Page 6

A gu’s mansion was exactly like the man—gaudy and choking, despite the vast compound. Over the years, the building had suffered many tasteless modifications like the owner, but the colours had remained steadfast.

White and gold. Ugly on the house, and uglier on the man.

On every golden column, men rested. Clad in oversized black suits, they looked more like a low budget comical MIB than the actual terrorising presence Agu aimed for.

It would be the first thing anyone would underestimate about him.

These MIB clowns had once spread out a man’s limbs on the ground for Agu’s Tundra to ride on because he’d looked at him funny. And Agu had watched, a cigar as fat as his fingers balanced in his mouth, smoke escaping in rings.

The man survived; his legs hadn’t.

Every time Timi had to visit, he prepared himself for the queasiness that accompanied the smell of the tobacco-laced air.

He still couldn't tell if it was a phantom Agu smell his senses couldn't get rid of, or if there was an invisible cauldron in the middle of the compound, burning thousands of Marlboros.

However, the air smelled of nothing when he got down at the car park. Not even the elaborate ornamentation surrounding the house gave off a whiff. Maybe it was possible to have a congested nose without knowing.

Usually, when he visited, everyone else stayed behind until his return. But he found himself throwing Hulk a look when the man remained seated, staring at the house with a pinched expression.

“Never seen a house this ugly before?” he asked; his voice, unnecessarily loud. “You should see the inside. Come.”

The man sent him an unreadable look before getting down and circling the vehicle to join him.

When Nejeere dropped off, Timi had plugged his phone and stalked social media. A dangerous activity Nejeere would have lost her shit about if she caught him.

“When the dogs bark, you hide. You see nothing, hear nothing, type nothing.”

The dogs were feral, their heated snarls melting his bones.

How could human love be so mercurial? Agreed, the topic was sensational.

A top Nollywood star having the audacity to commit the gay crime.

But still…did he deserve being called a bloody faggot with a prolapsed asshole for fucking his way to the top ?

Hulk's gaze had rested on him a few times, probably itching to do what Nejeere may have instructed him.

“Keep him off his phone.” And he'd silently dared him.

But the man had maintained his stoicity.

Far removed from the slightly dishevelled man of earlier, who sang nursery rhymes like a Catholic faithful pelting out hymns and expertly swung children around his body like a mother chimp.

And his nonchalance, for some reason, had ticked Timi off.

They strode silently now across the expansive interlocked compound .

He readied his vacant smile for the usual snobbish greetings from the MIB clowns, but his expectation got dashed to astonished pieces when, instead of nodding like overfed agamas, they began bowing, huge smiles brightening their blank faces.

A stupefied grin was about breaking out on his face, when their voices shattered the illusion they'd decided to lower their noses and treat him respectfully.

“Hey, Alex!”

“Good to see you!”

“How far, guy?”

The endless greetings reverberated around him like croaks of frogs in a yawning swamp.

Timi had no idea what his face was doing. But judging from the air filling his mouth and draining every moisture on his tongue, he probably was gawking...gawping...basically any four-letter word starting with a ‘gaw’.

What in the blazing hell?

The men completely ignored him this time around. Not even one perfunctory nod. Their snobbery wasn't new. Agu had taken him under his wings, and they'd chalked it up as fine-boy privilege.

The whispers had drifted to him a couple of times.

“ The guy think say na fine boy dey run things. His movies are even mid.”

He'd assumed it was a thing with security people, who thought humans without buffed chests and ripped muscles were inferior by nature.

Hulk may have more muscle mass than him but still wasn't close to the bulkiness of many of the men. Yet, there they were, inundating him with reverent bows and smiles.

By the time they walked down a lit hallway, white walls lined with little golden basilisks, and air now heavy with the smell of burning incense, he was pissed for an unclear reason. His initial confidence at facing Agu grappled now with his shoelaces.

A man ushered them into Agu's study and retreated. A capacious space stuffed haphazardly with gold-plated furniture, red drapes, and unremarkable still-life wall paintings Agu had bragged he’d bought for millions of naira.

Timi stood before one. A botched desert painting, with dull yellow sand dunes and a sun looking frightfully like a lollipop.

“You know Agu,” he muttered, when he'd gathered his thought.

“Yes,” Hulk said from where he leaned against a shelf.

