Patience Is a Subtle Thief, page 30
“My son,” he said, facing Mayowa, “let’s go vote.”
BY THE TIME MAYOWA AND HIS FATHER ARRIVED AT ABIOLA’S campaign headquarters, Chike was waiting outside on his okada. The three men walked in together and found the main room buzzing with men sitting close to the television, laughing and chatting about how MKO was already defeating Tofa.
Reporters wandered around thrusting tape recorders in the face of anyone who looked capable enough to answer questions about how Abiola was feeling. The man himself was said to be out and about, first to cast his vote, then to meet with select press outlets. Mayowa said he would wait to do an interview until the victory was announced.
It was a lot to take in, and Mayowa couldn’t tame his excitement. The happenings in the room made him go back and forth between dancing and scanning news channels to find out what they were reporting.
“This is overwhelming,” Mayowa said after hours had passed.
“We know he will win, so why don’t they just announce it now!”
“Let’s go to Allen Avenue for ice cream,” Chike said.
“Yes, o. I need a break.”
Chike drove them on his motorcycle to Mr. Biggs, not far from the campaign headquarters.
“I want vanilla,” Chike said once they reached the counter.
“Chocolate for me,” Mayowa said.
“In a matter of hours Nigeria will be a democracy led by Abiola. Can you imagine?” Mayowa said, wide-eyed. They sat down, holding their ice cream cones, a fitting symbol of the sweetness that consumed Lagos that day.
“All of my father’s hard work is paying off now. Nigeria will be a better place. I’m telling you, with Abiola beginning our democracy, our political structure will have the potential to rival the Western world in the next ten years.”
“Speaking of the Western world, I want to let you know now that I will be going to America with Patience,” Chike said. “I went to the American Embassy, and I was able to get my visa for an extended stay.”
“Wow.” Mayowa paused and licked his ice cream. “How extended will your stay be?”
“I’m not sure, but I will come back. I just want to explore the world outside Nigeria for now.”
Chike couldn’t bring himself to tell Mayowa that he got his visa after he agreed to do the cocaine job.
“Make sure you don’t stay long. Look at what the polls are showing today. Abiola will win, o.” His intensity returned at his utterance of Abiola’s name.
Chike was mildly excited about the potential of the election. He was tired of hoping. He was ready to act. Going to America would be the first step. “Mayowa . . . I’ve never asked you . . . why are you so excited about Nigeria and Abiola?”
“Because of my dad.” Mayowa licked his ice cream around the edges of the cone. “We have to work to find solutions—that’s what he always says. When he started working with Abiola, he became a different person. Before he would read the newspaper and complain, ‘Ah, Nigeria ti baj ẹ.’ To see him like that, so defeated, mehn . . .” he said, trailing off. “Then Abiola came around with his philosophy, and my dad changed. I saw the difference in his eyes. Then he told me something I will never forget. He said, ‘Mayowa, I believe my generation has failed you in so many ways. We think a lot about the money, the personal plots of land, and possessions we want our children to inherit from their fathers, but we don’t think about the country we are passing down. We didn’t fight for you and your mates. We’ve watched the military bulldoze the country. You are the future, and Abiola is the answer to our biggest mistakes.’”
“Wow.” Chike was impressed by Mayowa’s dad’s candor.
“Anyway, sha, I love Abiola because I think one day I can be president of Nigeria if he can be,” Mayowa said. He stood up and threw his shoulders back jokingly.
“Look at this useless man,” Chike said.
“Useless, ke. I am the future of this nation. Bow at my feet.”
They laughed and laughed, then licked their ice cream in a hurry as it began to melt down their hands.
50
CHIKE DIDN’T CARE THAT HE WAS SPEEDING. HE WASN’T worried he would fall into a gutter. He ripped through traffic on his okada like he was living out his last days. If he crashed into anyone on the road, he would blame it on the victim for getting in his way.
It was the Lagos way of settling accidents anyway.
