Cross Country

next thing I could think of. I got a driver and asked him to take me to Oshodi Market. If I couldn’t get hold of Flaherty, I’d go back to his valued informant. I was quickly running out of options.
    I knew I was in the middle of something bad — but what was it? Why did everybody seem to want me out of the country? What did it have to do with the murder of Ellie Cox?
    It took over an hour to get to the market and another fifty minutes of wandering and asking around to find the rug stall I was looking for.
    A middle-aged man with one dead eye, not Tokunbo, was working today. His English was poor. He nodded at Tokunbo’s name — I was in the right place — but then shooed me off for a customer.
    I couldn’t afford to just hang around hoping for a miracle, so I cut my losses and found my way back to the car. The only Plan C I could think of was to go to the US consulate.
    But then, crawling through more traffic on the way to Victoria Island, I thought of something else. Plan D.
    “Can you pull over, please?”
    The driver stopped on the shoulder behind a burned-out old Ford Ranger. I asked him to pop the trunk, then went around and got my duffel.
    I dug inside, looking for the pants I’d worn on that first day. I’d already trashed the shirt, but I was pretty sure —
    Yes, here were the trousers, smelly and bloodstained from my time in jail.
    I looked in the front pockets, but both were empty.
    When I checked the back, I found what I was looking for, the one thing they’d missed when they took just about everything else at Kirikiri:
Father Bombata’s card
.
    I turned to the driver, who was waiting impatiently for me, half in, half out of the car.
    “How much to use your cell phone?” I asked.

Chapter 73
    TWO HOURS LATER, I was dining in style with Father Bombata in his office at the Redeemed Church of Christ, a sprawling complex right in the heart of Lagos.
    “Thank you for seeing me,” I said. “And for all of this. I was hungry.”
    We were sharing a meal of kudu, squash, salad, and a South African Zinfandel over the expansive desk in his office. The priest’s tiny body was all the more dwarfed by a high-backed chair and the floor-to-ceiling windows looming behind him. Heavy red drapes kept out all but two slits of fading evening light.
    “What happened to your face?” he asked me and actually seemed concerned. “Or should I ask, ‘What happened to the other man?’ ”
    I’d almost forgotten how I looked. The nose had stopped hurting somewhere around Ghana.
    “Shaving accident,” I told him and forced a crooked smile.
    I didn’t want to give one more person a reason to think I should go home on the next available plane. What I needed were allies, not more advice.
    “Father, I’ve gotten some disturbing information about a killer called the Tiger. Do you think it’s possible that there is more than one Tiger? Maybe operating in different locations? Like here
and
in the US?”
    “All things are possible, of course,” he said with a kind smile. “But that is not your real question, is it? Still, I suppose I would have to say yes, it is possible, especially if the government is involved. Or big business. There are a number of employers of killers for hire. It is a common practice.”
    “Why the government? Or a corporation?”
    The priest rolled his eyes, but then he gave me a straight answer.
    “They have the means for controlling information that others might not. And for controlling
misinformation
as well.”
    “Any idea why they would want to do that? Be involved, I mean.”
    He stood to pour me some more wine. “I can imagine any number of reasons. But it would be irresponsible of me to suggest that I actually think it’s happening. Because, truthfully, I have no idea. The name is symbolism —
the Tiger.
You realize that there aren’t any tigers in Africa. Maybe in a zoo someplace.”
    “I know that. In any case, I’m chasing at least one real man here,” I said. “I need to find out where he’s gone. He killed my friend and her family. Other families were murdered too.”
    “If I may?” He looked at a mahogany clock facing him on the desk. “From what you’ve told me, your more immediate need is for somewhere to sleep.”
    “I wasn’t going to ask.”
    “You don’t have to, Detective Cross. I can’t offer you anything here. It’s a risk I would take for myself but not for my congregation. However, I can take you to our men’s shelter. There’s a five-night