Vicious Circle (49 page)

Carl and Johnny stood on the edge of the stone wharf and shaded their eyes to stare out across the lake. A flotilla of native dugout canoes was coming down from the north. It was impossible to count them at this distance, but Carl estimated that there were at least twenty smaller craft, surrounding and escorting two much larger war canoes.

The drummers were seated amidships in the smaller canoes. They were pounding out a triumphant and primordial rhythm. The rowers were standing upright in bows and sterns, the long paddles dipping and swinging to the beat of the drums, tall lean men whose naked bodies gleamed in the sunlight like freshly washed anthracite. They chanted as they rowed.

The two great war canoes in the centre of the formation were deeply laden; each had only a few inches of freeboard. There were a dozen or more paddlers aside. As they came abeam the harbour they turned and headed in towards the beach. The crowds on the shore ran down the wharf and jumped onto the beach to meet them. Johnny and Carl followed them with Sam and his men running interference for them, whacking woolly heads and bare black shoulders with the heavy bamboo rods they always carried to clear the way.

They arrived at the water’s edge just as the largest war canoe ran its bows ashore. The spectators plunged waist deep into the lake to help run both the long canoes high and dry. Then they crowded around them laughing and jabbering with excitement and amazement as they saw the cargo that they carried. The bodyguards cleared them away to allow Carl and Johnny to come forward and stare down on the massive beasts that lay in the bottom of the canoes. Their jaws had been roped closed with plaited papyrus reeds, and they had been blindfolded with old maize sacks to keep them quiescent.

Johnny paced out the length of the largest crocodile, and then he whistled with awe. ‘This sucker is five paces long, that makes him over sixteen feet. How the hell did they catch him?’

‘They built a long trap of poles and put a goat into it for bait,’ Sam Ngewenyama explained. ‘Once they cover his eyes the crocodile goes to sleep.’

It took a gang of twenty men to drag the quiescent monster up the loading ramp of one of the Russian landing craft, and only then could they motor him up to the crocodile arena. Another gang of fifty men lowered him into the pit on the ropes.

The second crocodile was a mere twelve feet long. She was a presumed female, although in the absence of external genitalia it was not possible to be certain. They laid them side by side on the basking sands of the arena beside the pool while Carl and Johnny leaned over the railing around the top of the arena, shouting instructions.

‘Take the blindfolds off their eyes now!’ Johnny gave the order in Swahili. Two of the bolder spirits obeyed and the rest of them scattered and fled, jamming in the exit tunnel in their haste to return to safety.

The two monstrous saurians sluggishly roused themselves from their stupor. Then they waddled on their stubby legs to the algae-green pool and slid down the bank into the lukewarm water. There they lay submerged with only their eyes and nostrils showing above the surface.

Johnny shouted at Sam to pay the croc hunters their bounty. Sam counted out the thick wads of Tanzanian shillings into the hands of the tribal headman who had commanded the capture operation. It was sufficient cash to buy a large herd of cattle. The headman marched away down the hill, followed by his men singing and drumming with exultation.

Johnny and Carl were left alone on the stone seats of the royal box to gloat over their new pets.

‘We have to give them names,’ Carl mused. ‘What do you suggest?’

Johnny frowned with concentration and then said, ‘How about we call them Big Sucker and Little Sucker?’

‘Not a bad idea! Very poetic!’ Carl nodded thoughtfully. ‘But I like the name Hannibal the same as in the Daddy video.’

They both laughed at the memory, and Johnny punched his arm fondly. ‘That’s cool, Carl baby. I am glad you thought of that one. We call the big sucker Hannibal and the little sucker Aline.’

‘Who?’ Carl looked puzzled.

‘Aline, man, Hannibal Gaddafi’s wife. She was a super cool chick. She liked to pour boiling water on the heads of her servants if they pissed her off.’

‘I thought we were speaking about Hannibal the son of Hamilcar Barca the scourge of Rome, not Hannibal the son of Muammar Gaddafi,’ Carl chuckled. ‘But never mind me, anybody can make a silly mistake. Aline, the lady crocodile shall be.’

‘I love her already,’ Johnny confessed.

‘Let’s prove your love. Have you got anybody in mind for dinner with our Aline? Has anybody pissed you off recently?’ Carl asked. ‘People are always pissing you off, aren’t they, Johnny baby?’

