The days of Jonathan Evening

Shoe strings

Black walls coated with layers of ancient moss oozing despair and
death; brown rotted plants squeezing desperately from between
unlikely fractures in the walls like thoughts killed escaping. A young
girl’s suppressed sob...

Day 100

The skies of Port Harcourt filled slowly with darkening grey clouds like
the exhaust fumes from a prodigious Mack truck and at one end of the
sky the sun hovered uncomfortably, watching this dark abomination.

Jon sat at a coffee table in a coffee-shop with his fingers wrapped

around a Styrofoam cup, waiting.

Without looking at his watch, he sipped black coffee exactly every one
minute and in precisely five minutes- when the white cup would be an
empty white cup again- he would place three hundreds under his stack
of three cups and slip out of the coffee shop. Appointment postponed.

Time was everything – the difference between urgently important and

important, the difference between life and death – and how a client
regarded time showed the urgency of the need.

Reasonable excuses like bad morning traffic (she’d called ten minutes
ago to say she was caught up in a Santana Trans Amadi gridlock) just
didn’t dull the implication of time, did they?

A lady walked into the shop just as he picked up his last sip of coffee.
He regarded the tired, brown eye-shadow eyes looking in his direction,
lips creased in uncertainty, and he nodded once at her.

The lady approached the table, holding out a hand. “Mr. Jon, I’m sorry
for being late. Trans Amadi morning traffic, as usual.”

He studied the petite but tough looking woman before him, trying to
relate the features with the voice which had been tense with dammed
emotions when it had reported a possible kidnap earlier on that
morning, waved at a seat. “A true liability.”

She would have discovered the full intent of his words had she shown
up just half a minute after she’d arrived.

She sat down slowly, settling her skirt over her knees. She looked calm,
composed but the emotional suffering was in the rigid set of jaw, in the
way she held her head. A tear seemed stranded in one eye but that was
all. Her type didn’t drown in great gushing floods of tears; they didn’t
immobilize their spouse by clinging to their shirt front for comfort; they
did what was proper - outrightly.

“Thank you, Mr. Jon.”She smiled a small smile. “Your brisk response is a
pillar of comfort in itself.”

His lips dipped in a frown but his eyes harboured solid warmth and
concern. “We all owe ourselves something infinite.”

Leaning forward, professionally brisk at once, he said. “While I’d like

the pleasure of asking just exactly how you knew about me and got my
number...
“Isang Davies,” She interjected promptly.”Mr. Isang told me months
ago of how you helped him in the immigrant smuggling trip that
involved his sons.”

Dust devils... sultry weather (Algerian sand was still in the toes of his
Steve Madden sneakers) they were drugged, blindfolded and starving in
that decayed metal container... the kidnappers had actually completed
transactions for their sale, only...

“...I’m certain we don’t have enough time.”He continued, with the

barest pause for reflection. “Did you get the materials I requested for?”

She placed a brown, thin envelope before him, by his cup.

He picked up the envelope, and gently emptied its contents on the

table – two pictures and a flat electronic key.

A light winked dully for a moment in the room and thunder grumbled
somewhere in the distance.

The picture of a smiling seventeen-year old girl in the white and blues
of some secondary school seem to brighten the damp weather
momentarily; another photograph showed the girl smiling delightedly
and waving from a porch swing somewhere that was not...

“She goes, we –her dad and I- take her” The woman said, as though
reading his thoughts. “Once a year to South Africa. This was from the
last trip.”

The clouds were darker outside, more solid, more menacing and
shadows lengthened across the streets; the wind picked up a low,
mournful tune and a black poly bag soared recklessly past a coffee shop
window, goaded by the wind.
He nodded faintly. “Jo’burg.”

She nodded back, and then frowned, a slight ‘v’ of her brows. “How did
you know that?”

He smiled. “Pictures speak a thousand words, don’t they?”

And if I told you the street address and the name of your host... it’d
dawn on you I’m the Dibia in the City, abi? But I don’t eat goat meat or
accept white fowl, thank you. Obedience is better...

“Thank you, ma” He said, slipping the pictures and the electronic key
back into the envelope. He looked up at her. “I really must be on the
move now. We’ve lost some time already.”

“That’s all?” She asked, a slight hesitance in her voice. Though her look
added, we didn’t discuss money. I can pay you, that’s not a problem.

“Where’s your Spouse?”

“Unavailable, I’m afraid.”She said, and then added: “And unaware.

But ...I’ll let him know soon enough.”

“I was only making sure I wouldn’t be interrupted when I go to your

home.”

“You’ll experience no interference.” She said.

Jon shrugged, rising up.”That’s all for now, thank you again.”

Outside the rain began in a tentative drizzle, as though gauging

mankind’s response to its arrival.

“I should be thanking you, Mr. Jon.”The woman said, standing too. Her
voice was quivering small.”At short notice you responded. Diamonde...”
“...is my responsibility too.” He said quietly, looking her in the eyes.
“We’ll find Diamonde, I’m certain.”

A shadow crossed her face momentarily. She nodded.

Doubt, no... Sadness, huh uh- ‘you shouldn’t find that out’, definitely.
What could that be?

