“That’s true,” Nii said. “Sometimes the priest or mallam can make severe demands—like tell you to commit incest or dig up a coffin from the grave and sleep in it every night for two weeks.”

Gordon looked both incredulous and revolted. “Oh, my God.”

“And even,” Nii continued, “those are the easy ones. Every month, the sakawa gets a new ritual he must do. To be rich, you have to do some of the ultimate rituals.”

“How do you mean?” Gordon asked. He had finished his beer and signaled one of the waiters over. “Get me a Smirnoff on the rocks, please.” He turned back to Nii. “What is an ultimate ritual?”

“It involves removing highly treasured parts of the body and giving them to the priest,” Nii said cryptically.

“You’re talking about things like genitalia and so on, right?” Gordon said.

“Yes please.”

“And those are the ones that make you the richest? How much are we talking?” His Smirnoff had arrived, and he started on it.

“Depends on the person,” Nii said, “and what he’s willing to do.”

“And if you don’t fulfill the assigned task?”

“Terrible things can happen.”

“Like what?”

Nii sipped his drink. “I know one guy, the priest told him to sleep with his sister and he refused. After a few days, he had boils all over his body.”

Gordon snorted and shot a dubious look at Susan, but her eyes were down, fixed on the table.

“Please, you say you are writing an article?” Nii asked Gordon.

“Right,” he said, sipping.

“An article for what, please?”

Gordon sidestepped. “What I don’t get is how doing all this ritual stuff can make you more successful at swindling people online.”

“My Audi is outside,” Nii said simply. “You can go and look at it, if you like.”

“I’ll pass,” Gordon said. “I may not understand sakawa completely, but what I do know is it’s out of control. It’s a menace to society.”

The Smirnoff was unleashing Gordon’s tongue and his feelings. Susan’s eyes came up and flicked Gordon a warning.

Nii was wondering what was going on. Was Gordon on to him? “Has something happened to you, please?” he asked Gordon. “I can see you are very upset.”

“Upset? Me? No, not all. I’ll tell you why I’m not upset. Because”—he grabbed his phone from off the table and began to fumble and scroll—“because I came to Ghana to meet this lovely lady. Here she is. See?” He thrust his phone out to Nii. “Yeah, this so-called Helena doesn’t even exist. So why should I be upset?”

“Sarcasm isn’t used much here,” Susan said in a matter-of-fact tone.