Easy Motion Tourist (9 page)

All Chief Ebenezer Amadi could see were the nipples and the brown breasts that ballooned out of focus behind them. The girl on top of him dug her fingers into his fat hairy chest, ground her groin against his, and asked him to say her name. He tried to remember what it was but another pair of breasts appeared over his head, dangling close to his lips, and he forgot the name all over again.

The second girl took his earlobes between her fingers and rolled them the way his mother used to, and then she placed her lip-gloss-wet lips on his ear and whispered, ‘Say my name.’ He tried to remember but his phone was ringing and he had to answer it. He feared that if he didn’t say their names, the one would stop playing with his ears and the other would cross her leg over his belly and roll away.

The ringing phone was vibrating on the mahogany bedside table, making a knocking noise that made it impossible to think. Soon, it would rattle its way to the edge, fall off, and break into pieces on the marble floor, and the person calling, whose call he had to take, would get upset.

He woke to the phone still ringing. He sighed, reached for it on the table, felt a body, and remembered the two girls he had met at Bacchus, whose names he did not know, who now lay on
either side of him, and who had inspired the interrupted dream. He folded back the duvet from his naked body and began to shiver. The phone continued to ring as he considered where exactly he’d left the remote control for the air-conditioner.

He leaned over the girl on his left side and enjoyed the warmth of her body. Once the call was over, he would play out the dream with both of them, then, after a glass of Hennessey and a Viagra, he would do it all over again until they had to leave at five a.m.

He didn’t check the caller display – it could only be one person; a man whose voice he knew but whose face he had never seen. The Voice would probably ask him if everything was OK and he would say yes and that would be it. After the call, he would wake the girls who had spanked each other, called him Daddy, and sniffed cocaine from his belly-button.

‘Hello.’ His spare hand found a breast and started fondling it. The girl stirred and searched for the duvet.

‘We have a problem.’

The Voice always went straight to the point, just like the first time they spoke many years ago when the Chief was not yet a chief and had a different name.

‘What kind of problem?’ His hand found its way down to the girl’s thighs. He tried to push her legs apart.

‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘The man we used the last time, the one who calls himself Catch-Fire, he’s been talking.’

He took his hand away from the girl and climbed over her to get out of bed. His toes curled as his feet landed on the cold marble tiles. He walked into the adjoining room, fat deposits wobbling under the folds of his skin with every step.

‘Is he talking to the police?’

‘No, not the police, but they’ll soon hear something. He’s a risk. You need to take care of him.’

‘OK.’

He first spoke with The Voice during Christmas in 1989. He’d been a tenant of Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison back then, awaiting trial over a robbery. His gang, the police alleged, conspired to rob one Emanuel Ofoeze of Onipanu, Lagos. The victim was in possession of a large sum of money he had withdrawn from the bank earlier in the day. The cash was for the payment of salaries at Omo-Boy Sawmill Ltd. in Maryland where he was chief supervisor. When the gang broke into his house at around midnight, the late Mr. Ofoeze refused, under pain of gratuitous torture, to reveal where he had hidden the money. The gang proceeded to axe off each of the victim’s fingers. After his toes, they gouged out his eyes, and sliced off his ears. His tongue was the last to go, before he died, the police said in their report.

A tip-off led to a member of the gang and subsequently to the mastermind of the operation who had inflicted the devilish wounds observed on the victim – one Okafor Bright Chikezie, an apprentice sawmill operator where the dead man worked.

The other suspects confessed in return for life sentences, but the boy they called Bright insisted on his innocence, telling the police a counter story of how some boys approached him to take part in robbing the site supervisor. When he refused, the conspirators threatened his life. He spoke to his pastor and together they went to meet the supervisor to warn him and to pray. The man didn’t take enough precautions and the criminals, now convinced that it was Bright who had exposed them, were determined to rope him in. Bright provided an address for the
pastor and the man confirmed his story.

