While he had been waiting earlier, the King had seen the names of the senior officers on duty scrawled in chalk on a blacked-out square on the facing wall. He recalled them, dropping them into the conversation to see if it would help.
“Is Inspector Johnson in?” he asked.
“He is on leave.”
“But he was with me yesterday!”
“Den go find him in your house.”
“What about Assistant Superintendent Adelabu?”
“What about him?”
“Can I see him?”
“Out.”
“So who is in?”
“Me. Duty Sergeant Okafor, and I go soon go to toilet.”
Finally frustrated, the King handed the policeman a twenty-naira note.
“Ah! Why you never perform before, sir? You are looking for your friend. Is he …?” the sergeant said, and gave an accurate description of Elvis.
“Dat is de one.”
“He was transferred to Tango City.”
“Tango City?”
“Yes. Special Military Interrogation Unit. Deir office is called Tango City.”
“Why Tango City? Where is it?”
“I don’t know. All dis question and you only give me twenty naira?”
“Can’t I bail him?”
“You cannot bail somebody who is not charged,” the policeman said simply.
“What can I do den?” the King asked, sounding broken.
The policeman stared at the King for a few minutes.
“Pray,” he said.
Elvis felt his feet touch the floor. He collapsed in a heap, unable to feel his body. No, that wasn’t quite right. He could feel his body — but as a single sheet of flaming pain. He sat awkwardly on the floor in front of a tin plate of rice and reached for the spoon, but neither arm would move. They dangled uselessly in his lap like a pair of broken wings. He had lost any sense of when his last meal had been, but the smell of the food caused saliva to fill his mouth, dribbling over even as he tried to swallow. He struggled onto his knees. The effort took a long time, causing him to gasp for air, dizzy as hell. Slowly the dizziness passed and he hunkered down and ate out of the plate like a dog; every swallow painful. Exhausted, he sank into the food.
He felt himself being lifted and dragged roughly, then strapped to a chair, the rope cutting into his wrists, knees and ankles. Someone was slapping him roughly, but the mists of unconsciousness claimed him again. He dreamed he was standing underneath a fountain. The cool spray was refreshing, yet it stung his wounds. He opened his mouth to drink and felt its ammonia burn. He woke with a jerk and heard laughter. A soldier stood in front of him, urinating into his face. Spluttering, he shook his head vehemently from side to side to get out of the way, making it pound so violently that he slipped into unconsciousness again. When he came to this time, he was hanging from his arms again. He didn’t struggle against the pain anymore. It was part of him now. It seemed like he couldn’t remember a time when it was not here. It had become essential to him. As long as he was in pain, he was still human.
“Speak,” a voice urged.
He stared. It sounded familiar, but its owner stood in the shadows.
“Stupid boy. Do you think anybody cares whether you live or die? Confess and save yourself.”
His vision cleared and he realized it was the Colonel.
“Why won’t you confess?” the Colonel asked.
Elvis opened his mouth to speak, but his tongue, the size of a thick slice of watermelon, kept getting in the way.
“Beat him some more, Jerome. He is too stubborn,” the Colonel said to someone in the shadows.
Elvis noticed for the first time that he was naked and began to struggle against his chains. He saw a stocky man stripped to the waist step out of the shadows, face heavily scarified. He smiled with a mixture of contempt and pleasure at Elvis’s squirming.
“I never touch you and you dey cry. Today I go show you pepper,” Jerome said.
He walked over to the wall and selected a koboko, the whip about four feet long. He came over to Elvis and showed him the whip.
“De Fulanis use dese on each oder to test who be man enough to marry. A hundred lashes, no sound, or else you still be boy.”
Elvis closed his eyes and tried to block out everything.
“Are you boy or man?” Jerome went on. “Because a boy no suppose to do a man’s job,” he finished and laughed loudly.
Then, whistling softly under his breath, he began rubbing a cool white paste all over Elvis’s body. It felt good, soothing almost. Jerome smiled as he noted his expression. Still smiling, he took Elvis’s penis in one hand and gently smoothed the paste over it, working it up and down. Elvis felt himself swell. Jerome laughed and massaged Elvis’s penis faster and faster. It was not long before Elvis shuddered and shot semen all over his torturer’s hand.
“So you be homo,” Jerome said, laughing breathlessly.
Tears of shame streamed down Elvis’s face.
“De thing is you dey stupid. You think say I dey rub you cream? You must be mad. Dis is chemical and it go burn like nothing you know and when I flog you, you go think say your skin dey burn.”
Already Elvis could feel the slow heat of the concoction burning through the coolness. Jerome brought the whip up and sent it snaking round Elvis’s body. He screamed and Jerome laughed and pulled the whip back, flaying a thin line of skin off. Elvis screamed again.
“Tell me who dis King of de Beggars is. We know you are one of his boys,” the Colonel urged.
“I don’t know him!” Elvis screamed.
The Colonel chuckled.
“You sound like Peter denying Jesus,” he said.
Elvis stared at the Colonel. It was clear he did not recognize him from the club that night, nor did he seem to know that Elvis had been part of the group smuggling the human parts. The beating had stopped. Jerome looked worried and the Colonel approached him and asked what was wrong. Jerome whispered something in his ear and the Colonel nodded and replied. With surprise, Elvis realized that his body was jerking in spasms, probably from the pain. Jerome rushed out and returned shortly with an Indian doctor, and together they brought Elvis down. The intelligence sector chose Indian doctors because it was assumed they had no allegiance to the tortured and so wouldn’t try to kill them, to ease the pain. The doctor felt for a pulse, a heartbeat. There didn’t seem to be any. Elvis couldn’t understand it, because he was wide awake. With a slight frown, the doctor raised a huge horse-sized syringe and stabbed an adrenaline injection straight into his heart. Elvis’s eyes slowly opened.
“Well?” he heard the Colonel asking from a distance.
“He’ll live. But he must rest now,” the doctor said.
When Elvis woke up, he was lying on a mat in a corner of the same room. He sat up slowly, his arms tingling with pins and needles as blood returned. He became aware that in the shadows to his left, Jerome and a couple of armed soldiers stood silently. The Colonel was sitting in a chair. On the floor in front of him, shackled hand and foot, was a man, whimpering.
“Can you speak now?” the Colonel asked, his manner abrupt.
Elvis was not sure if he was talking to him or to the bound man at his feet.
“Answer me when I speak,” the Colonel said.
Before either Elvis or the bound man could speak, the Colonel moved his hand almost imperceptibly and the bound man screamed. Then Elvis saw the blood. The Colonel got up and walked over to Elvis and dropped the bound man’s bloody ear on the floor in front of him.
“Dis is what happens when my questions are not answered,” he said gently. “You look young and confused, and frankly you are not de type I like to torture. I like to break people who think dey are hard. But I will cut you up if I have to. Do you understand?”