The Sleepless (30 page)

He felt an awful shuddering coldness in his stomach. The bones had been warning him, night after night, stronger and stronger, year after year. The white-white men. The men who never closed their eyes. In Ethiopia, and in Egypt, centuries ago, they had called them watchers, the sleepless angels. 

Matthew had never been so frightened in his life. Hoarsely, he said, ‘I know you.’ 

‘You
know
us?’ asked Joseph, replacing his sunglasses, and smiling. 

‘You’re watchers, aren’t you? Seirim.’ 

Joseph laughed. ‘Sounds like you’ve been imagining things, Mr Monyatta. You’ve been dreaming dreams. We’re honest tradesmen looking for our money, that’s all.’ 

Matthew said, ‘Tell me how much money. I’ll see if I can find it for you.’ Although it was warm and stuffy in Patrice’s kitchen, Matthew was beginning to shake with cold. 

‘Four hundred and fifty.’ 

‘Is that all?’ Matthew asked, incredulous. 

‘Four hundred and fifty
thousand.’
 

Matthew touched Verna gently on the head; a blessing; a hope; a saintly wish. ‘God keep you,’ he said. Then he turned to the white-white man and said, ‘Give me some time, will you please? I can raise your money, if you give me time.’ 

‘It’s not
just
the money, Mr Monyatta,’ chipped in Bryan. 

‘What else?’ Matthew demanded. 

‘It’s the rioting,’ the man explained, whirling his hands around in the air. ‘It’s the looting, it’s the shooting, it’s the chaos.’ 

‘You want it to stop?’ 

Joseph laughed, a harsh, cracking laugh. ‘Stop? Are you crazy? We want it to carry on! We want it worse! We want windows smashed and cars torched and pigs shot down with no provocation!’ 

‘I can’t allow that,’ said Matthew, trembling, ashy-cheeked. 

‘Why not? Tell me why not?’ 

‘These are my people ... this is where they live. You’re asking them to ruin their own community. Christ knows – Christ
knows –
it was bad enough before.’ 

Joseph said, coldly, ‘Don’t you invoke the name of Christ against
me,
Mr Monyatta. If there’s one thing I hate more than a mediator, it’s a saint, and if there’s one thing I hate more than a saint, it’s a mediator who thinks he’s a saint.’ 

‘I’m just a man,’ said Matthew. ‘You don’t have anything to fear from me, except that.’ 

‘We’re not afraid of you, Mr Monyatta,’ Joseph breathed. ‘Maybe we’re watchers, maybe we’re not. But if I were you, I wouldn’t take any chances. Mmh?’ 

He said, ‘Here,’ and held out his hand to Bryan, who passed him the lighted candle. Without taking his eyes off Matthew, he twisted the butt of the candle into Verna’s bottom, and left it there. 

Matthew stared at the candle in horror, and then at Joseph. 

‘You don’t have very long, Mr Monyatta,’ Joseph told him. ‘Maybe an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Then the pain is
really
going to begin. Oh ... and don’t think of trying to persuade the police to help you. One
sniff
of
pig, one single
sniff,
and Mrs Latomba will be rocking her baby in heaven above. And I kid you not.’ 

Outside in the streets, Matthew heard a volley of gunfire, and the sound of windows breaking. He crossed himself, and said, ‘God protect me. And God protect that innocent woman. And God damn you two to hell.’ 

Bryan said, in a voice loaded with infinite menace, ‘I think it’s time for you to leave now, Mr Monyatta. Joseph and me, we’re not famous for our inexhaustible patience.’ 

Matthew took one last desperate look at Verna, with the candle-flame dipping and bobbing between her buttocks. Then he edged toward the kitchen door, and out through the living-room. He tugged open the front door and he was out in the hallway, sweating and shaking, before he knew it. 

Patrice immediately snatched at his sleeve. ‘So what’s happening?’ he wanted to know. ‘They’re letting her go, what?’ 

Matthew stared at him, his upper lip beaded with perspiration. ‘I can’t do nothing for you, man. You brought this on yourselves. You let them in, man. You let them in. You don’t have nobody to blame but you.’ 

