“And that PO said a lot of nasty shit to Red Eye in the car. Tried to scare him into telling.”
I wasn’t interested in what a vomit-soaked PO had to say, though I did take the time to tell Tsiropoulos about the high school football team connection between Washkowski and Jeffcoat.
“So you’re telling me this now?” he said. His face was turning a deep red. He didn’t believe me when I told him I’d just figured all this out.
“You haven’t figured out shit,” he said. “You got no idea who killed the girl, no idea why you or Red Eye got picked up and you still want me to save your ass. Jesus.”
I didn’t know what to say. Sometimes keeping quiet is the best reply to a lawyer. They can always out-talk you, even when you’re a con man. I finally promised him there wouldn’t be any more secrets.
He laughed and started telling me what the next steps were. Red Eye would have to wait ten days to get a decision on his parole violation. They could give him up to a year. His bucket toss wouldn’t yield any generosity.
“His real PO is a brother named Kirkland. I left a message on his voicemail. Red Eye says he’s cool.”
I laughed at Tsiropoulos calling Kirkland a “brother.” I never quite got used to it all when it came to racial terms, though I knew which ones not to use. Still, there was no way I could bring myself to say “African-American.”
“They beat the hell out of him, too,” Tsiropoulos said, “kicked his ribs and knees. He could barely walk.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Tsiropoulos shook his head told me he had another meeting inside the courthouse. As we parted he advised me that maybe when I grew up I should learn to only fight battles I had a chance to win.
“You don’t get it, do you?” I replied. “I’m not Vince Lombardi. I don’t fight to win. I fight because that’s what life is all about. What else is there?” I stuck my chest out a little but me and Red Eye were in just about the deepest shit possible. And now all I had waiting for me at home was a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey. I was almost missing the late-night soccer games.
I drove home to the Eagles’ “Life in the Fast Lane,” feeling a little less eager for this game Red Eye and I were playing. I was counting on the Wild Turkey to restore my zeal, but before I had a chance to knock back more than a couple of shots Tsiropoulos was at my front door. I didn’t even know he knew where I lived. He was out of breath and looked a little confused. I offered him a hit of the Turkey but he declined, said he was on the wagon.
“I just came from a meeting with Jeffcoat and some slick-ass attorney of his named Jarvis. Young dude, $400 haircut and all.”
I took a swig from the Wild Turkey bottle. Lawyers’ haircuts didn’t interest me.
“This is the story. Jeffcoat’s got all kinds of connections with the cops. If you and Red Eye keep pushing this, he’ll make sure you get put away. If you agree to back off, forget about the tapes and this Margolis, they’ll leave you alone. I promised them an answer by tomorrow.”
“What about the murder?”
“Jeffcoat swears he knows nothing about Prudence’s death and that none of what he calls his team does either. They were all bonkin’ her, getting blackmailed by her. But he said murder was not part of his repertoire.”
“You believe that?”
“Don’t know.”
Toodles started meowing from the other side of the sliding door. I got up to let her in. She’d been hanging out at my place more and more lately. Could be it was the fresh halibut I kept giving her but I liked to think it was the company.
Maybe we’d been barking up the wrong tree all along. As much as I loathed Jeffcoat and all he stood for, he never felt like a murderer to me. I was getting confused. Then there was Newman, or could Prudence have had a whole other set of tricks we hadn’t even stumbled on? Clearly she got around.
“Tell him we’ll back off,” I said. “The test will be if Red Eye gets out and they drop his charges.”
“So I should phone Jarvis and tell him the deal’s on?”
“Yeah. I’m sure Red Eye will go along with it.”
“But does this mean you really are going to back off?”
Toodles jumped up on my lap. She was purring like my Volvo right after a tune-up.
“The official answer is yes. That’s what I instruct you as my lawyer to say. Of course, under the protection of lawyer-client privilege my answer could be slightly different, but we won’t go there, will we?”
Tsiropoulos shook his head as he opened his phone and speed dialed Jarvis. The deal was done.
An hour later Red Eye phoned me from his cell phone.
“My PO cut me loose,” he said. “He was pissed as hell. I need a drink.”
