The Illegal (26 page)

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Today. I’m in a meeting now. I have to go.”

“Wait. I didn’t give you the number yet.”

“It’s on my cell. That the one?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, later.”

Darlene.
It would be dangerous to meet her—but even more dangerous not to. As long as he didn’t do anything stupid—touch her, sleep with her. As long as he did nothing that could destroy his political career, meeting Darlene might actually give Rocco some ammunition. He needed something the PM didn’t have. Something Geoffrey Moore didn’t have. Shit was going to fall, and he didn’t want to get rained on.

A
FEW NIGHTS AFTER HIS DATE WITH
C
ANDACE,
Keita ran to an all-night Internet café, where in his email he found another message from Anton Hamm. The subject line was “Pay Up!” Hamm gave Keita a new deadline: he still owed four thousand dollars on April 25 but the remaining six thousand was now due by May 7. Anton Hamm had to know that there was only one race in Freedom State offering a big purse before May 7: the Grant Valley Half-Marathon on May 6.

Keita was already planning to run that race, but if he won—and he
had
to win—the twelve-thousand-dollar prize would not be going to Anton Hamm. He would have enough, with his winnings from the Buttersby Marathon, to pay his sister’s ransom immediately. He sent an email to George Maxwell.

Dear Mr. Maxwell,

May I have news of my sister? Reassurance that she is okay? Ask her, please, what nickname did she go by as a child?

Keita Ali

Keita received the correct reply within minutes.

Dear Mr. Ali,

You called her “LouBelle.” We will provide the banking information prior to your deadline of June 22.

George Maxwell

Maxwell and his co-conspirators were no idiots. They knew that June 22 was the day after the annual Clarkson Ten-Miler—offering the best prize money in Freedom State. If he did not raise that money, he’d never see his sister again.

Keita had to question his own judgment. Out of loneliness, he had let down his guard and slept with a woman who turned out to be a police officer. She knew his real name. But if she had known who he was before their night together, could she not have arrested him earlier? And how stupid could he be? In the long term, no woman could be attracted to a man like him, who had no roots, no permanency.

Keita left the café and ran back to Elixir Bridge Road. His hernia ached, and the dizziness he had been feeling lately while running was back. He wanted only to climb into bed and sleep. How could he win the Grant Valley Half-Marathon feeling this rotten? He would have to run it in under sixty-one minutes to have a chance of winning, and he did not feel capable.

When he let himself in the front door, Ivernia startled him. She was sitting in the front hall, waiting.

“It’s two in the morning,” he said. “Why are you up?”

“I sat here all evening waiting for you. Worrying. And I waited for you earlier this week, too. You said you would make meals three times a week, but for days you have forgotten the deal.”

Keita was not prepared for this. “I have had a stressful time, and the meal escaped my thinking.”

“Well, it didn’t escape mine. Are you or are you not able to live up to your end of the bargain?”

“Yes, for sure,” he said, but he did not feel it. He felt capable of living up to no obligations whatsoever. All he felt was the need to win some races and to get together the money for Charity.

“Is that all you have to say?” she asked.

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t sound sorry.”

“I wish I had remembered to cook your meal. But you have food here.”

“That’s not the point.”

“You could have fixed yourself something to eat. You’ve been doing it all these years.”

She slapped a newspaper down on the coffee table, startling him. “Exactly. And I hate that. I don’t feel like eating alone anymore. I can’t stand the thought of it. You said you would cook for me. I was counting on it.”

“I’m an imperfect house guest. Do you want me to leave?”

“Leave? Are you crazy?”

“I am truly sorry that I forgot about the meals. I’ll make it up to you.”

“I hope she was worth it.”

“Pardon?”

“You heard me. When you’re out this late, there could only be one reason. So was she worth it?”

“I thought so initially,” Keita said. “But I cannot afford to take such pleasures. In retrospect, it would have been better not to go out.” He grinned. “I should have stayed in and washed my socks.”

“You should have stayed in and washed
my
socks.”

They laughed.

“When is your next race?” Ivernia asked.

