Bingo's Run (16 page)

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 Mrs. Steele said, “Oh, Bingo, would you mind if I took a quick look at that contract you have with Thomas Hunsa?”

Hustler!

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.

“It's a hair dryer,” she said.

“I know that,” I said.

The cleaner gave me a look. I moved my hand off hers. The hair dryer made a whirring sound and I jumped. She laid her hand flat on the contract and waved the hair dryer over the yellow paper, up and down. She laughed to herself.

“Why you laugh?” I said.

Charity said, “Well, most of this most important legal contract is not even English.”

“That shows you know nothing!” I said. “That's a propa legal contrac'. It is written by Kepha Kepha.”

She pushed her pink lips together so that they looked like a closed sack. “I am very impressed, sir,” she said. Then we were silent and she continued with her hair dryer. After a few minutes she said, “There, sir.”

I touched it. The contract was warm. The yellow paper had hills and the thin blue lines looked like neat streams lined up. “Ya, it dry,” I said. By mistake, I smiled.

Charity said, “Why, sir, do you not make a copy of this important legal document. Then you can keep the original safe?” It was
a stupid idea—it would cost money to get the Kepha to copy it out again. Before I could speak, the cleaner chirped, “Sir, there is a business center on the first floor of the hotel. It has a copier machine. I am sure they would be delighted to assist you.”

Of course I knew what a copier machine was—a machine that copies. I tried to think of something to say, but nothing came out. The silence was like a T-shirt that itched.

“Sir, I will clean your bathroom now, if I may?” Charity said. She walked to the bathroom door, stopped, and then turned to me. Her face was hard. “The dead body has gone, sir,” she said.

I said back, “He not dead. He left.”

“Oh,” she said. “Then did he like the crisps?” My eyes followed Charity's to the bed. The cleaner had left the two empty crisp packets right on my pillow next to each other. I said nothing. The cleaner said, “You are not a good friend,” and then she went into the bathroom. I stole out of the room with the contract and went to the business center on Floor 1. Fifteen minutes later, I returned with a copy. Charity's cleaning cart was outside another room. I ran past. “Jambo, sir,” Charity called to my back, but the happy mocking in her voice was gone.

Back in my room, I put on a new white shirt, trousers, and shoes. I was not used to socks. The bathroom had been cleaned and dried. It looked like new. The towels were folded and the trough was clean. My new toothbrush was perfectly lined up with the toothpaste. The three soaps had been placed neatly in a row. The toilet had been cleaned out. I folded up the original yellow contract and pushed it deep under the mattress. There was movement—the spider ran across the carpet and under the bed. I doubted that he could read or ate paper. I swore to get him another time.

I took the copy of the contract from the business center to show Mrs. Steele, but as I reached for the door handle the door spoke back. “Tat, tat, tat.” My door never shut up!

It was Charity. The cleaner said, “Jambo, sir. Cleana here. How are you carrying on this evening? How did the copying go?” She looked down at the fresh white paper in my hand.