The case of Okafor Bright Chikezie lingered in the classification of ‘awaiting-trial,’ a concept used by the Nigerian police when they don’t want to let a suspect go to court or go free. It was while he was in a cell shared with twenty-four other inmates, that the chief jailer had him brought to his office, fed him rice and stew with meat for the first time in the three years, and given him the green phone on his table to talk to ‘someone who could help him.’

How The Voice got all his information was still a mystery, but he was told from the first day not to ask questions. He was already thinking of the best way to make Catch-Fire disappear. A plan began to form; it involved a prostitute and a bottle of chloroform he kept in a drawer in his room.

‘Tonight,’ The Voice said.

‘Tonight?’

He looked at his wrist and remembered he had left his watch on the bedside table. He made a mental note to slip the Rolex back on before falling asleep again next to the girls. It was too early in the morning to make arrangements with the girl he had in mind. He would have to do it himself.

‘It’s almost morning.’

‘It has to be done immediately. It may already be too late.’

‘Consider it done.’

‘Call me when it’s over.’

‘OK.’

The Voice ended the call. Amadi walked to the window and drew the curtains. Moonlight threw shadows behind him. He looked out onto his compound. The heart-shaped swimming pool shimmered in the moon’s glow.

He had built his mansion in just three months. When you have money, you can throw a picture in front of an architect and say, ‘Build me this house, I want to move in when I get back from America,’ and it will be done. You can buy the latest Mercedes every year, then send your family on holidays to Switzerland to hide your money in safe accounts and give you space to do the things with pretty young girls that you could only dream of doing when you were a struggling hustler on the streets of Lagos.

When he first came to the city as a boy, he spent afternoons under the sun, peddling handkerchiefs in traffic jams, and in the nights he dug up the potholes that caused the traffic jams – him and many like him living day to day like scavenging animals. No matter how much money he made, or how many chieftaincy titles he bought, he still saw his old self in the street-kids that surrounded his car in traffic jams. Beggars and pedlars who pushed their wares and begging hands in front of his windscreen, left dirty palm prints on his window, and wouldn’t give up until the traffic started moving. He used to be one of them, but now he was on the other side of the rolled-up window, and in the owner’s seat of a big car. He would do anything to remain on this side of the divide.

He pictured Catch-Fire nodding as he gave instructions the same way The Voice ordered him. This was not the first time he had to do something about someone who threatened to send him back to hell. Nor was it the first time a promising new recruit would screw up and become a risk.

He glanced into his room and sighed. The things he planned to do with the girls would have to wait. There was business to attend to. Catch-Fire had to die, and anyone who the stupid boy had spoken to had to die as well, God willing, before dawn.

He went back to his room and picked up his neatly folded clothes from the seat of an armchair. He dressed in the darkness, then he looked at the girls sleeping with their backs to each other. He opened a chest of drawers and found a Bible under rows of folded socks. Within its pages was an envelope that contained fine white powder. As he left, he quietly closed the door and turned the key to lock it.

Eremobor jogged up to his boss. Anytime the Chief had female guests, he stayed awake to take them home.

‘We are taking the Pajero,’ Amadi said. He got into the back of the SUV. ‘We are going to Ojuelegba.’

Eremobor’s hand froze above the ignition. He looked at his boss. ‘Ojuelegba, sir?’

‘Yes. I’ll find the address on my phone before we get there.’

Eremobor first knew Ojuelegba from a Fela Kuti song. Years later, when he was a bus conductor, he witnessed ordinary people turning into killers for the sake of a pickpocket there. They had chased the boy to the Ojuelegba overhead roundabout. The boy, still in school uniform, was too exhausted to defend himself against the sticks, stones, planks and cement blocks they used on him. They threw two discarded tyres over his head and doused him in petrol that they’d siphoned from cars stuck in
the jam. Eremobor had never forgotten the smell of burning human flesh. Ojuelegba was a dangerous place during the day and much worse at night.

