The Secret History of Las Vegas by Chris Abani Read Free Book Online Page B

heard the peacocks that roamed free through the grounds screeching. He paused by his car and inclined his head up at Brewster’s window, throwing a malevolent look in the dark. He never noticed the car seven spaces down, from which Eskia watched his every move.

Ten
    E skia started up his engine and pulled out of the institute’s parking lot, tailing Sunil. He had been waiting all day in his car, and he was hot and irritable. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and reached forward to turn up the air and the music. Hugh Masekela’s “Grazing in the Grass” filled the car, and Eskia whistled along. Tailing Sunil right now was not really necessary; it was more for the fun of it. Having intercepted Sunil’s phone call from Salazar on the cell-cloning software he was running on his laptop, he knew Sunil was heading to County to interview conjoined twins suspected of being serial killers. It would probably be quicker just to meet him there, but Eskia was a dedicated hunter, trained for years to follow his prey until he had secured the kill, and in this case he intended to do just that.
    Eskia was an operative of South Africa’s Security Services based in a clandestine unit that didn’t officially exist. The clandestine units still operated the same as they had under apartheid—assassinations of enemies of the state, spying on politicians, stealing secrets from other countries, starting wars in other countries, carrying out renditions for other governments for a price, and more. But he wasn’t here in Vegas in an official capacity. This was personal.
    Eskia had joined the security arm of the African National Congress while still in college. You could say it was a family tradition. His father, Isaac, had been a weapons expert for the ANC. He built bombs and trained others to build bombs. A chemist, and later a chemistry teacher, trained in Moscow, he returned in the ’50s to an oppressive state. Six weeks after he came back, he was assigned a house in Soweto and an all-black school to teach in. It seemed he was content to do nothing more than teach young blacks chemistry and try to live a quiet life. That was until the Sharpeville incident when the police had fired on and killed young schoolkids peacefully protesting. As he watched the tear gas fly, the Casspirs tear through the crowds, and the children fall in bloody masses, he felt himself change. A couple of weeks later he joined the ANC and sought out the armed units. While he adored Mandela and believed in the need for a peaceful transition to self-rule, he couldn’t stomach what he had seen. His soul ruptured that day, a rupture that would never fully heal. He turned to violence and, in turn, violence turned itself to him.
    Eskia’s mother was in labor with him the day Isaac decided to build his first bomb. It was an experiment he wasn’t sure would work, and he hadn’t told anyone about it.
    It was 1965 and a mild day in Johannesburg when the gentle mannered Isaac stood on the edge of that downtown street and stared at the small rivulet of water running at the edge of the concrete. Across the street history awaited; taking a deep breath, he stepped off and crossed quickly to the small chemist shop. He emerged a few minutes later with a package wrapped in brown paper: ordinary household chemicals that were harmless on their own but volatile when mixed. They were forbidden in Soweto and it was illegal for a black person to be in possession of them. As he walked, he tried really hard to appear nonchalant. It was the days of the pass laws and he couldn’t afford to be stopped by the police. Ahead, two policemen demanded passbooks from a black couple, and Isaac pressed into the shadows of an alley to wait.
    Passbooks, known in those days as dompas, controlled everything. They laid out your race, where you lived, where you were allowed to travel. Passbooks, carried only by blacks, Indians, and coloreds (the