White Bone

by Ridley Pearson

  As sirens neared, he briefly stepped out of the mob and tightened a shoelace. He counted an impressive five patrol cars outside the hotel. A dozen patrolmen scrambled from the vehicles. Knox turned, kept moving.

  The closer he drew to the stage stop—a triangular parking lot formed by the intersection of three streets and crowded with matatus—the more pedestrians crowded the space. A hardware store, a cell carrier, food stalls, clothing stores and an open-air market all competed for the attention of the thousands using the bus stop. Knox slowed, not knowing how to find the “Koja stage.”

  He felt a hand take his.

  “Stay with me. Say nothing. Make yourself as small as possible and be friendly. Are you capable of smiling?”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Of course not. I saw it all. I’m your only witness, which is too bad for both of us.”

  “I have to speak with hotel management. Not about this! I have a lead.”

  “Not now. Probably not ever. Forget that for now.”

  “I can’t.”

  The matatu ride was spine-jarring. Knox sat sandwiched between two passengers, head spinning from the conflicting body odors. The driver talked to himself, into what later proved to be a Bluetooth earpiece; the woman next to Knox threw elbows as she knitted a baby’s cap; he caught Maya Vladistok smiling at him from the seat behind. He not only liked, but trusted her. Best of all, he no longer felt at sea. He’d found a navigator.

  Maya’s apartment, a modest studio with a view of a parking lot, had more books than shelf space. It contained two ladderback chairs, a small round dining table and a galley kitchen. Either she slept sitting up or there was a well-hidden Murphy bed. Knox used the toilet—the bathroom was even smaller than the kitchen—to wash up.

  They sat in the two chairs, saying nothing. The sounds of a busy city penetrated the thin glass of the only window. Among the hundreds of books, he didn’t spot a single work of fiction. Law journals, biographies, African history.

  “I have to get back to the hotel. She left something there. For someone. I don’t know who. But whoever it is can help me. I need the name. And whatever it is she left behind—if it hasn’t been picked up.”

  “You do not want to test Kenyan justice, Mr. Knox. Justice in matters such as these is tribal, severe and swift. And though this government will be hesitant to jail or execute a foreigner, especially an American, you have come at an inauspicious time. The current government would be well served by declaring itself judicially independent and able to prosecute its own laws. The killing of a policeman is justification enough. I would imagine you would serve at least a few years.” She frowned. “The airport, trains and border crossings are out of the question. Do you have money?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mombasa is your best option. With the right connections and cash, you may be able to arrange stowage on an outbound ship. Ironically, John, this is how the elephant tusk is exported. And by the same people.”

  “Asian Container Consolidated.”

  “Or a competitor. Being white will cost you and won’t help. Those in the Mombasa port would be more than happy to take a payment from the police for you. It will be extremely difficult to arrange passage, but I think it is not impossible.”

  “Not exactly a ringing endorsement.”

  “Few options, none without risk, I’m afraid.”

  “There may come a time for that, but it’s not now.”

  “Don’t be stupid. You cannot remain in this country. Every hour works against you. In the public eye, you have killed a policeman. You are a foreigner. The manhunt won’t stop, believe me. You are a trophy now, more valuable than the big game you came to protect.”

  “You can’t harbor me. I understand.” Every hour works against Grace, too, he wanted to say.

  “It’s not that! Don’t try to switch topics. I know a clean cop called Kanika Alkinyi. She is one of very few. She will help us.” Us, Knox noted privately. “The pressure will intensify to bring you in. The secret police are everywhere and always in plainclothes. They have a massive network of informers. A single tip can net a month’s wages. Add to that the CCTV here in Nairobi and your odds are nonexistent. If we hurry, and stay one step ahead, we might get you to Mombasa and out of the country. Until I reach Kanika, it’s best to stay here with me.”

  “Not advisable. They’ll have video of you at the hotel. Look, I appreciate the offer. Any contacts you’re willing to share would be terrific. But as far as your direct involvement, Maya . . . No way. As you’ve said, when I’m caught—and I won’t be—they will have to choose carefully how to deal with me. We both know how they would deal with you. It’s off the table.”

  To his surprise and pleasure she didn’t argue with him. Instead, she sat, staring at him contemplatively—through him.

  At last she rose, reheated some rice and beans, opened a can of chicken soup. Knox ate with her.

  “You saw someone, recognized someone in Kibera, just before the firefight—the guns.”

  “A ranger, a man called Koigi.”

  “You knew there’d be trouble. How is that?”

  “You see a skunk walking around in the daytime—”

  “You shoot it because it likely carries rabies,” he said.

  “Koigi, he’s one of the good people. A legend. But it was the same thing as the skunk. He cannot afford to be seen in Nairobi. I cannot imagine what would be important enough to bring him here.”

  “Should I care?”

  “Koigi runs a group of rangers in a particularly lawless part of the country. Not a declared reserve, but it doesn’t need to be declared with Koigi looking after it. He is suspected of having killed a dozen poachers or more. And though the KGA has a shoot-to-kill policy, technically what Koigi does is homicide. The government leaves him alone for many reasons, including public approval for what he does, but in Nairobi they would have to arrest him. He gives the police no choice. For him to arrive, in daylight, into Kibera—yes, I knew there would be trouble.”

