Children of the Street - [38]

The railway tower clock was permanently stopped at 5:32. The station, painted light salmon and gray with a corrugated tin roof, seemed sad and wistful. It could have been a beautiful showpiece of old architecture, even a museum, if only someone would renovate it. Dawson could guarantee that nobody would. The building would sit there and rot over the decades.

Squatters’ laundry and mosquito netting were suspended between the columns along the station’s veranda, and to complete the domestic picture, there were pots and pans scattered around. In an area that must have once been a passenger waiting room, a pastor was holding forth through a distorting microphone to a small congregation sitting on blue plastic chairs. Church wasn’t just for Sundays.

Passing through another room where a young man was sleeping with his feet oddly propped up against the wall, Dawson and Patience emerged on the station platform. A group of kayaye sat talking and giggling with one another, their northern Ghana origins obvious from their heavy eyeliner and facial tribal marks.

Dawson and Patience crossed the tracks to the gray brick wall on the other side, where there was a prominent sign, DO NOT URINATE HERE, USE PUBLIC URINAL, a warning that was lost on a young man peeing a few meters away. Far up the tracks was a railway car with nothing to do but rust away.

Kantamanto Market was on the other side of the wall. Dawson and Patience entered the noisy world of buyers and sellers, porters and truck pushers. They passed by a loudspeaker blaring highlife. Raising her voice above the din, Patience told Dawson they were going to stop at Akuffo Junction, an area popular with the street kids.

When they got there, Dawson saw just why that was the case. It was a video game hangout-a narrow, noisy, and airless room with boys from six to eighteen squeezed together on a long wooden bench in front of a row of eight screens. All eyes were glued to the videos flashing before them, but only about every third boy had the use of a console.

“They pay for ten-minute segments,” Patience explained. “It can be expensive, so some of them split the cost two or three ways and take turns playing within each segment.”

“I don’t see how you can compete with the video games for the kids’ attention,” Dawson commented.

She laughed. “I can’t, and I don’t try. I work on the ones waiting their turns outside.”

Patience spotted a cluster of boys loitering on the steps of a shop next door. She walked over to chat. She knew each one of them by name, lightheartedly teasing them and joking with a kind of affectionate toughness. She introduced Dawson casually to them. They had agreed beforehand that she would avoid telling them he was a policeman, at least at the beginning.

“Who knows Ebenezer Sarpong?” she asked them in Twi.

“Brooklyn Gang?” a boy with a green bandanna said.

“Yes.”

“I know him,” he said, “but it’s a long time since I’ve seen him.”

Before he could say anything more, the boys’ attention was drawn away by the approach of a tall, lanky youth of fourteen or fifteen. They broke into a chant.

“Mosquito-Mosquito-Mosquito…”

“We’re in luck, Inspector,” Patience said. “This is Mosquito-he’s in the Brooklyn Gang.”

A smile broke out on Mosquito’s small, tight face as he joined his friends.

“Ei, Mosquito!” Patience exclaimed. “Won’t you ever stop growing? Look, even your trousers are already too short.”

He laughed, shaking hands with her, and then with Dawson after a moment’s hesitation. She beckoned to Mosquito to come with them over to the side where there was less video noise.

“How are you, Mosquito?” Patience asked, seriously now.

“Please, I’m fine.”

“When was the last time you saw Ebenezer?”

He frowned, worried. “He didn’t come back last night. We looked for him everywhere, but we didn’t find him.”

Patience rested her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. “I don’t like to bring bad news to you, Mosquito. I’m sorry, eh? Ebenezer was killed last night. I’m sorry, Mosquito.”

“You say what?” He took a step back. “He was killed?”

“Yes,” she said. “They found him in Jamestown.”

“Oh.” Mosquito nodded. For the moment, he didn’t appear to be completely absorbing it. The full impact would take effect later.

“What time were you expecting Eben last night?” Dawson asked gently.

The boy shrugged. Dawson realized it might be difficult to get information from him right now. The news had thrown his mind into turmoil.

All of a sudden Mosquito looked up at Dawson and then at Patience. Something had struck him.

“Is he a policeman?” He was referring to Dawson as if Dawson wasn’t present.

“Yes, Mosquito. He’s just trying to find out what happened to Eben,” she explained.

Dawson wasn’t prepared for what happened next. Mosquito turned and bolted, gangly legs moving with astonishing speed. Dawson took off after him and followed as the boy took a sharp right down a row of shacks and past a group of butchers waving flies away from their fresh, red meat. He was sure Mosquito was headed to the south side of the market, where he could disappear in the maze of streets, but he ran into an obstacle before he could make it. A crowd was gathered around a fast-talking card trickster. Scrambling to make a path through, Mosquito lost his lead, and Dawson caught up with him as the con artist’s audience yelled insults at Mosquito for upsetting their gathering.