Pictures spoke, pictures wheel, they will speak...

Such thoughts accompanied him outside.

He got into his three year old Wasp and beat the downpour to up-town.

*************

They have not asked for ransom yet...if they will- kidnap to what intent?
When they ask-if they do-how much? Obviously she’s weal...

They will not ask for ransom. The thought asserted itself cleanly with an
authoritative detachment, almost a real voice, in his ears. He checked
an impulse to glance in the rear-view mirror, and smiled because some
impulses just never learned from experience. Repeated experience.

Or because some things could not just be learned. Like the re-
acquaintance with pain; how the graze of a hot slug against bone felt,
the coppery smell of blood, the cordite hanging like a stinking cloying
mist, how...

...and why was he thinking such thoughts?

He drew up alongside a rectangular panel with a single electronic eye
and a card slot which was mounted below the bust of some venerable
ancient by the gate lock. No gate men.

Holding up the card to the electronic eye sent an IEM (instant

encrypted message) to the residence owner, containing the fingerprint
details of the visitor. The owner confirmed the message as well as the
level of security-low, medium or high- to be implemented. The security
mode implemented determined the access the visitor would have on
the grounds of the residence.

Jonathan needed a level two or medium security for his investigation –

which would give him access to every building outside the house and
exceptions determined by the owner, within the building.

He slotted the card into the slowly pulsing invitation below the
electronic eye - which actually opened the gate and released the card
upon the exit of the card owner.

A double lane led to a massive car port and the wasp found a nest
between a Bentley and a Jaguar Jeep.

A rich scent of wild exotic flowers and overripe fruit was in the breeze
that blew softly in his face as he got out of the car.

Its source, the lush, colour splurging gardens and fruit trees
interspersed by white Spanish- styled residential quarters with an
expanse of golf greenery as a back drop was (designed to be) sheer eye
candy.

The kind you bit and found some secret poisonous ant lodged in the
sweet core, abi?
 The trees themselves, grown close together and leaning inward (in a
vaguely familiar human posture) seemed to be conniving.

His dislike of the place was already a restless snake in the back of his
mind as he located a Navimap by the port and entered ‘Diamonde’s
room’.

Across the luminous green graph-line screen, an irregularly diagonal

line traced a path from his present location – a level 2 permit also.

He found the place at the rear end of the main residential building.

When last did you see her?

(A pause for reflection) At about seven in the evening.

When did you notice the absence?

At about five the following morning. She usually woke by four thirty
to ...have a personal devotion or read. I was long awake before then
and didn’t notice the light reflect on... the light from her room usually
reflects on the bougainvillea hedges framing the path to her room from
the central car port. I went to find out if she was okay... or just
oversleeping...

Does she strike you as a nocturnal person?

No, she’s not a night person, if you mean night- activity. Ever since the
accident, she stays indoors most of the time if she’s home from school.

What’s the nature of the accident?

(A slightly pained pause) She’s paraplegic. Uses a wheelchair. She takes

evening... cycles at about seven. In the evening...
...which is when your daughter must have been nabbed, Jon thought,
noting the unmarked near impenetrable reinforced slender steel frame
behind the double broad window of the room; the door was reinforced
fibreglass- a security overkill – and he smirked at the irony of it all.

What he was looking for then was the (skid marks of wheel chair
wheels, violently wrenched fabric, footprints, harassed grass, anything)
indications of where the actual kidnap had probably occurred.

How the intruders slipped in was another enigma, he thought, recalling

his botanically inclined unease moments ago.

He rang up Mrs. Onega. “Jon speaking” He spoke forthrightly when she

responded on the second ring. “Who are the persons that have access
to the estate?”

“Do I presume you mean persons who have electronic keys like the one
currently in your possession?”

Point of correction: Currently in the gate robot’s possession. “More or

less.”

“Every employee of the Onega residence - maids, chauffeurs, and

cooks- have pre-programmed electronic keys. This means they have
access by thumbprint identification to only certain areas pre-
programmed in the card.”

“Including Diamonde’s room?”

“Melissa is Diamonde’s special nurse and assistant. She alone has

access to Diamonde’s room, and that is till six in the evening – when
she retires to her quarters. After then, no employee can access
Diamonde’s room.”
“But Diamonde can let in visitors?”

“Not without my knowledge. Certain motion sensors detect classes of

movement, and give notifications.”

“I presume not audiovisuals?”

“Not audiovisuals. We had two video drones that hover-patrolled the

grounds but they often collided with the trees. We were in the process
of installing alternatives before this happened.”

You’ve got a regular SSS top secret perimeter going here, haven’t you,
Jon thought dryly. What exactly are you hiding?

“Okay, thank you” He said. “I’ll call when I need your assistance again.”

“Please do.”She returned. “And thank you too.”

He’d squatted on his haunches during the conversation, studying the

ground half-absentmindedly. He didn’t actually hear “and thank you
too” and disconnected the call with a rude abruptness he was only half
conscious of: His eyes and mind were already focused on the patch of
grass about two yards from where he squatted. Wheel trails – by what
Mrs. Onega described of her daughter- wouldn’t be unusual around this
area. What would could be an inconsistent, almost negligible pair of
shallow ruts in the soft, wet grass roughly twenty three inches apart,
like he had just spotted – like someone carelessly pushed an object
along the ground with some considerable force and speed, as a person
in a hurry would.

