Any fuel these refineries provided seemed to have bypassed local vendors, though. Long lines of angry vehicles were queued outside petrol stations—or at least those that were still open. She passed several that were boarded up entirely, with hand-painted
NO
FOOEL
signs out front.
The fuel shortage had brought out would-be profiteers, young men selling plastic milk jugs and litre bottles filled with black-market gasoline. At one roadside stall she passed, a police vehicle had pulled over, not to issue a ticket but to haggle with the seller over the cost of a jug.
Kaduna.
The city was named for its river, and the river was named for its crocodiles. But the
kadunas
that had once floated like logs in the muddy waters were long gone, lost like the lions of the Sahel. She had never been to a city so big before, a million souls or more they said. Had never seen boulevards so wide, buildings so blindingly white. Grand architectural gestures loomed on every side: polished hotels and towering banks that proclaimed their wealth through the sheer gleam of their facades. Cinemas and chemists, billboards and barbershop poles that
turned.
And everywhere: traffic honking like bickering geese.
Preening, rooster-like buses, painted in flagrant greens and purples, veered past as loud-revving motorcycle taxis wove in and out, passengers clinging to their drivers' backs, bundles tucked tightly under arms. It seemed to be a city of bundles: bundles bulging, swaying, opened, emptied.
She heard half a dozen dialects and languages on the walk in, words shouted and sung, spoken and sighed; the city rang with their sounds, and even in her weakened state, it was exhilarating.
In such a place, surely there was space for her.
But Kaduna was still Kaduna. A river of crocodiles, a city with teeth. The trick was to step as daintily as a bird picking meat from the gum line. Behind the Ostrich Bakery, she rummaged through garbage cans and empty sacks dusted with flour, uncovered a bag filled with sticky buns. The buns were furred with mould, but she carefully scraped them clean, ate the sour bread below.
Past the central market, she came to the edge of Kaduna's Sabon Gari district. These strangers' quarters, like those in Zaria, weren't marked as such, but were clearly delineated anyway. Muddy accents from the Christian south. Igbo traders and Yoruba. Nupe and Tiv.
Families that might have lived there for generations but would always be looked upon as interlopers. She was one of them now.
CHAPTER 45
What if it wasn't about the money?
Laura's question had given Detective Rhodes pause. What was she getting at?
But Warren had cut in before the detective's suspicions could coalesce. "We should sue Dad's bank for letting him send his savings out of the country! We should sue MoneyGram and Western Union. We should sue the goddamn Nigerian government."
Laura was going through the scanned documents. Her father's signature, granting power of attorney to an imaginary barrister hired to oversee the imaginary transfer of imaginary funds.
Know all men that I, the undersigned,
HENRY CURTIS,
do solemnly grant exclusive rights and legal authority to
DR. THEODORE USMAN, ATTORNEY AT IAW,
to act in my place for the purposes of clearance and safekeep of said funds referenced No. 133-42.
Another one began:
I, HENRY CURTIS,
hereby authorize the Central Bank of Nigeria to remit the sum of $US 35,600,000.00 herewith into the following account...
The same signature he'd signed her report cards with.
"The lawyers' fees are usually the first payments the victim makes," said Rhodes. "But once it starts, it never ends. There are always last-minute unexpected delays, while the dream of the big payoff is kept dangling in front of you."
"This is why it's known as ‘advance fee fraud.' The fees
are
the con," said Saul. "There are taxes to be paid, and levies, VAT and banking surcharges, then you need to cover
demurrage
—storage fees on boxes of make-believe money. There are the Anti-Money Laundering Certificates we showed you earlier. Transfer fees, processing fees, insurance registration fees."
"You're advised to keep track of all your expenses," continued Rhodes, "because supposedly you'll be reimbursed—with interest!—once the transfer goes through. Except, of course, it never does." Then, with an ingratiating smile aimed Laura's way, "It's like waiting for a guy to call the day after the night before."
"I wouldn't know anything about that," said Laura, a sliver of ice running through her voice.
"Well, you're luckier than the rest of us," Rhodes said with an easy laugh.
Detective Saul passed more scanned documents across the table, pages from a ledger, each entry carefully inscribed, down to the penny: her father, keeping a careful and no doubt scrupulously honest record of his expenses. As heartbreaking a sight as any lonely turn on a winter road...
Although she hadn't paid much attention to the other documents, Laura's mother looked at these, marvelled at the care Henry had taken with them. "He was always the one who balanced our chequebook," she said. "He was always the one who kept track of things."
"The more a victim puts in, the more they'll continue to put in," said Saul. "Until you end up chasing your own money, throwing good after bad, trying desperately to recoup what you've already lost. It starts a downward spiral that usually ends only once you've been bankrupted. Or worse."
"And if you start to flag, they push you harder," Rhodes added.
"You feel like you're caught up in this swirling, clandestine affair.
The con takes over your entire life. It's secretive and relentless—and all the while you're cut off from those closest to you."
Why didn't he say something
—
anything? Even once.
Was that why he'd kept calling Laura late at night, hoping she would ask the right questions?
"The pressure builds," said Rhodes. "It builds and builds and never lets up."
They'd now reached the excruciating final spasms. "The scammers turn it around, start to claim that they're the real victims,"
Saul explained.
Mr. Curtis, I have bankrupted myself and my family! I have had to sell my house to cover the gap in costs that you refuse to pay. Why do I help you if you can't keep your end of bargain?
"Sometimes they try to rally your sense of optimism."
Mr. Curtis, God is on our side. You cannot abandon us now.
Think of the girl, will you throw her to the fates?
"Sometimes they speak of justice, sometimes of despair."
If you walk away now Mr. Curtis, Miss Sandra will have no alternative but to commit suicide, because I will not be able to protect her and she will most certainly not be able to withstand the demands applied from those nefarious souls who are circling even now, attracted by the scent of blood.