He blundered his way along the landing, and started to tromp down the stairs. Patrice hesitated, shocked, and then ran after him. 

‘What about Verna?’ he screamed, over the banisters. 

‘God keep her safe, that’s all I can tell you.’ 

‘But what am I supposed to do?’ 

Matthew stopped halfway down the stairs. ‘They’re going to hurt her, Patrice. They’re going to hurt her in ways you never even thought of.’ 

‘That’s it! That’s it!’ Patrice screamed. He dragged out his .45 automatic and cocked it. ‘I’m going to blow their goddamned brains out! Bertrand! I’m going to blow their goddamned brains out!’ 

‘They’ll kill her before you get through the door,’ said Matthew. ‘Believe me, Patrice, you don’t know what you’re up against.’ 

‘Then what the hell do they want?’ Patrice shrieked down at him. 

‘They told you before. They want their money.’ 

‘I don’t have their money, for Christ’s sake!’ 

‘Then you’d better find out who does; or else you’d better whip up four hundred and fifty g’s, and whip it up now.’ 

‘Say
what.
Where am I going to get that kind of money?’ 

‘That’s what they want, Patrice.’ 

‘So what are you doing?’ Patrice demanded. ‘Are you walking out on me, or what? You’re just leaving me here, to deal with these cockroaches all on my own?’ 

‘Patrice – I want Verna safe and free as much as you do. But there’s nothing more I can do, not here, not unless you find that money.’ 

‘What about the man? Couldn’t you talk to the man? Listen – we’ll stop the rioting, stop the whole thing.’ 

‘They say if you bring in the man, they’ll kill her just like that.’ 

‘So what are you going to do? You’re just going to walk out?’ 

‘There’s only one thing I can do, and that’s to find out who and what we’re up against here. Then I’ll come back.’ 

With that, he continued down the stairs. 

‘Matthew!’ Patrice howled at him. ‘Matthew, you can’t leave me! I need you, man!’ 

Matthew gripped the banister rail and roared up at him, ‘They’re here! The white-white men! They’re here! Because of you! You gave them everything they wanted! You gave them everything they needed! And now you’re asking me to save you?’ 

With that, Matthew hurried heavily downstairs, and was out of the door before Patrice could answer him. 

Patrice turned to Bertrand and said, ‘The white-white men? What the hell are the white-white men?’ 

Bertrand shrugged. ‘I never heard of no white-white men.’ 

Patrice went up to his apartment door, and beat on it furiously with his fists. ‘You bastards! You lay one finger on my wife, I’m going to ice you bastards!’ 

There was no reply. Patrice turned to Bertrand and said, ‘Who took that money, man? Where the hell’s that money?’ 

Bertrand scratched, shrugged. ‘Guess we’d better ask around.’ 

Patrice smashed his fist onto the banister rail. ‘Whoever took that money, I’ll kill them! I’ll kill them!’ 

And then Verna started to cry out, ‘Patrice! Patrice! Patrice!’ 

Just before dawn, Michael saw the cat crawling out of Sissy O’Brien’s insides, yellow-eyed, skinny with human mucus, and snarling, and he woke up screaming. 

Victor, who had been dozing on the couch in the living-room, ran into the bedroom to find Michael wedged in between the bed and the wall, pummelling wildly at the wallpaper. 

‘Michael!’ he shouted at him. ‘Michael! For Christ’s sake, Michael!’ 

He caught hold of Michael’s elbow and tried to lift him up, but Michael was struggling too fiercely. 

‘Michael!’ he repeated. ‘Michael, listen to me!’ 

At last, Michael stopped thumping the wall, and turned, and stared up at him. His pupils were pinpricks and his face was frighteningly white. 

‘Michael, it’s Victor. Are you okay?’ 

Slowly, painfully, Michael eased himself up. ‘I’m okay,’ he said, after a while. ‘I just had an experience, that’s all.’ 

‘An experience? What kind of experience?’ 

Michael tried to give him awry smile. ‘If you had it, you’d call it a nightmare.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Because of my particular psychological condition ... I virtually
experience
it. It’s called post-traumatic re-enactment, something like that.’ 

