Lit Fic#15 Heart of November. Ch 7.
My rapid Google research found Goma on the side of a lethal lake. I think I invented a festival for our Hero and Sakombí to visit, enjoy, and see a violent rape. I wrote it as a turning point in our Hero’s journey and to strengthen the plot while deepening the characters (Hero aka Hairball, Sakombí, Kurtz, and Amelia.
Amelia, by the way, sparked a parallel idea in my head about what happens to her after the rape, after the Congo, after this adventure. I outlined a novel called Amelia but I haven’t gotten around to doing anything about it.
Finally, this chapter contains violence and rape. Be forewarned.
««« The Australian Woman »»»
Amelia rolled over. Someone was moving around. She opened her eyes. Kurt was dressing. “Good morning,” she chirped.
Kurt froze, spun around quickly, then saw Amelia and smiled. “Oh, sorry,” he said. “Just hoping to…”
“Slip out unnoticed?” Amelia winked as she tossed the thin blanket off her naked body.
“Not wake you,” Kurt countered. He sipped up his jeans.
“Right,” Amelia groaned and sat up, not caring that her breasts were in plain sight. “Have you ever had a one-nighter when you didn’t sneak out?”
“Of course. I’m not a whore.”
“Look,” she said. She got out of bed, her body bare to the world. “I slept with you last night because, well, I felt the need, ya know? If we never meet again, no biggie.”
Kurt watched her breasts bobble and looked below her navel; a place his tongue had explored the night before.
“Like it?” she asked as she walked close to him.
“As good as it gets, right?”
“Look, don’t worry about it, okay? The sex was . . .” She smiled at him. “Good. Spot on, ya know? I wanted it, I liked you. With that funny French accent you put on. We had the fun, right?”
“Well, uh, good.”
“What happened. . . ” She ran a hand across his t-shirt, “. . . to your snazzy suit last night?”
“That’s for another time,” he said and reached out to rub her neck.
“For picking up girls?” She moved away from him and picked up her t-shirt, panties, and bra.
“Nice shirt,” he said as he ogled her ass.
“Are you talking about this?” She waved her Congolese flag-style t-shirt at him, “Or this?” She spanked herself with her panties and slipped them on.
He smiled. “Maybe both?”
She tucked her boobs into her bra, adjusted them, threw on her t-shirt and grabbed her jeans off the floor. “Up for some breakfast with the floozy you ate out last night?” She stepped into her jeans.
“I know just the place.” Kurt wondered how many men could handle a woman like this; opinionated, independent, strong.
“I’m sure you do.”
“Ya know, I was planning on going to France today. On business.” He glanced at his two suitcases. “But I also know there’s this magnificent festival — music, dancing, great food, laughter. Lots of laughter — in Goma in about three days. A four-day festival, too.” He opened the door for her and the two walked out into the hot morning sun.
“Oh?”
“Would you like to go with?”
“Goma? That’s a three or four day bus ride, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Kurt said as he signaled for a taxi. “Yes, it is. But only an hour or so by plane.”
“You have a plane?”
A blue and yellow taxi screamed to a stop in front of them.
“No.” He opened the back door for her and followed. “But I know where to get one.”
“Where?”
“The airport.” He gave the taxi driver directions to a coffee shop. “But try to screw us and you’ll regret it. Understand?” he said as he glared at the man.
“Ouí, ouí.”
“We get,” Kurt said to Amelia and took her hand in his, “breakfast. Enjoy ourselves, again, maybe, yes?” He kissed her fingers, but watched the road the taxi was taking. “In two days,” he whispered, “we fly to Goma? I have business there. An associate. Maybe we can use his chateau?”
“A chateau? In the middle of the Congolese jungle?”
“Perhaps it is not so elegant as the ones you are used to in the desert of Australia, but it will have hot and cold showers. Air conditioning. Maybe a servant to serve breakfast in bed, no? And the festival? It is supreme. Excellent. Music. Dancing. Laughter.”
“I’d kill for a good long shower.”
“Really? That is good to know, yes?”
««« The Festival of Fear »»»
“What did he want?”
“Ah, it is just business. We need not dwell on just business. It is time for entertainment, is it not? We must find the music in our lives and dance as tomorrow may not be a possibility, yes?”
They stumbled away from the small café; Sakombí leading them along with the crowd to an open space.
