I had to explain the transaction in terms Edgar Hooverson could easily understand. I had to convince him that it was risk free and transparent at the same time. I had to make him feel that I was someone he could trust. I had to make him think that he was special, that Fate had recognised his significance in the universe and had decided to reward him at last. I had to make him see how vulnerable I was. I had to make him know how desperately we needed his help, how grateful we would be for any action he took on our behalf. I had to finetune him into believing that every word of my story was true. And then, of course, I had to emphasise my access to a lot of funds which I would gladly share with him as soon as our temporary predicament was resolved.

I strolled across to give Wizard the list of names I had copied out while watching television last night. He was our cyberspace harvester. Using software that could crawl through hundreds of servers, he fetched thousands of email addresses in one go. I encouraged him to always be on the lookout - in movies, newspapers, magazines - for rarer names. At some point or another, the average John or Peter or Smith had probably been blasted by a great number of 419ers, which is why all we were likely to receive for our effort was hate mail filled with four-letter words and clear directions to hellfire - one mugu had even assured me that I would share a stall in hell with Jack the Ripper. But a Wigglesworth or an Albright or a Letterman would most likely be receiving their first ever email blast of all time.

‘Kings, please come and tell me what you think,’ Ogbonna called out from his desk.

I went and studied the letter on his screen.

‘Please, move,’ I said.

Ogbonna shifted away, allowing me space to take over his keyboard. Unlike Azuka and Buchi, he had never made it to university. The level of language in our emails did not matter, though. It was probably just the purist in me. Apparently, mugus were never really surprised to see an African emitting dented English.

When I finished with the corrections and returned to my desk, Mr Hooverson’s reply was waiting. Perhaps it would simply be a ‘Get lost, you orangutan! What a load of balderdash!’ Well, life would simply go on to the next mugu. A new one was born every minute. With heart pounding against my teeth, I opened the email.

‘Kings, Cash Daddy wants to see you,’ Protocol Officer said. ‘Now.’

I clicked Send before I went.

‘Well,’ he once said after reading about a reform-minded gubernatorial aspirant who had been assassinated in Ekiti State, ‘at least it will always be remembered that he died for the cause of democracy.’

Now, his eyes remained transfixed on whatever he was reading on the front page while I sat beside Protocol Officer and waited. At last, Cash Daddy snapped up his head.

‘Government,’ he said. ‘That’s where the real money is. Do you know how much money Nigeria makes from oil? Billions and billions of dollars. And it belongs to all of us. There’s no reason why people like me should not be able to taste some of it. After all, we’re all Nigerians.’

He tossed the newspaper on top of the thick, black Bible that was open to the book of Ecclesiastes on his desk. I glimpsed the bold front-page headline of the story he had been engrossed in.

‘Kings, you’re no longer a little bird,’ Cash Daddy continued. ‘It’s time for you to fly out of the nest. I’m having an important meeting with a mugu next month. Ask Dibia to start sorting out the documents for your UK visa. You’re travelling to London with me.’

My heart jumped twice and somersaulted thrice. My intestines started tying themselves up into tight knots. I had always wondered what England, the celebrated land of my father’s traveller’s tales, was like. But for the first time ever, I was going to be face-to-face with one of our mugus.

‘Why is your face like that?’ Cash Daddy asked.

I must have looked as if I wanted to run up a tree and hide, then uproot the tree and pull it up after me.

‘Kings, there’s nothing to be afraid of. What can a white man do to you? Oyibo people are harmless. It’s not today I started dealing with them. There’s no reason why you should be afraid.’

Yes, I had reason to be afraid. The Columbine murderers and the Unabomber and Dr Harold Shipman. I forced my face to look less terrorised.

‘Where are those documents?’ Cash Daddy asked.

Protocol Officer whipped out a sheaf from a folder in front of him. This one must be big. Cash Daddy had boys working for him in Amsterdam, Houston, London. As a godfather, he hardly ever got directly involved in a job unless the dollar prospects were colossal - large enough to require a foreign bank account. He was the only one who knew the details and locations of these foreign accounts, the only one who dealt directly with the bankers.

‘Kings, read them,’ Cash Daddy said.

I started with the business proposal on top of the pile. The left corner of my mouth twitched slightly.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘No . . . nothing.’

‘Why were you laughing?’

‘I wasn’t—’

Protocol Officer chuckled. That gave me the confidence to tell the truth.

‘Is that his real name?’ I asked.

‘No, no, no, no,’ Cash Daddy reprimanded in a soft, serious voice. ‘You people shouldn’t laugh at him. Do you know that this is the man whose money is going to feed your children and your children’s children and your children’s children’s children?’

On that note alone, the mugu could be forgiven. After all, his money was all that really counted. But what on earth had the man’s ancestors been thinking when they took a name like Winterbottom upon themselves?