The Magician's Predicament

Copyright © 2022 Sa'ad Ibn Sa'ad

All rights reserved

The Magician’s Predicament is a trademark of Saad Ibn Saad books. The moral right of the copyright holder has been asserted. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the

subsequent purchaser.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Other books by this author

Broken (A short Romance)

The Judgement

ONE

COURTNEY LEANED HER HEAD carefully on my shoulder as we bumped our way through the sea of people in the arrival hall.

I flipped over the last page of the book, HYPNOSIS, by Liam Anderson, that had kept me company through the flight, and traded it for a deck of cards which I began to shuffle. I was burning to share with Courtney, some ideas I had picked from the book about hypnotism, but the distant look in her eyes, suggests I had to save it for later.  

She was exhausted. Poor Courtney had never been outside the four corners of Texas. The journey to Nigeria was already bearing down on her. She had insisted on coming along in the first place and made David Battise hate me more.

David Battise was my father-in-law and one of the richest men in Texas, with a large business empire, and a network of conglomerates scattered across the United States worth millions of dollars. David Battise had always felt I was two features bad for his daughter. I was black and I was poor. My poverty could have been overlooked if I was white, and my blackness could have been disregarded if I was rich, but the combination clinched his hate.

When Courtney told him she was leaving with me for Nigeria. He had raised hell, but he couldn’t talk her out of the idea, as he couldn’t talk her out of marrying me. No one could talk her out of anything.

I spotted our ride outside the Airport terminal. A 2016 Rolls Royce Dawn. A bald man, wearing a thick soul patch and had eyes rich in worldly experience held a placard saying “Mr. Charles Biggs Hoddini” as he leaned on the Royce. He misspelled Houdini, but I had no intention of breaking the news of his bad spelling skills to him, for probably it might break his heart.

“Charles Houdini” I said, giving him my hand.  

He took it warmly with a thin smile. “Johnson” he replied.

“I am to be your driver through this vacation”

“Wow” I exclaimed, and we exchanged further, what seemed like pleasantries and I playfully pat his chest.

He took our luggage to the car trunk and got in to drive as we settled into the cushy backseat. Chief Christopher Lewis sure knows how to treat a guest.

Chief Christopher Lewis was our host, the only Nigerian friend that my father-in-law had largely for business reasons. He was to have his birthday party in a week time and I was to grace the party doing what I do best, Magic. But I had a personal reason for coming to Nigeria. I came to find whoever was left of my family. Particularly, my younger sister, Lewa.

I took a last look at the Airport as I felt the earth shake slightly beneath us and the piercing cry of an airplane taking off made it out to our ears. I watched as much as the racing car would allow, the inflow and outflow of people through the expansive opening of the terminal. I plan to walk through the terminal with Lewa by my side on my next visit to the airport. I pray fifteen years hasn’t robbed us of the loving siblings that we used to be.

I realized quickly that Johnson was my kind of man, a keen talker. While he drove, we talked about sports. How he ridiculously thought Arsenal could jump up the league table by thrashing the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool, to politics, where he was keen on the fact that the American Presidential race was a walkover for Trump against Hillary. We kept transitioning from topic to topic. He seemed to know so much and consequently knew so little. All the while, Courtney couldn’t stop yawning.

“Here we are” he turned and beamed at me as he stops before the majestic structure we are to be hosted in. It was twenty stories high and close to a football stadium-wide, every inch was of luxury. I never knew Nigeria had five-star hotels, as this qualifies as one.

“Wow man, are we really in Nigeria”

I caught the surprise in Courtney’s eyes too. We had been expecting to fill Chief Lewis’s residential space and bear with the limited privacy it could offer or make do with a lesser standard hotel. My father-in-law had refused to sponsor our trip in retaliation to his daughter’s disobedience to come with me and I was too neck-deep in his support and forced to save face on a magician’s pay to make the trip a very flamboyant one. Though Courtney didn’t care, I did.

Johnson pulled down and was taking our luggage into the hotel when I stopped him.

“Keep your eyes on me and the card. Man” I said, showing him the deck of cards and I gave it a hard shuffle. He complied, more from impatience than enthusiasm for whatever I wanted to do.

“Do you Magicians ever resist an opportunity to show off?” Courtney chipped in.

My attention remained on the driver. “Among the cards you see, remember one and keep that card in your mind”.

I positioned the top side of the deck towards him so that only he could see the cards when I snapped them up.

Then I snapped the cards up briefly and watched him do as I had told. Satisfied. I spread the cards for him to see. “What card did you see and kept in your mind” I asked.  

“A joker” he replied reluctantly.

“Can you see the card now in the deck”

He searched the cards with his eyes furtively for a while, then he pushed them forward inquiringly and even peruse the deck with his thick fingers, and still, he couldn’t find his card. Then shock crept into his face. The kind of shock I liked seeing on people’s faces. “Where is the card” he shouted.

“Your pocket” I said and watched him scramble into his pockets anxiously. He finally found his card in his chest pocket, where I had patted him earlier, and by then, I and Courtney were already halfway to the Hotel reception. I turned to give him a professional smile for his trouble.

The hotel manager came to receive us personally. He looked proud and splendid in his Burberry suit with its huge jacket. His massive body rested on tiny legs.

“Welcome to Heralton Hotel, Mr. And Mrs. Biggs” he said, throwing on his best host-ful smile. The kind reserved for the richer cadre of customers.

I smiled for both me and Courtney as she was too tired and bored to try.

Some bell-hops rushed our luggage from Johnson’s hands, taking them ahead of us.

“This way to your suite” he smiled as he led us to the elevator, then our suite, not forgetting to feed us the usual niceties, five-star hoteliers feed customers perceived to be worth more than five zeros. How they are excited to have you. How they are the best in the country and got a load of relaxation amenities of the billionaire standard and how you would love it in their hotel.

He wasn’t wrong though. I certainly would love it here. We were given a penthouse, with furnishings and interior decor that gave an image only Picasso could reproduce in art. There were two cushy divans in the sitting room and kingsize divan beds with duvets wraps in the bedrooms. The kinda combo that brought sweet dreams and I was obsessed with sweet dreams. The balcony offered a scintillating view of how this part of Nigeria, and also what a grand swimming pool looks like from twenty floors high.  

At about now, the pool was a women affair. Ladies in swimming trunks swam leisurely in what looked like a mini blue sea.

It was times like this, I wished I wasn’t married. I could have been Minister for women's affairs down in the pool now. No doubt about it, I love my wife, but God created billions of walking temptations for the male folks for Godsake!

A report of busy feet behind me jolts me back to reason. I did the most sensible thing a married man could do at the time. I turned immediately from the balcony and approached her before she did me.

“I have to go find my sister” I said before she could comment on why I had spent too much time staring outside the balcony.

“Now” she exclaimed, turning back for our luggage whose content she had been unpacking. She likes to do these things herself and would let no one the opportunity. “Can’t you wait till tomorrow?”

“I have to go find her as quick as I can, it's been fifteen years, remember”

“Tomorrow is just a day away, an extra day could do no harm that fifteen years hadn't”.

“I just have to do this now”

She sighed leisurely. “If that’s the case then, give me some seconds, I want to find a space for her” She said, scanning the bedroom for where to place a little statuette of Mary, carved on a gold plate inside a glass box.

“You are certainly not thinking of coming with me” I said, although, it was obvious.

“Darling, you forgot, we Bonnie and Clyde, Romeo and Juliet. I am your signature as you are mine” she commented as she found a space for Mary, above one of the bedside draws.

I wanted to say something to that effect but stopped, knowing it would make no difference. “You can come with me, only on one condition”

“And that's”

“Wear something.....” I couldn’t find the words “Sleek” I decided later, deliberately taking a condescending roll of the eye at her churchy outfit of a light yellow blouse tucked into a high-waist and long pleated skirt and long stockings. She certainly wasn’t dressing like an heiress to millions of dollars. “You aren’t going to see the Lord Jesus for Godsake, and rapture ain’t happening tonight”.

My wife was a stunner if she wanted to be one. With a face like the Australian actress, Bella Heathcote, but with full firmer lips, and thick from the waist down, with nice sensual hips and an average bust. I suspect I and her only high school fling are the male witness to the killer body beneath the dreary churchy attires she hides it behind.

“I am not wearing such dress as that in your corrupt mind”

“My sister, cousin, in fact, my entire family would be so critical of your dressing, they not so religious”

“Are you sure” Skepticism in her voice. Her gaze slid towards her statuette of Mary as if to seek her approval.

I knew I had scored a point as I nodded affirmatively. She was silent for a while before she muttered “Ok”

Yeah!. I mentally celebrated my victory.

“But I don’t have such a dress” she exclaimed.

I smiled. “That’s the easiest trick up my sleeve” I picked up the telephone and dialed for room service. In a minute, a lady appeared in the doorway. I told her to take a good look at Courtney and get her something slightly corrupt but graceful and also have her tell the driver to get our car ready as we would be going sightseeing soon.

She nodded in compliance and left, and after about thirty minutes she came back with just what I wanted, a red short Sheath gown that barely touched the knee.  

Courtney showered and forced herself into the dress. It accentuated her shape as I wanted it to. I could see that secret spark of a newly inducted corruptible in her eyes, although she struggled to make eye contact with the statuette.

I showered also and dressed. Then I took her hands and together we strolled out of the room.

The driver was waiting for us in the Royce, warming up the engine when we got in. He was a little shy as he asked for the address and I read it to him. He rarely said much during the drive as much as I tried to get him into a chatty mood. He must be feeling bad that I did magic on him, but I can’t help being a Magician.

No 30 Bode George street was a modern bungalow helmed between others of similar character. It had been more than a decade since I saw houses so stacked together that every house shared a fence with another. It was different in the States where everyone was so conscious of his/her privacy.

I had dreamt of living in such a big bungalow when I was a kid. My Dad was an illiterate railway worker, which meant he was bound to the bottom ladder. He barely made enough to feed his polygamous family of fifteen, and he abused the very idea of a self-contained apartment. We practically slept over each other most time. I had been happy when my maternal uncle, Uncle Tony, who was resident in America came to Nigeria for an event and took me with him to America, as my father was too arrogant to receive financial aid from any of his wives families.

The paradise Uncle Tony built in my mind of America began to shatter when I discovered he had no plans for my future except to sexually abuse me. The bastard was a bi-sexual and his wife whom he shared a bed every night had not the slightest idea.

I could remember trying to escape his vice-like grip whenever he crawls into my room and bed, his thick hands on my mouth, bloating my screams. I shut my eyes forcefully as painful memories flood my mind. I fought back the memories as Courtney took my hands in hers and squeezed them gently.

Always the sensitive wife. I thanked God I had her in my life. We had met two years ago, when I crashed into a fancy restaurant she was dining at and did close-up magic for her and a group of naughty ladies. The chemistry had been spontaneous and explosive that two months after, I was courting her. Three more months later, we had walked ourselves down the aisle.

She was the best wife any man could pray for. She supports my every decision and had encourage me to come down to Nigeria and track down my family as I had lost contact with them for fifteen years after running away from my uncle's supposed care.

Utilizing the benefit of the computerized world, we live in now, I had try to track my family on the internet, so as to narrow my search when I get to the country. And by sheer luck, I found my sister’s FACEBOOK page, I couldn’t chat with her as she’d last used the media a year ago but I scrounged some little information from her page. That I had been an orphan five years back, and a brother-in-law to a Police officer three years back. I also got a phone number that I could call her on and an address I could trace her to. But unfortunately, the number had never gone through and I prayed the address did better, as we got off the Royce and walked through an opened gate to a door.

As courtesy demanded, I knocked and called out to whoever was in the house. The silence that greeted me raced my heart. Courtney’s hands on mine seem to pump my veins with courage and I continued to knock and call out, but with each knock and shout of mine came a louder silence. I was finally devastated after series of attempts and grabbed the obvious. I felt like I had once again been pulled far apart from some part of me.

Courtney drew me closer. “Don’t be sad love, you will find her someday soon” she cooed, then she placed my hands on her waist and led me to the Royce. “Tonight, don’t think more of anything else than corrupt your wife”

“I like that” I chuckled. “Mother Mary is gon be soo pissed”

TWO

AS IF A HUGE FLORESCENT lamp has been turned on, the moon basked the whole of Lagos in a sparkling bluish glow on this late February night. Somewhere in the heart of Lagos; Ajegunle, Dennis Ishaku, donning his signature look of a single breasted suit, a T.M Lewin tie and an Oxford plain-toe was conducting business as usual, at a time when much of Lagos had succumbed to their beds.