He needed to get to Mayowa’s house. He would try him there first. Was he there with his father watching the news? Everyone was watching the news. It was because of the news that Chike was speeding. It was because of the news that he needed to see Mayowa.
Before he jumped on his okada to embark on his frantic ride, he and Patience had sat on the couch as they watched Babangida annul the results of the June 12 election.
“Fellow Nigerians, it is true that by the canceled presidential election, we all found the nation at a peculiar bar of history . . .” he said. “In the circumstance, the administration had no option than to respond appropriately to the unfortunate experience of terminating the presidential election.”
Those were the words that Chike remembered most from the president’s address. He told the nation that the election had been rigged. It was a lie. The people of Nigeria knew this. The country hadn’t seen a freer and fairer election.
But hope couldn’t live in Nigeria.
Abiola had run his campaign on hope. That sentiment had been so easily erased.
Chike pulled up to Mayowa’s house. The mallam who sold sweets out front whistled for his attention.
“Mayowa and his papa no dey for house.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did they leave?”
“One hour’s time.”
“Have you seen the news?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mayowa and his papa see what happened?”
“Mayowa dey cry as he dey enter car. He dey see am.”
Chike hopped back on his okada and sped toward Abiola’s headquarters.
CHIKE PARKED HIS MOTORCYCLE NEAR THE EDGE OF Abiola’s sprawling compound. There were hundreds of people lined up chanting, “MKO is president!” Chike saw a somewhat clear path to the gate.
“What are you doing here?” said one of the two men who guarded the gate.
“I’m here to see Mayowa and his dad. Mayowa is my friend.”
“Nobody else can enter the compound. Carry your okada and go.”
“Is Chief Abiola inside?”
“I said carry your bike and go!” the man shouted.
Chike decided not to press further. The annulment of the elections pricked at everyone’s emotions. Abiola was probably inside strategizing his next move.
Chike would try to find Mayowa another day.
51
“PHILLIP, GO TELL THIS GIRL TO COME DOWNSTAIRS. AH-AHN, what is taking her so long, jàre?”
“Oga, no vex, I will call her to come down,” Phillip replied.
“Hurry o, so we can get back home before these silly protesters find their way to this side. Abeg, nobody should vandalize my car because of Abiola.”
“Yes, Oga.” Phillip looked at the passenger seat where Emeka sat and gave him an approving nod. Emeka turned away. Phillip clicked the automatic button to unlock the car doors, then ran toward the modest house Oga had built for his girlfriend, Tope.
“All these people rioting, it’s funny, o,” Emeka said, looking back at Oga from the front seat. “I had been saying it, the military will never allow democracy.”
“Indeed,” Oga said as he read the front page of The Punch newspaper. ELEVEN FOUND DEAD AT ABIOLA RIOTS was the top headline.
Emeka fiddled with his tie and tapped his foot. He pressed the dial on the radio, then stopped when he heard Naughty by Nature’s “Hip Hop Hooray.” The song was a welcome tune to calm his nerves—not too slow, not too hard core, like his favorite Dr. Dre song, “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang.” He needed a fluffier song to settle his body. He looked down at his watch. Five twenty-five. He looked out the rear window. He tapped his foot again.
He belted out “Hooray” from the song’s chorus.
“This music is nonsense,” Oga said.
Emeka looked at his watch and out the back window again.
“Oga, please, I want to go and buy minerals and biscuits from the mallam on that side. What can I collect for you?”
“I’m okay. Hurry up. Phillip should be down soon with Tope.”
Emeka opened the door, then clicked the automatic button to lock them all. He shut his door and hesitated for a moment. He looked down the street toward the rear of the car, where he heard the voices of a few men. They were carrying things, but he couldn’t see what. He turned to walk toward the top of the road, where several mallams sold goods from stalls and rickety wooden tables.
“Give me cabin biscuit and orange Fanta.”
“Make you drink am for dis side,” the mallam said, handing him his drink. “Give me my bottle when you drink am finished so I can put am for crate.”
