Bingo's Run Page 12

  “What’s divorced?” I asked.

  She chewed and swallowed. “Bingo, it’s when married people split up. They visit lawyers and get a contract to divide up their possessions. It’s called a divorce. I got the galleries, he got his twenty-three-year-old farmer.” As she spoke, her gold earrings shook. Divorce sounded like a good way to get money, but I heard in Mrs. Steele’s voice that it was like a long run on a filthy hot day.

  I changed the subject. “So, you’z study tha’ history and art theory, then?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “No, Bingo,” she said. “I learned everything going up through the business.”

  “Like me,” I said.

  Mrs. Steele sucked in her cheeks and laughed. “Yes, Bingo, like you.” She raised her eyebrows again. “Now aren’t you a sharp one this morning.”

  She was trying to put me off being an art dealer with all her talk. But I knew I could do it better than her. Being an art dealer and a drug dealer are the same thing; both sell something that is not. Mrs. Steele did not know that Charity had told me everything—how Mrs. Steele said the Masta’s paintings were worth millions. Mrs. Steele could try to outhustle me, but she did not know that she was up against Bingo, the greatest runner in Kibera, Nairobi, and probably the world. Nairobi was my place, and I was an alleyway ahead of her. Mrs. Steele would never outhustle me.

  Gently, Mrs. Steele restarted our chat. “Look, Bingo, we’ve got a busy few days ahead of us. Why don’t you and I spend the day by the pool?”

  I looked into Mrs. Steele’s eyes. I thought, Mrs. Hustla, I’z watch you every second. But I said out loud, “Good, ya, tha pool.” If me and Mrs. Steele were by the pool, she could not get to Hunsa.

  The hustler said, “Bingo, did St. Michael’s pack you swimming trunks?”

  “What’s that?” I said.

  We bought swimming trunks at the hotel shop. The best thing about the hotel shop was how you paid. Mrs. Steele chose trunks for me. They were bright red, with white flowers, and looked like shorts—child size 14/15. I grunted Slo-George style when she showed them to me, but I quite liked them. Mrs. Steele let me get a family-size box of fruit pastilles for Slo-George, though I did not tell her they were for him. She said to the bored cashier boy, “Charge it to my room.” Then she wrote her sign, a big “C” and a snake-shaped squiggle “S.” It was easier than shoplifting but not as much fun.

  Chapter 33.

  The Flood

  While I was with Mrs. Steele having breakfast, Slo-George entertained himself. The moment I opened the door to Room 349, I saw how. The carpet was wet. Water ran at full blast in the bathroom. I dashed in. There was an inch of water on the white stone floor, and Slo-George lay in the overspilling trough, his eyes shut. He wore a hotel bathrobe and grinned fook-brain style. “Georgi,” I yelled. I yanked his arm. “Stand up, you fook!” I turned off the trough taps. He stood up and water poured off him.

  “Tak!” I screamed. “The contract!” I had left my clothes from the night before on the bathroom floor. They were soaked through. I pushed my hand into the trouser pocket and pulled out the soaking-wet, folded-up yellow contract. Tears cracked my eyes. “Tak!” I screamed. “Tak, tak, tak!” Slo-George stood there in the trough, soaked in the Livingstone gown. I screamed, “You’z a fooked-up half-brain retard!” More words poured out. “Ya dumb shithead! You’z always follow me about. You ruin my legal contrac’. Jus’ fook off and disappear, you fook-head mental.”

  I ran to the bedroom. The flood had not yet reached it. I laid the wet contract on the bed. My hands shook as I started to unfold the long yellow sheet. The main part, typed by the Kepha, was fine. My signature and the signature of the Kepha were a little blurred. The Masta’s name in red paint was perfectly clear. I said, “Thank you,” to the sun that blasted through the window. It was a miracle. I looked at the signatures again: Bingo Mwolo, Kepha Kepha, and Masta. “Thank you,” I said aloud again. Just then the spider ran out from under the bed. I jumped back, and it scampered away. I ran after it and tried to stamp it out, but it ran under the TV table. I knelt on the carpet and looked at it under the table. “I’z get you later,” I said. Two black eyes looked back. The contract was fine, I was still Hunsa’s dealer; I let the spider live.

