“Please, Sana,” Bruno said. “You yourself told me this was never going to be easy. Now Mr. Ponsu is providing a way to get to Godfather. I told him I can fight the crocodile. He’s testing me. If I back out now, Ponsu will take me as a coward and then it will be all over. Please, I can do it. I have to.”

Concise and clear-eyed in his pitch to Sana, Bruno had convinced him that this was a chance they could not let go. But now the time had arrived and he was staring down the barrel of the actual task, Bruno was as terrified as an aquaphobe in the deep sea. He had made himself out to be a fearless young man who could combat a reptilian beast, and now it was going to take place.

Kweku Ponsu had erected a metal-slatted barrier along the open side of the courtyard, and quite a crowd—mostly boys and young men—had grown behind it to watch the spectacle. A rhythmic scraping sound was one of Kweku’s men sharpening the machete for Bruno.

Ponsu beckoned Bruno to follow him to Frankie the croc’s still-covered bathtub, where two assistants were getting ready to move it closer to the edge of the courtyard. Bruno and Ponsu joined in the effort and on the count of three they heaved the heavy bathtub over a few meters. Frankie didn’t seem to object.

Kweku took up his position at the croc’s tail end and directed Bruno to stand well to the right of the tub. The machete-sharpening guy, a wizened old man, came up to Bruno and handed him his weapon. “Good luck,” he said, without much feeling. Bruno nodded dumbly. His legs were shaking uncontrollably and a chilly wave of fear swept through him.

Kweku told two of his men to slide the tub cover forward enough for him to reach in, grasp Frankie’s hefty tail and straighten it out. The creature hissed but didn’t resist. One of the guys, Issufu, stood at the front ready with a loop of rope tied with a slip knot.

“Bruno, get ready,” Kweku instructed. “As soon as we move the top off, it will try to get out. Issufu will have to get the rope around the mouth. The crocodile will start to turn over and over. When the stomach is up, you have to cut the neck fast. That is the soft part. One time, sharp sharp! You get it?”

“Yes please.”

“Are you ready?”

Bruno nodded. His mouth was parched.

“Open the top,” Kweku ordered calmly.

Two of his men pulled the grate off the tub. Frankie raised his head to the sudden blast of sunlight and opened his mouth wide. Issufu dropped the loop down over the reptile’s top jaw as Kweku pulled on the tail.

“Come back, come back!” Kweku said to Issufu. “Pull, pull!”