Sweat poured from everyone in the humid air, but no one cared. The primary purpose of their life today was to dance. And they did. A hundred dancers shaking waddling jumping grinding and even twisting to the music.
The first music — curved against a huge tree three turntables wired to four huge speakers were aimed directly at the dancers. Two DJs danced behind the set-up switching fading splicing dance tunes together like surgeons slapping together a new heart for the nation.
The second music — hidden away from the DJs and their hundreds of dancers — at a spot overlooking Lake Kivu, their speakers lapping at the water, were seven musicians: two percussionists pounding on drums, garbage cans, and cymbals; two guitarists shredding and dancing their fingers across their fretboards; a lone bassist pounding out a bottom line rhythm to match the percussionists; an old man fingering a kundi wired to a small speaker by his feet; and a younger man coaxing an alto saxophone to sing like a female soloist. All dancing to their music; smiling and shaking their heads at each other; soaring solos and group jams.
All in front of another couple hundred dancers shaking twisting grinding leaping jumping laughing and feeling the music in their souls and soles and hearts.
“Wow,” Hairball sputtered.
“Come, white man, dance,” Sakombí enticed.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t? You are human, yes? You have feet and heart, no?”
“I’m not drunk enough,” Hairball complained.
“For that, we have a solution.”
Within seconds Hairball and Sakombí had a paper cup full of something; Hairball didn’t know what but it smelled like Scotch, wine, Coke, and mustard.
“Drink! To your first Congolese festival of dance and song!”
They downed their alcohol in a single gulp. It burned their throats and stabbed their noses.
A minute later Sakombí was laughing slapping his hands together jumping and howling as Hairball gyred and gimbaled in the wabe like a dervish like a zombie like a funky white fish flopping for air.
They danced and drank and leapt with the saxophone; swallowed and crouched with the kundi; spun and swirled with the percussion; swirled with the rhythms in their minds and hearts.
Spent and sweaty, Hairball collapsed against a woman; she laughed, held his arms against her belly and lead him to the forest where he could sleep if he wished.
“Where?” he hummed with the saxophone, but off-key and slower.
“You sleep. You drunk. You feel bad in the morning,” she laughed.
“Good, good,” he swayed.
She laid him down on a broken bench of water-soaked plywood beneath a fig tree.
He tried to sit up but his body, drunk from travel drink dance, refused to cooperate; he tried to sit up but his brain, floating in the fragrant alcohol, surrendered to passivity.
The woman patted his head, laughed, and danced back to the party.
“Hey,” Sakombí asked her, “Whaddya do with my friend?”
She pointed at the wobbly bench beneath the fig tree and danced away.
Sakombí tripped back to the dancing.
Hairball heard music in his dreams. He heard laughter and shouts of love and warmth. He heard a growl; not a leopard or lion growl, but a human growl. The growl of a person insane and angry. He tried to move, but his body felt it was better to remain motionless. He settled for an open pair of eyes. He looked. At the party: hundreds of dancers holding paper cups hundreds of drinkers dancing.
He rolled as the bench wobbled. Beyond the bench, circling the fig tree he saw a half dozen bodies: supine, wobbly, half and completely naked. He stared at one, a shirtless man with pants halfway down his legs. He watched. The man took a breath; his chest rose and fell.
Hairball tried looking at the others; they were breathing. He was pleased they weren’t dead.
The music flowed over them like a wet drizzle of rain and wind; howling sweeping throbbing with the sax accenting the beats and charm as a rock star; the drums slapping out a heavy Congolese rhythm.
He heard the growl again. It came from beyond the drunk sleepers; in the forest. Away from the guitar reggae Congolese solo. He pulled himself up. He rolled off the bench, slamming into a woman in a colorful skirt that nearly covered her butt.
“Sorry,” he mumbled and crawled away. He crawled over the shirtless man and a few other people collapsed under the fig tree. He got to the edge of the sleepers; the edge of humanity, into the darkness. He peered as best his eyes could into the heart of the darkness encroaching on the dance party.
A woman screamed. “No!”
‘I gotta protect her,’ Hairball thought.
“You did it with me,” a man argued.
“No! No!”
A slap. A hard slap. The kind Hairball heard from his parents’ room; from her house, too. Skin against skin spiked by the downbeat of a beat box and bass booming through the fig trees. An out-of-control slap of anger and self-hate.