Dennis always made an effort not to look what he was, a ruthless baron of the Lagos underworld, who has written his name in the Lagos underworld with blood and in return had gained wealth, a reputation for cruelty and respect from everyone in the underworld, and thus, was the favourite for the underworld's clientele with Chief Lewis being his immediate client. Dennis was anything from a drug baron, a political thug, a crime boss, down to a killer, as long as the prize was right.

Dennis appeared as an ordinary man, with short birdlike features and cold deep-set eyes, and have as his trademark for violence, a thick jagged scar from a bottle wound, running like a spiral from his chin to the back of his neck.

He pranced around with purpose, keeping an hawk-eye on his boys as they unload boxes from a truck, and move it into the bungalow. Safe for the rush of their feet, and their indistinct chatter as they go about their activities, the night was deadly still. The assignment was simple, receive the goods that came from Chief Lewis’s connections in Ghana and warehouse them. The receiving end had been handled perfectly, and now remains warehousing. Dennis had chosen the perfect warehouse for the job, a fenced nondescript bungalow in Ajegunle, and as much as he could see now, the operation was going smoothly, it has to be, he thought, he would hate for Chief Lewis’s endless naggjngs. Chief was very good at that.

Bored from standing for long, Dennis decided to follow the boxes through the different points of exchange between the men, till they got to their final destination, which was a large makeshift storeroom in the bungalow. He knew his boys feared him greatly than to pilfer the goods, but sometimes a criminal couldn’t help being a criminal and none of his boys was otherwise.

He watched Collins, a big sweaty man unload three boxes from the truck and carried them into the sitting room where another big man, Peter, took them from him, just as Collins retraced his steps to the truck. The boxes went from Peter to James, a man with a hawk-like face in a corridor that cut into the storeroom, and as the boxes were about to change hands with Jentry in the storeroom, he made a discovery. The boxes had originally been sealed with tapes, but now, one of them had had it tape removed.

He pretended not to have discovered anything and went back to the truck to investigate, watching keenly from as far as possible. From the truck to the sitting room, from Collins to Peter, the boxes were still sealed, then as it went from the sitting room to the corridor, from Peter to James, the magic happened.

The magician was Peter, he’d had a go at the box on his way to James. Now he had a scapegoat to skin. Dennis thought, grinning sardonically as he ordered Jerry, his right-hand man, who had been supervising the operation from the truck's end to go and fetch Peter and his stash.  

Jerry was a stocky man, with a thick neck and fleshy jaw, and a great resume and experience on criminality ranging from armed robbery, arson, and down to kidnapping, that he’d featured numerous times on the Police Most Wanted criminal’s chart. He was a criminal, and his face refuses to hide that very fact from anyone who sees him.

Jerry marched into the bungalow, with a cynical smile on his lips. In no time he was dragging a wailing Peter out to Dennis and dropped a heavy plastic bag before him.

“That’s it boss” He grins at Dennis, while Peter was wailing and pleading furiously on his knees.  

The news traveled fast amongst the others and before long, everyone had paused in their separate tasks to gather and witness Peter’s fate.

Dennis wished he could just shoot Peter right on the spot, but this was an important operation, and he needed all the manpower he could get. He was sure as hell, going to make Peter regret stealing from him. He snatched a thick wood by the wall, gripping it with both hands, he flogged Peter mercilessly, but still enough to keep him alive and able for the job he needed him for. He kicked him away after savagely and Peter scampered to safety. The message was simple and clear to the others “It could just be you if you touch a dime of what you are to guard”.

Dennis gave instructions to Jerry to have the pilfered goods repacked, and everyone return to their tasks. Then he dusted his knuckles and plucked a white London from his pocket and lit it. As he dents the air with successive puffs of smoke he accessed the area, mentally weighing the pros and cons of an invasion but so far, he found none.

No one knew they received the goods today except his boys, and no one would suspect an ordinary bungalow in such a local area. So far, he was safe, he thought. But then, he had no idea, that a drunken Peter had shot his mouth in a bar just two days ago to anyone who'd care to listen and his plan was already public knowledge. Most of Peter’s listeners had thought it the words of a drunk, but a few had thought otherwise.

Immediately the last box made it outside the truck, Dennis jumped into it, as Jerry shut the carriage compartment, and walked over to the gate, grinning. An habit which displeased Dennis, who couldn’t hold the sneer on his lips as he gave his last instructions. The gate was opened for him after and he sent the truck into the night. He wasn’t expecting trouble, he’s never had one. He never knew that was about to change.

Daniel and Agbari watched Dennis leave, after hours of patiently waiting for his departure. The plan could go nowhere if he was around. They knew him by reputation. And by reputation, he was the cruelest man on earth. The more reason to abort this mission, Agbari thought, he shuddered in himself. He wasn’t exactly keen on Don Clinton’s assurance that at the man’s exit, it was an easy snatch.

“Eazie Pizie” he called it, flashing his ancient yellow teeth, and you don’t argue with Don Clinton, not if you still love your original body arrangement.

Both doors of the truck were pulled and Duma and Wale squeezed themselves in. “This is very dangerous, we might not get out of this alive....” Agbari rambles.

The rest knew from experience to let him go on.

“Nothing's going to go wrong if you follow my plan” Wale assured after.

“If I still remember, your last plan landed me in jail for four years”

“That’s because you were too lazy to shut the door and allowed a bystander to know what was happening in the supermarket” Wale sneered.

“Let’s just do as he says, I don’t see why we need a plan anyway” Duma, a man with a dome-like head and shifty eyes said.

“Just get on with whatever the plan is, we don’t have all night” Daniel chipped in.

“I have watched the place” Wale began enthusiastically, “the security is as easy to break through as cutting knife through butter. There are eight men in total guarding the place. Two up front and another two at the back, the last four are moving about the area. Now, the plan is that Agbari is going to take some harmless bangs to the back and throw them in repeatedly. The guys would be confused and rush to the back. The fence is short and isn't wired so we can jump in at that time of confusion and finish them up”

“And you think this would work” Agbari challenged, but he saw no reason to complain anymore since he was handling the easy end of the job.

“I don’t care if it works or not. Let’s just get this thing over with” Duma said. Then he grabbed his Glock from the glove box and dropped off the truck. The rest geared up immediately after him.

It began as a series of bangs, then noises of gunshots that for a while, seemed to never end, coming from the bungalow at uneven intervals, bellying cries and woes of pain. It woke no one and discomforted no one. In this little part of the world, gunshots were as normal as a cockcrow. The four men came out of the gate thirty minutes later, smiling but exhausted. They were alive but with few bruises, they couldn’t say so for the other men. Agbari was urged by the rest to drive the truck into the compound, while Daniel and Wale pulled the gate open for him.

Eazie Pizie Agbari thought as he engaged gears. Don Clinton was never wrong.

THREE

ONE CANNOT SLEEP ON a bed worth millions of naira and expect not to wake up feeling fine and invigorated. I stretched onto the floor yawning immediately my eyes came apart. I dragged myself to the balcony, as was my morning ritual since I came into the country, to take in the view of a new morning. This morning’s view was superb. It was clear, bright, and blue. As I watched the busy world below, I thought of the busy day I had ahead of me.

I had practice with my assistants at 10 am which was to last till 7:00 in the evening, though with some interludes for breaks, and also an appointment with my host an hour after, Chief Christopher Lewis, who I have yet to see because of the series of travels he had embarked on, shortly before my arrival.

Since my assistants arrived two days ago, it’s been non-stop practice. I had never flopped on a show before and I don’t plan on making this one an exception.

I enjoyed the view for a while, filling my lungs with the crisp morning air, then I went back into the room and picked a deck of cards from the bedside table. I bent to kiss Courtney on the cheek, she was still nuzzled under the duvet asleep. Then I sat for some practice.

For an hour, I practiced. I tried new techniques of dealing and hiding a preferred card from the deck anywhere in the deck, invented some stylish ways of doing unnoticeable card breaks, found new ways to multiplicate and de-multiplicate cards, and was able to achieve the swapping of cards, KINGS TO QUEENS, DIAMONDS TO SPADE, HEART TO CLUB and so on, with the sleight of hands, and speed of light.

I dumped the cards and stood up when my stomach began to agitate for its morning due. Courtney still hadn’t woken up, she was a late riser.

I decided I would rather visit the hotel’s diner than have my food brought up. I brushed and showered and within minutes, I had found my way to the hotel’s diner.

Cutleries were dancing everywhere around me as I glance through the menu of the foreign dishes. I hadn’t gotten used to Nigerian dishes yet, though, I do miss them.

A waitress came by my table and waited patiently for my order. She was a beautiful tall thing, but extraordinarily flat, so I didn’t give her much thought, but I chatted her up on harmless topics.

I was surprised to find Pot Roast on the menu, so I ordered it and gave further instructions, that it should be cooked with red wine and that the same red wine be brought with the food. She made a courteous bow and left.

I brought out a deck of cards to kill boredom with when I caught a lady through my peripheral vision walking down the stairs into the diner. There was something about her that raced my heart, and I shifted my full concentration onto her. She was a walking portrait of Regina Hall in her late thirties, not so much in looks but damn well in curves.

She had the kind of curves that could strip a man to his last dollar to get his hands on them. It was like she cast a spell onto the room, half a thousand male eyes were on her every movement. Her smile said she knew the effect she was causing in the room and enjoyed it.

I thought her eyes had the character of naked steel as she steers them towards me for a brief moment and I saw a wink that says YOU’RE INVITED. And Man, how I needed an invitation.

There was a clumsiness to the way she rode her stiletto, but I wouldn’t hold a grudge to that. Just like most male eyes in the room, I followed her movement to a table near the glass wall of the hall, overlooking a private street.

She dropped a purse and a cigarette case onto the table and sat with a leg over another. Then she bent to fish something from her bag. Before she could succeed, I was already at her table, offering a lighter. I thanked my luck I had one at the ready. I wasn’t so keen on smoking but I like to indulge once in a while when Courtney wasn’t looking.  

She raised her face to me and smiled, the steel in her eyes refuse to melt still. She opened the case and dropped a cigarette to her lips, and leaned forward so I could lit it for her.  

As she released a cloud of smoke to the air, she said. “How did you know I needed a lighter, Mr.” Her voice was songlike, the kind that must have ridden Marian Carey to stardom, or maybe I was just imagining it. I have an imaginative mind when it comes to beautiful women.

I gestured to the cigarette case. “A man in my profession must be a keen observer. If I may ask, what name does the beauty go by?” I smiled.

“And what profession might that be” she asked, deliberately disregarding my question.

“A Magician or better put an Illusionist”

“Oh! A trickster” she said, no enthusiasm or excitement in her words. I hadn’t expected her to fall on her knees with joy at the mention of me, being a magician, but I hadn’t expected this level of coldness either. “So what else did you observe about me, Mr. Magician”

“Nothing important, nothing that says me and you couldn’t get to share more than a table talk”

“Let me get to choose what is important or not. Tell me what else you observed about me. You don’t know, you might have me on your bed with such a show of sincerity. That’s what you men ever want anyway”

“Ok” I gave in. “This is your first time on the stiletto, and also probably your first time wearing such ladysome dress. So my guess is that you are a woman who just hit some money and thought to spend them on herself. Ain’t I right?”

I saw her gaze falter briefly, then she was quiet for a while, as if thinking about the validity of my analysis, but I knew she wasn’t.

I was shocked when she suddenly got on her feet. “We'll have fun another time, Mr. Magician, but for now, I need to be somewhere else” she picked up her things and walked away.

“You could at least do me the honour of knowing your name and number, so this meeting doesn’t get to be a once-in-a-lifetime” I called out to her.

“You are a magician, conjure it up somehow” she returned over her shoulders.

I had many tricks in my repertoire to break a woman, but I figured they will all be useless on her. She was a PUZZLE. She let out no emotion whatsoever to get a grab at her feelings. She intrigued me as a gun might intrigue a criminal, that when the waitress finally traced me to the new table with my food, I couldn’t help but ask.

“Who is the lady, that just left? She seems to be someone familiar” I said.

The waitress turned to have a look at her. “She” she stressed. “Just came in two days ago and booked a suite on the nineteenth floor under the name of Josephine Phillip, no extra information”

“Is she with a partner”

“No. She's alone”

“Do you know if she made mention to the receptionist about someone coming to visit anytime soon, probably her lover”

“I can’t answer that”

I pushed a 20-dollar bill across the table. “Can I get an answer to that” I added another 20-dollar bill. “How about the number to the suite on the nineteenth floor”

She snatched at the bills greedily and tucked them into her bra. I wondered if she wasn’t scared of cancer. “It’ll be ready before evening” she sashayed away, the tray with which she had brought my food dangled in her wake.  

I watched her go out of curiosity, considering how much of a lay she could have been if she was more endowed on both ends, then I turned to my Pot Roast.

