by Leye Adenle
She stopped by the passenger door and waited for him to roll down the window. She bent down, giving him a good view of her cleavage, and said ‘Hi, honey.’
‘Hi,’ he said. He sounded like he needed water.
She smiled at him. His eyes moved between her breasts and her eyes. She waited for him to say something but he stared out his front window, at cars driving by, and he sank into his seat.
‘Where do you want to take me, honey?’ she said. She spat out the gum in her mouth and flicked her head to throw her braids back.
‘How much?’ he said.
‘Short time or long time?’
‘We will just go to my hotel.’
‘Do you want me to spend the night, honey?’
‘No.’
‘OK, honey, just give me ten thousand.’ She waited for him to haggle her down. A car slowed down by them. She stood up from the window and used her finger to draw back a strand of braid. The other car stopped parallel to the Corolla and she bent back into his window.
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
She looked closely at him. The same men usually came to Sanusi Fafunwa Street but she had never seen him, or his car.
‘Where are we going, honey?’
‘Federal Palace Hotel.’
‘I hope you will be nice to me, honey.’
He reached over and opened the door for her.
‘One second, honey.’ She placed her phone to her ear; she’d been holding it all the time. She took a few steps to the nose of the car and glanced at his plate number. She pretended to end the call she’d not been making and began typing a message before she got in next to him.
‘What is your name, honey?’ she said without looking up from her phone.
‘Bayo. Use your seat belt.’
‘What do you do, Bayo?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I’m just asking, honey.’
‘I’m a banker.’
‘Which bank is that?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
She finished composing her text message and sent it off. She dropped her phone on her lap, placed her palm on his thigh, and began stroking, letting her fingers touch his crotch to check if he was hard. Normally she wouldn’t go with someone she didn’t recognise without telling one of her friends and letting the man know that the friend had seen his face, seen the car he drove, and seen the licence plate number. But the young man looked too nervous to be dangerous. She decided right then to take advantage of him, but she still had to check.
He kept his eyes on the road as she worked on his zipper. As soon as she felt him getting hard, she removed her hand and checked if her text had been received.
Amaka’s phone vibrated in her handbag. Like a mother programmed to her child’s cry, she could hear the phone vibrating in another room. It was one of three mobiles she always carried with her. One was her personal line, as she called it. The second one had a new pay-as-you go SIM card in it – she always had new SIM cards in her bag. A few hundred girls had the number to the third phone; none of them had met her or knew her name. It was this phone that had received a new message.
The text was from a contact that showed up as KEVWE. She looked up and saw Chief Ojo watching her. She blinked at him and continued. The message read ‘Evening ma. Young man at Sanusi Fafunwa. He said he is a banker. He is driving a black Toyota with number LA333KKJ. His name is Bayo. Going to Federal Palace. Thank you ma.’
She looked back up from her phone and caught him looking down her shirt. She smiled and he looked away at something on the ceiling. ‘Work,’ she said. ‘Give me a minute.’
She got out a notebook from her handbag and switched it on. She had left it on hibernate – a trick her friend, Gabriel, taught her, so that the computer booted up faster.
Her fingers dashed around the keyboard, keying in her long password. An Excel spreadsheet filled the screen. She selected the ‘Find’ option and typed in the licence number from the text message. The number appeared several lines down. She clicked on the row to highlight it and read across. She was interested in the last column where the entry read SAFE.
In the car, Kevwe looked down at her phone. The message simply read: ‘OK.’
She deleted it and placed her hand back on the driver’s groin.
They got to Federal Palace Hotel quicker than if he’d been observing speed limits. He walked ahead of her and when the elevator doors slid open, he let other people waiting to get in first, including her, then he stepped in on the other side away from her.
His room was one of the smallest she’d been to in the hotel. She wondered if perhaps she should have taken the Land Cruiser she gifted to the new girl. She dropped her bag on the bed and kicked off her shoes. She had charged him a good price and had decided to get even more but she couldn’t afford to waste time; she had to get back to her spot before another girl stole it.
She undressed. She had no underwear. His eyes moved from her breasts to her shaved crotch. She placed her hands on her hips and waited.
‘Where you wan’ do am?’
His face shot up at her sudden switch to broken English.
‘Won’t you shower first?’
‘I don shower today.’ She felt like smiling at her luck. She knew he wanted her to wash away the last client she had been with; she had picked up that he wasn’t very used to this the minute he agreed to the price she asked for without first halving it. She’d decided to make him pay extra for anything other than plain sex with her lying on her back. If he wanted her to take a shower, he would also want to limit body contact and thus ask to take her from behind. She would tell him that doggy costs more.
‘Just go and shower.’
‘To take shower go cost three thousand extra.’
‘You want me to give you an extra three thousand?’
‘Yes.’
‘For what?’
‘To take shower, now. I tell you, I don shower today, but if you want make I go shower again, you go pay me three thousand on top the amount we agree.’
