Djibouti Read Online Free Page B

in a while, d. He’d thought of another reason.”
    â€œWhat’s c, having sex anytime he wants?”
    â€œHe talked constantly. He’d say things he thought were funny. He’d start telling me a fact, anything, about world populations and go on and on. One time I asked him a question about the Supreme Court he could’ve almost answered yes or no. He started talking and I wanted to shoot myself.”
    â€œYou were fucked, and you did it to yourself,” Helene said. “Billy tells long stories about investigations—I guess for the government—and makes it sound like he’s in it. Billy goes, ‘Me? No.’ Takes a swig of champagne. ‘But I know things.’ He’s either a lovable jerkoff or, I don’t know, maybe some kind of CIA guy. But you know what’s weird? Wherever we are, I know somehow he’s going to hand me a glass of champagne.”
    â€œHe turns you down, you’re still a runway star with the hair and the body.”
    â€œIf I ever get in shape again. You’re the first person I’ve felt I can talk to. You know why I’d marry him, all the bullshit aside, because he’s a fucking honest-to-God billionaire. I knew you’d smile. He doesn’t have to be funny. He can talk all he wants. But why is he always handing me a glass of champagne?”
    â€œI wouldn’t think to get you drunk and seduce you.”
    â€œI’m practically bare-ass on the boat. No top, ever, out of sight of land. He doesn’t want some sneak with binoculars seeing what he’s got.”
    Dara said, “What’s the problem?”
    â€œI don’t know how long I can last.”
    â€œIf you want to quit, go out in the boat tomorrow and throw up.”
    â€œI don’t get seasick.”
    â€œPut your finger down your throat. Or, stay with it and write a book. Tell what happens going around the world with a billionaire. And maybe around and around. You could get an advance, I think at least a million, and a pro to write it for you. What’s the difference?”
    â€œIf he turns me down, I write the book in my own words. And if I marry him I don’t have to write the book.”
    Dara said, “I’m gonna stop worrying about you.”
    They got back to the table as Xavier and Billy Wynn were coming with a Somali in a white suit, the shirt open, a yellow scarf looped about his shoulders. Xavier calling, “Dara, we got us a pirate.”
    Â 
    F IVE OF THEM SAT around the table with bottles of Blanc de Blanc Billy brought from the bar he said for openers, Xavier anxious to introduce his pirate.
    â€œDara, like you to meet Idris Mohammed.”
    Idris rose to his feet and bowed.
    â€œCommander of a gang of swashbucklers run out in the gulf and hijack whatever ships look good. Idris say he’s never lost a man or killed any crew on the ships.”
    â€œI can’t tell you,” Dara said, “how happy I am to meet you. May I call you Idris?” It got a look from Xavier.
    Her pirate had those Somali cheekbones in a thin face, a good-looking guy with a neat beard and white teeth smiling at her. He said, “Yes, Idris, of course,” with an African accent.
    Dara asked him, not wasting a moment, if he thought of himself as a pirate, or had a more acceptable name for what he did. Idris smiled.
    â€œI think of us as the Coast Guard giving fines to ships that contaminate our seas, thousands of them leaving their waste in the waters we once fished.”
    â€œYou were a fisherman?”
    â€œMy family.”
    â€œYou speak English so well—did you ever live in America?”
    â€œYou detect that, uh? Yes, Miami University in the state of Ohio for part of several years.”
    â€œWow,” Dara said. “What did you study?”
    â€œIt was my understanding you don’t study too much there.”
    Dara smiled and then Idris smiled.
    â€œYou’re my first