Chapter 2: The Mambo and The Baron

The Lekki deal fell through—no real surprise, given that the other party tried to conceal certain details about the land for sale that would have trapped Chiadi’s funds.

“But how did you know?” his lawyer asked him as they left the pretentious penthouse office on Olashore Street, still astonished at the way three grown men had confessed their attempted deception out of the blue.

Soul gazing, Chiadi would have responded if he had time for such banter, but his mind was already on other things as he boarded a hailed cab. His new destination is back on the mainland, an address on Mba Street along one of the many by-ways splitting the bustling Yaba municipal.

On arrival he enters a cramped yard containing a drab storey building. Within, his enquiries about its resident from a couple of dark-eyed men lounging on wooden stools and playing a game of draughts is met with silent and cold hostility until he mentions her name—her secret name.

Ushered into a small living room, he perches on a lumpy sofa and quietly scans the outdated furniture, the 50-inch flatscreen TV incongruous against a grimy wall.

“Why are you here, Dibia?” The voice he hears is low and husky and when its owner, a tall woman in her forties dressed in a plain cotton shift enters the room, she does so with practiced grace.

He stands up with arms crossed in respect. “Sisi Iya–lorisha. It’s been some time. You look wonderful…”

Sitting down to face him, she scowls even though her eyes shine with pleasure. “Get away, ogbeni. Flattery from you lost what little value it had long ago.”

He smiles faintly and sits again before clearing his throat. “I need to be put in touch with someone that only you can.”

One of the men from outside pads barefoot from the tiny adjoining kitchen bearing a tray of soft drinks that he places on the table between them before quietly withdrawing.

The woman's gaze narrows. “I’ll tell you right now, I fear most when an audience starts off like this, not about seeking true love or success. Who are you looking for, and why?”

Reaching for a bottle of Sprite, Chiadi’s lips compress into a grim line. “What do you know about dead bodies showing up around town—especially at Ojuelegba junction?”

She sits back and scoffs. “Are you serious?

“I mean… more than usual.”

“How can you tell? How can anyone, for that matter?”

“Had a run-in with someone unexpected this afternoon and received some information that begged certain conclusions. I then made some calls to my friends in law enforcement and confirmed there’s been a serious spike in human abductions followed by random dumping of bodies around the area, some extending as far as Iyani-ipaja, even Isolo.”

The woman sighs. “It’s Lagos, na. Misfortune meets people many times on any given day. Sad, yes, but…”

Leaning forward, Chiadi holds out his phone to display its screen. “My contact sent me this about forty minutes ago.”

She stares at the image, a not-too-clear phone shot of the n@ked body of a lanky teenage boy laid out on a wood tabletop in a drab room—some station mortuary annex. Her mouth curls with distaste for a moment before the usual veil falls over her face. “Motor accident?”

“Not a single mark on him when found. Which was in trash bags under the flyover bridge, by the way.”

Faishatu Shoneyin, high priestess for the virtually defunct Awori sect, peers at him. “Whom exactly did you see?” she enquires, “this afternoon.”

Chiadi shrugs. “Not important. Look, it’s almost six. Ikorita Hotel is hosting a dancing extravaganza tonight…”

“And you want to talk to Lasiremi.” Her eyes are cool spheres.

He nods. “I need her talent. You know it won’t happen unless you introduce us.”

She gazes into a corner, features set. After a beat, she says, “I also know I owe you a debt not so easily repaid.”

The man called Dibia remains still. About three years ago, the circumstances under which Faishatu’s abusive Imam husband—former husband—had suddenly vanished from the face of the earth and never heard from ever again, was something no one dared raise in her presence. What no one also knew was how, after a brief visit from Chiadi while she lay battered and wracked with agony on a filthy municipal clinic pallet, she’d known the nightmare was finally over and that her two daughters were safe from a monster’s physical violation.

Her eyes gleam as she looks back at him. “Okay. I need to be there tonight anyway, on my own business.”

—-----------------------

The square area of sidewalk outside the Ikorita is electric with anticipation and fragrant with weed smoke. The nightclub entrance is set to the side of the Hotel’s main gates, highlighted by a crooked neon sign and by the presence of a couple of ugly men in denim jackets serving as bouncers and ticket checkers. Pulsing afrobeat spills onto the street and has some of the loiterers bopping as they try scoring free blunts from arriving guests or sizing them up as potential pickpocket marks.