‘Why?’
‘Na time e go take.’
‘A five minute shower? That’s what you want three thousand extra for?’
‘Time dey go o.’
‘So, you won’t take a shower?’
‘You go pay?’
‘OK. Don’t bother with the shower. Just give me a blow job.’ He undid his zip and pulled himself out.
‘Ehn? Blow wetin? We no discuss that one o. I don’t do blow job for ten thousand. That one is fifteen thousand, and you will use condom.’
As he stared at her, still grappling with the fact that the same girl who had called him honey and stroked his cock in the car was now hissing at him and refusing to look into his eyes, as if they had already had a fight. It dawned on him that he was being conned. He gradually grew limp. He zipped up his fly.
‘You can go.’
‘You want make I go?’
‘Yes. You can go. I’m not interested anymore.’
‘But you never pay me.’
‘Pay you for what? We didn’t do anything.’
‘You are not serious. Shebi you brought me here? Na me say make your prick no stand? Abeg, pay me my money.’
‘Money for what?’
‘See me see trouble. If your dick refuse to stand, na my fault? Oya, come and fuck now. You no fit? If I know say you be time waster, I for no follow you. Give me my money. Yeye man.’
‘Look, just leave.’
‘Wey my ten thousand?’ Her voice was sufficiently raised so that anyone on the corridor outside could hear her.
He looked down, shaking his head and smiling a regretful smile. He put his hand in his back pocket and counted out ten thousand naira. He held the money out to her.
She snatched the cash and counted it.
‘Wetin be this?’
‘Your money.’
‘How will I get back to the place you pick me from?’
‘I don’t know. Take
a taxi.’
‘Make I take taxi?’
‘Yes.’ He could barely look at her.
‘By this time, taxi will cost four thousand. That is even if I find one.’
‘So what do you want me to do?’
‘You this man, you are vexing me o. I for no follow you if I know say na like this you go dey do. Give me money for taxi.’ She held out her hand.
He looked at the outstretched palm, saw the calluses, the dirt under her nails, her discoloured cheap rings, and he felt shame like he had never felt before, and loathing.
‘I am not giving you anything. I will drop you back where I found you.’
‘Where you find me? I be dog wey dem dey find? Just because of the work I’m doing does not mean you should be insulting me anyhow. If not for condition, you for see me carry? After all, I get men like you for my family.’
He doubted that she came from anything other than a family of blackmailers but he kept his opinion to himself. He fetched his keys from his pocket and waited for her to dress and leave his room, then he led the way back to his car.
Two policemen stood by the gutter while a third, handling a Polaroid camera with a separate flash held in a different hand, took pictures. This was the extent of evidence gathering.
A white Peugeot 504 station wagon converted into an ambulance was parked diagonally across the road. Two men in crumpled white overalls and yellow kitchen gloves stood by its open boot waiting for the photographer to be done.
The driver of a police van next to the Peugeot pressed his horn in one long blast and exchanged dirty looks with the photographer. People watched from the safety of the other side of the road.
Kevwe saw the police car up ahead. ‘Stop, stop, stop,’ she said, but he had also seen the cars and the policemen, and he had seen how the sight of them had made her jump. He continued driving until he was as close to the officers as he could, then he pulled his handbrake. ‘Get out,’ he said.
Kevwe sank low into her seat until her head was below the window line. As they passed by, she had noted that there were no girls on the road and that the only people watching were security guards and bouncers from the many clubs on the street. The police raided this area less than a week ago, so no one expected them to be back so soon. Several girls were still working longer hours to make up for the money they had lost to the last raid – including her. It had cost her sixteen thousand naira to ‘bail’ herself – all the money she had on her – and not before a drunken officer had pulled her into a lightless room that choked her with dust and pushed her hand down the front of his trousers. She had not been able to eat with the hand for two days.
‘Bros, please now, please. Just take me down there, to the end of the road. Please. It is the way you will pass as you are going. Honey, please.’
‘Get out now.’
‘OK, let us go back to your hotel. I will shower. We can do anything you want. Please. Ehn, bros? Please. I beg you with the name of Jesus.’
‘Get dafuck out of my car.’
She sighed, checked that they hadn’t attracted the attention of the officers, then she climbed out. He pressed his horn twice as he drove off.
She scampered on the tips of her high-heeled shoes to the other side of the road, almost falling into the gutter as she bent down behind a parked Mercedes. She clutched her handbag to her chest and held her breath. Her ankles ached in the stooping position but when she tried to kneel, gravel bit into her skin so she had to stay crouched and endure the pain.
She thought of rolling up all the money she had in her handbag, putting it inside a condom and hiding her loot in the bush covering the gutter. She was searching the growth behind her for a good spot she would remember later when she heard engines revving, tyres screeching, and sirens screaming then fading away. Even then, she stayed where she was, peeping onto the road several times before she finally stretched her legs and shook the numbness out of them.
