Thanks a lot for reading this chapter; action ensues. This chapter has three sections with the second section being an interlude of sorts between the first and third. A triptych, if you will.
««« Bloody Back »»»
Kurtz felt blood ooze down his back. He squirmed in the back seat as he sat between Hairball and Sakombí.
“Gonna kill ya, ya know,” he mumbled.
“Get us in the door.”
“Friggin’ Américain teenager and a …”
“Clothing salesman,” Sakombí smiled. “Sexy delicates for the ladies included.”
“Both a ya. Gonna die.”
The taxi driver looked at Hairball in the mirror. Two white men with a Congolese man with a bloodied nose. This was not going to end well for one of them. He just hoped they were out of his taxi when it happened. Whatever it was and when ever it happened.
“See that place?” Kurtz said.
“Good lord,” Sakombí replied. “That’s huge!”
“Biggest in the city, I bet,” Kurtz said. “Hey, you!” He ordered the driver. “Stop!”
The three got out and looked at the white house surrounded by a ten-foot black iron fence as the taxi driver, eager to get away from an evil place, sped off.
“You screw up, I hurt you real good, understand?” Hairball said as he pushed Kurtz toward the gate.
“Get in an’ die, motherfucker.”
The three limped to the gate.
Two German shepherds leapt at them. They barked like fevered souls. Two pit bulls growled. Hairball and Sakombí stepped back but Kurtz remained at the gate. The four dogs fell silent when a tall man appeared. He wore sunglasses. They didn’t hide his Maori facial tattoos. He wore a white linen suit; a plantation owner during the reign of King Leopold II. He carried an AK 47 aimed dangerously close to Hairball’s feet. A Glock 9 mm was strapped to his armpit.
“Qui?” he commanded.
“Hey, Mr Kuboto, remember me?” Kurtz asked in his most groveling voice.
Kuboto stared at him through his dark glasses. He moved his head slightly to look at both Sakombí and Hairball.
“Friends,” Kurtz said with a smile.
Kuboto turned his head back to Kurtz.
“They want to find a woman,” Kurtz replied, his voice shallow and weak. “A white woman. For the, uh, darky.”
Kuboto flinched. He raised the AK 47 to Hairball’s testicles. Hairball slithered sideways but the muzzle of the weapon followed him, even though Kuboto made no obvious movement. “You find white whoman in town. Be gone,” Kuboto said, his voice low and threatening.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Kurtz said. “But these two,” he turned to get closer to Kuboto.
The dogs growled.
“Gots them some serious coin, ya know what I mean?”
“White whoman in town, they like the coin. Give it to them. Now, be away from this gate.”
“Ya know, Mr Kuboto,” Kurtz whispered. “This coin? Serious coin. And I don’ think,” he pressed against the bars of the gate, “ya wanna let Tipu lose out on it, ya know what I mean?”
The dogs growled and grinned, their sharp hungry teeth exposed.
Kuboto pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. He punched one number. He waited but didn’t take his weapon down or move from the gate. “Yeah. Kuboto. He available?” Kuboto listened; he neither nodded his head nor took his gaze from the three men at the gate. “Joey Andrews is at gate. He says he brings the client. Two. One white man.”
Hairball looked at Kuboto, then Kurtz. He guessed Kurtz gave different people different names so no one could identify him. But Joey Andrews? That was hardly a French name; he should’ve gone with Jacques. But Andrews?
Then Hairball realized Joey was Joseph and Joseph Andrews was the main character of that book he had to read in his last year of junior high by that British guy, something Fielding. Was Kurtz taking names from novels; calling them his own?
“White whoman,” Kuboto said. He listened. “Sir? Joey And…” he flinched as whoever ‘sir’ yelled at him. He nodded as the man on the other end of the phone continued cursing him out. “He says much money, sir.” Kuboto listened. Then, without saying anything, he clicked his phone off and clicked his tongue twice. The dogs ran off. He pushed a button and the gate swung open.
