'Cash Daddy,' he asked, 'what do we put for your GCE?'

'I don't know,' he snapped. 'Put whatever you like. When Dibia's preparing my birth certificate, tell him to get me a GCE certificate as well.'

In moments of great stress, it is usually the most implausible fib that comes to mind. I filled in my own straight-A result for Cash Daddy. But that was not the end. I still needed help to know what secondary school he wanted me to state. Protocol Officer drew another blank and turned to his master for help. His master banged one hand on the desk and flailed the other in the air.

'What's wrong with you people? Can't you fill a simple form without asking me stupid questions? If you have to ask me about every single thing before you fill a simple form, then I don't know why I'm paying you so much money. You might as well go and work in a bank!'

'Cash Daddy, we're sorry,' we both apologised.

'Get out of my office and go and fill that thing somewhere else. You people are starting to annoy me.'

On my way back to the Central Intelligence Agency, I was about to turn the door handle when the air suddenly filled with a sensuous, luxurious scent. I looked back and saw that a majestic frown had walked in through the connecting door to the reception area. In its train was Cash Daddy's wife.

Thirty

Mrs Boniface Mbamalu was the most beautiful wife that money could buy. Each of her facial features was perfectly sculptured. Every item on her lithe, six-foot frame could be considered a fortune. From the flaxen hair extensions, to the chunks of metal around her throat and wrists, to the lace fabric of her buba and iro. And her skin shone with a glorious luminosity that had nothing at all to do with nature; it could only have come from inside an expensive cosmetic jar.

'Good afternoon, madam,' I said.

She ignored me and swished past. Red-hot fumes were smoking out of her ears and nostrils.

Instinctively, I retraced my steps. Protocol Officer was frozen to the spot, as if he had just spied a three-headed python while taking a stroll in the garden behind his house. Mrs Mbamalu had swept into Cash Daddy's office, and from where we stood, we could hear the sparking of her wrath and the thundering of her rage. Glass was smashing, wood was crashing, and her voice was at topmost volume. Everybody else in the building must have heard. Yet not even the tough-looking otimkpu dared to intervene.

'Useless idiot!'

Crash! Smash! Bang!

'What sort of rubbish is that?!'

Bang! Smash! Crash!

'Whatever you do with your private life is none of my business, but I will never have you flaunt it in my face. Are you hearing me?!'

Smash! Crash! Bang!

'If you know what's good for you . . . better relocate that stupid girl . . . my next trip!'

Slap! Slap! Slap!

Within minutes, she had finished delivering her message and vamoosed. From what I could gather, she apparently had discovered that Cash Daddy was renting a flat for one of his girlfriends on the same street in London, Belgrave Square, where she, his wife, had her own private apartments. From all indications, this woman had flown all the way from Lagos to Port Harcourt, taken a taxi to Aba, stopped at her husband's office, and afterwards headed directly back to Lagos. The straightforward purpose of the trip had been to communicate some slaps.

After she left, I went into Cash Daddy's office with Protocol Officer. The place looked as if a tornado had dropped by to say hello. The exotic vases were smashed to smithereens on the floor, the wall cabinet was lying facedown like an Islamic worshipper, every single item on his executive desk had been transferred to the ground. Interestingly, the only thing in the room that seemed untouched was the photograph of him in a traditional chieftaincy outfit. The image looked down on the dishevelled room from its position high up on the wall.

Cash Daddy was sitting on his swivel chair, with head bent and hands folded on the executive desk. That desk, I noticed, was now in a slanting position. Protocol Officer started picking things up off the floor with the morbid efficiency of one who had seen it all before. I stood, marvelling at the effects of this ironic sort of rage that immoral single women suddenly develop against immorality as soon as they get married. Was this not the same woman who they said had been a professional mistress in her time?

Abruptly, Cash Daddy looked up. A drop of blood escaped a cut on his lower lip. He licked it, like a reptile capturing its dinner.

'Kings, do you believe in love?'

