The Illegal (24 page)

While they ate the fabulous Poulet Chez Yoyo, Ivernia had two glasses of wine. Keita stuck to water.

“I see that you eat slowly and chew your food carefully,” she said.

“Yes, I can appreciate it more that way.”

“Do you never drink?” she asked.

“Rarely.”

“Why not?” she asked.

It would interfere with his training, he said. But in truth, he knew lots of runners who drank, at least from time to time. Mostly, he didn’t drink because he was afraid he would not be in control of his faculties at the very moment he might need them. He couldn’t forget that he was in hiding, and that he might be found at any moment.

The doorbell rang. Ivernia sighed, pushed herself up from her chair, walked to the door and opened it. Keita heard a voice before he could see the man.

“Mother, if you just gave me a key, this would not be necessary.”

“Could you come another time?”

“Smells good. Who’s cooking? You have company, don’t you? Who is it?”

“Jimmy—”

Keita heard footsteps in the hall, and Ivernia’s son walked into the kitchen.

“Hello,” Keita said to a man with long grey hair pulled back in a ponytail.

Jimmy wore jeans and a leather motorcycle jacket. His tiny blue eyes were almost buried under a protruding brow. It was as if his brow were a cliff and the eyes were birds hiding underneath the ledge. Keita had imagined that Ivernia’s son would be boyish. But that was silly, of course, because she was an old woman. Though her son was dressed like a busker, he was pushing sixty.

“Who are you?” the son said.

“Roger,” Keita said. He stood up to shake the son’s hand, but the man turned away.

“Mom, who is this?”

“Ivernia,” Keita said. “Thank you very much for the dinner. I shall leave you to your visitor.” Suddenly, it seemed paramount that the son not discover that Keita was living there.

Ivernia put her hand on his shoulder. “Sit down. I haven’t served coffee yet. Or dessert.”

“Mother,” Jimmy said, “what is this man doing here?”

“I prepared for your mother a delicious dish,” Keita said, “with chicken, vegetables and peanut . . .”

Jimmy put his palm up. “You ate, I got it. Mother, is this a home invasion?”

“I’ll show you a home invasion,” Ivernia said. She left the room, returned with a broom and whacked her son on the knee.

“Ouch. Oh come on, Mom, stop that.”

“Get out, Jimmy. You cannot bust into my house and boss around my guests.”

“Okay, okay. Who is he? Just tell me that and I’ll go.”

“Roger,” she said.

“Roger who?”

“Roger Bannister.”

“Very funny. How did he get in here?”

“He came up the stairs.”

“Up the stairs? He broke into the basement and came up to get you?”

“Jimmy, he lives here. He lives with me. He is renting a room in the basement. And you are on your way out.”

Ivernia took her son’s arm and led him out the door. Keita was astonished. In his country, you had to worry about thugs and politicians showing up at the door. Here, sons invaded their mothers’ homes, and mothers hit their sons with brooms! Keita did not tell her that in his own country, a son behaving so rudely to his mother would be shunned.

W
HAT
I
VERNIA DID NOT TELL
K
EITA WAS THAT HER SON HAD
contacted government authorities on numerous occasions. Jimmy had not held a proper job in thirty years, but he could fire off letters of complaint with the best of them. And he was not above firing off another.

After they had finished washing the dishes, Keita said good night and went downstairs to his room. Minutes later, the doorbell rang again. Ivernia went to the door and looked through the peephole. A police officer!

“Is everything all right?” he said, when she opened the door.

“Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“We had a report that you were acting irrationally and had an unwelcome visitor.” He checked his notes. “A black man, possibly from AfricTown.”

“My son must have called you. I am fine, and there is no invasion.”

“Then why did he call?”

“My son is angry because I won’t let him stay. He wants to take over my bank accounts and house and run my life. He is pushing sixty years of age, and he has the emotional development of a six-year-old.”

The officer smiled. “Sounds like my staff sergeant. Sure you’re all right?” He searched her face.

“I’m just peachy, apart from the fact that I’m five steps from the grave and my arthritis is acting up.” Ivernia did not actually have arthritis, but it seemed like a convincing thing to say.

