Read Online Instruments Of Darkness by Robert Wilson - Free Book Online Page A

it, they get upset. She has to protect herself…'
        'Against me?'
        'She was annoyed with me and she was going to send the message back through you. She wanted to remind you of your position in the deal. She wanted to show you that she was a principal and that principals have to be respected.'
        Jack wanted to think of another five reasons why Madame Severnou should have sent the gunmen round but couldn't, so be poured himself another drink and refilled my glass. He was calming down now. He forced one of his cheesy grins on me which I swatted away.
        'Why didn't you just give her the original?' he asked in one of those voices of disarming simplicity that normally get the people who use them hurt.
        'She's the sort of woman who you shake hands with and she checks her jewellery, you check your fingers and when you get home you find she's taken the shirt off your back and some of your skin's gone with it.'
        'She's not that bad.'
        'She resents the fact that you're breathing air that she could be breathing.'
        'You'll warm to her eventually.'
        'Like I will to a puff adder on coke. And anyway, why didn't you explain all this shit to me?'
        'I didn't think you'd give her the copy.'
        'You pay me to manage things for you in Cotonou. If you want a gofer
        'All right, Bruce. I admit it. I should have been clearer.'
        Jack defused rows by conceding but not giving an inch. We both sat down on a couple of wooden loungers with foam rubber mattresses. Jack balanced his drink on his belly and looked up at the stars which weren't there. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and offered me one without thinking. He plugged one into his mouth, lit it, and drew on it as if he was trying to keep his cool in the trenches. He let the smoke trail out of his nose and from between his teeth and it disappeared off behind his ear.
        He leaned forward and split his legs on either side of the lounger. He reached for an ashtray, put it in front of him and winced with his right cheek and eye.
        'I have no sympathy for you, Jack. You get less than you deserve.'
        'I bear the scars of love,' he said, as if it was a terrific bore.
        'Love, Jack? I didn't think that was your scene.'
        'Love, African style,' he cautioned me with his cigarette.
        'How does that go?'
        'She likes me. I want her. She lets me. I pay her.'
        'I'd forgotten how romantic it was.'
        'The women here aren't fools.'
        'Who said they were?'
        'They're not fooled into thinking romance exists. They know what exists.'
        'Let me guess. Money and power?' Jack somersaulted the cigarette in his hand and stabbed the air with it. 'Exactly. Haven't you noticed, I don't go with white women any more?'
        'I haven't consulted my black book recently.'
        'Well, I don't. They're too complicated.'
        'You don't have to pay…'
        '… money. That's what I mean. You sleep with them and before you know it you've got a relationship, they've moved in and they're supervising your life like it's a school project. Jesus. What I want is…' He trailed off.
        'What do you want. Jack?'
        'I don't want that.'
        'Whatever you do want, you're not finding it.'
        Jack wasn't listening any more. I had exhausted his attention span between thoughts about sex. He smoked an inch of his cigarette in one drag and let out more smoke than a bonfire on a wet November afternoon.
        There is one white woman I would like to have/ he said from behind his smokescreen. I didn't respond but sipped my whisky and did some passive smoking.
        'Elizabeth Harvey.'
        'Never heard of her. Is she a movie star?'
        'You know her. She's married to that American banker.'
        'Clifford Franklin Harvey the seventh.'
        'The seventh?'
        'Americans always have Christian