After eating and downing the wine to my fill, which left a fruity taste on my tongue, I checked my watch to find that I was a few minutes late for practice. I practically raced myself as much as the elevator would allow, to Room 400 on the thirteenth floor which was our practice venue.

I entered the room to find Jack preparing the others to practice some of the tricks they could without me, before my arrival.

I shot him that I-am-grateful smile as I walked further into the room. Jack was a sweet white guy from the same American tribe as my wife; Alabama Coushatta. He was more of an apprentice than my assistant and he always took it upon himself that things run smoothly even in my absence.

“Ar was ya night, boss. Hope it was swell” Jimmy, the youngest in the crew. A black sweet overzealous kid, whom I had to do a lot of convincing to his Mama before she could let him come with us to Nigeria said to me and offered a handshake, which I took.

Dana, the only lady in the crew for now, as the other lady Bennie couldn’t make it to Nigeria, because of some personal issues, also breathed her greetings to me. She was the quiet gentle type and was another Coushatta, and also happens to be my wife’s cousin. She was the perfect female assistant I could have on stage but the worst to have a conversation with, she only replies in Ums, Ems, and Oks.

“So let’s get on with practice” Jack said, and with that came a chaos of activities that lasted for hours, punctuated by a two-hour evening break and continued again until 7 pm when we bid each other goodbyes.

Just like everyone, I was extremely exhausted after the practice, there had been so much to practice for. There was a dress-changing trick, where Dana would have to change over thirty dresses with great speed. There was also an appearing and disappearing trick, where I would have to make Dana appear and disappear in a specially made box, and also a host of other tricks. As I had said, I wasn’t ready to flop what seem to be my first Nigerian show.

It had been an effort so great as lifting Mount Everest to keep Josephine Phillip off my mind all through the practice. Except for my wife, no woman has ever affected me the way she did. She dominated my mind and clouded my thoughts. Every lady I see seems to remind me of her. So far, only my wife had proven an exception to that, perhaps, because of her churchy dressing, which she had resumed into, I thought as I walked into her waiting embrace when I got to our suite.

We kissed. And for the first time in our marriage, there was no love behind the kiss.

Her eyes took on a dark note as I walked past her to the bedroom. “Something wrong” she inquired.

“Nothing” I turned to her and said “Just exhausted from practicing all day, darling”

“When has being exhausted from practicing stopped you from showing your wife some love”

“Today” I said and regretted saying that immediately.

I watched her expression metamorphose from confusion to anger. Before she could launch into a nagging spree, I shut the door on her.

She didn’t bang the door as I knew she wouldn’t, but I knew she must be hurting right now, and crying out in the sitting room. I would have to forgo the appointment with Chief Lewis because I couldn’t bear to walk out of the bedroom to see her crying. I knew I had wronged her, but I couldn’t help it, Josephine Phillip seem to occupy every inch of my mind that I could barely think of anything other than her. It was so great that the next morning, I was the first customer to walk into the diner, waiting for the previous waitress.

I could barely hold myself to my seat when I saw her walking into the restaurant, dressing on an apron. She must have sensed my devastation, as she came straight to my table.

“She’s expecting no one and is in suite 956” she said discreetly, pretending to drop a laminated menu on my table and left, wiggling the little she had for my benefit.

I was before suite 956 in two minutes. I thumbed on the doorbell and it gave a loud shrill for a minute before the door was opened. Josephine appeared before the doorway in a bum-short and tank-top.

“Not you again, isn’t it too early in the day to go pussy hunting” she said, trying to shut the door on me, but my foot was already in the way. It would take more than a closing door and some sarcastic comments to stop a determined me.

“It wouldn’t hurt to hear me out Miss”

She hesitated, then she released the door and I walked in.

“Say whatever you want to say and get the hell out” she said, receding into the room.

I made no effort to reply her instead I settled on her sofa.

“Didn’t you hear what I said, get on with whatever you want to say and get the hell out”

I smiled at her. “Take the top card” I said, thrusting a deck of cards toward her.

“And how does that help you get the hell out of my room”

“Just take it” I pressured.

She eyed me maliciously for a while before she bent and picked up the card. At that instant, I released a string in my shoulder and a force pulled her straight into me, I steadied her on my lap.

“I know you like me as I do you, so why not stop with your theatrics and give me a chance”

She slapped my hands off her and made to stand up but I pulled her back and kissed her. I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t resist. I knew I hadn’t misread the invitation. I knew she had me on her mind as I did her, but I couldn’t explain why she made me play the long game of breaking her resistance.

I grabbed her into me tightly, so tight, that we could feel each other's heat. And my tongue plundered into the recesses of her mouth, seeking every pleasure she had to offer. We were still on intense foreplay when we started undressing each other, and then had an explosive sex, the kind I had never had with any woman in my life, not even my wife.

After an hour, we were spread out, exhausted on the floor. Our clothes made a little heap on the center table, which was of pure glass, that it reflected my face. I didn’t see a cheating husband or a man who had just made the biggest mistake of his life, or a man who had forgone his practice for the day for an upcoming important show just for some random sex. I saw a man who was happy and satisfied with the lady by his side, that he could conquer the world just to spend more time with her.

“So tell me about your job, Mr. Magician” she said, trailing her fingers on my airy chest and pulling feebly at the hairs.  

The sex must have made me overexcited that I told her many things about me, even down to some details I hadn’t shared with my wife. But I was wise enough not to tell her that I had a wife, who right now had no idea that her husband was cheating on her. I told her also about why I came to Nigeria, about my family, and Chief Lewis’s party. The over-excitement must have been so great that I even told her about every trick I was to perform at Chief Lewis’s party down to the last details. Then I grabbed her again for another round of explosive sex.

FOUR

DENNIS WAS TO RECEIVE Jerry’s report every twenty-four hours, but for two days, no report came. With no hope of a report forthcoming from Jerry on the third day also, Dennis realized something had gone wrong on Jerry’s end, Jerry was never the kind to joke with his orders.

Dennis was worried, he was thinking. A glass of whiskey was within reach on a golden mahogany office desk, hosting among a few other things, a name tag, calendar and a little cabinet of documents that forms part of the disguise for the illegal business and deals ran and sealed within the office walls.

But no one would dare to rob him, he thought. He had his reputation to ensure that. In his twenty years at criminality, he’d never had problems with any of his operations. Or was he wrong, was there someone foolish enough to steal from him?. There was only one way to find out, he dragged the telephone on the desk closer. As he slapped the receiver to his ear, he thought, Jerry better had a good explanation ready for all this.

Dennis heard it ring from his end, but no one answered the phone. He tried again and met the same response, likewise his next try and the next. He didn’t wait to hear the ring the next time as he threw the receiver to the desk with a frustrated grunt. He had to accept the inevitable. He has been robbed.

Dennis knew he couldn’t go to the bungalow immediately. From his windows, he could already see the golden glow in the sky, as the sun moved to retreat for a dark moon. He couldn’t do much at night. He forced himself to wait till the next day and at first light, he was before the bungalow.

The gate was very much open, and it looked to have been so for a long time, and also, the environment was unnaturally quiet, almost like a graveyard on a Monday. Dennis knew what to expect as he cut the engine of his Mercedes and marched into the compound.

The coppery smell of blood was strong likewise was the sickening stench of rotting bodies. The combination was enough to knock the air out of anyone, as was the carnage he saw around him. But none had an effect on him, he'd seen so many dead bodies for a few to throw him off.

Jerry was slumped against the wall grotesquely, his face frozen on the pain his body had endured as a bullet drilled its way into his chest. Collins was on the floor, Jentry by the door, and the others lie about haphazardly and dead.

Dennis scaled past the bodies like were no better than garbage, as he made his way into the house. He turned on a switch on the wall, that flooded the sitting room with some flashy white lights. He carried on to another room and turned on a switch there again. The light revealed a desk carrying a computer system. He approached the system and settled on a dusty chair before it. He thanked his luck that he had thought of installing cameras around the bungalow. Without the cameras now, he could just kiss the goods goodbye.

He zoomed in on a segment of the monitor titled CAM 1, then CAM 2. Then continued picking at random cameras and zooming in on them, watching intently what had happened that night.

After watching all there was to watch and savagely raining series of obscenities on his boys at intervals where he thought they had made grave mistakes, he zoomed in on the faces of the robbers and sent their pictures to a coloured HP printer.

He took the pictures and carried them to his aging eyes for closer scrutiny. They weren’t much of a picture but would do. By God and by gun, he will find these men and teach them a lesson they’ll never forget. He dialed Chief Lewis on his cell phone. He didn’t bother with preambles when the call came through.

“The goods are gone, but I have the pictures of the bastards that did the job, and trust me, I'll get the goods back, and have their lives in return” he blurted angrily to the phone.

“Whatttttt” the voice on the other end screamed into his ear. He didn’t wait for Chief Lewis to pour his heart out to his ear, and he ended the call immediately. He left the bungalow before the Police could find him there. He had not the strength to give a narration about the bodies.

Dennis drove down to Boss Friday’s criminal headquarters, passing through a thin combination of trash, sand, and stones, that served as a road, winding straight like a ribbon and then spiraling into different corners of the closely packed wooden houses that filled everywhere like playing stones on a Chinese Go table. The environment could as well pass as the world’s largest maze.

Boss Friday was a drug dealer, controlling a wide chain of drug peddlers. He was the eyes of the town as well as the ears. In his seventy-year-old brain, was a database of all criminals in the town. If anyone could point the guys out for him, it was Boss Friday.

Dennis found his subject of interest, a wooden house, weather-beaten from years of existence, that it had been severally patched on all sides. Even its zinc roof had lost half of itself to rust. But the place still stood.

A young scraggy looking man with a beard full of yellow foams sat on a bench before the door, in what must be his bodyguard pose.

“Is your boss in?” Dennis asked.

The man wanted to tell him to fuck off, but he saw the steel in his eyes, and realize, he wasn’t the regular pushover. He moved his bench from the door and let him in.

Dennis moved in swiftly like a soft breeze. The room had that thick musty smell common in old people’s homes.

Boss Friday, thinking Dennis was the Police, frantically gathered his goods off the table into a sack. He recognized him and paused. “You scared me, I was thinking it was the popo” he blurted uneasily.

“Got some questions for you, Boss... Crazy is it?” Dennis sneered.

Boss Friday hated Dennis, who had at one time had his boys beaten and their wares stolen. But like everyone in the criminal world, he respected and feared him.

“What questions, ask them, I am listening”

Dennis spread the pictures of the guys on the table over a group of sealed transparent wrappers containing anything from skunk and marijuana to cocaine “You know these guys, Crazy”

Boss Friday ran his little eyes on the pictures. “They are Don Clinton boys” he said, then he raised his gaze inquisitively at Dennis “Did they do anything wrong”

“They crossed the line more than Moses crossed the red sea”

“I knew they were going to someday soon, but I never knew it would be to you”

“Skip the story Crazy, and tell me where I can find the fools”

“Down at the extreme west end of this ghetto. An isolated and recently renovated wooden house”

“Ok Crazy” Dennis breezes out again. Boss Friday took and released a deep breath. He was glad to see the last of him.

Dennis made his way carefully through the maze-like environment, keeping onto the route Boss Friday had given. He would have missed the house if it wasn’t true to Boss Friday's description. Isolated, and recently renovated. There was no soul within a mile radius.

Dennis didn’t obey the rules of visitation, he was right now, a killer. He brought out his gun, broke the lock, and slammed his way into the house and was greeted by another mass of corpses, pulverized with bullets, littering the little room. The second in two days.

He slapped the door so hard that he heard its frame creak. Someone had beat him to it again. He has lost again.

FIVE

LIKE A LOVESICK PUPPY, I was before Josephine’s door the next morning and very excited. At the back of my mind, I knew I had made a grave mistake. That I had wronged my wife, and she doesn’t deserve it. That I had kept and still keeping us apart by avoiding a conversation with her for two days now. But all that right now seemed insignificant, compared to the need to have Josephine in my arms again.  

I dropped my ear to the door, so I could hear perhaps, the rush of her feet as she prepared the room for our rendezvous this morning or pick up any other sound that might give me a hint as to what she was doing in the room. I heard nothing but a screaming silence. I decided to pull myself out of my self-inflicted suspense and I knocked.

I was taken aback by who appeared by the door. Before me was a short stocky man, with a scraggy beard and a stomach thrice his head. He scrutinized me from head to toe with a pair of eyes that had the solemnity of a monk's.

“Who are you” he asked, his tone challenging. There was nothing solemn about his voice.

Was he Josephine’s boyfriend or husband? Except she was into men twice her age and size then he definitely isn’t her boyfriend or husband. Even with that thought, I could still feel a pang of jealousy at the pit of my stomach.

“Is Josephine in” I return with a question of mine.