Kurtz smiled and stepped forward, but Kuboto stopped him with the muzzle of the AK 47. He gestured with the weapon. Kurtz put his hands up. Kuboto frisked him. Finding no weapons, Kuboto motioned him forward. He stared at Sakombí, who stepped forward. Kuboto frisked him more intimately than Kurtz. Finding nothing, Kuboto sent him into the compound and glared at Hairball.
Hairball hesitated. This was, for him, the point of no return, the event horizon. His Rubicon. Was he sure he would live through it? Would Sally, her tall friend, and Bobby miss him if he never returned to Baraboo? Could he live with himself if he didn’t try to save Amelia? Would Sally, her tall friend, and Bobby try to save him if he were sold into slavery? He doubted if they even knew his name.
Hairball counted the guards surrounding Tip’s mansion. Two on the roof. Two to the left and two to the right of the mansion. Kuboto behind them. And probably at least a couple in the mansion surrounding Tipu. There was no way an unarmed pair of idiots like him and Sakombí could fight their way out.
He stepped forward.
««« Young Love Past »»»
Bobby pushed the boy away. “Stop it!” she hissed.
“But Bobby,” the boy whined.
She pushed her left bra cup up to cover her breast and buttoned up her blouse. “I said no. I don’t want to. Not here,” she whispered.
“But…”
“Just watch the movie and stop trying to cop a feel.” She crossed her arms and watched Harrison Ford shoot some guy wielding a sword. She looked around at the theater. The audience was made up of older people; people in their thirties, at least, Bobby thought. This retro theater was nice, but the movie was slow. She glanced at the boy. He was pouting. She knew it was her fault that he went too far; touching her there. She let him unbutton her blouse — it felt dangerously exciting to flash her bra at people even if they weren’t looking. Then she let him put his hand in her bra, mushing her left boob like a sponge. But when he pushed her bra cup down, exposing her boob to everyone (if they were watching her, which she doubted), that was a step too far. Still, if she stopped him at the first step… She felt guilty.
She put her hand on his and smiled at him as a way of apologizing.
He glared at her, but took her hand. He attempted to suppress a smile; he’d felt her boobs in a movie theater. Wait ’til he tells Chuck.
“So, Roberta, what do you think of what Charles said?”
Bobby, startled, looked around. She was in English class. They were discussing Pamela by some dead old English guy.
“I’m sorry, Mrs Campbell,” Bobby apologized. “I really wasn’t listening.”
“Because?”
“Uh, it’s a really nice day, ya know? And,” Bobby looked out the window at the crystal clear sky for such a dreary month. “November is, like, usually so, uh, you know, deadly dull and grey.”
««« Snake Love »»»
Two tall guards marched Sakombí, Kurtz, and Hairball down a deadly dull and grey corridor. It opened into a huge open living room decorated with mosaics, statutes, wide glass doors that opened onto a large lawn, and three couches in a U-shape. Guards with dark glasses stood at either end of one couch. The two tall guards took up positions in the corner of the room. One guard pointed his AK 47 at a couch. Kurtz sat first. Hairball sat on his right; Sakombí sat on his left. They faced the empty couch with the two guards. No one spoke.
“Nice day, ain’t it?” Kurtz/Joey said to one of the guards.
No one replied.
Hairball looked at the low bookshelf that skirted the windows behind the couch he was facing. The shelf next to the floor was crammed with paperbacks. Mostly, Hairball noticed, detective stories from the 50s and 60s. Three books decorated the top shelf, which barely came up to the guards’ knees. The books were thick, cased in leather, and looked old. He couldn’t read the titles embedded in gold leaf on the spine, but wondered why someone who collected and displayed dime novels had those three.
Suddenly, the guards snapped to attention.
A fat man stumbled into the living area, an unlit cigar dangling from his lips while a glass of brown liquid hung in his right hand.
“Joey!” the man shouted and dropped into the large couch, spilling his drink. “Damn it!”
A guard jumped to the fat man with a towel to wipe up the mess.
“Joey!” the fat man repeated. “Joey Joey Joey!”
