Black Mischief (35 page)

Her joy was to be back on stage with Mary and the band.

Tom had seen Rebecca on stage many times, but for Lydia, being in the heart of a great city, in the company of so many smart, sophisticated and rich concert-goers was overwhelming. It could not be happening. What would it be like when her new friend actually appeared on the stage?

For Lydia and for many others who sat entranced as they looked up at the ‘black angel', as the woman in the next seat described Rebecca, the sounds they heard from the mouths and instruments of those supercharged Africans were almost otherworldly. Audience and performers inspired each other to undreamed of heights. After all, this was just another concert in a city where there were a hundred concerts happening on any given night.

A standing audience drowned out the sound of much of the final encore. Toni and his boys were considered to be the best of the African bands seen in New York for years. Toni himself was a gifted composer and in his lyrics he captured the heart and soul of his beloved homeland, a spiritual experience for a spiritual space. But when Rebecca Kamau stood up in front of a packed house, those ten men and Mary, Rebecca's best friend, who shared their duets, reached levels of brilliance that had them in awe of themselves. They had broken through to the place where, for a few moments, they tasted the pure essence of what music can mean.

Not far away from Tom and an emotional Lydia, Debbie Miller was sitting, head down and weeping. What she had seen and heard had disturbed her. She was a proud American and loved her New England life, but the foundations of her confidence in the rightness of these privileges were rocked. Africa, Kenya, Nairobi. What had she lost?

At last, the audience began to move away. Barnie and Phoebe smiled at each other. Mama held her daughter's hand while Papa leaned back and looked around. He and Tom recognised each other. Barnie cupped his hands to his lips and said quietly, with a smile, ‘Look what your girl has done to our girl. Musical dynamite! But hey, it's still on to meet Rebecca?'

‘Yep. Give me five minutes and I'll come and fetch you.'

Two long sobs and Debbie was sitting upright. She shook her head and laughed gently.

‘Okay, I'm coming back. Sorry about that, folks.'

‘Sweetheart, I envy you.'

‘Strange thing, I've heard most of those songs a dozen times and more, but being here, well, I wish life could stay like this. No, I don't! My heart couldn't cope. Tell you something. I'm not sure if I want to meet her.'

‘And break the spell?'

‘No, Mom. I wonder what I could say.'

Barnie soon sorted his daughter's dilemma. ‘Okay, it's getting late. Let's go straight to bed.'

‘No, no!'

‘So when you meet the Queen of the Night, just tell her that you think she has a very pretty voice and curtsy. Debbie, I think you may be in for a surprise.'

When Tom returned, a voice called out from the back of the hall. ‘Thomas McCall, remember me?!'

Fred Ross, in evening dress, with his black hair swept back, skipped down the steps towards the little group who had, by now, all turned in the direction of not the expected tall, fair Englishman with the cultured voice but the swarthy, bustling figure, small but with the build of a middle-weight boxing champion. As he moved towards them, he was smiling and whispering repeatedly under his breath the single word, ‘Alibi'.

There was a party. Harry Thuku had specially dressed up his Nakuru Room, his favourite venue for celebrating with invited guests. Alfredo was surprised to be invited. He had made his point. He had been seen and noticed. He was back in his hometown. Toni and the band were still in their working clothes and the other twenty or more guests were hoping that sometime in the next few hours, there would be more night music.

While Rebecca and Mary were showering and sprucing, everyone else busied themselves in pleasant circulating and chatting and checking on where they were sitting on the very large round dining table. An extra place had been set for latecomer, Fred, between Lydia and Monica, the bubbly, handsome wife of Charlie, the drummer. Tom was holding a place next to Debbie for Rebecca.

‘You know Paul Miller, my father's brother.'

‘Yep, changed my life. Made a big mistake. Got me to be a candidate for Serena. Wrong choice, of course. Rebecca, she would have been a winner.'

‘But Rebecca's got such a talent for music. Why would she want to spend her time …?

‘Because it might just help turn a dream into a reality. Talk to her about the hospital.'