“Who the hell is Josephine” he said and slapped the door in my face.

I remained before the door as confused as I had never been.

Then I saw the waitress, circling out of a corner that led into the hallway, pushing a trolley filled with beddings, to the staff elevator. She was also doubling as a maid. I ran as fast as I could and was breathless when I finally got to her.

“Who the hell is in room 956, and where’s Josephine” It was hard to tell if her expression was of mock or shock as she said. “The man is our new client and Miss Josephine left this morning, I heard she left something for you with the receptionist”. I didn’t wait to hear what she would say next.

The receptionist handed me an enveloped letter with a smile that told me, she knew of its content, at least the disturbed tape seal confirmed it. I peeled open the letter frantically, with the hope that it contained Josephine’s phone number or address, neither of which I knew but badly needed.

It was a double shock to me, as I read the words. YOU PLAYED YOUR PART WELL MR. CHARLES BIGGS HOUDINI, AND THANKS FOR THE SEX, IT WAS BREATHTAKING. MY REGARDS TO MRS. COURTNEY CHARLES HOUDINI. FROM YOUR ONE-TIME LOVER, JOSEPHINE PHILLIP. SEE YOU SOON.

I didn’t know how to place the letter,  but I thought back on our encounter and everything began falling into place. She arrived at the hotel two days after I arrived. Came down to the hotel's diner minutes after I had, and winked invitingly only at me among the numerous men that had eyes on her in the diner.

Also, she never ordered anything in the diner, which meant she didn’t come to the diner to eat but for another purpose. She made sure I found her room by myself and slept with her in her room. She must have wired the room with cameras and had our sexcapade recorded.

Drowsiness hits me like a whirlwind, and I vibrated body-wise. The letter flew from my hands as I realize, I had personally rode myself into the hands of a blackmailer. I had been a carefully planned operation. The magician has been tricked.

I detected the receptionist’s keen interest on me. I snatched up the letter from the floor and gave her a smile that says FUCK YOU. I rode the elevator back to the penthouse solemnly, like a drenched puppy, and found my way to the bedroom, which I slumped on. I'd have to miss practice today again because right now all I wanted to do was sleep and think about how to get out of this self-inflicted quagmire.

I was woken by the soft noise of footsteps in the room and I opened my eyes to find Courtney by my bed. She was not wearing her churchy outfits, but a short top and a skimpy skirt, that striped her to her very essentials. This was all for me, she had gone way out of her lane to please me. Seeing her overwhelmed my heart with the guilt of all I had done against her.

“Am so sorry darling, I know I have wronged you” I managed to say.

She placed her finger on my lips to keep me from repeating myself. “I forgive you, honey, I do” she kissed me, and I let that kiss stay. I let it linger, putting all my love behind it, to show her that I loved her and would always do. That she was my haven. The welcoming arms for the prodigal me.

She stood up and turned on the balls on her feet “How do I look in this” she said.

“You don’t have to do this Courtney, I know I have been an asshole the whole time, but you don’t have to go to this length for me”

“I have to” she said. “I have to start thinking of how best to please my husband”

“I.......” she stopped my words with her finger again.

“I love you and I know you love me too, I would do anything for you as I know you would do for me. It is my choice to wear this for you, and my sin to settle with God when death comes”

“No. It is our sin” I said, and pulled her into the bed with me, dragged her close, her back was to me. I couldn’t help myself from tearing down a little onto her shoulders. She felt the dampness of my tears and turned to kiss me again. This time I pulled her under me, and we began to make babies.

By 10 am the next morning, we both walked into the practice room. I and Courtney, hand on hand like teenage lovers. I had put Josephine behind me. I had decided I would pay whatever amount, she demands of me as long as it is within my capacity to pay. And if it exceeds my capacity, then am going to tell everything to Courtney, and ask for her forgiveness, I could care less about any other person.

Jimmy and Jack were google-eyed at Courtney’s shape-revealing dress; a knee-length sheath gown, that Jimmy horned a long whistle, as we came in. Dana would have been surprised also, but she was nowhere in the room, and I knew from experience that she isn't one to miss a practice.

“What about Dana” Courtney asked before I could.

“She's got ar hell lottta bad fever since maning” Jimmy said.

“Am sorry but she'll be out of the show, she ain't coming out of that quick, definitely not in two days” Jack reiterated.

Out of genuine concern, I asked. “Has she seen a doctor, and hope its nothing serious”

“She’d seen one of those Nigerian quacks” Jack was critical “And just as it happens to be, he said, its nothing three or four days in bed can’t put right”

“Since they ain't aar replacement, we gotta scrap some tricks, like the dressing gig and that disappearing gig. They all gotta go and how I liked the disappearing gig” Jimmy said as if reading my thoughts.

“Why do you guys believe they ain't her replacement, what do you think I am, a pole” Courtney said.

“You aren't my assistant but my wife” I was quick to chip in.

“I don’t see why I can’t be both”

“The dressing trick, No. But she's good for the disappearing trick” Jack commented.

“She isn't” I yelled at Jack and he surrendered with a bitter grin.

“Honey” Courtney carried my face directly to hers. “I can do this” she said. “Let me do this for you”

I couldn’t win this, I could see some silent support from Jimmy also. It was stacked against me, three against one. I had to let her do this or risk another fight with her, which was the last thing I wanted right now.

“Ok” I grumbled and she kissed me.

“Thanks, darling” she beamed.

I just hoped David Battise wouldn’t kill me when he finds out, I used his daughter for my magic tricks, and besides David Battise, there was a nagging feeling in my mind that went against the idea.

SIX

I HARDLY SLEPT the night before, as our last rehearsal dragged far into midnight, but I was up early for my big day. Yawning and stretching, I crossed to the shower-room and brought myself to life with a cold shower. I was invigorated and as excited as a kid gifted his favourite toy as I left the shower room. I was unnaturally happy this morning, I always was whenever I had a big day ahead.

I woke Courtney with a kiss on the cheek with my cold wet lips and she came for my neck in a fit of sleepy rage, but I dodge her fragile claws, laughing carelessly.

“Up sunshine, don’t be another sleeping beauty” I teased, still laughing. She hated for anyone to wake her, but I had to, the party was to start at noon and we had so many things to do before then.

She carried her half-opened eyes druggedly to the Gold-plated wall clock “But this is just past six babe, there is at least five hours before noon” with that, she fell back to the bed, and within minutes she was snoring soundly.

But I won’t have that. I landed another cold kiss on her cheek again and this time, she started from the bed, coming for me, chasing me about the room. I caught her in my arms and crashed us both onto the bed.

I blew at her curls and as they parted, I planted a kiss on her forehead, then her lips.

“Go dress sunshine, you know we have a big day ahead”

“But there is still hours before noon”

“And there are still tons of things to do. Remember you sign up for this yourself, now don’t be a lazy girl, and go take your bath”

“Okay” she grunted. “Now I wished I never signed up to be your temporary assistant. This is sheer torture” She eased off my arms and sleepwalked to the shower-room. I couldn’t keep myself from laughing at her lazy steps.

It took close to an hour to get ourselves ready for the day, and as we left our hotel room later for the diner to have our breakfast, we watched the world lit up to fulfil the promises of a fine day.

The diner was extraordinarily lively this morning. Most of the lodgers, resplendent in their Givenchies, Guccies, Vuittons and agbadas had a deal or two to seal with another as they enjoyed the beautiful morning and serene environment.

Courtney and I ordered and ate quietly and after with a goodbye kiss, we parted ways in the diner. I had to see to the stage settings, the props and the instrument, while Courtney joined Jimmy and Jack in our rehearsal room and perfect her role in our performance, as she was still a little sloppy at it. She would be, until needed on stage.

******

“Wait for about thirty minutes, then get in the box. We might not get the chance to wait for you to get in the box when we come back to take it onstage” Jack said for the second time.

“She ain't stupid boss, we don tis bout manni times oh' ready” Jimmy said, anxious to get on stage. He had to open the floor with an act of his, and he was a little late already, Charles was just keeping the crowd busy with a couple of jokes.

Courtney laughed softly. “Come on Jack. There is nothing to be scared off. Just as Jimmy said, we have gone over this so many times” she assured.

“Okay” Jack accepted with a shrug, even as his eyes still held concern. He patted Courtney on the shoulder encouragingly. “we’ll be leaving then” and he left the backstage with Jimmy. Courtney followed him with her eyes and smile.

Even after reassuring Jack that nothing was going to spoil this performance, Courtney wasn’t totally assured herself. It was just minutes to her part of the show, and she was as nervous as a watch. She had never done this before, never done any other thing in her thirty years of existence than go to school and church.

Church was home for her. Even as she wasn’t born into a religious family, and was the only religious person in her family, her father and brother could as well pass as atheists and her mother was the kind with a shaky faith. Courtney loved church and she loved God. She loved how the Priests tells the bible stories. How he preaches of good and evil. The angelic voices of the choir as it rose to the air in the exaltation of God. Their dressing and even that of the convent sisters. She would have joined the convent if Charles hadn’t come into her life.

Now thinking about Charles, there was their little misunderstanding some days ago. They had never argued over anything other than her manner of dressing, so this was new, and they not speaking to each other for two days because of a mere argument was also new. Though things were back to normal between them, but thoughts about the incident still bugged her mind.

Had she done something to piss him off? Or had Charles met perhaps an ex by chance?. No. She shook away the thought, he was still a kid when he left Nigeria. Or was it just her dressing as usual….

She looked up to find a strange man in the backstage with her. He was dressed as one of her husband’s assistant, which was ridiculous because the only assistants she'd ever known with him were Jack and Jimmy and Dana, whose stead she was doing this, and all of whom, she'd helped employ.

“Mr. Charles Houdini said to give you this, that it'll help with your anxiety and nervousness” he handed her a pill and a glass of water with a broad smile.

“I have never seen you before, when did my husband employ you” she asked cautiously.

“Just this morning mam, he said something like the show needed extra hands” the man made a broad smile again.

“But he would have told me, Charles does nothing without telling me first”

“There are always some things we keep from our wives” the man said impatiently. He was losing his patience already. She was too inquisitive and suspecting. He wished he could strangle her right now, but it wasn’t part of the plan. He pushed all his anger into his clenched fist behind him.

Courtney watched him for a while. There was something off and phony about him. But she badly needed the anxiety pill and wasn’t prepared to waste time in preparation for her part in the show. She snatched at the glass and pill and dismissed him, then she helped herself into the box.

SEVEN

I ENTERED CHIEF LEWIS’S office to find him in a heated argument with someone over the phone. With his expression sour like a businessman who had just lost a huge investment.

Maybe he had lost a huge investment. I was sympathetic with him as a businessman to another. Magic was also a business of its own and full of competitors, even Harry Houdini had the Blackstones and a host of others to contend with, but he still managed to become one of the greatest names in the world of magic just like the man whom he had borrowed the initial last name and added the letter (I). I joined the lineage by doing my own borrowing. I wanted desperately to be a great name in the magic world also.

“Bad times come, but so do good times, Chief” I dropped a line I had picked in a book.

His reaction told me he hated my intrusion and could even stab me for it, but he quickly switched to that condescending hostly smile.

Chief Christopher Lewis appeared as that average Nigerian politician, commonly shown on TV, shuffling the floor of the national house, with big heads and stomachs, short thick arms, and that bogus native clothes that are usually so bogus that they could be re-sewn for three extra people.

He ended the call abruptly and approached me. “My friend, what are you doing here? How’s it going, are you prepared for the night”

I didn’t know which of the question he wanted me to answer but I settled for the last one. “I am prepared” I said. “I was waiting for your introduction. I came to find you when you took too long”

“I am sorry, I had to settle business, you know the usual” he said. There was a condescending ring to his words. The kind that gave the idea, that he hadn’t meant to apologize but had only done so out of courtesy.

“Come on my man” He slapped my shoulders “Let's get you your introduction and see what you can do” he smiled as he lead me to the hall. His entourage were behind us like fleas to a wounded dog.

We climbed the low stage together. The hall was a small one, but it was also grand. The loud music was paused and someone appeared from behind the curtain to hand him a wireless microphone and a paper containing a prepared speech.

He faced his guests, settled on round tables carrying drinks, from exotic wines to fruit juices and table water, and he began “Thank you all for coming tonight, thank you for honouring my invite and not seeing this as the frivolity of an old man. Thank you for your wishes and your prayers...”

He continued for about five minutes, reciting a list of names in the middle of it. No doubt the VIPs. Then he said. “For your entertainment tonight, for the pleasure of you all, my honoured guest, and as my appreciation for your presence today, and for that excruciating need to be a wonderful host to you tonight, I have brought a friend all the way from the United States of America to do on the stage tonight what he does best, in the person of Mr. Charles Biggs Houdini” and he gestured to me, said thank you to the guest again and left the stage. There was a loud gyration from the audience. I didn’t know if it was for me or him, but either way, it warmed my heart, and I took the stage to do what I do best.

