Web of Lies (4 page)

The assistant’s eyes fastened on to Femi as he wandered over to the tracksuits. His fingers rifled through the rack.

“Can I help you? Do you know what you want?”

It was the pertness of her second question that made him prickly. She didn’t appear to be much older than Sade.

“I’m just looking,” he said, staring back.

Why was she suspicious? Was it the bag on his back? Did she really think his arms were rubbery and long enough to whisk something secretly into it? He would need to be a magician. Offended, Femi took his time examining a wall of shoes, aware that every movement he made was being tracked. Finally, with his hands firmly in his pockets, he strolled out of the sports shop as casually as possible. He would not spend his twenty pounds in this shop if he could help it.

It was nearly eleven when he reached the Leisure Center and placed himself by the entrance. There was no sign of James. A number of passersby appeared to be glancing in his direction until he realized their eyes were traveling behind him to a poster.

MEGA JAM—LIVE AND DIRECT
FROM JAMAICA!

A man with an African printed head scarf and oval dark glasses, another with dreadlocks, and a third with a wide-brimmed black hat and white suit looked out dreamily. Femi smiled at two of their names: General Degree and Cocoa Tea! Tickets were £17.50. If he wanted to buy one, he would have enough! Not that Papa would let him go out at night.

He shifted to one side of the poster. It would have been better to meet inside the building. He would feel less exposed. What if Sade had changed her mind about staying at home and decided to come down to the shopping center? He had said that he was going swimming and promised to return straight afterward. He hadn’t mentioned waiting for someone. He pulled the hood of his jacket over his forehead. Papa usually joked that the hood made him look like a tortoise retreating from the world. Femi knew he wouldn’t joke if he could see him now. He blanked Papa from his mind. But he still felt quite visible.
He wished it were winter, when he would have a scarf wrapped around his neck as well. Then he could feel like he was deep inside a telescope, able to peer out, unobserved.

By a quarter past eleven, there was still no sign of James. What if the boy had made up the message, or if James was just fooling with him? As the minutes now ticked by, doubt crept in. Had he been set up? Someone might even be watching him and laughing. Perhaps James was teasing him, and he would have to show that he could take a joke.

By twenty-five past Femi began to wonder whether he should leave. He could go inside and swim. Papa had given him his entrance money. If someone had tried to make a fool of him, at least he could enjoy having gone to the pool.

A burst of laughter swirled toward him. A posse of boys was approaching the Leisure Center with James in the middle, wearing a smart light-gray tracksuit with gray-and-white shoes. The year-eight boy who had brought the message was the youngest among them, and he spread out his shoulders to make himself a little taller. He seemed relieved to see Femi.

“How’re you doing, Femi boy?” James said nothing about being late. The other older boys all remained deadpan.

“We want you to go to the record shop.” James’s eyes twinkled and scrutinized him at the same time. Suddenly it hit him. James said “we,” not “I.” There was going to be a test.

“You know Tupac, right?” James continued. Everyone knew about Tupac. The rumors about the gangster rapper shot in Suge Knight’s car a year ago had been in the news again. The picture of the slumped body had stirred horrible memories for Femi. Two sharp cracks in quick succession, screeching tires, a scarlet pool gleaming on their own driveway made it all too real.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“We want the CD covers. Just the cases, right?” James wheeled Femi away from the Leisure Center entrance, and the posse clustered around him. “Any you can—”

“Get the one with his fingers up, man, and—”

“Yeah, with his big bad face and tattoos sticking out all over his muscles!”

“Get the one where he’s dressed up cool in black and white—”

“You wouldn’t know he’s got all that outlaw stuff underneath!”

Voices pounded around him. He felt dizzy. They wanted him to steal! They must be making pirate CDs to put in the cases. His head throbbed. He should have known. Idiot! Papa’s eyes blazed into his mind with the pained words:

If Mama could see you now…

“But some shop people, they watch you like a hawk!” Femi heard the whine in his voice and tried to temper it. “Like I was in AllSports, just looking, and the lady comes checking on me, nuh!”

