As dawn finally came, I watched the single barred window like a television set. Seeing its slow change, from black, to gray, to blue, was as close as I could get to optimism.
Just when the prisoners around me began to stir, the cell door opened again.
A wiry guard stood at the threshold. He reminded me of a very tall grasshopper. “Cross! Alexander!” he yelled at the top of his voice. “Cross! Over here! Now!”
It was a struggle to look halfway able-bodied as I slowly rose to my feet. I focused on the pain of my chest hairs being pulled out where they had fused with the dried blood in my shirt. It was just instinct, but it got me up on rubbery legs and across the floor.
Then I followed the guard into the corridor. He turned right, and when I saw the dead end ahead of us, I let go of any thoughts I’d had about getting out of the prison.
Maybe ever.
“I am an American policeman,” I said, starting up my story again. “I’m here investigating a murder.”
And then it struck me – was that why I was in this prison?
Chapter 41
THIS DEFINITELY WAS hell. We passed several foreboding, metal doors like the one to my cell. I wondered how many prisoners were kept here, and how many of them were Americans. Most of the guards spoke some English, which made me suspect that I wasn’t the only American here.
The last door on the ward was the only one without a lock. An old office chair sat in front of it, its seat nearly rusted through.
“Inside,” barked the guard. “Quickly now, go ahead, Detective.”
When I went to move the chair out of the way, he shoved it into my hands. Just as well. It was something to sit on besides the floor, and I didn’t feel much like standing right now.
Once I was in, he closed the door and, from the sound of it, walked away.
This room was similar to the holding cell except that it was maybe half the size and empty. The cement floor and stone walls were streaked dark, which was probably where the putrefying smell came from.
There was no latrine here. Possibly because the whole area had been a latrine at one time.
I looked back at the gray metal door again. Given that there was no lock, was it more foolish to try to get out of here than to just sit and wait for whatever might come next?
Probably not, but I couldn’t be sure about it, could I?
I was halfway to my feet when I heard footsteps again.
I sat back down. The door opened and two police officers came in wearing black uniforms instead of prison-guard blue. My stomach told me it was a bad trade-off.
So did the hard, pissed-off look on the guards’ faces.
“Cross? Alexander?” one barked.
“Could I have some water?” I asked. There was nothing on earth that I wanted more. I could barely speak now.
One officer, in mirror shades, glanced over at the other, who shook his head no.
“What am I charged with?” I asked.
“Stupid question,” said Mirror Shades.
To demonstrate, the second cop walked up and drove his fist into my stomach. My wind was gone, even before I hit the floor like a dry sack.
“Get him up!”
Mirror Shades hoisted me easily, then put his powerful arms around my shoulders from behind. When the next punch came, he kept me from falling over, and also made sure my body absorbed the full impact. I vomited immediately, a little surprised there was anything to bring up.
“I have money,” I said, trying what had worked before in this country, back at Immigration.
The lead cop was huge – as tall as Sampson, with a flopping Idi Amin belly. He looked down the slope of his body right into my eyes. “Let’s see what you have.”
“Not here,” I said. Flaherty, my CIA contact, had supposedly set up a money fund for me in a Lagos bank, which at this point was the equivalent of a million miles away. “But I can get it–”
The lead cop crashed his elbow into my jaw. Then came another wrecking ball of a punch to my chest. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
He stepped back and waved Mirror Shades out of the way. With an agility I wouldn’t have guessed at, the large, fat man kicked high with one boot and caught me square in the chest again. All the air remaining went out of me. I felt as if I’d just been crushed.
I heard, rather than saw, the two guards leave the room. That was it. They left me lying on the floor; no interrogation, no demands, no explanations.
No hope?
Chapter 42
BACK IN THE holding cell, I was given a bowl of cassava and a cup of water, only a few ounces, though. I bolted the water but found I couldn’t eat the cassava, which is an important vegetable throughout Africa. My throat closed when I tried to swallow solid food.
A young prisoner hovered nearby and was staring at me. With my back to the wall, I whispered barely loud enough for him to hear, “You want it?” I held out the bowl.
“We hail the cassava, the great cassava,” he wheezed as he took the bowl. “It’s from a famous poem we learn in school.”
He scrabbled over and sat next to me, both of us watching the door for guards.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Sunday, sir.”
He couldn’t have been more than twenty, if that. His clothes were dirty but seemed middle-class to me, and he had a three-stripe tribal scar on each cheek.
“Here, Sunday. You’d better not be seen talking to me, though.”
“Oh, fuck them,” he said. “What can they do – throw me in a prison cell?”
He ate the cassava quickly, looking around like he expected someone to take it away from him. Or to rush in and beat him.
“How long have you been here?” I asked when he had finished eating.
“I come here ten days ago. Maybe it’s eleven now. Everyone here is new prisoner, waiting for processing.”
This was news.
“Processing? To where?”
“To the maximum-security unit. Somewhere in the country. Or maybe it will be worse. We don’t know. Maybe we all goin’ to a big ditch.”