They parked in front of a house, on a road that undulated with caked-over mud hills. The neighbourhood was in darkness from a power failure but a generator powered the house. It sputtered black fumes to the rhythm of its diesel engine, causing stray dogs to howl in unison.

By the light of a gas lamp set on the ground, Area boys were playing football on the road. They stopped to watch at the sound of a car navigating the bumps. Amadi opened his door himself, stepped out onto the dusty road, and walked towards the house with loud music pouring from it. Eremobor locked the doors and kept the darkened windows rolled up.

Amadi walked down a corridor, past couples cuddling on worn sofas, to a room bathed in red light. He parted a curtain of glass beads that hung over the doorway and stepped in. A large plasma TV on the wall still had the manufacturer’s sticker on the corner of the screen. Six men and a dozen women sat on sofas and armchairs staring at a Premier League game.

The men watched the match while the girls stroked chests underneath unbuttoned shirts, or used their phones. Directly opposite the big screen, Catch-Fire was on a sofa, topless, bottles of beer on a stool in front of him and two girls on either side, one caressing his sweaty chest, the other jerking him off under his boxer shots.

Knockout pulled up behind Chief Amadi’s car. ‘Look, the morafucker has bought a jeep.’

Staring at his rear-view mirror, Eremobor waited for the headlights of the car to go off. Perhaps he would recognise a business partner of his boss, and a driver who he had made friends with on the kind of nights when servants bonded outside while the masters congregated inside.

Go-Slow inspected his shirt for blood while Knockout walked over to the car in front. Eremobor did not recognise the midget in the side mirror, or the giant standing behind him. He went for a dagger he kept under his seat.

Knockout circled the car, peering through the darkened windows. He kicked the front tyre then walked round to join Go-Slow.

A girl in black micro shorts and a studded bra was the first to notice Amadi. She looked at his shoes and at his watch and then got to her feet before any of the other girls saw him.

Catch-Fire looked up. In the red light, it took a moment to recognise his new business partner. His erection poked out from the slit of the Tommy Hilfiger boxers. He tucked himself back in, brushed aside a girl’s arm, and stepped over the stool in front of him, knocking over a bottle of beer.

‘My Chief, I wasn’t expecting you, sir. I hope nothing is wrong. Please come, sit down. What will you drink? I have cold beer, I have brandy, I have girls.’

Catch-Fire bowed as he shook his hand. The men and the girls watched.

‘I was at a party in Surulere. I remembered you lived here, so I said I should stop by to say hello.’

‘My Chief, I am so honoured. Please, let them get you something to eat. I have fish pepper soup.’

‘Don’t worry. I didn’t know you were having a party. I’ll come another time.’

‘Oh, Chief, you cannot come to my house and leave like that. Let me entertain you. Please, sit down. Should they bring brandy?’

‘OK, brandy would be good. But I’m only staying for one drink.’

Amadi sat on the sofa where Catch-Fire had been. The girls stood to make space for him. They lingered.

‘Bring Rémy Martin for my oga.’ He gingerly sat on the edge of the sofa next to Amadi. ‘Chief, I cannot tell you how happy I am that you have come to visit me in my house. You are sure there is no problem?’

‘No, no problem. So, when does your party end?’

‘Ah, Chief, it is not a party. These people, they stay here with me.’

‘All of them?’

‘No, sir. Only the girls.’

‘I see.’

‘Chief, I am very happy that you came to visit me. Me, Catch- Fire. Chief, I must entertain you.’

He jumped to his feet and had to adjust his boxers again.

‘Everybody, clear out.’

The party moved lethargically towards the door.

‘All the girls, stay.’

The men gave him unsavoury looks. He darted to a stack of new electronic equipment that sat on a wooden stool with thin legs tapering to even thinner points. He fumbled with the controls, temporarily plunged the room into silence, then found the track he was searching for. Makossa music played from deceptively slim speakers at the corners of the room. The girls started dancing. Catch-Fire took a moment to admire them then he turned to his guest.