‘You are right on, white boy. I don’t know why they always take advantage of me. I guess I am just too kind to all these assholes.’

‘Pick one of them, any one of them.’

‘Sam caught one of them in the grain store last night stealing a bucket of maize meal. Stupid cow claims her snivelling kids were starving.’

‘That’s unforgivable,’ Carl agreed. ‘Anyone in their right mind gotta be pissed off at that kind of behaviour. Tell Sam to bring her up here.’

The woman was so paralysed with fear that she could not walk. Two of Sam’s men dragged her up the hill to confront King John.

‘Do you know what is in that hole?’ Johnny pointed at the pit. The woman shook her head.

‘Well I am going to put you in there to find out for me.’ The woman stared at him in dumb incomprehension.

‘Her expression is so beautifully comical. Does she know what’s going to happen, do you think?’ Carl asked.

‘No,’ Johnny replied. ‘Sam has had her chained in one of the castle dungeons since her arrest. She hasn’t seen the crocs yet. It will be a nice surprise for her.’ Johnny turned to the men that held her and told them, ‘Get her clothes off. Take her down the steps and put her into the hole.’

They stripped the woman’s limbo cloth off her body and dragged her down the stairway to the barred gate. While Carl and Johnny hung over the rail to watch they opened the gate and thrust her through it, then slammed it shut behind her.

She beat on the iron bars of the gate with her bare fists until her knuckles bled. Then she looked up at the men above her, wailing and pleading for mercy.

‘Come here,’ Johnny called to her in Swahili. ‘Come and I will lift you up.’ She left the gate and went hesitantly towards where he was leaning over the coping of the stone wall and beckoning to her. She skirted the edge of the pool without looking down at the water.

Suddenly the algae-green surface of the pool exploded with such violence that the two men leaning over the rail high above were dashed with spray. Hannibal launched himself from the pond like a great grey torpedo.

He did not open his jaws to seize his victim; instead he kept them tightly closed so that the protruding fangs in his top jaw overlapped his lower lip in a fixed sardonic grin. He swung his whole head at her. The scales that covered his skull were tough as chain mail. He hit the woman in her rib cage as she lifted her arm towards Johnny Congo. She was hurled by the blow into the stone cladding of the pit wall. Her ribs crackled like fire kindling as they snapped. She fell in a heap at the foot of the wall.

Hannibal opened his jaws to their full gape as he reared over her, and then he locked his long yellow fangs into her body. His jaws clashed together like the slamming of the iron-barred gate. Hannibal lifted the body high, holding it crosswise in his jaws, so that just the woman’s toes and fingertips dragged in the sand as he carried her back towards the pool.

Then the green water erupted a second time.

‘Here comes the gorgeous Aline to join the fun,’ Carl shouted with excitement. The female rushed out of the pond at Hannibal, but he made no move to avoid her. Instead he checked and turned his head towards her, almost as though he was offering her the naked body he held in his jaws.

Then with a toss of his monstrous head he threw the woman high and caught her again as she dropped; but now he was gripping only one of the woman’s arms.

The woman was screaming shrilly as Aline gaped and then snapped her jaws shut on her legs. When both of the great reptiles had a grip on her they performed an extraordinarily well-rehearsed manoeuvre. Both of them went into the death roll. Hannibal spun his huge body to the right. His butter-yellow belly flashed in the sunlight for a moment before he came back onto his clawed feet. At the same time Aline rotated herself to the left. Neither of them released their grip on the woman as they spun in opposite directions.

‘Will you look at that?’ Johnny shouted. ‘What the hell are they doing?’

‘They can’t bite off lumps of meat with their spiky teeth. They have to twist it off.’ Carl had read up online about crocodile behaviour, and he was eager to show off his knowledge.

Between the two great beasts the woman’s limbs were plucked from her trunk like the wings from a well-roasted chicken.

‘Look at that! Those suckers are doing just like you said.’ Johnny was properly impressed by Carl’s erudition.

As her body was torn apart and the blood spurted from the ruptured arteries, some of it splashed Carl. He was so engrossed with the spectacle that he did not seem to notice it.

Both crocodiles backed away, crunching flesh and bone in their jaws and gulping it down.

