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As Ikem told his story he thought he saw something like relief spreading through the man’s face.
“Is that all? You shouldn’t have come all this way for that. You should have told me on the phone and I should have asked the stupid fellow to bring your particulars himself to you and to stay there and wash your car before coming back. These boys have no common sense.”
“Well, I suppose he was only doing his job.”
“What kind of nonsense job is that? To go about contravening important people.”
He slapped his open palm on the buzzer with such violence that the orderly who scampered in from the outer office was confusedly straightening his cap, holding his loose belt and attempting a salute all at the same time.
“Go and bring me at once everybody who was on road duty on Saturday night.”
“Sorry, it was Friday night,” said Ikem.
“Sorry, Friday! Everybody here one time. Except those on beat… Again Mr. Osodi, I must apologize to you for this embarrassment.”
“No problem, Superintendent.” He had thought of putting in another mitigating word for the constable but remembered his utterly atrocious behaviour and held his peace.
At that point eight worried constables were marched in. Ikem spotted his man at once but decided that even engaging his eye would be a mark of friendship. They saluted and stood stock-still, their worried eyes alone swivelling around like things with a life of their own.
The Superintendent gazed at them in turn without saying a word. In his code they were all guilty at this stage.
“Do you know this gentlemen?”
They all shook their heads.
“How you go know? Stupid ignoramuses. Who contravened him on Friday night at… Mr. Osodi, where did it happen?”
“Outside Harmoney Hotel on Northwest Street.”
This announcement was followed by the briefest pause of surprise or even shock which was mercifully overtaken by the constable’s owning up.
“Na me, sir.”
“Na you! You no know who this man be? But how you go know? When you no de read newspaper. You pass standard six self?”
“Yes sir.”
“Na lie! Unless na free primary you pass. This man is Mr. Osodi, the Editor of the National Gazette. Everybody in the country knows him except you. So you carry your stupid nonsense and go and contravene a man of such calibre. Tomorrow now if he takes up his pen to lambast the Police you all go begin complain like monkey wey im mother die… Go and bring his particulars here one time, stupid yam-head.”
The poor fellow scampered out of the room.
“Now all of you listen well. You see this man here, make una look im face well well. If any of you go out tomorrow and begin to fool around his car I go give the person proper gbali-gbali. You understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“Nonsense police. You think na so we do am come reach superintendent. Tomorrow make you go contravene His Excellency for road and if they ask you you say you no know am before. Scallywags. Fall out!”
BECAUSE OF HIS VISIT to the Police Traffic Department at the other end of town Ikem had had to conduct his daily Editorial Conference two hours late. In making his apologies he naturally recounted his recent brushes with the police the details of which added considerable entertainment to the proceedings of a routine conference. The only person who did not seem to find any of it in the least amusing was Ikem’s second-in-command, an earnest but previously obsequious fellow who in the last several months had struck Ikem as becoming suddenly a lot more aloof and inclined to disagree openly with whatever he said.
Back in his room Ikem’s officious stenographer gave him two messages, one from John Kent, the Mad Medico, who asked Ikem to call him back and the other from Elewa who said she would call again.
MM picked up the phone at the first ring and went straight into his business. He was wondering whether Ikem would be free to drop by for a quick drink this afternoon to meet a friend of his, a poet and editor from England. Ikem accepted most enthusiastically.
“Sure! I haven’t seen you in a long time. What have you been doing with yourself? And as for meeting a live poet and editor I just can’t believe the luck. Can I bring my girlfriend?”
“But of course. Which one by the way? Never mind bring whoever you like… Fivish. See you then. Cheerio.”
It was amazing, Ikem thought, how brief and businesslike MM could be at work. No sign of his madness once he climbed into that chair as the Hospital Administrator. Except the one near-fatal relapse—the Strange Case of the Graffiti, as Ikem called it in a famous editorial.