'Yes, I do,' I answered slowly. I knew for sure that I had once loved a certain woman.

He laughed.

'Let me tell you something. Women are like babies. Just give them whatever they want and they'll keep quiet. Don't mind all their shakara. The only time a woman becomes dangerous is when there's nothing else she wants from you.'

I said nothing.

'Did you know that?'

'No, I didn't,' I lied.

He laughed and shook his head.

'Kissing may be the language of love, but it's money that does the talking.' He paused. 'By the way, when are you planning to get married?'

I had not thought about marriage since Ola.

'I'm waiting for the right woman to come along,' I replied.

'Stay there and continue waiting. If that's the case, you'll never get married. All you need to do is fix a date for the wedding, book the venue, pay for the catering . . . just plan everything. As soon as you've done that, you'll see that the woman will just appear on time and fill in the slot.'

I knew that he meant every word of what he was saying.

'What about your current girlfriends? Is there none of them that you can marry?'

'I'm not in any relationship right now.'

'Do you mean you don't have any relationship with any girls you want to marry or that you don't have any girlfriends at all?'

He often referred to the female gender in plural form, as if they did not exist except in batches.

'No, I don't have any girlfriend.'

'Kings, stop trying to make me laugh. I have a cut on my lip.'

'Cash Daddy, I'm not joking. I don't have a girlfriend.'

It took a while for the disbelief to cover the whole region of his vast face. Then he uttered a scream that rattled the pieces of glass on the floor.

'Are you serious?! Are you really serious?!'

I smiled. What was all the fuss was about?

'Come to think of it,' he said meditatively, 'I've never seen you with any women. I thought there might be some you left behind in Umuahia who were taking care of you from time to time. So what's the problem? What's wrong with you?'

Now it was my turn to laugh.

'I'm serious. Tell me the problem. What's wrong with you?'

'Nothing is wrong with me.'

He turned his voice into a whisper.

'Are you having some problems with your machete?'

'Cash Daddy, I'm fine. Nothing is wrong with me.'

'Or are you a homo?'

Accusing another man of such a thing could easily lead to a mouthful of broken teeth. I let the insult pass.

'Cash Daddy, I'm not.'

'Kings, I beg you in the name of God. I know that relatives are the cause of hip disease, but right now, I have enough problems on my hands. I don't want to add the one of having a homo brother.'

'Cash Daddy, I'm certainly not gay.'

'So what's the problem?' He had turned the volume of his voice up again. 'If a man is denying that he has a swollen scrotum, the place for him to prove it's a lie is by the riverside. Why don't you have any women?'

'I was in a relationship that ended a long time ago. Since then, I've not really-'

'A relationship!' He screamed louder than ever. 'Your head is not correct! Are you trying to tell me that you don't have regular servicing from women? Are you normal at all?'

'Cash Daddy, it doesn't really matter to me. I believe that true love is more important than sex in a relationship. After all, sex isn't one of the basic physiological-'

'Come on will you shut up your mouth! I don't believe it. How can I have somebody on my staff who is not being taken care of? Please leave off that your big grammar and just shut up. Your head is not correct.'

He paused thoughtfully. Then looked up with face aglow, as if he had just discovered fire.

'Kings, when is your birthday?'

What had that got to do with the price of fish?

'Am I not talking to you? I said, when is your birthday?'

'It's on the sixth of November.'

'Good. I know what to do. I'm going to give you an early birthday present.'

He brought out his phone and ordered someone at the other end to meet us in the VIP section of his hotel bar later that night. I marvelled at this man who had just been smashed by his wife, and who was now trying to vivify my sex life.

The Bon Bonny Hotel was a popular hangout for people in our line of business. The car park was jammed with all manner of exotic cars and the lobby was equally jammed. Men in dark glasses and dark suits waited as their masters dined or womanised. There were also yellow-skinned, scantily clad ladies who had probably come to see if they could get their hands on some of the International Cake.

