Accra Noir Page 4

  I smell her before I see her. Cocoa butter lotion mixed with CK One perfume. “Salome,” I utter in disbelief. At the sound of her name, she steps out of the shadows, where she had been camouflaged by the billowing tan curtains that frame the small window. I reach nervously for the light switch and flick it on. I drink her in. She stands still, an onyx idol. Her jumbo braids cascade neatly down the small of her back. She tucks one behind her ear, then speaks.

  “Hello, Saman.”

  Saman. Ghost. She’s the only one who calls me that. Upon hearing her voice, I free-fall head over heels into our past.

  ⚜

  The ride to the airport is uncharacteristically quiet. Normally, Salome would be reenacting outrageous scenes from our favorite Bollywood movies, complete with neck rolls and a Hindi accent; and I would be applauding and cackling, her constant cheerleader. But today, she just grips my fingers between hers, forehead creased. The taxi driver also says nothing, but from the rearview mirror he glares at the jezebels spooning in his backseat. We lock eyes, my defiance matching his revulsion. He looks away and concentrates on the pothole-ridden road.

  We enter the leafy suburb of Airport Residential Area. The smell of freshly cut grass wafts into the car. It reminds me of those brief yet painful days of my youth, when I sought rest atop their sharp blades. I roll up the window.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” Salome says.

  I tense up. This plan is Salome’s brainchild. It’s all she’s been raving about for the past month. This deal, she has explained, is a game changer for Oga, her big boss, an unseen but revered criminal mastermind.

  Then I understand.

  I pull her in closer. I, too, ache just thinking about us being apart. Salome found me a year ago and breathed new life into me. But this mission is too lucrative to pass up.

  “I want in,” I admit. “Besides,” I add, tracing her clenched jawline with my finger, “who else can you trust?”

  The taxi rolls to a stop. We’re here. Salome reluctantly peels herself off me. She retrieves the luggage from the boot. It’s an old black suitcase, secured by a brass padlock. Its plain appearance belies the intricate network of hidden compartments which we have dutifully filled with cocaine. She plants travel documents in my palm.

  “Our associate will contact you once you get to London.” We hug. She gives me a quick peck on the cheek and chews her lip. “You know what to do next.”

  This hurts, but I’m in too deep to change my mind now.

  “Hurry back, okay?” she sniffles. Then she is gone.

  I march into Kotoka International Airport, a massive rectangular ark.

  The departure hall is a madhouse, congested with people in motion.

  A woman with the brightest fire-engine red weave I’ve ever seen quarrels with an airline agent, shaking her meaty fist.

  A porter in an ill-fitting lime-green uniform pushes a trolley up a sloping walkway, the wheels squeaking with every strained step.

  And then there are the bᴐgas strutting around the terminal, reeking of cologne.

  I can’t pull this off.

  The air conditioner above me is on full blast, causing the back of my neck to break out in goose pimples; yet I fan myself madly with the plane ticket.

  I won’t get away with it.

  I can’t breathe. I claw at the collar of my dress shirt but can’t find the button. I feel my chest tightening. I am hyperventilating. I sink to the tiled floor, its black-and-white squares like a giant crossword puzzle swimming before my eyes.

  She’ll never forgive me.

  A white man with wispy auburn dreadlocks and scuffed hiking boots squats in front of me, his head cocked to the side. He speaks with a gentle baritone in a language I do not understand, then offers me a bottle of water with an outstretched tanned hand. I swat it away. He hesitates, then leaves.

  What am I doing?

  I rise.

  I exhale; pick up the suitcase.

  I exit the airport into the merciless Accra heat, pulling my bounty behind me.

  There’s no coming back from this.

  ⚜

  My eyes dart between the intruder and the rusty cutlass leaning against my dresser. Salome raises her hands in surrender. She’s trembling.

  “Please, Saman, I need your help.” She inches closer. “Oga wants me dead.”

  My body turns into lead. “But . . . but you are his best employee,” I sputter.