“No need to tense up! We’re not sending you alone!” James chuckled, then outlined the plan like a coach
preparing his team. Femi was to be striker and two year-nine boys, Jarrett and Dave, his defenders.

“So you get it, Femi boy? All you’ve got to do is stay cool and we score.” The shutter flicking across the black pupils in the delicate brown web reminded Femi of the first time they had met. “Simple, right?”

It wasn’t. A trapdoor that sucked him away would be simple. He knew he couldn’t pull out now. There would be consequences.

Shoppers were jostled aside as the posse cut their way through to the mall. Even those who looked annoyed moved out of their way. Femi was pinned in at the center. The knot in his stomach felt like it was tied to every vein in his body, drawing tighter and tighter. A hundred meters from the record shop, the others melted away. He was on his own. For a wild moment he thought he might walk toward the record shop and at the last moment slip away…just keep walking, running. But sooner or later he would have to face James with his posse. He would be accused of messing around with them. Femi saw the sign above the plate glass.
SOLO RECORDS
. He blasted out everything from his mind except James’s instructions.

The words that hammered through his head bent to the beat pulsing through the shop.

It didn’t take long to find the right shelf and the Ts. The gangster rapper stared up at Femi. One second his eyes smoldered, the next they looked distant and cold. Femi felt strangely hot and cold himself. His head felt like it was baking, while the nerve endings in the rest of his body felt frozen. He needed to be alone for his task, but a girl in a short white skirt and clackety platform heels
was checking out the same shelf. She gradually got closer until she hovered at his side, chewing her gum and waiting for him to finish. There was no sign yet of the two boys who were meant to help him. With only a handful of customers inside the shop, the two assistants could keep their eyes on all of them. Femi moved sideways to let the girl take his place. Slowly he flipped through the Ws, keeping the corner of his eye on the Ts. What if the girl took the cases he wanted? He would be off the hook! But the girl was simply looking and drifted off to the other side of the shop. Femi shifted back. He was alone now on his side of the counter but far too exposed. He couldn’t stay here forever. Surely the shop assistants would become suspicious?

A burst of voices made everyone glance toward the door. Two teenagers—one black, one white—with identical black peaked caps turned backward down their necks, were in the middle of a conversation loud enough to vie with the music. They both spoke with strong Jamaican accents that Femi hadn’t heard them use five minutes ago.

“You know what I did tell her, yeah?”

“Dat gal, huh! Her eardrum so waxy you gotta say everyting twice!”

“Man, it not wax. She got rock in her ear!”

“So why you waste your breath?”

The plastic clicked under Femi’s fingers. Jarrett and Dave ambled toward the assistants at the cash register.

“You have any old-fashioned music, yeah? For my mother, yeah. It’s her birthday!” Femi heard Dave, the white boy, ask. He shunted as close to the shelf as possible.

“What kind of music does she like? Country and western? Rock? Classical?” The assistant had taken the bait.

In one quick movement, Femi sneaked two cases under his jacket. He thrust his hands into the pockets so his fingers could clasp his booty through the lining. Then, pretending to scan the Top Ten display, he waited for a customer to push open the door. A few seconds later he slipped out.

He had to restrain himself from running toward James at the far end of the arcade. But he couldn’t stop himself from grinning nervously. Mission accomplished! He would have to be careful not to give anything away here in public. When James and his friends remained expressionless, however, he was surprised.

“So where are the other brethren?”

James’s question brought panic. He had hurried away from the record shop as fast as he could, without turning once to see if Jarrett and Dave were behind him. What if someone in the shop had seen something and detained them?

“You didn’t say to wait for them!” Femi blurted defensively. “I got what you wanted—and you said to meet here!”

“True. But brethren always look out for brethren.”

James stung Femi into silence. James confused him. This was the first time he had ever done something like this! The others were older and more experienced, and he was the one who had taken the biggest risk.

As soon as Jarrett and Dave arrived, however, everyone relaxed. A tight gathering now formed around Femi.
The covers were inspected and dropped into a carrier bag. James now smiled, and Femi glowed with pleasure.

“You’ll learn fast. What was that sports shop where the lady hassled you?”