“How’s your stomach?” I asked.
“The least of my problems,” he said. “Come and get me. I’m thinkin’ seriously about Rio.” I couldn’t wait to give him all the news.
CHAPTER 33
Harare, Zimbabwe, 1997
Thursday nights belonged to Nhamo Nyakudya, also known as Baba Charity, which meant “Father of Charity” in Shona. Charity was the name of Nyakudya’s oldest child. This rotund man was one of a handful of black Chartered Accountants in Zimbabwe. A whiz with all things financial, he also used his acumen with money matters to secure the company of beautiful young girls like Tarisai Mukombachoto. Baba Charity was far from handsome. He wore black-frame glasses and wide ties, both of which had been out of style for at least a decade. Due to some disorder his doctors could not identify, he’d become afflicted with a rash of hairy facial warts as he entered his fifties. At first he had them removed with liquid nitrogen but after a while he just gave up. He didn’t even bother doing anything about the one that had sprouted up two millimeters from the tip of his nose. He was letting nature take its course.
Luckily for Baba Charity, avenue girls didn’t choose their partners for good looks or sexual prowess. Baba Charity understood that he was in a marketplace where the best product went to the highest bidder. He had the resources to secure Tarisai. She was top of the line.
Baba Charity didn’t like those thin-as-a-fence-post fashion models, though a few had made themselves available. But neither did he look for a figure that was too traditional. His wife had one of those and then some. Tarisai was trim but had developed an extraordinary curvature of the lower spine, which allowed her most outstanding physical feature to provide a well-rounded display. As she became more versed in the avenue girl world, Tarisai acquired a keen sense of the power of her buttocks to open a pathway to the wallets of wealthy men. Through the gifts from her various partners, she’d compiled a set of skin-tight designer jeans and African-style dresses which emphasized the perfection of her backside. Not that the rest of her was anything less than astonishing. Her hair was always done meticulously with the smallest of extensions. She sometimes spent a whole day in the same chair to give her hairdresser time to achieve perfection. Her skin bore a translucence, as if she could glow in the dark. She used nothing but the finest imported creams and lotions from Europe. She’d come to abhor the slimy feel of the Vaseline she’d rubbed on her skin as a youth. She told her friends the petroleum smell of Vaseline was worse than the stink of rotten meat.
Just a little over a year as an avenue girl had brought Tarisai the façade of prosperity—a seventh-floor apartment overlooking the city with the rent paid in advance for three years by Baba Charity; a double sofa lounge suite from Mod Con, Harare’s most exclusive furniture store, a massive Sony color TV and VCR plus a JVC stereo system with cassette, turntable, and CD player. Alberto Andireya, one of her suitors brought the stereo back from Germany, along with a Siemens stove. He was an airplane pilot. She dumped him after cooking him one meal on the stove. He was no competition for a chartered accountant.
On this particular Thursday Baba Charity showed up a little late and very drunk. She’d never seen him this intoxicated.
“Daddy,” she said, “why do you come to my house s
tinking of this Chibuku? You know I don’t like that smell.”
The traditional sorghum beer called Chibuku had a sour odor. Tarisai said it smelled like a “baby’s dirty nappy.”
“I’m an African man,” he reminded her. “An African man must drink African beer, not this clear urine the Europeans make.”
“That’s right, Daddy,” she said, “you’re my big strong African man.” She knew that an ugly old creature like Baba Charity liked nothing more than to hear how good-looking he was. Money could buy the most marvelous words of false praise.
In some ways, Tarisai liked him better when he was drunk. He didn’t last long. Sometimes she could get him to squirt with just a few quick flicks of the fingers, saving her the discomfort of him fumbling around trying to find her “sugar plum” and the snorting, grunting, gurgling, and slobbering that followed.
When he was on top of her, she reminded herself that she was doing this for little Netsai.
“My daughter will have no future if her mother remains a simple accounts clerk in Harare,” was her thinking.
Baba Charity was slipping his pants off. She reached down to help him. Some nights they got stuck around his knees.
“Next month I’m going to Paris,” he said, “the city of love. We can go together.”