Emeka paid him and opened the bottle with his teeth. He took a swig, then turned to look at Oga’s car as three men approached it. One knocked on the window. Oga rolled it down. They exchanged words.
In a matter of seconds several men, some who wore Ọmọ Èkó Congress T-shirts, abbreviated as OEC in bold letters, surrounded the car carrying large wooden sticks. One had a gun. Another carried a tire around his shoulder. They exchanged words with Oga, who was still seated in the back seat of the car with the window down. Oga gripped the car roof and tried to climb out of the window. Two men blocked him.
“I’m locked inside, help me! Emeka, are you there?” he screamed. “Do you know who I am? Get away from my car!”
Emeka stood behind a few men who had gathered at the stall. He couldn’t move his legs. Onlookers kept their distance, knowing what was coming.
The men began to shake the car. Glass broke. Emeka’s heart began to beat faster when he saw them light the tire, then plop it on top of Oga’s cracked windshield. When Emeka heard Oga scream, his body grew so numb he didn’t realize when the bottle of orange Fanta slid from his grip and smashed on the ground.
Emeka couldn’t watch anymore. He looked around at the crowd, which was engrossed in the incident, including the mallam, who didn’t seem to care about his broken Fanta bottle.
“If he’s a thief, they should just kill him straight!” one man shouted from the crowd.
Emeka managed to lift his feet and walk toward the main road. There he started running and didn’t stop until he got to the bus stop half a mile away. Phillip, sitting on the side of the road, looked up at Emeka and stood as he approached. Emeka stopped and panted to catch his breath.
“What happened?” Phillip said. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s done,” Emeka said in between breaths. “Oga is gone.”
52
TWO WEEKS BEFORE OGA’S DEATH, PHILLIP AND EMEKA had sat in the comfort of their boss’s plush BMW and drafted a plan to get rid of him.
The car had become their meeting place to map out steps to right Oga’s wrongs and forge their new partnership. Kash had already been released by the OEC by then. To buy his freedom, Emeka and Phillip took a large chunk of money from Oga’s safe.
Their next step: hand Oga over to the OEC.
They went over the plan ad nauseam to make sure they were both in sync.
“We cannot make any mistakes,” Emeka said as he bit his fingernails.
“Don’t worry,” Phillip reassured him.
Phillip broke the plan down like this: “The day Oga goes to Tope’s house, we will send an area boy to the OEC to give them Oga’s exact location and expected time of arrival.”
Emeka’s face fell. He hoped Tope would be okay.
“Emeka, please settle your mind about Tope’s situation,” Phillip said. “Didn’t she know that being Oga’s girlfriend would destroy her life at some point?”
Emeka knew they had no choice—they had to tell the OEC that Tope had told Oga that the Onabanjos wouldn’t be home when he sold their house.
“The OEC only ran her out of Lagos. I made them promise not to beat her.”
“What if they did anyway?”
“What did Oga tell you? Casualties, right?”
“Right.”
“Next thing: I will click the child safety locks on the back doors before it’s time for us to go to Tope’s place. Emeka, make sure you sit in the front seat so you don’t get locked in the back with him.”
“Won’t he notice if I don’t sit next to him like I always do?”
“I said he won’t notice,” Phillip said.
“But if he does?”
“Oga won’t notice because he keeps his head in his newspapers.”
“Okay,” Emeka said.
“Oga will get impatient and tell me to go knock on Tope’s door, not knowing that she’s probably hiding in her mum’s village in Abeokuta.” Phillip snickered.
“Then I will come up with a reason to get out of the car when it’s time for the OEC to confront Oga,” Emeka said.
“Yes . . . I think we know what happens at that point, right?”
“Right,” Emeka said. He took a deep breath and pictured the end of the plan. Would the OEC burn Oga alive in the car or would they drag him out and torture him? Emeka shuddered at the thought, but he had no choice. He remembered how lifeless Kash had become since his release from OEC captivity.
