"I am here ooooooo"
or
"Mugu guyman keep off!"
which told him someone else had staked out the site. It might be a fellow two chairs down from him for all he knew, but the protocol was to back off just the same—though guymen did occasionally get caught up in an online tussle over a particularly plump prize. A "
mugu
war," as they called it. Winston avoided these as well. They were counterproductive and only distracted from the task at hand: to snare, spear, snatch, and squeeze the
mugu
, the fool, dry.
Sometimes Winston would find a CV posted online, with street addresses and phone numbers given. That was especially useful when it came time to cut the
mugu
loose, to threaten their lives, family, et cetera. These exchanges usually ended in blubbering pleas from the
mugu:
"O, you have ruined me," "O, you have tricked me." Sometimes the blubbering turned into legal threats—more an annoyance than anything worth fretting over—and this was where a home address proved a boon. Attaching a simple Google Maps photo of the
mugus
house to a note saying "We know where you live" was usually enough to shut down such nonsense. And even then there was little danger of any real legal action; it was more akin to swatting aside a fly. A minor annoyance at most, all those angry/ sad/rebuffed/baffled emails cluttering one's inbox.
The real danger lay here in Lagos, in the sudden swoops of EFCC officers seeking to "rehabilitate" Nigeria's reputation.
Interfering with hard-working 419ers, staging publicity-stunt raids and mass arrests. Winston had been caught in one such sweep—that was why he now moved from cyber cafe to cyber cafe, avoiding overnight stays and always scouting the quickest exit.
He started out as a yahoo boy, taking advantage of the cheaper prices to remain at the cafes overnight, long after the
CLOSED
sign had been turned and the door bolted. He'd never cared for the crude company of the other overnighters, though. The low laughs, the desperation disguised as camaraderie, the eye-stinging haze of cigarettes
—Was he the only man in Lagos who didn't smoke
?—the constant dull-witted banter, the tiresome obsession with the female form. Winston wasn't staying up all night to share lurid tales of sexual conquest, real or imagined; he had business to conduct, and the rambling discussions the other yahoo boys had about the best way to 419 a girl from Victoria Island into your bed was a taxing waste of energy. Winston had bigger plans than that.
He was no mere
wayo
man, a trickster, a huckster, a carnival conjurer. He was a true guyman, living by his wits, outsmarting the odds. This was what he told himself to buoy his spirits when he felt adrift.
There were times he thought he should make more of an effort to chum around with the yahoo boys, exchanging tips, sharing advice. He'd purchased his first formats from a yahoo boy, after all, a lengthy plea from the widow of General Abacha, almost comically inept in its structure and internal inconsistencies, but a start nonetheless. And after two hundred tries, it had paid off: a small payout from an engineering student in Edinburgh, only a few thousand pounds but enough to keep him going.
It seemed so long ago now. Winston waved for another cup of tea. The yahoo boys drank minerals and beer, but Winston was cut from a different cloth. Lemon spiced with ginger.
He forced a sigh back into his throat, scrolled again through the profiles he was compiling.
A city of millions, built on a swamp, on a series of stepping stones, on islands thick with humidity. The worst place to construct a metropolis, but that was Lagos. It defied common sense. Winston dreamed of streamlined cities, where action could follow plan smoothly and without the endless layers of
dash
and deceit that Lagos demanded. The yahoo boys were impatient—that was their problem. That was the city's problem, too; Lagos was always hurrying, always getting in its own way. The place needed less hustle, more strategy. There was so much energy expended daily over the most mundane of details—getting a haircut, paying a bill. Every transaction had to be wrestled to the ground, it seemed, every point of view debated in endless mind-maddening detail.
These were the things that drained one's energy, dissipated one's profits. If only this energy could be better directed.
If we could walk in step, we could take over the world.
But of course, the very strength of Lagos was that it
didn't
walk in step. Winston knew this; the city's weaknesses were also its wellspring.
We fall to earth like raindrops. Why did I have to fall here?
Winston dreamed of taking Nigeria's greatest innovation, the 419 scheme, to the next level, in Europe or the U.K., in New York or London. Not in sputters and sparks, with the usual street-gang syndicates and expat bone-breakers hired in America and Europe to shake down troublesome
mugus
—but something better, something bigger, something more
sophisticated.
It would be 419 on a corporate level, with managers and CEOs operating within the law, not outside it. It would be 419 painted on a larger canvas.
Even the best of the Lagos guymen had only scratched the skin; there was so much more to tap into. And yet... here he was, lost in Lagos, holed up in Festac Town, pecking out ridiculous messages to ridiculous
mugus,
dreaming—as always—of something more.
It would only ever be a dream. That was the tragedy of it. The raid that had nabbed him on Victoria Island had also tangled up his future. He'd been given a suspended sentence, was even now on probationary orders. With his passport suspended, he'd missed his sister's graduation from university in England, had been forced to make contrived excuses to his parents. The truth was, he was marked like Cain and would never be allowed to leave Nigeria. No visa, no hope of escape. The suspension would eventually be lifted, or so he hoped, but the damage had been done. He now had a criminal record, and the only way out was to smuggle himself into another country like a common refugee—which killed any chance of his building 419 on a truly international scale.
Perhaps he could land a sponsor, someone who wasn't related to him, someone who could act as his guarantor. Maybe he would meet a beautiful
oyibo
woman and charm her into marrying him?
He laughed at this in spite of himself.
