Easy Motion Tourist Read Free Page A

in Nigeria and I was caught in the middle of it. Or something equally dreadful. Then, just when I decided to sit it out and trust the chap who looked genuinely amused at my fear, a shapely tall girl with blond hair down to her waist – not hers obviously – came to the bar and started telling him what had happened. I tried to listen but she spoke her broken English so fast, and with so many foreign words, that I was lost. She glanced at me and the fear on her face reignited mine.
    When the blonde was done, Waidi fetched a large red handbag from under his counter and handed it to her. All across the bar, other girls were collecting different shapes and sizes of bags that they’d obviously deposited for safekeeping.
    The blonde left and Waidi stood still, watching her go, hands on hips and eyes wide open with fear, or disbelief, or both. She had told him something that spooked him. I wanted to know what it was.
    ‘What happened?’ I asked. He didn’t answer. I reached over and shook his arm. ‘What happened?’ Just then the music died and my voice boomed over a hundred other frantic voices.
    ‘They just dumped a girl outside,’ he said. ‘They removed her breasts and dumped her body in the gutter. Just now.’

2
    Amaka examined her watch just as the man she was stalking did the same. She was at the bar in Soul Lounge. When she walked in, she counted four girls to each man, staff included. The girls were much younger than the men who they kept company. They had Gucci and Louis Vuitton bags on display on their tables, next to bottles of Moët. Some of the bags had labels that spelled GUSSI. She was the only woman in office clothes: a black skirt suit and a red silk blouse. She slid her hands down to her sides and pulled her skirt up to reveal more of her long legs.
    ‘Anything for madam?’ said the boy in an oversized black jacket standing behind the bar. She looked up at him and her eyes settled on his yellow teeth. His black clip-on bow tie that was slanted to one side looked like a propeller stuck to his neck. Earlier, when she arrived, he had placed a menu next to her but she pretended to make a phone call. Then he returned and started to say ‘madam’ but she picked up her handbag and searched in it.
    ‘Can I get you anything?’ he said, louder this time. She noticed he hadn’t bothered with the ‘madam.’
    ‘Coke, with a lot of ice and a slice of cucumber.’
    He gave her a puzzled look but she turned away and looked at the man in the white dashiki, alone on a sofa, throwing nuts into his mouth from a bowl on the table in front of him.
    The man checked the time again, then he picked up his phone and made a call, all the time looking at his watch. He frowned, placed the phone back on the table and spread his fingers into the bowl of nuts for another fistful.
    The barman placed a coaster next to Amaka and began fiddling behind the bar. He had packed the glass full of cucumber. She resisted the urge to make him repeat what she asked for. Instead, she dipped two fingers into the tall glass and removed all but one of the thick slices, which she then deposited into an ashtray for him to see. She turned back to the man in white. He frowned through another short phone call, checked the time, and leered at a girl walking past. He sighed, placed the phone on the table, and continued with the nuts.
    Amaka looked around to make sure no one had noticed her watching him. Someone tapped her shoulder. It was a man she had noticed when she came in. Their eyes had met, and he had tried to take it further by smiling but she looked away and hurried to the only empty space at the bar. He was next to her now, on the stool vacated by a slim girl whose face had been hidden behind an enormous pair of black and gold Versace sunglasses.
    ‘Sorry to startle you. Do you mind if I sit here?’
    He had a British accent. It explained his cargo pants, worn trainers, and ‘Mind the Gap’ T-shirt. ‘If you want to.’ She turned back