The Laughing Monsters Read Online Free PDF Page A

thing. I said, “Michael, what about the girl? Who is she to you?”
    “She’s American.”
    “She told me that herself.”
    “I heard her telling you.”
    “Who is she, Michael?”
    “More will be revealed.”
    This was his style, his tiresome, unchangeable way. Information was an onion, to be peeled back in layers.
    “What about you? What’s your passport?”
    “Ghana,” he said, and he didn’t look happy about it. “Ghana will always welcome me.”
    I shrugged away his heavy hand and got up. “Enough of Michael’s nonsense. Let’s get a drink.”
    “Prior to sixteen hundred,” he said, “I drink only bottled water.”
    “As they say, it’s sixteen hundred somewhere.” I checked my phone. “Here, as a matter of fact.”
    “I stink! Get out while I shower.”
    Looking down at him now—“Final question: What about Congo gold?”
    “Nair!—you’re so far ahead of me.”
    “If I was ahead of you, I’d know what I’m doing in Freetown instead of Congo, where all the gold is.”
    “The important thing is that you came without knowing why.”
    “I know why I came.”
    “But not why I asked you. You came without an explanation.”
    “You’d only lie to me, Michael.”
    “For security purposes, perhaps. Yes. For your protection in transit. But we’re friends. We don’t lie to each other.”
    He believed it.
    *   *   *
    As I made for the elevator, the lights died in the hallway. I took the stairs. Candles at the front desk, in the lobby, the big dining room. In the bar, the smell of burning paraffin, the stench of cologne overlying human musk. Voices from the dark—laughter—candlelit smiles. I ordered a martini, and it tasted just like one.
    Tina strayed into my mind. I drank quickly and ordered another.
    Why hadn’t I simply loaded the goods into my Cruzer in Amsterdam, and left Tina out of things? That seemed simple enough—now. But I’d been sent here to Freetown on an NIIA errand, and I had no idea what sort of last-minute scrutiny the powers might have authorized. Anything at all seemed possible, including my being called aside at airport security and confronted with a couple of NIIA comptrollers donning latex gloves. Afraid of some kind of search, I’d made Tina some kind of patsy.
    After I drained the second glass and ate the second olive—really, all would be well. Many people keep watch. Nobody sees. It takes a great deal to waken their curiosity. NATO, the UN, the UK, the US—poker-faced, soft-spoken bureaucratic pandemonium. They’re mad, they’re blind, they’re heedless, and not one of them cares, not one of them.
    I could have reasoned all this out from the start. But I’m a coward, and I couldn’t bear living alone in the abyss. Therefore Tina, unaware, lived in it beside me.
    Perhaps Tina and I would be married on my return, after I’d met my contact and sold the goods and made money enough for several honeymoons, and after I’d been relieved of my current duty, which was to report on the activities and, if possible, the intentions of Michael Adriko.
    *   *   *
    From half the distance down into my third martini, I heard Michael’s voice in the lobby—“What happened to my sandwich?”
    The desk clerk followed him. “It’s coming to the room, sir.”
    “Send it to the bar, will you?”
    He took the vacant stool beside mine and ordered a Guinness. I said, “Really? Guinness?”
    “Guinness is good for you. Let’s sit alone.”
    I joined him at a table with my martini. Two more sips, and I was ready to take him on.
    “Talk to me, Miguel. Talk, or I walk.”
    “I’m here to talk,” he said. “We’re talking.” But all he did with his mouth was pull on his beer.
    “This place is a dump. What’s wrong with the Papa Leone?”
    “Too many people know me there.”
    “Right. You’re broke.”
    “I’m on a budget. Is that dishonorable?”
    “It’s troubling.”
    “Why trouble yourself? Is it really your problem?”
    “It is if I’m in