The Missing American

by Kwei Quartey

  “Bruno and I went to Bukom with one of Nii’s housemates yesterday,” she added, “but we didn’t find Nii anywhere. I’m worried about him. How do we know Ponsu didn’t get to him?”

  Sowah nodded. “It’s a possibility. Ponsu can’t be located either; Interpol notified the Togo and Benin police because it appears he’s crossed into Togo. They’ll get him eventually. So, now to the crux of the matter, that you independently decided to start collaborating with Bruno after I had expressly asked you to relinquish any investigation related to Gordon Tilson’s death.”

  She nodded. “Yes, sir. I was wrong and I’m sorry I disobeyed you. I have no excuse.”

  Sowah eyed her, but did she catch the hint of a smile? “When I give those kinds of instructions,” he said, “there’s method to my madness. The very reason I didn’t want you to go any further with the Tilson affair is the same one for which you were almost thrown into the river.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “On the other hand,” Sowah said, leaning back with a sigh, “your actions have led to the arrest of two out of three people responsible for the murder of Mr. Tilson. So, I’m both shaking your hand and shaking my finger at you.”

  “Yes, sir. The bottom line is that I put myself in danger and it’s only by the grace of God that I’m here.”

  “Amen.”

  “Please, if you wish me to resign at once, I will do so.”

  Sowah smiled. “Well, I don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

  “Come again?”

  “It’s just an expression. In other words, if I sack you just because I’m annoyed by your disobedience this one time, I may—no, will—be depriving myself and the agency of a talented, courageous, moral, and all-around good detective. And what would be the point of that?”

  Emma broke out into a broad smile. “Thank you, Mr. Sowah. Thank you very much. God bless you.”

  NINETY

  Monday evening, Dazz and Courage helped Edwin pack up his belongings and furniture to move from his house in the suburb of Dansoman to the new place on Spintex Road—definitely a step up. Spintex was an area of high economic activity with houses and strip malls materializing apparently every day. Unfortunately, road paving never happened as quickly as buildings were erected, so the ride to Edwin’s place in his pickup was a jarring test of the vehicle’s suspension.

  Neither Courage nor Dazz had seen the house yet, and they were suitably impressed. Unfurnished, it would take a few more chairs and sofas to fill up the sitting room. Two bedrooms, each with a modern bathroom, a kitchen with much more than Edwin’s meager cooking abilities would ever require, and a backyard with enough space to have a good party.

  “What!” Dazz exclaimed, each time they followed Edwin into another impressive space.

  “This is nice,” Courage agreed. “Congrats.”

  After they had moved and carried things around, the guys walked to the corner to buy kelewele, then returned to the house to devour the delicious meal and wash it down with some beer. Edwin had already set up his TV, so they watched music videos for a while and then switched it off.

  “I really like the place,” Courage said.

  “Yours is even better, Mr. Bill Gates,” Edwin teased.

  “No, it’s not. This place is bigger.”

  Dazz said, “What am I doing wrong? You guys have nice places and I’m stuck with two tiny rooms for a house.”

  “Look, Dazz,” Courage said, “I know your uncle is the DCOP and he’s honest to the last pesewa, but you need to do things for yourself and not worry about what he thinks. I know the guys at the top say we’re not supposed to do certain private jobs for ministers and embassies and so on, but many of us do, and so should you. You can’t make money in the GPS until you get very high up—like the commissioners and so on. And even they have money-making schemes on the side.”

  “Yeah,” Edwin said dryly. “Like sakawa. But I agree with what Courage is saying.”

  Dazz sat forward. “Edwin, what’s your story?”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I saw you and Madam Akrofi together at the CAC party. I told Courage about it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Edwin said defensively. “I only walked her to her vehicle.”

  “No, no,” Dazz said. “I saw the two of you embracing. In the garden there by the car park.”

  “Sugar mummy, Edwin?” Courage said, winking at him. “How long, and how did you meet?”

  Edwin eyed his two friends without a word.

  “We’re not judging you,” Dazz said, “but we do want to know.”

  “Why shouldn’t you get something out of fucking her?” Courage said with a shrug.

  “Shut up,” Edwin said, his features clouding. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Then what?” Dazz said.

  “Mrs. Akrofi isn’t a ‘sugar mummy,’ as you call it,” Edwin said. “She’s my real mother. My biological mother.”

  “What?” Dazz and Courage said together.

  “Yes,” Edwin replied.

  “Are you serious?” Dazz said.

  “Of course, I am.”

  “But you’ve never talked about it,” Courage said, incredulous. “I mean, this is not your ordinary mom who lives in some tiny village somewhere in the hinterland, this is an important lady around town. The IGP’s wife!”

  “I don’t talk about it,” Edwin said, “because she doesn’t talk about it. And she doesn’t talk about it because her husband doesn’t know she had a child before she met him, and she’s always kept it from him.”

  “But is it something to be so ashamed of?” Courage asked.

