From Cape Town with Love (32 page)

“You see him, you tell us,” a trombone player said good-naturedly. “Don't worry about Spider,” Simon said. “He always shows—unless he doesn't.”

They laughed. They seemed like a friendly, jovial group, like many bands I've met.

Most musicians don't play gigs for the money, that's for sure. But were any of them kidnappers?

Nervous perspiration beaded on my forehead. Marsha was already moving toward the backstage area, toward the restrooms, looking nonchalant as she peeked around. Simon counted down, and the keyboard and guitar led me into the song so quickly that I almost missed my cue.

I pulled my mic out of the stand. “‘One
love
. . . ,'” I began in my best Marley impression. I won't be modest: With Simon and the guitarist singing backup, I sounded damn good.

I was just hitting my groove, walking the stage to engage with an imaginary audience, when Marsha appeared in front of the stage. One look at her face explained the sudden hot tingle that skittered across the back of my neck two seconds after I saw her eyes.

Behind me, unseen palms slapped across the waiting
djembe
drums, hard. Rapid fire.

I smelled a too-heavy dousing of CK One cologne and fresh cigarette smoke. Pall Malls.

That smell was an adrenaline bath, bringing back Nandi's face and Roman's screams.

Until then, I hadn't remembered that the knife man on the football stands smelled like cigarettes. I'd smelled him when the kidnappers closed in on me to steal Nandi away. My pores felt electrified as my heart jumped into high gear. My hand on the microphone went cold, my stage smile frozen on dry lips. I sang by rote while I met Marsha's steady eyes.

He's behind you,
she said telepathically. I gave her a subtle nod:
I know.

When the drumming got louder, I pivoted to glance over my shoulder. Spider's head was down, swaying gently from side to side, as his palms slapped the
djembes.
His head was shaved bald, gleaming from blue lights. Even without his face in view, I knew him on sight.

Spider played his own music, ignoring the rest of us. His drumming was faster than the Marley, a frenzied conversation between high and low tones. As an old jazz musician once said of Thelonious Monk, Spider found the notes between the notes. As Spider played with more intensity, the rest of the music faded into lone, stray notes.

Spider's arrival signaled the end of my audition.

“Yeah, yeah, not bad,” Simon said, patting my back.

“Better'n Ray!” the bassist said.

“Too bad for you, that's not saying much,” the guitarist murmured.

The band laughed, but more uneasily—except Spider, immersed in his rhythms. I glanced back at him again, and I noticed the tic Xolo Nyathi had described. His right hand was busy between beats, almost spastic. Flicking out in private amusement, practicing deadly skills within plain sight of an oblivious audience.

I felt an irrational certainty that Spider knew exactly who I was, that
his knife was about to fly into the base of my skull. I climbed down from the stage, pretending to be uncertain as I turned to Simon. “I'll give you my number, yeah?”

“You've got my card,” Simon said. “Call me next week, and we'll—”

“Who's this?” A husky, almost disembodied, voice. More breath than words.

I glanced back again. Spider had spoken, but he hadn't looked up from his drums.

“Clarence Love,” I said when no one else spoke. “Tryin' to sing with the band.”

Spider's eyes shot up to me, his head still bent over his drums. His face broke in half, part grin, part empty stare.
“Trrrying,
yes.” His South African accent was pronounced. Spider was small boned, with a youthful face, in his twenties. His teeth seemed too large for his face.

The band wasn't laughing anymore. Simon shooed me from the stage as if he was embarrassed. He clapped to call the band's attention to the set list. All of the musicians paid rapt attention, except Spider.

One of Nandi's kidnappers might have been less than twenty yards from me, and I had to watch his damn show. There were no tables near the front of the stage, but Marsha and I claimed a spot at the nearest bar counter, where Spider would always be in sight. We ordered a round of drinks for show, but what observers probably assumed was a rum and Coke was missing its rum. It had never been so hard to stand still.

The band rehearsed for thirty solid minutes. I was glad when they took a break, but Spider never left the drums or stopped his brilliant performance. Recorded music filled the dance hall as patrons began filing in. King Sunny Adé. Miriam Makeba. Baaba Maal.