God only knows what they did to him.
He would help Kash get back on his feet after the next job was done—the most important job he’d ever do.
“The next day we will go see Kenny, our Lebanese friend,” Phillip said. “We will tell him Oga is gone. Emeka, imagine . . . once we get rid of Oga, the cocaine job is yours. Let’s not fuck up.”
They had told Kenny about the bounty on Oga’s head and they had asked Kenny to let Emeka take the lead in getting the cocaine to America.
Kenny was skeptical at first.
Giving a whole trafficking job to someone so inexperienced?
“There are other people ready and willing to do a job like this. Why would I need you, Emeka?” Kenny said.
“You can find someone else, but remember, we are using an American citizen as our first mule,” Emeka said, masking his nerves as he spoke. “American mules are paid more. You got a big discount. Oga knew that, and you know that.”
Emeka didn’t know if Kenny knew that Patience would be using a fake American passport that bore her real name, but Patience was still a real American, and that was their biggest advantage.
Kenny took a bite of the coconut he was fiddling with, then paused. Emeka could see him thinking.
“Hmph, it’s amazing, right? . . . How an American passport is a ticket to roam the world with no problem,” he said. “Okay, we can make a deal. I told Oga to be careful with his petty theft. He didn’t listen.”
That they were able to pull it off still felt like a miracle to Emeka. Phillip, on the other hand, was so confident in the plan that Emeka wondered if he had been mapping out the details before they ever met.
“Oga doesn’t care about us,” Phillip had said as he drove Emeka around the day Kash was kidnapped and he found Emeka in tears outside Oga’s compound. “He doesn’t care that these crazy vigilante people can kill any one of us or kidnap us. He sent you and Kash to the area for an errand. Kash never came back. I know he put out a description of Kash to the people there saying he was responsible for the fire.”
“How do you know that?” Emeka said, his eye sockets still aching from crying. He felt his forehead wrinkle as his suspicions seeped in.
“I’ve been working for Oga for too long. I know how he thinks, and I know that right now you are skeptical. But listen, it’s time . . .”
“Time for what?”
“First, we have to pay the OEC part of the money they want,” Phillip said.
“Where will we get that kind of money?”
“Oga keeps bundles of money in three of his large safes in the house. I know the combination to all three.”
“Why haven’t you robbed him in all this time?”
“I’m not a thief. I leave that sort of work to Oga and men like you. And stealing money from Oga won’t put him out of business. A man who doesn’t take care of the people who work for him should be handled. This is the only way. Kash is an ordinary pawn. The OEC wants to remove the mastermind from Lagos. Let’s give them the mastermind,” Phillip said.
“I can’t do it,” Emeka said.
“You think it is only you the OEC knows? These people will find your brother and your mother.”
Emeka realized then that Phillip knew where Chike lived since Phillip had driven him there for a visit one day. What if he turned on him and told the vigilantes where to find his brother?
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“If they remove Oga, we can promise them that there’s a new boss who will take over all of Oga’s operations. That boss will never steal houses in that area.”
“Why is putting in a new boss even their concern?”
“Because once there’s a shift in power in any operation, it wipes the slate clean. They will feel like they have a hand in deciding the order of things in Oga’s former dealings.”
“Who will step in?”
“You will.”
“Me, no, no, no!”
“Think about it. If you take over, Emeka, you will have Oga’s operation and you can run it how you want. The OEC go handle Oga, and you go chop everything he leaves behind.”
“I’m not ready to do that. Oga is teaching me. How can we do this to him?”
Emeka wished he and Chike hadn’t fought the night he left home. And he wished he had never moved in with Oga. It was better when he could make money doing the work while maintaining a bit of distance from it.
“Why are you doing this? What do you want?” Emeka said.
“I want half the money for each job. We will be like partners.”
“Didn’t you say you’re not a thief?”
“I’m not. You will do all the illegal work. I will be your driver. That is my work. It’s a raise in my salary that Oga never pays on time anyway.”