Timi shot him a sideways glance. “Why didn't you say so?”

The man returned his gaze steadily. “I didn't know we were headed here.”

“Right.”

“Slimy Chameleon didn’t ring a bell.”

Timi faced the painting before the man saw his lips twitch in reluctant amusement. “You his lackey?”

“Something like that. But this is merely a coincidence.”

He’d seen the reverence. Nobody treated a boy-boy like that. Was Nejeere aware of her recruit's ties with Agu?

“I see,” he muttered.

Hulk's gaze rested heavily on him, but Timi didn't say a word to him again till Agu announced his presence. Booming a “Who do we have here?”

Agu hobbled in his flamboyant flair. Rocking a white agbada embroidered with golden triskelion symbols he’d adopted as his logo, and a cane similar in colour and design he called Oku.

It took some weight off his bad leg, which Timi heard was crushed in a car accident many years ago, with metal replacing some bones.

His plump face, still strikingly attractive for a man his size and age, held a wide grin.

At the doorway, he stooped slightly to whisper to a girl of about six.

Agu’s only daughter and love of his life.

She nodded solemnly and retreated, but not before peeking a shy look at Timi and smiling at his small wave.

Despite their closeness, he could count how many times he’d met Agu’s family. One thing he respected the man for.

The four men who followed him backed out sharply when he settled into his throne chair behind a wide, executive desk.

Another stayed by his side. Standing so upright like a National Assembly mace— one wrong word away from being stripped of its dignity and wielded as a weapon of democracy destruction.

The only good feeling Agu's presence brought Timi was his overpowering perfume choking the acrid smell of cigar smoke he could now perceive. How Agu transformed a mansion into one giant chimney was one of the many miracles the man could perform.

Another had been transforming a fresh-faced twenty-two-year-old into an instant success overnight.

In the grass-to-grace stories Timi sometimes told in seminars and corporate functions, he talked about hunger and tenacity and the whole ' you can get it if you really want kumbaya yada yada ' as his secret to success.

But the tough thing he remembered doing was plastering himself on Agu's windshield like a spider crab in front of his home, shouting his intention to stay on if Agu didn't give him an audience.

Many might perceive that as the tenacity he preached of, but it was the suicidal tendency he'd suffered from.

His motto had been simple; Successful actor or Slipping corpse.

And Agu, the Lion of Entertainment, had been his last hope of breaking the cycle of humiliating minor roles, and being paid with a plastic pack of cold, lumpy rice and cube fishes.

Agu must have taken one look at his crazed eyes and decided to not be the facilitator of his suicide. He'd commanded him to get into his Hummer and had taken him to one of his clubs.

In the red-lit room reeking of cigarettes and cloying perfume, they'd had the most bizarre conversation.

“You're very pretty,” Agu drawled. “Would you do anything?”

“Anything, sir,” his voice trembled. From revulsion or fear, he couldn't tell. Agu looked like he wanted to eat him.

“If you were a girl, I'd have fucked you hard against this leather couch till your legs gave out, then fucked you some more. Ever fucked a cripple?”

He swallowed through a blocked throat. He'd never heard that many fucks fall out of one mouth. “No, sir.” He tried hard keeping his eyes off the leg resting against a cane .

“Tsk. Never really fucked. The sound they make is enough compensation.” Agu reached out a pudgy finger to trace the curve of Timi's lips. “Would you suck my pino-pino if I asked nicely?”

Revulsion clawed at his throat, and he was struck numb with the fear the man had figured him out. A sudden burst of careless laughter was what unfroze his brain.

“You should see yourself,” Agu cackled. “Relax, your body doesn't interest me.”

His sigh shook his entire frame.

“You know what interests me, boy?” Agu had asked.

Timi had been sure of the answer before the whole conversation. “Money?” he asked doubtfully.

“That's right. Money! Minted and crispy. Isn't that why you wanted to kill yourself? For the mulla.”

“I love acting, sir. It’s always been my dream to –”

“Boy.”

“Sir?”

“Does this look like a fucking job interview?”

“No, sir.”

“So, why am I hearing those rainbow words?”

“I'm sorry, sir.”

Agu picked up his glass of whiskey. “I see something in you. That's why I didn't tell Jide to crush you for your insubordination. Did I make a mistake?”