  The equatorial sun set quickly. Knox tasted the soup again, looked out over the spoon as he did. “I’m not going to Mombasa. I need to get into that hotel. It’s the last place they’ll look for me.”

  “You cannot help Grace Chu. Not any longer. You must think of yourself. Of Kenyan prisons. Everything changed with the fall of that policeman. If you move quickly, you might be able to stay ahead of them for twenty-four hours. No more than this.”

  Knox tapped his watch. “Then I have twenty-four hours. The hotel.”

  She hissed. “You are a single man, I believe.”

  Knox stared at her.

  “No great surprise. Tell me what it is you must do at the hotel. I will do it for you.”

  “I can’t ask that.”

  “I did not hear you ask.” She returned his stare. “The hotel, and then Mombasa.”

  “The hotel,” Knox agreed. “First things first.”

  23

  Maya drove a Chinese-manufactured four-door sedan with minimal appointments. Knox had switched the plates in her parking garage with those of a neighbor. She’d objected, but not too strenuously. He rode shotgun wearing his ball cap, his duffel at his feet.

  “Why do this for me?” Knox asked.

  “You have to ask?” Maya said.

  “I have to ask.”

  “Your conceit will always hide the truth from you, John. Beware of that. I don’t do this for you, but for that woman, Grace Chu. I’m a woman also, like her. If men have taken her . . . I spend my professional life fighting the unjust. Consider her my client, that’s all.”

  It was dark out. She’d parked on the block behind the Sarova Stanley. With the car visor down, a passerby could only see Knox’s neck—his head practically hit the ceiling.

  “An African woman won’t win a second look in the lobby. A white man your siz
e? That’s the reason. I’ll be right back.” She passed him the keys. “In case I’m not.”

  Without allowing him time to object, Maya entered the hotel through a side entrance. It led along a parade of boutique shops, an all-day restaurant and the hotel gift shop. She asked the woman at the desk to speak with the night manager.

  “I’m an attorney representing a former guest. I’m sure this can all be handled quickly and quietly.”

  Five minutes later, she was shown through an office area to a somewhat larger cubicle in the back.

  “I was hoping for Clare,” Vladistok said as she took a seat.

  “How may I help you?” The man was in his early forties, his temples graying. He wore the kind of dress shirt Vladistok disliked, the weave too busy. His tie was slightly crooked, tempting her to fix it for him.

  “There was a misunderstanding.” She presented her business card. “A hotel guest, my client, Ms. Grace Chu. A package she left in the hotel’s care for a third party.”

  “We don’t—”

  “Yes, I know,” she said, cutting him off. “That’s the basis of the misunderstanding. Notice of the hotel policy was delivered to her room, by which time Ms. Chu was unable to execute the instructions therein. As she is no longer in Nairobi, and the twenty-four-hour deadline has recently passed, she engaged me to retrieve her property.”

  He typed on his computer terminal’s keyboard. At least a minute passed. An extremely long minute for Maya Vladistok. “Yes, I see.”

  “We both know the hotel does not liquidate a guest’s property after twenty-four hours. We also know the police have better things to do than sort through a hotel’s lost and found. So, let’s dispense with this formality, shall we?”

  The manager, who’d put on a pair of reading glasses before peering at the computer, slid them down his flat cauliflower nose. Said nothing.

  “Shall we?” she repeated.

  “Have you been our guest before, Ms. Vladistok?”

  Maya stiffened. If he’d recognized her, it had likely been from a security video of the cop’s death.

  “I’ve had the pleasure of the occasional drink in your bar.”

  The man nodded. “I’m so glad you enjoy our hospitality.”

  “Very much.”

  “If you please? The name the package was left under,” he said, reading his side of the computer terminal. “For verification purposes.” His voice cracked. He shot her a look that flooded her with panic.

  She felt it a trap, suspecting it had been left for Knox. To identify with that name was suicide.

  “I wasn’t given the details. I’ll have to make a call. You’ll excuse me, please.” She dialed Knox’s number. He answered. “Grace? It’s Maya. They’re putting up a bit of a fuss, I’m afraid. Could you please give me a description of the packaging and the name of the recipient?”

  Vladistok paused.

  Knox asked if she was all right.

  “The hotel is insisting,” she said. “They are treating me like a common criminal. As if I intend to steal the thing! Yes, I know. But you must remember? Seriously? Well . . . if that’s the best we can do, then yes, I’ll explain. I’ll call back in a minute. Thank you.”

  She tapped the screen as if to end the call and placed her phone upside down on the man’s desk—the connection still live. “It was a frantic day for her. It could have been either of two names. As to the packaging, she believes she used a hotel envelope.”

  “One name, not two.”

  “It’s the best she can remember. It’s either addressed to Rutherford Risk”—he shook his head—“or David Dulwich.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the night manager. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “Won’t help me, you mean.” She wasn’t sure what to do next. “I don’t understand why you’re making this so difficult.” She worried the manager was going to notify the police about the package. She’d made everything a lot worse.

