Instruments Of Darkness by Robert Wilson

which left me charcoal broiled and I was only sitting next to him. She walked over to the phone and punched out some numbers.
        'Camilia?' she asked and started speaking in Italian. Charlie nodded and drank some more and sneaked a look at Jasmin who had stood up and walked to the window to look at the dark.
        Yvette put the phone down and walked back over. 'I'm sorry…' she said.
        'I heard,' said Charlie.
        'You speak Italian?' she asked.
        'I am Italian/ he said. 'Carlo Reggiani.'
        Yvette and Jasmin slipped into their shoes. 'We have to go. Tonight we are meeting someone for dinner who says they know somebody who probably knows lots of other somebodies who might be able to sell me something I want,' explained Yvette.
        'That's the only kind of business they have here/ said Charlie.
        'African art, Bruce, is a terrible business. The worst,' she said, smoothing her scarf inside the lapels of her jacket.
        I put my drink on the table and we all walked out to the private parking area at the back of the house. There was a taxi with a powder blue furry dashboard waiting for them under a low palm tree. Charlie was kissed soundly on the cheek by Yvette, which might have disappointed him but he didn't show it. The two women got into the car. The taxi took a while to get going and circled us before disappearing behind the paillote.

Chapter 8
        
        Charlie shivered.
        'She does something for me, that woman.'
        'Confuse you?' I said.
        'There's one thing I'm not confused about,' he said, turning and putting his hand on my shoulder to steer me into the house.
        'They don't make them like that any more,' I said.
        'Right.'
        'Now that we're all being genetically engineered.'
        'Something went wrong in my test tube,' said Charlie, looking down at his big hairy body.
        'Not us, Charlie. You can still see the ape in us. In the future they'll iron out all those blips and glitches that make someone extraordinary like Yvette and we'll all look like leads from shampoo and shaving ads. We'll be the bathroom people from planet Earth.'
        'You know, Bruce' - he stopped and looked at me from under his eyebrows with his hand resting on the back of my neck - 'you're kinda weird, but you're OK… I think, anyways.'
        We went back into the house and sat opposite each other on the sofas with big tumblers of Scotch in our hands and a bottle and a bucket of ice on the table. We drank and refilled without speaking. I took Kershaw's photograph out of my shirt pocket and flicked it across to Charlie.
        'I'm looking for this guy. His boss wants me to find him, says he hasn't heard from him in a week. He describes him as missing.'
        'Steve Kershaw,' said Charlie, rolling his glass across his forehead. 'English. Buys sheanut in Cotonou.' He spun the photo back at me across the table.
        'When did you last see him?'
        'He was in here about three days ago with a blonde girl, French I think, I didn't know her. Nice looking though. Great legs, nice ass.'
        'Three days doesn't sound like he's very "missing" to me.'
        'You asked me a question,' he shrugged.
        'Was he intimate with this French girl?'
        'Kind of,' he patted his bald head with his hairy hand. 'Sex rather than marriage type, I'd say.' Charlie twisted his leg under himself and winced. 'You know, this concubinage thing confuses me, Bruce. It sounds… financial.'
        'It's like a common-law wife,' I said, my eyes widening with the whisky on an empty stomach which was loosening off the gab more than I wanted it to. 'I know you Americans are keen on marriage. Divorce, too. But in Europe now, marriage is out. People live together, they don't need to tie the knot in front of God any more. It keeps the divorce rate down. I've met quite a few Americans who've had three or four wives, which to Europeans sounds