was so unhappy that she decided to kill herself. Problem was, she was afraid her friends and family would feel guilty that they hadn’t noticed her depression in time to keep her from committing suicide. So she tried to hire a guy to shoot her, make it look like a random murder. The gunman talked her out of it.”
“So you think Sally…”
“I think she might have found a less compassionate hit man.”
“Do you have any idea who it might have been?”
Jack looked across the street. Theo was dancing with two women, laughing, waving his arms, and having a good time. It suddenly reminded him of the talk he’d had with the detective on Sally’s case, who’d tried to warn him that Tatum was nothing like his brother Theo.
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