Goa Syndrome. Continuation

Chapter 9 of the novel

— Brother, I need a million and a half, — Pepe nervously fidgeted with his baseball cap, — just for a few days.
— Have you lost your mind? What do you need that kind of money for? — Frederick noisily gathered the last of the mango juice from the bottom of his glass and set about the strawberries and ice cream.
— One Indian offered me two kilos of cocaine for just fifteen lakh.
— Why you and not Linda?
— Because he thinks it's my business.
— Everyone here thinks it's your business. Your girlfriend uses you however she likes, and you, like a nigger on a sugar plantation somewhere in Brazil a hundred and fifty years ago, carry out your white mistress's every order without question.

Frederick had met Pepe in Chapora a couple of years earlier. Two drunken Nigerians met in a juice centre, 'blazed' a joint and got talking about life. Pepe told him that his parents had fallen out with General Abacha and vanished somewhere on the road from Ilorin to Abuja*. (* Ilorin, Abuja — major cities of Nigeria.) He crossed the continent on foot from west to east; through Cameroon, Central Africa and Nairobi he reached Mombasa, and from there sailed off as a cabin boy on a Russian shrimp 'freezer'. Several years later, as a sailor on a Kuwaiti oil tanker, Pepe went ashore in the Indian port of Vasco, where the vessel had moored illegally to be cleaned — three days' leave in Goa dragged on indefinitely, Pepe no longer wanted to sail, and when he met his 'brother' he completely forgot about everything that had happened recently.
Day after day they knocked about the restaurants, smoked chillums and drank cheap 'Old Monk', until one day Pepe, tripping over his own feet, tumbled onto the road right under the wheels of a 'Suzuki'. Linda was at the wheel.

