Making Wolf, page 20
“How long has she worked for them?”
“Ten years.”
“Romantic involvements?”
“Ah…many. I don’t know how to say this, but she was used to gather information at times. This meant getting close to people of power, sexually in many cases.”
“Anybody special?”
“Not according to the information we have. I’m sorry to be the one telling you this, ore. It’s the forest of a thousand daemons; you will run into them whether it’s Churchill Okuta or Nana Hastruup. She—”
I cut him off. The phone was losing charge so I jacked it in a wall socket.
I made some notes in my journal.
I tried not to think of Nana, and obviously she was all I could think of.
You really haven’t looked after my place, Weston. That was what she had said. And I’d said nothing. What do you say when the woman you love does not rush into your arms but instead kisses the homicidal psychopath who has just killed and raped someone right next to you?
I tried to focus. I could end this soon.
It would have been a good time for the gods to stand up for Holloway bastards, but they didn’t.
She kissed Church. It was a lingering, wet tongue kiss with his hands moving all over her body and squeezing her bottom. It couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, but it was hours to me. I was unable to speak, and there was this loud tinnitus in my ears. My forehead hurt. Real disorienting shit.
Church broke off the kiss and looked at me, smiling, one side of his mouth twisted downwards. He still held Nana around the waist. She looked like a rag doll in his hands, all floppiness and double joints, eyes glazed over. Her hand was over his zipper, stroking. What the fuck?
“Do you feel beaten? Do you feel a great sense of injustice? Impotence, yes? That is how we feel every day in Africa. You are a tourist and understand nothing. Did you really think we would just hand you money to spend and a pussy to fuck and a gun to fuck people up with for fun? You think we have funds to spare?”
“You know each other, then?” I said.
“Know each other? I sent her to Blossom’s funeral, my dog.”
“No,” I said, stupidly.
“You’re an idiot,” said Nana. “You think anyone could live exclusively on writing essays for university students? With the kind of starvation and oppression we’re going through, how many people do you think even care about education anymore? How is it that you even remember to breathe in and out? I swear, you’re so stupid.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“She is a revolutionary,” said Church.
Around us, Ikem was rolled onto plastic wrapping paper and machetes rose and fell. I learned that as long as you slice around the joints you can cut a body into ten portable parts before your sharp implements get blunt. The body generated more blood than I imagined, but the “cleaners” knew what they were doing. One man shaved the dreadlocks off.
Nana had nothing to say to me.
“Relax, aburo. You did your job. Your darling Nana will write up a wonderful propaganda piece in which you will be the hero of the republic having solved this heinous crime. My part would not make it into national press but then people like me…” He shrugged.
“Nana,” I said.
She stared blankly.
“It was all a lie?”
She frowned. “Weston, you…how can I say this? You and I, we were in love, and, if you remember, certain promises were made. I waited and waited for you to contact me, to send a letter, anything. You, on the other hand, fulfilled the cliché to a letter. All those long talks about how nobody else really knows how to conduct a long-distance relationship across the Atlantic and how we would show them. How we would write a letter a week and have a telephone call every month. Phone sex. Care packages sent via DHL. As soon as you settled down you were meant to invite me over. Do you remember any of this, Weston?
“Do you know how long I waited, checking the post office box, checking your aunt’s house for packages, straining myself for any word from you? And there was nothing. Not one line. You touched down in Heathrow and forgot all about me. You said you’d call from the airport to tell me you were okay, and I believed that shit! And I felt stupid for a long time. For a long time I wouldn’t date. I said there must have been some kind of mistake, perhaps you didn’t have the right address, perhaps you were too busy, some fucking thing which was just me making excuses for you, me being daft, slightly soft in the head.
“But now I have to wonder who is more stupid. I’m thinking, after all this, any idiot would know that a woman would find it difficult to forgive. Hell hath no fury and all that. Wise words you know. Simple, oft-repeated, but seriously wise. But you, Weston, you came back after all this time and believed that I would just forget all that pain and become the biddable lover that you left behind. You believe that. You must be some kind of retard. Are all Holloway babies retarded or is it just you?”
“You love me,” I said.
“No, I really don’t. You cured me of that,” said Nana.
“Aburo, you want to let this go,” said Church.
“I’m sorry, Nana,” I said.
“I do not want your apology. I don’t even know who you are. The Weston I used to know no longer exists. You think we’re detestable, right? You think our actions are abhorrent and that Church is an incarnation of the antichrist. Yet you have no idea about our reasons for being so, nor do you care. You have no drive yourself other than survival. At least we are about something; we have taken a stand. You stand for nothing but yourself.”
She left the room but came back shortly with cleaning materials and began to work on the spilled blood.
I did not know what to do next. Church was speaking, but I wasn’t paying attention. I searched for and found my journal, the Epoch canister, the money, and the details of my investigation. Nana did not look at me or speak to me, and I ached inside. A lot of what she had said was true. My acknowledgement of this was met by indifference from her and laughter from Church. I left, not exactly knowing where I was going, but ending up in Aunt Blossom’s house after wandering for five hours. It was dark when the taxi dropped me there, and I had to break in via one of the back windows. The electricity was not on, but there were blankets and beds and furniture draped with plastic, reminding me of the disposal of Ikem Okafor. There was dust everywhere, but that didn’t bother me. I resealed the window and fell asleep on the couch. I did not dream.