‘Oh, shit,’ Hairball thought; he pushed himself off the ground only to tumble back to earth.
“No!”
A hard slap. A cry. Another hard slap.
“You gotta do it or I’ll beat the crap out of ya!”
“No, please, no!”
“Bitch!”
“Please!”
Hairball got to his hands and knees but the earth spun around him like a fallen Ferris wheel gone insane.
Clothes ripped. Two men standing over one woman; the woman on her knees.
“No!”
Flesh hit hard. Hairball crawled. “I’m coming.” He pulled his sorry body to the yelling and screaming. He was slow, but he was moving. He looked up to judge how far he needed to move to get to her, to protect her.
She was naked. The man was choking her. Both were fuzzy to his alcoholic eyes. A man was banging his groin against hers. She was saying something crying screaming. Hairball could barely make it out over the kundi matching the driving percussion as if in a nightmare:
“No, no! Oh, god, please. No!”
He got to one knee hoping to push himself erect. His stomach chose to rebel. He looked up at the woman being raped; at the rapists. He had to get to them. He had to kick the rapist in the nuts. But his stomach…
He vomited. Again. It hurt his stomach, his throat, his nose where the vomit rushed when his mouth was busy; he collapsed on the wet grass. He threw up the pawpaw, the alcohol, the food.
“Oh, shit,” he said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
The rapist stood. He pulled his pants, zipped; handed the other man some money. Strolled off to the music.
The other man hit the woman hard in the face with his fist. He grabbed a shirt and threw it at the woman: a Congolese flag-style t-shirt and blue jeans.
“Get up, whore,” he ordered and kicked her in the stomach. “Now.”
Hairball forced his eyes open to stare at the man. Hoping, maybe, in the next few days, maybe, to find him, get the police to arrest him. But… It was him! From the youth hostel!
He put his hand down to assist him in standing; he put it in his own pawpaw vomit and fell on his back, drunk.
He looked at the empty scene of the rape. The darkness slithered away. It stopped. It raised its head. Hairball struggled to focus. The darkness stared at him; then… slipped away, slithering and crawling away. Like a giant snake.
Hairball shook his head. Impossible? Overwhelmed, he passed out.
««« Over, Hanging »»»
His eyes opened. Above him, perhaps smiling, Sakombí dwarfed the fig tree. From the tint of the sky, Hairball decided it was no longer evening or night; perhaps, he reflected, it was noon or so.
“Hey,” Sakombí greeted him. “You alive?”
“Wha’ time it is?”
“Daytime.”
“Wha’ day?”
“Come on, get up. Let’s get you out of this upchuck and cleaned off.”
“Where’s she at?”
“Who”
“Last night. Girl,” Hairball looked at where he saw the rape. The field was empty. Even under the fig tree, he was the last drunk. “Saw a girl gettin’ raped.”
“Well, yeah, you mighta. You mighta been too drunk, too, ya know,” Sakombí said as he hauled Hairball to his feet and together they stumbled to Sakombí’s friend’s small hotel.
“No, I’m pretty sure. We gotta get to the police,” Hairball protested. His feet refused to dance across the shadows, streets, and bare ground.
“You can’t be pretty sure if you’re going to the police. They don’t like being disturbed with rumors and…”
“No rumor!” Hairball yelled. “I saw it. I was drunk, but I saw it!”
“Okay,” Sakombí soothed. “First we clean you up, get you some food. Relax a bit. Then we call the police about this rape you maybe saw, yes?”
Hairball nodded. “Police first.”
“Opposite, no?”
“I might forget.”
“Don’t.”
“I saw a really big snake, too.”
“Black?” Sakombí muttered.
“Big and black. Anaconda big.”
“Did it look at you?”
“Yes! Yes! Scared me spitless, ya know?”
“Might, uh, want to keep that to yourself. Police won’t really like it. They’ll assume you’re a white crackpot.”
“Awright. You’re a good man, James Sakombí,” Hairball muttered before tripping over the shadow of a cat leaping away from a car.
Barely awake by 6:00 pm, Hairball and Sakombí worked their way to a small café, settled into a pair of roadside chairs, and ordered café au lait for the Américain and espresso for the Congolese gentleman.
“Do you remember?”
“What?” Hairball asked, his head gently resting in the palms of his hands as music from the festival drummed into his brain.
“Never mind,” Sakombí agreed.