The officer smiled. “Well, madam, it’s good to know you’re okay, and now I have one less thing to do.”

“Always good to hack away at that to-do list,” she said.

“Keep your doors locked,” the officer said. “You can never be too safe.”

“I’ve never felt safer. Good night.”

I
N THE COMMUNITY PAPER AT
I
VERNIA’S HOUSE,
K
EITA
noticed an advertisement for the 5K Clarkson City Fun Run, which offered each of the top male and female runners a five-hundred-dollar gift certificate to a running equipment store. That seemed like a good bet, and a place to start.

Anton Hamm would have to wait. First, Keita had to rescue Charity. He would make a bit from his monthly salary from Ivernia Beech, but that was far from enough. To earn the rest from races, he would have to keep well fed, rested and fit. Keita needed new shoes and knew they would help him avoid injury, but he didn’t want to touch his savings.

The next day, Keita paid ten dollars to enter the race and get a bib and a computer chip for his running shoe. He edged to the starting line, where a thousand runners waited for the starter’s gun. The key to a local race was to win, but not by such a margin that he drew much attention.

The gun went off, and Keita spotted a lithe black man among the front runners. Smooth stride. Landing easily on the balls of his feet. Damn. Keita had competition. He ran right behind the pack of front runners to get a good look at them. He could tell almost everything he needed to know by watching the runners for four hundred metres. Two looked like high school students who would fall off the pace within a kilometre. Two others were already breathing hard and slapping the pavement. But the lithe runner meant
business. No socks in his racing shoes. An easy, smooth gait. Arms pumping efficiently. Keita couldn’t hear his breath.

By the second kilometre, the four Freedom Statonians had fallen off the lead, and it was just the African, with Keita keeping watch a few metres behind. At the midpoint of the race, Keita decided to surge up a hill and throw in a 2:45 kilometre, to see if his competitor could follow. The man was young. He looked like a university student, perhaps brought over on scholarship. He stuck right to Keita’s shoulder. Keita then ran a 2:40 kilometre, and he was hurting, and when it was nearly done, with just five hundred metres to go, the competitor was still on his shoulder. One hundred metres from the finishing line, the opponent kicked and Keita could not respond. The other runner pulled ten metres ahead and crossed the finish line first. The winner fell into a light jog after the race, heading back out in the direction of the finishing runners—the third-place runner was more than a minute behind. Keita ran out with him and shook his hand.

“Good race,” Keita said.

“Thanks, man, you’re damn fit too.”

“On scholarship?”

“Yes, in Texas. I flew into Freedom State for a week, to visit my aunt. She paid for the trip.”

“What do you run in Texas?”

“The 5K is my specialty,” the fellow said.

“Just my luck,” Keita said. “Where are you from?”

“Kenya. You?”

“Zantoroland.”

“On scholarship?” the fellow asked.

“Just living here now, trying to stay fit.”

“Well, take my word for it, you made me run hard today.”

“Obviously, I didn’t make you run hard enough.”

“You’re the marathoner who won at Buttersby, aren’t you?”

Keita nodded.

“Runners are talking about you. You’re the one who skipped out on Anton Hamm, right?”

“He isn’t too pleased,” Keita said.

“Well, he has a terrible reputation, so you did well to leave him.”

The Kenyan from Texas scooped up the prize. Unfortunately, there was no second prize, although volunteers barbecued hamburgers and served coffee and pop.

A woman moved in beside Keita to take a hamburger and gave him a smile. He had seen her before. Young, confident, coffee-coloured complexion. He had seen her cross the finish line: first female finisher and fourth overall.

“Good run,” he said. “Congratulations.”

“Right back at you. You were second, right?”

“That’s right.”

“What time did you run?”

“Thirteen minutes, fifty-six seconds,” Keita said.

“You broke the course record by almost four minutes,” she said.

“Technically, the guy who broke the course record was the winner.”

“You broke it too; you just didn’t win.”

“What was your time?” Keita asked.

“Seventeen minutes, fifty-seven seconds.”

“So you broke the course record too.”

“I did.”

“So you get the five-hundred-dollar gift certificate?”

“Actually, eight hundred. They threw in another three hundred for breaking the record.”

“You can get a whole lot of stuff with that.”

