“You’re crazy, amigo,” Mojo the Blue says, and he laughs.
He drops into his enormous desk chair and it tips backwards. It’s not a natural laugh, but this is no natural desk either. It’s as wide as a Mercedes is long and so deep that they’d both have to bend right across the top to be able to shake hands. The desk is immaculately lacquered all over in gleaming white apart from the inlay panelling. The gilding could look over the top, but in fact it goes rather well with the four golden lions’ paws the desk rests on. On the desk sits a golden letter opener which could also be used as a bush knife. Or as a bridge across a small stream.
To Mojo’s right is an iPad still in its box on another iPad still in its box, and beneath these a further three iPads still in their boxes. To Mojo’s left is the golden remote control he uses for the large screen that covers the entire wall of the shack. And in between sits Mojo himself in a regal white leather desk chair.
Such an ensemble really deserves to be in a room with at least some rudimentary plastering and a nice paint job. But once you’ve sat at this gargantuan table for a few minutes, you realise there’s no way it could have come through the window, let alone the door, which means that Mojo must have had the desk first and then built this office shack around it. And he must have been so desperate to sit on his white leather chair among all his iPads that he couldn’t wait any longer, at least not for trivial matters like wall paint.
“Hahahahaha!” Mojo laughs. “Haaaaaaa hahahahaha!”
There’s no amusement in this laugh. It doesn’t sound as if he’s found something funny, it sounds forceful, almost arduous, as if this noisy laughter were extremely hard work. It comes from Mojo having watched endless T.V. series on his office shack wall, series in which big-time gangsters laugh as he’s trying to now. What detracts considerably from the bizarre impression he’s trying to create is that Mojo doesn’t have an especially unusual taste in films. He’s seen pretty much the same T.V. series as everyone else, like “The Wire” or “Breaking Bad”, which is why he sometimes speaks like a Mexican or Colombian. And he’s forever practising gestures that he’s invented himself. For a while he would leave a canister of compressed air lying around. And last year he had hamsters in the meeting room. He would take one out of its cage during a meeting and toss it up and down like a tennis ball, before strangling the creature. But nobody knew what this was supposed to mean because nobody knew what the hamster stood for. And being so easy to throttle, hamsters aren’t much help with intimidation. Besides, the room stank of hamsters the whole time so he gave up on the idea. And it all sounds very funny when you tell it to Miki and Mahmoud at the bar.
But when you’re sitting face to face in his meeting room, you’re reminded that there are unpleasant things that no television gangster has ever done. But Mojo the Blue has.
“How does someone like you come up with a bullshit idea like that, amigo?”
“I didn’t have much time. I still don’t have much time.”
“On foot?”
“On foot.”
“You’re batshit crazy. Hahahahaha.”
He waits for Mojo the Blue to stop laughing. But Mojo the Blue adds an encore: “Bandele, take a look at this guy, our pedestrian. Hahahahahahah! Ha!”
Bandele dutifully joins in. His laugh sounds more natural; like any loyal employee he’s had more practice. He laughs so loudly and heartily that Mojo the Blue waves his hand to shut him up. It’s as if Bandele’s been switched off.
“Any idea how far that is?” Mojo says.
“Do you know how long I’ve been here by now? If I’d just walked ten kilometres each day—”
“Sure, sure. If you fart once a day for a million years the wind’s gonna carry you to Europe. But I don’t care. ’Cause you ain’t goin’.”
“No?”
“No. Because you, amigo, are the angel’s angel. Who owes me a few favours. How are you ever goin’ to pay me back if you’re not here?”
“First, I don’t owe you any favours. And second, the time for favours is over because the television people are moving on out. Work’s done. They’re bringing the angel programme to an end.”
“What bullshit is that? Everyone says the show’s doin’ really well. Bandele, is the show doin’ really well?”
“Ratings are through the roof,” Bandele says.
“Maybe,” Lionel says with a shrug. “But now they’re finishing up.”
“When?”
“In five days. Like I said, I don’t have much time.”
“What about those favours you owe me?”
“I don’t owe you any favours. But let me propose a deal.”
“For your fart to Europe?”
He nods.
“I ain’t sellin’ no beans.” Mojo roars with laughter, and Bandele follows suit.
“Very good . . . but I want to buy something else from you.”
“And what would that be?”
“I need someone who knows the way. I need someone to bribe the border guards. I need someone to bribe the military.”
“What you’re lookin’ for is a people smuggler. And I ain’t no mutherfuckin’ people smuggler.”
“I need more than a smuggler. I need someone to provide food, to deliver water.”
“But you can walk on your own?”
“I can.”
“Still sounds like a mutherfuckin’ people smuggler to me. Like a mutherfuckin’ people smuggler with a restaurant car. Why don’t you pay one of them?”
“Because I don’t have enough money.”
“And so you’ve come to me?”
Lionel nods slowly. This could get quite awkward.
“Hey, look at me! Did you see a sign out front of my house that said: ‘Discounts for dumb niggers’? No? You know why you didn’t see that sign?”
“Why?” Lionel asks, even though he knows what’s coming. He’s seen the film too.
“’Cause it ain’t there!”
“This isn’t about whether I’ve got enough money for a smuggler. It’s about getting you a deal. Bigger than all the others. With an enormous profit.”
“How come?”
“Because I’m on television.”
“Why don’t they pay for your smuggler?”
“It doesn’t work like that. They won’t take me with them and they won’t pay for a smuggler either. And this isn’t about you just turning up with a few bottles of water and some flour. I’m talking about planning here. A smuggler shoves you into a boat or lorry with a heap of other Africans. That’s nonsense. I want your organisation and your contacts. I want your protection.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“More money than you’ve ever seen in your life.”
“Listen, amigo, I’ve seen quite a lotta moolah,” Mojo says, amused.
“I know,” Lionel says seriously, looking Mojo in the eye. “I know. And because I know, I can say to you: I’ll offer you . . . more.”
Mojo leans forwards and stares at him. He’s thinking. Then he flaps his hand at Bandele, who stands up and leaves the room.
“O.K., right now a journey to Europe costs fifteen thousand bucks. Or twelve thousand if you get a good deal. But you ain’t got that kinda dough.”
Lionel nods.
“I’ve seen twelve thousand bucks and it don’t impress me.”
Lionel nods again.
“But you can scrape together more from your television thing.”
Lionel nods a third time.
“How much we talkin’ ’bout here? Fifty grand? One hundred grand?”
“More.”
Lionel leans back and casually rests his right foot in its canvas trainer on one of the desk’s corners. He contemplates pushing off and balancing the chair on its back legs, but decides against it. He’ll come across as more decisive if he’s not wobbling.
“Five hundred grand?”
“One hundred million dollars.”
Mojo shifts to the back of his chair.
“Get the fuck outta here!”
Lionel takes his foot off the desk and leans in towards Mojo. “Plus bonus.”
“Get the fuck outta here!”
“I’ll let you do the sums.”
Lionel gives Mojo the details.
Mojo does the sums.
Then he agrees. Because it all adds up.
And because Lionel tells him that this is just the beginning.