The Illegal

Saunders, who works for Prime Minister Wellington, and Anton Hamm meet at the All Saints Hotel to discuss their “give and take” relationship. Saunders wants Hamm to give him information about “Illegals from Zantoroland […] hiding in Freedom State” (169). In exchange, Saunders will make Hamm’s tax problems go away and provide him with $60,000 a year. Saunders says they are interested in very specific Illegals, meaning Hamm will be allowed to continue with his runners uninterrupted. Hamm agrees to the deal because he thinks it is the only way out of a potential tax nightmare that could leave him penniless.

Hamm then goes to Zantoroland and takes a taxi to the Pink Palace to meet with George Maxwell. The taxi driver tells Hamm he will be fine because he is white. Hamm delivers an envelope from Saunders, and Maxwell gives Hamm a task in exchange: Hamm must go to the addresses of 15 people and verify whether they live there without speaking to them directly. He is told to give that information to Saunders in Freedom State.

Ivernia Beech receives a visit from her son, Jimmy, and Sondra, a social worker. Sondra interviews Ivernia about her ability to continue living alone. Sondra is a compassionate person who explains how Ivernia can successfully keep her independence: hire someone to help around the house, keep good hygiene, pay attention to her appearance, and find some ties to the community. As Ivernia thanks Sondra and escorts her out, she finds Jimmy stealing her silverware.

Ivernia uses her connections to the Clarkson library (to which she and her husband donated a large sum of money eight years earlier) to obtain a volunteer position. Her job is to grant new library cards. She also enjoys reading new books, particularly one called Dying for Dummies, a guide to suicide. She is depressed at the thought of being forced into a retirement home with her assets frozen; she would rather die. In the meantime, she finds denying library cards to people who don’t have proper identification so abhorrent that she bends the rules. She fudges paperwork, giving people fake addresses and granting them library cards anyway. She writes a letter to the prime minister of immigration complaining about this injustice.

Keita arrives at the Clarkson bus station and uses its facilities to clean up. A man named Mr. Hero tells Keita he should hide in AfricTown right away. First Keita attempts to cash his marathon prize check at the People’s Bank but is denied because he doesn’t have any identification. Keita realizes that “some people [have] keys to this world, but Keita [is] not one of them” (186).

John visits Rocco Calder at his office. He is attempting to get Calder to give him an interview on camera. John asks to use the bathroom, and Calder gets distracted by the entrance of Wellington and Geoffrey. Calder forgets that John is in the bathroom, overhearing the interaction. Wellington reminds Calder that he has not effectively stopped the ships full of refugees from landing and offloading in Freedom State. Calder knows that “[r]eminding him of his failure […] was intended to soften him up for a request. Or an order” (191). Indeed, Wellington then requests that Calder visit Bombay Booty later that night to get information about Yvette Peters.

Calder and his driver are given a password to get through the guards into AfricTown. These same guards once stopped Geoffrey and humiliated him so thoroughly that he had cameras installed, documented their behavior, and used the footage to make a case against all Illegals and AfricTown in general. This became the basis for the platform of the Family Party, which Geoffrey and Wellington represent.

Calder is allowed through and escorted into Lula’s “Pit,” where he is served dinner and watches a wrestling match. He learns that it is called the Pit because the loser of the match is thrown into an actual pit of venomous snakes. Calder is then escorted into a deluxe bedroom where he is met by Darlene. She attempts to seduce him and almost succeeds, but he asks her to just talk. He asks what she knows about Yvette’s deportation and death. Darlene leads him into the bathroom and tells him she will talk in exchange for money. He offers her $500 in cash. She tells him that Yvette slept with “Mr. Big” and then disappeared. She asks him to help her because she’s afraid the same thing will happen to her. Before they can speak further, they hear the sirens of a police raid heading toward them and flee.

Keita arrives in AfricTown on foot. He is met by two hustlers, one with a fake gun demanding money, the other a woman who pretends to save Keita and then demands money as a repayment. Upon seeing the shipping containers and the conditions, he feels that AfricTown is much worse off than his own hometown. DeNorval Unthank comes to welcome Keita and show him around. He explains that Keita will start by checking in with “Queen DiStefano” at the Pit. Along the way, Keita visits a lunch program in the courtyard organized by DeNorval.

At the Pit, Keita meets Lula. Keita asks her to help him get his check cashed. She agrees to help in exchange for a 1% fee. She also offers him a free meal, a place to stay for three nights, and assistance in getting a passport and citizenship paperwork for $20,000. After their conversation, Keita is escorted to DeNorval’s shipping container home. He walks in to find DeNorval performing a prostate exam on a man. He learns that DeNorval was once an emergency room chief in Zantoroland, but a colleague outed him as a gay man, so he had to flee to AfricTown. Now he practices little bits of medicine where he can. He addresses Keita’s frequent symptoms of malaise and says he has a theory about what is wrong, but Keita is not comfortable having his blood tested in a nonsterile environment. After Keita is invited to stay with DeNorval, he is shown a clean, comfortable bedroom. Maria, the teenage mother whom John interviewed on the street, is also staying with DeNorval. They enjoy an evening together. Just as Keita is getting ready to sleep, they all have to flee a police raid.

John takes advantage of the chaos by slipping a USB stick (which is a backup of the Bombay Booty footage) into Keita’s backpack and then accompanies him out of AfricTown along the trail back to Clarkson. Ahead of them on the trail, they see Rocco Calder. John had videotaped Calder’s interaction with Darlene, at Darlene’s request. She wants to blackmail Calder into getting “fifteen more water holes dug, a new school built, and a reliable power line installed to feed electricity to AfricTown” (223). John and Keita walk together in the night, discussing their recurring nightmares.