BY THE TIME MAYOWA AND HIS FATHER ARRIVED AT ABIOLA’S campaign headquarters, Chike was waiting outside on his okada. The three men walked in together and found the main room buzzing with men sitting close to the television, laughing and chatting about how MKO was already defeating Tofa.
Reporters wandered around thrusting tape recorders in the face of anyone who looked capable enough to answer questions about how Abiola was feeling. The man himself was said to be out and about, first to cast his vote, then to meet with select press outlets. Mayowa said he would wait to do an interview until the victory was announced.
It was a lot to take in, and Mayowa couldn’t tame his excitement. The happenings in the room made him go back and forth between dancing and scanning news channels to find out what they were reporting.
“This is overwhelming,” Mayowa said after hours had passed.
“We know he will win, so why don’t they just announce it now!”
“Let’s go to Allen Avenue for ice cream,” Chike said.
“Yes, o. I need a break.”
Chike drove them on his motorcycle to Mr. Biggs, not far from the campaign headquarters.
“I want vanilla,” Chike said once they reached the counter.
“Chocolate for me,” Mayowa said.
“In a matter of hours Nigeria will be a democracy led by Abiola. Can you imagine?” Mayowa said, wide-eyed. They sat down, holding their ice cream cones, a fitting symbol of the sweetness that consumed Lagos that day.
“All of my father’s hard work is paying off now. Nigeria will be a better place. I’m telling you, with Abiola beginning our democracy, our political structure will have the potential to rival the Western world in the next ten years.”
“Speaking of the Western world, I want to let you know now that I will be going to America with Patience,” Chike said. “I went to the American Embassy, and I was able to get my visa for an extended stay.”
“Wow.” Mayowa paused and licked his ice cream. “How extended will your stay be?”
“I’m not sure, but I will come back. I just want to explore the world outside Nigeria for now.”
Chike couldn’t bring himself to tell Mayowa that he got his visa after he agreed to do the cocaine job.
“Make sure you don’t stay long. Look at what the polls are showing today. Abiola will win, o.” His intensity returned at his utterance of Abiola’s name.
Chike was mildly excited about the potential of the election. He was tired of hoping. He was ready to act. Going to America would be the first step. “Mayowa . . . I’ve never asked you . . . why are you so excited about Nigeria and Abiola?”
“Because of my dad.” Mayowa licked his ice cream around the edges of the cone. “We have to work to find solutions—that’s what he always says. When he started working with Abiola, he became a different person. Before he would read the newspaper and complain, ‘Ah, Nigeria ti baj ẹ.’ To see him like that, so defeated, mehn . . .” he said, trailing off. “Then Abiola came around with his philosophy, and my dad changed. I saw the difference in his eyes. Then he told me something I will never forget. He said, ‘Mayowa, I believe my generation has failed you in so many ways. We think a lot about the money, the personal plots of land, and possessions we want our children to inherit from their fathers, but we don’t think about the country we are passing down. We didn’t fight for you and your mates. We’ve watched the military bulldoze the country. You are the future, and Abiola is the answer to our biggest mistakes.’”
“Wow.” Chike was impressed by Mayowa’s dad’s candor.
“Anyway, sha, I love Abiola because I think one day I can be president of Nigeria if he can be,” Mayowa said. He stood up and threw his shoulders back jokingly.
“Look at this useless man,” Chike said.
“Useless, ke. I am the future of this nation. Bow at my feet.”
They laughed and laughed, then licked their ice cream in a hurry as it began to melt down their hands.
50
CHIKE DIDN’T CARE THAT HE WAS SPEEDING. HE WASN’T worried he would fall into a gutter. He ripped through traffic on his okada like he was living out his last days. If he crashed into anyone on the road, he would blame it on the victim for getting in his way.
It was the Lagos way of settling accidents anyway.
