Tunde slipped away as Winston took a seat in front of the desk.
A solid slab of polished wood glowing in the half-light.
The other man turned to face Winston for the first time. "Have you eaten?" Face like a fist. Eyes rimmed red.
Winston bobbed his head, tried his best to smile. "I have, sir, yes. Thank you for asking."
"I go by the name Ironsi-Egobia. They call me Oga, but please—
‘Mister' is fine. I do not dwell on pleasantries nor embellish myself with formalities. You are sitting too stiffly. Relax yourself, please."
"Thank you, sir." Winston let his shoulders loosen, ever so slightly.
"I have told you my name. You have not told me yours."
"Adam, sir."
"Ah, the first man. A good choice. You have been frequenting some of my cafes, haven't you, Adam? You always tip the cashiers, not too much, but not too little either. You tip—carefully. You never raise a ruckus, always maintain a well-mannered air. And you eschew the company of the yahoo boys. From this, I surmise you are educated."
"Yes, sir."
"College?"
"University."
"Here in Lagos?"
"Yes, sir." A lie. Not in Lagos, but educated still.
"So," said Ironsi-Egobia with a twitch of the lips. "You have done your parents proud, then?"
"I suppose, yes..."
Ironsi-Egobia reeled away, covered his mouth with his handkerchief and coughed into it from the lungs, coughed so deeply and for so long that his face was clammy with sweat when he turned around again. There was blood on the handkerchief; Winston pretended not to notice.
Tunde had reappeared as silently as he'd left, with glasses of lemonade balanced on a tray and a silver bowl with a large chunk of ice inside. He passed the bowl across to his Oga, who picked up an ice pick that lay like a letter opener on his desk. Ironsi-Egobia stabbed at the ice, then dropped a shard of it into Winston's glass—with the same fingers that only moments before he'd been coughing blood into.
Do not hesitate. Drink.
"Thank you, sir," said Winston, raising the glass to his lips. He wiped his mouth when he was done. "Very refreshing."
"This ice pick I am holding in my hand," began Ironsi-Egobia.
"With today's refrigerator freezer cubes, who would need such a thing? Why do they still make them? A sign of ostentatious airs, that is all, like India ink and a nibbed pen. When you see an ice pick today, it is merely a symbol of status. And a weapon. Like a pen, also." He smiled, and in doing so, invited Winston to smile as well.
The ice pick in Ironsi-Egobia's hand now loomed very large, filling the space between them.
"I am from the Niger Delta," Ironsi-Egobia said. "But I was raised in Old Calabar, by the Jesuits, among the Igbo. A beautiful town, Calabar. You know of it?"
"I have never been to the east, sir, but I know of Calabar, yes.
A Portuguese colony in its day, I believe?"
"That's right. My name—my
real
name—is Michael, like the angel. But even that is not mine. It was gifted to me by the Brothers at the Seminary. The truth? I don't even remember my real name." He laughed at this, laughed until overtaken by coughs.
Then, grinning, eyes watering, he said, "Don't you find that funny?
A boy in a Christian seminary who cannot remember his Christian name?"
"I—I'm not sure." He looked to Tunde, but Tunde betrayed no hint of whether or not Winston should laugh.
"Ironsi-Egobia is the name I
adopted,
to steel my resolve, to bring myself fortune. To reward my ambitions."
Egobia
was from the Yoruba language, the language Winston spoke with his grandparents.
Ego
meant "money," and
bia
meant
"come to me," making Egobia more an incantation than an actual name.
"Money come."
"
And Ironsi?
"From the general," he explained. "A man of bone, a man of strength, a leader."
This would be the general who had taken power after the 1966 January Coup, the same coup that left Nigeria's prime minister dead and the regional premiers rounded up and imprisoned. This would be the general who was himself toppled in a counter-coup six months later, and then kidnapped, tortured, and killed. Some said he was tied to a Land Rover and dragged to his death. Others that he was executed in military fashion with a single bullet to the head. Still others that he died in an orgy of gunfire, his body almost pulped by it.