And so, there he sits, in Festac Town, typing fairy tales:
Sir, I apologize with unreserved hindsight for intruding on your life. I was looking for Henry Curtis, graduate of Athabasca University, retired from the noble profession of teachering, a member in Good Standing of the Amateur Woodworking Society of Hounsfield Heights, subscriber of the Briar Hill community newspaper, husband of Helen, grandfather of twins...
CHAPTER 23
Laura remembered something else her father had once said to her, years before.
It may have been at Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving. There was a fireplace and warmth, and he was looking past her when he said it. "Do you know what I fear?"
Home for the holidays. Her second year away? Maybe her third.
The details were fuzzy, but not the feeling. Nutmeg in eggnog. The pop of wood knots in a fire. But no Christmas tree. Thanksgiving then? Snow outside. Had it snowed early that year?
Her mom had been at a school meeting and Warren was out, so it was just the two of them, with nothing much to say, happy just to sit and sip.
During one lull, he'd asked her the question, "Do you know what I fear?"
She didn't.
"As a parent? My fear is that when we die, we'll have to watch all those moments in our lives when we were short-tempered with our children, all the times they needed our love and we didn't give it, all those times we were distracted or in a bad mood, all the times we were angry or impatient."
"Dad," she said. "You were never angry. I don't think you ever raised your voice."
"Oh, there were times," he said. "You've just forgotten. Times when I brushed you or Warren aside instead of asking how your day was, those times I didn't listen to your stories. My fear is, when the time comes, I'll have to watch all those moments again. That they'll make us watch them before we can get into Heaven." He looked at her. "I'm sorry, Laura."
"There's nothing to be sorry about."
"But I am."
"Sorry? For what?"
"Just sorry. Sorry for the things I should have done, might have done, but didn't."
She should have said it then:
You were a good dad. You always did your best.
She should have said it, but didn't. She let the moment lapse into silence instead, let the silence pass into smoke.
CHAPTER 24
My dearest Henry,
As perhaps you have been made awares, my childhood protector, Victor Okechukwu, has entered the hospital. I'm afraid his cancer has taken a turn for the worst. As his life dims he repeats your name and worries only about your commitment to this matter. Once Mr. Okechukwu's life has passed—as surely it must, I will have no one. I ask only for your assistance. I beg you on bended knees and with tears in my eyes.
Darkness and danger press in from every side. Until such moment as I am rescued,
I remain as ever, yours truly,
Miss Sandra
A grin from the boy in the silk shirt as he clicked-and-dragged an image of a Nollywood starlet with almond eyes and a tattered dress
(in the role of a destitute daughter from a Lagos melodrama) and inserted it into his email. That a famed Nigerian movie star would pitch her woes to a distant
oyibo,
how could one not grin at such a thing?
Mugu fall, guyman whack.
Before the boy could hit
SEND,
though, a reply came back from his previous petition, a single note from the schoolteacher in Canada.
—I can help.
How easily a grin turns into a chuckle, and a chuckle into something deeper even than laughter. Winston leaned back and cricked his neck, sipped his tea, felt the burlap-sack burden that was Lagos grow suddenly buoyant, felt the netted entanglements of daily life dissolve. Sweeter than soft drinks, sweeter than tea.
But no sooner had he congratulated himself on the fine-spun nature of his fairy tale than a face appeared on his screen—not in,
on.
A reflection thrown back by the protective sheen the cyber cafe placed over its computer screens. A face. Not his. And before Winston could react, the reflection had reached out, had touched his shoulder. Police raid? EFCC sweep? Winston turned in a smooth swirl of silk, exiting the window on his computer screen with practised ease in one flowing motion. "Yes, bruddah?" he asked.
A thin man with swampy eyes, face bereft of expression. "Oga wants to see you."
Oga was a title, not a name.
Among the shadowmen of Lagos, Oga was "boss," Oga was
"big man," Oga was "strong man." Rarely was there a hoodlum or crime syndicate head who didn't fancy himself as Chief This or Oga That. It was prestige through proxy, stature by mere word association.
The meaning of Oga. It did not escape Winston. Nor could he escape it.
Swampy eyes, a face bereft of expression. "Your Oga is waiting."
Winston blinked. "I don't have an Oga."
"You do now."
CHAPTER 25
She dreamed of horses. Of wailing flutes and
tambura
drums. Of a rolling barrage of hooves, of horse and rider in full gallop.
It may have been Eid-el-Fitr, maybe Eid-el-Kabir. It may have commemorated the end of Ramadan or the prophet Ibrahim's sacrificing of a ram instead of a child. But in her dreaming, the horsemen of the durbar were out in full pageantry. Riders in scarlet turbans with swords drawn, sunlight sharpening the blades.
Horses, draped in quilted armour and adorned with falcon-feathered headdresses. Praise singers and footmen. The accolades of cannon fire and high-trilled voices. His Excellency the Emir looking on, languid under peacock feather fans, as the lancers line up, horses snorting. With a loud cry they charge, wave after wave, at breakneck gallop, pulling back only at the last moment, in clouds of dust and to the cheers of the crowds. A feigned attack, a test of mettle.
The emir never blinks; the horsemen never follow through.
Instead, they raise sword and lance in a warrior's salute. A ritual of fealty, but one with an underlying message:
You have contained us; you have not conquered us.
She dreamed of horses, woke to the sound of hoofbeats trailing away.
CHAPTER 26
Lauras mother, on the phone. A tremor running through her voice.