"Of course," said the older detective, "it's never the scammer who commits suicide." He regretted saying this even before the words had left his mouth, but the family seemed so numb by that point they hardly noticed.
SUBJECT: You have destroyed me!
RECEIVED: December 1, 11:59 PM
Mr. Curtis, I can no longer hide my outrage at you! You refuse to pay the final $US 20,000.00 needed to clear the money through customs, even though as you well know this is utterly the last payment required.
You are leaving me abandoned and betrayed. I have mortgaged my business, have gone into debt and sold my family possessions and heirlooms. I will lose everything because of you! I have covered the bulk of these costs and only $US 20,000.00 is needed on the receiving end. This is all that stands between me and abject destruction. Why did I ever trust you?
I have attached the records of my mortgage and the necessary bank payments—payments you were supposed to make! Payments I made on your behalf!
Why are you being so half-hearted in these matters, when millions of dollars and Miss Sandra's future happiness are at stake!!
With disgust at your dishonesty,
William Awele, Executor to the Estate of Dr. Atta, late Director of the Contract Award Committee for the NNPC
"There's always one ‘last payment,"' said Rhodes. "They accuse the victim of being deceitful and two-faced. They attack, harass.
They're incredibly persistent."
"And if the victim threatens to expose them?" Laura asked.
"Oh," said Saul with a smile. "They're ready for that."
SUBJECT: Your threats mean nothing! NOTHING!!
RECEIVED: December 7, 11:32 PM
Are you such a fool as that Mr. Curtis? You dare threaten me??
You want to contact the police, do so! At this stage, I'm thinking about contacting them myself. You understand, this is illegal, what you have been doing. Trying to smuggle money out of another country. You are an accomplice to a crime, Mr. Curtis. You are a thief of Africa, and you will be paid in imprisonment!
Go to the police and they will arrest you. How will your wife and children feel then? How will you explain this to Helen, to your grandchildren?
Send the money or face the consequences.
William Awelle
"Finally, when it becomes clear that there is no more money to squeeze from the victim, the scammer suddenly throws him a lifeline," said Saul. "They offer to resolve everything in one swoop—to repay the victim his entire costs in a single move. They essentially use the victim as a cheque-cashing service. They send him a sizable cashiers cheque. Or a bank draft or corporate cheque, even a money order, it doesn't matter. They tell the victim to cash the cheque, keep half—which is usually more than the expenses the victim has coughed up—and then send the rest to another account."
"This is what happened with your father," explained Rhodes, looking at Laura.
"The cheque arrives. The victim deposits it. The cheque clears, so everything seems good. The victim has recouped his losses and is happy to forward the remainder to another account. But people misunderstand what ‘clearing a cheque' means. The fact that a cheque has been cleared doesn't mean it's legitimate. Your local branch isn't an expert in forged documents. A bank will allow a cheque to go through based on its client's credit rating—your father's was impeccable—their many years as a valued customer, and so on. A bank can clear any cheque if they're confident they can recoup the funds should something go wrong."
"Your father was a client of some thirty years' standing," said Rhodes. "He owned his own home and had opened a line of credit against its value. The house acted as a guarantor against the sum."
"Let me guess," said Warren wearily. "The cheque bounced."
"That's one way of putting it. It was a forgery."
"Surely, for Christ's sake, the bank is liable."
"Bank tellers aren't fraud investigators," said Rhodes. "The cheque would have worked its way through the system to a central clearing house, would have been flagged and then have worked its way back. It can take several weeks before a phony cheque is caught, even after it's been cleared. And to put it bluntly, it was your father who committed the crime, not the bank. Unknowingly, but still. Your father," she said, "passed a forged note. He attempted to defraud his bank."
Good news! A fully certified cheque is on its way. You will recoup your entire loss, even while we await the final transfer. Deduct what is owed and return the rest. This is a way to get funds to Miss Sandra without the CBN getting their clutches upon it. Everyone wins! You will be repaid in full and Miss Sandra will be saved from a hopeless future!
"The bank will recover most of what it lost through the foreclosure and sale of your father's property—"
"My
parents
property," said Laura, anger flaring.
Her mother put a hand on Laura's arm, said in the same soothing voice her daughter had heard so often as a child, "It's fine, dear."
"Why didn't Dad just declare bankruptcy and be done with it?" asked Warren.
"He could've," said Rhodes. "But the end result would have been the same. Your parents would still have lost the house. The savings would still be gone. And your father would still have faced a criminal investigation into the forged cheque."
"Sometimes," said Saul, "when it's all over, the con men contact the victim
again
, this time claiming to be investigators from Interpol, or from the EFCC, Nigeria's Anti-Fraud Unit, intent on helping the victim track down the crooks and recover his money.
For a fee, of course. "
It was like watching a car crash in slow motion.
—
Egberifa
.
"There was," said Detective Saul, sliding a final sheet of paper across the table, "one last payment. It was on your father's credit card. The card itself was maxed out, but the payment went through.
The transaction occurred just a few days before the—accident."
"An airplane ticket," said Rhodes.
This straightened Laura's posture. "Dad was going to Nigeria?"
"It wasn't a ticket
to
Nigeria. From. It was in the name of one Sandra Atta."
"She was coming here?" said Laura. "I thought she didn't exist."
"She doesn't. The ticket was never used. Someone cashed it, kept the money."
And the figure in the shadows, the one her father had called in a complaint about? "There was no one outside my parents' window, was there?" Laura asked.
"We didn't see anyone, no."
She should have felt relieved, but all she felt was sad. That these faceless criminals had been able to reach deep into her dad's mind and conjure up demons... On the day the flight arrived, her dad must have driven out there, to the airport.