‘Do you want some coffee?’ 

Michael nodded. ‘I’m sorry about this. I guess I shouldn’t have come down to the morgue yesterday. Triggered something off.’ 

‘No problem, forget it. Why don’t you talk to your shrink?’ 

‘That’s probably a good idea. But I’ll have to see him in person. I have hypnotherapy; and hypnotherapy doesn’t seem to work on the phone.’ 

Victor looked at his watch. ‘Listen – why don’t I drive down there? I could use some time off. Where did you say he was? Hyannis?’ 

Detective Ralph Brossard was nodding in front of
Genghis Khan
when the telephone rang. At first he thought it was a dream, and expected somebody else to answer it. But it went on and on, and at last he opened his eyes and realized where he was and what was happening. 

He cleared aside the half-empty boxes of chow mein and chili beef that cluttered the small table next to his La-Z-Boy armchair, and picked up the telephone. ‘I’m not here,’ he said, thickly. 

‘Ralph? Ralph, this is Newt.’ 

‘I just told you, Newt. I’m not here.’ 

‘Ralph, something weird’s come up.’ 

Ralph looked around his boxy, brown-wallpapered apartment for cigarettes, but couldn’t see any. Through the curtainless window, he could see the endless flow of early-morning traffic on the John Fitzgerald Expressway, and the gradually greying dawn over Boston Harbor, and in the window itself he could see his own ghostly reflection – even more like Ernest Hemingway now that two days’ suspension from duty had allowed him to grow some stubble. 

‘I’ve, er, I’ve had a contact from Patrice Latomba,’ said Newt. 

‘Latomba? Are you kidding me? Hold on a minute, Newt, I’ve got to find myself some smokes.’ 

In spite of Newt’s diminutive protests, Ralph dropped the receiver and collided around the living-room, picking up books and magazines and dropping them down again. At last he found a half-crushed pack of Winston in the narrow green-varnished kitchen, and he bent over the gas ring, eyes narrowed, to light himself one. 

He picked up the phone again, blowing smoke. ‘Okay, Newt, I’m with you. What’s this all about?’ 

‘Patrice Latomba says his wife Verna is being held hostage by two white guys, right in his own apartment.’ 

‘Shit! Are they
crazy?’
 

‘It doesn’t seem like it. They’ve been there since yesterday morning.’ 

‘Does he know who they are?’ 

‘He doesn’t have any idea. But he thinks that
you
may.’ 

‘How should I know who they are? I spend my life in a little box marked “Narcotics”; I don’t have anything to do with Black Muslims or African Uprising or whatever it is that Latomba’s into.’ 

‘These two white guys are saying they want their money back.’ 

‘Money? What goddamned money?’ 

‘Listen, Ralph – the money that was lost when we ambushed Jambo. It seems like somebody picked up the bag during the ambush, and now these people want it back.’ 

‘So that’s what happened to it,’ said Ralph, with smoke seething out from between his teeth. ‘Then why doesn’t he give it to them? Who gives a shit, once that money’s been out of our sight, it’s no longer admissible anyway. I mean, the department’s down four hundred and fifty big ones, but say-la-vee.’ 

‘No way, Ralph. apparently the brother who picked it up decided it was too much to share with his other brothers, and is now somewhere where his other brothers can’t immediately find him. Like, who knows, Bermuda maybe; or Las Vegas.’ 

‘So, tell Latomba to call the cops.’ 

‘Come on, Ralph, Latomba’s apartment is right in the middle of the battle zone. Latomba’s people are shooting at cops on behalf of Latomba’s dead baby, and cops are shooting back. Officially, we couldn’t mount a hostage operation on Seaver Street, without an unacceptable risk to officers and civilians. Unofficially, they wouldn’t give squat what happens to Mrs Latomba or to anyone else called Latomba.’ 

‘So what am I supposed to do about it?’ 

‘You’re supposed to give Patrice Latomba an expert helping hand in getting Mrs Latomba away from the hostage-takers, alive and well. I don’t know
how
well. Patrice says there’s been some screaming.’