I began by showing off my presenting skills, giving some funny lines and jokes that had people laughing off their seats.

Jimmy came on the stage for some juggling act. Jack performed the clothes-changing trick as swell as Dana would have done it, but it didn’t get the effect it would have if a lady had done it instead.

I got off the stage into the midst of the guest for some close-up magic. I did some disappearing and appearing card tricks, produce a bare coin from a table, and turned water into wine.

The tricks wowed the audience that one man keenly said that the water-to-wine trick wasn’t a miracle for Jesus alone. Jimmy and Jack came to join me to do some tricks that required their assistance, like making an empty fruit juice pack produce a glass of wine, a glass of beer, a glass of milk, and a glass of water.

It went on beautifully like that, with me performing trick after trick that wowed the audience, and they pouring out their eyes to watch me. I had saved the best trick for later, which was the appearing and disappearing lady trick, which Courtney was helping with. For this, I went back to the stage and asked for a box to be wheeled in by Jack and Jimmy.

The box was a rectangular one, made of wood on all sides, except the larger right and left sides which were left bare, but covered by short curtains fitted to the box.

I asked for four volunteers from the audience from which three men and a lady obliged and came unto the stage. I asked them to stay on each side of the box and I opened the box from one of the larger sides to show that nothing or no one was inside. I asked them to raise another large four-sided curtain over the box. This they did excitedly.  

After reciting some gibberish, which was meant to be magic words, I had the large curtain brought down and I swept sideways the short curtain to reveal the content of the box.

It should have been a flower inside first but what I saw shocked me more than it did the audience. Inside the box, was nothing but air and silence. The whole hall froze to an unnatural and cold silence around me. As if to rescue my magic, the secret compartment in the box popped open and what it revealed, further compounded my shock that I fell on my knees, and almost breathed my lungs out.

At this point, the whole hall was thrown into total chaos. There were wailings, shouting, and screams. They didn’t affect me that much, they were more like a piece of background music to the image playing in my head. The image where Courtney was sitting in the box, covered in blood and DEAD.

I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t think. My mind and thought froze. I heard a man shout “call the police”, and another made a call. Some were also screaming “She isn't breathing. She is dead. He has killed her”  

I heard Jack and Jimmy trying fervently to explain to the angry audience that there was a mix-up somewhere.

There was another burst of shouts as the Police came in. “Take him, take him” they yelled “he has just murdered someone”.

Hands grabbed me and I was whisked from the floor and led away.

I was still in shock when I was thrown into an Hilux Van and sandwiched between two hefty policemen. I watched from the window as two men loaded Courtney into an ambulance.

I felt my heart squeeze at the sight. My mind unfroze and questions came flooding in. What had happened? Who had killed Courtney? Was this what Josephine meant by see you soon in her letter? What the hell was happening? And the car zoomed off.

I kept flipping through my library of memories on the way, trying to find answers to where I had flopped and let things go as bad as Courtney dying. And all I could come up with was my saga with Josephine. Was Josephine behind this, and if she was, what did she hope to gain from it?  

The car must have been running for an hour now. It occurred to me, that we should have gotten to the police station by now, and also, that the policemen hadn’t said as much as a word to me. I looked at their faces as much as the light in the car would allow, and a sudden chill ran down my spine. There was nothing out-of-the-world scary about their faces, but it was that nothing together with their silence that scared the shit out of me. I knew at once that I had been kidnapped.

“Where are you taking me” I asked but received no answer.

I asked again and again but received no answer. One of the men was not a fan of my disturbance, and he slapped my chest with his hefty hand. I felt my chest contract and I coughed hard, grabbing it.

The car finally stopped before a modern-styled bungalow, on the outskirts of a town. I was dragged from the car into the bungalow.  

Who I saw relaxed on a sofa, explained everything at least to some extent. Josephine Phillip, if that really was her name.

EIGHT

I WAS BEGINNING to piece things together, and making guesses as to what was happening as I stared at the faces in the room after I was forced to sit in their midst. Of the seven people in the room, three were the fake policemen who brought me here, one was amongst the volunteers who had come on stage, the one who had called the police, but actually called his friends. The last two were the ambulance attendants, and there was Josephine.

This Josephine was different. Her hair was cut as low as a man's, and she wore male shorts and polo shirt. Even this Josephine awaken the man in me, and I couldn’t help but wish the circumstances were different.

“That’s Tolu over there” She said, pointing to a big stocky man, in an armless shirt. He had a cross tattoo on his left arm and wore a Muslim rosary on his neck. He was one of the ambulance attendants.

“There's Joshua, also known as Josh” She said and another man who was taller than he was big raised his hands before she could point to him. The other ambulance attendant.

Josh gave me a raw grin, that spiked up my level of irritation. “To hell with your introduction, get on with whatever is happening here” I screamed at Josephine.

“Keep quiet” one of the fake policemen shouted in a thick voice that sent a chill through me. He saw me shiver and it must be so amusing to him that he burst into a hearty laugh.

“The Nigga's not so manly after all” the other fake policemen joked. He had a face that wouldn’t win a beauty pageant even against a monkey.

Josephine continued like there had been no interruption.

There was no peak to her level of coldness. “The laughing man is Dada, and the other man is Sylvester. Jerry is the man in a suit beside him, and Phillip’s the one in red”

Jerry was the volunteer on stage. He didn’t look up, he seemed to find more interest in his nails than in the room. He was strikingly handsome with a lean face and chinstrap that gave him a movie star look. It would have been more fun watching him on a TV, than watching him play a part in my downfall.  

Phillip was a flabby big man who had a permanent grin carved onto his face.  

“And who are you, I take it Josephine was just a random name for your operation”

“She’s” Dada said and paused for dramatic effect “The grim reaper” He laughed. He realized he was the only one that found his joke funny and his laugh died abruptly as it had begun.

“Josephine is all you need to know, Sylvester would take the rest from here. She said, urging Sylvester on with her eyes.  

Sylvester spat. “I am not taking orders from any creature with a hole between her legs” he got on his feet and left the room.

That was enough to tell me that there was a leadership tussle between the two. I filed that somewhere in my brain. It might come in handy sometime soon. When you know your enemies, you are fifty percent close to defeating them. Dada took it upon himself to explain things to me.

He coughed dramatically then he began excitedly like an eighty-year-old granddad about to tell his grandkids some folktales.  

“There was a man named Charles Ajayilolu Bibinibi-Ishola-Guduguduolorunshinaayomi, known as Charles Biggs for short. He was born into the poverty of Nigeria, into the polygamous family of Mr. Ajayi, a poor illiterate railway worker. He had a little sister, named Lewa whom he was fond of. At one time, his maternal uncle who had lived in US came back to the country. He spoke to Charles's parents and they allowed him to take Charles to the states. In the US, Charles fell out with his uncle and ran away from his custody, and so he lost contact with his family in Nigeria. Charles did a number of things and lived in a number of places, but importantly he grew into a handsome young man and a professional magician. He met his wife, who was an American citizen and sealed his citizenship with her help. Charles became rich and famous through her as her rich father was forced to sponsor his son-in-law’s magic shows so as to make his daughter happy....”

“That is a nice story but it is nothing anyone with a smartphone couldn’t get out of GOOGLE” I said, trying to stop him from reciting the nonsense he had stuffed in his head about me.

“Wait wait” he begged. “I am not through with the story yet...”

“Just stop the nonsense already, you are wasting all our time” Josh interrupted and I was glad he did. Dada grumbled and threw his hands in the air in surrender.

“We want you to help us steal over 10 billion Naira from a bank with your magic skills, that was why we set you up. Right now, the Police are convinced that you killed your wife. We planted a video on you and your wife's phone, the video is of you and her” he gestured at Josephine. “doing what you were supposed to do with your wife only, and we blurred her face in the video so no one would recognize her.  We used the knowledge of the details of your tricks, and routine which you told her to devise a way to have Sylvester give your wife a drug, which a nurse said to be an opioid, potent in reducing one's breathing rate and weakening the body. Then we planted her body in the box, poured some blood-like liquid on her, and set her up for your assistants to wheel onto the stage, and then we came to arrest you. Whatever is left out, you can figure it out yourself. Now you have to help us to be able to see your wife again and for us to release her to you, then the two of you can go your ways and we go ours. If you refuse to cooperate with us, your wife would be killed for real, and you would be released to the police for her murder. So which one, help us steal what we need and get your wife and your reputation back, or fail to get us what we need and get your wife killed and you arrested for her murder”

At the talk of Courtney being alive, my heart boomed with delight, and I was so thankful that for the first time in my life I said thanks to the Holy Mother.

“I am not getting myself in any heist for anyone, not even you suckers” I snarled, filled with so much anger, that I thought I was going to explode.

“We will see about that” Dada grinned, as he came right up to me. He slapped my chest with his thick hairy hands, for a private joke of his, which surprisingly, seems extremely funny to him. I was still coughing hard as he led me to a door and threw me into a room.

“Good night, sweet dreams and good thinking” he laughed and shut me into darkness. I turned on a switch on the wall, and bright yellow light filled the room which was a great step behind the luxurious Penthouse and provided no avenue for escape. It had only one window, which was burglar-proof, and made from reinforced steel.

The night wasn’t good and sweet dreams proved to be far out of my reach. Thinking was what I could do for most of the night, still, I couldn’t be sure if it was productive or not. I knew these men weren’t going to release me and Courtney even after I help them steal the money they want, which I was dead sure I wasn’t going to do. Bank Robbery was a criminal offense, and I wasn’t prepared to be a criminal. I had seen their faces and so would Courtney. In this kind of situation, a dead mouth is better than a living one. I still couldn’t figure out how they had known so much about me, even the things I didn’t tell Susan. There was Google, as I had said earlier, but there were some things that even GOOGLE shouldn’t know because I never used them in any of my interviews. Things like my full name and my father’s occupation, my sister’s name, and the fact that I was from a polygamous family. Someone close to me must be involved in this. It couldn’t be Lewa, even fifteen years of separation is no excuse for such level of hatred, or was it a half-brother or sister? But none of them should hate me this much, or should even know that I am in the country.

I wasn’t sure when I slept but I was woken up by the loud creak of the door as Dada marched in, bringing with him an aroma that testified to a spicy breakfast. It was morning already and sunlight had filled the room.

“Wakey Wakey” he bellowed as he made his way to an armchair beside the bed. He sat and spread a newspaper before his face.

I knew at once that there was something in the papers for me.

“A popular Black American magician is said to have murdered his white wife during one of his Magic shows. This comes after his wife received an incriminating video of him and his lover from an anonymous source..... With the evidence collected so far, the police are sure that Mr. Charles Biggs Houdini truly murdered his wife, and orchestrated his own escape by enlisting the help of some fake Policemen to arrest him and take him away. Unfortunately, the event hall where the incident happened was a very private and privileged establishment that does not have CCTV cameras and the guests were asked to drop their smartphones at the door before entering the hall so as not to film his act. Mr. Charles Biggs Houdini must have thought of this when making his plans as it allows his cohorts to remain anonymous, which would make him harder to find. His in-laws are traveling down to Nigeria from the US to assist with the investigation.....” Dada read out without a pause.  

I understood what he was doing. He was giving me the picture of how doomed I was, which I truly was, but still, I wouldn’t rob a bank for anybody on planet earth.

“Get out” I shouted as much as my lungs would allow. “I am robbing a bank for nobody, do your fucking worst” I just have to come up with a plan to get me and Courtney out of this as fast as possible.

“You haven’t seen our worst, Mr. Charles” Dada said, laughing. Even as I covered my ears, I could still hear his laughter ringing in my head, taunting me, especially his statement. YOU HAVEN’T SEEN OUR WORST. I shut my mind forcefully. I didn’t want to think about what their worst could be.

NINE

FOR THE PAST THREE days that I had been held captive, everything followed a particular routine. After I am presented the sordid-looking meals they brought me and which I had been forced to survive on so as not to upset my ulcer, Dada would barge into the room, wearing the aroma of his breakfast and drag me to the rest of his gang, where I would be quizzed on my response to their demand. And after I gave them my usual NO, I would then be returned to the room and locked up once again till the next day.

It wasn’t a surprise when Dada barged into the room today, held me by the collar, and dragged me with him, but I saw a spark in his eyes that told me today would be different. That I wouldn’t be treated as nicely as before. That today I might not be given the luxury of a choice and it scared me.

Was it Courtney? Was she really alive and are they planning to harm her to get me on their side? I have always considered the possibility of that happening, but the mere thought of it sent cold chills down my spine.