“How long does it take? The processing. Whatever happens here?”
He looked at the floor and shrugged. “Maybe ten days. Unless you have egunje.”
“Egunje?”
“Dash. Money for the guards. Or maybe someone knows you’re here?” I shook my head no on both counts. “Then you have big wahala, sir. Same as me. You don’t exist. Shhhh. Guard is coming.”
Chapter 43
WHEN THE GUARDS woke me on the third morning, they had to drag me to my feet. I wasn’t going with them willingly. Not to my own execution. My chest still ached from the beating the day before. And my nose felt seriously infected.
This time, it was a left turn out of the cell. I didn’t know if that meant good news or that the bad news had just gotten a lot worse.
I followed the human grasshopper down a steep, stone stairwell, through another corridor, and around several more turns that had me thinking I never would have gotten out of this place on my own.
We finally came outside into an enclosed quad. It was just a wide expanse of sun-bleached earth with a few tufts of weeds and a ten-foot-high fence topped with ribbons of barbed wire. If this was the exercise yard, it was a sad excuse for one.
Anyway, I could barely see anything in the bright light. And it was hot, at least a hundred degrees, give or take ten or twenty.
The guard didn’t stop until he got to the high razor-wire-topped gate on the far side.
A locked door was opened to a passage through a building, through another door, then a gate, and to what looked like a parking area in the distance.
I asked Grasshopper Man what was going on. He didn’t answer. He just opened the door and let me through.
He closed it behind me, locking me into yet another passageway.
“It’s been taken care of,” he said.
“What has?”
“You have.”
He was al
ready walking back the way we’d come, leaving me there. My heart sped up and my body tensed hard. This sure felt like an ending, one way or the other.
Suddenly a door opened on my right. Another guard stuck his head out. He gestured at me impatiently.
“Get in, get in!”
When I hesitated, he reached out and pulled me by the arm. “Are you deaf? Or are you stupid? Get inside.”
The room I entered was air-conditioned. It was like a shock to my skin, and I realized that all he’d wanted was to get the door closed again.
I was standing in a plain office that seemed quite ordinary. In it were two wooden desks and several filing cabinets. A second guard, bent over some paperwork, ignored me. Also present was the first white man I’d seen since arriving at the airport.
He was a civilian dressed in light trousers, a loose button-down shirt, and sunglasses. My guess was CIA.
“Flaherty?” I asked, since he didn’t bother to volunteer any information.
He tossed me my empty wallet. Then finally he spoke. “Jesus, you look like hell. Ready to get out of here?”
Chapter 44
I WAS WAY beyond ready to get out of this nightmarish prison, but I was also stupefied by everything that had happened to me since I had arrived in Lagos.
“What–? How did you find me?” I asked Flaherty before we were even out of the air-conditioned office. “What’s going on? What just happened back there?”
“Not now.” He walked over and opened a door and gestured for me to go out first. The two guards didn’t even look up. One of them was scribbling in a file and the other was jabbering on the phone when we left. Business as usual here in the bowels of hell.
As soon as the door closed behind us, Flaherty took my arm. “You need some help?”
“Jesus, Flaherty. Thank you.”
“They break your nose?”
“Feels that way.”
“Looks it too. I know a guy. Here.” He handed me a small bottle of water and I started to empty it down my throat. “Go slow, fella.”
He steered me over to an old off-white Peugeot 405 parked under a shade tree nearby. My duffel was already in the back seat. “Thank you,” I said again.
Once we were moving, I asked him, “How did you do this?”
“When you didn’t show up on Thursday, I figured there were only a few possibilities. A hundred got me your name. Another five hundred got you out.”
He took a business card from his breast pocket and handed it to me. It was from Citibank, with an address in Lagos. On the back in blue ballpoint was written ACROSS9786EY4.
“You’re going to want to change that pass code. And probably wire in another grand or so if you can.”
“What about my family?” They came rushing into my mind all at once. “Have you spoken with them? Do they know what’s happening?”
“Listen, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not your social worker. I know you probably feel like you’ve been through the eighteenth circle of hell or whatever, but you can’t count on me for this kind of shit. Okay? I don’t mean to be harsh. But that’s the way it is here these days. There’s a lot going on right now.”
He tipped a Camel Light out of a pack, lit it, and blew twin streams of smoke through his nostrils. “You can call them from the hotel. Your family.”
“I’m moved by your compassion.”
He grinned straight ahead. I guess we understood each other. Mine was obviously not the saddest or worst story Ian Flaherty had heard in Lagos. Probably not by a long shot.
“You have any food in this car?” I asked him.
He reached over and popped the glove compartment. There was a chocolate protein drink in a can. It was warm and a little gritty, and nothing had ever tasted better to me.
I threw my head back, closed my eyes, and tried for the first time in three days to relax and, maybe, think in straight lines about the murder investigation and what had just happened to me.
Chapter 45
A HEAVY THUD woke me from a hot, sweaty, and unpleasant sleep.
