"I'm counting on them," Dara said. "But I want to see the boat. How big is it?"
"A thirty-foot trawler. All cleaned up and painted it looks like a boat for gay sailors, a cute little fat-ass boat. Has a beam on her can ride most seas. Or put paravanes on her, stick out to the sides, you want to keep her from rollin too much."
"She's ready to go?"
"Stores comin later on. I made a deal with a man supplies hotels. We stockin French table wines and Heinekens, the only beer I could find around here. The Heineken man must have people workin for him carry machine guns. You can't drink the water. You might even be puttin yourself at risk takin a bath." Xavier said, "You mention shootin here when we get back--lemme show you what you have, you might not want to shoot it. This Djibouti's a nasty place. Hot, full of open sewers, has rats, dirty kinds of bugs, like that beetle rolls up bat shit bigger'n he is?"
They were following a fairly straight road along the east coast of the city.
"But if you gonna shoot some now"--he paused--"get a feel of what to look for when we back? Fine. But don't shoot people lookin at you."
Dara took an HD camcorder, a small one, out of her cotton shoulder bag.
"They want to be paid?"
"Some even refuse the bribe. Spit in front of you and walk away. I don't know it's their religion the reason. They mostly Sunnis here. The pirates, I hear they somethin else. Okay, we go over a few blocks now and head back south."
Dara lowered her window. "You're starting with the slums?"
"Girl, this is the upscale part of town, where the Europeans live."
Dara, shooting now, said, "Sort of like our French Quarter."
"I was gonna ask if it reminds you."
"It does, a little. Vieux Carre with Moorish doorways and windows."
"Old-time French Colonial built by Arabs. I been through the gulf thirty-seven times. Mostly comin west we'd put in here to refuel."
"You always went ashore?"
"I could be a tour guide, keep you from steppin in the sewers. You don't see none here but you will, we get to the African quarter. Look way over left. That's the U.S. Embassy. How'd you like to be the ambassador to Djibouti? His wife ask him, 'What you gonna do today, dear?' Ambassador say to her, 'You know, I wouldn't mind tryin some of that khat. Suppose to make you feel cool while you doin time in this ghetto.'"
Dara said, "I hear khat is big in San Diego, all the Somalis living there. But why San Diego?"
"See if they any retired pirates there. Now we comin to the Central Market, biggest one in town, the mosque standin over it. Rows and rows of stalls sellin shit--clothes, chickens, all kind of fruit and vegetables. Look at the outfits, the colors on the women. Lookit over here, the table of meat."
Dara was shooting it.
"It's moving."
"That's the flies on the piece of goat loin, all movin around to get a bite. Look at the girl there, holdin branches of leaves, cellophane around the bunch. She sellin khat. Only good two days so you keep it out of the air." Xavier reached over to touch Dara shooting the rows of stalls, the women sitting under umbrellas. "Look at those guys, the wads in their jaws. Suckin on khat, known as the flower of paradise. All day they be chewin and suckin. They fly it in from Ethiopia, deliver ten eleven tons of chew every morning. Keep the men happy."
"The women don't use it?"
"What they can sneak. You in the Muslim world. Women get seconds maybe."
"I got some of that in Bosnia," Dara said.
"Your best one. You know how to shoot women, get in their souls, how you do them. Hey, but you good with men, way you let 'em be theirselves thinkin they hot shit. Listen, you gonna get a chance tonight, see the bad boys up from Somalia in the big city."
"You're sure they come
here?"
"Buy a suit of clothes...buy cars and they hardly have any roads down where they live. They come here lookin for French pussy and settle for Ethiopian chicks. They not bad, or the chicks down from Eritrea, they special, have that fine bone structure in their faces. You gonna see the bad boys out clubbin, the first time in their poor-ass lives in the big city cuttin up."
"How do you know they're pirates?"
"They tell you. Let the chicks know they loaded from hijackin ships, makin good pay from it. I talk to a party lady after the boys left or passed out, had some English. She say these Somali desert boys are more fun than the Frenchies. Love to get all the way drunk. And they rich, finally livin their lives."
Dara got out a cigarette and lighter from her shirt pocket, a faded blue work shirt loose and comfortable on her. She said, "They go out in skiffs, take down huge cargo ships and tankers, and make at least a million or so each time." She snapped her lighter but didn't hold the flame. "I wonder if they're getting help. Tipped off, told what ships look good, easy to board."
"They gone after a hundred or so and score forty-two times," Xavier said. "That's like battin over four hundred."
"Somebody," Dara said, "could be giving them information for a piece of the action."