Free 419 by Will Ferguson Page B

stories. My fear is, when the time comes, I'll have to watch all those moments again. That they'll make us watch them before we can get into Heaven." He looked at her. "I'm sorry, Laura."
     
"There's nothing to be sorry about."
     
"But I am."
     
"Sorry? For what?"
     
"Just sorry. Sorry for the things I should have done, might have done, but didn't."
     
She should have said it then: You were a good dad. You always did your best. She should have said it, but didn't. She let the moment lapse into silence instead, let the silence pass into smoke.
     
     

CHAPTER 24
     
     
My dearest Henry,
     
As perhaps you have been made awares, my childhood protector, Victor Okechukwu, has entered the hospital. I'm afraid his cancer has taken a turn for the worst. As his life dims he repeats your name and worries only about your commitment to this matter. Once Mr. Okechukwu's life has passed—as surely it must, I will have no one. I ask only for your assistance. I beg you on bended knees and with tears in my eyes.
     
     
Darkness and danger press in from every side. Until such moment as I am rescued,
     
I remain as ever, yours truly,
     
Miss Sandra
     
A grin from the boy in the silk shirt as he clicked-and-dragged an image of a Nollywood starlet with almond eyes and a tattered dress
     
(in the role of a destitute daughter from a Lagos melodrama) and inserted it into his email. That a famed Nigerian movie star would pitch her woes to a distant oyibo, how could one not grin at such a thing?
     
Mugu fall, guyman whack.
     
Before the boy could hit SEND, though, a reply came back from his previous petition, a single note from the schoolteacher in Canada.
     
—I can help.
     
How easily a grin turns into a chuckle, and a chuckle into something deeper even than laughter. Winston leaned back and cricked his neck, sipped his tea, felt the burlap-sack burden that was Lagos grow suddenly buoyant, felt the netted entanglements of daily life dissolve. Sweeter than soft drinks, sweeter than tea.
     
But no sooner had he congratulated himself on the fine-spun nature of his fairy tale than a face appeared on his screen—not in, on. A reflection thrown back by the protective sheen the cyber cafe placed over its computer screens. A face. Not his. And before Winston could react, the reflection had reached out, had touched his shoulder. Police raid? EFCC sweep? Winston turned in a smooth swirl of silk, exiting the window on his computer screen with practised ease in one flowing motion. "Yes, bruddah?" he asked.
     
A thin man with swampy eyes, face bereft of expression. "Oga wants to see you."
     
     
Oga was a title, not a name.
     
Among the shadowmen of Lagos, Oga was "boss," Oga was
     
"big man," Oga was "strong man." Rarely was there a hoodlum or crime syndicate head who didn't fancy himself as Chief This or Oga That. It was prestige through proxy, stature by mere word association.
     
The meaning of Oga. It did not escape Winston. Nor could he escape it.
     
Swampy eyes, a face bereft of expression. "Your Oga is waiting."
     
Winston blinked. "I don't have an Oga."
     
"You do now."
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 25
     
     
She dreamed of horses. Of wailing flutes and tambura drums. Of a rolling barrage of hooves, of horse and rider in full gallop.
     
It may have been Eid-el-Fitr, maybe Eid-el-Kabir. It may have commemorated the end of Ramadan or the prophet Ibrahim's sacrificing of a ram instead of a child. But in her dreaming, the horsemen of the durbar were out in full pageantry. Riders in scarlet turbans with swords drawn, sunlight sharpening the blades.
     
Horses, draped in quilted armour and adorned with falcon-feathered headdresses. Praise singers and footmen. The accolades of cannon fire and high-trilled voices. His Excellency the Emir looking on, languid under peacock feather fans, as the lancers line up, horses snorting. With a loud cry they charge, wave after wave, at breakneck gallop, pulling back only at the last moment, in