‘They’re wasting their time,’ Protocol Officer said with flames in his voice.
‘They’ve been writing all sorts of rubbish about Cash Daddy in the newspapers,’ another one added indignantly, ‘but thank God the people of Abia State are not foolish enough to believe everything they read.’
‘No matter what they do,’ yet another one added, ‘Cash Daddy is still going to win.’
‘Of course,’ they all responded.
‘Cash Daddy is our man.’
Back at home, I saw that in my absence Charity had once again arranged my shoes according to their colours. Wondering for how long I would be able to maintain the order this time, I unbuckled the Prada shoes I was wearing and placed them carefully in the caramel row. Then I sat beside her on the bed, where she had been waiting for me. Seeing the gravity of her facial expression, I became more deeply immersed in dread.
‘Kings,’ she began. ‘There’s this very close friend of mine I met through one of my friends in school.’
I swallowed a hard lump of fear.
‘Kings,’ she looked up at me with shy eyes, ‘he asked me to marry him and I told him yes.’
Because of how serious she looked, I immediately resisted the temptation to burst out laughing. Truly, the idea of marriage makes girls suddenly behave strangely. I had never seen my sister like this before.
‘What’s his name?’ I asked, strictly for want of speech.
‘His name is Johnny,’ she replied. ‘But he’s Igbo,’ she added quickly. ‘His Igbo name is Nwokeoma. Nwokeoma Nwabekee.’
Naturally, I would not want my sister to marry someone who was not Igbo, but right now, that was the least of my concerns. Throughout that night, I tossed and turned in bed, tormented by various fears. What would become of my family - what would become of my sister - if anything were to happen to me? Losing a father was bad enough. But losing their source of life and sustenance would bring unimaginable disaster.
And what would happen to me, their source of life and sustenance, if anything were to happen to Cash Daddy?
It was not until five in the morning that I remembered the girl waiting for me at the hotel.
Thirty-six
Cash Daddy was released by 9 a.m. He came out of the police cell looking dishevelled and disoriented, like a hermit who had just been discovered in a cave. On his way out of the station, he took some cash from Protocol Officer and distributed the hundred-dollar notes amongst the officers on duty. They thanked him profusely and saw him off to the waiting car. Protocol Officer had arrived in a Jaguar that bore ‘Cash Daddy 47’. He came alone, with just a driver and without the usual convoy. Cash Daddy chatted briefly with his political cronies, dismissed them, and turned to me.
‘Enter my car,’ he said.
From the backseat of my Audi, I took the carrier bag with the books I had purchased in Lagos and instructed my driver to ride behind us. Protocol Officer took his usual position in the front passenger seat, I sat next to my uncle in the back.
We drove past a police checkpoint without stopping. This checkpoint had not been here yesterday. As usual, when the men-in-black saw the number plate on the car, they shifted from the roadblock, genuflected, and waved. Sometimes Cash Daddy threw cash out of the window at them. Today, he did not even look in their direction.
Before long, his verbalomania kicked into action and Cash Daddy, once again, became as talkative as a magpie.
‘These people don’t know who they’re dealing with,’ he began. ‘Of course I know it’s Uwajimogwu that arranged this police trouble for me. The eagle said that it wasn’t a child when it started travelling long distances. I’ve been getting in and out of trouble since I was this small.’ He indicated a distance from the floor to the air that was not higher than a toilet seat. ‘Honestly, he doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.’
Uwajimogwu was his co-contender for the gubernatorial ticket of the National Advancement Party. It was general knowledge that even though there were at least thirty others who had collected forms and indicated their intention to contest, the fight was really just between both men. Whichever of them won the primaries was fairly certain to become the next governor of Abia State. The NAP was currently the strongest party, the one with the most billionaires and the highest concentration of reincarnated politicians whose histories went as far back as Nigeria’s first democratic elections in the 1960s.
‘He knows I have the police here under my control, that’s why he went and lodged his complaints with the Zonal Command in Calabar. But they still don’t have any proof. Money laundering of all charges. He wants to get me into jail and the only thing he could come up with is money laundering.’
