From Cape Town with Love by Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, Blair Underwood Read Free Book Online Page B

the morning sky. We were both actors, but unless she had figured out how hard I was from the moment I set foot in her bedroom, I deserved the Oscar more than Sofia Maitlin ever had.
----
    Maitlin hires Tennyson
    http://www.simonandschuster.com/multimedia?video=87313459001
----

FOUR
    ROMAN’S RESEARCH WAS meticulous. He had collected the names and photos of every orphanage worker who would be present, attaching their clean police records. He had photos of the two-story Children First facility from several angles, including the front and rear doors, with a detailed risk analysis. The facility reminded me of a well-kept inner-city school, and it had an impressive playground. Brand new. Crime was fairly low in that section of Langa, and local police had promised an escort. I called Langa police to verify that six officers would be waiting.
    By ten A.M. , I was ready to go.
    When I climbed into the front seat with the black African driver and shook his hand, I leaned close enough to try to smell his breath. His driving and criminal records were clean, according to Roman’s file, but everyone has secrets. No alcohol, from what I could tell. Good start. Princess Diana might be alive today if her driver hadn’t been drunk.
    â€œMy name is Toto, like the little dog,” he said when he introduced himself. Two missing teeth transformed his smile into a leer. There was an old doll on the passenger-side floor, a nude white Barbie with blond hair cascading down her back. The doll’s grubby face told me that she had brought nameless little girls more joy than her current condition could convey.
    â€œIs Langa home to you?” I asked the driver as he pulled away from the hotel, although I already knew from Roman’s file.
    â€œFrom birth.” He glanced in the rearview mirror at his passengers with curiosity.
    â€œDo you work for Children First?” Again, I already knew.
    â€œWhen Mama Bessie calls, we all work for her,” he said. “She knows I don’t lose my head over silly things.” Another glance in his rearview mirror. I couldn’t blame him; I wanted to stare at Sofia Maitlin, too. But I also wanted him to keep his eyes on the road.
    â€œHow are things in Langa?” I said.
    â€œYou can see for yourself,” he said, shrugging. “It’s Saturday. Burial day.”
    While Maitlin and the others chattered excitedly behind us, Toto explained to me that Langa had one of the highest HIV rates in South Africa. On any given week, he said, there are forty burials in a township of two hundred and fifty thousand.
    There are contrasts of wealth and poverty in the States, especially in L.A., but somehow it never feels as stark to me as it does in South Africa. When we reached Langa, a hush fell over the van. I almost felt sorry for the passengers trying to process the visual whiplash of African poverty. They sat close to the windows, gaping.
    Like I said, in the bosom of beauty, it’s hard to fathom ugly.
    A brown dog lay bloated and forgotten at the road’s dusty edge, forage for flies. A skinny boy, too young to roam alone, strolled in scuffed and laceless shoes past the corpse without turning his head or holding his nose. A clutch of teenage boys who looked fourteen and fifteen drank beer in a circle, pouring out the first drops as a libation to ancestors or absent friends. At a makeshift barbecue grill—a barrel sliced in half, propped on its side—a skinned, spotted lamb carcass lay in the sun. When we passed more closely, I saw that the spots on the lamb were a mantle of blue flies seeking shelter and nutrition for children yet unborn.
    The man in Maitlin’s entourage made an
ewww
sound. “Garçon, may I see the vegetarian menu?”
    â€œLike I could eat for the rest of the day now,” Rachel Wentz said.
    â€œHey, hey, are we at the zoo?” Toto muttered, just loudly enough to be heard. He definitely wasn’t used to driving