“So you’d understand the situation.”
“Yeah, I’ve got that. But why should I understand the situation?”
Art Owens shot the gorilla a look, then went on. “Getting Ishmael to Kinshasa is relatively easy. Getting him the rest of the way will require a network of people—cooperation, collusion, bribery amounting to thousands of dollars. Luk can handle all that, but only by the authority of Mokonzi Nkemi. In other words, he not only needs Nkemi’s permission to do it, he needs Nkemi’s direct order to do it.”
“Okay. So?”
“So how is Luk to get Nkemi to order him to handle this matter?”
“I don’t know. Ask?”
Art shook his head. “Luk would have no reason to ask such a thing. I don’t mean he’d be unwilling. I mean he would arouse suspicion by asking such a thing.”
“Suspicion of what?”
“It’s enough that he would arouse suspicion, Julie. It needn’t be suspicion of anything in particular.”
“You mean it would be dangerous for him to go to Nkemi and say, ‘I want to import a gorilla from the United States.’ ”
“If he were to go to Nkemi and say this, Nkemi would assume that he had lost his mind. He would have no doubt of it whatever.”
“I see. So?”
“So someone else must ask Nkemi to order Luk to handle this matter.”
And Ishmael and Art looked at me. When I finally figured out why, I laughed out loud. “Is that really it? You want me to ask Mokonzi Nkemi to order Luk to get Ishmael from Kinshasa to Mabili?”
“No, you wouldn’t have to mention Luk at all. All you’d have to do is ask Nkemi to help you get Ishmael to Mabili. He would automatically turn the matter over to Luk.”
I looked from one to the other in utter disbelief. They were not kidding.
“You’re crazy,” I told them.
“Why, Julie?” Ishmael asked.
“First, because why on earth would Nkemi do something just because I asked him to?”
Art nodded. “You must trust me that I understand Nkemi. You’d be asking him to do something that no other person on earth could do. It would please him very much to think that it was in his power to do something no one else could do.”
“That’s not a very good reason.”
“All you’d be asking him to do, Julie, is to lift a finger. That’s all it would take for him to grant the wish of a young woman from the most powerful nation in the world. President Bush himself could not grant you this wish, but Nkemi can, simply by turning to Luk and saying, ‘Make this happen.
“In other words, he’d do it out of sheer … what’s the word I want, Ishmael?”
“Vanity.”
“Yeah. You’re saying he’d do it just to please himself.”
“He can afford to please himself, Julie,” Art said.
“Okay. But that’s only the first part. The second part is, are you saying I’d actually go there?”
“Oh yes. Nothing less than that kind of effort and expense would persuade him of your seriousness.”
“And how long would this take?”
“The ordinary traveler would have to go by boat from Kinshasa to Bolamba, a journey that could easily take two weeks each way. You’d go by helicopter. With luck, the whole trip—from here to there and back—would not take more than a week.”