She smiled. “It’s a good prize. But I’ve pretty well got the shoes and stuff I need.”

“I’d been hoping for that prize too, but a better man came out today.”

She smiled and put her hands on her hips. “Didn’t you win the Buttersby Marathon in some crazy record time? You high-fived me on the big hill. I was fifty minutes behind you at the finish line.”

Keita suddenly remembered her and the way her hand touched
his during the marathon. He laughed. “Are you training for a particular race?”

“I’ve got my eye on a fifteen hundred metres later this summer. I’m doing some longer races these days, for endurance.”

“Do you get much for winning?” he said.

“Kudos from all my bosses and hopefully a promotion down the road. Got any tips for me? On how to run faster?” She gave a friendly smile.

“Sure. When you are tired and ready to give up? That’s the time to go faster.”

She touched his elbow. “You’re funny.”

“Or you could follow a strategy that works well for me,” he said.

“And what might that be?”

“Start out real slow, and then slow down.”

“Right, like you know anything about that.” She laughed easily and energetically in a way that caused a stirring in Keita’s groin. “Say, would you like to go out for an easy jog sometime? On a weekend, maybe?”

“Perhaps sometime,” Keita said.

“Okay, perhaps I’ll catch you a bit later,” she said, sliding away into the crowd.

Keita ate another hamburger, drank three bottles of water, and left.

Later that day, he found a handwritten note in the open, outside pocket of his knapsack.
Congrats again on the run. Give me a call if you’d like to go for an easy jog sometime. Saturday mornings are good. I don’t need this, so enjoy. Candace Freixa, 555-588-2345
. Folded into the note was her gift certificate to the running equipment store.

C
ANDACE DIDN’T THINK HE WOULD CALL.
H
E HAD SEEMED
shy, and he had given the impression that he barely noticed her. Guys talked her up all the time. They stared at her breasts, checked out her ass, but that’s all they cared about. If a guy was hitting on Candace
Freixa, then he was almost certainly the wrong type of guy. But something in the way the marathoner held himself, looking into her eyes, not gazing at her chest, and the way he laughed when she said she knew he had won the Buttersby Marathon, made her think he would be fun to get to know. Okay, that might have been too much, folding the gift certificate into his pocket. But no harm done.

Candace had grown up in AfricTown among pickpockets and had picked a few dozen pockets herself by the time she got caught at age thirteen and taken to youth court. Fortunately, she was let off with a warning and paired with the world’s best social worker. If it hadn’t been for that social worker, Candace might never have joined a track club or even finished high school. Or studied criminology. Or become a police officer, with a decent salary, on the community patrol. Riding a bike. Riding a horse. Walking the streets. They used her for all the roles that made her visible.
See?
her police force seemed desperate to trumpet.
See the black woman in uniform? See how we are a multicultural police force?

Candace had been on the force for five years and had made sergeant. Well, with some luck, she’d get off the security detail soon. People often assumed she was Portuguese, like her mother. But her looks worked in the police force. They loved the black in her. She was ethnic, young, had a BA and an MA, and knew lots of people in the worst parts of town—all these things made her a catch in their eyes. These days they had her attending some press conferences, and she assumed they were grooming her for a role as a public face of the police force. Already, she had taken advantage of professional development opportunities to ride a horse, learn martial arts and pass a test as an advanced markswoman. She would bide her time until they let her transfer. Public Affairs. That would be an ideal job for a people person like Candace. Staff sergeant of Public Affairs in five years—that was her goal!

Her phone rang at eight the next Saturday morning. Someone was calling from a pay phone. Nobody used pay phones any more. Germs! And who didn’t have a cellphone? Usually, if her phone
didn’t display the caller as someone she knew, she let it go to her answering machine. But this time, she answered, hoping.

“Hello, Miss Candace,” an accented male voice said. “We met at the 5K race.”

Miss Candace
? Who spoke like that? “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Keita. The marathoner. We met at the 5K race.”

“Oh, now I’ve got it. Hey!”

“Thank you for the gift certificate. With it, I bought four pairs of shoes. And twelve socks. Pairs, I mean. And two pairs of running shorts and a watch.”

