JON MALLORY STEPPED OUT into the still-cool Nairobi morning shortly after 8:30. Merchants were lifting gates, sliding out carts, opening storefronts, displaying fruits and vegetables; boys stood on street corners already, selling cell phone cards and bottled water. Jon bought a copy of The Standard and a cup of coffee at a small grocery shop. He chatted with the proprietor about the weather and the local economy. Could be better, in both cases, but not bad. He walked into the park, found an open bench and sat, sipping his coffee, reading the news: local squabbles; rumors the Grand Regency Hotel had been sold to Libyan investors; internal dissent in Parliament.
After several minutes, he looked up and noticed the Renault driving past.
He waited in the park until after 9, when most of the businesses in Nairobi opened. Several blocks from the Norfolk, he went to a clothing store that sold “safari” clothes and souvenirs for tourists. Jon bought a bright yellow hooded sweatshirt with an image of a lion on it, two sizes too large, and an oversized safari hat.
For the next several hours, he traveled the city like a tourist, wearing the new sweatshirt and hat. He took a matatu to the Blixen Museum, an old stone farmhouse where Danish author Karen Blixen had lived from 1917 to 1931. Jon lingered on the terrace, looking out at the Ngong Hills, and thinking for some reason about Melanie Cross’s liquid blue eyes. He bought several books about Blixen in the gift shop, a few postcards and two pens, thinking he would give them to Melanie. He took a bus from there to the Railway Museum, where he looked at the old steam locomotives and ship models and the carriage supposedly used in 1900 to hunt the Maneater of Kima—the legendary “man-eating” lion. He lunched at the Nairobi Java House on Ndemi Road and afterward visited the Nairobi National Museum.
Everywhere Jon Mallory went, the Renault seemed to be following at a not-very-discreet distance. A subcontractor, clearly, performing cut-rate surveillance. But why?
It was after 6 when he returned to the hotel. He walked back up to his room, took off the sweatshirt and safari hat. He emptied the large shopping bag from the Blixen Museum and stuffed the sweatshirt and hat in it. Then he opened a beer and closed his eyes for several minutes, focusing his thoughts. Garden Road was about a mile from the Norfolk. It would take him maybe fifteen minutes to reach it.
SAM SULLIVAN WAS sitting at a table adjacent to the gardens of the inner courtyard, wearing a back-to-front ball cap and a wrinkled white T-shirt showing the name of his business, Occidental Safari. He was looking at the newspaper sports page as porters wearing tails and top hats hurried past.
“Sam?”
“Jon.”
Sullivan stood, the paper fell to the floor. He was about Jon’s height, maybe an inch shorter. And, despite his generous appetites, still skinny.
“Here, have a seat, old friend,” Sullivan said, although his expression still didn’t seem to register recognition. His face creased into dozens of lines as he smiled, making him seem to age twenty years. “I ordered you a lager.”
“All right, good.” Three bottles of Tusker lager were on the table, one empty, another half full. “Sorry if I’m a couple of minutes late.”
“Not at all. Have a seat, mate.”
Sam leaned over to pick up the newspaper; he seemed to straighten up with great effort, as if his back hurt.
“So how have you been? How’s business?”
“Never been better.” Creases rippled his face. “Turning people away. Tourism’s coming back like gangbusters.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“You bet. Cheers,” he said, raising his bottle. Jon smiled cordially. Last time they had met, Sam had been in the midst of a divorce and was having cash-flow troubles. He’d quit journalism to become partner in a safari hotel west of Nairobi, but he sold his stake during the divorce—staying on, he said, as the “resident manager.” There was something a little sad about Sam Sullivan, as if he were always swimming against the current, forcing a level of enthusiasm.
“In fact, we had a couple the other week from the States,” he said. “Very famous couple, evidently. Oh, I can’t think of her name.”
Mallory waited.
“Anyway, it’s been—what, five years? Four and a half?”
“Three. Nearly three.” Both men drank their beers.
“I’ve wondered about you, from time to time,” Jon said. “How you were making out. If you were still here.”
“Where else would I be?”
“Well. Nairobi hasn’t been the most hospitable place, I guess. Has it? Particularly since the elections. Still a little corruption, too, I see.” He nodded at the newspaper.
“Not much. I really don’t follow the news anymore. Don’t have time.” Sam set his beer on the table. He was grinning at something.
“What?”