“Hey, Mr Tip,” Joey / Kurtz answered back.
“You bring me white boy? You think I want white… Hey! It’s you! My white boy from coffee shop, yes?”
“Mr Tip?” Hairball asked.
“Yes, yes! We meet in that coffee shop. That woman, she doesn’t like me, yes? What can I do for you, white boy?” He turned to one of the guards. “He’s from Chicago.” The guard didn’t move.
“Well,” Hairball said as he looked at Sakombí, “We’re looking for a woman…”
“Of Course! Of course! I can get you woman! Any kind of woman for you, white boy. You like black woman? I get you black woman. You like Mother woman? I get you grandmother — not too old, though, eh? You like Young girls, eh? Ten, twelve years old? I get you young girl, yeah? What kind of woman I can get you!”
“No, no,” Hairball interrupted. “We’re looking for a specific woman. A woman maybe he,” Hairball pointed at Kurtz/Joey, “introduced you to?”
Tip sipped his drink and stared at Joey. He flicked his eyes quickly at Sakombí, but disregarded him. He looked at Hairball. “You think Joey sold me a white woman? Why would this Frenchy sell me woman? You think I am pimp!?”
“Sell? No, no, no. Introduced.” Hairball nodded and kept his gaze on Tip, although he noticed the two guards standing behind Tip were fondling their AK 47’s trigger guards and smirking.
“Why do I need this poor Frenchy to introduce me to white women? I can get white woman any time I want. Anytime! I get white woman in Chicago, yeah? Maybe your sister? Ha. I joke.” Tip snapped his fingers. More alcohol was spilled. A guard rushed forward with a towel, but Tip flicked his finger and the guard stepped back.
“I’m sure you can,” Hairball said. “It was… impudent that Kur… Joey thought he had to introduce you to the Australian woman.”
Tip smiled and finished his drink in one gulp. “I like you, White Boy. You are funny. You use big words like impudent. This is funny, yes?” He stuck the cigar in his mouth and smiled. A gold tooth glimmered from behind the dark rolled tobacco. His eyes tripped from Hairball to a guard and back to Hairball. The guard rushed over as he dug a Zippo lighter from his breast pocket and lit the cigar.
Tip sucked smoke and watched the tip of his cigar glow with heat. “Australian woman, yes?”
“Yes. A friend of mine. I was supposed to, uh, meet with her yesterday?” Hairball said. “When she didn’t show up I asked Kur… Joey if he’d seen her and he said maybe you would know?”
Tip looked at the space over Joey/Kurtz’s head. He blew smoke. He looked at a guard. He returned to Hairball. “He did, did he?”
“Only, uh, yeah, only, uh, because you, uh, know what’s goin’ on, you know, like everywhere,” Joey muttered. “I, I, I mean, you are like the most, uh, knowledgeable man in the Congo, right?”
Tip stared at him.
“You are,” he said around his cigar, “a wise man to know that I am a wise man.” He smiled. His gold tooth glistened. He stopped smiling. “But to tell others,” he glanced at Hairball and Sakombí, “that is not wise.” He sucked smoke into his lungs as he stared at Joey.
“Mr Tip,” Hairball interrupted. “Can I ask you a question?”
Slowly, as if he was being forced to avert his gaze from a car accident, Tip turned away from Kurtz. He looked at Hairball.
Hairball felt the chill of hatred surge through his body. He felt the coldness of murder shoot out from Tip’s eyes. He knew in his heart Tip tolerated his presence only because it was amusing. When it stopped being amusing, Tip would kick him out. Or worse, kill him.
“Yeah?” Tip ordered.
“Those, uh, three books,” Hairball managed to say through the fear Tip birthed into the room.
Tip turned slightly as if to acknowledge there were books in the room. He didn’t take his eyes off of Hairball. He didn’t look at the books.
“Yeah?”
“Are they, like, first editions or what?”