Maybe only a few minutes had passed. My eyes jerked open just in time to see an old Adidas sneaker bounce off the roof and onto the hood of the Peugeot.
“What the fuck?” Flaherty craned his head around.
We were caught in a bad traffic jam, with cars as far as I could see in front or behind us. “Area Boys. I should have guessed.” He frowned and pointed.
I saw them in the side mirror first. There were at least half a dozen of them. Teenagers, it looked like. They were going from car to car, passing some and stopping at others, robbing drivers and passengers.
“Area Boys?” I asked.
“Like gangbangers, without the bling. Just cockroach thugs. Don’t worry about them.”
Two cars back, a flat-faced boy in an old Chicago Bulls jersey reached into someone’s driver’s-side window and threw a punch. Then his hand came out holding a briefcase.
“We should do something, shouldn’t we?” I reached for the door handle, but Flaherty pulled me back.
“Do what? Arrest all of them? Put‘em in the trunk? Just let me handle this.”
Another kid, shirtless with a shaved head and an angry spray of zits across his face, ambled up alongside our car. He leaned halfway into Flaherty’s window and raised his fist.
“Give me ya fuckin’ wallet, oyinbo man,” he yelled at the top of his voice. “Give it now!”
Flaherty’s hand was already reaching down under the seat. He pulled out a Glock and pointed it at the kid from his lap.
“How about you give me your fuckin’ wallet, sucko?” he snapped. The kid stepped back, both hands up, with a sneer on his face. “Or maybe I should say boy, boy. That’s right, keep moving before I change my mind.”
“Not this one, bros,” the kid called out to his friends and made a thumb and forefinger gun for them.
One of them drummed on the trunk anyway as they passed, but they kept going. Nobody else bothered us.
Flaherty saw that I was staring at him.
“What? Listen, when I come to DC, you can tell me what’s what. Okay? Meanwhile, just try to remember where you are.”
I turned and looked through the windshield and saw another driver getting robbed while we just sat there.
“Hard to forget,” I said.
Chapter 46
I REALIZED WITH a jolt that my investigation could actually continue now, and that it was going to be something like a criminal investigation on Mars. That’s how different life was here in Nigeria at this point in time.
The Superior Hotel, where Flaherty dropped me, was sprawling. There wasn’t too much else to recommend it. It had probably been quite something in the fifties, or whenever. Now it had chipped stucco walls and a steady crew of locals in the parking lot hawking T-shirts, electronics, and phone cards.
It was also right near the airport. Three days in Nigeria, and I’d managed one small circle.
“Why’d you bring me here?” I asked as I changed my shirt in the backseat.
“I thought you might want to catch a plane in the morning. One can always hope.”
“A plane to where?”
“To home, duh. You should leave now, Detective Cross. Before they get serious about hurting you. You’re not going to get to the Tiger, but he could get to you.”
I stopped talking and stared at Flaherty. “The Tiger?”
Chapter 47
“THAT’S HIS NAME, Detective Cross. Didn’t you know? Actually, several of these gang bosses are called Tiger. But our guy was the first.”
“So, do you know where he is?”
“If I did, I’d take you there right now and get this over and done with.”
I tossed my bloodied shirt into a trash can and picked up my duffel. “What time can I meet you tomorrow?”
Flaherty grinned just a little. I think it was partial approval. “I’ll call you.”
“What time?”
“As early as I can. Get some r
est. If you’re not here in the morning, I’ll know you’re actually sane.”
Before he took off, I borrowed some cash so I could pay for the first night at the Superior and also buy a phone card.
Forty-five minutes later, I was showered and fed, and waiting for my overseas call to go through.
The room was definitely nothing special. It was maybe 10 x 15, with chipped stucco walls, and the occasional water bug for company.
The bellhop hadn’t been surprised to find the bathroom sink fixtures gone. He promised new ones soon. I didn’t really care. After jail, the room felt like the presidential suite to me.
When Jannie answered the phone and I heard her voice for the first time, a lump rose in my throat. I forgot about the fact that my nose was throbbing and sporadically leaking blood.
“Well, look who’s not in school today,” I said, trying to keep it light and bright.
“It’s Saturday, Daddy. Are you losing track of time over there? You sound like you have a cold, too.”
I touched my sore and broken nose. “Yeah, I guess I’m a little stuffed up. I’ll live. I’m actually staying at one of the best hotels in town.”
“Alex, is that you?” Nana was on the extension now, and more than a little peeved, I could tell. “Where have you been for three days? That’s unacceptable behavior to me.”
“I’m sorry, Nana. It’s been a lot harder getting a line out than I thought,” I said and then started asking a lot of questions to avoid any more of my not quite lies.
Jannie told me about the fruit flies in her science experiment and about some new neighbors on Fifth Street. Nana was worried that the boiler noise in the basement was the same one that had cost nine hundred dollars the last time.
Then Ali got on to tell me that he could lind Nigeria on the map and that the capital was Lagos, and he knew what the population was more than one hundred thirty-five million.
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