‘My Chief, these girls are from Cotonou. They dance Makossa very well and they fuck like dogs. Please, take your pick.’

The girls undressed. They had colourful beads around their waists, bouncing as they danced in their thongs. Some of them had not been wearing underwear. A girl with nipple piercings poured Amadi’s brandy and pulled his hand to come to the dance floor. He smiled and remained on the sofa.

‘Chief, please, pick anyone you like.’

‘Another time, my friend. I have to leave now. Come and see me before seven a.m. We have work to do.’

Go-Slow held the beaded curtain for Knockout and bent his head to pass through the doorway. He stopped when he saw the girls. Knockout grabbed a girl and pulled her to himself, gripped her bum, and pressed his open mouth onto her breast. She pushed him away and slapped him.

The other girls covered their breasts with their palms and gathered round their friend. Go-Slow stepped in front of Knockout and spread his arms. ‘Calm down, please.’

Knockout tried to get past Go-Slow. ‘What is wrong with her?’ he said, eyeing the girl. ‘Aren’t you a prostitute? Aren’t you all prostitutes? Why are you covering your breasts?’

One of the girls spoke: ‘Oga, you cannot just be treating her anyhow. After all, you are not the one who brought her here.’

‘Oh, really? And what are you going to do about it?’ His hand went under his t-shirt.

Go-Slow knew he was going for his weapon. He turned and wrapped his arms around Knockout before he could draw the pistol.

Catch-Fire pushed his way through the girls. ‘What are you boys doing here?’ he said.

‘We bring you business,’ Knockout said. He shook himself free from Go-Slow’s embrace.

‘Please, I do not do business at this time. Why didn’t you call me first before coming here?’

‘So we now have to call to make appointments?’

‘Look, my friend, I don’t have any business with you. I have paid you guys what I owe you. If you think you can just come to my house and start harassing my friends you are mistaken.’

‘What do you mean?’ Knockout’s hand found the handle of his pistol.

Go-Slow tapped him on the shoulder and nodded sideways. Knockout looked and saw a buxom girl pointing a revolver at his head. Another was handing out pistols from a rucksack.

‘What is this bullshit? We brought you business and you allow your prostitutes to draw guns?’ Knockout said.

‘I don’t have any business with you anymore. Get out of my house. And if I ever see you on my street again I will feed your testicles to the rabid dogs of Surulere.’

Go-Slow stepped forward. ‘We have made a terrible mistake,’ he said. ‘We will leave now and you don’t have to worry about us.’ He began to back out of the room, tugging Knockout’s arm.

Knockout stayed in the same spot staring into Catch-Fire’s eyes; the corners of his lips formed into a scornful smile and his fingers twitched with intent on the butt of his pistol.

‘Kanayo, let us go,’ Go-Slow said, raising his voice. All the girls now had guns which were pointed at them.

‘Why are you saying my name?’

‘Let’s go.’

Knockout looked past Catch-Fire and locked eyes with Amadi.

‘Kanayo.’

He shook Go-Slow’s hand off his shoulder. His hand remained on his undrawn weapon, his nose twitching from his snarl.

‘I am leaving,’ Go-Slow said.

Knockout began to back away, escorted out of the room by Catch-Fire and the girls.

When the last girl had left the room, Amadi, who had been watching in silence, searched the stool for a glass and found none. He checked the beer bottles and found one that wasn’t empty. He looked at the beaded curtains still dangling, took out the folded white envelope from his pocket and straightened it. He checked the curtain again, cupped his hand over the bottle to form a funnel and tipped the contents of the envelope into the beer. The alcohol foamed. He returned the empty envelope to his pocket and dusted his hands off each other and off his lap. He held the bottle by its neck and gently shook it then he relaxed back into his seat and picked up his glass of brandy from the floor.