Tarisai had always dreamed of seeing the world. She’d read books of love and romance in Paris and London. She had a postcard of the Eiffel Tower that Alberto had sent her.
Baba Charity’s offer prompted a vision for Tarisai. She saw herself coming through the customs at Harare Airport laden with dozens of plastic bags from duty free shops in Paris. She’d be carrying perfume, clothes for Netsai, and her dream of dreams: a full-length black leather coat with a fox fur collar.
A few weeks later Tarisai was lifting off from Harare International, her first time in the air. Baba Charity had the middle seat, pinning her against the window. As the plane rose into the night sky, her stomach rocked. She glanced at the lights of the city out of the corner of her eye. The cars looked like little fireflies moving down the roads. The inside of her knees started to sweat. In fact, she was sweating almost everywhere. The little round vent above her head kept blowing cold air but the flow of perspiration didn’t abate.
One of the air hostesses, Svikai, was an avenue girl who lived on Tarisai’s street. She slipped Tarisai and Baba Charity several extra tiny bottles of Johnny Walker Red. When Baba Charity took a trip to the bathroom, Svikai stopped by to chat.
“Wakakecha mari,” she said to Tarisai, “you’ve caught a lot of money there. Taking you to France while the wife stays behind. Uri tsotsi. You’re too clever.”
“I pay for this,” said Tarisai. “He has the face of a giraffe and the body of a hippo. I make him keep his trousers on. That way I can feel his wallet from start to finish. Makes it all worthwhile.”
Svikai promised Tarisai more of those little bottles of whiskey.
“That way he’ll be too drunk to think of anything but sleep tonight,” she told Tarisai.
The two women giggled. Avenue girls were full of tricks.
In Paris Baba Charity spent most of his days in meetings. Tarisai played tourist and shopper. While roaming the streets she attracted the attention of dozens of men who spoke to her in French and halting English. Tarisai didn’t understand a word of French but she learned a few phrases. Her mind was still as sharp as in those university days. She just applied it in different ways.
One handsome fellow from Congo invited her to meet him at the Club Congolais that night.
“Kanda Bongo Man is playing,” he promised her. Tarisai and her friends loved Kanda. When they partied with their sugar daddies, they always played his cassettes. The rumba music gave them a chance to, as Tarisai liked to say, “unleash an optimum display of our assets.”
After Baba Charity fell into his drunken snores at 9:30,Tarisai sneaked into a skin-tight leopard body suit and headed for the Club Congolais. She didn’t find the man who had invited her but she had no shortage of partners willing to buy her drinks.
She wasn’t looking for conversation or any quick sexual liaison. Her relationship with Cephas had hardened her against any notion of romance, even in Paris. As she always told her friends, “Relationships are a pragmatic affair. I get what I can from them. Let the old men spill their hearts. Mine is steel.”
She danced the rumba the whole night, fighting off arms, hands, lips, and more intimate parts of her pursuers. The excitement of the music, the thrill of being surrounded by an energetic young crowd took her attention away from any notion of time. No one put on a better show than Kanda Bongo Man. Tarisai especially admired the two women who sang backup. Their tantalizing twirls and twists gave Tarisai many ideas about how to liven up her avenue girl routine.
By the time she finally looked at a clock it was nearly six in the morning. Baba Charity came from the old school: early to bed, early to rise. He’d have been awake for at least an hour by now; probably have taken a shower, shaved, maybe even have put on his tie and jacket. Ready for business. This morning, for once, business would not be uppermost in his mind. A much bigger issue would be plaguing him: where was his sugar plum?
Though Baba Charity was a calm, calculating businessman, he tolerated no nonsense in his sexual companions. A girl who didn’t show him proper respect was a bad investment.
By the time Tarisai dragged her sweaty, alcohol-reeking body through the door of the hotel room. Baba Charity had already swallowed three shots of cognac. The old guard drank early in the day. To top it off, Tarisai had forgotten that this was his day of respite from the meetings. He’d planned to walk through the streets of Paris with his showcase girl garnishing his arm. Instead he smelled the smoke and perspiration of other men polluting the luxurious suite his money had paid for.