Cash Daddy laughed. This tactic of digging into a co-contender’s past to unearth crimes was proving quite effective in many states around the country. Just last week, a House of Representatives candidate in Delta State had been disqualified for spending four years in an Italian jail for drug trafficking. The man had kept denying the allegation until his opponents published the twenty-year-old records, which they had obtained from the Italian police, in five national dailies.
‘At first, I tried to be considerate,’ Cash Daddy continued. ‘I had planned to allow a few delegates to vote for him in the primaries, but now he has made me very angry. I’m going to make sure that not a single vote goes to him on that day. He’ll see that they don’t call me Cash Daddy for nothing. If a person bites you on the head without being concerned about your hair, then you can bite him on the buttocks without being concerned about his shit. Is that not so?’
Fortunately, I was not required to answer.
Cash Daddy tucked his hands beneath his T-shirt and started slapping a rhythm on his belly.
‘I’m very hungry,’ he announced. ‘I don’t think I slept more than five minutes last night. Mosquitoes were singing the national anthem in my ears. I have to make a complaint to Police Commissioner. At least they should have put a fan in my room.’
From what I had heard of our police cells, the facilities in a horse stable were supposed to be better.
Cash Daddy stretched his upper jaw to the North Pole, his lower jaw to the South Pole, and yawned. A billion mosquitoes must have lost their lives in the malodorous fumes from his mouth. Cleaning his teeth must have been the very last thing on his mind this morning.
‘I’m sure the whole of Nigeria has been trying to reach me,’ he said, switching on the cellular phone Protocol Officer had returned to him.
His face split in another yawn. He peered through his tinted window. A blue Bentley was coming from the opposite direction.
‘Is that not World Bank?’ he asked excitedly.
Protocol Officer had already seen the oncoming car and confirmed that it was.
‘I haven’t seen him in a long time,’ Cash Daddy said. ‘Stop!’
The driver stopped. Exactly where the Jaguar was in the middle of the road. He wound down Cash Daddy’s window from the control panel in front, and Cash Daddy stuck his head out. World Bank noticed his pal and must have commanded his own driver who stopped directly beside us. Also in the middle of the road.
‘Your Excellency!’ World Bank hailed. ‘Long time no see!’
‘My brother,’ Cash Daddy replied, ‘you know it’s not my fault. I’ve been very busy with the campaigns. Every day it’s one meeting after another.’
‘It’s a good thing I saw you now. Very soon, we’ll have to fill forms and go through all sorts of protocol before we can see you.’
‘That’s the way life is,’ Cash Daddy replied apologetically. ‘From one level to another. Anyway, we shall survive. How are things with you?’
‘Cash Daddy, let me give you notice. I’m throwing a party for my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary in August. And I’m celebrating it big! Even my sister in Japan is coming back with her family. It’ll be a good opportunity for a family reunion. The last time we were all together was during my father’s burial. It’s such a pity that he’s not alive to witness the anniversary.’
By this time, there was a pile up of cars in both directions of the busy road, a road made even narrower by erosion and debris. The accommodating drivers waited for what they assumed would be a brief chat. When it went on for longer than was acceptable by highway etiquette, many of them started honking. Some stuck out their heads and yelled earnest invectives. Cash Daddy and World Bank were unperturbed. They continued their chitchat to its natural conclusion before saying goodbye.
While the driver was pressing the control to slide Cash Daddy’s window back up, a man who was about four cars behind World Bank’s Bentley, leaned out of a Datsun Sunny that looked as if it had been stuck together with chewing gum and tied up with thread.
‘Thieves!’ he shouted. ‘419ers! Please get out of the way! Was it your dirty money that built this road?’
As we drove on and past the Datsun Sunny, the irate driver stretched out a fist and punched the body of the Jaguar viciously. Protocol Officer took this action personally. He cursed loudly and started winding down his window.
‘Don’t mind him, don’t mind him,’ Cash Daddy said calmly, like the elephant who had just been told that the spider was coming to wage war against her. ‘Just ignore him. You don’t blame him, his problem is just poverty. Can’t you see the type of car he’s driving? If you were the one driving that type of car, wouldn’t you be angry? That’s why I don’t like poor people around me. They’re always looking for someone to blame for their problems.’