“The girl? I remember, but even an incompetent lawyer or cop could cast me as a very unreliable witness.”
Sakombí accepted the espresso. “Your story will be challenged.”
“But it was a guy from the hostel I stayed at in Boma. And an Australian woman.”
“White lady, yes?”
“Yeah.”
They both sipped their drinks and tried to ignore the cars and trucks belching smoke and noise as they zipped past the café. Festival lovers walked past, singing laughing silent hungover and shouting at each other.
Sakombí worried about Hairball’s white woman.
Hairball and Sakombí were buried in their thoughts of the night before and spoke little until, shaking his body to shake off his fears and memories, Hairball shuddered, “The horror.” He looked at his empty cup of coffee. “The horror of last night.”
“We should get out of here,” Sakombí said. “Take a walk or something.”
They stood, paid, and joined the crowd of festival-goers moving toward the southern end of the park bordering on the lake. They walked along the busy street until they found a small road that skirted closer to the freshness of the lake.
“We could sell some of your clothes,” Hairball said as he reached down and grabbed a small rock.
“Not the time for it. Last night was the time for it. Lots of men eager to buy sexy undies for their ladies, ya know. Tonight, we’ll sell some tonight, yes? But,” he hesitated. “Your Australian woman, yes? Maybe, just maybe, she is in trouble.”
“Well yeah, she was raped.”
“She might be sold.”
“Sold?”
“Into slavery. Sex slavery.”
The lake-side of the road was littered with large homes that presented walls and gates to the road. The walls were white and reflected the heat of the day at Sakombí and Hairball.
“Don’t let me drink that stuff again. Beer is fine. Not that… whatever it was.” He pitched the rock into the lake and watched the ripples spread out. “I want to be alert. Awake. To enjoy… Witness … the festival.”
They collapsed on a bench beneath a tree in front of one of the mansions. The tree afforded them some shade. They stared at the traffic, pedestrians bicycling or walking, the lake, and the large house.
Hairball was tired, hungover, and wanted nothing more than sleep.
Sakombí saw three men rush into an old mansion. One, he noticed, slipped a revolver into his pocket as he entered.
“Oh,” he stuttered.
“Hmm?” Hairball answered from his dreams.
“That guy,” Sakombí said but noticed Hairball was asleep, so he didn’t finish.
Instead, he watched. He thought he heard a scream. He wasn’t sure, but he thought someone was getting beaten. Or worse. He watched the old house. He looked around for a policeman or army officer. All he saw were people going to the festival or scurrying to find work. They all ignored the big house.
A man with a belly cantilevered well out over his knees waddled out of the house. He smoked a cigarette and stared at the passing pedestrians, grinning at the single women and glaring at the men. He looked around and his vision stopped on Sakombí and Hairball.
Sakombí was sure he was looking for police spies, so he leaned back into the shade of the tree.
He recognized the man.
“Hairball,” he said. “Wake up.”
“Huh?”
“That’s Tipu Tip.”
“Huh?”
“Real bad guy. Toughest in town. If he’s here, we gotta leave.”
As Sakombí started to stand, three men rushed out of the old house. Two held a woman tight by the arms and pushed her to a black SUV. The third man walked slower and smiled.
Tipu Tip glared at the third man, shook his hand, then climbed into the SUV.
“That’s the Australian woman,” Hairball said. “And Kurtz. From last night.”
“If he’s involved with Tipu Tip, it’s not good. Not good for her at all.”
“What should we do?”
Sakombí watched the SUV roar past them; its windows blackened, he couldn’t see inside. He turned to look at Kurtz.
“I guess we should grab him,” Hairball said.
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. Force him to tell us where Tipu Tip is taking her?”
“But,” Sakombí argued as he stood and the two of them hurried to Kurtz.
“Hey! Kurtz!” Hairball shouted.
“What!?” Sakombí hissed.
“Kurtz!”
He continued walking as if no one was calling him or he didn’t notice.
Sakombí and Hairball raced after him. Within seconds, they were on him. Hairball reached out to tap him on the shoulder.
Kurtz spun around like a cat. He punched Sakombí in the face. He squared off against Hairball. Hairball jumped back.
“Hey,” Kurtz said, smiling, “Hairball. Haven’t seen you in a while. How ya…”
“Whacha do with Amelia?” Hairball demanded.
