Doing Dangerously Well (51 page)

“But, Mom—”

“How
dare
you refer to your mother as your mother!” Father screamed. “You’ve lost that right.”

The sobbing amazingly stopped. A hard resolve took its place. “You will never again refer to me as your mother.”

“Dad, I—”

“Who?”

“I—”

“Who?”

“Mr. Glass …”

“That’s better.”

“It’s all lies. All of it.”

“It’s in the newspaper, dear,” Mother said. “Are you trying to tell us that newspapers lie?”

“No, Mom, I—”

“What?” both parents screamed.

“I mean, Mr. and Mrs. Glass, it’s just that I—”

“Ernie, we’re lucky we escaped with our lives,” Mother whispered-an aside that Mary heard clearly.

“But, Mr. and Mrs. Glass …” Mary whined.

“Don’t you dare threaten us, young lady,” Father snapped. “We are your parents, after all!”

The line went dead. Mary slowly put down the receiver, everything smashing into shards around her. A mirror can only reflect that which stands in front of it.

She swivelled around to survey the desert. The sand seemed endless. It struggled on its hands and knees towards an unforgiving horizon. The landscape’s shroud of rubble and dull hues subjugated everything of beauty in sight. Even the pink flowers of the cacti housed its oppressive dust. She did not resent the desert’s dominance. Water meant everything. Mary worked with water, in a partnership of mutual cooperation and understanding. Therefore, to her, the desert was a friend—a financial cohort. Its existence ensured hers, and hers ensured its expansion. They were, as Al-Anon would put it, codependent.

However, at this moment, she would have preferred to work in a lush country where she could walk among trees and behind bushes, unseen.

Red lights were still flashing. To keep herself together, she decided to pick up another line and face whatever the day had to offer.

“Hey, Mary!” Beano had adopted Sinclair’s drawl. “If you need help transferring to Sewage—it’s not glamorous, but it pays well. If anything goes wrong in Acquisitions, that is.”

“You mean if I’m in big shit, you’d like to really pile it on, right?”

“Oh, no, I—”

“Fuck you!” She slammed down the phone.

She had to do something, but no plan came to mind. The phone rang again. Though exhausted, Mary answered it. Perhaps better news would greet her.

“Hey, Mary.”

The worst that could happen.

Barbara.

“What the hell do you want?” Mary growled.

“Just wanna make sure you’re okay.” This was the most unbearable, the most agonizing, the most refined torture in Mary’s universe: Barbara addressing her in her consoling voice. “Do you want me to come and stay with you for a while?”

“Fuck you!”

“Mary, you’ll be fine, believe me. You’re talented, smart. You’ll be picked up in no time.”

“Picked up? You think I’ve been fired?” Mary yelled, caring little whether the rest of the office saw or heard. “I don’t believe it!”

“What? No, I … You’ve been fired?” Barbara asked. “Oh no! Well, think on the positives, Mary.”

“
What?”
The glass around Mary’s office vibrated.

“Just remember,” Barbara perked up, “miracles happen.”

What
Chicken Shit for the Soul
crap had Barbara been poring over? Mary threw the phone back on the hook.

Mary could feel herself breaking. The image she had been so careful to perfect had shattered. Even Barbara had profited from the opportunities her arrogance had offered. How many others had also exploited this shortcoming, a fallibility that had not been clear to her before now?

Pale blue trousers bedecked the haunches of the man who sat perched on the very edge of the meeting table, his stabilizing right leg jigging from pure nervous energy. It made the entire table rattle. The same nervous motion afflicted most of the limbs sheltering underneath it.

Sinclair battled hard not to sprawl in his seat, but for once he felt eminently relaxed. Coverage of TransAqua’s activities had grown relentless. Now that the scent of insider trading had grown cold, the media had turned their attention to the
“accidents” that had befallen Kolo’s ministers. After numerous false starts, Mary’s career at TransAqua would at last be terminated. She could not–under any circumstances known to him-survive this latest round of scandal-mongering.