“That’s a good haul. But why four pairs of shoes?”

“All the same kind. Hard to find, and they had a special, twenty percent off, so I wanted to capitalize on the opportunity.”

She giggled. “Good thing. We all have to capitalize on opportunities.” She let that hang in the air.

He cleared his throat but said nothing.

“Well, were you calling for a reason?”

“To thank you . . . for the gift certificate.”

“Anything else?” Damn. Too pushy. Far too pushy. Could she just back off and give him some room?

“Would you like to go for a run, and then—how do you say it—a Tim’s?”

It was funny to hear this cute, slender-as-a-rake fellow with the Zantoroland accent and polite diction asking her if she wanted to accompany him to the cheapest coffee chain in the world. Tim Hortons had been popularized a continent away, in Canada, before spreading around the world and even across Freedom State. Everybody in Freedom State loved Tim’s now, and if you showed up at peak hours, you could wait fifteen minutes just for coffee. Well, Candace didn’t have time for that. Forget it. A job, her professional development courses, her training, a leering boss who had to be backed off every day . . . Candace had no time for lineups at Tim’s. Except, maybe, this one time.

“Sure, Keita, I would love that. When did you have in mind?”

“I have to do some housecleaning for a friend, so how about today at three, at the Freedom Gates entrance to Ruddings Park?”

What sort of guy would call up a woman and expect a date the same day? But then, this wasn’t really a date. It was a run and a coffee. Why not?

“I happen to have the day off, so sure, I can meet you then.”

“All right, Candace, I will see you at the aforementioned time and place.”

She giggled again.
Aforementioned
? “Okay, Keita, see you then.”

H
E TURNED UP ON TIME, IN HIS RUNNING GEAR.
H
E WAS NOT
tall—about five foot eight, she guessed, just three inches taller than she was. Three inches was a good height differential for . . . lovemaking. Stop it. Stop it right now. He was as slender as she remembered, but his calves and thighs looked as hard as rocks. Many guys wore formless shorts that dropped down to the knee. Ug-
ly
. But Keita’s shorts were the real thing, revealing much of the thigh and slit at the sides for comfort. Thin as he was, he also had a rounded, ample ass that Candace thought would hold up well under inspection. He kept a small pack strapped to the small of his waist.

“You rarely see elite athletes with a fanny pack,” she said.

He reached out to shake her hand and then kissed her lightly on each cheek. He was from another continent, that was for damn sure. But it was charming. No real pressure to the kiss, but at least it was a
real
kiss—not an air kiss, which was disgusting and fraudulent.

“It’s for my key plus some change for Tim’s, and sometimes I put an apple in there.”

She hoped that he wouldn’t run her into the ground. Some guys could be strange about running with a woman. They’d either kill themselves to keep up or try to run her ragged. But she had a strategy. If some dude was getting too competitive, she would just back off the pace. Slow down. Let him run ahead.

He noticed that she was holding her car key.

“I’ll put that in my fanny pack if you want,” he said.

Candace liked an observant guy. And she let him do it.

He had virtually no hair on his legs. She wondered if his ass was that smooth. She hadn’t been laid in . . . how long was it now? Stop it, Candace, stop it right now. We’re out for a run here. A pleasant, friendly run in Ruddings Park, with the promise of a coffee afterwards. A run and a coffee, and that’s all.

They broke into an easy jog, just right for warming up.

“I usually run alone,” he said. “So why don’t you set a pace that’s comfortable for you?”

She gave him an A-plus for that, and set out at a pace of 4:20 per kilometre—slow enough for easy conversation. Ruddings was one of the most beautiful parks in the world. Some local arts dealer had persuaded the park authorities to purchase a dozen large serpentine sculptures from Zimbabwe, so the striking, curved forms would come into view from time to time as they ran the ten-kilometre path circling the park.

“Would you like to run two loops?” he asked. Each loop had two big hills and passed at points through dense woods.

“Two loops sounds great.”

She asked him if he minded running slowly. No, he said, it was perfect like this.

“How could it be perfect,” she asked, “when you can run a sub-2:10 marathon?”

“For me,” he said, “this run is a perfect warm-down.”

“Warm-down,” she said. “What do you mean?”