Excerpt from The Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I had a Nokia phone, and I assumed I could get a local SIM card somewhere, but—the clerk said—not at this hotel. For the moment, I was pretty well cut off.

Good enough. I didn't feel ready for Michael Adriko. He was probably here at the Papa in a room right above my head, but for all I knew he hadn't come back to the African continent and he wouldn't, he'd only lured me here in one of his incomprehensible efforts to be funny.

*   *   *

The room was small and held that same aroma saying, "All that you fear, we have killed." The bed was all right. On the nightstand, on a saucer, a white candle stood beside a red-and-blue box of matches.

I'd flown down from Amsterdam through London Heathrow. I'd lost only an hour and I felt no jet lag, only the need of a little repair. I splashed my face and hung a few things and took my computer gear, in its yellow canvas carrier-kit, downstairs to the poolside.

On the way I stopped to make an arrangement with the barman about a double whiskey. Then at a poolside table in an environment of artful plants and rocks, I ordered a sandwich and another drink.

A woman alone a couple of tables away pressed her hands together and bowed her face toward her fingertips and smiled. I greeted her:

"How d'body?"

"D'body no well," she said. "D'body need you."

I cracked my laptop and lit the screen. "Not tonight."

She didn't look in the least like a whore. She was probably just some woman who'd stopped in here to ease her feet and might as well seize a chance to sell her flesh. Right by the pool, meanwhile, a dance ensemble and percussionist had all found their spots, and the patrons got quiet. Suddenly I could smell the sea. The night sky was black, not a star visible. A crazy drumming started up.

Off-line, I wrote to Tina:

I'm at the Papa Leone Hotel in Freetown. No sign of our old friend Michael.

I'm at the poolside restaurant at night, where there's an African dance group, I think they're from the Kissi Chiefdom (they look like street people), doing a number that involves falling down, lighting things on fire, and banging on wild conga drums. Now one guy's sort of raping a pile of burning sticks with his clothes on and people at nearby tables are throwing money. Now he's rolling all around beside the swimming pool, embracing this sheaf of burning sticks, rolling over and over with it against his chest. It's a bunch of kindling about half his size, all ablaze. I'm only looking for food and drink, I had no idea we'd be entertained by a masochistic pyromaniac. Good Lord, Dear Baby Girl, I'm at an African hotel watching a guy in flames, and I'm a little drunk because I think in West Africa it's best always to be just a tiny bit that way, and the world is soft, and the night is soft, and I'm watching a guy

Across the large patio, Horst appeared and threaded himself toward me through the fire and haze. He was a tanned, dapper white-haired white man in a fishing vest with a thousand pockets and usually, I now remembered, tan walking shoes with white shoelaces, but I couldn't tell at the moment.

"Roland! It's you! I like the beard."

"C'est moi," I admitted.

"Did you see me at the quay? I saw you!" He sat down. "The beard gives you gravitas."

We bought each other a round. I told the barman, "You're quick," and tipped him a couple of euros. "The staff are efficient enough. Who says this place has gone downhill?"

"It's no longer a Sofitel."

"Who owns it?"

"The president, or one of his close companions."

"What's wrong with it?"

He pointed at my machine. "You won't get online."

I raised my glass to him. "So Horst is still coming around."

"I'm still a regular. About six months per year. But this time I've been kept home almost one full year, since last November. Eleven months."

Excerpted from The Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson. Copyright © 2014 by Denis Johnson. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.