Five men in dark suits and dark glasses surrounded him. Two walked ahead, two behind, one beside him. When they were nearing the cars, the man beside him rushed ahead to open the back door of the Land Cruiser. Uncle Boniface heaved his bulkiness through the open door and adjusted himself in the back seat. The same man took his own place in the front passenger seat while the remaining four men hopped into the CR-Vs. The convoy glided through the now wide-open gates. Each car had a personalised number plate. The Land Cruiser bore ‘Cash Daddy 1’, while the first CR-V was ‘Cash Daddy 2’, the second ‘Cash Daddy 3’, and so forth. I watched this display in awestruck wonder.
All of a sudden, as if one driver were controlling all five cars, the convoy stopped just outside the gates. The tinted window of the middle jeep slid down. Uncle Boniface’s head popped out. He looked back towards the gate, pointed at me, and shouted.
‘Security! Allow that boy to go and wait for me inside my office! Right now!’
‘Yes, sir! OK, sir!’ the gateman replied.
The others waiting by the gate rushed towards the car. Cash Daddy’s convoy zoomed on.
Inside the main building, the receptionist was chomping gum with wild movements of her mouth, as if she had three tongues.
‘Please have a seat,’ she said, and opened a gigantic refrigerator. ‘Would you like something to drink?’
I looked at the assortment of drinks stacked into every single compartment.
‘No, thank you,’ I replied. I did not want to give the impression that I was from a home where we did not have access to such goodies.
There were four girls and three men waiting inside, some variety of drink or the other on a stool beside each of them. One man was gulping down a can of Heineken while his eyes were fixed on the wide television screen that covered almost half of the opposite wall. The television was set to MTV. Some men, whom the screen caption described as Outkast, were making a lot of noise. Despite the boulder of gum in her mouth, the receptionist was noising along. Incredibly, she seemed to know all the words.
Soon, a fresh bout of commotion heralded The Return of Cash Daddy. As soon as he stepped into the office, one of the dark-suited men produced a piece of cloth from somewhere and started wiping Cash Daddy’s shoes. Uncle Boniface used the brief pause to look round at those waiting for him. He saw the man drinking the beer and glared.
‘What are you doing here? Haven’t I finished with you?’
The man stood up and approached him. Uncle Boniface turned away and pointed at one of the girls.
‘Come,’ he said.
She rose smugly and stiletto-ed along behind him. My uncle zoomed through a set of doors which led further inside the office. His jacket had ‘Field Marshal’ emblazoned in bold, gold-coloured letters on the back. Without looking back or addressing anybody in particular, he shouted: ‘Get that man out of here. Right now!’
Three of the dark-suited escorts immediately went into action. On his way out, the man remembered to grab his Heineken and bring it along.
Twelve
Fortunately, it was not a ‘first come, first served’ affair. The receptionist announced that Cash Daddy was ready to see me right after the girl came out grinning. One of the dark-suited men escorted me to the same doors through which my uncle had disappeared. We walked down a narrow corridor and stopped at the last door on the right. Inside, the man who had sat in the Land Cruiser with my uncle stood up from behind a computer screen, tapped lightly on an inner door and pushed me inside.
The office was vast and uncluttered. There was a refrigerator in a corner, a large mahogany shelf filled with books that looked like they had never been read, a wide mahogany cabinet that housed several exotic vases, various awards that extolled my uncle’s financial contributions to different organisations, and a bronze clock. Stealing most of the attention in the room, a large, framed photograph of Uncle Boniface hung centred on the wall. In it, he was wearing a long-sleeved isi-agu traditional outfit and a george wrapper. He had a beaded crown on his head, a horsetail in his right hand, and a leather fan in his left. Most likely, the photograph was taken during the conferment of a chieftaincy title by some traditional ruler or other who wanted to show appreciation for Uncle Boniface’s contributions to his community. Cash Daddy was seated behind the mahogany desk in the centre of the room, which held three telephone sets, a computer, and a Bible.
‘Good afternoon, Uncle Boniface,’ I said.