  “Was,” she corrects me. “When you were a no-show, Oga thought I was in on it. I . . .” She shudders. “I was tortured. Then demoted, doing all sorts of donkeywork to get back into Oga’s good graces. But it’s no use now. There’s a price on my head.”

  I’m overcome with guilt. No doubt there would have been consequences. I just never thought Salome would be the one to pay the ultimate price.

  Salome paces my room, invading every inch of my sanctuary. Her voice scales with each hurried sentence, like fingers gliding across a keyboard. “You were supposed to be dead three years ago, but here you still are. That makes you the only person to cross Oga and live to tell the tale. That’s why I tracked you down. I need to know how you did it. I need to get away before his thugs find me. I can’t keep running. I need you to help me disappear! I need to start over. Like you did. Go somewhere else. Be someone else.” She pauses before striking the final chord. “I need you to make this right, Saman.”

  Sighing, she takes my hand in hers and implores me with those captivating eyes. “Please give me the stuff you took. I have a kilo on me, but I need more to make a clean break.”

  “I . . . I . . . sold it,” I mumble, head bowed.

  Salome stiffens and lets go of my hand. “You . . . sold it,” she repeats, choking on the words.

  I confess everything.

  How I sold what I now know to be a small fortune for a tenth of its value. How I met my buyer, Latif, at an auto-body shop that was also a warehouse for smuggled goods in transit—weapons, precious minerals, even children. How we bonded over life on the fringes. How he clucked in sympathy when I disclosed my dangerous assignment. How he suggested—casually at first, growing bolder with every unanswered probe—that perhaps I was getting a raw deal. How he promised to pay me double while eliminating any chance of incarceration.

  Zero risk. Double reward. I liked those odds. I was all in.

  Salome mulls over this revelation in pained silence, then lowers herself onto my thin mattress. I drop to my knees before her, weighed down with remorse.

  “This changes everything,” she says flatly, breaking the heavy stillness enveloping us.

  I search those dark eyes, desperate to uncover what she’s thinking, how she’s feeling. Instead, there’s a hollowness there that didn’t exist before.

  “I know what I did was wrong,” I croak. “But I can fix this. I’ll get you the money. Whatever you need. Just give me one more chance. Please. Let me make it better for you.”

  And I do.

  ⚜

  I have not kept in touch with Latif since our rushed exchange outside a mosque three years ago, but tracking him down is easy. I slip the auto-body shop’s attendant a twenty-cedi bill and walk away with Latif’s number. Once I get him on the phone, he leaps at the opportunity to purchase the kilo. We agree to meet at Club 1000 Hotel to complete the transaction.

  I patrol the entrance of the run-down hotel, kicking up clouds of copper dust and obsessing about Salome.

  Last night, she asked me to leave with her once the present threat has been extinguished. This time not as a drug mule and her handler but as soul mates taking another shot at their happily-ever-after. With Latif’s funds, we should be airborne within the next week, putting all the rancor behind us for good.

  I steal another look at my watch. Salome and Latif should have been here by now. I stick my head inside the lobby. A statuesque woman wearing a hijab sits at the reception desk, studying me suspiciously through kohl-rimmed eyes. She chews loudly on a kola nut as I shuffle toward h
er.

  “Good evening, madam,” I greet.

  She just glowers at me.

  “Please, I am looking for my friends, a man and a woman.”

  She snorts, the force of which sends nut-infused spittle all over the desk. “At this time of the night? Take your pick!”

  “She’s not a prostitute,” I shoot back, a bit too defensively.

  The woman shrugs. “Try room 211.”

  After stumbling along a dimly lit, seemingly endless corridor, I finally find room 211. I knock. “Salome?”

  No answer.

  “Latif?”

  Still nothing.