Whatever it was going to be, I just hoped for a miracle. That was the only thing that was going to get me out of this, without becoming a criminal. I was sensible to know I couldn’t fight my way out against the thousands of pounds of muscle, and I was extra sensible not to try.

As it was, they were all gathered in small subgroups around the room, in separate sofas and separate conversations, except Josephine, who was a fan of her own company. Nowhere in the room was Jerry. Which was odd. For some reason, his absence frightened me.

Dada pushed me into the room and I stood in their midst like a suspect before a Jury.

“I heard the Nigga has agreed” Sylvester jeered.

“You heard wrong” I corrected and a slap landed on my checks from behind, it closed my eyes for a minute. I had not to turn to know it was Dada. It was like slapping me gave him some BDSM kind of satisfaction.

“Keep your hairy hands to yourself Dada” Josephine yelled. “You are going to slap him to coma before he gets us anywhere near the money”. I hated her for getting me into this mess, but right now, with those words, she was my number one person. I have been taking more slaps from the guy than air to my lungs.

Dada raised his hands in a mock surrender as he finds himself a spot beside Tolu.

“When has slaps ever killed anyone but as always the lady has spoken” Sylvester grumbled.

“So what’s your choice, are you in or out” Phillip intercepted.

“You guys can slap and beat me all you want but I am not going to become a criminal for you” I said, though, not entirely keen on the slaps and beating.

“We are not going to beat you, we are not savages” Philip smiled, “But we have just the right tool to change your mind”. He took a smartphone from the table and made a video call with it, then he placed the phone before my face.

My doubts about Courtney being alive or not were removed when Courtney’s face appeared on the screen. She’s alive, I screamed in my head. I wanted to speak to her but I discovered that the call was muted. I told her with my eyes that I loved her and she said the same with hers. It wasn’t sign language, but the language of our love.

The camera was zoomed in and I discovered that she was tied to a wooden chair in a room that I guess was a store room, due of its compactness and its open wall shelves. The image caused a tightening in my chest and brought tears down my eyes. I cried.

I couldn’t blame myself enough for bringing this upon her when she had done absolutely nothing to deserve it. Then I realized. They wouldn’t bring me out just to show me Courtney being tied to a chair. They had to have more in store for me. I remembered Dada's words ‘YOU HAVEN’T SEEN OUR WORST', If their worst was as regards Courtney then I wasn’t prepared to see it.

“I'm in, I'm in” I cried. “I am going to help you steal the money” I shouted, and a cheer went around the room.

“Good boy, Good boy” Dada patted me on the back. “Good boy, you just saved yourself a sight, though you deprived me of one. Oh boy, I would have loved to see him strip her naked”  

I shut my eyes tight as the image of them stripping Courtney naked forced itself into my head. It brought more tears down my eyes and I clenched my fist so tight that I tore my palms with my nails. I would make sure they all regret doing this to me.......

Tolu said “Your Job begins immediately. So let me give you the full details. This robbery that we are planning is unlike any in Nigeria or even the world at large. On October 4, 1997, in North Carolina, a man named David Ghantt, a staff of Loomis Fargo and Co. was able to break into one of their vaults. He stole over 17 million dollars. He handed the money over to his accomplices Kelly Campbell and Steven Chambers and fled the country. The theft was discovered the next day and the authorities were alerted. David and his accomplices were later caught months later due to some internal intrigues within them. There was also the Knightsbridge Safe Deposits heist, involving Valerio Vicci who made out with £60 million Euros. He also had the police on his neck as fast as he could breathe and was arrested when he came back to the country to get his Ferrari. There is also Harry Winston’s heist of 2008, where the Pink Panthers made out with over $108 million, a case which is still unsolved to date, and the Lufthansa heist, where the perpetrators made out with $10 million and left a long trail of bodies for the police to follow. The Loomis Fargo heist lacked finesse. The Knightsbridge Safe Deposit heist had one greedy man running the show. Harry Winston’s heist-men still have the police on their neck, one slip up from one of them and they could just say goodbye to riches and freedom, while the Lufthansa heist involved many people. We do not want to make any of those mistakes at all. That is where you come in. We want to perform with your help, a magic trick that no one would be able to crack, or would even suspect to be a trick. We want to steal over 10 billion Naira from ABH Bank's Headquarters and replace the money with fake money, of its equivalent amount. We won’t have the police sitting so intensely on our neck as the other heist had, as we would make the bank and the Police think that the money never left the bank. And since this money is usually used to decorate vaults, the bank wouldn’t know for a long time that what they have in their vault is fake money and when they finally realize this, the Police would have a very cold trail to follow. We have finesse, we are not greedy and we are also few in number. No heist could be better. So with all these. Give us something that says we haven’t wasted our efforts counting on you”

I had to agree that the idea was superb. The bank might be less interested in pursuing the robbers when they believe they had recovered the stolen money, but robbing a bank was far-reaching. I had no idea of this ABH Bank, but am sure like all Bank headquarters, it was going to be a fortress, not one for an army of seven to conquer.

“Do you have the bank’s layout, like how the building is structured, how it operates, and things like that?” I asked, my eyes still closed. I still could not bring myself to accept the fact that I was helping them plan a heist.

“That’s the spirit bro” Dada screamed excitedly.

“Why are you so excited over nothing” Philips questioned.

“That’s the first question I always hear those white peeps say in American movies when planning something. Something like: You gat tha layout of the place” he squished his voice for the last part, to make himself sound American, but he sounded the complete opposite.

“Just shut up idiot” Phillip said and mimicked Dada's last statement. I couldn’t help but marvel at its similitude with Dada’s. He said it exactly as Dada did. Dada’s didn’t like it. His nostrils flare up and he looked like he would pounce on Phillip anytime, surprisingly, he never did. And the bastard was always touchy when it comes to me.

“We don’t have the layout. All we know is that it is six floors from the ground. What do you suggest we do” Tolu said.  

I pretended to think for a while, then I said. “There is a gimmick, I once used for a show. I had the cloth of a man wired with a spy camera without him knowing. Then he was placed alone in a room, with different pictures. And I was elsewhere guessing to him correctly, every picture he picked in the room, through a phone. He still couldn’t believe that I don’t have superpowers till date. We could try that trick on some of the key bank workers who have the authorization to walk into anywhere in the bank. Get their clothes wired and then someone would visit the bank, pretending to want to open an account or some stuff in the bank. The person would activate the camera and it would be filming the bank staff's movement throughout the day”. There were a hundred tricks I know to get them the bank layout, but the most stressful one was my choice for them. If they would rob a bank with my help, I was keen to see to it that they sweated their bones doing so.

“How would you put a camera on someone’s cloth without them knowing or detecting it in their body” Josephine said for the first time today.

“They wouldn’t know if the camera has been installed before the cloth is worn, and if the cloth is a thick material like a suit, and even when it is installed in the lapels or helms which are extra thicker. To install the spy camera and make it undetectable, every casing has to be done away with, till it remains the necessities like lens, flex, and wires, which would be expertly sewn into the thick cloth. With a camera, thick cloth, and sewing machine in experienced hands, it is nothing beyond possible"

Dada whistled loudly in amazement, obviously awed by my idea, and for that brief second, I felt a mixture of guilt and pride.

“It seems logical and workable until you realize that this kind of people are not one you can just walk up to or the kind whose wardrobe you could just get access to” Josephine queried my analysis again.

“They buy their clothes from somewhere and do their laundry somewhere. Just find a way around this, as you found a way to trap me in this. It wasn’t in the terms of our forced contract to help you get the bank’s layout anyway”

Josephine considered this for a while, her face contorted as she thought. “Ok” she mused. “Sylvester and Phillip. You guys are on this. Find everything you can about at least three of the bank workers, especially details about their clothing”

“You don’t tell me what to do, woman” Sylvester hissed.  

Phillip mimicked him as perfectly as he had done Dada’s. “Why not just shut up and do as you are told, we both know you can do absolutely nothing about that” he scoffed, his face full of irritation.  

Josephine just watched. She said nothing and did nothing. I could tell that she was scheming a surprise for Sylvester in her mind, and one day, she was going to blow it right in his face.

TEN

THE BATTISES CAME OUT of the Airport terminal, David Battise, Claudia Battise, and their son, Nathan Battise. Around them, was a commotion of people and luggage as everyone hurried in and out of the terminal.

The family paused to scan the commotion before them for their ride out of the airport. Nathan spotted a heavy man with a placard reading MR. DAVID BATTISE, and leaning on a Rolls Royce Phantom and he pointed him out for his parents. David Battise grinned wryly at his son as they approached the man.

“David Battise” David Battise said placidly to the man, who made a pretense of a smile in reply.

“You are welcome sir” he said.

The heavy man hesitated in offering his hand for an handshake and took their luggage to the car trunk while the Battises settled in the backseat. He crossed over to the driver seat and herded the Royce out of the airport and on its way to the Heralton hotel, the same hotel occupied by Charles and Courtney before the incident, with a reservation for the Battises, made two days ago.

He dropped off Claudia and Nathan at the hotel and drove David Battise down to Chief Lewis's office. The trip to Nigeria wasn’t a vacation for David Battise, but of business. The business to fish out his son-in-law from whatever hole on earth he was hiding in. And David Battise was keen to attend to that business immediately.

At this same time, Dennis was in Chief Lewis's office, forcing himself to keep cool against Chief's rantings and remarks.

“How could you have lost the goods in the first place” Chief Lewis said uneasily. Though he had the best security in the country a call away, he still feared Dennis. Dennis was a hound with no leash. He could bite anyone if the price was right and if cornered.

“You break my heart talking that way. You sound like I had personally opened the door for them to cart away the goods. I said I would find them, and I would, even if I have to dig them up from the deepest soils”.

“You don’t seem to understand the gravity of this” Chief Lewis stood up, walking over to Dennis who claimed a chair before a fancy all-glass desk, containing all the usual rudiments of an office desk and some extra luxuries. Chief Lewis's office had three sections, the relaxation space, the meeting space, and the working space. They were in the working space.

“I am sunk without these goods. And I could kiss my dream of becoming the president of this country goodbye. Even my political pedigree can’t save me from this. A number of people that are higher than me, and even people lower than me have shares in this. A mistake on my end and people higher would crush me while people lower than me would rise over and trample me. I need to find these goods if I want to survive. Which I want to do. I have achieved so much and come too far to allow this to bring me down”

Dennis was as angry as Chief was. This was potentially bad for business. The moment news of him slipping up on an assignment reached his other clients, they would desert him fast for other criminal enterprises. Every business relied on customer satisfaction, even criminality.

“I have said I am working on it. The guys who stole the goods, either had the goods stolen from them or were put up to it in the first place by a larger and smarter group who then had them silenced, and I am on their trail as a dog is after a bone. I would find them, just give me time”.

Both men turned to the door as it slowly came open and a big hunk of a man from Chief Lewis’s security detail peered inside cautiously. “Mr. David Battise just arrived from the airport and he is demanding to see you immediately”

“You get the hell out of here” Chief Lewis yelled.

The guard who was used to this part of Chief Lewis and knew it to be a temporary phase remained by the door. “He is right outside the door, Chief”

Chief Lewis looked dumbfounded for a second. “Then let him get the hell in” he shouted and gave a shake of the head to Dennis. Who had known that to be dismissal.

A short stumpy white man hurried in as Dennis made his way out. “I told you to keep an eye on them. That I don’t trust that bastard with my daughter. How did you let this happen” David Battise was saying with an edge to his voice as he bounced further into the room.

Chief Lewis had no time for this, he had his own business to deal with than to bother about Battise's murdered daughter. It was his manners and urge to maintain his business relations with the Battises that were keeping him from shooing the man out of his office.

“I did what I could from afar. Anything else would have been an intrusion of privacy”

“Isn't intrusion of privacy way better than my Courtney dying” there was a break in David Battise's voice and his eyes went dull, as he stared emptily at his hands for a while. He couldn’t stop blaming himself for the death of his daughter. She would have been alive if he hadn’t let her marry that black boy. He would see to it that the boy pays for killing his daughter.

“Do you have any of your boys working on it? Working on finding the bastard that murdered my daughter and where he kept her body”

Chief Lewis saw no reason to lie to him. “No, I haven't committed any of my boys to it. But I have the police working round the clock on it”

“The Police” David Battise scoffed. “If I called the Texan Police incompetent, I don’t know what to say of the Nigerian ones. Aren't those idiots the ones that let him escape in the first place”

Chief Lewis nodded abstractly. He was still thinking of what would happen to his political career if those goods are not found. Was he right to trust Dennis on this?

