“Where is the radio?” he asked, thinking they must be putting out other announcements in the midst of martial music.
“They done thief-am. As we dey for road de drink a thief-man go inside carry the radio commot. This country na so so thief-man full am. But na me and them. They no know me? Before any vehicle can move out from here today I go search am well well and the stupid arm-robber wey hold my radio na him soul go rest in peace, with the President.”
“Did they say anything about the President?”
The sergeant looked at him suspiciously. “Why you de make all this cross-examination? Wetin concern poor man like you and President, eh? I say wetin concern vulture and barber?” He was clearly enjoying the attention. “Anyways, the President done disappear. They no fit find am again. They say unknown persons enter Palace and kidnap am. So make everybody de watch proper for this check-point.” He burst out into another peal of laughter taking his willing hearers. “This our country na waa! I never hear the likeness before. A whole President de miss; like old woman de waka for village talk say him goat de miss! This Africa na waa!”
“No be you tell whiteman make he commot?” asked somebody from the crowd. “Ehe, white man done go now, and hand over to President. Now that one done loss for inside bush. Wetin we go do again?”
“We go make another President. That one no hard,” said a third person.
“He no hard, eh? Next tomorrow they go tell you say your new President climb palm-tree and no fit come down again,” said the second man to a tremendous outburst of laughter. He was obviously a wit to reckon with, and knew it.
“So wetin we go do now?”
“Make every man, woman and child and even those them never born, make everybody collect twenty manilla each and bring to me and I go take am go England and negotiate with IMF to bring white man back to Kangan.”
Chris had detached himself from this bizarre group to look for Emmanuel.
“Can you make any sense of this?” he asked when he found him.
“Not yet, sir. Except it appears His Excellency was kidnapped last night and the Chief of Staff has sworn to find him but has meanwhile taken over the reins of government.”
“We must head back to Bassa. Right away. Where is Braimoh? Get our thin
gs out of the bus.” His obsessed seriousness was a rebuke to Emmanuel’s faint-hearted sarcasm and he went away to his assignment somewhat chastened.
Chris plunged into another section of the crowd which was fast degenerating into drunken mayhem. Bottles were smashed on the road after they were emptied and sometimes before, and more than a few unshod feet were already bleeding. Any promising informant he approached was too drunk and, what was more, critical of him for asking sober questions amounting almost to mental harassment of his victims.
“Go and have a drink,” one of them said to him, like a man who, before his present state, had been used to exercising authority.
“I have had a drink. Several drinks,” said Chris, sounding superior without perhaps intending to.
“If you have drunk… As I have drunk… why are you standing straight like that? Or is it my eyes.” The fellow’s head was going from side to side like an albino, though he was shiny-black like ebony.
“I am not standing straight,” said Chris, unaccountably mesmerized by this highly articulate drunk.
“No, it is not my eyes… You are not standing… I mean to say, you are standing as straight as a flag-pole. You get me? My difficulty then is: if as you say you drank as much beer as myself, why are you standing straight? Or put it another way. If two of us ate the same palm-oil chop, how come one of us, i.e. yourself, is passing black shit? That is what I want to know, mister. Two people ate palm-oil soup…”
“OK, we will talk about that later.”
“Later? Why? Procrastination is a lazy man’s apology.” Hiccup! “As my headmaster used to say.” Hiccup! “He loved big words; and something else he loved, I can tell you… His cane…”
“Thanks! See you,” said Chris wrenching himself away.
The girl’s desperate shriek rose high over the dense sprawling noises of the road party. The police sergeant was dragging her in the direction of a small cluster of round huts not far from the road and surrounded as was common in these parts by a fence of hideously-spiked cactus. He was pulling her by the wrists, his gun slung from the shoulder. A few of the passengers, mostly other women, were pleading and protesting timorously. But most of the men found it very funny indeed.
She threw herself down on her buttocks in desperation. But the sergeant would not let up. He dragged her along on the seat of her once neat blue dress through clumps of scorched tares and dangers of broken glass.
Chris bounded forward and held the man’s hand and ordered him to release the girl at once. As if that was not enough he said, “I will make a report about this to the Inspector-General of Police.”
“You go report me for where? You de craze! No be you de ask about President just now? If you no commot for my front now I go blow your head to Jericho, craze-man.”
“Na you de craze,” said Chris. “A police officer stealing a lorry-load of beer and then abducting a school girl! You are a disgrace to the force.”
The other said nothing more. He unslung his gun, cocked it, narrowed his eyes while confused voices went up all around some asking Chris to run, others the policeman to put the gun away. Chris stood his ground looking straight into the man’s face, daring him to shoot. And he did, point-blank into the chest presented to him.
“My friend, do you realize you have just shot the Commissioner for Information?” asked a man unsteady on his feet and shaking his head from side to side like an albino in bright sunshine.