A. Barrett - Blackass

When Furo and Arinze stood up to leave, Haba! Nigeria Limited was nine million naira richer. Yuguda approached and shook their hands for the first time, first Arinze’s then Furo’s, and while holding Furo’s hand, he asked for his business card. Furo handed it over with an apology for forgetting to do so earlier, and after Yuguda glanced at it, he rang for an attendant to show them out.

On arrival at the hotel, before Arinze dismissed the driver for the night, he instructed him to pick them up at six o’clock the following morning for the drive to the airport. Entering the hotel lobby, Arinze invited Furo for a drink at the lounge bar, and though he ordered soda water for himself, he gave Furo leave to drink the bar dry of alcohol if he so wanted. ‘You’ve earned it,’ he said. ‘You did a fantastic job today. We both did.’ Furo thanked him for the compliment, and then told the barman he wanted soda water, too. The drinks came, Arinze rushed his down, and after spending a few more minutes chitchatting with Furo, he retired at five minutes to eight. He had to tuck in his four-year-old daughter by telephone, he told Furo.

Alone at the bar, Furo wondered what to do with the rest of the night. With Syreeta in faraway Lagos, he realised this was the freest he had felt in a long time. The vestiges of his old life still haunted the old city so different from this one where no one knew him, where everything was new, even the mistakes a man could make. Abuja was pioneer land, a frontier city, though the founding fathers were all rich folk and politicians. The bandits here rode Bentleys and settled fights with money blazing. Returning to the thought of what to do, Furo checked his wallet and saw that he had only three thousand naira left from the ten thousand he’d borrowed from Syreeta the previous week. Without money he couldn’t afford the freedom Abuja offered, he admitted to himself as he put away the wallet. He couldn’t even afford the only leisure that came to mind.

In Abuja after dark, the ladies of the night were everywhere. Or so it had seemed to Furo on the return journey from Yuguda’s residence. He kept catching glimpses from the car window. Flashes of colour under lightless streetlamps, flickering shadows in the shades of trees, the glow of cigarettes at the mouths of lonely streets, and gathered in fearless packs by the gates of noisy nightspots: the shapes slouching, prancing, gesturing, the painted faces turned to passing cars with a longing that tugged the purse strings. Even at the hotel, as the taxi slowed in front of the gate, Furo saw the women staring at him.

Furo struggled awake to the ringing of his mobile phone, and reaching across to the bedside table, he answered it blind.

It was Yuguda.

‘Hello, sir,’ Furo stuttered, and sat up in bed, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

Yuguda was waiting at the Piano Bar in the Transcorp Hilton. ‘Come alone,’ he said before hanging up.

Furo checked the time. 11:43. Night.

He dressed and dashed from his room. Six floors down, the hotel lobby was empty except for the concierge, who Furo asked for a taxi, only to be informed that he would find many in the car park. Crossing the lobby, he remembered with dismay that he had only three thousand naira on him, besides having no idea where the Transcorp Hilton was or how much it would cost to get there. The one thing he was certain of was that the taxi drivers would charge outrageous fares, especially from a white person at midnight in a city as expensive as Abuja. He arrived in the car park without yet having found a way out of this quandary. After identifying the oldest taxi, a Mitsubishi Galant with a new paint job, he drew up to the car and saw that the driver was asleep on the bonnet. He roused the man with a soft tap on the knee, stated his destination, and, bracing himself for the haggling to come, asked what the fare was. ‘Maitama, abi?’ the driver said, rubbing his eyes with both hands. ‘Your money is five hundred.’ Without a change of expression or the slightest pause to give the man the chance to regain his senses, Furo said, ‘Let’s go, I’m in hurry,’ and climbed into the front seat. The driver slipped in and told Furo to wear his seatbelt, then started the engine. As the car nosed through the gate, several streetwalkers straggled into view. One of them whistled at Furo, and on impulse, he whistled back.

He was beginning to like this city.

Arriving at the Transcorp Hilton, Furo entered the lobby to find it as crowded as a crocodile watering hole in drought season. Jostling in the electric atmosphere were Senegalese kaftans, gold-braided military dress, European designer rags, and the people who wore these at midnight. Lights poured from the vaulted ceiling, and the mirror-bright floor turned the world upside down. A black automobile, polished to a gloss, was on display near the lobby’s centre. The banner beside it announced to onlookers that they were ogling a BMW Gran Turismo. (The tyre rims clearly impressed more than the zeros on the price tag.) But Furo only had eyes for the Piano Bar, which he found in a recessed wing to the left of the lobby. Walking down the short flight of steps, he looked round at the gathered drinkers, and spotted Yuguda. He was in Furo’s line of sight, seated in one of the tub chairs arranged in ménages à trois around the lounge, and the cocktail table in front of him held a bottle of Irish cream and a martini glass. A woman lounged behind him. Curvaceous in a sleek sequined gown, her crimson lips opened and closed over the microphone in her hand, and her other hand stroked Yuguda’s shoulder as she serenaded him to the plonk of piano music. Yuguda seemed less austere in the jeans and tucked-in T-shirt that had replaced the brocade babariga he’d been wearing at his house. He was almost a different person, this one beaming with catlike pleasure as the chanteuse planted a kiss on his shaven scalp.

During their meeting earlier, Yuguda hadn’t once smiled. Not even when he joked that whenever Furo spoke he had to look at him to confirm he was a white man. His smile now faded as he saw Furo approaching and, raising an imperial hand, he waved the woman away, and then motioned Furo towards a chair. His first words, ‘Do you like the Irish?’ threw Furo into a tizzy of misapprehension until he kenned it was a drink he was being offered. At Furo’s perforced assent, Yuguda crooked a finger, and an eager waitress arrived the same moment the chanteuse ended her song. The waitress had finished pouring Furo’s drink and was refilling Yuguda’s from the Baileys bottle when the chanteuse, purse in hand and high heels clicking, swept past their table with a goodnight aimed at Yuguda. He didn’t respond or glance at her, and neither did he speak to Furo until the waitress curtsied away, whereupon, reaching for his glass and raising it in a toast, he announced in a solemn tone, ‘To the future.’

One thing was unchanged about Yuguda: he got straight down to business. ‘I have a job for you,’ he began and took a sip of his drink. The glass left a line of cream on his upper lip, and after he licked it clean with a flick of his tongue, he balanced the glass on his chair’s armrest, his fingers gripping the stem to hold it in place. ‘My GELD project is a CSR investment that has the potential to become a PR disaster.’ Furo nodded with rapt attention. ‘On paper I have the team to execute the project, but this is Nigeria.’ Yuguda paused for several seconds. ‘I need someone at the helm to keep everyone on their toes,’ he said at last. ‘I need a leader who can command respect and inspire fear. That person is you.’

Inspire fear, command respect — me? Furo thought with a mental burp of surprise, but he remained silent out of a stronger feeling of sacramental reverence. After all, any place where the highest is sought is a holy ground — and what was higher than the pursuit of happiness? Here was Yuguda preaching salvation, happiness on earth, thus he was worthy to be Messiah. Besides, the whole truth was, Furo was thoroughly tired of stewing in perpetual brokedom.