“You know how Tusker got its name?”
“Tusker?”
“The beer you’re drinking. Know how it got its name?”
“I think I may have heard this—but, no, I can’t remember.”
“British chap named Hurst,” he said, keeping his eyes on Jon’s. “George Hurst. Owned a brewery here in the capital with his brother. Back in the 1920s. One day, he was hunting out in the Valley—not far from where my lodge is, actually. And the poor fellow was mauled by an elephant. Tusk went right through him. Gored him through the belly. The other brother decided he would name the beer after him. Not Hurst, mind you, the elephant.” Sam exploded in a loud, surprising laugh and reached for his bottle. “Absolutely true story, my friend.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“So anyhow.” He set his lager down, keeping a hand on it. “What’s all this about being followed?”
“I don’t know. It’s what I’m trying to figure out. I think someone’s been tailing me since I came here.”
“And you’re here for—what? Writing some sort of travel story?”
“Mmm hmm. Researching one.”
“Sure you’re not just being paranoid?”
“No. Although, in a sense, that’s what I want to find out. That’s what I want you to help me with.”
“This is the ‘proposition’?”
“Yeah. It’s a strange request, in a way. You might laugh.”
“I might. But go ahead.”
“I’d like you to help me distract them.”
“These imagined tails.”
“For just a few minutes. Fifty minutes would do. I’d pay you generously, of course.”
Sam licked his lips once, sizing up Jon Mallory. “How much did you say?”
Jon laid a legal-size envelope on the table.
Sam lifted it and discreetly counted the notes—twenty-seven thousand Kenyan shillings, about $300. More than Jon could easily afford, but he was gambling it would pay off.
“Okay.” Sam shrugged. “Not bad, I suppose, for fifty minutes’ work.”
“Not even work, really. I just want you to walk. Up and down University Way and Koinange Street. Stop at a bistro, if you’d like, have another lager, maybe a bowl of chowder.”
Sullivan laughed. “Now you’re starting to sound a little deranged, mate.”
“Will you do it?”
“Of course I’ll do it,” he said, tucking the envelope into his pants pocket. Then he waved the waiter over for more lagers. “But would you mind telling me why this is worth twenty-seven thousand shillings to you?”
“I just want you to divert attention.”
“From you.”
“Right.”
Sullivan sized him up all over again, as if he were someone different now. He waited until the new bottles and coasters were on the table and the waiter was gone before speaking again.
“I won’t pry into your business, mate, but how do I know I can trust you? I mean, I’m not going to get killed, am I?”
“No, of course not. Stay on the main roads. Go to public places. No one wants to kill me. They just want to follow me. To see where I’m going.”
“Why?”
“Good question.”
“Yeah.” He drank from the new beer. “And here’s another one: How are we going to make them think I’m you?”
Mallory slid the bag across to him under the table. Sam peered inside.
“Stop in the men’s room by the entrance before you go out. Take the bag with you, and put on the sweatshirt and the hat. Then go out. Stay on the main roads, as I say. Return here in one hour. Go back in the rest room, leave the sweatshirt and hat in the bag, then join me back here in the bar.”
Sam’s smile turned to a hard, grim expression. “Well. If it’s worth twenty-seven thousand to you, I imagine it’d also be worth fifty thousand shillings. Considering the risks I’ll be taking.”
“Probably would,” Jon said. “Except I don’t have fifty thousand.” He sighed and pulled several bills from his pocket, leaving him with just a few hundred shillings.
Sam Sullivan took the money. Jon looked at his watch.
“Okay? So we meet back here at 8:15.”
“Okay.”
Sam took the bag and walked to the men’s room. Jon watched him as he emerged a few minutes later wearing the bright yellow sweatshirt and safari hat. He walked outside without a look back. Good. Jon signed for his bill and walked up the staircase to the second-floor landing, where he could see the street in front of the hotel. Sullivan crossed the road to the shadows on the other side. Moments later, the Renault started up and began to inch along a half block behind him. Jon returned to his room, dressed in a black T-shirt. He went to the back of the lobby and pushed the elevator button. Hurried down the hallway to a servants entrance and the night.
Outside, he stayed in the shadows—alleyways, awnings, tall buildings—walking past markets and shuttered apartments. The night sky was dark and cloudy. If it took ten minutes to reach 3C Garden Road, that gave him twenty-five minutes to find whatever had been left for him.