The guitarist walked to the bartender near us to order a beer. He had a boyish face, his hair styled in short braids. I drifted toward him, and Marsha followed two paces behind.

“How'd I sound?” I asked the guitarist.

The guitarist shrugged. “Not much range in that song.”

“Yeah, mon, I know . . . hey, your drummer, he's amazing. What's his name?”

“Spider's all I know. Eight hands.”

“You guys been playin' long?”

Before he could answer, Simon joined us at the bar, and the bartender slid him a bottle of Guinness before he said a word. Simon offered to refill Marsha's glass, and she agreed with a flirtatious smile. The SOB was hitting on my “wife” right in front of me, but I ignored it.

“How long's Spider played with us?” the guitarist asked Simon for me. “Three months?”

“Almost four,” Simon said. “Showed up here in . . . February, right?”

“What's his name?” the guitarist said. “He ever tell you?”

Simon frowned. “Mhambi, I heard someone call him.”

Marsha was listening without appearing to, swaying to the music's beat.

“Hey—Mhambi!” the guitarist called out playfully to the stage.

Spider ignored him, playing on. He never broke his rhythm.

The guitarist laughed, but Simon gave him a warning head shake:
Leave him alone.

“Spider only likes to talk with his hands,” Simon told me.

“Shit—me, too, if I could play like dat,” I said. “Big up to de band! Do all your friends come to hear?” Conversation about Spider seemed to make Simon jumpy. Maybe Simon suspected that Spider was more than a musician. Maybe he
knew.

Simon looked at me quizzically, taking a healthy swig. “Where are you from in Jamaica?” Simon said, and I felt a jolt of nerves. Was my accent off?

“Kingston,” I said. “By way of Canada. Haven't lived there since I was ten.”

“We met in Vancouver,” Marsha said, clasping my hand.

Simon nodded, his face impossible to read.
Time to shut up,
I decided.

It was nine o'clock. Showtime.

The line outside must have been around the corner because the room filled fast, with loud conversation above the recorded music. My ears never lost track of Spider's pattering hands. While we watched the musicians file back to the stage, Marsha wrapped her arms around my neck as if we were newlyweds.

“Knows more than he's saying,” Marsha said.

“Mos' def,” said Clarence Love.

The crowd swelled, so packed that there was barely room for dancing, only standing. To me, it was like a time-lapse scene in a movie where one object stays the same while the scenery constantly changes around it. To my eyes, Spider was the only person in the room. The longer I watched him, the more pissed off and wired I felt. While Spider chased his musical bliss, Nandi and her parents were in misery, and Roman's children were fatherless. My lips were smiling, but it was hard to keep the death ray out of my gaze.

Call the FBI,
the voice in my head insisted. But what was I supposed to tell them—that Spider was a suspect because of the way he played his drums?

“You okay here for a minute?” Marsha said to my ear at about ten thirty, when the band was in the midst of rousing classic Nigerian juju music. “Nature calls.”

The song was heavy on percussion, so Spider wouldn't be going anywhere soon.

I nodded. “Yeah. Hurry back, baby.”

I followed Marsha with my eyes only out of habit. She might be able to protect herself just fine, but she was still the woman I was sleeping with. If she had gone where she'd said she was going, I would have left it with a glance.

But she didn't.

At first, she waded toward the sign for the ladies' room, which was well lighted in the far rear of the club, beyond the stage. Then she zigzagged back toward the bar, blending in so well with the crowd that I lost sight of her. But I picked her up again—and she was nowhere near the bathroom. Instead, she was closer to the front exit, as if she might be on her way out.

“What the . . . ,” I said aloud, watching her.

Spider was practically playing a drum solo, so I left my post and followed Marsha. I gave myself thirty seconds to try to see what she was up to, and then I would be back on Spider.

Marsha danced in place for a time, and then snaked her way in yet another direction.

I got the feeling that she was following someone. But who?