Some movement at the end of the table caught his attention: Beano flicking his hair, staring directly at him with query in his eyes. Caring little that Mary could see, Sinclair put up an index finger and mouthed “one week,” an indication of Cheeseman’s usual tactic of allowing a week for “succession planning.” Then Mary would have to hand over all her files to Beano-an interregnum, of course, denied to Janet.

Cheeseman had his back turned to the assembled team, arms crossed, a point on the far wall having secured his attention. In a barely audible growl, he announced, “I want each and every one of you here to pack yer things and leave within the hour. The division is no longer open fer business.”

Sinclair absorbed these dramatics impassively, given that Cheeseman was still sponsoring his deal with Niger, as well as the backup plan for the minister of finance, but the ever-ignorant Beano pinged off his chair, his face as horrified as if the Patriots had lost the Super Bowl.

“Sir,” Beano gasped, “after all we’ve invested—”

“Down the toilet, son.”

Son? A cloud crossed Sinclair’s horizon.

Beano reluctantly sat down and leaned forward, elbows on the table.

“Down the toilet,” Cheeseman sighed. “We backed a serial killer. No biggie. Anyone could have made the same mistake. Gather yer things.”

Silently, Sinclair slid his chair away from the table, waiting for the unhinged maniac to find his target in Mary. Just needed a trigger.

“Strange guy, huh?” Beano proffered.

As Mary plastered herself against her chair, blue veins accentuating her pallor, Sinclair dispatched a flossed smile of condolence in her direction.

Cheeseman turned around slowly, the volcanic outburst an inevitability.

E
verything teetered on the edge of oblivion, but somehow Kolo managed to maintain a modicum of authority in government. Fresh riots had broken out in every major city, the miserable squabbling with the desolate, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths.

Daily, Kolo followed the same drill, ricocheting down corridors in tortuous patterns to his office. However, for hunted men nothing can be more dangerous than routine. Knowing this, Kolo launched a surprise visit on his aide.

As Kolo entered, the minister of finance punched out of his chair and slammed down the phone. “President, sir. A great honour.”

Kolo hauled himself onto the minister’s desk and perched on its edge, settling less flesh there than comfort dictated. “Can you believe this coverage? You would think I’d committed a major crime. These people were plotting to kill me!”

Baffled, the minister shook his head. “In most courts, it would be considered self-defence, Ogbe. No court in the world could prosecute you on that basis.”

Hardly believing that the man had dared to use his first name, Kolo immediately considered leaving. The minister obviously correlated a personal visit with deep friendship. Nevertheless, Kolo was desperate to be consoled. He edged his buttocks farther onto the desk. “Self-defence doesn’t even begin to describe the constant plots to kill any man brave enough to lead this barbarous country. I’m suffering from battered wife syndrome. It’s the only way to describe it. The fear is constant.”

“Is this thing worth it? Why not hand over to some other unfortunate?”

“One word. Bedlam.” Kolo sniffed in self-importance.

“In that case, Ogbe, you had no option but to eliminate your rivals.”

“Would anyone have done any different? I was pushed against my will.” Kolo took a bottle of Aspirin out of his pocket and popped four pills. “Want one?”

“No. Thank you, Ogbe.”

Again, Kolo balked at the use of his first name. He shook his head, considering the dearth of talent around him. “Can you hear water?”

“No. I can hear an air conditioner.”

“I can hear running water. It’s relentless. I suppose it’s a form of tinnitus. Anyway, how are you today?”

“Dangerously well, sir.”

Kolo’s neck jerked up, his heart racing. He studied the comforting face in front of him, executing some internal calculations. “Well, I have a country to run, such as it is.” After hoisting himself off the desk, he sped away.

In his office, Kolo made a quick call to a computer engineer and then read the papers. Liberal groups had at last unwittingly come to his assistance. What had taken them so long? “Glad they found some time for me, after planting their organic this-thats,” he muttered.