“Amelia? What … Oh, hey, sorry man,” Kurt said as he helped Sakombí to his feet. He whipped a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed it at the Bantu’s bloody nose. “I thought, well, you know, muggings and all.”
“Bruk you,” Sakombí muttered, grabbed the handkerchief, and tilted his head back.
“The girl you were with last night. What did you do with her?”
“Me? Nothing, Fucked her, of course, then we split up. She wanted to see Nairobi or some such shithole.”
“I dust saw her gede in SUB wid Tibu Tib,” Sakombí muttered through his smashed nose.
“Who?”
“Tibu Tib.”
“Never heard…”
“Tipu Tip,” Hairball corrected. “Her, Tipu Tip, and two other guys. Where’d they take her?”
“I dunno what you’re talkin’ about, Hairball. Girl I fucked took off for Nairobi this morning. And I don’ know no Tucku Tuck.”
“You shook his hand, you dumbfuck,” Hairball challenged.
Kurtz kicked Hairball in the groin, punched him in the face, and slapped him in the head, knocking him to the dusty ground.
“Careful who you call a dumbfuck, dumbfuck,” he spit, kicked Hairball in the side, glared at Sakombí, and marched off.
Sakombí held his nose in the air. “It’s Chinatown,” he quoted.
“Good movie, but,” Hairball grunted, his head and groin aching, “We gotta find the woman.”
<<< Tipu Tip >>>
Tipu Tip left the woman bleeding on the bed.
“Get her up and out of here,” he ordered his two flunkies, zipped up his pants, then strolled through the kitchen, into the long hallway, and into his office decorated with masks of Death, Life, the Magician Trickster, and Fertility.
“Good afternoon, Joseph,” Tip said to the man resting on his long couch.
“Tip,” the man replied. He left his sunglasses on.
Tip couldn’t help but notice that Joseph carried a shoulder holster with a Glock nestled inside. He looked at the two men Joseph brought with him. Both wore the same dark sunglasses as Joseph. Neither smiled, but Tip was sure they carried the same Glock.
“I have Scotch and cannabis, Joseph. Which would you prefer?”
“Is it from the Pygmies?”
“Alas, no.”
“I’ll take the Scotch then and we can get down to business?” It wasn’t a question.
“Of course.” Tip nodded at one of his guards, who expertly poured two shot glasses of Scotch.
“She is Australian and no, she was not a virgin when I got her.”
“’At’s too bad, Tip, too bad.”
“Well, finding white women her age who are virgins is,” Tip held up his Scotch, “nearly impossible.”
“You should stop getting your women from that frog. He ruins them for you.”
“And for you.”
“No, you ruin them for me.”
“As they are no longer virgin, I only study their expertise.”
“Of course.”
Joseph handed his Scotch to one of his men. The man sniffed it, then sipped from it. He held the glass and stared at Tip.
“She is young. She is strong. She could fetch a good price.”
“She must be strong,” Joseph said as he touched his right cheek. “You’re bleeding.”
Tip touched his own right cheek and brought back blood on his fingertip.
“Yes,” he frowned. “And feisty.”
“My clients don’t like feisty. They like docile. Experienced, docile.”
Tip watched Joseph’s man hand Joseph his shot glass of Scotch. Joseph sniffed, but did not drink.
“Are you going to auction her off or do you have a buyer?” Tip asked.
Joseph held the shot glass in both hands, warming the Scotch. “My business is none of your concern. Our business is merely what price you think you should get for a whore who fights back.”
Tip sipped his Scotch, a drink he disliked. He preferred espresso or a cold Coca Cola. He grimaced and stared at Joseph. “Do you remember the last white woman I sold you?”
“Perhaps.”
“Do you remember how much you paid?”
“Too much.”
“It’s too bad you say that, Joseph, because this woman is worth twice that other bitch.”
“Twice? Twice?” Joseph laughed and looked at his two henchmen. “He said ‘twice!’” And laughed. It was the deadly laugh of a viper about to strike its prey.
“At least twice,” Tip repeated. “That other woman was older with saggy tits.”
“And suicidal,” Joseph laughed.
“That was not my fault,” Tip argued.
“Of course not,” Joseph laughed. “Nothing that happens to any of the whores you sell me is your fault. Never,” he smiled.
Tip sipped his Scotch. He studied Joseph’s two henchmen. He knew, behind their dark glasses, that they were thinking of ways to kill him.