And a wheel chair was capable of digging such a rut especially if its
brakes were suddenly employed.
He mentally estimated the directions the wheel chair may have taken
from the angle the rut made and each led towards dense hedges and a
cluster of aesthetically wild potted plants.

He found the wheelchair collapsed and slightly fractured behind the

cluster of potted plants.

Of course, a wheel chair-this wheel chair- was an encumbrance for all

its worth to a person- or persons- in no small hurry.

These types of wheelchairs – equipped mostly with compact fridges,

voice – regulated functions, and sometimes Hovercraft technology-
made being crippled seem a luxury.

Voice-controlled functions may or may not mean audio

logs...fingerprints certainly, perhaps? Qui?

He reached out with hands wrapped around with a bandana to pick –

possibly drag- the wheel chair from its sacrilegious perch and a picture
flashed furiously in his skull with such intensity that he gasped,
staggering back.

An endless thousand-or thousands-of wheelchairs in gridlock an endless

thousand thousand wheelchairs in gridlock
anendlessthousandsofthousandwheelchairsingridlock....

The thought played repeatedly with a mad whirr in his consciousness,

momentarily occluding all sensory perception.

Several small pins jabbed his left palm but he felt them like dream
blunted pain.
Full consciousness returned as swiftly as it had left, and he first became
aware that he was clutching a dozen tiny fires in his left palm. He pulled
away his hand with another gasp and five dots of table wine red
simultaneously appeared on his palm.

Grabbed me a potted cacti stem in semi black out, didn’t I, he observed,

dabbing his palm with the bandana which had slipped off his left hand
but still hung around his right hand.

Millions of wheelchairs in Lagos-typical traffic...Had these sinners

conjured up a means to put millions of crippled persons to profitable
use or what?

Of course the obvious was almost never the truth. The impulse was
strong to leave the wheelchair how it was, wheels every which way and
all; he’d earned the reason why he’d found it in the first place, he was
sure.

Some reason, a devilish lunatic’s idea of loss and the maddening

restraint of disability.

Traffic wheelchairs in traffic trafficinlagos (Lagos) wheelchairs

Trafficinlagos wheelchairsintraffic wheelchairstrafficin

“Please, please just a little more clarity” He muttered to himself, closing

his eyes against the flood of disjointed thoughts fuming through his
mind.

You’re so smart on your own, why haven’t you figured it yet?

And he felt the familiar indescribable warmth, building shortly in the
chest and then mushroom with a flutter into enveloping, securing
warmth.

It was always like someone was standing just behind him, to his left. So
that he could just turn and see the impossibly radiant beautiful face,
that small smile that spoke of countless aeons upon aeons of infinite
ancient, mystic knowledge yet an equal, overwhelming depth of
unrestrained naked love, uninitiated into a world of human weakness
and vices.

Again, he seemed to lose consciousness of his environment for a

moment, giddy with joy. He fell weakly to a knee.

“Oga, please I’m sorry.” He whispered, smiling but deeply apologetic.

“I’m not that smart, I....”

Traffic in

And then he knew what had happened.

********************

Eyes on the road, left hand steering, he voice-dialled Seggzy’s number.

“Uncle Jay E!!!” Jon winced when the mellow, accent flecked voice
exploded in his right ear after three rings. He held the phone slightly
away from his ear, and smiled. “Looong time. You remembered your
boy today, eh uncle?”

“Wafi boy “His voice was depreciative, amused at the same time.
“How can I forget the only king of Warri?”
Seggzy had an uncanny aptitude for digging out all sorts of information
–from covert happenings on the streets to top secrets of the state
government. He was a depthless reservoir of invaluable gist disguised
as a very dark, gangly youth brimming with typical Warri- bred
buoyancy and an air of carelessness. Jon had found him incredibly
useful during his last case, the Angolan smuggling outfit.

“So what can I do for you, uncle?”

That was one trait Jon immensely admired about the kid: His ability to
switch to the point quickly without causing awkwardness, and that was
based on his ability to ‘code’ (judge) the mood of conversation, which
at the moment was business stiff.

“I need you to find out the much you can about persons that could
possibly be involved in child trafficking business in the area.” Jon said.
“Men involved with underage prostitution, street hawking, begging and
the lot.”

“Kai! Uncle” The youth remonstrated loudly. “I resemble police or

UNICEF representative?! Do you know how much my state has spent to
figure out those elusive miscreants over like one thousand years? And
you are giving it to ... to one person like homework-

Jon waited, smiling.

-but that’s why the king of Warri is the king of Warri, abi?!! He suddenly
laughed a raucous cocky laugh. “He always comes through in regal
colours.”

“Yes,” Jon smiled wryly. “He doesn’t let down.”

“I’ll try my humble best, uncle” He said. “So how soon do you need the
information?”

“Yesterday”.

**************************