He finished his beer and noticed the beginnings of a pleasant buzz. One more and he’d be in the right spot. But he held back and lit a Gitane instead. Who knew what this meeting would bring?
A big woman waddled to his table. Of indeterminate age, she wore a brightly colored muumuu and an equally colorful cloth wrapped around her hair. She sat down. Close up, her round face showed the ravages of living at the margins in a poor country.
“My girls, you do not like them?”
He really didn’t feel like defending his celibacy to the madam of the brothel. “Your girls all seem a little too young for their jobs.”
She waved her right hand with a worldly flair. “Age, what is it? Polite men don’t ask.”
“I thought that applied only to women over thirty.”
Her face lit up with a smile. “A gentleman in Mama Tusani’s club! What a surprise. Let me buy you another beer.”
She motioned to the counter. Lily brought another bottle and a glass with a milky fluid for Mama Tusani. She didn’t leave.
Vermeulen clinked his bottle to her glass and took a swig.
“Nice place you got here,” he said.
It was a blatant lie. She knew it but smiled anyway, swaying to the rhythm of the music. When the song ended, she leaned over.
“Please, go with Lily to the back.”
He lifted his hands, angry. Mama Tusani took his hands and continued smiling for anyone watching.
“Please, it is important,” she said in a tone quite unlike her smile.
He finally understood and got up.
The girl pulled him toward the curtain, giggling, clinging to him, rubbing his chest. He couldn’t make himself play the part. To the rest of the crowd, he must have looked like a sixteen-year-old being dragged to his first sexual encounter.
They moved past ill-fitting doors through which unrestrained — and obviously faked — sounds of various stages of ecstasy could be heard. She pushed open the last one and pulled Vermeulen into a cubbyhole. The smell of sex and cheap perfume was overpowering. A filthy bed — reflected in a cracked mirror on the ceiling — took up most of the room. The couple next door was hard at work.
She sat on the bed and smiled. The door opened again and Mama Tusani slipped in. She whispered something to Lily, who began moaning loud enough to compete with the couple next door.
“You are here to stop the gun smugglers, no?” Mama Tusani whispered.
Vermeulen stared at her, speechless for a moment.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Mama Tusani knows everything. When the men come here, they drink and talk. My girls tell me what they hear.”
“Yes, I’m investigating the role of UN troops in illegal arms transfers.”
“The plane that came today, it carried guns.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, the pilot was here earlier. Every time, he comes here right from the plane. He brags to Lily. Says he can fool UN asshole in his sleep.”
Lily nodded and smiled at him as she continued moaning.
“Why are you telling me?”
Mama Tusani looked at him. He felt her gauging his character. “My girls, they have a bad past. It’s the war that made them so. They have no home to go back to.”
“You seem to be doing all right.”
Her face hardened.
“You think I like this life? I had a hotel once. The war destroyed everything. Yes, I run a whorehouse. But I keep the girls safe. And they earn some money.”
Vermeulen felt a pang of shame.
“The guns make the war go on,” she continued. “We want no more war. We want our lives back.”
She stared into his eyes with a force that made him squirm. “The pilot, he’s a bad man,” she said. “He should not walk on this earth. Now go and do your job.”
She turned toward the door. Lily simulated the sounds of the final stages of orgasm. At the door, Mama Tusani stopped.
“Go out the rear. The driver will take you back to the hotel.”
VERMEULEN DIRECTED THE driver to the airport instead. The guard gave him an inquisitive look, but Vermeulen forestalled any questions by flashing his OIOS ID. The guard was appropriately awed — he even saluted.
Once they were inside the airport, it took Vermeulen a while to get his bearings. Twice, he pointed the driver in the wrong direction. The man, of course, knew the way and got them to the cargo area.
He got out of the car. A solitary lamp on a post cast a milky light. Contrary to the major’s assertion, there were no guards. A simple padlock kept unauthorized people out.
He circled the fence, looking for a good spot to climb over. He grabbed the wire mesh with both hands and tried hoisting himself up but realized he was fooling himself. The fence was seven or eight feet high. The days when he could tackle anything that height were long gone.