Making Wolf by Tade Thompson

his file I already knew he was over six feet and in his youth had won kickboxing trophies. The man before me could barely breathe, and did so in intermittent wheezes and with all the drama of an Olympic weightlifting event. His hair was short, head looking almost shaven. His eyes were pits because of the fat of his cheeks. He drooled saliva constantly from open lips and, at intervals, the nurse who watched over him would dab a cloth across his mouth. He had large scars around the head and face that I thought probably came from the explosion and surgery. The tunic of his pajamas held wet food stains and ballooned out over his gut, which was the largest I had ever seen. He was rounder than the Michelin man and each movement made him look like a fluid-filled sac rather than a being of flesh, blood, and bone. He stank of excrement and fermented sweat. His left hand shook, and he would reach across his double-wide chest with his right hand to still it at times.
    His nurse, a Nigerian man with a hostile face, stared at me like I had disturbed an interesting and no doubt sexual dream to which he would like to return.
    “Mr. Akinrinde,” I said. I was seated across from him, two feet separating us.
    He did not respond.
    “Mr. Akinrinde, my name is Weston Kogi, and I’m a detective. Can you hear me?”
    “He can hear you,” said the nurse.
    “I’m talking to Mr. Akinrinde,” I said. ‘Please let him respond.” And shut the fuck up. An interesting side note: I understood briefly why guns should not be made available to people. I felt a strong urge to pull out my firearm and shoot the nurse in the face.
    “I would like to talk about Pa Busi,” I said.
    He looked at me then, the whites of his eyes barely visible within the dark comma-shaped pits of his fat face, and it was like being gazed upon by a Buddha, but without the serenity or mirth. I had registered on his consciousness, but he still wasn’t talking.
    “Do you remember anything about the day he was killed?”
    Akinrinde took a deep breath and exhaled blowhole fashion, aerosolizing saliva in the process. He frowned, facial muscles straining to shift the adipose. He opened his mouth, and a cough came out. He put his fist to his chest, burped, and tried again. “I have tried everything, and only nothing works.”
    Droplets of spit flew from his mouth forming minute cold spots on my face. I resisted the urge to wipe them away. “Could you try to remember what happened?”
    “I do remember. Nothing works.”
    I looked at the nurse, but he only shrugged.
    “The contingent consisted of four agents,” Akinrinde said in a crisp, clear voice that surprised both me and the nurse. “Idris Wallace, Antoine Adebowale, Junior Alao, and myself. Idris was a special agent, and we were instructed to follow his lead.
    “We bivouacked in the Imperial Hotel, six hundred yards from the subject’s residence the evening before. Adebowale and I did several sweeps of the surrounding streets while Alao familiarized himself with the vehicle we would be using. At oh-eight hundred hours the next day, we relieved the night detail, which consisted of one agent.” He stopped to swallow spit. It occurred to me that he thought this was a debriefing.
    “There was no heightened security? No alert about threats against his life?”
    “Negative. The four agents were because of his negotiations with the rebel factions. He planned to make a journey into territory that was considered hostile. At oh-nine hundred hours the subject entered the vehicle, and we set off.”
    “Destination?” I was taking notes at a demonic speed.
    “The People’s Christian Army camp. It was a relatively low risk time. There was no active conflict, and most combatants respected the ceasefire. Intelligence suggested that it was a safe period. There was no chatter, and we were not expected. The journey was uneventful except for the subject insisting on stopping for akara at thirteen thirty-two hours.”
    My mouth