  A closed folder on the desk caught her eye—a crisp, new folder, a partial sheet escaping, a triangle of gray black. A photo. Maya assumed the worst: her image, as well as Knox’s, in that folder. A photocopy of a photograph or video capture? Her face in an elevator or the lobby?

  “Listen, I’m sure we can resolve this.” He sounded insincere. “Let me check the packaging, please. That should be enough. I’ll be right with you. Excuse me a moment.”

  He smoothly scooped the folder off his desk and stood to leave. But something stopped him.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, turning. “But we do dispose of such property, Ms. Vladistok. Though the typical grace period is often, but not always, closer to thirty days. Wait here, please.”

  He wanted her to hold out hope, to stay in the chair, to sacrifice herself to the police. He headed back in the direction from which she’d come. She watched his head move through the maze of cubicles.

  At last he leaned over and disappeared. Stood up again. They met eyes.

  “It may possibly be out front.” Another lie. She’d heard a drawer open; had heard the crinkle of paper as he’d pocketed something. The moment he passed through the door to the front, he’d be blocking her only exit.

  “Wait!” she called out, standing and grabbing her phone. Holding it in her hand rather than returning it to her purse. “Please! There’s another name! I should have thought of this. We can clear this up.”

  “Sit tight. Just a moment.”

  The man took a step toward the swinging door, half in, half out—and then moved backward with extraordinary speed. Knox had him by the neck with one arm, the manager dancing backward on tiptoes.

  “Pocket,” she said.

  An instant later, an envelope in Knox’s hand. He threw it to Vladistok, spinning the man, cupping his mouth and aiming his and the manager’s faces at the black plastic eyeball of the ceiling security camera.

  “Read the name,” Knox called out.

  Vladistok flipped the envelope. “John Knox.”

  “You tell the police,” Knox said, aiming the man’s face upward, “that had your hotel done a proper job of things, someone would have noticed that a family, possibly two families, checked out immediately after the tragedy. That both families had at least one teenage boy. That’s because—and you’ll have footage of this somewhere, though possibly not in the hallway, where you should have cameras—three boys were playing with your luggage carts. No one stopped them.

  “These boys? They rode that cart right into the police officer I was speaking to. They knocked him off that balcony, and their parents changed plans the moment it happened. Their prints will be on that cart. My prints are only on the banister, where I rushed the moment I saw it happen. This woman, whom I’m holding against her will, is my witness. She saw it, too. You tell them that they have this completely wrong, that they are an embarrassment to law enforcement.”

  Knox pushed the man forward. With a free hand, he jerked open drawers, taped his prisoner’s mouth shut with a roll of FRAGILE tape, the word marked out in bright red letters.

  “The desk?” Vladistok asked.

  “Empty,” Knox said, finishing the job, binding wrists and ankles. “I’m sorry about this,” he said to the manager. “No intention of hurting you. I hope I haven’t.”

  He grabbed Vladistok roughly by the arm, acting out his role as her abductor. She worked to get free, not understanding.

  A woman stood at the front desk. Knox aimed his head down.

  Vladistok said, “Please thank your manager again. He’s been most helpful.”

  Back in her car, Knox tore open the envelope, running his fingers over the words, written in Grace’s hand. His name.

  He tipped the envelope. A thumb drive slid out. Knox caught it.

  “My name,” he said, mostly to himself.

  24

  We need to create a cover for you.
I will tie you up,” Knox said.

  Maya Vladistok laughed. “I’m really not into that stuff.” She added, “I can play ignorant. I can say I threw you out when I realized the trouble you were in.”

  “In your apartment,” Knox said, ignoring her suggestion. “We make it look like I abducted you. Something believable but leaving you a way to get out of it with some difficulty. You will then call the police. Maybe this friend of yours. Tell them about the hotel. Back me up on the cop’s death, and tell them I made you work the manager. You live here, Maya. We’ve got to make this right for you.”

  “The upside is, you can steal my laptop after I back up some files.”

  “That’s extremely generous of you. I’ll return it, I promise.”

  “A friend—a couple friends, actually—have guesthouses. If I call from your phone . . . You can’t very well check into a hotel or boarding house. They all require passports.”

  Knox elected not to share that he traveled with several such documents. “Fine. Good. Thank you.”

  25

  Knox’s taxi driver dropped him off at a turquoise sliding gate in the pitch dark. He pounded, and the door opened to reveal a lanky black man with a .22 slung over his shoulder. He wore shorts, sandals and a sleeveless shirt for the Liverpool football club.

  Knox was shown into a three-bedroom guesthouse and greeted by a personal cook, a woman in her forties who couldn’t stop smiling. The rooms were all rustic luxury, the living room’s vaulted ceiling thatched reed, the beams African ironwood and the floors gray tile with Oriental rugs to cover. The furniture was a motley collection of shabby-chic antiques, well-loved and comfortable.

  He was led to the covered patio. Kerosene lanterns burned at the four corners. The skinny guy built a small fire in the corner fireplace, smiled good night and disappeared into a darkness so profound he vanished within two strides.