CHAPTER 13
"Who do we talk to if we're looking for someone to rob a good, honest Englishman or kill a God-fearing Christian?" Dobson had asked Chelsea earlier.
"Benji at Pink Lips sah. Maybe Casper, sah."
"Do peace loving, innocent white men go to the Pink Lips Club?"
"Yes, sah. Especially if they want nice black lady."
"What time does Pink Lips open?"
"All day and all night, sah. Especially at night."
"Right, let's go. But I'm no longer Mark Dobson. I'm now Simon Smith. Got it? Security reasons you understand. Meanwhile phone Benji on your nice new Samsung and fix an appointment."
Yessah."
"Do it now, Chelsea. Not next week."
"Yessah."
Dobson listened in.
"Yeh, mon. How de body? It's Zak mon. Zak. You 'member? You wanna chill at Pink Lips? Like now. Why? Cus' I got a fresh job. Akata. His label? Mr Smith. He like needs jobs done. Big dash. Yeh, he rich fella."
"So?" Dobson asked at the end.
"Two o'clock but any time. He says deposit to listen, cash in advance, balance to follow."
At two o'clock a thunderstorm was at its peak. Water was washing around Mark Dobson's feet as Chelsea stopped the leaking yellow Peugeot in a side street. Alongside them was a six-foot high wall of steel decorated with a row of intricately forged rusty spikes across the top. The fence may once have sported a powder blue coat of paint but it was now faded and splashed with red mud from puddles that lined the road.
"Pink Lips," Chelsea announced. "Disco downstairs, casino upstairs, bar ground floor."
Dobson was in no mood for either dancing, gambling or drinking. What he wanted was a fresh look at a meeting place famous for dubious deals, exchanging stolen goods and other, mostly nocturnal, activities. If it looked good, he might order a job to be done.
They waded in. It wasn't quite how Dobson remembered from a few years ago, but it had been night time and combined with a power failure. He could now see that, given an electrical supply, it would have advertised its presence by pink neon lights in the shape of pouting lips, dancing legs and high-heeled shoes. It had once been a large and expensive countryside villa before being overtaken by the mess of urban growth but big money was clearly being made somehow for two new Mercedes cars and three Toyota mini buses were parked at the side and a group of men in open necked shirts stood beneath an awning as water cascaded in front of them.
One of them stood out - a big man in a damp looking suit and a bright pink shirt. His eyes blinked rapidly and his nose twitched as if he'd just surfaced from a short underwater swim. A gaggle of girls in high heels, short, tight skirts and complicated hair styles stood beside him holding onto one another and giggling. Pink, Dobson noticed, was the dominant colour - pink shoes, pink ribbons and big pink lips. Cigarette smoke wafted upwards.
Chelsea did introductions. "Hey, Benji, This akata with the job? Him rich, rich, Benji. Got big sense."
The girls stopped giggling but didn't stop holding onto each other.
"Need full pocket at Pink Lips," Benji said with what Dobson assumed was a sense of humour. The other men joined in the humour, the girls giggled again and a brave one piped up with, "Woss your label, honey?", which was so funny that they giggled some more and rolled big black eyes in Dobson's direction.
Dobson had no problem ignoring this but held out his hand towards the one he assumed was Benji. "Simon Smith," he said. The other men came closer, checking him out - big suits, colourful shirts.
"Yeh, sure. I heard about Mr Smith," Benji said. "I met some others. Big family. You got any other pseudonyms man?"
"Can you make do with Simon Smith?"
"Sure, sure. Enta, come on in. We tock. Simple Simon met a pie-man. You heard that song?"
"Yes," Dobson confirmed. "When I was in nursery."
The other suits stayed by the door - four men, four different sizes, four shirt colours, the biggest one in florescent pink who still blinked. But it was only one eye, winking not blinking. Dobson glanced back thankful to see he was winking at everyone, an affliction of some sort, but disturbing nevertheless.
The music got louder when Benji opened the front door and beckoned them inside. "Enta, enta."
Florescent pink shirt winked again and stepped forward as if he would be joining in. But then he withdrew as if he'd smelled something not to his taste.
"Nice music," Dobson lied, hoping he sounded convincing.
"Soul train on steroids," laughed Benji, "You wanna come Sattaday night. Like blazing fiya. More bubble as well." It sounded like a sales pitch.
"This your place?" was Dobson's next piece of small talk.
"Me and another rich fella."
"Like the one outside?"
"Pink Panta?" Benji said. "Nah. Pink he organizes da ladies. I can call him. You wanna flex your stick?"
"Not right now," Dobson said.
The place smelled of beer, cigarette smoke and sweat. There was a stage where two girls in black underwear and pink belts were dancing with no-one watching. Perhaps they were practicing. Tables were set around and, in one corner, was a bar surrounded by coloured lights. But the place was empty and the barman was reading a newspaper.
"Seedan," Benji pointed to a vacant table. "You want sumtin' fizzy?"
Dobson would have been fine with a glass of water but: "I'll have whatever you and Zak drink," he said. Benji beckoned the barman and ordered three Star Lites.
"They have food also, Mr Dob........Mr Smith. Tasty fish and fries."
"So, what kind of business, Mr, uh, Smith?" Benji loosened his collar, smoothed his unevenly shaved, flabby cheeks, sniffed and wiped his nose between finger and thumb. Perhaps it was rainwater.
