Blood Is Dirt

by Robert Wilson

  ‘There are some obvious questions, Graydon.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to do the work myself. I don’t want to pay tax. I don’t want the market to know what I’m doing. I want an established London-based business to do it. You’re not in the oil business which gives me confidentiality, but you are in commodities which means you’re not a schmuck.’

  ‘But why me, us?’

  ‘In business it’s possible to be scientific, with people it isn’t. I go for a feeling, an instinct. How can I ever know someone well enough to let them into my world? I can’t. They can bullshit me with professionalism, they can slap me with their education, they can stun me with their CV I could run psychological tests and get a murderer. I could pay a consultant and he’d select the square pin for the asshole. I feel good about you. I’m giving you a single opportunity to see if you fit. If you do, we’re richer. If you don’t, it’s only one deal and how many of them are there in a day?’

  ‘You’re offering me...’

  ‘I know what I’m offering you,’ he said. ‘But don’t snatch. Think about it.’

  The phone went. Graydon flopped behind his desk and picked it up.

  ‘Hi, José, hold the line a moment,’ he said, and looked up. ‘That’s all, folks. Gale’ll see you out.’

  Gale was in the living room with some coffee on the go and an ashtray full of butts at her side. She flicked violently through Hello! magazine as if she was hoping to come across herself.

  ‘Where’d they get all these assholes?’ she asked.

  ‘It depresses me,’ said Selina, looking over her shoulder, ‘but I can’t resist seeing how they look. It’s like porn.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Gale. ‘Fascinating and boring. How’d they come up with a formula like that?’

  ‘Hair salons,’ said Selina.

  ‘How’d it go with Gray?’ asked Gale.

  ‘He made us an offer. We’re thinking about it.’

  ‘Nobody ever lost money on Gray’s back,’ she said. ‘Except me.’

  We walked out to the car. The heat fell on us like a rapist, its hot tongue in every crevice.

  ‘You know,’ said Gale, ‘the first time Napier turned up here Gray offered him a deal.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘Who introduced him?’

  ‘That foreign office guy. The one I reckon’s a fruit. David. David Bartholomew.’

  ‘Well, maybe he has a weakness for blondes,’ I said.

  ‘Then why didn’t I get anything?’ she asked.

  Chapter 22

  We watched a clip of the D. B. video in the owner’s apartment at Y-Kays. Selina sat with her legs crossed and foot nodding while I talked the owner out of hanging in there with us for the show. I fast-forwarded the tape for a minute. She tapped her cheek with her finger, waiting, impatient. I hit play.

  ‘Ooo, that looks painful,’ she said.

  David was trussed up on the bed, his left wrist tied to his right ankle and the right wrist to the left ankle. From the tangle of limbs another rope ran up to a choker around his neck so that every time he moved he cut the air flow to his windpipe. David’s penis had been stretched tight and taped to a point just below his sternum. Ali was lying on the bed naked, stroking his large erection a few inches from David’s face. David attempted to inch forward. Ali judged him too close and gave him a savage little kick in the testicles which sent David off into a paroxysm of strangulated pain. I stopped it. Selina was disappointed. I packed the video away and went to call David about his diplomatic bag.

  In the evening a car picked Selina up and took her to Franconelli’s for dinner. I took a taxi to the Peninsula restaurant, where I’d arranged to meet David. I’d expected it to be cooler after dark and sitting out seemed better than chilling off in the air con, but if anything it seemed hotter, closer, more airless and the fans weren’t cutting it either. David and I drank lots of cold beer and worked our way through table napkins and excellent Chinese food.

  ‘Is this the first time you’ve taken me out to dinner?’

  ‘It’s only because I need to soften you up.’

  ‘I knew it wasn’t out of deeply felt friendship.’

  ‘Wrong, David. You’ve been in the FO too long.’

  ‘I’ve gone all gooey inside, Bruce.’

  ‘Sweet and sour?’ I asked, and passed him the plate.

  ‘Mmmm,’ he said, giving me a penetrating stare. ‘You’re worrying me.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Generally...’

  ‘Let’s talk personally.’

  ‘I’ve never been one to let things get on top of me. Perhaps that’s been my mistake... you know, being queer,’ he said, grinning.

  ‘I don’t need everything spelled out for me, David,’ I said. ‘Jesus, what happened to all that elegant scholarship?’

  ‘You want some Plautus? I’ll give you some.’

  ‘Yeah, well, translate for me, my Latin’s shot to hell.’

  ‘But the Latin’s so perfect, so sweet and tight, so economic with everything except the truth—Homo homini lupus—you see? A man’s a wolf to another man...’

  ‘Thanks for that.’

  ‘...until he finds out what he’s like,’ he finished flatly, and socked back his beer.

  ‘You’re calling me a wolf. Since when have I known what you’re like?’

  ‘I’ve told you I’m queer.’

  ‘What’s sexuality?’

  ‘Something to make you hide if you’re me.’

  ‘I’ve never used or held that against you. I wouldn’t call that lupine, would you?’

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘So, what are you softening me up for?’

  ‘I’m preparing myself to trust you.’