General Ironsi had been feted by Queen Elizabeth, and had been a UN commander in the Congo before making his lunge for power. Winston had seen photographs of the general—or rather, of the Queen with General Ironsi beside her, on Her Majesty's tour of Nigeria back before all the coups and counter-coups, when Nigeria was still part of the British Empire. That was the same year petroleum was discovered in the Delta. Perhaps that was why Ironsi-Egobia had chosen the name. Winston had seen the famous photo on top of his parents' living room dresser in a handsome frame of polished mahogany, knew the face of General Ironsi well.
"The name flows like palm wine, don't you agree?
Ironsi-Egobia."
Power. Money. Magic. "It does, yes," said Winston, feeling weak.
"General Ironsi was Igbo. The word egobia' is from the Yoruba.
The hyphen between binds them together. That is where I exist, you see, in the hyphen. It is where I reside. I came to Lagos as a young lad, looking to make my way in this house of mirrors."
He smiled. "But I could find no exit. Everywhere I saw only my own face, my own hunger, looking back at me. So I searched for a hammer instead. And I found it. I trained under the chairman, under Ubah himself. I learned everything Ubah had to teach me—and more. I learned how not to get caught. I knew Anini before the Libyans got him. I ran errands for Tafa when he was still Inspector General of the Police, before he became known as Inspector General of Thieves. And when they caught Tafa in their net, I slipped free into muddier waters. Have you tried to spear a fish in muddy water? It's very difficult. When Nwude Emmanuel scammed the Brazilian banks for millions, I knew before anyone.
And when they were moving in to corner Nwude, I knew that, too—knew it even before he did." Ironsi-Egobia leaned back, arms behind his head, as though considering the question for the first time. "How did I manage such a feat? How did I survive while others stumbled and fell? How did an Igbo-Ijaw mongrel such as me, an orphan from the mangrove swamps, how was it I triumphed in a city as
—unforgiving
as Lagos?"
Winston wasn't sure if this was a question he was meant to answer.
"Ruthless integrity, that is how. My boys include Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani. I don't separate, I ask only for their loyalty—and their honesty. Why? Because we who traffic in falsehoods must put a premium on the truth. You be 419ing?"
"Yes."
"Who for?"
"For none."
"I ask you again. Who is banking your efforts, who is it has been keeping you out of jail? Who is it has been creeping catlike into my territory?"
"None, sir."
"None? A freeman, then?"
Winston nodded.
"Do you hear that, Tunde? We have before us a freeman navigator, one who has chosen my cafes—
mine
—to ply his trade.
We should be honoured!"
"Sir, if I have caused offence—"
"No, no," he said. "Not at all.
Know your way, no be curse.
Guyman brethren, we are one and the same." Then: "Your glass is empty."
Only ice left.
"Tunde, fetch some fresh." Another round of coughing, another blood stain carefully folded back into a handkerchief, another pour of lemonade, another offer of ice. "The Italians of Africa," said Ironsi-Egobia. "That's what they call us. Did you know that?
They say we Nigerians are the Italians of Africa. But truly, it is
you
they are talking about. The Yoruba. You and your kin, you are the Italians. Your watch. Rolex?"
"A knock-off, yes."
He nodded, suitably impressed. "And a fine knock-off, from here."
"Thank you."
"The Italians of Africa. And the Igbo? The Jews of Africa, that is what they say. The Hausa and Fulani are even called ‘the Arabs of Africa.' A ridiculous statement, because the
Arabs
are the Arabs of Africa. You hear this sort of nonsense constantly. Lagos is the New York of Nigeria. Abuja is our Washington, D.C., Port Harcourt is our Dallas, and so forth. But we were here first. Did not humanity pour out from Africa? Everything human—it has its origins here, all the good, all the bad. So, I ask you, Adam, first man, why are
we
the Italians of anything? It is the
Italians
who are the Nigerians of Europe. It is New York that is the Lagos of America. Dallas that is the Port Harcourt of Texas. More ice?" Another stab, another barefingered drop into Winston's lemonade. "You've heard the song, Adam, the one they sing, ‘419 Is Just a Game'?"
"I have, sir, yes."
"It is not a game. It is a business, and do you know what that business is? Retribution."
"Retribution?"
"Look at Brazil. Its wealth was built on the back of the slave trade. The slave trade fuelled their coffers, provided capital, labour.