Inside, Chiadi lets the music wash over him as he sits at a narrow table next to his companion’s empty seat, the Iya–lorisha having left the dim and jumbled space with its swirling lights and billowing shisha fumes to locate whom he’d come to see.

When she reappears a few minutes later, there is vague consternation on her round face. “Lasi will not come until after her performance,” she says, voice raised over the noise as she sits down.

The Dibia shifts in his own seat, conscious of her penetrating gaze. On a raised bandstand at the end of the long room, a live music group ends their set with a pronounced flourish, and the resident DJ quickly follows up with more frenzied tunes. As it had been since they both entered the club, there are girls dancing at various designated spots within the club space, their lithe bodies sinuously swaying and gyrating, their behinds quivering in time with the non-stop beat.

Chiadi is glad for how the prevalent noise effectively dissuades the queries clearly forming in Faishatu’s mind from being voiced but also knows it wouldn’t last.

When a loud ruckus from the club entrance heralds the entry of some big shot, he cast eyes in that direction. Stepping into the carpeted confines is none other than the man of the hour, the most vaunted politician of the area and star of the election slated for two days away: Chief Funsho Akinyele. In a pricey gabardine lace jumper and clog-heel slip-ons, the square faced candidate beams at the head of a small retinue of hangers on and well-wishers before pausing to survey the expanse of the dance club as if his presence is a benediction.

“There he is,” said Faishatu. 

Chiadi looks taken aback. “That’s who you’re meeting?”

“Yes.” She throws him a glance. “What’s your own?”

Before he can respond, the resident DJ fires off an electronic cymbal clash of dramatic proportions. The ceiling flood lights illuminating Akinyele’s arrival rotate and join with others to wash across the band stage. Empty no longer, atop it on her knees is who he came hoping to speak with—the top billed dancer for the club called Lasiremi.

Head shaved clean, lean mocha body decorated with exotic dots and spirals of assorted colours, and with only nets of beads covering her modesty, she seems frozen in the silence that follows, while everyone in the vicinity holds their breath. When she springs up, it is in time with an explosive burst of music, one that follows every movement of her body as she occupies the entire stage with feline sensuality—twisting and rolling, bucking and jerking, quivering and bouncing as the fast music keeps pace.

Like all others Akinyele initially appears carried away with the electric performance but soon tears eyes away to scan the corners of the hall until they rest on Faishatu. With a cheshire grin, he waves his underlings back and steps forward.

On reaching their table he spares Chiadi a single, disinterested glance before taking his companion’s hand. He caresses it briefly before leaning to kiss her cheek, the gesture revealing the nature of the man behind the expensive clothes and designer-frame spectacles: a shaved dome grossly misshapen by a welter of deep scars, bumps and knobs; an ear that was little more than a gristly stub.

“Iya–wa,” he says, still smiling, “so happy you made it. Ah–ah, what is all this coloured water, na?” He waves disdainfully at her Chapman drink before snapping fingers at the nearby bar. Chiadi knows the response would be the prompt service of some high-end cocktail concoction to her, but not him.

 As the politician and cult priestess go to confer together out of earshot, he resumes his observance of the exotic dance performance by the chosen mouthpiece of the Lagos Mami-wata, those sea dwelling entities that sometimes bathed in the dreams of men. More importantly, she is mambo, an oracle of Voudou, and in tune with the machinations of the Loa pantheon than most others. The dance performance soon winds up, with Lasiremi appearing to finish with a pronounced stare and particularly sensual sway of lean hips in his general direction.

“Oh, if I was an adventurous fool…” Chiadi whispers to himself.

“I’m told you also wish to consult the oracle,” a voice grates above him. Akinleye stands quite close, and there is cool menace in his eyes.

The Dibia’s quick glance round shows Faishatu standing aside with eyes lowered. Turning back to the politician, his own expression turns bemused. “First come, first serve young man,” he said. “At least that’s how it normally goes.”

Whether from neglecting to address him as ‘Chief’ or calling him a young man, the disregard Chiadi always reserved for glorified thugs like Akinyele is instantly palpable.

And provocative. The soon-to-be Municipal Chairman’s lips draw back into a sneer as he snaps his thick fingers. Of the five men seated nearby who jump to attention and begin advancing their way, one is clearly a Mopol Sergeant in full uniform, rifle slung on his back.