Tip stared at him. He put his cigar to his lips. “I like you, White Boy. You’re funny.” He stood up as if rolling out of bed. “You accuse me of being pimp, then you ask me about books. Funny. However…” He blew smoke at the ceiling. He looked at one of the guards. “I am no longer amused by your funny. You may leave.” He stood up.
Kurtz got up as fast as his back would allow.
“Not you.”
“But…”
“Sit. Down.”
Kurtz sat.
“We came together,” Hairball stated. “We leave together.”
Tip glared at Hairball.
“Hairball,” Sakombí pleaded.
Tip looked at Sakombí. He took a few steps toward Kurtz.
Kurtz shrank back in the couch as much as he could.
Tip stopped in front of Kurtz. He stared down at him. He pointed his index finger at Sakombí. “You can go,” he said softly.
Sakombí stood up. He looked at Hairball. “Well?”
Everyone stared at him. A couple of guards shifted their weight to their shooting foot.
“He said we could go. And we came together, so let’s go.”
“You can go,” Tip spit out. “They stay.”
“I don’t think…” Sakombí said.
Tip coughed.
Three guards leapt on Kurtz and Hairball. They grabbed them by the neck and shoved them on to the tiled floor. A fourth shoved his rifle barrel into Sakombí’s stomach. Hard. Sakombí tumbled to the ground.
Hairball jumped up. He smashed a guard in the face. A second guard jabbed his rifle stock at Hairball’s head. Hairball rolled. The stock smashed into the couch. Hairball kneed the guard in the kidney; the guard doubled in pain and crashed to the floor. Hairball grabbed the guard’s AK-47. He twisted it away. He pointed the rifle at Tip. Right at his face.
“Arrêtez.” Tip’s voice was cold. Flat. And deadly. Like his eyes.
His guards stopped moving.
Sakombí groaned.
From the floor, Kurtz looked through his fingers.
“Those books,” Hairball said, his finger caressing the trigger, “what are they?”
“Who cares? You’ll be dead before you can read them,” Tip replied as he stared Hairball in the eye.
“Sakombí, Kurtz. Get up,” Hairball ordered.
Sakombí grabbed the guard’s AK-47 and slapped him across the face with it. The guard flinched but didn’t move from his post.
“Why do you have them?”
Tip kept his eyes on Hairball. “I like to read.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“They’re a good investment.”
“We came together. We leave together.”
“You can die together, too,” Tip sneered.
Hairball looked at the guards. He checked the windows.
“We just want to know where the Australian is,” Hairball said. “Nothing more.”
“Nothing more. That is funny, White Boy. But I am finished with funny,” Tip said as he turned to leave.
“Which one’s the most expensive?” Hairball asked, the AK-47 still pointed at Tip.
Tip stopped and looked at Hairball. “You’ll never get…”
Hairball jammed the barrel into Tip’s crotch. “Which one’s the most expensive!?”
“You’re gonna die.”
“You won’t. But you’ll be the ugliest eunuch in the Congo if I pull the trigger.”
“I’ll have you flayed alive like a pig.”
Hairball punched Tip in the nose. “I asked you a question.”
“The middle one. The tall middle one.”
“Give it to me.”
Tip stood up straight. He held his nose. He looked at a guard and nodded. The guard rushed to the bookshelf and, grabbed the middle book, and brought it to Tip.
“I said, give it to me!” Hairball shouted.
The guard looked at Tip. Tip nodded. The guard held the book out for Hairball.
“Sakombí,” Hairball ordered.
Sakombí hurried over and grabbed the book.
“An investment,” Hairball said to Tip. “Its value plummets if it gets bloody. Especially if it gets bloodied during a murder.”
“You think I care about that book?”
“You care about money,” Hairball said. He stepped back. “You first.”
Tip stuck his cigar in his mouth and sucked on it. He glared at Hairball, but stepped toward the door.
“No one moves.” Hairball pointed the rifle at the guards. “The first to die is your boss.” He jabbed Tip in the neck with the barrel of the rifle. “Let’s go.”