David Battise was quick to learn that his host had more important things on his mind than to help find his daughter’s murderer. So he excused himself and left Chief Lewis's office an angrier man. As he rode the private elevator to his Penthouse suite on the last floor of the hotel, he thought about how best to tackle the situation himself. The fact that he had fewer connections and interests in Nigeria, was an impediment to getting men for the job of finding Charles and Courtney’s corpse.

The elevator automatically opened for him with a ding and he walked into the deep masculine scent of his son's cologne.

Nathan Battise had been waiting by the door for him. Nathan was a seventeen-year-old teenager, with full-mated hair and a stray lock, slightly covering his left eye. Sometimes David Battise thinks Nathan was more adult than anyone in his family.

“What did he say, Dad” Nathan inquired.

“Nothing useful” David Battise shook his head and slumped lazily into the arms of an ever-waiting Divan. The feathery touch relaxed his muscles but not his pain. “I guess we have to handle this ourselves”

“I’d always known that man was no good. He is no better Nigerian than the other crook” Nathan drove his fist into his palm angrily. He regretted having supported his sister’s decision to marry Charles.

“Where's Claudia” David Battise asked, suddenly remembering that he hadn’t seen his wife since he came in.  

“I just managed to put her to sleep not long ago”

Nathan replied. “So what do you suggest we do now Dad? We can’t let him keep her remains after taking her away from us”

“Due to my poor connections in Nigeria, it is hard to mobilize men for the search. I would have invited some boys over from the States, but it has to be Nigerian guys. They would know the area better. I am thinking of placing a reward on his head. Like making an announcement on the local TV and radio stations that anyone who could provide any information as to his whereabouts would be given a huge sum of money”

“That’s a nice idea” Nathan encouraged. “You could even make a deal with the local police, get them to let us take the calls directly”. Nathan added, and that settled it. David Battise got to his feet and put a call to his other contact in Nigeria. An international Journalist, domiciled in Nigeria, a white man named Mike Smith. Mike was popular with the police, and everything was sorted out within a short time.

By 10:am the next morning, every newspaper and media house in the country was already carrying the news, though with different headlines. All promised 20,000 USD for any information that could lead to the whereabouts of Charles Biggs Houdini, and under the different headlines were two hotlines to communicate the information. Hours later, phones were ringing nonstop in David Battise Penthouse suite.

Nathan looked around at the faces of the men with him. They were all tired and exhausted, and so was he. They’d been at it for hours now, and so far, they hadn’t stumbled upon anything promising.  

The telephone made a shrill ring again. He regarded it for a while, took and released a deep breath, then he picked the receiver to his ear, answering his 37th call for the day, hoping it wouldn’t be another sham.

*****

BEING ONE OF THE LONGEST serving guards at ABH Bank, Dimka had come to know a great lot of things about the bank. He knows every single person working in the bank and a great mass of details about their private lives. He also knows everything that was safe to know about the bank's operations. He was the one Sylvester and Phillip looked to, to help them with the details they needed about ABH bank.

Dimka was in his late forties, fair but tanned in some sense, thickset, with large round eyes and an oversized nose.

Dimka hates that he has to share this mass of details with Sylvester and Phillip. Not that the details were important, there were practically useless to him, he just hated the men. But then, he had no choice. They had enough dirt on him to have him locked up for years. Serving time in any prison doesn’t feature in the plan he'd made for his life and he wouldn’t like any of his relatives, friends, and family to know he was a pedophile.

He didn’t bother his fragile brain about what they needed the details for. They were probably out to blackmail another soul so unfortunate to fall their victim.

He waited for them in the decided restaurant for their rendezvous. The air around him was deadly choked by an assortment of aromas that made him salivate in anticipation of his order. Low traditional music was playing from somewhere in the hall.

A little girl of about twelve brought his order and as she placed two ceramicwares, containing separately, five wraps of wheat and melon soup on the table, he appraises her lustfully. She was firmly built, with an innocent and pretty face. The little feminine mounds forming in her small chest suggest she was fast developing into puberty. Dimka thoughts she had the prospect of becoming a great beauty when she gets older. But he likes her best at this stage. She would be raw, naive, and inexperienced.

He slips a #500 bill to her as she prepares to leave. “This is not for the food. Use this to buy something for yourself” he smiles at her. Her little eyes lit at the money, and she thanked him courteously and left. He followed the swing of her little hips till she disappeared from his lustful stare into a corridor.

“Keep your eyes away from that little girl you filthy animal” he hears a voice, he recognizes as Phillip's, bark at him, and turns to see Phillip staring down at him, fire in his eyes. Sylvester was beside him.

Dimka swallowed uneasily. “I wasn’t staring at her, I was trying to make sure she doesn’t run away with my change”

Phillip wasn’t convinced. “If I ever catch you as much as ogle any girl below 20. I would personally put a stop to your filthy existence. Am I clear?” he thundered at Dimka who was already sweating by now.

“Yes. Yes” Dimka struggled.

“So what do you have for us” Sylvester said, settled down, and dragged the food closer, helping himself to it while Dimka watched helplessly.

Dimka grudgingly produced a parcel from his coat. Phillip snatched it from him and slapped him on the head with it.

“I have written all I know in there” Dimka said, gesturing at the parcel.

Phillip opens it for confirmation and nods to Sylvester, who was so involved in the careful act of unwrapping another wrap of wheat. “He has written something in here, let’s just hope it’s worth it”

“It better be worth it” Sylvester threatened between a mouthful. He made sure to finish the meal singlehandedly before he stood up and walked up to a wash hand basin fitted to a wall in the hall. After washing his hands, he left the restaurant together with Phillip.

Dimka wished he could strangle them to death as he watched them go.

ELEVEN

SINCE I AGREED TO help them plan the heist, they stopped locking me up and started letting me out once in a while, though I wasn’t allowed out of the house. There was hardly any opportunity to escape, as someone was always there to watch my every movement and action. I wouldn’t try to escape anyway, they still had my wife and I still hadn’t figured out where they hid her, even as I was being allowed an hour video call session with her every day.

Sylvester and Phillip marched in, reminding me once again that I was the chief planner to what might be one of the greatest heists to happen in Nigeria. Sometimes we don’t get to choose how our names go down in history. I was tempted to create a loose plan for them but I had realized they were no fools, especially not Josephine.

I dropped the cards I had been shuffling, took a sip from the glass of Hennessey at my elbow and blew a wisp of smoke from my mouth, then held on to the cigarette with my lips and prepared myself to listen to whatever they had found out. This wasn’t a product of their bad influence, but a version of me, when Courtney wasn't around to feed me the gospel. What I would give to trade now for then.

“What have you guys found out” Tolu was first to ask, ditching his smartphone which answered with a sharp click.

We had been three initially in the room but their arrival had everyone pouring out including Josephine. The sight of her still did something to the male in me. I still mentally trace the outlines of her curves inside her baggy shorts and shirt, the kind of clothes that even Tupac, if alive in this decade would have agreed was a waste of good cotton.

Sylvester eased into a sofa and gestured for Phillip to talk. All attention shifted to Phillip as he positioned himself at the center of the room, with the confidence of a tutor. “So far, three people made it into our checklist, based on Dimka's report. First on the list is Michael Ogba, the auditing manager of the bank. Michael is a born sadist to everyone both at work and at home. He has married twice and has a lot of ladies on the side. He buys his clothes himself at the top merchants and does his laundry also at the top places, we can’t get anywhere near these places. But as I said earlier, he has a lot of side ladies and he is especially fond of one, Mirabel Daniels, whom he spends a week with sometimes. When with her, she does his laundry for him at a local laundry house, near the apartment he got for her, we have a chance of interception there. No. 2 on the list is not a member of the senior staff, but he does get into places in the bank, by virtue of being in control of the accounts of some of the bank's VIP customers. Banda Salihu is unmarried but in a committed relationship. His fiancé handles his shopping, she buys his clothes from her friend who does some sort of modern cloth hawking, where she takes clothes to people's houses to sell to them. The cloth hawker does her business visit to Banda’s fiance, every last Thursday of the month, which is a week from now. She is a clumsy lady, and to add our prepared cloth into her wares would be very easy. Last on our list, is Bella Omotayo. Bella is one of the key bank operations officers. She is a party freak, a flirty and promiscuous lady, and an addict to pretty boys. She has rushed into and out of five different marriages and miraculously had no kids in any of them. But with all this, Bella's wardrobe is an hurdle, we can’t get access to it, because she lives alone, doesn’t keep friends for more than a day, and does her shopping and laundry herself. The only way we can get at her is to feed her what she loves most, a pretty boy” at his last words, eyes were carried unto Jerry.

Jerry was momentarily taken aback by the eyes on him, that he took the larger part of a minute to find his words. “You guys are not actually thinking of asking me to seduce her”

“If you use the word seduction. Then that’s what it is” Tolu said. Sylvester and Phillip also said something to reiterate what he had said.

Dada patted Jerry on the shoulder to silence before he could voice a complain. “You can do this bro” he encouraged with a grin. Jerry realized it was a lost war, and he slumped into his half of the sofa in surrender.

“I am thinking we try another approach with her. Since we are sending someone to her” Josephine said, then paused to ponder for a while. “Why don’t we clone her phone” she finally said.

Jerry made barely inaudible comments, complaining of the extra burden he had to shoulder even as noises went around in support of the idea. I had to agree the idea was swell. With the idea, much could be gathered from her business calls and messages, than could be gathered from videoing her movements in the bank. I didn’t voice my opinion though, naturally, I wanted desperately for things to crumble faster, and not get better.  

What followed was a series of arguments on who to do what. I had no choice but to sit through the hail of noises. At the end of it all, it was finally resolved that Sylvester and Phillip handle the Michael Ogba end, while Tolu and Dada took care of Banda Salihu's end, and as earlier agreed Jerry was stuck with seducing Bella Omotayo. Then as if by telepathic agreement, the room started emptying in ones and twos till it remained me and Josephine, who was to be watching me this afternoon.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her, as she sat astride me. I didn’t see a man in baggies, like the image that she tried desperately to create, I was seeing the woman I had lain with in the hotel, the woman that sparked off the male in me as no lady has ever done. The woman that filled my thoughts and mind.

The urge was so great to have her in my arms again, that I burned out my cigarette on the center table and walked over to her side of the room. I was about to sit beside her when she threw her palm against my cheek. It was so expertly thrown that I couldn’t have dodged it, even if I hold the world record for speed. A searing pain reeled back my senses and I was momentarily stunned.

“Get the hell away from me and go write down the list of things you would need to make the camera suits” she commanded, fishing out a cigarette from a case in her purse. She carefully lit the cigarette and with steady hands held it to her lips. I was still too stunned to do anything but watch her.

TWELVE

THE LAUNDRY SHOP says Spring Laundry, and under this, was a long list of nonsense that Sylvester didn’t bother to read. The shop was the fourth shop by the staircase on the second floor of the two-storey plaza, which looked like a big letter C. The afternoon sun persuaded the Plaza to cast its massive shadow as a shade over the vehicles around.

As they made their way through the staircase Sylvester and Philips could hear clearly the whirling and slurps of washing machines and the activity of feet. The strong smell of detergents and bleach disturbed Sylvester’s stomach and he cursed, if only he had been allowed to lead and not that cold bitch, he would be giving orders to the others and wouldn’t be forced to wear this suit, he rakes his eyes on himself, failing to appreciate the look Phillip had commented was of a rich businessman. No cloth in the world could change how he looked at himself.

“Hello there” Phillip said to a teenager at the counter. It was fitted from wall to wall and was a few feet from the door, barring anyone from going further into the room.  

The plan was simple, Sylvester had to pose as Michael Ogba and Phillip, as his Valet and they had to convince the laundrymen to give them one of Michael Ogba's suits.

“I am here for the clothes Miss Mirabel brought here”  

The boy eagerly consulted a register before him. Then he looked up at Phillip’s smiling face. “She didn’t state that anyone would be here to collect the clothes in her place and she brought the clothes just yesterday, we have barely washed them, not to talk of ironing them”

At this point, Sylvester who had been waiting outside the shop thought to chip in. “What” he yelled, “You haven't washed and Ironed them, you must be joking. Don’t bother doing the laundry again, just give me back my clothes. I don’t know why she patronizes such local quacks for me. At STEVE's laundry, three hours is what it takes for them to do all my laundry. Just get me my clothes” He slapped a thin bundle of #500 notes on the counter before the boy.

The boy was confused, his eyes jumped from one man to the other uneasily. Miss Mirabel had always brought the clothes on Mondays and would come for it herself on Thursdays. This was a drastic change to the initial arrangement. He decided to share the headache. He excused himself and went into the room to fetch his boss, a man who Sylvester thought, barely escaped the shores of dwarfism, his head barely made it above the counter.