  ‘Do you think you would have got in this far without my trust?’

  ‘Got in this far to what?’

  ‘Napier, Graydon, Gale, the chief.’

  I looked at him for some time. His face didn’t move. His eyes remained fixed on mine.

  ‘Do you?’ he asked again. ‘One word from me and you’re gone.’

  The sweet and sour congealed in the silence that followed. I drank beer for support, my bombshell looking squibby now amongst the destroyed Chinese food.

  ‘The last time we met, I followed you into the Brazilian Quarter to the Gaiety Bar.’

  ‘You surprise me, Bruce.’

  ‘The next day I met Gale and got a closer look at Ali.’

  ‘He’s got something, don’t you think?’

  ‘If you like a little brutality.’

  ‘You never went to public school. You don’t understand the nature of punishment,’ he said. ‘So what now? Are you building up to a little blackmail?’

  ‘A little help. I give you some, you return the gesture.’

  ‘Ask me.’

  ‘Why did you pass Napier on to me?’

  David picked up a prawn which had been puffy with tempura but had collapsed in the heat. He bit it off at the tail, which he flicked out over Five Cowrie Creek.

  ‘Napier and I were friends.’

  ‘Like we’re friends?’

  ‘Ah, well,’ said David, laughing. ‘Maybe better. We saw more of each other, you know, spoke on the phone and such.’

  ‘Yes, Gale said you introduced him to Graydon. Any reason why you made out you didn’t know him?’

  ‘I thought it would be easier for you that way. I thought it would keep you on the outside, which is the safest place to be. You’ve been more persistent than I expected.’

  ‘Why was it friendly of you to pass Napier on to me?’

  ‘Get him out of here. He was getting “troublesome”, as the Nigerians say.’

  ‘Over the toxic waste?’

  ‘An accumulation of guilt, I think. He was being threatening, which is not a good idea in Africa.’

  ‘Threatening the chief and his political ambitions?’

  ‘Yes,’ said David, concentrating on his food.

  ‘So how did you get
him to come and see me, and why?’

  ‘I negotiated a way out for him. That he would be allowed to leave the country... quickly. The waste would be moved to a different site. And a sum of money would be paid to him. I told him to go and see you with some cock-and-bull story and enlist your services. He said you were not very cooperative. Too inquisitive. And the black fellow...’

  ‘Who did you negotiate with?’

  ‘You won’t know him.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Emmanuel Quarshie.’

  ‘And who’s he?’

  ‘You see?’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘He was someone acceptable to both parties.’

  ‘The chief and Napier? Graydon and Napier? Maybe even Franconelli?’

  David didn’t answer. His brain was ticking over faster than mine had ever done. I prompted him again and he gave me a dazed look, the thinking not quite done.

  ‘You’re a man of some sartorial elegance, David,’ I said, which grabbed his attention. ‘Did I tell you the story about that tailor up in Niger? The pinstripe man?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘A friend of mine went to him. Got the best suits made for him since Savile Row went up in price. The man was gifted so my friend bought his material in the UK and had him run things up in Niamey. He brought him some pinstripe one time and when the tailor called him to say the suit was ready he said he’d even got a half metre left over. My friend was surprised and went over there and as soon as he walked in the room he knew he was looking at one of the best pieces of couture he’d ever seen. The cut was immaculate, the styling superlative and the workmanship was outstanding but ...the suit was unwearable.’

  ‘The half metre left over,’ said David. ‘Too small or what?’

  ‘The pinstripe was horizontal. The tailor had never seen pinstripe before.’

  David howled.

  ‘The only thing it was good for was for writing music on.’

  David roared.

  ‘That’s what your story’s like, David. Immaculate cut, horizontal pinstripe.’

  David shut up.

  ‘Did you speak to Napier on the night he died, David?’

  ‘In the afternoon he called...’

  ‘At night.’

  The traffic roared across Five Cowrie Creek. David took one of his white menthols and lit it with a gold lighter. He sat sideways to the table and crossed his legs, a suede brogue twitching at an empty table.

  ‘No,’ he said, and I didn’t believe him.

  ‘What’s Quarshie to the chief?’ I asked, wanting him off balance.

  ‘Family. Don’t ask me what... but that’s it.’

  ‘Was that the best intermediary for Napier?’

  ‘He trusted him. It was nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Quarshie’s car picked him up the night he died in Cotonou.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why Quarshie shot himself,’ said David, taking a long blistering drag from his mint fag. ‘You’re trickier than you look, Bruce. How do you know Quarshie?’

  ‘Maybe it’s time for you to ask me what I’ve got for you.’

  ‘I can’t think that you could have anything to help my situation.’

  ‘Because you’re in control of the information and I know nothing?’ I asked. David smirked. ‘What is your situation?’

  ‘Your turn to talk,’ said David.

  ‘What do you think of Graydon?’

  ‘He’s high most of the time.’

  ‘You think that makes him a little weird?’

  ‘His wealth makes him weird.’

  ‘You know he has a security system?’

  ‘Who doesn’t?’

  ‘He’s even extended the system to the bedrooms, David. The guest bedrooms... are monitored.’