‘Kings, Kings,’ he beamed. ‘You’re still the same . . . you haven’t changed at all. I had to rush out like that because a girlfriend of mine is being chased by a student.’
He swivelled his grand leather chair from one 180-degree angle to the other.
‘I heard that he was in her house so I wanted to go and make some noise. Let him know who he’s dealing with. Any child who claims that he knows as many proverbs as his father should be prepared to pay as much tax as his father does. Is that not so?’
He swivelled to the left.
‘Is that not so?’
‘Yes.’
He swivelled to the right.
‘Me, I don’t play games. I went there with my convoy so that the small boy will be afraid and think twice. Me, I don’t believe in film tricks; I believe in real, live action. If he knows what’s good for him, he had better clear off. How are you?’
Before I could answer, he stopped swivelling and screamed.
‘Aaaaargh!’
I was jolted.
‘What is that on your legs?’
Involuntarily, I hopped from one foot to the other and looked downwards. I did not notice anything strange.
‘What’s that you’re wearing on your legs?’
Again, I looked at my feet.
‘Are those shoes?’ He frowned and looked worried. ‘I hope you didn’t tell any of the people outside that you’re my brother? I just hope you didn’t.’
I stared back at him and down at my feet again. The shoes were a gift from Ola for my twenty-second birthday - one of the few items that had come into my possession in a brand new state. As yet, I had never questioned their respectability.
‘Protocol Officer!’ he yelled.
I was jolted again. It sounded as if he were summoning someone from the next street. The man in the outer office appeared.
‘Get this man out of here!’
‘Yes, sir,’ Protocol Officer replied.
My important mission was about to be botched!
‘Uncle Boniface, please,’ I begged. ‘I just came to talk to you about—
‘Get out of my office! Protocol Officer, take this man away.
Make sure he’s wearing new shoes before bringing him back. Go!’
The man led me out and handed me to one of the dark-suited men, who accompanied me into a bright yellow Mercedes-Benz SLK with number plate ‘Cash Daddy 17’. We drove swiftly to a nearby shop that had a diverse stock of men’s shoe brands. After politely declining several of my escort’s recommendations, I finally made my pick. They had one of the lowest price tags of all the shoes in the shop, but they were probably the most civilised. Unostentatious, respectable, gentlemanly. I slipped my feet into the pair of black Russell & Bromley shoes. Honestly, there are shoes and there are shoes. As I tried them on, it felt as if dainty female fingers were massaging my feet. A revolution had taken place.
My dark-suited escort paid for the goods while I cast my old pair into the sleek box from whence the new ones had come. Back at the office, my uncle inspected my latest appearance and nodded his approval.
‘Didn’t you see how your shoes were pointing up as if they were singing the national anthem? Don’t ever come to my office again looking like that. A fart becomes a stench only when there are people around. You can afford to be wearing those types of shoes in other places but you can’t wear them around me. Do you know who I am?’
I apologised profusely and promised that I would never try it again.
‘Have you had something to drink?’
‘No, I’m OK, thank you.’
Suddenly, a strange tune pierced the air. My uncle pulled out a metallic handset from his jacket pocket and looked at the screen before answering.
‘Speak to me!’ he bellowed.
I admired the cellular phone shamelessly. Mere men could not afford any of these satellite devices; they were the exclusive possession of Nigeria’s rich and prosperous.
‘See you later!’ he yelled and hung up.
He indicated for me to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk.
‘How are your parents?’
‘My mother is fine,’ I replied. ‘She asked me to greet you. But my father’s in hospital. That’s the main reason why I came to see you.’
His face crumpled with concern.
‘Hospital? What’s wrong with him?’
‘He went into a coma a few weeks ago. He’s been on admission at the Government Hospital.’
His cellular rang again. He cleared his throat violently after looking at the screen, then allowed the phone to ring some more before answering.
‘Hello? Ah! Mr Moore!’ he said with excitement. ‘I’m really glad you called! I was just about to ring you now! I just finished speaking with the minister for petroleum. In fact, I just hung up when my phone rang and it turned out to be you.’