“In about three weeks, I will run the Grant Valley Half-Marathon.”

“I’ll come out and cheer you on.”

V
IOLA
H
ILL COULD FEEL HER TRICEPS BURN AS SHE
crested the hill at the end of her first loop of Ruddings Park. On Sunday mornings, the park’s Perimeter Road was closed to traffic, so she flew past walkers, joggers and slow cyclists. People didn’t anticipate a wheelchair athlete racing up behind them, so she kept her whistle hanging from a string around her neck. One loop to go. Ten more kilometres. She could cover that in less than thirty-five minutes and would have the afternoon free to dig into her story.

That story about Yvette Peters was her ticket to success. Who was that girl? If she was born in Freedom State, why was she deported so rapidly? Had there been no effort to check her identity? Viola knew that in every story, there was somebody getting screwed and somebody doing the screwing. Peters had been screwed. And then deported. And then executed. Fine. But who did it to her? It had to come down to some sort of decision in the immigration department. But who wanted to see her gone, and why? She needed an interview with the immigration minister. She had called the schmuck five times already.

Viola coasted down a hill, negotiated the curve at the bottom and came into a flat, isolated section of the park. A couple of hundred metres ahead on her left, a van was parked illegally on the side of the road. The driver’s door was open. It was not a park vehicle. And the road was supposed to be closed to traffic today.

She coasted, slowed down and put the whistle in her mouth. Then she saw it. A commotion on the grass, just beyond the van. One man was kicking another, who was down on the ground. The aggressor was shouting. Viola let it rip: two super-shrill blasts of her whistle, followed by two more. The attacker scrambled into the van, and then it screamed down the road.

Viola pulled up beside the victim. Slim black man. Face down, with hands around his head and knees pulled up under his chest. He rolled onto his back. Groaned. His face was bleeding. Keita Ali! In his running gear. No knapsack. No way in hell’s half acre had this sonofabitch been rolled for a dollar.

W
HEN
A
NTON
H
AMM THREW HIM TO THE GROUND,
K
EITA
tried to imagine that it was a friend roughhousing with him in the schoolyard. Hamm went for his stomach and his face. Keita raised his forearms to protect himself, and Hamm kicked them too. Kicked so hard he lost his wind and could not breathe. Was Hamm going to kill him? Was this it? Had he been interrupted in the last run of his life? Hamm kept shouting. It was hard to concentrate, to pick up the words, amid the pain of the blows.

“Deliver, you bastard,” he shouted. “Ten thousand dollars, or you will never run again.”

Keita heard the shrieking whistle. A whistle, but no cars and no voices. He waited for the sirens, for the officers, for the handcuffs. Now they would send him home—if you could give that name,
home
, to the country that had killed your father and kidnapped your sister. He would be no good to Charity if he was in prison too. They would both end up dead. Their bodies would be deposited naked in the square in the heart of Yagwa, but nobody would come for them.

“Hey, man, are you alive down there?”

A woman’s voice. It seemed vaguely familiar. He could not place it.

“Earth to Keita Ali or whoever you are, do you read me?”

Keita heard the squeak of a brake and a grunt, and then he felt a body crawling up to him, pushing his shoulder.

“For you, I got out of my wheelchair and hauled my ass over wet grass. So would you do me the service of opening your eyes and telling me whether or not you plan to live or die?”

Keita opened his eyes. He felt warmth on his face. He wiped it off and looked at his hand, red and wet. He was bleeding from his lip and eyebrow. He rubbed his face again and looked at the woman who was lying on the ground beside him. A black woman. Her legs ended in stumps at her upper thighs. Her arms were sculpted like a weightlifter’s. She was in training gear.

“Let’s start with basics,” she said. “Do you know who you are?”

“Keita Ali.”

“Is that truly your name, or did you make up that one too?”

“It’s real.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Ruddings Park.”

“Do you know who did this to you?”

“No.”

“How about this. Do you remember me? Viola Hill.
Clarkson Evening Telegram
.”