The papers’ coverage had turned to indignation, incensed that a multinational corporation, the IMF, the World Bank and assorted international financial institutions could squeeze dry a crippled, desperate country, to such a level of exploitation that a corporation would own its water, control pricing and, worst of all, force that country, against its will, to surrender the name of its river, a sacred heritage. Any leader would crumble under such pressure.

A knock on the door.

“Who?”

“Engineer, oga, Mr. President, Your Highness.”

“In!”

“All files duplicated to your system, sir, Excellency, President.”

Kolo’s eyebrows rose. “Very good! Very fast! I’m impressed!”

The IT engineer almost collapsed in gratitude, and threw himself down in full prostration. Kolo waved him up and away with a grand sweep of his hand.

Once he had locked his door, Kolo sat down to investigate the files of the minister of finance. The screen lured the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to its flickering beacons with the direct evidence of his speculations scrolling gently into the ether. So, he had been right. Behind the apparent chaos hid an underlying causal pattern.

Sinclair, the architect of the death of his closest allies, had projected a consistent personality: a critical error. Only the deceased minister for the environment had liberally deployed the phrase “dangerously well,” which meant only one thing:
Sinclair had not been scheming with the other ministers whose deaths Kolo had ordered.

A cold anger rose in Kolo’s breast, stoked by piqued vanity. Sinclair had considered him a mere marionette! He did not like to be outmanoeuvred, particularly by a simple supplier of services with a lexicon of a hundred or so words, contained in a dozen or so meaningless catchphrases strung together in an arbitrary manner.

He would have to play a vigilant game with the minister of finance, a more astute strategist than the minister for the environment and certainly a bolder contender. But first, he had to get rid of the minister’s sponsor. About to call Glass, he hesitated. Even a man of his abject humility had a small modicum of ego to protect.

He waited until 6 a.m. TransAqua time before he dialled the company.

“John Sinclair, please,” Kolo reached for a box of Quality Street while on speakerphone.

“Just a moment, please.” The receptionist sang out the last word.

“John Sinclair speaking.”

“Pardon, I asked for Mr. Cheeseman! Who is this?” Kolo’s stubby fingers dived into his box of chocolates, searching for a strawberry centre.

“Unfortunately, you’ve been put through to John Sinclair, sir.”

“John Sinclair?” Kolo sounded nonplussed. “This is President Kolo.” Miraculously, he found a strawberry delight on his first attempt. “I had hoped to speak to Mr. Cheeseman.”

“Mr. Cheeseman is away at the moment. Anything I can help with, President Kolo?” The voice dripped with concern.

Kolo popped the chocolate into his mouth. He sucked loudly
on it, rubbing his tongue up and down its surface, lost in thoughts of revenge.

“Can I be of any help, President Kolo?” the catchphrase repeated, unable to widen out to new expressive horizons.

“I apologize for the interruption,” Kolo said. “State business, I’m afraid. Where were we? Ah, yes. I’m having some difficulty with Ms. Glass’s handling of the account.”

“In what way can I be of help, President Kolo?”

If this man repeats my name just one more time,
Kolo thought,
I’ll … well, that’s moot.

“Ms. Glass doesn’t seem to understand the uh …” Kolo leaned forward into the speakerphone, “… the Nigerian way, shall we call it? I’ve just opened the newspapers and …”

“Ah, yes.” Kolo could hear the smile in Sinclair’s voice. “Not good.”

“Not good?” Kolo screamed. “Utterly unacceptable, Mr. Sinclair! This isn’t the way we do business here! Who is the source of these leaks? It must be someone at TransAqua.”

“We haven’t yet identified—”

“You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know? That’s not good enough, Mr. Sinclair. I need to speak to Mr. Cheeseman immediately!”

“Tell you what, President Kolo …” Kolo cringed at the repeated mention of his name: he knew these basic sales techniques and felt insulted that Sinclair cared to use them on him, “… I’ll come over personally. How about that?”