  “Maybe not to you, but to my mother’s mother, yes. She said I was the product of sinful lust, so she sent me to Techiman in the Brong-Ahafo Region to grow up with my aunt—my mother’s sister. That way, I was out of sight, out of mind. It was only when I reached manhood that I returned to Accra. My grandmother was dead and gone by that time, anyway. But Mummy supported me even while her sister was bringing me up. She paid my school fees and used to send money to my PO Box at the post office. Sometimes, even, those wretched people at the post office would steal my cash. Once we got mobile money, Mummy used that method. So yes, she paid most of the rent due for this house. She loves me, but I think the real thing is she’s trying to make up for the guilt of sending me away.”

  “Listen, chaley,” Courage said, “I’m sorry for what I said about . . . you know.”

  Edwin dismissed it. “Don’t worry about it.” He seemed troubled about something else. “You know, my mother is complicated. In fact, her whole life is complicated. My half-brother, Kwame, has autism and he’s in an institution in the UK. Before Mummy sent him away, she took him to some fetish priest somewhere to see if he could cure Kwame. This was after she and Mr. Akrofi had taken the boy to several doctors who didn’t know what was going on.”

  Dazz and Courage were silent as they tried to absorb all of this. It was a lot.

  “Who is your dad, then?” Dazz asked.

  Edwin gave a dry laugh. “I knew that was coming next. I’m not even sure if I should say. You’ve already had quite a few surprises for one night. Are you ready?”

  The other two nodded.

  “You know my father quite well,” Edwin said. “He’s Commissioner Andoh.”

  They were struck dumb for a moment. Then Courage said, “Wow, you are right. You have a lot of surprises.”

  “I’m truly short of words,” Dazz muttered.

  “Mummy met Daddy before she met Mr. Akrofi,” Edwin continued. “I was an accident, to put it in a frank way. The commissioner wanted to marry Mummy, but she was already in love with Mr. Akrofi. So, now you can imagine the way my father treats me.”

  “I guess not well,” Dazz said. “You represent the woman he lost.
”

  “You could say that,” Edwin said, with a hint of bitterness. “He hates Mr. Akrofi, but I don’t think the IGP knows that. And me? I’ve spent a long time waiting for the day my father will approve of me. That’s why I became a policeman. But I’m done with trying. I don’t care about him anymore.”

  Dazz and Courage looked at Edwin with some—not complete—understanding. They could see why Edwin was sometimes moody and introspective.

  “We aren’t worried about any of this, Edwin,” Dazz said. “You are still our good friend and colleague, okay? In fact, I feel our friendship is even stronger.”

  “Agreed,” Courage said. “Let’s have some more beer and drink to that.”

  NINETY-ONE

  The Saturday after Edwin moved, he held a housewarming party, which gave Courage an excuse to invite Emma out. She accepted. Although not authorized to do it, Courage had told Emma beforehand about Edwin’s secret: the parents very few people knew he had and his formative years growing up as a kind of adoptee.

  “That’s quite a story,” Emma had commented. But honestly, it wasn’t that remarkable, she reflected later. The Ghanaian’s concept of “family” was quite fluid. Kids often went away to stay with aunts, uncles, grandparents, and even distant relatives for financial, catastrophic, or other reasons. It was normal. Words like brother, sister, mother, father were used quite loosely.

  Around thirty people were at Edwin’s party, most of which he held in the backyard. But the guests spilled over into the sitting room and the kitchen. Emma recognized a few faces from CID, but apart from the host, Courage, and Dazz, she knew very few people. Edwin introduced Emma to Ginger, a glamorous woman somewhat above his age who appeared to be his girlfriend—well, for the evening, at least.

  Plenty of lavishly catered food and drink were on hand, accompanied by a loud hiplife music playlist. Emma chatted within reach of Courage. He was being neither possessive nor indifferent to her—somewhere in the middle—and Emma was fine with that.

  Here and there, she heard a snatch of a comment about how nice the house was and “does Edwin earn that kind of money?” Inevitably, the phrase “sugar mummy,” which Emma despised even more than the “daddy” version, came up. At any rate, if Edwin was aware of murmurings, he didn’t seem to care. He was having a good time. Emma noticed what a “babe magnet” he was, and that it didn’t seem to bother Ginger. Emma decided that she couldn’t be a “serious” girlfriend.

  Apart from gossip, bad jokes and general partying behavior, one common topic of discussion was going around, and that was what jaw-dropping scandals Sana Sana’s new exposé, scheduled for Sunday night as all his features were, might bring to light. People were taking wild guesses and making even wilder predictions about who the infamous “Godfather” would turn out to be, but others played down the potential impact of the show, especially Sana’s detractors, and he had many.

  A smarmy man had been eyeing Emma from the bar and she was not comfortable with it. She turned and positioned herself out of his line of sight, soon forgetting about him.

  “I’m going to the washroom,” she told Courage. He nodded.

  The one downstairs was occupied, so she went to the upstairs guest bathroom. Coming out, she was about to return to the party when she heard voices from the room at the other end of the landing. Curiosity got the better of Emma and she tread lightly up to the door, which was open just a crack. Still, it was enough for Emma to see Edwin and the smarmy man talking quietly and looking at something on the bed. Emma adjusted her eye’s view and saw part of what they were studying: a large case containing a rifle, a handgun, and multiple firearm accessories neatly tucked into fitted cutouts.