Keita did remember. She had written the story about his race in Buttersby. And about the girl who had been wrongly deported to Zantoroland. Since then she had emailed him repeatedly, asking for an interview.

She flipped open a cellphone and took his picture. He was too weak to protest.

“Shall I call 911?”

He was suddenly very cold: it was just fifteen degrees Celsius at seven thirty in the morning, and he was lying on the wet morning grass wearing nothing but shoes, shorts and singlet. He told her that she would be doing him a grave disservice by calling the police.

She asked if he could get up. He struggled to his knees, while she
rolled over twice to reach the side of her chair and hoisted herself back up on the seat.

“You are in shape,” he said.

“Yes, Mr. Roger Bannister, I am in shape, and at this moment in slightly better condition than you. Here”—she pulled a knapsack from the back of her chair, removed a water bottle and a cloth and handed these to him—“I come prepared for all eventualities,” she said. “If you don’t wish to attract attention, rinse the blood off your face and apply some pressure.”

Keita took the bottle. The water stung, but he squirted and wiped until his face felt clean.

“That guy really pummelled you,” she said. “How do you feel?”

“Sore,” he said, “but nothing broken.”

“It was Anton Hamm, wasn’t it?”

Keita said nothing.

“You’re lucky he didn’t kill you. Why was he beating up on you?”

“Don’t know.”

“You lie! What did he want?”

“No idea.”

“He wants money from you, doesn’t he? But he doesn’t want to hurt you too bad, because you’re his meal ticket. Is that it?”

It didn’t hurt any more to walk than it had to lie down and take the blows. As he walked and then began to jog along the road, Viola Hill wheeled along beside him.

“Come on, why did he do this to you?”

“Private matter,” Keita said.

“Buddy, I just spared you the worst part of a mugging.”

“Thank you. But you write for a newspaper, and I know what that means. My father was a newspaper man.”

“Not the famous Zantorolander journalist Yoyo Ali?”

“Yes. He was my father.”

“You’re kidding. What do you mean,
was
?”

“He died recently.”

“How did he die?”

“He was murdered.”

“Jesus. That’s awful. I’m so sorry. Does the world know about this?”

“No. But . . . I have to go now.”

“Why was your father murdered, Keita?”

“Look, I’ll answer if you promise not to write anything about what happened to me today. If this gets out, people will think I can’t run anymore, and my sister’s life could be in danger.”

“All right, talk.”

“My father was working on a story. Something to do with corruption tying Zantoroland to Freedom State.”

“What kind of corruption?”

“Not sure. Freedom State officials were paying off their colleagues in Zantoroland. Something to do with refugees.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all I know.”

“Who was he writing it for? Someone must have details.”

“There was a Canadian journalist who knew my father for many years. They were good friends. He might have an idea.”

“Name?”

“Mahatma Grafton.”

“Where is he?”

“I think he’s an editor with the
New York Times
.”

“What’s your relationship with Anton Hamm?”

“He was my agent. But I fled from him, and now he says I owe him money.”

“Why did you flee?”

“He would have sent me back to Zantoroland, and I would have been killed.”

“Why?”

“Being the son of a dissident is like being the dissident himself.”

“Who killed your father?”

“His body was left in the fountain of the public square in Yagwa. Check with Amnesty International. This is how the authorities in
Zantoroland always dispose of the bodies of their dissidents. And now they have jailed my sister, Charity.”

“Unbelievable. What do they want from her?”

“They want me to pay ransom money.”

“How much?”

“Fifteen thousand dollars.”

“So Hamm is after you for money, and so are the Zantoroland officials?”

“Yes. But you can’t write about that. My sister’s life is at stake.”

“Holy shit.”

Keita began to pull ahead of her. “I really must leave you now. Thank you for saving me.”

With that, Keita Ali headed off across fields that Viola could not traverse in her wheelchair.

R
OCCO AGREED TO MEET
D
ARLENE IN THE SAFEST
place that he could imagine: the running path by the reservoir deep in the heart of Ruddings Park. There couldn’t be recording bugs there. And if anybody was following them, Rocco would notice. He wore his running shoes, shorts and shirt. He carried his house keys and five hundred in cash in a fanny pack. And no ID.