He needed to get to Mayowa’s house. He would try him there first. Was he there with his father watching the news? Everyone was watching the news. It was because of the news that Chike was speeding. It was because of the news that he needed to see Mayowa.
Before he jumped on his okada to embark on his frantic ride, he and Patience had sat on the couch as they watched Babangida annul the results of the June 12 election.
“Fellow Nigerians, it is true that by the canceled presidential election, we all found the nation at a peculiar bar of history . . .” he said. “In the circumstance, the administration had no option than to respond appropriately to the unfortunate experience of terminating the presidential election.”
Those were the words that Chike remembered most from the president’s address. He told the nation that the election had been rigged. It was a lie. The people of Nigeria knew this. The country hadn’t seen a freer and fairer election.
But hope couldn’t live in Nigeria.
Abiola had run his campaign on hope. That sentiment had been so easily erased.
Chike pulled up to Mayowa’s house. The mallam who sold sweets out front whistled for his attention.
“Mayowa and his papa no dey for house.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did they leave?”
“One hour’s time.”
“Have you seen the news?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mayowa and his papa see what happened?”
“Mayowa dey cry as he dey enter car. He dey see am.”
Chike hopped back on his okada and sped toward Abiola’s headquarters.
CHIKE PARKED HIS MOTORCYCLE NEAR THE EDGE OF Abiola’s sprawling compound. There were hundreds of people lined up chanting, “MKO is president!” Chike saw a somewhat clear path to the gate.
“What are you doing here?” said one of the two men who guarded the gate.
“I’m here to see Mayowa and his dad. Mayowa is my friend.”
“Nobody else can enter the compound. Carry your okada and go.”
“Is Chief Abiola inside?”
“I said carry your bike and go!” the man shouted.
Chike decided not to press further. The annulment of the elections pricked at everyone’s emotions. Abiola was probably inside strategizing his next move.
Chike would try to find Mayowa another day.
51
“PHILLIP, GO TELL THIS GIRL TO COME DOWNSTAIRS. AH-AHN, what is taking her so long, jàre?”
“Oga, no vex, I will call her to come down,” Phillip replied.
“Hurry o, so we can get back home before these silly protesters find their way to this side. Abeg, nobody should vandalize my car because of Abiola.”
“Yes, Oga.” Phillip looked at the passenger seat where Emeka sat and gave him an approving nod. Emeka turned away. Phillip clicked the automatic button to unlock the car doors, then ran toward the modest house Oga had built for his girlfriend, Tope.
“All these people rioting, it’s funny, o,” Emeka said, looking back at Oga from the front seat. “I had been saying it, the military will never allow democracy.”
“Indeed,” Oga said as he read the front page of The Punch newspaper. ELEVEN FOUND DEAD AT ABIOLA RIOTS was the top headline.
Emeka fiddled with his tie and tapped his foot. He pressed the dial on the radio, then stopped when he heard Naughty by Nature’s “Hip Hop Hooray.” The song was a welcome tune to calm his nerves—not too slow, not too hard core, like his favorite Dr. Dre song, “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang.” He needed a fluffier song to settle his body. He looked down at his watch. Five twenty-five. He looked out the rear window. He tapped his foot again.
He belted out “Hooray” from the song’s chorus.
“This music is nonsense,” Oga said.
Emeka looked at his watch and out the back window again.
“Oga, please, I want to go and buy minerals and biscuits from the mallam on that side. What can I collect for you?”
“I’m okay. Hurry up. Phillip should be down soon with Tope.”
Emeka opened the door, then clicked the automatic button to lock them all. He shut his door and hesitated for a moment. He looked down the street toward the rear of the car, where he heard the voices of a few men. They were carrying things, but he couldn’t see what. He turned to walk toward the top of the road, where several mallams sold goods from stalls and rickety wooden tables.
“Give me cabin biscuit and orange Fanta.”
“Make you drink am for dis side,” the mallam said, handing him his drink. “Give me my bottle when you drink am finished so I can put am for crate.”