“I don’t know you,” begins the ex-STU boss as a reptile gleam reaches his eyes. “But I’m going to give you one chance to walk out of here by yourself, or else be carried out on a stretcher.”

Chiadi sips his Fanta. “Interesting choice.” He turns to focus on the law enforcement officer standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Akinyele’s henchmen. “Tell me, did your CO not get the memo about you people whoring out as private security to known criminals?”

Without further prompting, three of those attired like their boss in traditional jumpers, rush to grab Chiadi by the shirt front and waistband and haul him up to his feet. Working together they shake him like a rag doll, deliver at least two solid open-handed slaps before the biggest of them raises a mallet-sized fist intent on driving it into the stupid stranger’s face.

At that moment, a feminine voice breaks in, speaking lilting Yoruba: “Haba Faishat; ese to wo nigbagbogbo fa awon okunrin lati ja ni ayika re—how do you always cause grown men to start fights around you?”

As both women hug fondly, Akinyele’s men freeze, momentarily forgetting about pounding their oga’s denigrator into the club floor. Still clad in her dance regalia, Lasiremi is a stunning sight. Her tropical perfume mixes with sweat musk to lace the air with raw sensuality, and when she turns coral eyes on the group of men before them, her smile radiates whiteness against the glistening mahogany of her skin. “If Fela was still alive to see this,” she added, “he would konk every single one of you.”

“Mistress Lasi,” simps the party leader, hurriedly gesturing his men aside. “No disrespect intended. The boys were just trying to protect me…”

The mambo sizes Chiadi up. “Three against this one? He doesn’t weigh more than a mudu of honey beans…”

“His mouth is bigger than his body,” growls Akinyele, “and he was about to learn how to control it when talking to those who run things.”

“Is that so?” The exotic dancer sidles close to Chiadi. “Faishat said you are a man to be trusted.”

The Dibia tries to grin back but fails. After the vicious slaps, the calloused hands that had twisted his shirt collar into a garrotte around his neck and cut off his air supply, he is still struggling to get his wind back amidst the flaring pain. “Sometimes,” he croaks.

Lasi slips her arm around Chiadi’s, and Akinyele’s look turns incensed. Like an aggrieved Lion, his dissatisfied grunts chuff behind them as they both head for a small door adjacent to the main stage.

The tiny room Lasi takes him into is, besides its sparse furnishing, also cluttered with the various odds and ends of a dancing girl’s craft: glass beads and raffia, skin-coloured tights, and heavy bangles. Though empty, what marks it as uniquely hers and not a general changing room is a wall-wide mural depicting a pyramid set in a kaleidoscope background, with names from the pantheon of Yoruba deities (Sango, Yemoja, Obaluaye, Oshun, Eshu, etc) inscribed on all sides.

She sweeps a pair of silvery high-heel shoes off a plastic chair, gestures for him to sit before settling herself cross-legged on the one nearest, head tilted attentively.

Chiadi smooths his clothes. “Not quite sure how to go about this…”

“You are Ibo,” she said.

“Yeah…”

“But you know of me, or at least of my ordination.”

He swallows discreetly. Despite her very normal—and physically alluring—appearance, this was a woman who could transform an hour of sleep into a never-ending nightmare hellscape, or a garden of boundless pleasures. Or both at once. “Yeah.”

“So, speak,” Her eyes flash unnaturally as she smiles. “Many who come find I may already know why.”

He takes a deep breath. “There’s been a sharp increase in human abductions, followed by their unmarked dead bodies being found at Ojuelegba soon after,” he said. “You know what that means?”

She lifts an eyebrow. “I may have noticed… something, but it’s still unclear. How did you know?”

“I consulted for someone who lost a family member.” It wasn’t a complete lie; some of the missing were bound to have others pining after them.

She nodded. “I see. Were they… eventually found?”

“Sadly, no. I did find some obvious patterns.” He straightens in his chair. “Tell me, why is Akinleye here to see you? It’s not his first time, abi?”

She makes a dour face. “Favour, protection; the usual thing. It’s local election season.”

His eyes narrow almost to a squint. “Who on this mainland could the shot caller of the largest organised group of ‘Area Boys’ and gang members need protection against?”

She stares at him for a beat before her pert face tightens. “Okunrin, have a care not to question the unseen ones.”

“Alright,” he says quickly. “No offence meant.”