  “You say you’ll only take dollars?” the smarmy man said.

  “Yes,” Edwin said. “I don’t deal in cedis.”

  “And is the rifle and everything working well?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Then why are you getting rid of it?”

  Edwin shrugged. “Don’t need it anymore.”

  “What about the paperwork?”

  “What paperwork? Chaley, no any paperwork! If you want the thing, then bring the dollars and it will be yours. Simple as that.”

  “Okay,” the man said sullenly. “I call you.”

  This is where I leave, Emma thought, departing for the stairs and still thinking about the formidable weaponry Edwin had been showing the man.

  Downstairs again, Courage found her. “I was looking for you.”

  “I had to go to the upstairs washroom.”

  “Are you having a good time?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “What’s on your mind? You look distracted.”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  “You’re strange sometimes, you know that?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He put his arm around her. “Come on, let’s dance.

  NINETY-TWO

  Traditionally, Sana’s exposés always aired Sunday nights at 8 p.m. Emma had invited Bruno to watch at her house along with Abena, who would be over for the usual Sunday dinner. At 8 p.m., with Kojo safely in bed, they gathered in front of the TV in anticipation of Sana Sana’s new blockbuster, “The Sakawa Story: Power, Corruption, and Deceit.” Bruno knew in advance about the big IGP reveal at the end, but he hadn’t let on to Emma or Abena.

  There was far more to the feature than just video clips of people accepting money. It reintroduced the viewers to Sana’s work, which had an increasingly global perspective. His signature slogan, “Name, Shame, and Jail” was repeated often. The show went on to examine Sakawa from its early beginnings in Nigeria, where it was called “419” after a section in Nigeria’s criminal code. The origins dated to much earlier than most people realized—as far back as 1920. Now, the notorious old 419 scams with Nigerian “princes” were all but gone, replaced by more effective Internet scams. Over the decades, online fraud transformed itself from a clunky, unreliable tro-tro to a powerful Bentley.

  Sana showed how many millions of dollars sakawa was now worth, and why it was too much of a good offer for politicians and corrupt law enforcement to refuse. The essential infrastructure for corruption in Ghanaian society was already well in place and primed to take sakawa on, like a highway with an available extra lane.

  How and why does Internet fraud involve mallams, traditional priests, and the like? Because they are the people who can invest the Internet fraudster with the magical powers that will bring the money pouring in. The documentary showed a clip of Kweku Ponsu performing some of his sakawa rituals, including one in which he whirled around hundreds of times while dressed in ceremonial cloth and covered in white powder from head to toe.

  Then to the heart of the feature where prominent members of society were exposed one after the other. The coup de grace was Bruno’s segment from the Mövenpick penthouse, where “Godfather” made his appearance. Although Bruno had not recognized him at the time, he now knew. Godfather was none other than James Akrofi, the IGP. Abena jumped out of her chair in shock. Emma, for her part, was speechless. Bruno, his face almost back to normal, smiled with secret pride. It was, after all, he who was responsible for the stunning footage to the world. But by agreement, neither Bruno nor Emma would reveal that to Abena. The less people knew, the better.

  At the end of the movie, there was so much for the trio to discuss. They argued furiously with each other until they were exhausted.

  “But you know one funny thing?” Abena added. “In the video, that guy—the fetish priest, what’s his name, Kweku Bonsu?”

  “Ponsu,” Bruno said. “What about him?”

  “I thought I had seen him before and now I remember where. He came to see Madam Josephine last week when I was at the house in the servants’ quarters.”

  “Is that so?” Emma said. “He came to see her for what?”

  �
��I don’t know,” Abena said. “She was angry and shouting at Ponsu about something, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying.”

  Emma said, “Oh,” and looked at Bruno. “But I had no idea that she knew Kweku Ponsu.”

  “Neither had I,” he said.

  “The question never even came up,” Emma murmured. “How did we miss that?”

  NINETY-THREE

  Before Sana’s blockbuster aired that Sunday evening, the Office of the President had an advance viewing. When the revelation came that James Akrofi, the IGP, was the Godfather who made money off fraud boys and the network of sakawa operatives, President Bannerman went rigid and found himself unable to speak for several minutes. His chief administrative assistant sat and waited until Bannerman looked up and said quietly, “Please summon Commissioner Andoh to the palace.”

  James was enjoying a pre-dinner beer while his wife was busy in the kitchen. She had already let him know that she had no intention of watching Sana Sana’s film scheduled to air in a couple of hours. She detested the man and wouldn’t dignify him by watching his nonsense.

  Someone knocked on the door and James got up to answer. He was surprised to see Commissioner Andoh on his doorstep holding his police cap respectfully to his chest.

  “Alex!” James exclaimed. “What a surprise. Is everything all right?”

  “Good evening, sir. Yes, fine, sir.”

  “Come in, come in and take a seat. Would you like something to drink?”

  “No, sir. I’m not staying long. Please, I have been directed by President Bannerman to summon and escort you to Jubilee House.”