Emeka paid him and opened the bottle with his teeth. He took a swig, then turned to look at Oga’s car as three men approached it. One knocked on the window. Oga rolled it down. They exchanged words.
In a matter of seconds several men, some who wore Ọmọ Èkó Congress T-shirts, abbreviated as OEC in bold letters, surrounded the car carrying large wooden sticks. One had a gun. Another carried a tire around his shoulder. They exchanged words with Oga, who was still seated in the back seat of the car with the window down. Oga gripped the car roof and tried to climb out of the window. Two men blocked him.
“I’m locked inside, help me! Emeka, are you there?” he screamed. “Do you know who I am? Get away from my car!”
Emeka stood behind a few men who had gathered at the stall. He couldn’t move his legs. Onlookers kept their distance, knowing what was coming.
The men began to shake the car. Glass broke. Emeka’s heart began to beat faster when he saw them light the tire, then plop it on top of Oga’s cracked windshield. When Emeka heard Oga scream, his body grew so numb he didn’t realize when the bottle of orange Fanta slid from his grip and smashed on the ground.
Emeka couldn’t watch anymore. He looked around at the crowd, which was engrossed in the incident, including the mallam, who didn’t seem to care about his broken Fanta bottle.
“If he’s a thief, they should just kill him straight!” one man shouted from the crowd.
Emeka managed to lift his feet and walk toward the main road. There he started running and didn’t stop until he got to the bus stop half a mile away. Phillip, sitting on the side of the road, looked up at Emeka and stood as he approached. Emeka stopped and panted to catch his breath.
“What happened?” Phillip said. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s done,” Emeka said in between breaths. “Oga is gone.”
52
TWO WEEKS BEFORE OGA’S DEATH, PHILLIP AND EMEKA had sat in the comfort of their boss’s plush BMW and drafted a plan to get rid of him.
The car had become their meeting place to map out steps to right Oga’s wrongs and forge their new partnership. Kash had already been released by the OEC by then. To buy his freedom, Emeka and Phillip took a large chunk of money from Oga’s safe.
Their next step: hand Oga over to the OEC.
They went over the plan ad nauseam to make sure they were both in sync.
“We cannot make any mistakes,” Emeka said as he bit his fingernails.
“Don’t worry,” Phillip reassured him.
Phillip broke the plan down like this: “The day Oga goes to Tope’s house, we will send an area boy to the OEC to give them Oga’s exact location and expected time of arrival.”
Emeka’s face fell. He hoped Tope would be okay.
“Emeka, please settle your mind about Tope’s situation,” Phillip said. “Didn’t she know that being Oga’s girlfriend would destroy her life at some point?”
Emeka knew they had no choice—they had to tell the OEC that Tope had told Oga that the Onabanjos wouldn’t be home when he sold their house.
“The OEC only ran her out of Lagos. I made them promise not to beat her.”
“What if they did anyway?”
“What did Oga tell you? Casualties, right?”
“Right.”
“Next thing: I will click the child safety locks on the back doors before it’s time for us to go to Tope’s place. Emeka, make sure you sit in the front seat so you don’t get locked in the back with him.”
“Won’t he notice if I don’t sit next to him like I always do?”
“I said he won’t notice,” Phillip said.
“But if he does?”
“Oga won’t notice because he keeps his head in his newspapers.”
“Okay,” Emeka said.
“Oga will get impatient and tell me to go knock on Tope’s door, not knowing that she’s probably hiding in her mum’s village in Abeokuta.” Phillip snickered.
“Then I will come up with a reason to get out of the car when it’s time for the OEC to confront Oga,” Emeka said.
“Yes . . . I think we know what happens at that point, right?”
“Right,” Emeka said. He took a deep breath and pictured the end of the plan. Would the OEC burn Oga alive in the car or would they drag him out and torture him? Emeka shuddered at the thought, but he had no choice. He remembered how lifeless Kash had become since his release from OEC captivity.
God only knows what they did to him.