“Sorry, Baba Charity,” she said, “I couldn’t sleep so I went out for a drink. I didn’t want to disturb you. I’ll shower and be ready just now.”
Baba Charity didn’t reply. He twirled his brandy snifter in his hand while she undressed for the shower. Then he set down his glass and loosened his belt.
Tarisai had never feared Baba Charity. He was a big, slow man. Methodical, not the type for violence. Along with his enormous pocketbook, his tranquil demeanor was one of the reasons Tarisai chose him over Alberto and the others. She never realized that the combination of jealousy, alcohol, and humiliation could transform her sugar daddy.
She wrapped a towel around her waist, her breasts bouncing freely as she searched for the shampoo. She sensed his approach. She turned to embrace him. A few touches to the right places and the old man would melt, especially when there was only a towel between him and the naked splendor of this young beauty. She could wash off his mess in the shower.
He caught her off balance with a flat hand to the chest. She tripped and fell onto the bed.
“Come to me, Daddy,” she said, holding up her arms. If she could change the mood, everything would be all right. The belt cracked against her cheek. She could smell the blood. As she tried to retreat he hit her twice more across the back. She felt the buckle slice into the skin on her shoulder blades.
“You bitch,” he screamed, “you don’t take my money to make me a fool. When I pay, you stay in my bed.”
The blood leaked slowly down her back as she scrambled toward the headboard and tried to regain control of the situation. Once sex was off the agenda, her naked state lost all its power.
Baba Charity’s glasses had fallen onto the floor but he still had a firm grip on his belt. He moved around the bed. She slid away from him and ran toward the door. He caught her with a slash to the buttocks as she crossed the threshold to the living room. If the suite wasn’t so huge, he would have pummeled her far more. While she fumbled with the chain on the front door, she felt his hands wrap around her throat. She twisted around enough to look him in the face. She saw only a monster. The whites of his eyes looked as big as soccer balls. Hatred flowed though him like an electric
al charge. For a few seconds, she thought she might perish right there, naked in a hotel room far from her home and her beloved Netsai. She couldn’t breathe.
She knew his body well enough to find his wrinkled up old balls and squeeze them with all the force she could summon. If she could deliver pleasure, she could also deliver pain.
As her hand tightened into a fist, he screamed and let her go. She grabbed a tablecloth and rushed back to the door, wrapping herself like an African princess in the elegant white linen on which they’d eaten coq au vin just a few hours earlier. Tarisai had even enjoyed the red wine.
As she closed the door, Baba Charity lay on the floor groaning and rolling from side to side like a wounded rhino.
Tarisai had little trouble convincing the hotel manager that her husband was the aggressor in what she called an “unfortunate domestic confrontation.”
With the discretion of the French, the manager persuaded Baba Charity to depart from the hotel and arranged for Tarisai to get back into the room to retrieve her luggage, passport, and return air ticket.
As she gathered her things, Baba Charity informed her in Shona that she was now on her own. When she looked inside her wallet, she found he’d removed every cent. She was alone in a foreign country and flat broke.
The hotel manager offered Tarisai a free night’s lodging in order to smooth over the cracks and ensure no untoward publicity emerged from the incident.
Tarisai considered returning to the Club Congolais and attempting to befriend some free-spending males in an effort to extend her stay. But she found the bustling world of Paris too difficult to tackle with an empty pocket and a language she couldn’t understand. At least the hotel nurse attended to the gash on her cheek, applying butterfly tape. She promised Tarisai there’d be only a tiny scar.
Without the anticipated armloads of clothes for her daughter or the full-length leather coat, Tarisai got back on the flight to Harare the night after her encounter with Baba Charity. Her legs and back ached from where he’d swatted her with the belt and she had bruises on her throat from his choking fingers. She had, though, seen another world—a world full of glitz, bright lights, and elegantly dressed people. No one in Paris rode in a dilapidated Matambanadzo bus, walked barefoot on dirt paths, or drew water from a river. The trip had whetted Tarisai’s appetite. She would find a way to pick the fruit of the tree of abundance that grew overseas. The future of her daughter depended on it.
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