My life at Aunt Blossom’s house was fairly systematized. I had electricity now. There were a few unofficial ways to source juice in Alcacia depending on your expertise. Power tends to be served by overground cables strung up on poles. In front of each house, a feeder cable branched off to be shared among several properties, usually terminating in a meter. A skilled person could tap electricity straight off the branch before the meter and not pay for the supply. The power company was considered fair game, and a perpetuator would not be grassed. The only drawback is the occasional fatal electrocution. An alternative would be to covertly position an extension cord in a neighbor’s property and bury or hide the cable. This was effectively stealing and was frowned upon. I stole it from Nana’s parent’s house next door. I only used it to power a fridge, television, and fan. Aunt Blossom had a generator, but I did not want to announce my presence. I had a small lamp, but I kept it off most of the time.
I stayed home all day and left the property at night, lurking around for food and beer on one occasion. The mosquitoes were pernicious. They bred in pools of stagnant water scattered in the luxuriant weeds around the house.
Throughout the day I stared at what I had on Pa Busi’s murder, thinking, sifting, cajoling my brain into action.
The slow pulsing of green light on my phone charger was hypnotic. As I stared at it, I realized there were four things I needed to do before my meeting with the Liberation Front.
Chapter Twenty-four
To get to Arodan a second time I had to pay a taxi driver one hundred dollars in advance, with the total return fee being three hundred. This time I haggled because not haggling is what gives them the impression you’re fresh off the boat. As usual the weather was sunny, but this time a warm shower dripped through the rays, throwing up rainbows all over the place. It was psychedelic.
The drive over was lonely this time. There was no Nana to provide horror stories about abandoned villages, and I had zero hope of a blowjob in the car from this driver. He was a stone-faced southerner who drove without speaking. His stereo was broken, and the air conditioner spurted out hot air sporadically. We had to keep one window open when it rained to prevent the windscreen from fogging up.
Between the parking lot and the main door I got drenched, but that didn’t bother me. I dripped water onto the floor and approached the reception nurse.
“Eku ise, o,” I said.
“Ek’asan,” she said. It was the same girl, Bola, and I saw her eyes examine the puddle I was creating on the floor.
“Eku ojo yi o,” I said.
“Ahh, ki l’ama se si?”
“Do you remember me?” I asked.
“Of course. I can’t forget a Holloway face. You’re here to see Afolabi?”
“Yes, thanks,” I said. I counted off fifty dollars and placed it near the magazine she was reading.
She looked troubled. “You know, sir, the patient deteriorated after your last visit. It took a lot of work to settle him down.”
I peeled off an extra twenty.
“Eniyan gidi,” she said, and leapt off her stool. “Follow me.”
I spent forty-five minutes with Afolabi Akinrinde.
The Ede market was back in business with very little evidence of the fire left. I negotiated the stalls and found the mobile phone unlockers. I selected one at random and dropped Idris Wallace’s phone.
“This is a very old model,” said the proprietor.
“I know. I want all the phone numbers that are stored on the SIM card, and, if you can show me the last numbers called, you get a bonus.”
He smiled.
On return to Ede, I went to the offices of Gentian Alliance. The receptionist in the claims department was pretty, perky, and unimpressed by my wet clothes or my offers of seventy dollars. My inanity didn’t help matters either.
“I need to speak to someone about a claim handled by your company.” I made it a hundred dollars and added an edge to my voice.
“One moment,” she said, whisking the money away. She pressed a button and spoke quietly into the phone. Her name card read Emiola Onanuga, and, underneath the lettering, she had taped JESUS SAVES. Her bosom was monumental, and she knew it, judging by the cut of her blouse. She did not invite me to sit down, but then, given my general appearance, I wouldn’t invite me to sit either.
Presently, a man walked out of the office to speak to me. He was fat and sweaty. He was the claims advisor, which is what claims investigators were called in Ede.
We talked.
Ireti Olubusi opened the door to their flat and glared at me. He was a younger, hipper version of his father. I did not understand his hostility, but comparing the property and area they lived in to Diane’s gave me a hint.
His mother was seated, an aura of calm around her. She was Iranlowo Olubusi, first wife of Enoch Olubusi. I found her from processing the digital photos I took of correspondence in Pa Busi’s house. She was not very pretty, about fifty, large in an elderly Yoruba way. I sat opposite her.
We talked about Pa Busi for two hours.
At ten past midnight the docks were empty, barring the occasional police man to whom I was invisible after a hundred dollars tax. I stood there leaning against a lamp post that gave no light. I chewed on a corn cob while watching an okada make its way toward me. I dropped the corn and put my hand on my gun, but the cyclist just dropped a book and screeched away. It was the diary of Ikem Okafor.
I went home.
I spent time thinking and drinking coffee and thinking and reading the diary. Mosquitoes feasted on me. In about eight hours I would be meeting Church, and he’d be taking me to the Front headquarters where this whole odyssey began for me.