Reluctantly, Protocol Officer wound his window back up. Cash Daddy wagged his finger at me.
‘But that doesn’t mean you should cut off all the poor people you know,’ he warned. ‘They don’t have to be very close to you, but it’s good to keep them within reach, because they can come in handy once in a while. Me, I know enough pepper and tomato sellers who can start a riot for me any day I want.’
As we drove on, there was silence for a while. But not for too long.
‘How did it go at the American Embassy?’
‘I collected my visa yesterday.’
I gave brief details of the stressful interview.
‘Don’t worry about all that,’ Cash Daddy said. ‘By the time you reach America, you’ll see that it was worth it. That’s the same way they’ll stress you at the point of entry, but it still doesn’t matter. They’ll even bring big, big dogs to sniff your whole body, but that’s how they treat every other Nigerian, so there’s no need for you to start thinking you’ve done something wrong. The only way you can avoid all that stress is to get an American passport.’
He yawned again.
‘You’re lucky that you’re not yet married,’ Cash Daddy continued. ‘If I’d thought about it early enough, I would’ve married a woman who’s a British or American citizen. By now I would have had my own full citizenship.’
He tossed his head back onto the headrest.
‘By the way, Kings, have you decided when you’re getting married?’
I snorted.
‘You think it’s funny, eh? Listen, let me tell you something. When a warrior is involved in a wrestling bout and has his eyes both on the fight and on his surroundings, even a woman can defeat him. That’s why it’s good to marry early. Better hurry up. Even Protocol Officer is getting married.’
‘Ah! Protocol Officer? Congratulations.’
‘Thank you,’ he replied without looking behind. Years of sitting in the front of Cash Daddy’s vehicles had taught him the art of turning his ears around without turning his head. I tried to imagine all that his ears must have soaked in while sitting there all these years.
When we drove through the gates of the mammoth mansion, nine men ran out of the house to welcome Cash Daddy. As soon as he stepped out of the car, almost all of them struggled to be the ones to clean his shoes. That was when it occurred to me just how much all of us loved him, how much he meant to us. What would become of all of us if he went to jail? Then I remembered the gifts I bought for him. I grabbed the carrier bag from the floor of the car before climbing out after him.
‘Cash Daddy, here’s something I got for you in Lagos,’ I said, stretching the bag out to him respectfully, with my two hands and with a slight stoop.
‘What?’
‘Here’s something I got for you.’
For once, Cash Daddy was as speechless as a stone. He kept looking at my hands without touching the bag. Finally, the shock covered the whole acreage of his face and passed. He shook his head slowly and took the bag from me.
‘This boy, your head is not correct,’ he said quietly. ‘There’s something wrong with you. Why didn’t you use the money to buy garri for one old woman in your village? How can you be spending your money buying me things?’
He started walking towards the house. After a few paces, he stopped and turned.
‘I was just thinking about it,’ he said. ‘Do you know that this is the first time in almost fifteen years that anybody has bought anything for me? Just like that . . . for no reason?’
He smiled like a delighted child and continued towards the house.
Thirty-seven
Charity had taken the weekend off school for the special occasion. Her suitor was paying me a courtesy call this Saturday afternoon. From my bedroom window, I saw that Johnny a.k.a Nwokeoma was not infected with the ‘African Time’ epidemic. He had arrived a whole seven minutes before his 2 p.m. appointment. To make sure that nobody mistook his brand new Honda for a tokunbo, Johnny had left the protective cellophane wrappings on the seat covers and on the headrests. Like many people, he would probably never tear the covers off but leave them to wear out with time.
My sister rushed outside to welcome him. With fury, I watched them embrace. I was daring the man to take their body contact any further when they held hands and sauntered happily into my house. Charity had him seated comfortably in the living room, then came upstairs to announce his arrival. I had been pacing up and down in my bedroom for the past thirty minutes, wondering what to say to him when he turned up. Still, I allowed an extra forty minutes to pass before coming downstairs. I did not offer any apologies for keeping him waiting.