Then Hannibal came back to the remains of the corpse and lifted it in his jaws, and waddled with it into the pool. Aline followed him into the water and they resumed their cooperative feeding. In the water they were able to spin themselves with less effort. It was an unhurried and orderly dismemberment and feasting.

Aline spun the entrails out of the woman’s remains. Then Hannibal took his turn and twisted the woman’s head off her shoulders. He crushed her skull in his jaws, popping it like an overripe melon, and swallowed it with one convulsive gulp.

The two men on the top of the wall watched with total fascination. As Aline tore off the woman’s remaining arm and chewed the bones to splinters the pink palmed hand flapped out of the corner of her mouth.

‘Look at that.’ Johnny roared with laughter. ‘She’s waving us goodbye!’

‘Just like my little sister Bryoni, she’s saying goodbye to Daddy.’ Carl put the cadence on the final word, and they hugged each other with glee. At last Johnny pulled back, still panting with laughter.

‘I’ll say it again, only a living and breathing genius could have thought up a crocodile live-show. That was one of the coolest things I have ever watched. We have to do this more often.’

‘Don’t have any sleepless nights about that, Blackbird. I will see to it that Hannibal and Aline will always have as much as they can eat.’

*

A week after the opening and stocking of the crocodile pen, and the first human offering, there was the usual convivial pre-dinner gathering in the throne room of the castle.

Samuel Ngewenyama was dancing with the Thai ladyboy who had ultimately been passed down to him by Carl and Johnny. King Johnny was playing strip mah-jong with another ladyboy and a female who was fully equipped by nature rather than by surgery. Johnny set the rules of the mah-jong game, which differed widely from the original Chinese version. Johnny’s two opponents had picked up his linguistic foibles and there was much chatter and giggling over ‘fluckin klongs’ and ‘flucking flowers’.

Carl and one of the other Thai visitors, who was appropriately named Am-Porn, were watching the CNN channel on satellite television. Carl in particular was waiting for the closing prices on the NY Stock Exchange. Am-Porn was seated on his lap, modestly dressed in a high-neck silk cheongsam, but the tight skirt was rucked up as high as her belly button. Below that it was abundantly apparent that she was not a ladyboy. Carl was passing the time before the news reports by idly exploring this exposed area.

On the TV screen the CNN anchorman began reading the news. Suddenly Carl leapt to his feet, depositing Am-Porn on the Persian carpet as he snatched up the remote control and pointed it at the TV set and boosted the volume. The voice of the anchorman boomed through the throne room.

‘The gruesome murder of Cayla Bannock is reminiscent of the 1974 horror movie
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The head of the decapitated girl was sent to her mother by the killer.’ A series of photographs of the lovely blonde Cayla flashed on the screen. In one she was riding a thoroughbred Arab stallion and in another she was dressed in an evening gown for her high school prom.

‘The girl’s mother is Mrs Hazel Bannock, the widow of the oil magnate Henry Bannock. She has succeeded her husband as the CEO of the Bannock Oil Corporation. Mrs Hazel Bannock is reputed to be one of the ten richest women in the world.’

Johnny jumped up from the mah-jong table and came to join Carl in front of the TV. They switched from channel to channel and found the story was being carried right across the American continent, but hard facts were limited and all the TV stations were relying heavily on their archives for fillers.

‘There is only one thing that is certain,’ Carl said as he switched off the TV. ‘And there is only one thing that is important.’

‘What is that, white boy?’

‘That the bitch is dead.’

‘They’ve got her head to prove it.’ Johnny guffawed and flung one massive arm around Carl’s shoulders. ‘Congratulations, Carl baby. Only one more bitch to go down and all that sweet green lettuce is going to be yours.’

‘You are talking about Hazel Bannock here,’ Carl agreed. ‘I think it’s time for you to call in your boyfriend Aleutian Brown again.’

‘I wonder what it’s going to feel like screwing a billionaire?’ Johnny pondered the question.

*

Hector read to the bottom of the last page of ‘The Poisoned Seed’ on the screen of his computer. Then he rocked back in his chair and shook his head, as if to clear it. It was a long way back from the riotous and bizarre halls of Kazundu Castle to his civilized and urbane study in The Cross Roads.

He glanced at his wristwatch and grimaced with disbelief. Then he checked the time on the screen of his computer.