On my way to the bar, I spied Azuka disappearing into the elevator with a luscious lady entwined around his arms. Her bright yellow back was bare. Clearly, his newfound good luck was still a-flowing.

The writer of an opinion editorial I read recently in This Day had blamed the proliferation of bleached skin amongst young ladies on the average 419er's preference for yellow women who went hand-in-hand with his flashy lifestyle. Another editorial, written by a Roman Catholic priest, blamed the 419ers and their 'promiscuous lifestyles' on the recent 'rise in materialism' amongst young girls and their tendency to dress in 'Babylonian apparel'. Yet another writer blamed the 419ers for importing the AIDS virus to Nigeria.

Blaming problems on 419ers had turned into a national pastime, but then, it all depended on which part of the elephant you could feel.

I knew, for example, that Cash Daddy was personally responsible for the upkeep of the 221 orphans in the Daughters of St Jacinta Orphanage, Aba. He tarred all the roads in my mother's local community. He dug boreholes, installed streetlights, built a primary health care centre. Just two days ago, I received a letter from the Old Boys' Association of my secondary school requesting my contribution towards a new classroom block. I replied immediately to say I would fund the whole project. I knew what it felt like to endure classrooms that had no windows, no doors, and no tiles on the floors, just because the complete funds pledged towards the project had not yet been collected.

So, no matter what the media proclaimed, we were not villains, and the good people of Eastern Nigeria knew it.

In the bar, I sat at an inconspicuous table and waited. Cash Daddy was the Patron Saint of 'African Time'; he would be at least an hour late as usual.

A waitress strutted over with a priceless smile.

'Good evening, Oga,' she beamed, and jiggled her waist to one side.

'Good eve-'

'What of Oga Cash Daddy?' she beamed, and jiggled her waist to the other side.

'He's coming later,' I replied.

I asked for a bottle of Coke and tipped her enough to compensate for the beaming and jiggling. As I sipped, I peered around the room.

There was Kanu Sterling. Both he and Cash Daddy had worked under Money Magnet. I had heard that Kanu lit his cigarettes with one-dollar bills.

There was Smooth. A chromosomal criminal, unlike some of us. Well educated, extremely cultured, he had been familiar with the good things of life since birth. But while he was schooling in Stanford, USA, the sweet lure of illegal money had been like a siren to him.

There was Amarachamiheuwa. He was personally responsible for the death-by-cardiac-arrest of one of the most prominent businessmen in Brazil, after duping the man out of 115 polo horses.

Cash Daddy arrived exactly two and a half hours after the time he had given me - without Protocol Officer, which meant that he probably had a high-maintenance adulteress waiting in one of the rooms and would spend the night at the hotel. He went from table to table, slapping hands and exchanging wild laughter. These men were not necessarily his friends, but they were all united in the brotherhood of cool cash.

'Pound Sterling!' Cash Daddy said to Kanu. 'The only currency with a surname! I haven't seen you in a long time. I was wondering if the white people had carried you away.'

'Me?' the man replied and beat his chest repeatedly. 'Cash Daddy, me? How? They no afraid to carried me away? O bu na ujo adighi atu fa? Does they knows who I am?'

Amarachamiheuwa's subsequent phone conversation eclipsed every other sound in the building.

'Go to my house right now!' he screamed. 'No, not the one on Azikiwe Road! Go to the one on Michael Opara Crescent! Ask my gateman to show you where I parked my Mazda! It's inside my garage, the one that's very close to my swimming pool! Between my Volvo and my Navigator! Inside the boot, you'll find three briefcases! One contains pounds! One contains dollars! One contains naira! Bring the briefcase with naira for me! Hurry up and come back now!'

Finally, Cash Daddy finished his rounds, sat at a table of his choice and beckoned me to join.

'The usual,' he said to the waitress who sauntered across. She was different from the one who had attended to me earlier.

I ordered oxtail pepper soup to go with another bottle of Coke. Our orders arrived in a jiffy.