‘Ha, Lajide! Give me some more time!’
Lajide’s whole manner changed. The warm and friendly smile vanished into the hot morning air. On his face appeared that cold metallic sheen so familiar to financiers. He had become a snake contemplating his hypnotized victim.
‘Every day you say give me time, but I don’t see a penny. And you are paid every month.’
‘I’ll pay . . .’
‘That’s what you always s
ay.’
‘End of this month,’ Layeni pleaded. He looked quite subdued and sober standing there, his feet arrested and frozen in a movement contrary to the direction he was facing. All the blustering and bullying had faded from him.
In the office, they whispered about him.
‘Drinks too much . . .’
‘What does he do with his money? He earns a fat salary yet he owes. Everywhere he’s in debt! God save us!’
‘And we, his juniors, can manage on our poor salaries . . .’
‘But you haven’t a wife and children.’
‘Children! Does he pay their school fees? Don’t you see them coming here every day to ask for fees? I wonder, such a man! And he claims to be old and sensible!’
Lajide said: ‘I’m waiting, Layeni.’
‘The old drunkard,’ someone muttered. ‘He doesn’t respect himself, and he expects us to respect him.’
The phone rang. Sango went over.
‘West African Sensation.’
‘May I speak to the editor, please?’ The voice was strained, excited and high-pitched. Sango could feel the tension.
‘Not in the office.’
‘Any reporter there?’
‘Amusa Sango, crime reporter. Who’s speaking, please?’
The office became silent. Even Lajide and his debtor had frozen and were staring at the telephone with expectant mouths. Sango knew the smell of news. It always gave him a kick. The breeze blew in from the windows, scattering the papers. No one tried to pick them up. The telephone voice was louder, more tinny than ever, clear enough to be heard by all in the room.
‘If you want something for your paper, come at once to the Magamu Bush, and you’ll get it. Never mind who I am.’
‘Magamu Bush. Where are you speaking from? Hello, Hello . . . He’s gone, hung up! I must get out to the Magamu Bush at once.’
He went across to the map and stared at it. It was an uninhabited part of the city on the road that led from the wharf. Sango had a vision of a broken motor road lined on both sides by dense woods, swamps and bogs. How often had the Sensation drawn the attention of the authorities to the need for developing this area! The crimes committed there were becoming tiresome and monotonous.
‘Be careful, Sango,’ someone said, as he put on his hat at the rakish angle he loved. The typewriters were clattering again, someone was picking up and sorting out the scattered papers. Lajide was saying: ‘Attend to me, Layeni. I’m a busy man, you know that!’
He went outside and hailed a Sensation van. In half an hour he was at the railway crossing. The gates had just closed in front of him. Sango fumed and got out. It was always like this. The gates always closed when he was in a hurry. A single shunt engine steamed up. It stopped in the middle of the road and rail junction. The driver in his blue jeans wiped his forearms with waste and smiled. He got down and a woman in blue, with a child strapped to her back brought him a tray and he began to extract the plates of food. His fireman leaned out, shovel in hand, and said something.
Sango looked back. The queue of traffic was now a mile long, awaiting the pleasure of the shunt engine driver and his wife (or mistress).
‘They killed somebody in the Magamu Bush —’
Sango heard the words distinctly. He was furious with impatience. The shunt engine belched smoke. The driver’s wife (or mistress) moved away. She and her child waved at Papa. Papa climbed slowly back and the engine moved away. The gates swung open. Everyone wanted to get through at the same time. Some day the city would learn to build rail and road crossings on different planes as they did in sensible cities. Sango’s van was not the last in the queue of cars, vans, trucks, wagons, bicycles, motor-cycles and scooters. Bells were clanging, horns were screeching and blasting, the entire junction had been transformed into a mixture of fire engines and ambulances in a hurry to get to a church and school where all the bells were ringing at the same time.