Suddenly, I knew. A tallish Asian man in a gray business suit and tie
made a sudden movement, and she quickly pulled herself out of his sight in the crowd. Once his back was turned, her eyes went back to him. She reached into her purse and pulled out what looked like a BlackBerry and put it to her ear, as if she'd gotten a call. But our time tracking Simon had taught me that Marsha's “phone” was also a good camera.
Bullshit. She's taking his picture.
It was too dark for a regular camera phone, but nothing about Marsha was regular.

No one else near Marsha would have suspected, but I knew.

The drum solo ended, so I wove closer to the stage.

Spider waved to the crowd, acknowledging the applause while the rest of the band took the reins of the song. Spider was sweating. I glanced behind me toward the Asian man, and saw him grin and raise his hands above his head to clap with the appreciative crowd.

Marsha was nowhere in sight.

Someone nudged me on my left side, and I almost jumped.

“Hey,” Marsha said.

“That was fast,” I said.

“Line was too long,” she said. “I'll hold it.”

She just lied to you.
The idea rolled in my head, uglier with each repetition. It wasn't the time or place to call her on it, but I didn't like it.

The band played on. I checked Marsha's face from the corner of my eye, and just when I was about to convince myself that I was only being paranoid—that maybe I'd mistaken her for another woman in a room full of Africans—I saw her glance back toward the Asian man while she pretended to watch the film clip on the large projection screen.

Gotcha.
My jaw clenched. But I didn't have time to mull it over.

Suddenly, the music ended in one last, precise blast of sound.

“Thank you!” Simon said on the stage. “Next set in thirty minutes!”

The crowd roared disappointment and adoration. Spider was met by cheers when he rose to his feet. The rest of the band jumped down into the crowd, where patrons congratulated them with spirited handshakes and slaps on the back. Not Spider. He turned his back to the audience, climbing down unseen steps the other way. Toward the rear of the nightclub.

The hall behind the stage led to office and closet areas in two directions—and there were at least two exits that would take him outside.
Spider might not come back for the second set!

“On the move,” I said to Marsha, in case she was preoccupied with Mr. Asia.

“You flank right, I'm left,” Marsha said. “Leave me if you have to.”

And she was gone again.

At first, so was Spider. The crowd was a faceless, squirming mass.

My heart clogged my throat until I caught sight of Spider's wet, shiny scalp bobbing between patrons toward the far rear of the club. He was moving fast. I pushed myself through the tight crowd more roughly, following the drums in my chest.

DON'T LOSE HIM, OR IT'S ALL OVER.

“Hey
—,” said a man I bumped near the men's room, but I didn't linger for him to vent.

For a terrible instant, I didn't see Spider in the empty, dimly lighted hall beyond a
DO NOT ENTER
sign on the wall. Crates and tarps lined the passageway, but nothing else. No sign of Marsha either.

Click.
A feeble sound, almost beneath my hearing. A door had fallen shut! I neared the only set of double doors it could have been, marked
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
, and reached toward the back of my pants for the gun.

But I didn't have my gun. The Beretta was back in the car, useless.

A mop in a bucket, a custodian's wide broom, and a stack of chairs sat outside the door. I grabbed the broom for its thick wooden handle, as if I had sweeping to do.

Was he in there sneaking a smoke? Visiting a bathroom? It was risky to follow, but riskier not to. I tried the first of the double doors, my thumb pressing the metal release above the handle. A small tug told me it was unlocked. I opened it half an inch, without a sound, and peeked inside. Fluorescent light peeked back out. It was a large dressing room with a bank of barred windows on the rear wall. I glanced behind me for Marsha, but she hadn't turned up yet.

Just as well,
I thought. Worrying about Marsha would have split my attention. Spider was enough to occupy me.

I was so juiced on adrenaline, I barely felt my legs move as I walked inside the dressing room, which doubled as a storeroom. To my right, a small area was partitioned off as a green room with a leather sofa and a coffee table hosting a ravaged sandwich plate. Empty beer bottles stood
in a circle. Three potted ficus trees were a scraggly forest dying for light. A row of four filing cabinets in the middle of the floor were a wall of privacy.