But the little lizard had grown into a great dragon, too big to keep in his cottage. Philippe had put him behind the door in a room with a pool to splash around in and strict instructions to eat intruders. When we asked if we could see him, Philippe simply said, “Are you sure? He thinks curious children are the most delicious of all.”
And then, as Michael takes my hand and leads me, grinning sheepishly, into the beam of the guard’s flashlight, the smell of the night garden dredges up more memories. Memories that had been so buried and lost that I can hardly believe how crisp and clear they are now. I suddenly remember other nights in our cottage down at the end of the yard when I would wake from nightmares and find my baby sister awake and fretting, my mother’s bed empty. I tamped down my fear by picking up Kiki, by rocking her back to sleep, by telling her she was being a silly baby to fuss.
Mama would always be there in the morning, and she would shush me when I asked her where she had been. “I’ve been nowhere,” she’d say. “You’re imagining things.” Eventually my night terrors stopped, and Kiki stayed asleep until dawn, and I forgot about Mama’s absences. Until now, when I see the mokele-mbembe door. Is that where she had gone? Through the door to meet up with Mr. G, night after night? The thought of her standing here where I am now, wanting to go in that door, makes me feel ill.
The guards let us pass as expected. Michael puts his arm around my shoulder and winks at them, and they grin, and it’s all I can do to not grab him and flip him onto his back in the dirt. Which I can do. Bug Eye taught me.
Michael walks me to a guest room, one of many. He stands in the doorway and watches while I examine my surroundings: heavy teak furniture, intricately cut in a classic Swahili style, wide windows dressed in silk to help hide the security bars. A huge bed covered in throw pillows and hung with a gauzy mosquito net. It looks like a maharaja’s palace. The knickknacks on the dresser alone would put Kiki through school for a year.
Finery or not, I want to go home to my roof so bad I can feel it in my teeth, but I ask, “When your parents get home, how are you going to explain me being here?”
“Let me worry about that.”
“You’re not going to rat me out to your dad, are you?”
“Why would I have taken you out of the basement if I was just going to hand you over?”
“You caught a thief. Bet he’d be proud of his little boy.”
Michael doesn’t rise to my needling. “If I did, would you give back the stuff you stole?”
“No.”
Michael sounds like he’s explaining something very simple to a child. “So why would I do that? If we’re going to figure this out together, you’re going to have to start trusting me.”
I don’t like his tone, but he’s got a point. I hold my hand out. “If we’re trusting each other, give me my phone back.”
“What? No way.”
“Hypocrite.” I smirk. “How am I supposed to make arrangements to have your dad’s data held without it?”
Michael eyes me. Finally he heaves a sigh and fishes in his pocket. “Fine.” He slaps it into my palm. “Nothing funny, all right? We have a deal.”
“I am never funny,” I say.
“Yeah, I’m getting that.”
I start to close the door to my room. “I’m going to make a call. In private. Nonnegotiable. I’ll come and find you in a few minutes. Don’t worry, I’m not calling in the cavalry.”
Michael looks like he wants to argue, but finally says, “My room is down the hall, third door on the right.”
“I know where your room is, Michael.”
Something passes over his face, but before I can decide what it is, he turns and walks away. I shut the door behind him, lock it, and stand there for a second, trying to hear whether he’s creeping back to listen. That’s what I would do. I can’t hear anything, but I go to the attached bathroom, close the door, and start running water into the gleaming white sink just in case.
Boyboy picks up on the first ring. “Oh my God, Tina, is that you? Are you—”
There’s a scuffle and I hear, “Tiny? Where the hell you at?”
Mavi. Not whose voice I wanted to hear. “Hey, Ketchup,” I say quietly.
I can hear Ketchup swearing. “Finally.”
More shuffling, and then, “Yo, Tiny Girl, what’s up?” Bug Eye says. I’m on speaker. His words are easy, but his voice has that note to it. I hate that note. I can hear blood in it. “Spill, Tiny. You in lockdown or somethin’?”
I look around the bathroom. It’s all white marble and gold fixtures and fluffy towels like stacks of sea foam. “Sort of. I’m only talking to you, Bug Eye,” I say.
I hear Ketchup complaining, but then it’s just Bug Eye’s voice, close and clear in my ear. “All right. So where are you?”
I’m glad I’m not standing under Bug Eye’s gaze. Stronger people than me have broken down and wet their pants under those eyes. “I’m still inside.”
Bug Eye says nothing.
“But it’s okay,” I add quickly. “The son—Michael—he’s not going to turn me over. Not to the cops, and not to Mr. G’s guys.”
Silence.