The edge in James’s voice pulled him up sharp. He saw what was coming and, for the second time this morning, his heart sank. James was already planning another expedition for him.

“I can’t go back there! She’ll know me!”

“No worries, little brother.” James shrugged. “Someone like that can’t tell one black kid from another. Hey, Gul, lend him your things.”

Before Femi could say anything further, the year-eight boy who had brought Femi the message was holding out a blue jacket and navy wool cap. Gul was small for his age, and they would fit.

As he walked beside James toward AllSports in Gul’s clothes, Femi’s brain seized up. The thought of what might happen if his father or sister were to see him was too much. For the moment he was simply someone else. Under the protection of James Dalton, this someone else was going into AllSports with instructions to choose something he liked for himself. James had offered to show him personally how to divert the attention of a sales assistant.

The pert young woman was busy with a customer. She glanced at them but didn’t look twice at Femi. An older man with a slight stoop approached them. He looked as if he would rather be sitting by his fireside at home in an
armchair, but he smiled and asked if he could help. James was as good as his word. He too had become someone else: a polite, well-spoken young man whose parents had asked him to take his younger brother around some shops to look for what he wanted for his birthday. It was the second birthday story Femi had heard that day. Surely this man would be suspicious? But once again it worked. While James kept the salesman busy with a discussion about rackets for tennis and squash, Femi scoured the shelves, searching for something that he could tuck under Gul’s jacket. The tracksuits were of course too big, and so was a fine leather football. It was a toss-up between a red peaked cap and a red T-shirt. Arsenal colors. Bending down behind a rack of clothes, he swiftly stowed away the T-shirt. With his arms folded against the jacket, he sidled up to James.

“Have you found something for Mum and Dad to get you then?” James asked in his “I’m being nice to my younger brother” voice.

“Mmmhh!” Femi nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak like James.

“Do you want to show me?”

Femi shook his head with a quick smile. Why didn’t James just get out of here as soon as possible?

“Aahh! Likes secrets, does he?” The salesman put his finger to his lips. “I used to like secrets when I was a boy.”

“Probably just wants to get back to his lunch!” James put his arm on Femi’s shoulder. “We’d better be getting home. Thanks for your advice on rackets.”

“Like I said, piece of cake!” Outside, James was back to his usual voice.

“Where did you learn to speak like that? If that man heard me talk, he would know you weren’t my brother!” Femi’s tone wavered between admiration and complaint.

“Nah! I knew you’d act the part. So what did you get then?”

Femi was relieved to find that both Sade and Papa were out when he returned to the flat. He expected Papa to question him about swimming. He would prefer to keep silent rather than make up a story. But if he didn’t tell Papa something, Papa might become suspicious. On the other hand, if Papa found out that he was telling lies, he would be in big trouble.

Femi pulled out the T-shirt from his backpack and laid it on his bed. If only his school football uniform was this color! He could imagine that he was playing for Arsenal instead of Avon! He would get onto the team and Papa would come to watch him streaking down the field with the ball….

A sudden question sent his mind tumbling. How could he wear a brand-new T-shirt without Papa or Sade asking him where he got it? If he had taken the cap, he could probably have said a friend lent it to him. What use was a T-shirt that he couldn’t wear? How stupid! Hurriedly he rolled the shirt up as small as possible, then opened each of his drawers in turn to find the best hiding place. In the end he stuffed it into the bottom drawer. But he banged it shut with so much force that the small photograph on top
of the chest toppled over in its wooden frame. Setting it up again, he barely glanced at the figures in front of the flaming forest trees that had served as goalposts in their backyard in Lagos. Papa was standing behind Sade with his hands on her shoulders while he stood in front of Mama, cradling his football. Mama’s arms encircled him. Their arms seemed to entwine.

Had Femi stopped to gaze a little longer, he might have heard Mama’s soft voice.

What kind of game are you playing now? What are its rules?

Instead, he pulled the bedroom door shut behind him, made himself a peanut butter sandwich, and sat down to munch it in front of the television. When Papa came home, he would tell him how Arsenal had scored.

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