The white phone rattled on the glass bar top. Malik picked up the dead girl’s mobile, swiped the screen and read the message.
‘I don’t fucking know the address,’ he muttered at the screen.
‘What’s that?’ Shehu asked.
‘Nothing. Just some business.’ He placed his cigar into the ashtray and swiped through the messages Amaka and Florentine had exchanged in the past. He hissed.
‘Do we have an agreement?’ Shehu asked.
Malik sent a message on the white phone, placed it face down on the counter, picked up his cigar and took a drag. He puffed a circle upwards and watched it twirl and float away. He extended his right hand over the counter. Shehu ignored it.
‘I’ll take care of the Amaka girl and this should all be over,’ Shehu said.
‘Why don’t I find her and talk to her?’ Malik said.
‘He asked me.’
‘He asked me too.’
‘Ok. Here’s the deal. Whoever gets her first, we both talk to her. Deal?’
‘Deal.’
‘And that means I talk to your girl too.’
‘Sure,’ Malik said, his hand still extended. Finally, both men shook.
Malik let out a puff of smoke that expanded and lingered between them, for a moment hiding their faces from each other. As the smoke cleared, he said: ‘It is me they should all be afraid of. I am the thing that swallowed the thing that swallowed the elephant.’