“Fuck it,” I said, and dialed Diane.
“You are filthy,” said Diane. “Get in the shower. Do not even come near me. How is it you always come here when you are filthy?”
“I’m finding it’s an occupational hazard in this country,” I said.
I took a bath instead of a shower. I pampered myself with aromatic bath oils and whatever salts I could find. I had to change the water twice, it got so dirty.
I was in the tub with my eyes closed feeling no pain when I heard the door open. Diane came in with no clothes on. Her breasts dipped each time she took a step. She held her mouth slightly open, and I could see her moist tongue inside. The look on her face was puzzled, but welcoming. She knelt, kissed me, and reached into the water, circling my penis with her hand and stroking slowly. My whole being focused on my erection. She drew my tongue into her mouth and sucked on it gently. The sound of our breathing bounced off the walls and mingled like our saliva did.
Her nipples had hardened to elongated red nubs. I took one in my mouth, and she sighed. I licked, sucked, flicked with my tongue. She undulated in response, rose, pulling me after her with my penis. She led me into the room without letting go. Dripping wet, she made me lie down supine on the bed and straddled my head with her thighs. She lowered her vulva to me and ground herself against my mouth, the wetness of her smearing my face. She kept sighing softly while stroking me. Her legs were muscular and it seemed at times that she would snap my neck in her pleasure. Her center smelled like lust. It was too much; I would come soon if she kept it up.
I pushed her off, manipulated her into an all-fours position, got behind her. I had never been so hard, but she was so wet it didn’t matter. It was effortless, like being coated with warm olive oil. She cried out, whimpered as I thrust into her. In no time at all, I felt her tightening around me, collapsing on the bed, ass still in the air. I dug my nails into each buttock and squeezed as she breathed like a marathon runner.
“Turn around,” I said.
I had meant to continue, but it was all too much for me. I sprayed all over her belly and breasts. She smiled and licked her lower lip where spunk had splashed.
“That was different,” she said. “You are usually more timid, more tender. I am not complaining, mind you.”
Three thirty a.m. Post-coital garrulousness from Diane, out of character for her but perhaps triggered by my unusual moodiness. I stood naked in front of her aquarium following carp with my eyes and a finger on the glass. Fish are meant to be calming. I felt calm. Might be because I had just had sex of course.
“Do you want to go to the theater today? I can get us into Man and Superman at the National.”
I tapped on the aquarium glass. The carp scattered.
“You made her feel even more ugly than usual,” I said, without looking at her.
“What?”
“I said, you made her feel uglier. Uglier and uncouth and uncultured. Which is what she was, but you made her acutely aware of it.”
“Who are you talking about now?”
“Ikem Okafor.”
“Who?”
“You don’t know her?”
“I do not seem to recall—”
“I know you killed your husband, Diane.”
I heard the bedclothes rustle as she sat up. I turned to face her.
“You have been listening to absurd rumors,” she said. Her eyes were narrow slivers.
“No rumors. You killed your husband. I know that much, but I’m not sure of the motive. His first wife thinks he was a bit of a shit, you know. Was that why you killed him?”
“This is a joke right? A fantasy?”
“Not a fantasy at all, Diane, but I can tell you a story if you like. On the day your husband died, Alao drove out to the PFC camp, lost control of the vehicle on the way and stopped. Almost simultaneously, Pa Busi took a shot to the head and the trunk. The body shot was from inside the jeep, and the shooter was most likely Idris Wallace. The head shot was taken by Ikem Okafor from a palm tree that she must have climbed hours earlier. The jeep then exploded. I think Ikem mined the road or placed some remote detonating grenades around her kill zone. Either way, I’m fairly sure she was responsible for the blast.”
“What does all this have to do with me?”
“I know why Ikem pulled the trigger. She wanted to restart the hostilities, but then there was something odd about her diary. There were entries relating to you. Her paymasters have told me that she pretty much worked on her own. Long rope, loose supervision, all that. When she decided to kill Pa Busi, she spent a lot of time observing her target, and, in the process, she observed you. She thought you were beautiful, charming, otherworldly, everything she was not. She also felt sorry for you, which I could not understand. She saw something that she felt she had to put a stop to, which gave her a second reason to kill him.”
Diane was getting dressed. “What are you talking about?”
“She killed Pa Busi for you. She saw something and felt she had to get him out of the way. For you.”
“She was mistaken. And her misconception does not mean I ordered my husband’s death. I never spoke to her!”
“No, you probably did not, but that’s not why I said you killed him.”
“Then why—”
“Because of Wallace.”
She was silent.
“You can’t say you don’t know Wallace, can you? You told me he was the only bodyguard you talked to. Afolabi noticed the relationship between you two. You see, he’s the kind of straight arrow who likes a clear demarcation between duty and leisure. He did not approve of fraternizing at work. He saw some undue coziness between you and Wallace. Have you ever spoken to Afolabi? Remarkable case. Totally brain dead in everything but the day he was blown apart. Amazing, really. Anyhow, where was I? Oh, yes, Idris Wallace. I don’t know if you were lovers—”