The police car had left and people were walking across the road to the front of the ambulance where someone was still taking pictures of something in the gutter. She did not see the two policemen standing there, surrounded by security guards and other onlookers. She moved towards the crowd and by the time she noticed the uniforms it was too late. She locked eyes with an officer who looked her up and down before taking a picture of what was in the gutter using his phone.
She edged around the group, staying as far from the policemen as she could. She pushed past security guards and looked down to see what they were all looking at.
As she saw, she lost her balance and had to grab the arm of the man standing by her side. She looked again and her worst fear was confirmed: it was the new girl who had gone for the Land Cruiser while she took the Corolla.
Her knees felt weak. She looked at the people around her; their bodies swayed disconcertingly. She wanted to scream out the girl’s name, Angel, but she knew she would only get herself arrested, so she drew her lips in and walked away from the crowd, her heart pounding.
‘No o. No be say they kill her for another place come bring am here. No. It is here that they kill her, inside jeep,’ a man in a security guard uniform said to a group of the onlookers.
Kevwe stopped next to the people talking but as they turned towards her she continued walking away from them. She got her phone, and with shaking fingers, she called the one person she knew she had to tell.
Amaka was finishing her champagne and Chief Ojo was paying the bill when her phone rang. She asked to be excused and let the phone continue ringing as she walked out of the bar. Anytime that particular phone rang, the one the girls sent her messages on, she always answered it in private, if she could.
The caller didn’t wait for her to talk. ‘Hello? Aunty? They have killed her.’
‘Killed who?’ She took the phone away from her ear to see the caller’s name but the screen had gone dark. ‘Who is this? Who killed who?’
‘She is dead, aunty, she is dead.’
‘Who is dead?’
‘They have killed her. Oh my God. Aunty, they have killed her. It is me Aunty, it is Kevwe. They have killed her. My friend, Aunty, she is dead.’
‘Who killed your friend? What are you talking about?’
‘Aunty, they have killed her, she’s in the gutter. The police are here.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I dey Ronnie’s. I just return from Federal Palace. Aunty, her body dey inside gutter here. They cut her open, Aunty. Oh my God, Aunty, she is dead.’
‘Calm down. You say you’re at Ronnie’s?’
‘Yes, Aunty, na here they dump her body.’
‘Who killed her? What is her name?’
‘Aunty, wetin I go do? Police dey for here.’
‘Listen to me. Take it easy. What is your friend’s name?’
The girl did not respond.
‘Hello? Kevwe? Kevwe?’
Kevwe was still holding the phone to her ear, silent tears rolling down her face.
Amaka tried repeatedly but couldn’t get her to respond. Against herself, she ended the call. She knew that the girl would soon switch her phone off and leave town for some time while the police rounded up prostitutes in the name of investigating the murder. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her mind conjured up images, each one more gruesome than the last. She shook the thoughts away. She didn’t have time for that. She called eight contacts from her phone and four more from memory. She asked each person she spoke to whether they had heard anything about Ronnie’s bar that night. A few girls had heard a rumour but no one knew for sure. She considered calling Kevwe back, maybe she would answer. No. She had to go to Ronnie’s herself. She bit her lips. Damn it. Not tonight.
Chief Ojo was exchanging looks with a group of chatty girls who had settled at a table next to him. Amaka stood at the entrance and watched. She contemplated turning round and walking away. One of the girls looked at him and did a little wave. She decided that she had come too close to give up. She walked up to him an
d sat on a different chair so that he had to turn his back to the girls.
‘Something came up,’ she said, ‘I have to go somewhere quickly.’
He shook his head. She placed her hand on his shoulder.
‘Listen, I want you. I want to fuck you. Tonight. And I will fuck you.’ She said it with so much conviction that she was surprised when he cast a doubtful look at her then glanced at the girls.
She pulled his head to face her.
‘I really have to go and sort this thing out. Give me your phone number, go to the hotel, and wait for me. Once I’m done I’ll call you and I’ll come and meet you.’
‘What do you have to go and do at this time?’
‘I can’t tell you. Trust me, I will be back.’
‘You can’t tell me?’
‘Listen, I don’t have time to explain. I’ll tell you all about it when I return. I promise. It doesn’t have anything to do with another man, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Give me your number.’
‘OK. Let me call myself with your phone then we’ll both have each other’s numbers.’
She took his phone and dialled her phone with the new SIM in it. She pressed her palm against the side of her bag and killed the connection when she felt a vibration.
‘Now, go to your hotel and wait for me.’
‘How do I know you’ll come back?’
She looked him in the eyes while he waited for her answer. She turned to the girls. They were giggling their way through a bottle of Hennessey. They were young and pretty, and obviously on the job. She returned her gaze to him. Her face was expressionless. Looking straight into his eyes, she pushed her hands under her skirt, shifted on the chair and reached up. She found the strings of her underwear and twisted her fingers round the silk fabric.