He would help Kash get back on his feet after the next job was done—the most important job he’d ever do.
“The next day we will go see Kenny, our Lebanese friend,” Phillip said. “We will tell him Oga is gone. Emeka, imagine . . . once we get rid of Oga, the cocaine job is yours. Let’s not fuck up.”
They had told Kenny about the bounty on Oga’s head and they had asked Kenny to let Emeka take the lead in getting the cocaine to America.
Kenny was skeptical at first.
Giving a whole trafficking job to someone so inexperienced?
“There are other people ready and willing to do a job like this. Why would I need you, Emeka?” Kenny said.
“You can find someone else, but remember, we are using an American citizen as our first mule,” Emeka said, masking his nerves as he spoke. “American mules are paid more. You got a big discount. Oga knew that, and you know that.”
Emeka didn’t know if Kenny knew that Patience would be using a fake American passport that bore her real name, but Patience was still a real American, and that was their biggest advantage.
Kenny took a bite of the coconut he was fiddling with, then paused. Emeka could see him thinking.
“Hmph, it’s amazing, right? . . . How an American passport is a ticket to roam the world with no problem,” he said. “Okay, we can make a deal. I told Oga to be careful with his petty theft. He didn’t listen.”
That they were able to pull it off still felt like a miracle to Emeka. Phillip, on the other hand, was so confident in the plan that Emeka wondered if he had been mapping out the details before they ever met.
“Oga doesn’t care about us,” Phillip had said as he drove Emeka around the day Kash was kidnapped and he found Emeka in tears outside Oga’s compound. “He doesn’t care that these crazy vigilante people can kill any one of us or kidnap us. He sent you and Kash to the area for an errand. Kash never came back. I know he put out a description of Kash to the people there saying he was responsible for the fire.”
“How do you know that?” Emeka said, his eye sockets still aching from crying. He felt his forehead wrinkle as his suspicions seeped in.
“I’ve been working for Oga for too long. I know how he thinks, and I know that right now you are skeptical. But listen, it’s time . . .”
“Time for what?”
“First, we have to pay the OEC part of the money they want,” Phillip said.
“Where will we get that kind of money?”
“Oga keeps bundles of money in three of his large safes in the house. I know the combination to all three.”
“Why haven’t you robbed him in all this time?”
“I’m not a thief. I leave that sort of work to Oga and men like you. And stealing money from Oga won’t put him out of business. A man who doesn’t take care of the people who work for him should be handled. This is the only way. Kash is an ordinary pawn. The OEC wants to remove the mastermind from Lagos. Let’s give them the mastermind,” Phillip said.
“I can’t do it,” Emeka said.
“You think it is only you the OEC knows? These people will find your brother and your mother.”
Emeka realized then that Phillip knew where Chike lived since Phillip had driven him there for a visit one day. What if he turned on him and told the vigilantes where to find his brother?
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“If they remove Oga, we can promise them that there’s a new boss who will take over all of Oga’s operations. That boss will never steal houses in that area.”
“Why is putting in a new boss even their concern?”
“Because once there’s a shift in power in any operation, it wipes the slate clean. They will feel like they have a hand in deciding the order of things in Oga’s former dealings.”
“Who will step in?”
“You will.”
“Me, no, no, no!”
“Think about it. If you take over, Emeka, you will have Oga’s operation and you can run it how you want. The OEC go handle Oga, and you go chop everything he leaves behind.”
“I’m not ready to do that. Oga is teaching me. How can we do this to him?”
Emeka wished he and Chike hadn’t fought the night he left home. And he wished he had never moved in with Oga. It was better when he could make money doing the work while maintaining a bit of distance from it.
“Why are you doing this? What do you want?” Emeka said.
“I want half the money for each job. We will be like partners.”
“Didn’t you say you’re not a thief?”
“I’m not. You will do all the illegal work. I will be your driver. That is my work. It’s a raise in my salary that Oga never pays on time anyway.”