He listened briefly.
‘Calm down, calm down. I understand. But the minister has assured me that you will definitely get that oil licence. He just gave me his word right now on the phone. And one thing about the minister, he might be slow but once he gives his word, that’s it. There’s no going back.’
He listened. My uncle looked totally committed to the conversation. Perhaps it was the minister he had been chatting so familiarly with a short while ago? Perhaps the phone call with the minister had happened when I went out for the shoes?
‘Right now, I’m not too sure when the meeting will hold,’ he continued. ‘You know the president is currently out of the country so a lot of big things are being put on hold.’
It had been in all the newspapers. His Excellency had tripped on the Aso Rock Villa marble staircase, dislocated his ankle, and had to be flown out to Germany for treatment. There had been a time when things like that did not make any sense to me. But with my recent intimate experience of our hospitals, I did not blame anyone who swam across the Atlantic to get treated for a hangover.
‘Tentatively, I would say the sixth,’ my uncle was saying. ‘I’ll go ahead and ask my staff to book your flight and make reservations with the Sheraton.’
He listened. His face showed concern.
‘Mr Moore, I know. But the American Embassy clearly advises that any of its citizens visiting Nigeria should stay in American hotels. It’s for your own safety. You know Nigeria is a dangerous place, especially for a white man. And one thing about me is that I’m a man who never likes to go against the law.’
He listened with deeper concern.
‘I know.’
He listened some more.
‘I know. You said so the last time.’
Suddenly, his face sparkled with a good idea.
‘You know what I can do? I’ll arrange for that same girl you liked very much the last time. How would you like that?’
He smiled. He listened. He laughed.
‘Ah, Mr Moore. That’s one thing I like about you. You know a good thing when you see it. All right, my good friend. We’ll see on the sixth.’
The phone was returned to his pocket.
‘So what are the doctors saying?’ he said to me, as if there had been no international interruption.
‘They said it’s a stroke,’ I replied. ‘They’re still observing him but they said his condition is stable.’
He shook his head and went into an extended speech about how much he hated hospitals; how whenever he was sick, he paid the doctors to come treat him at home instead. How the last time he was in France, he had wanted to do a full medical check-up, but when he was told that they could not carry it out right in his château he had bought in the South of France, he had told the doctors to go and jump into the Atlantic Ocean.
I waited patiently for him to finish. My uncle was a hard man to interrupt.
‘Anyway,’ he concluded, ‘I might still try and do the check-up during my next trip to America. You know, in America, there’s nothing you can’t get as far as you can afford it.’
‘Uncle Boniface,’ I dived in, ‘I’m really sorry to trouble you but I came to ask if you can help us.’
At this point, I wobbled. Asking for money like this felt disgraceful. Even though we had had several relatives suckling from my parents’ pockets when times were good, my father refused to allow us to go soliciting help when times became tough. Today was my very first attempt. I remembered my father lying in hospital and summoned the courage to continue.
‘Uncle Boniface, my father has been in hospital longer than we expected, and the expenses are rising every day. Right now—’
‘What about your father’s 505?’ he interrupted. ‘Do you people still have it?’
I was thrown completely off balance. Did the 505 have anything to do with the issue at hand?
‘No, they sold it almost four years ago,’ I replied slowly.
‘Ah, I remember that car. I used to dream that one day I’ll have my own 505 just like that and hire a white man to be my personal driver.’
He laughed a brief, staccato laugh.
It occurred to me that this change of topic was merely the show of light-heartedness that rich people tend to exhibit when presented with a problem they know money can easily solve. I decided to go with the flow.
‘And the car was still very strong right until they sold it,’ I added with false passion.
‘You think that car was strong?’ He laughed. ‘Honestly, that shows you don’t know anything about cars. Have you seen my brand new Dodge Viper?’
Of course I had never seen his brand new Dodge Viper. Still, he silently looked upon me as if expecting an answer.