  Water dripped onto my neck. Slo-George was standing next to me, staring down at me. I said to him, “Georgi, tha contract it’s fine, ya.” I smiled. He still wore the soaked Livingstone Hotel bathrobe. In the background, the TV program about African business ended. Slo-George turned round and walked out of Room 349. My legs told me, “Bingo, go get the fat retard. He’s your fren’!” But I did not move. Runners run alone. The less we carry, the faster we are. I see it all the time—other people must have someone: wife, friend, hooker, mother. Not me. People slow you down. I am Bingo the runner. I carry nothing. Commandment No. 11.

  I stared at Slo-George’s footprints on the wet carpet. I needed to go to America. Slo-George would stay in Kibera. He would be a good runner; no one ever thinks a retard can do anything bad. He would be safe. Anyway, he was gone. It was better this way. I looked back at the bed. The family-size box of fruit pastilles had gone, too; it was goodbye, Slo-George style.

  Chapter 34.

  A Day by the Pool

  Me and Mrs. Steele spent the day by the pool. No one had sex in it, which proves that not everything in porn is true. It also explained why I needed the swimming trunks. I did not get into the water; I just sat on the edge and wet my feet. Mrs. Steele swam up and down the pool. She was excellent in her black bikini. Her breasts floated.

  The pool area was almost empty, and we had our own corner. The deal was that for every Bloody Mary Mrs. Steele ordered I got a Tusker. I cheated once. Mrs. Steele was halfway through her third Bloody Mary when she went to the bathroom. Right away, I took two gulps of her drink. She had no idea I did this, and when she came back she ordered a fourth Bloody Mary. I drained my Tusker and reminded her of the deal. We ate hamburgers. She took as much ketchup as me.

  We had some things in common. Her family was not rich and, like me, her father was rubbish and left when she was small. “Ya mind?” I asked her. She thought and said, “Bingo, actually I did. I wanted a dad a bit like you want America. You’ve seen it on TV, but you’ve never been there.”

  Mrs. Steele asked, “How about you, Bingo, did you mind growing up without a dad?”

  I said, “I’z do not rememba much about him.” It was true, mostly. He was a gambler and a drinker. The only good he did was teach me numbers. I counted cards and beers for him. I did times tables when he doubled his bets, and I did taking-away when he gambled Senior Father’s crop money. I remembered how many cowries Father owed this one or that one. The day Father left with Senior Mother’s iron cook pot, he lost our last ox on a 7 of Clubs “double or nothing.” But I did not tell Mrs. Steele any of this. I stuck with the story I’d told her at my St. Michael’s interview. I said, “I was sad when the gang boyz kill Fatha.” That is the problem with lying—you have to remember. That is why the best lie is truth. Mrs. Steele listened. Someone dived into the pool. I said to her, “But I rememba Mama. She was special, ya.” I do not know why I said that; my mouth sometimes speaks for itself.

  Mrs. Steele said, “I bet she was.” She smiled at me in a certain way and my heart stopped, not as if I was dead but as if I was asleep. I smelled Mama’s shawl then. I was quiet for a second—a peaceful, empty quiet until my heart started up again. Mrs. Steele watched and listened.

  I wanted to talk about something else. I said, “Do you like being rich?” Mrs. Steele leaned back on the deck chair, put on her sunglasses, smiled at the sun, and said, “Yes.”

  But as we reached drink No. 6 I began to speak more about myself. I spoke more than Mrs. Steele did. She was good at twisting questions back to me.

  I asked her, “So what do you do when you’z not at your gallery?”

  She sighed. “When I’m not at work I’m bored,” she said. “I have a circle of friends, I travel,
and I go out, but basically, Bingo, I’m bored.” We were silent. She said, “Actually, I’m bored at work, too.”

  I said, “But you’z an art dealer!”

  She laughed. “The people I sell art to are mostly morons. They want to hang something on their wall because the artist is a name and it costs a lot.”

  I lay back and smiled at the sun, too. “You’z said tha pictures cost a million dollars.”

  She laughed. “You’re right. Buyers will pay a million dollars for a mediocre piece by an artist whose name they and their friends have heard of. To be frank, Bingo, you could probably paint pieces better than some of the crap we sell.”

  What she said proved it—art dealer was my destiny. I thought about Hunsa’s pictures. I thought about what she’d said behind my back; “Worth millions.”