Rich Brazilians enjoy a life they have inherited from unspeakable crimes. Why should we weep when a Brazilian bank is taken for millions then? Blood money, all of it. Slaves and diamonds, gold and oil. Even chocolate. It is all stained. Where would England be without Africa? England without Africa is England without Empire.
The crowns of British royalty glitter with blood, with rubies and emeralds wrenched out of Africa. When you were in university, did you not study African history?"
"I—I studied commerce."
"Commerce bears the fruits of history, Adam. If we Nigerians are good at thieving, we learned it from the British. We may plunder bank accounts; they plundered entire continents. But I say to you: if distrust is stronger than trust, and hate is stronger than love, envy is stronger than adulation. And I assure you, we will take back our share of what was stolen. The banks in Europe and America—rolling in money like a pig in slop, they have grown tat on our misery. And they continue to grow fat even now. Where does the money from the Delta oil fields flow? Into offshore accounts, into foreign banks, back to the descendants of slave traders. Fat-faced
oyibos
fart like kings behind gated compounds in Port Harcourt, while the people outside live on table scraps and snot. Why should these bankers, these slavers—these
criminals
—not return some of their lootings to the continent they have helped impoverish? Justice demands it. God demands it.
The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon their children.
And not just the children, but the children's children as well. Read the Bible, it's all in there. Make no mistake, Adam, we are in the business of retribution. We are in the business of revenge."
Never mind that the manager of that Brazilian bank Ironsi-
Egobia was referring to was Japanese. Never mind that the latest 419 exploit, reported breathlessly by the press, had bankrupted a
Taiwanese businessman. Never mind the widow in Hong Kong, taken for everything. Never mind that Nigerian 4l9ers preyed on their fellow Nigerians and targeted expat Nigerians as well, with bogus phone calls from bogus hospitals, demanding money for life-saving treatments for relatives. Any guyman worthy of the name would never limit himself to wealthy whites. A scammer will scam, as surely as a
mugu
will tumble. Race was not the issue; money was.
Never mind, never mind. Winston knew not to mention any of this, and instead said nothing, wisely.
"Four one nine is not a game, it is a contest of wills," Ironsi-
Egobia continued. "It is Nigerian cunning versus
oyibo
greed, and in such a tussle, cunning always has the advantage. Why? Because greed clouds men's eyes, fogs their gaze. Cunning focuses it. We are tax collectors, Adam. We charge a tax on greed. We should be congratulated, not prosecuted, and yet it is we who are called the criminals. Criminals! They talk about Nigeria's ‘culture of corruption.' What of Europe's ‘culture of greed'? What of America's?
What of these
oyibos
agreeing to schemes that are so clearly illegal, were they to be true? Moving millions of dollars out of a poverty-stricken nation, profiteering on Nigeria's hardships? Are the
mugus
not criminals too? Aspiring criminals, but criminals still. Are they not accomplices as much as they are victims? This is what the fools at the EFCC fail to see."
The Oga turned to cough, but nothing came out, neither air nor blood. Not even sound. Winston could feel the undertow pulling at his feet, could feel his world being sucked toward darker, deeper currents.
"You go to church?" Ironsi-Egobia asked after a moment, breath rattling in his chest. "You are a churchgoer?" It wasn't really a question.
"Yes, sir."
"Anglican?"
Winston nodded.
A smile. "I won't hold it against you. You Anglicans—you are the Catholics of Protestants, no?"
A nervous laugh. "Yes, I suppose so."
"Listen to me. I don't care if you are Methodist or Pentecost, if you are a Baptist or a Witness to Jehovah, so long as you are devoted to God. Myself? I tithe to the church ten percent of everything I earn. Do you know why? Because I am a child of Abraham, I am following in his footsteps. When Abraham waged war against the Canaan kings, he turned over one-tenth of his spoils to the priests. And for this, he received divine blessings. Read the Book of Malachi, it's all in there, the Law of Tithing and the Story of the Abrahamic Blessing. But what many people miss is this: it wasn't Abraham's own money he donated to the temple. It was one-tenth of what he had plundered in battle. What he had stolen. And God blessed him for it. You ask why I tithe? That is why. You ask how I have survived, have thrived in this purgatory, this toilet of a city?