She sighs, places both bare feet on the worn carpet and stands. “I’ll look into it. If there’s something worth worrying about besides the usual ill fortune that lingers at crossroads, especially one as old as Oju–Ibo Elegba, I’ll let you know.”

Minutes later, they are both standing and breathing the cool night air at a door to a back alley adjoining the hotel building.

“Best you leave by this way,” Lasiremi had said while guiding him along a dimly lit passage from the night club backrooms to the private exit. “Akinyele’s boys will be waiting to finish what they started, and I don’t want to see this face damaged. It’s a... nice face.”

When she leans in to kiss his cheek, he moves his face and turns it into a proper one. Her lips feel like burning ice against his and her eyes glitter once more before she gently pushes him out the door and shuts it.

Stepping away, he spots two shadowy figures standing to one side of the narrow alleyway, their poses watchful as if awaiting his arrival, and silent—so silent they’d escaped earlier notice. One lights up a smoke almost as soon as the door shuts behind him and, as accustomed to cigarette and cannabis smoke as he was, Chiadi blinks against the acrid fumes blown at him: menthol spiked with chilli pepper, and something else, something he couldn't readily identify.

Along with the action comes a wet chuckle and a guttural voice: “I chezi na nwanyi ahun ga-enye gi ife?” The inquiry about his chances with the sultry oracle was in the Dibia’s own dialect, nuances and intonations precise. “Idiot,” the speaker concludes.

Chiadi takes only one step forward before the muzzle of a firearm—a rifle—snakes out at the end of an arm from the other figure, catching the moonlight. As his vision adapts better to the dark, its owner stands out against the gloom of the wall behind, his features only familiar but the uniform unmistakable. It is the Mopol officer forming part of Akinyele’s escort, now stiff and blank-eyed while keeping his weapon level with the Dibia’s gut.

Heartbeat quickening, Chiadi stares at the man that spoke. He identifies the only member of the politician’s goons who—besides the cop—hadn’t joined in his earlier assault.

“Knew there was something about you the moment I seen you,” the man continues. “You some kinda fool playing at Houngan?” 

All at once Chiadi knows exactly who this is. The acrid stogie (weed and alligator pepper), the round dark glasses that hid inhuman eyes, the grey suit and cut-off gloves gave it all away. Not a man, he. Not remotely human.

“Oga Sagbata,” he states with more boldness than he feels, “I know sticks and stones, knives and guns aren’t part of the Petwo Loa’s arsenal. What is this, then?”

“Dis thing?” The orisha jabs his smelly cigar at the police officer who is obviously in a trance. “A mere tool, but a useful one.”

Despite his fraying nerves, the Dibia tries to keep his tone steady. “What are you up to, trickster king? What is your business with Akinyele? It’s about the municipal polls, no?”

The being utters something between a hiss and a scornful chortle. “Akinyele? I owe about as much allegiance to that ape in a silk dashiki as a Baptist minister does to a Mushin pimp.”

“Is he taking innocents,” Chiadi presses, “murdering and then dumping them at the crossroads in some covenant with the death spirits—with you especially?”

Sagbata, also known as Bawon—Baron—Samedi, high lord of the Ghede Loa and archduke of the dead and the dying, bares his sharp teeth in a cruel smile. “I think I should simply rid this plane of you. The realm of the dead holds its own delights as well, you know.” He sticks the cigar back in his mouth and gestures with one hand.

The rifle in the Mopol’s grip rises several inches. The ratcheting sound of its cocking fills the quiet alleyway while the cop's eyes remain dead as a beached whale’s, devoid of any spark of free will.

Chiadi collects saliva inside his mouth and licks his lips. Instead of cowering or trying to flee, he takes another quick step forward and spits directly into the face of the man about to shoot at him.

The cop reacts as if physically struck, jerking and shuddering before swaying in place with his weapon dangling while he blinks and gasps as if shaken from deep stupor.

With a snort, Sagbata begins to back away, to melt into the darkness that spawned him. His mocking voice recedes as he does: “You wield your art well, little medicine man. I will enjoy reaping your soul when the time comes…”

In a second, there is only shadow where he once stood. Chiadi can still taste the salty reversal ogwu that his saliva mingling with traces of Lasi’s essence had manifested.

Grey face slack, the police officer stares round in stark confusion. “W–where… what…?”

Chiadi puts a pace or two between them. “No idea, officer,” he offers. “Me, I just came down here for a quick p!ss.”

With that he turns and hurries out of the alley.