  Mrs. Steele turned to me and I saw myself reflected in the black lenses of her sunglasses. “Bingo, how about you? What did you do in Kibera during the day when you weren’t dealing art?” You see, this was how Mrs. Steele twisted round a question. I noticed that her left breast was pushed against her right, as if they wanted to get free of her bikini, like naughty children from their mama.

  The beer and the bikini made me say more than I wanted to. She took off her sunglasses and watched me as I spoke. I forgot the lie about the Kibera Athletic Team. I told her about being a runner. It interested her. I told her about the other runners, the Boss Jonni runs, and the way we got out of being arrested. I told her about Wolf. She asked me to describe him. She said, “He sounds thrilling.” I told her he was not. She asked if I had ever killed anyone. I said, “No.” She asked me if Wolf had ever killed anyone. I thought of Boss Jonni and the hookers. There were others, too. I answered, “Yes.” She smiled, and I smelled a strange want on her.

  Mrs. Steele asked me about Kibera, and I told her about my home in Mathare 3A. “It’s terrible, ya,” I said. I told her about the stealing, scamming, filth, lack of toilets, dirty water, and the “teribel smell—all tha time.” I also added some color. “A fren’ a mine, burn’ alive for takin’ a TV.” I did not tell her about throwing stones at Krazi Hari, lipping food and money, and plowing hookers. I was afraid it would sound too fun, and I wanted Mrs. Steele to feel good about adopting me. She pushed the talk to Thomas Hunsa. I thought about the Masta, the Warehouse, and his children. I said to Mrs. Steele, “He’s tha great Masta,” and added, in case she’d forgotten, “and I’z his deala.”

  Mrs. Steele shuffled as if ants had just crawled up her arse. She sipped drink No. 7. “Bingo, how do you know he’s a great master?”

  I sucked on my Tusker and remembered his smell. I shrugged. “Jus’ do,” I said. “He use to sell to tourists all tha time.”

  Mrs. Steele’s body tensed, she pushed out her breasts, and her voice got tight. She asked me more about the Masta’s art. I told her about his house (but not where it was) and how it was jammed tight with paintings. She asked, “How many paintings are there?”

  My legs itched. “Loads,” I said.

  Mrs. Steele asked, “Bingo, how many paintings approximately?”

  I wanted to be casual. I said, “ ’bout hundrid.”

  She breathed in fast but tried to hide it. She asked me to describe the paintings. I told her about the pictures and the different sizes. Her eyes were bright as I spoke. I told her that some were of people and some of places. I told her that some were crazy and others simple. She smiled the more I said. I watched her calculate what the Masta’s art was worth.

  She said, “Hunsa sounds amazing.”

  “Ya,” I said. “Like I said, tha Masta, he brilliant.” I thought about my contract. If I got Mrs. Steele to sell even five Hunsa’s to five morons for a million each, I would be rich forever. I would have to cut her in, of course, since she would need to help me sell them. I said, casual, as if the words had just slipped out, “By tha way, Mrs. Steele. I’z got a propa legal contract, so I’z Hunsa’s deala propa legal.”

  In a second, Mrs. Steele’s eyes went dark. I watched her gulp on chang’aa, the Evil of Greed. The skin refilled and she drank more chang’aa. The more evil you do, the more evil you can do. Mrs. Steele was already drunk on chang’aa, but she wanted more. She put her sunglasses back on, turned away from me, and lay on her back. She said to the clouds, “Bingo, tell me about your other friends.” She went on, “Like the one who was in your room this morning.”

  Mr. Edward must have told her about Slo-George. I said, “He George, a retard, ya. He jus’ visiting.”

  Mrs. Steele said, “Right, Bingo.” She laughed and went quiet again.

  I pushed the cloud straight back to her. “Mrs. Steele, you loved Mr. Steele, right—before the divorce?” I can turn the question round, too!

  I could not see her eyes through the sunglasses, but she rolled her bottom lip. Words slipped out of her lips. “Bingo,” she said. “Mr. Steele was good to me for a while. I am not sure that there is anyone who can make me happy all the way through.” She sipped her drink. “I think that people’s happiness is their own. People imagine that other people make them happy, but actually that’s not true. We find other people in our lives to be mirrors for us. That way, we can see ourselves as we choose to be reflected by them.”

  “So Mr. Steele make you look good?” I said.