They stepped into the hall. Sakombí lead the way with his AK-47 at the ready. Kurtz walked next. Tip came third, with Hairball pointing the rifle at his neck. He grabbed the book from Sakombí and stuck it in his pants like a leather-bound bullet-proof pair of underpants.
“Tell your guards to stand down.”
“As you wish, White Boy.”
They came to the front door where two guards, seeing their boss being held at gunpoint, jumped to action. They aimed their weapons and took cover behind furniture; furniture incapable of stopping an AK-47 bullet.
“Arrêtz.”
The two guards relaxed but kept their weapons at the ready.
“You’re dead, White Boy, you know that?”
“Where’s the girl?”
“Ha! The dead white boy wants to know where the Australian whore is. This is funny. You are funny, dead man.”
Hairball tripped the fat man. Tip fell on his face. Hairball kicked his left hand. Hard. Bones broke. Tip screamed. Hairball stomped on Tip’s back.
“Jesus, Hairball!” Kurtz complained.
“Get their guns, idiot!” Hairball demanded. He stomped on Tip’s right hand. More bones cracked. Tip screamed and rolled away from his torturer. “Where’s the girl, Tip?”
“I don’t know!”
Hairball stomped on Tip’s knee. Tip screamed in pain.
“Where’s the girl, Tip!?”
“I don’t…”
Hairball kicked Tip in the ribs. A loud crack echoed through the hallway.
A guard jumped out of the living room.
Sakombí fired.The guard crashed, bloody and dead, against the blood-smeared hallway wall.
Hairball and Sakombí knelt on one knee as if praying. Hairball aimed down the hallway. Sakombí kept his rifle trained on the two hallway guards.
A guard leapt out of the living room, his AK-47 spewing bullets down the hallway.
Hairball fired.
The guard’s head exploded. His body danced in blood. It dropped lifeless to the floor. It fell on the other dead guard.
Hairball shoved the barrel into Tip’s broken rib.
“Okay! Okay!” Tip cried. “I’ll show you.”
Kurtz grabbed a rifle from one of the dead guards.
The two hall guards were on their knees, their hands behind their heads.
“You,” Hairball yelled at the two guards. “Two of your friends are dead. And your boss just sold you out. Feeling loyal to the fat man?”
Sakombí translated into French. The two guards looked at each other. One looked at Hairball and said, “Il nous paie bien.”
“You’re willing to die for money?” Hairball asked.
“No,” the guard said. “But we will kill for it.”
“Tie ’em up,” Hairball ordered Kurtz. “You,” he ordered Tip. “Up.”
Tip struggled to get up. His ribs hurt, his hands were inflamed, and his knee was starting to swell. He limped down the hall.
Hairball turned to Kurtz. He looked at the two kneeling guards. “They move, shoot ’em.”
“Me? Why me? Why not him!?”
“Move,” Hairball said as he jammed the AK-47 at Tip’s head.
Sakombí and Kurtz followed, their weapons on the guards.
Each time they came to a guard, Tip waved him away. The guards backed up, hesitated, dropped their weapons, and walked ahead of Tip.
Sakombí walked behind Tip and Hairball. Kurtz watched behind them, worried he would have to shoot someone. No one was following them.
Tip came to a door with two guards.
“Sir?” the taller guard asked.
Tip waved him away.
The tall guard didn’t move.
“I’m asking you to open the door, and get out of the way,” Tip ordered.
“I would, sir, but I don’t work for you.”
Tip looked at Hairball. “He’s not mine. You’ll have to shoot him.”
“Don’t think I won’t.”
“Don’t think I care.” Tip stared at the tall guard. “But if you shoot him, a force greater than hell itself will rain down on you. Joseph is not to be toyed with.”
“Joseph?” Sakombí asked.
“You’ve heard of him?”
“Hairball, we gotta get out here.”
“Not without Amelia.”
“You’ll have to shoot your way in,” Tip said. He stepped aside and crouched down on the floor. “Fire away.” He smiled. He looked at Sakombí. He put his fingers in the shape of a pistol, aimed it at his head, and said, “Pow! Welcome to Joseph Land.”