‘Hospital?'

‘That's why she's over here, to raise money. Hospitals don't come cheap. We've got the land …'

‘What about an architect?'

‘Another expensive item? No, not yet.'

‘Not if I did it. Wouldn't cost a shilling. Don't look so amazed. I'm qualified and I'm good.'

‘Hang on. I'll make a slight adjustment to the seating on this table.'

Monica Mgoya loved meeting new people. This one intrigued her. She fixed her dark eyes on her table companion. Fred Ross was also intrigued, discomfited to have this chunky African lady, with the sexy laugh, the heavily lipsticked mouth scrutinising him closely. He was on his guard.

‘Toni used to have a fellow called Henry working for the band. Spoke just like you. English, and, I'm sorry to say, a very bad person. In the penitentiary just now. I never trusted him.'

Alfredo cleared his throat. ‘It can be a problem sometimes. I'm Italian. New York. When the family is having a big party, it's the same old jokes.'

‘Could be they envy you, having a voice that makes you sound like what some folks think has to be a gentleman. No doubt your young lady doesn't make jokes.'

‘Young lady? Ah, yes, no, not my … young lady. This is Lydia. We met in Kenya, at the McCalls', just a few days ago.'

It became a three-way conversation. ‘Do you sing, dear?'

‘Sometimes, when I feel happy.'

‘Hmm. When you're working …'

‘No, never when I'm working. I don't think the customers would like that.'

‘Customers? No, I don't suppose. Do you work in a bank? I was working in a bank when I met Charlie.'

Alfredo was enjoying the contest going on between his dining companions. This Lydia was in control. The band lady obviously liked checking newcomers out in her friendly way. She was always on the lookout for a good story that she could share later with the rest of the girls. Abel Rubai had told him enough about Lydia Smith to understand that she could have given Monica her most sensational story ever. Monica had not finished.

‘So, what line of business are you in?'

‘You could call me a social worker. I work with people.'

Alfredo broke in. ‘Interesting. I work with people, too. Helping them on their way.'

Just at that moment, he was conscious that one of those he would be ‘helping' along was sitting on his right. He was impressed with Lydia, a girl with good looks and a sassy temperament. But the boss considered her to be some kind of threat and he always went with the money. When the time came, and that would be soon, the ice would return to his veins, the job would be finished and he would move on. He took a perverse pleasure out of the invisible hold he had over his future victims.
I know something about you that you will only discover at the very last moment, if ever.
After dinner, he sat with her in a quiet corner and gave her a rundown on his hometown. She was full of questions and laughed a lot.

Rebecca had developed a pattern for concert nights. A regular rhythm had imposed itself on what she did, what she felt. She looked forward to every shift of mood, the tension of the minutes before she set foot on the stage, the elation of the magical moments of the performance, the languid sense of wellbeing as she wound down and returned to earth.

Tonight was different. Tonight she met Debbie Miller, a new, young architect. As part of her course she had completed a research project on designing public hospitals. For two of the partygoers, the celebrations lost their attraction. In imagination, Rebecca led Debbie to a patch of ground on the edge of Naivasha. ‘We are desperate for a new place. Just ask Paul and Miriam. You should see …'

Tom, sitting next to her, sensed danger for her in this mad rush of enthusiasm. ”Becca, tomorrow! If Debbie can stay over for the morning …'

‘Try and stop me!'

‘There. After breakfast, get around a table. I'll provide the big sheets of paper and the etceteras. You'll remember more after a, well, a sort of rest if not much sleep.'

* * *

Alfredo and his younger brother, Lucio, spent much of the next day working on their father's books, ‘the family books' as Lucio Senior insisted on calling them. There were no financial secrets in the immediate family, so that there was no surprise for the sons when they saw how much money Papa had amassed and deposited in banks all over the world. The job was easy because of the meticulous entries, all handwritten by their father in black ink. From time to time, Alfredo allowed his mind to drift away from the pages of numbers. When he had a contract on, he carried all the details in his head and was constantly making tiny adjustments to his program. He had a ticket to fly back to Nairobi next morning and was looking forward to the end game. He was confident that he had an alibi ready, if it should come to a situation where he would need one.