  I turn the handle, but the door is wedged shut from the inside. I shove it repeatedly until it swings wide open, revealing Latif’s lifeless torso. I clamp my hand over my mouth and stagger backward in horror. My heart thumps against my rib cage so aggressively that I fear it might shatter. I let out a strangled cry as someone grabs the front of my T-shirt, pulling me fully back into the room. I thrash at my assailant, but my uncoordinated jabs fail to connect.

  “Heh! Stop that!” the person hisses.

  It’s Salome, but my relief is short-lived when I digest my new surroundings. It’s a modest-sized, sparsely furnished room, unremarkable really, save a few features.

  A claw-foot bed devoid of sheets or pillows.

  A wardrobe missing a wooden panel.

  A framed portrait of Jesus in a green pasture, bearing a staff in one hand and a lamb in the other.

  And blood.

  So much blood.

  Splattered on the dirty peach walls.

  Soaking the shaggy carpet.

  Squishing under the soles of my flip-flops.

  I retch. “Salome! What happened?” I demand, in between gulps of air.

  She slams the door shut and wags a finger at me. “Why are you asking me? Don’t you remember? You did this.” She sneers.

  “Are you mad? How can you joke at a time like this?” I shriek. “Latif is dead!”

  Her face contorts into a terrifying mask. “So what?” she explodes. “Did you really think that after you guys stole from me, I would just pretend it never happened and run off into the sunset with you?”

  A chill creeps into my bones, like a bucket of iced water has been dunked on me. I back away from her slowly, shaking my head to ward off the frightening thoughts forming in my mind. “You set me up.” I gasp.

  “And I got my money back.” She motions toward a woven red, white, and blue plastic Ghana Must Go bag flung carelessly in the corner.

  Just then the door flies open and a tall, muscular man enters. He wildly surveys the room, from the man bleeding out on the floor to the two women standing before him. Nostrils flared, he roars in thick Nigerian pidgin, “Oga, wetin happen now?”

  I whirl around, expecting Oga to materialize out of thin air. But all I see is Salome. My eyes widen as the final puzzle piece locks into place.

  I bolt toward the door, but the man blocks my path, his face transformed into a menacing scowl.

  “Seize her!” Salome barks. Instantly, the Nigerian tackles me, covering my mouth with a large calloused hand and pinning my arms to my sides.

  Salome sidles up to me, eyes narrowed to slits. “You know what? You are much smarter than I ever gave you credit for. To hide right under my nose while I tore Europe apart looking for you these past three years. I always knew you had potential. That’s why I was grooming you. But this.” She laughs humorlessly, clapping slowly. “This is almost genius. You had me fooled. A whole me. The leader of the only woman-run criminal enterprise in Ghana. Maybe all of Africa. You cost me a lot. Not just money. No, worse than that. You made me a laughingstock. You already know how hard it is for women to be taken seriously in this society. How much more in the underworld? They said I couldn’t do it. That I couldn’t run my own organization. That women are emotional, too unstable. Because of you I proved them right. And for what?”

  Her voice softens. “I risked it all for you.” Her voice is now scarcely above a whisper. “I thought you would do the same for me.” She leans in, so close that I can feel her hot breath against my neck.

  A sharp pain sears through my abdomen. The Nigerian’s rough palm stifles my screams as Salome plunges, then twists a small hunting knife deep into my core. I flail like a broken marionette, but that only seems to galvanize her more. Then she stops.

  She yanks my head back and watches me with mild amusement.

  And with one flick of her wrist, Salome slits my throat. Blood squirts out of my severed windpipe. The Nigerian releases me, and I land on the soiled carpet with a loud thud. Before everything fades to black, I watch the queenpin pick up Latif’s money and strut toward the door.

  As I take my final protracted breath, the Nigerian speaks up: “Oga, wetin make I do plus the bodies?”

  “Leave them to rot,” she snaps, then pauses. “Wait. As for the girl, there’s a gutter near the market. Dump her there.”

  Suro nnipa na gyae saman.

  (Fear man, not ghosts.)