— Shut up, — Pepe pushed the empty glass away, — we love each other!
— Love... — Frederick jabbed sarcastically.
He didn't much approve of Pepe's involvement with Linda, understood there was no love in their relationship, at least not on Linda's side, but he never abandoned him. Frederick felt a personal responsibility for the fate of his countryman, firstly because he was older, and secondly because he had served under General Abacha. At the time when Pepe was walking on foot from Nigeria to Kenya, Sergeant Frederick Arton was receiving a certificate of gratitude from the tyrant's own hands for bravery in the fight against national insurgents.
— So you need a million and a half in order to buy a batch of cocaine. And how do you intend to pay the money back in a few days? Have you already got a buyer for it?
— No, I want to do it for Linda — I'll bring her the goods and she'll pay. I just need to show it to her,
— Are you a complete idiot? — Frederick flung the spoon into the aluminium plate, a couple of strawberries flew out onto the table, and the splashes of melted ice cream landed like white freckles on their black faces. — I thought you'd finally decided to actually earn some money and clear off from that white bitch, but in fact you keep on waiting on her hand and foot. Enough, Hausa brother!
Pepe fell silent. On the one hand, the Yoruba brother* (* Yoruba, Hausa — ethnic groups of Central Nigeria.) was right — for two years he'd been ferrying drugs around after Linda; to everyone she pretended she only danced, but she'd always without fail dial Pepe's number and tell him where to come and how much to bring. Where Linda got the goods he never did find out — she only ever talked about it on the phone in German, while Pepe drove to various places scattered all over North Goa and picked up big bundles hidden away somewhere among tree roots or in old abandoned houses. In two years the places never once repeated.
On the other hand, Pepe had grown too attached to his new 'charisma', to the house with a pool and the white body. Linda had promised to take him with her to Europe as soon as there was enough money. Each time he delivered the sealed plastic bags to their recipients, that was exactly what Pepe thought about. And he worked for her devotedly, without even considering that he could earn decent money himself.
— I've got another idea, — Frederick wiped his face with a napkin, crumpled it up and, with the precision of Shaquille O'Neal, launched it into a rubbish bin standing nearby. — Tell me in more detail where the Indian got the goods.
— I don't know, he just offered them to me.
— Tell me everything in detail.
— Linda called me yesterday just after midnight and said five grams were needed at the club in Dona Paula. We only had two left; before that I'd been to the Russians and they took a tenner.
— Go on...
— Then I brought two grams to that Indian, Arun, at the club. He asked why so little, and I told him the Russians sweep up everything like vacuum cleaners. That's when he offered me two whole kilos, which he promised to bring in a couple of days. That means tomorrow, then.
— Did Linda hear your conversation?
— No, we went out onto the street, and she was in the dressing room.
— Excellent. We've got a chance to start our own business.
— I don't like this, Yoruba brother.
— And I don't like you sticking out your black arse for some white prostitute.
— Don't you dare call her that, she's my woman.
— Your woman shakes her tits in every dive in Goa and sleeps with anyone whose wallet is thicker than your dick.
— How can you know that?
— Only a blind man wouldn't see it. She bought you with a new motorbike, with the good life; she herself makes unreal cash, and if something goes wrong — who's going to answer for it all? Pepe... After all, it's him who brings the cocaine, it's him who takes the money for it. And now you've got yourself mixed up with this Indian in a big deal too... And for what? So that next time you can shove it in her a bit deeper... Wake up, brother.
— And what do you suggest we do?
— I suggest you take this money from Linda and close the deal with Arun. When you've got two kilos of cocaine in your hands, what's to stop us making three out of them? If Linda uses you, why can't you use her?
— And where will we offload the goods?
— If we've got the goods, we'll always figure out where to put them. You said yourself the Russians have big demand. I know a couple of guys who might be interested in our offer. Let's go to the brothers at 'Santana' to look for connections.
— But we don't even have anything yet!
— But we're going to have the goods, aren't we? — Frederick looked hard at Pepe and, having made sure the Hausa brother hadn't changed his mind, went to start the motorbike.
'Santana', an African spot in Candolim, is tucked away right behind the supermarket at the very start of the village, there where St'Anthony Chapel stands at the centre of the crossroads of the roads from Panjim, Calangute and Aguada.
Bozz, the owner of 'Santana', a Kenyan from Nairobi, thumped his fist against his shoulder when he saw Pepe and Frederick on the threshold:
— One peace, bro!
— One love, — replied Frederick and sat down on a plastic chair. — We've got a little bit of business, but we don't know how to pull it off.
— What kind of business, brother? — Bozz was always smiling; dreadlocks stuck out from under his wide knitted cap, he smoked ganja every day and was the very embodiment of pacifism on this earth.
— We need to offload a kilo of cocaine.
Bozz's expression changed:
— Brother, that's not my business...
— I know, — Frederick interrupted him, — but I also know that you know who can help us with it.
— I'll be right back, — Bozz vanished somewhere in the back rooms, and ten minutes later a huge black man sat down beside Frederick and Pepe.
— My name's Charlie, — he boomed. — Bozz said you've got business with me.
Frederick and Pepe realised that Charlie was Igbo*, (* Igbo — an ethnic group of Northern Nigeria.) and in Nigeria neither the Yoruba nor the Hausa were especially friendly with those tribes... But that was in Nigeria; outside their own countries all Africans were brothers, more than anyone else on this planet.
— Brother, tomorrow we'll have a kilo of cocaine. We'd like to offload it.
— Where did you get it?
Frederick looked at Pepe, who got a little flustered and forced out:
— Well, it's a long story.
— I hope not as long as your tongues.
— The cocaine's coming from Bombay tomorrow.
— Boys, — Charlie noisily pushed back his chair and stood up; from below he seemed even bigger, and the massive gold chain on his thick neck lent extra authority to his words, — actually I don't give a shit where you got the goods. I don't give a shit what you're going to do with them — I've got enough headaches without you. But let me give you one piece of advice, — Charlie lit a cigar and tossed the long, spent match at Pepe's feet. — If you want to live in peace — forget about this right now. This is a very big game, and you're too small even to know about it. One love! — Charlie thumped his fist against his shoulder and vanished back where he'd come from.
— One peace, — Frederick got up, nodded to Pepe, and they headed for the exit.

You can buy the book Goa Syndrome on the Ozon website.