  David dumped his unfinished cigarette in the ashtray, uncrossed his legs wildly, clipping the table hard with his knee and set off at a run into the restaurant. He fled into the Gents. I ordered whisky for two and looked at the lights dancing on the water.

  David flopped back into his chair. The sweat stood out in gobs on his pale face as if he’d had a rush of malaria. He knocked back the whisky and told the waiter to bring the bottle. He mopped himself with gathered napkins. I asked him if he was OK.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘I don’t often get a bowel movement so when one comes along I take it.’

  ‘I have the video,’ I said, quietly. He closed his eyes.

  ‘Have you watched it?’

  ‘Just twenty seconds or so to make sure it wasn’t one of you playing with a plastic elephant in a foam bath.’

  He laughed but it came out as a sob.

  ‘Does that help your situation?’

  ‘It relieves something I didn’t know about, so not really.’

  ‘Drop this Ali guy.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘It’s not like it’s heroin, David.’

  ‘But it’s bloody exciting, Bruce. I can’t tell you...’

  ‘Keep it like that,’ I said. ‘Have you finished with that chicken and cashew?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he said, and waved the plate at me.

  ‘I don’t know about you, David, but I reckon that video’s worth more than horizontal pinstripe,’ I said. ‘So tell me about your friendship with Napier. What did you talk about?’

  ‘He told me that his wife had run off with his partner. Blair somebody. I didn’t really listen that much.’

  ‘Does he have any children?’

  ‘He said he didn’t.’

  ‘Known him long?’

  ‘Three years.’

  ‘You talk about oil?’

  ‘Oil and shipping.’

  ‘Did you give him information?’

  David nodded.

  ‘You’re drying up, David. More whisky?’

  ‘I gave him information on contracts for building projects. Floating jetties for oil tankers. Natural gas liquefying and storage plants. Boring stuff like that.’

  ‘You were handling other companies’ contracts?’

  ‘I knew everything that was going on.’

  ‘So you became good friends,’ I said. ‘Did you know of any oil scams that Graydon was pulling with Napier?’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘You knew about the toxic waste.’

  ‘Only because Napier didn’t like it.’

  ‘What trouble did he cause?’

  ‘He said he’d talk.’

  ‘And then there’d be no “Hail to the chief”?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘And the money? He said he’d been four-one-nined out of two mil.’

  ‘I don’t know everything. I do know that he was obsessed with getting ten million dollars together. That was his idea of a nest egg. I negotiated two-point-seven million dollars for him through Quarshie.’

  ‘Did he rip off his own company?’

  ‘How’s that pinstripe looking now?’ asked David, getting desperate.

  ‘Not quite wearable yet.’

  ‘Where’s the video?’

  ‘In my room,’ I said. ‘But I have great need of your silence, David. So it stays with me for the moment.’

  ‘Well, I’d call that lupine, Bruce.’

  ‘I’d call it “not stupid”, which is a change for me.’

  The waiter cleared our plates. We hammered the whisky bottle. David smoked hard.

  ‘What do you know about Franconelli?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve met him at Graydon’s.’

  ‘What’s his game? Toot and smack, as Gale says?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘He likes real business.’

  ‘Oil and construction?’

  ‘The Italians don’t do badly in Nigeria.’

  ‘They have an innate understanding of the system.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Did Franconelli know where Napier was getting his information from?’

  ‘You pretend to be slow...’

  ‘Do I?’
>
  ‘...but you’re not. Napier didn’t tell Franconelli about me.’ David gnawed on a toothpick to give himself more to do.

  ‘What do you do for Graydon?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘How does he use your weakness for Ali?’

  ‘He hasn’t... yet.’

  ‘That’s right. You said. So why were you giving Napier any information at all?’

  ‘You are slow.’

  ‘You just said I wasn’t.’

  ‘I thought you’d got there a long time ago and you were playing coy.’

  ‘You and Napier...’ I said.

  ‘That’s right,’ nodded David. ‘We were lovers.’

  ‘He was staying with you before he came over to Benin?’

  David nodded.

  ‘Is that why his wife ran off with Blair?’

  ‘Not because of me. He’d had others before.’

  ‘And what about you and Ali?’

  ‘I don’t expect you to understand queers... gay relationships. Total fidelity isn’t always a requirement. Or rather, we’re faithful but we recognize that we have certain needs to be satisfied and give our partners freedom to do so.’

  I poured more whisky and asked for the bill.

  ‘Do you think that Franconelli knew about the problem between Napier and the chief?’

  ‘I’d have thought so. But there’s a game between those three—Graydon, the chief and Franconelli—that doesn’t allow for the free flow of information. You know it’s not uncommon in partnerships of three powerful people that one wants to be on top. Personally, I think Napier was important to Franconelli and he wouldn’t want to lose him. The chief saw him as a threat and did.’

  ‘And Graydon?’

  ‘Who knows. Graydon’s motives are money and mischief.’

  The bill arrived. It was so big in niara I paid for it in CFA.

  ‘You won’t find out anything looking from the outside,’ said David.

  ‘But I’m getting to be on the inside now,’ I said. ‘You must be very upset about Napier’s death.’