  She laughed from drink, not from happiness. She shook her head. “No, Bingo, I loathed everything I saw of myself in Mr. Steele; that is why I divorced him. When you wake up every morning and stare at evil, you either run from it or become consumed by it.” She gulped her drink. The celery stick in the Bloody Mary poked her glasses and left a smudge on the dark lens.

  “But you’z so pretty,” I said.

  She turned to me, her words sharp. “Bingo, cut it out. Peel off a pretty skin and all that remains is flesh.” Her nostrils flared. Her cheeks were red. Her breasts went up and down.

  So I could get her angry, too. The beers plus Bloody Marys made my words strange. “If Mr. Steele make you so sad, why not jus’ be alone?”

  Mrs. Steele breathed out. “I am,” she said, “alone.”

  I saw my face in Mrs. Steele’s sunglasses. “So, iz that why you’z wan’ me? So I’z a mirror for you? So you’z not be alone?”

  Mrs. Steele looked at me. “Maybe,” she said. As Mrs. Steele drained drink No. 7 I did the same, and I thought about what was hidden inside Mrs. Steele.

  We lay back and stopped our talk. I stared across the pool. The sun was tired from a day of heat. Mboya, the Mother of Everything, started to put away her giant copper cook pot. In general, it is a waste of time to think, but next to the pool, next to Mrs. Steele, with seven beers downed, I thought. I thought that I did not want to hold up a mirror to anyone, for anything. I did not want to be Mrs. Steele’s child so that she could be a mother. I did not want to be a runner to bring white to people’s dark. And I did not want to be a number in Father Matthew’s retirement fund.

  A man stood at the edge of the pool, then jumped into the water. Mrs. Steele interrupted my thinking. “Bingo,” she said. “After we leave for the States, do you think you will miss Kenya?”

  I said right off—the words splashed out of me—“Like a tree miss water.”

  The day was done. Mrs. Steele put on a white Livingstone robe, dropped her sunglasses into the pocket, and we went to the third floor. At the door of the Lyle Suite, Mrs. Steele said, “Bingo, I have some calls to make. If you are hungry, just go down to the restaurant and charge it to your room.” Her hand was on the door handle. She held it but did not go into her room. Her eyes were still and dark. She blinked, and then her hooker-red smile flickered on. She made her smile bigger, but it was just for her to hide inside. I smiled back, like a mirror, at Mrs. Steele. Then—it must have been the drink—I stepped closer and put my arms around her waist. Her robe smelled of the pool. Her belly rose and fell. She put her hands on my shoulders and kissed my hair. The silence had changed, and I did not want it to end.

  We moved apart. Then M
rs. Steele said, “Oh, Bingo, would you mind if I took a quick look at that contract you have with Thomas Hunsa?”

  Hustler!

  Chapter 35.

  Paper Dry

  I was back in my room for less than five minutes when there were taps at the door. Do doors never shut up? No wonder people in Kibera don’t have them. I went to open the door, but it opened itself and the cleaner came straight in. “Here to clean your room, sir,” Charity said, orange duster in hand.

  I rushed toward the bed ahead of her, lifted the still-damp contract off the sheet, and carefully put it on the table by the TV. “Go ahead, clean,” I said.

  She watched me. “What is that paper, sir?”

  I spoke businessman style. “Very importan’ legal contrac’.”

  Charity went to the bed and looked at the damp rectangle left on the sheet. “Then why is it wet, sir?”

  I said, “You full of questions.”

  Charity said, “I just asked why it is wet. Are all important legal contracts wet, sir?”

  I looked at her. “You pokin’ fun, ya?”

  “Oh no, sir,” she said. She tucked the duster under the belt of her brown dress. She started to fold down the bedsheets. Her hands moved fast, and she did not smile. After a while she said, “I can help you dry it, sir. That is, if you want the important legal contract dried.”

  The cleaner annoyed me. I said, “I know how to dry it. But if I leave it on tha platform it fly into tha street.”

  She smiled at the smooth white sheet. Her cheeks glowed, like butter. “You are right, sir. The balcony is not a good place to dry your important legal document.”

  I knew it was called a balcony.

  The cleaner went to the bathroom and came back with a white plastic gun. She plugged its wire into the wall next to the work desk by the window and aimed it at the contract. I grabbed her hand.