“Twice, Joseph,” Tip demanded. “And not a sou less.”
“First that drug-addled frog rapes her, then you. And you expect me to pay that much? I couldn’t sell her diseased pussy for a sou.”
“She’s barely twenty. She claims to have only had sex with two men. Not, of course, including Frenchy and me. No one knows where she is, only that she’s traveling in Africa.”
“She’s white.”
“Yes, and she’s white. Prime product. Prime price.”
“White means someone’s going to look for her. White people have money. Price needs to go down. Risk is high.”
Tip stared at Joseph. He knew how much he could push him. And he suspected he would pay top dollar for the bitch. With a little nudging. “I have a Hutu. Also about twenty. Only three children, all dead. No husband. I throw her in and you pay what I ask for the one. A bargain. You can auction the white bitch off to some rich Arab and keep the Hutu for your whore house.”
Joseph sniffed the Scotch and glanced at Tip’s collection of masks.
“What do I want with two ruined bitches, Tip?”
“Profit.”
Joseph smiled; he liked how Tip thought. “How soon before her injuries heal?”
“What injuries?”
“Tip, Tip, Tip. She didn’t give you that,” Joseph touched his cheek, “without you paying her back.”
“Two, maybe three weeks.”
Joseph stood up. “Okay,” he agreed and placed his glass of untouched Scotch on the table. “I come back in two, three weeks and pay you twice what I paid for that other white woman. You throw in the Hutu. Meanwhile,” he smiled; it was a cold, heartless smile, “you and your men do not use her as your personal whore or I don’t pay, you understand, qui?”
“Joseph, I don’t want to feed her for three weeks.”
“You cut her, you feed her.”
“Two weeks.”
“Three.”
“Fifteen days.”
Joseph smiled. “You bargain well, Tip. Eighteen days. If she is not healed, fifteen more.”
Tip nodded and escorted Joseph to the door.
“See you in eighteen days, Joseph.”
Joseph grinned and stepped into his black SUV. He nodded and the vehicle pulled away.
««« Grandmother Doctor »»»
Hairball sat in the hospital waiting room holding his bleeding head and aching groin. Children cried, men moaned and women comforted them. The aroma of vomit blood fear wafted through the room like a cloud of depression sadness despair.
Sakombí rushed in with two Cokes, a bloody nose, and a head full of plans and urgency.
“Come,” he urged Hairball, “we go.”
“I haven’t even seen a doctor!”
“This is more important; come!”
“More important than my health?”
“Yes.”
They hurried out of the hospital. Sakombí lead the way to a small liquor store hidden in the shacks and warehouses. When they entered, the clerk stared at Hairball, but allowed Sakombí in the back. The room was small and dark. The only light filtered through a small window near the ceiling. Four chairs surrounded a rickety table. Three walls were covered in bottles of alcohol: beer, wine, Scotch, whiskey, rye, and vodka. A door with cracked hinges dominated one wall.
In the dark room Hairball could only see the surface of the table. His eyes grew more accustomed to the feeble light and he saw an old woman huddled in one chair.
“You come from a long distance to see me,” the old woman said in a language Hairball had never heard: Swahili? A local language?
“This is true, grandmother,” Sakombí replied. “To ask you an important question.”
“Yet you bring a white man into my home.” She glared at Sakombí, refusing to even look at Hairball.
“He’s American,” Sakombí replied as if that explained everything.
“A white American.”
“This is true, grandmother, but he is mostly harmless.”
“But I am not.”
Sakombí turned to Hairball and, in English, whispered loud enough for the old woman to hear, “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”
“What information do you want, Bantu-man with his white Americáin friend?”
“We want to buy a white woman.”
The old woman stared at Sakombí. She rose from her chair like a witch on a broom. She pointed a crooked, scaly, wicked finger at his right eye. She hissed like a cobra about to strike; her eyes glowed red with anger and hate.
“You have come,” she whispered like a vulture swirling above the dying carcass of a white explorer, “to the right place.” She handed Sakombí a piece of paper. She held her hand out.
Sakombí nodded at Hairball. “Slip her a twenty, yes?”
“What?” Hairball answered, as Sakombí walked away.
Thank you for reading. If you have any complaints, comments, compliments, or want to critique this chapter, please comment. I look forward to your input.