“Hairball? Please?”
“Open the door.”
The tall guard stared at him, the whites of his eyes a drug-yellow, his skin dark. He smiled. His teeth reflected the years of drugs and alcohol.
“You open the door,” he smiled as he lowered his rifle. “If you can. When you’re dead.”
“Hey, uh, Hairball?”
Hairball glanced at Sakombí. Sakombí nodded at the end of the hall. Hairball looked.
It was big. And it was moving fast. A large green and black snake with a yellow diamond tattooed on its head.
“How the hell did that get in here!?” Tip muttered.
“Holy …!” the tall guard screamed. But too late.
The snake was on him. It wrapped itself around his chest. It squeezed hard.
Hairball, Sakombí, and Tip heard bones crack. The tall guard screamed. But his screams were muffled by the snake as it wound around the guard’s neck.
“Jesus!” the other guard shouted. He fired at the reptile. His bullets ripped through the snake. Five, six, seven times. The snake released the tall guard and rushed at Sakombí.
Hairball shot. A spray bullets ripped into the snake’s body. It shivered. It opened its mouth to scream. It fell silent. Its eyes glazed over in death.
“Holy Jesus,” the other guard said.
The tall guard lay in a pool of his own blood. Seven bullet holes littered his chest.
Hairball and Sakombí looked at the dead guard. Hairball aimed at the other guard’s head.
“Open the door,” he ordered.
The other guard nodded and unlocked the door.
“Hey, where’s Tip?”
Hairball looked up and down the hall, but there was no Tip.
Sakombí ordered the guard to sit on the snake.
Hairball entered the room.
The wooden leg of a chair crashed on his head, knocking him to the dirt floor. The AK-47 skittered across the room. It stopped when a bare female foot stomped down on it. Hands whipped it into the air.
“Don’t move, shithead,” Amelia ordered. The AK-47 was aimed at Hairball’s left eye.
“Don’t.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Your savior.” Blood dribbled from his cut lip.
“Get up,” Amelia rushed to the hallway. She snapped the rifle at Sakombí.
“Don’t!” Hairball staggered to the hall. “He’s on our side.”
Amelia aimed at the other guard.
“He’s not.”
“No!” the guard yelled.
Amelia fired.
The guard jerked against the wall and slapped dead on the floor.
Hairball picked up his AK-47.
“You didn’t have to shoot him,” Sakombí said.
“He didn’t have to rape me,” Amelia stated.
“This way,” Hairball said.
They rushed down the dark hallway. Amelia saw Kurtz.
“You bastard!”
“Don’t shoot!” Hairball and Sakombí screamed. “He’s helping…”
The shot rang loud. The wall behind Kurtz splintered from the bullets.
A guard rushed down the hall, firing his rifle, and screaming. He was met with a Matrix shower of bullets from Sakombí, Hairball, and Amelia. His body shredded into a blood-red limp rag of ripped flesh and shattered bones.
Another guard hugged the floor. When the shooting stopped and the echoes died, he looked up. A white woman kicked a white man in the balls. Two other men didn’t try to stop her. The white woman said something to the white man, who was curled up on the floor.
“This way,” the Congolese man said.
He and the white man and woman rushed out of the hallway to the main gate. The injured man limped slowly after them.
The guard was alone. He got to his knees, to his feet. He hurried away from the crazy white people. He stepped into the hallway to the secret rooms and saw the big snake with the bullet wounds; the two guards dead on the ground.
The door at the end of the hallway was open. He hurried to it. He looked outside. A trail of blood zigzagged to the parking lot. Tip’s SUV was gone.
The guard rushed to the other car, a black BMW, and jumped inside.
“Paris. I must go to Paris,” he muttered. “This life is not for…” he started the car and roared away from Tip’s mansion. “… anyone.”
Once again, thank you very much for continuing this journey through Hairball (our Hero) in his two lives. If you have any compliments, complaints, suggestions (clean ones), or questions, please drop a note. I’d be happy to hear from you.