Benji was older and fatter than Dobson had imagined. He sported a touch of grey in his hair, but the part that fitted his imagination was the gold cross on a chain around his neck. It dangled outside the open top buttons of a red striped shirt. Rainwater had darkened the shoulders of his ill-fitting suit jacket.
"Information business," Dobson shouted over the music. "When we get information, we act."
"If I see blood, mean plenty ego, man, You pay Naira or dollah?"
"Naira to start but let's see how we get on."
"One hundred thousand for open ear, OK?"
Dobson deliberately raised an eyebrow though he'd already ring-fenced Solomon's upfront payment for occasions like this and money from the warehouse stock would help. Just yet, money didn't matter too much. He sat forward, felt in his back pocket, pulled out a bundle of notes, counted a few and put them on the table. "Seventy. If I like answers I find more."
Benji picked it up and counted it, slowly, eyeing Dobson as if the notes might be forged. Dobson sat back, waited and reflected on what he was about to do. The reflection was longer than expected because Benji miscounted the notes and started again, licking his fingers for better grip. Finally, he looked up. "OK, my ear open. Smoke?"
"No, thanks."
"Marry J?"
Dobson declined the marijuana. His eyes were already smarting. Instead, he leaned across the table. Chelsea copied and their heads almost collided.
"An English friend of mine was abducted and robbed at the airport here a few weeks ago," he shouted into Benji's face. The wide, faintly pink eyes stared back at him from six inches away. "The guy was on his way to do business with a company called Solomon Trading - you heard of them? But he never got there. He went back home because he was too fucking nervous to come again. I've taken over."
Benji sat back, blew smoke from the corner of his mouth. "Too bad. Big shame."
"I want to know who was behind it."
Arms outstretched. "How the fuck do I......?"
"It was organised from here - Pink Lips."
"Is that so?" Benji's arms came together again, his eyes widened and he took a suck on his cigarette, blowing smoke over Dobson's head.
"You know how I know?" Dobson shouted as the musi
c unexpectedly stopped.
"Go ahead, feel easy."
"Zak did it."
Benji's stare moved to Chelsea. "Is that so?"
"And an excellent abduction and robbery job it was, too, if I may say so."
Chelsea rose visibly in his seat but then looked at Dobson, perhaps shocked at the way things were going. "Right, Zak?" Dobson said.
Chelsea nodded, swirling a mouthful of Star Lite inside his mouth.
"Is that so?"
"But Zak doesn't know who ordered the job. He got instructions from Danny. Who ordered the job, Benji? And why. That's what I need to know. By the way..........." He fished in his pocket and pulled out another wad. "Here's another fifty because I like the way you're listening."
Benji picked it up. Tested the thickness of the wad but didn't bother counting it this time. Maybe he'd remembered he couldn't count too well.
"Danny's in Abuja," he said. "He runs Pink Lips Abuja, but he was down this way some time back. Anyway, what's with Solomon Trading. Is that Pastor Gabriel?"
Dobson grinned. "I knew I'd come to the right place, Benji. Correct. Gabriel's the chairman. He's the brains, and my friend who got robbed was here to help him do some business. Gabriel's a big celebrity, a friend of the President of the USA and the British Prime Minister. He knew Nelson Mandela and Tony Blair. He doesn't deserve this. So why the fuck would someone stop my friend coming to Lagos to see him?"
Benji shook his head, puffed smoke, but he was definitely listening.
"Zak only did what he was asked," Dobson went on, rubbing things in further. "But he wouldn't have robbed my English friend if he'd known Pastor Gabriel was involved. You like Pastor Gabriel, right Zak?"
Chelsea choked on his beer but nodded.
"So, what I want to know is who is behind all this. Who paid for my friend to be robbed and nearly killed and who made him so scared shitless he went home to rest and get treatment for his concussion?"
"That your question, Mr Smith?" Benji shouted.
"Names. Then we decide what to do."
Benji leaned back and hauled a gold-coloured I-Phone from his pocket. He flipped open the cover, swiped it and pressed a number as Chelsea looked at it in awe.
"Danny boy. Benji. How's it hanging? You hear me? Fuck, hang on. I'll go outside." He beckoned to Dobson to stay seated and disappeared. The coloured shirts were still there, lurking. Florescent pink was still winking as if he'd been winking so long to attract customers he couldn't stop.
"Comfortable so far, Chelsea boy?" Dobson checked.
Chelsea nodded, peering over his Star Lite bottle.
"It's looking expensive," Dobson added.
"So how do I work out my commission, Mr Dob......Smith?"
"You don't work it out, Scumbag. I do. What's my name?"
"Simon Smith sah."
"Until further notice. Got it?
"Yessah."
Benji returned amongst a gang of young Nigerian boys no older than fifteen. They went straight to the bar, crowded around it, shouting above the music. To Dobson it looked like they'd just struck rich in the street somehow and were now ready to spend it before anyone came looking for it. Benji sat down.
"Danny remembers. But he wants a share."
"What does he remember?"
"You need to talk man to man. He's in Abuja."
"Can't we talk on the phone? I pay you, you pay him."
"You gotta phone?"
"Yes, but Zak's phone's better."
Danny, it turned it, didn't know who'd issued the instruction, it could have been anyone, but he had names, some familiar, others not. The names he didn't recognise, Dobson mentally added to the Obodi list.
"And Godwin, sah." Danny had added at the end like an afterthought.
"Godwin? Who's Godwin?"
Danny seemed vague. "Godwin is Godwin.
Dobson logged it, but so far it meant nothing.