  —Paapa Yankson

  Moon over Aburi

  by Kwame Dawes

  Aburi

  1

  A Man, a Woman, and a Boy

  —Is it always damp like this?

  —You haven’t been here before?

  —No. Funny, eh? I always said I would visit . . . I would pass it all the time. Everybody at school used to come here. This is where the girls would meet the boys.

  —Oh, so you are an Achimota boy.

  —It is not the only school here.

  —You look like an Achimota boy.

  —Well, you should know.

  —So you live in Accra, yes?

  —I do.

  —And never came before . . .

  —Never had cause. I am sure . . .

  —What?

  —No, it is fine. Do you have fish?

  —Oh finish what you were saying.

  —I don’t want to keep you from your work.

  —You mean my thriving business.

  —Well, when it stops raining.

  —Oh no, it is Tuesday. The crowd has come and gone. One or two might come, but we are not expecting anybody. If you buy some fish now, then we will have done well . . .

  —So you won’t close up?

  —One or two might come.

  —Right, of course, like me . . .

  —Like you. How far in did you go?

  —I drove around. I walked a little. The air is so wet—heavy.

  —Rain forest.

  —Yes, but everything is thick, green. The leaves, the grass.

  —Late in the night, if you stop and listen, it is as if the world has arrived here as it always has been.

  —Hey.

  —I am a poet, eh?

  —I know things about you, but not that.

  —You know things about me?

  —I am a prophet.

  —Oh, is that right? I knew you looked like a minister.

  —I do?

  —So what kind of minister?

  —A hungry one. You have fish, fried fish?

  —No, just red-red.

  —With gari?

  —I think there is some. But no plantain. So Baptist, Pentecostal, Anglican? I know you are not a Catholic . . .

  —How do you know that?

  —Well, you carry your piety like a badge of honor. Catholics are casual about it.

  —Maybe that is an insult.

  —No, no, just a fact. I think you speak in tongues.

  —You can tell that by looking at me?

  —Perhaps.

  —Anyway, I want red-red, but I need it with plantain.

  —You can have it without plantain.

  —But how can that work?

  —It is finished. So what can I do?

  —I can’t eat it without plantain.

  —Are you a chief? Your stomach makes demands like that.

  —I am a prophet.

  —That is right. O
kay. Wait. Kwaku? Kwaku!

  —Yes, Ma?

  —Go down to the road and get some kelewele. Plenty. And run and come back now.

  —Yes, Ma.

  —But you didn’t have to do that.

  —Well, I read my Bible. You might be an angel, not so?

  —No, no, no. But you didn’t have to, I was teasing you.

  —Oh, you will pay for it now.

  —Of course, of course I will pay. I will pay extra. So is that your son?

  —What if it is?

  —Oh, why are you so touchy? I was just asking . . .

  —I can tell what kind of minister you are. It is like you are trained by police. You know, the kind who will ask you questions and you don’t even know they are asking you questions, and then the next thing you know, they are telling you things you have already said but didn’t know you had said, and next thing you are confessing and thinking, But only God could have told this man these things about me, and you fall down and shake and say hallelujah. Salvation. That is the kind of minister you are now, isn’t it?

  —I don’t know if you know police more or preacher more.

  —I don’t know either. I am a cook. I cook and I feed you.

  —But you were not always a cook, now.

  —Who told you that?

  —You are educated.

  —Oh, so a cook can’t be educated?

  —Maybe. A cook can be anything, but an educated cook was something before she became a cook.

  —Yes, I was. Detective Deacon.

  —You are a joker.

  —Maybe, maybe. The rain is coming down now. That boy better hurry.

  —Maybe he went home.

  —He went home, yes?

  —No, because home is with you . . .

  —I didn’t say he was my son.

  —I didn’t say he was your son.

  —Well then we are agreed.

  —But he looks like you. Yes, I know he is mixed, but one part could be you.

  —That is prophecy now?

  —I have eyes to see.

  —Well, not everything you see is what is there.

  —That is true.

  2

  A Woman