The Trinity Game

the railing held.
    He straightened, blew out a breath, went back inside, and checked his e-mail one more time—all quiet at the office—and grabbed a taxi to Jankara Market.
    He wandered among stalls of corrugated steel and sun-bleached canvas, navigated around the beggars, dodged the occasional moped, stopping at the stalls of the artisans, thinking he might find a gift for his boss, who had a birthday coming up. Folk art was always a safe bet.
    In the stall of a juju man he found a stunning crucifix—the cross carved out of ebony, polished to a high gleam. But the corpus was real ivory, so he let it go.
    He moved on, taking in the bright colors and rough textures, shrill sounds and pungent smells of the seventh largest metropolis in the world. Second largest, on what was, but a few generations ago, referred to as the Dark Continent.
    The aroma of charcoal-grilled meat, peanuts, and hot chilies drew Daniel to a smoky green tent across from the voodoo shop, sandwiched between a stall brimming with colorful jewelry, hand-beaded in Nigeria, and one selling counterfeit Gucci and Louis Vuitton handbags, made in Southeast Asia, bribed through customs, and liberated off the back of some transport trailer.
    An old man sat in the swirling smoke, skin dark as ebony and beard whiter than ivory, shifting wooden skewers of various cubed meats around on a rusty hibachi, calling out:
    Suya, Suya!”
    Hanging on the canvas wall, a menu of sorts:
    PORK
    CHICKEN
    BEEF
    GOAT
    Beside the menu hung a line drawing of a snake coiled around a pole, cradling a large egg in its open mouth.
Damballah Wedo
. The Source—Creator of the Universe, chief among the
loa
for the Yoruba practitioners of the Ifa religion, and for practitioners of new-world offshoots like Vodun in Haiti, Santeria in Cuba, Voodoo in America.
    Daniel had been warned not to purchase any animals—dead or alive, cooked or raw—in the market. The meat of cats and carrion birds sometimes masqueraded as chicken, dogs and hyena as beef. The rumor of what passed for pork was too horrible to contemplate. Goat was the safest choice. Goat meat had a taste you could train your tongue to identify, and goats were plentiful, cheap to raise—probably not worth faking. Daniel always ordered goat. He held up two fingers.
    “Eji obuko, e joo.”
Two goat, please
.
    The old man offered a gap-toothed smile and held out two skewers.
    Daniel handed over some bank notes—the equivalent of about twenty-five American cents. He’d have been happy to pay fivebucks, but that would’ve been an insult to the man’s pride, so he just paid the price listed on the menu.
    “E se,”
he said.
Thank you
.
    The old man held up a hand. “Ko to ope. Kara o le.”
You’re welcome. Good health.
    Daniel dodged through the crowd, spotted a quiet alley behind a fruit stand, made his way there, and sat on an empty crate to eat. The
suya
was delicious, maybe as good as that served at the Ikoyi. And he was pretty sure it was goat.
    He wiped his fingers on the rough paper napkin as he stood, turned, and then he saw the boy, six feet away.
    Saw the boy before he saw the gun.
    The boy couldn’t have been more than thirteen. Skinny kid. Too skinny, wearing cutoff jean shorts, two sizes too big and held up with a rope belt, and a once-white T-shirt, threadbare and stained. A small gold cross on a thin chain around his neck. Complexion almost as dark as the
suya
man, eyes set far apart. Eyes more desperate than afraid.
    And then Daniel saw the gun. A snub-nosed revolver, pointing at his chest.
    “Gimme your wallet.”
    Daniel dropped the paper napkin, raised the index finger of his left hand, and slowly fished the wallet from his back pocket, nodding his head the whole time.
    “No problem, I understand.” He kept his tone casual, his face placid. He finished chewing the last bite of lunch, swallowed. “Here’s my wallet.” He opened the wallet, showed its contents. “No plastic, but I’ve got two hundred Yankee dollars, and you’re welcome to it.”
    “Hand it over.”
    Daniel locked eyes with the boy. “Well, now that’s the problem. You can have the money, but only in exchange for the gun.”
    “What?”
    “I’m offering you the money, but I’m buying the gun. It’s a purchase.”
    The kid stared at him, processing. “Then I just shoot you, take the wallet anyway. How you like that?”
    Daniel held the kid’s stare. “I really wouldn’t like that at all. Have you done it