Darlene showed up on time. She wore runners too, and sweatpants and a sweater with the hood pulled up.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Citizenship papers.”

“Can’t help with that.”

“Yes you can. You’re the fucking immigration minister. And I also need money.”

“Why?”

“My money was stolen from my apartment. I can’t even go get my clothes. They’ll be watching my place.”

“Who?”

“Lula. Or the government people. I’m not sure. Some guy stole my stuff and came after me with a gun.”

“I was threatened recently too.”

“Really?” she said. “Was the guy black?”

“No, he was white and huge.”

“Serves you right. You sent away my friend. And she died in Zantoroland.”

“I didn’t send her away.”

“Somebody did.”

“Yeah, and I’m trying to find out who. But you have to tell me what you know.”

“The story’s yours—in exchange for my papers.”

“You think I just dash off passports and citizenship cards on a notepad? I can give you money, but that’s it.”

Rocco pulled five hundred dollars from his fanny pack and gave it to Darlene.

Darlene said she had been out back behind the Bombay Booty smoking under a tree the night Yvette entertained the prime minister.

“The prime minister?”

“It was Graeme Wellington. Believe me.”

Darlene told him about the man in a car marked
Reliable Security Services
. She’d gotten a good look when Lula went out to speak with him. Tall, about six-three. White. Four-inch scar like a pickle carved down his right cheek. Brown hair. Buzz cut. Maybe forty, forty-five. Solid build, like he did time in the gym.

“He went straight upstairs and came back down in five minutes, with Yvette in handcuffs. The girl was crying, but not resisting, because there wasn’t a thing she could do.”

“Is that it?” Rocco asked.

“No, that ain’t quite.”

A week later, Darlene said, Lula took her aside. “I want you to treat a client extra special, extra nice. Give him everything he wants, and more. This a man we have to please.”

Darlene knew better than to ask why. She just got ready and went to meet him. He was the man with the scar running down his cheek. She gave him what he wanted and then got him talking.

“Hope you satisfied,” she had told him.

“Hell, yes,” he said with a grin.

“Better than you get at home?” she said.

“Since I live alone.”

“I ain’t seen you here before,” she said. “Maybe you could ask for Darlene again, so Miss Lula know I’m popular and desired around here.”

“Don’t know if I’ll be coming back.”

“Expensive, I guess.”

“It’s not that. A freebie for me, here.”

“You extra important?”

“Not in the grand scheme of things. I’m a runner.”

“You run marathons?”

“No. I run people to the airport. Then someone else takes ’em right through security and gets ’em on planes.”

“You police?”

“No. Private security, but I do just as good as any cop when it comes to deportations. I’ll say something nice about you on the way out. And have yourself a good night,” he said.

Darlene said to Rocco, “That’s what the fucker who took away Yvette Peters said to me.
Have yourself a good night
.”

Rocco wasn’t sure about any of this. How credible was she? She had told him the company name on the vehicle used to seize and deport Illegals. She’d mentioned that the guy was private security, not a cop, and it was true that the government used a private contractor to take deportees to the airport. He didn’t know what this was all about, but he knew one thing for sure. He had recently, and discreetly, interviewed the head of security for his own immigration department, and not a single person working for him had issued or carried out the order to deport Yvette Peters.

“I got something else for you,” Darlene said. “But I need papers.”

“I told you—I can’t do that.”

“You know the time you came to see me? In the Bombay Booty?”

“What about it?” Rocco said.

“It was videotaped. The whole thing. On Lula’s say-so.”

Rocco stared at Darlene. “If that tape gets out, or if the PM gets hold of it, my career is over.”

“I have an idea about how to get it. How about those papers of mine?”

“Your papers are looking a little more possible.”

“And don’t worry about the prime minister. He’ll be keeping his own mouth shut,” Darlene said.

“Why is that?”

“He was videotaped too. On the night he was with Yvette.”