But the party in the Flamingo held his thoughts, too, and Lydia was right there in the middle of them. Rubai called her the whore from the slums and yet he admitted that they had enjoyed a few hours together. Perhaps it was the girl's openness in combination with a shy innocence that was the attraction. He himself had been flattered by her eager enthusiasm for his stories about New York. He did not find it difficult to rationalise this reaction. It was natural to have an interest in a future victim and coming to terms with all these figures in front of him was becoming something of a bore. Little black squiggles in a book were not as engaging as the memory of a beautiful black woman.

And, as the afternoon wore on, he considered a return to the Flamingo. He knew that the evening performance was sold out, but that was a minor problem. Anyway he was more interested in watching than listening, watching without being seen.

When the audit was finished, Lucio, on his way to Little Italy, gave him a lift as far as Mid Town. Alfredo booked in for dinner at the Flamingo and took a wander northwards towards the Rockefeller Center. It was his favourite building in the city, though he had been inside only once. Sitting on a cafe terrace with a beer, he indulged himself in more watching. For Alfredo this was like going to the gym for a sportsman. He was honing his skills. He would pick out one of the hundreds of those strolling by and ‘do a job' on him or her. After giving a name, he built up an imaginary dossier of personal traits, occupation, family, ending with an assessment of how he or she would react if they found a bag stuffed full of hundred dollar bills or were confronted by some punk threatening them with a gun.

For once he did not enjoy the game. He was not sharp enough. He had created a bunch of cliches. Instead of honing his skills, he cast a slight shadow of doubt on his self-belief.

He finished his third beer and phoned the Flamingo to cancel dinner. Then it was down to the subway at Rockefeller Plaza and home to join his mother and father for supper.

After an early night he was out on the streets by four and on his way to the airport, back on the job and looking forward to returning to Africa.

The bars on the ground floor of the Flamingo only closed when the last customer decided that it was time to go home. After three, the loudest sound was the comfortable low hum of the machines of the cleaning ladies. Not long after they had begun work, the relative peace of the early morning was broken. Of the five women making their hurried way to the exit door, four were in a state of mild but excited panic and the fifth was biting her lip and struggling to hold herself together in spite of the pain in her lower abdomen. Harry Thuku was holding the front door open with the driver of the limousine whose engine was running and ready to go.

Terri Burgon, the wife of Tommy, the band's trumpeter, was in labour. Monica Mgoya , the mother figure of the Wajiru group, was struggling with her three companions to glide the first time mother to be out of the hotel and on her way to the hospital. Rebecca and Mary were still buoyed up by the excitement of the concert. Lydia had heard the commotion outside her room and came out in time to help Tommy in his struggle to balance three bulky bags as he trailed his wife in the direction of the lift.

General Monica insisted that Tommy sit with the driver and count slowly up to a thousand.

‘Keep you out of trouble. And don't be nervous. This is going to be a great night, day, whatever. Colin, not too fast and, please, watch out for the potholes.'

Monica realised that total silence would be their enemy on their way to Saint Luke's. It would give Terri time to worry and, maybe, bring on the arrival of the little one. She talked as if they were all sitting ‘round a table, drinking coffee and having an old-fashioned gossip.

‘Did you see those people sitting in the front row last night? Ali Baba and his people, three men, six wives and the forty thieves, waiting in the cars outside.'

‘Mon, all I could see from the stage was a row of dark glasses and the occasional flash of gleaming white teeth.'

‘Mary, you missed a treat. The dresses, every one white and weighed down with, well, if those stones were real, where were the security boys?'

‘Is it always so busy in the middle of the night?'

‘They don't have nights in this part of the city, Lydia.'

They turned left off Broadway. Conversation died. Terri's pains were coming more frequently.

‘How far now, Colin?'

‘Get you there in five, if the lights stay friendly.'