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 thepastor 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.
17
He went back to his room and picked up his neatly folded clothes from the seat of
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 thepastor 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.
17
He went back to his room and picked up his neatly folded clothes from the seat of
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