“I heard you came for the clothes brought in by a Miss Mirabel Sir. According to our rules, she is the only one allowed to come for the clothes”

“Is this a joke? I can’t collect my clothes because she was the one who brought them. What sort of stupid policy and service do you run here” he scoffs, then he slaps another thin bundle of #500 notes before the new man, then he made a long exhalation of resignation. “Just get me one of the suits that you've washed. I can’t wear this to the office again” he turned to reveal a large stain on the suit he was wearing.

The man took the money. It was hard to decide which did the convincing, the stain or the money.

“Go and bring one of the already washed suits brought by Miss Mirabel” he asked his boy, who turned deeper into the large shop and came out later with a Navy blue suit packed in a transparent bag.

Phillip collected the suit and made a face telling the man that he shouldn’t have allowed things deteriorate to this point. The short man returned with a grin that says he could care less.

“With the stupid service you guys run here, I would never let Mirabel bring my clothes here ever gain” Sylvester said, his tone was gravely serious, as he left the laundry with Phillip behind him.

They took the clothes to Charles, who with the help of a portable sewing machine, hid a spy camera in the thick lapel of the suit jacket, and sew it in place. This took close to three hours, and hours later, Phillip was returning the suit back to the Laundry house.

“Am sorry about my boss's behaviour earlier” he said to the boy at the counter “He had been pissed up already from a business meeting. So please don’t tell Miss Mirabel that we came for the suit or allow her to suspect that he had an argument with your boss today. My boss is very temperamental, he could end things with her if she rebukes him, and I wouldn’t like that. She's the only woman I have ever seen who makes him smile” he squeezes some notes into the boy’s palm, and the boy returned with an understanding grin.

“What about your boss” Phillip asked “would he tell her”

“He rarely has time to talk to anyone, and since you have paid him earlier, you have nothing to fear. He lives for money and I believe he will die for it”

Phillip grinned exuberantly, and ruffled the boy’s hair playfully.  

For Dada and Tolu, the last Thursday of the month came faster than expected. Still, they were prepared. Their mission was simpler than Sylvester and Phillip’s, and could probably be termed to be half done. They had bought a fancy suit from a popular boutique, and to Charles's specification, one with a thick lapel. Charles had taken his time to hide a spy camera in the lapel as expertly as he could. Now, they had only to slip the suit into Deborah Usman's wares.

Deborah was a mobile boutique, Banda Salihu's fiancée's friend, and unknown to his fiancee, his mistress. Deborah was in a little world of her own as she arranged her goods into a large bag for Banda Salihu’s place where her friend, Stella, was expecting her, so as to purchase some clothes for her prospective husband.

Deborah always wished Banda had met her first and not Stella, then they wouldn’t have had to hide their relationship from anyone, and she wouldn’t be forced to play the mistress role.

She knew Banda loved her, he just couldn’t bring himself to end his five-year relationship and call off his upcoming marriage with Stella.

Sometimes soon, he would have to make a choice, her or Stella, or she would make it for him. Her phone rang for the thirteenth time and Deborah consulted her wristwatch to discover that she was now thirty minutes late. She knew it was Stella calling. Stella was on her back with a trail of phone calls already, calls which she dared not pick.  

She dragged the now heavy bag to the door, and then down the stairs of the tenement apartment, where she’d been nursing, excluding Banda's august visits, a lonely existence for some years now.

Immediately she stepped out of the gate to find herself a Taxi, one pulled up just before her. Its silencer coughed out some choking smoke with an instantaneous burst as the driver stepped heavily on the brake.

Tolu was by the wheel, and Dada was in the backseat. “Where are you going Madam” Tolu asked, his smile was very patronizing.

Deborah peered into the Taxi, her eyes went from Tolu to Dada. For some reason, Dada scared her. He had a hard look to him.

Dada read her expression and shone his teeth as much as his mouth would allow at her, but still, she wasn’t convinced.

“Nowhere” she replied Tolu, turning away.

“Madam, do you want to be dragging this heavy load down the road? You know as well as I do, that it is very hard to find a Taxi on this road”

Deborah thought of it, finding a Taxi could be hell on this road. She took another look at Dada and still she wasn’t convinced.

“Am going nowhere” she replied again vehemently.  

Tolu knew if he should continue to pester her, she might just become suspicious and call her neighbours out on them. It wouldn’t be nice for things to escalate. He angrily started the car and herded it down the road. He was so angry, that he almost hit a pedestrian crossing the road. He hated that his own mission had to go sour.

“You’d better do something about that face of yours” he roared at Dada, who threw his hands to the air helplessly, his signature pose of helplessness. 

Meanwhile, in a high-class bar somewhere in the riches of Lekki, Bella Omotayo had a table by the wall. She was alone, with just her Airpods and iPhone for company. It was an hour after she'd found out that her date, with whom, she had planned a date at the bar, had other important things on his schedule than her. She'd gotten over the disappointment, but decided she would enjoy the Moet she'd ordered already, while she surf the internet for the latest gist. She was so engrossed with her cell phone that she didn’t notice that someone, some tables away from her, had her under his interested gaze for over forty minutes.

Jerry watched her giggle on some occasions at something from her phone and then take a sip or two of her drink, to wash down her personal merriment.

She had the best set of teeth he’d ever seen. He had thought she would be an ugly lady in her fifties but had found otherwise. Bella must be in her early forties. She had a slim beautiful face, that might as well say she was 20, a thick bust, a slim waist, and killer legs. She fit his preference for a lady in every way, except her age. She must be over seven years older. But age, as they say, is just a number.  

He couldn't bring himself to decide on how to approach her. This was all new to him. It had always been the other way around. Women had always flocked him and he had only to just make his pick.  

Realizing he still had to approach her at some point, he gathered up his courage, downed his whiskey, which burned his throat, and he went to her table.

“Can I sit with you” he asked.  

She took the Airpods from her ears, to catch his words. “Sure, sure” she urged, and he claimed the bar stool beside hers.

She dumped her phone and regarded him interestedly. “You sure are a cute one” she chuckled. “Say what you want to say, I don’t believe you stumbled upon my table by chance”

Jerry smiled. Things seemed to be going much easier than he'd anticipated. “I justtttt” he drawled “want to tell you that you are beautiful and I would like to know you better” he said and even though he knew his lines were lame, he needn’t worry as he saw her blush anyway.

“How about you tell me things about you, and then I'll decide if I'd let you know me better” She smiled.

Jerry thought if things were to continue like this, success was going to be an understatement. It proved to be just as he'd thought. She smiled through his little monologue of himself and returned with a lengthy monologue of herself. He found out that she was an average student at school, but loved calculations and always excelled mostly at calculation courses, and that’s why she had studied accounting in school. He found out also that she was a divorcee with no children and had few friends, and that the few were guys. He found out that she hated babies and would like to travel all over the world with the man she loves.

He found out so much more about her than a therapist could find from his patient. Their conversations progressed so excellently that at the end of the day, she gifted him a goodbye kiss on the cheek, then they shared their contact numbers and a promise to meet in two days' time.

*******

Dennis found out from Boss Friday, the house to one of Don Clinton boys' family, Agbari. Agbari's family lived in a house like most houses in the Ghetto, a dilapidated wooden structure with a poorly made zinc roof. There was a large earthen pot outside, sitting on a truck tyre that has closely married the soil. A thin strip of murky greenish liquid ran before the house and Dennis thought it smell worse than shit.

The image brought memories pouring into Dennis's mind, and he had quick flashes of when he had once been living in the ghetto, living in such poverty. He had escaped it by doing whatever it takes and he was not going to go back, by doing whatever it takes also.

With no leads to follow, Dennis had settled for looking into the immediate family members of Don Clinton and his boys, while he'd been at it, he'd found really almost nothing. Don Clinton had been an orphan with no siblings, favours prostitutes, and has no wife and kids to continue his criminal legacy. Most of his boys had also proved to be nothing better. They had migrated from their downtrodden villages, ditching their family there to seek greener pastures in Lagos, and the closest they had to a partner were harlots, only Agbari had led a different life. He was married and with kids.

He knocked on the door and a lady that clearly fit the poverty of the house answered the door. Two boys were by her feet. They had scraggy undernourished skins and bags under their little eyes just like their mother. One looked to be five and the other about three.

“Agbari's wife” Dennis asked. He didn’t let her confirm that she was, he rode her back into the house.  

The woman was more scared than surprised. The man before her was big and mean-looking. He scared her witless.

“Please, who are you” she breathed, her eyes growing wide. She tried to grab her kids closer, but she wasn’t fast enough as Dennis snatched the older one into his arms. The kid sensed danger and started to cry but Dennis gave him a scary look that shut him up for good.

“Please give me my child” she begged, going to her knees, her eyes were already heavy with tears. “Please forgive my husband for whatever he has done to you. Don’t harm me and my children please”  

“I have some questions for you and if you answer truthfully, I would leave you and your kids alone”

“Ask whatever you want to ask Sir, I will answer truthfully Sir”

“Did your husband tell you about him and his friends making a huge steal before he died”  

“Yes, Yes” she said eagerly, her voice strained by her tears. “He said that Devil, Don Clinton told him and his friends to attack a bungalow and steal something huge from it. He didn’t tell me what the thing was”

“Did he tell you where they kept it”

“No, no he didn’t. But it should be in Don’t Clinton’s place”

“Unfortunately, it is not” Dennis smirked. He scanned the room for somewhere to sit, everything in the room was dreary and dirty. He eventually settled for a wooden stool. He placed the kid on his lap and had him face his mother for her to see what he was about to do to her kid. He twisted the boy’s arm from behind, and the kid began to cry out in pain, making feeble struggling attempts, against a man such as Dennis, the kid was more than helpless.

The mother watched her son's face crease in pain and heard him cry profusely as his arm is twisted. The mental torment was so much that she shut her eyes and bit her lips so hard, that they bleed.

“I don’t know where they kept it, he didn’t tell me, please release my child to me, please” she begged continuously. “He only told me that a big man in the police asked Don Clinton to steal the thing for him and Don Clinton asked them to do it”

Dennis twisted the kid's arms once more, but all his mother did was begged continuously, claiming that she didn’t know anything other than what she had said.

Realizing that she was telling the truth and that he couldn’t get anything more from her, he threw the kid onto the floor angrily, and the mother scurried fast to her kid, cradling him in her arms and crying.

Dennis watched the scene remorselessly, then he banged his way out of the house, angry that he was no near the stolen goods now than he had been when he had started. He had only one extra piece of information which was worthless, a big man in the police. Over half of the police force are big men. One thing was certain though, someone had put them up to it in the first place, someone smarter, someone shrewder and someone thorough, and he had cleaned up all trail that could lead back to him.

THIRTEEN

IT WASN’T COMFORTING to know that to every Nigerian, I was worth a $20,000. I dropped the newspaper beside me with the knowledge that now, I wasn’t safe outside these walls as I wasn’t safe within it. Apart from being their heist planner, I was an additional, walking $20,000 waiting to be cashed after the heist. Right now, it was me versus the world and I was losing already.

Dada filtered in as Sylvester grumbled out of the room, he was to watch after me this afternoon, and I had been expecting this day for days now.

He was integral to my plan, my plan to escape all this alive with Courtney. He was the only one interested in me on a personal level and interested in my magic tricks.

I picked up my cards and made a quick and expert shuffle of them. “Wanna see a trick” I said, giving him an inviting smile.

“Boy. I wouldn’t mind you showing me a trick or two” he beamed and made to slap me on the back. I didn’t wait to find out if it was a playful slap or a serious one, as I weaved it. The action was amusing to him and he laughed. “Boy. You are getting damn too smart for my liking”

I gave him a dry grin. “Watch me” I said.

“Ok. Boy”

I brought the deck towards him. “Pick one and don’t show it to me” I said and he picked a card. Then I told him to write his initials on it and place the card back on the deck, which he did.

I made a good shuffle of the cards, then I asked him to guess a random number, and he guessed the number ‘7’. I spread the cards and asked him to pick the seventh card from his right.

He counted to the seventh card and picked his card, a seven of hearts, his initials are boldly on it. He dropped the card unenthusiastically “I have seen this trick many times, you guys do something you call pinkie-break to hold down the card I choose. I don’t know the rest, but I am definitely sure, you used that pinkie-break stuff”

I realized then, that he wasn’t one for psychological tricks but dazzling ones. “You think you know but you don’t. Let me show you some other tricks up my sleeve”

I took a large black handkerchief and a black deck of cards from my pocket, picked a wooden side stool by the sofa and spread the handkerchief on it. He had not the idea that I had prepared the stool beforehand and made it perfect for the trick, it was more than a side stool right now, I had made sure of that within the last three days of lockup. I drew back a little so he won’t completely catch the movements of my hands. “Watch” I finally said to him.

I spread the cards over the stool, picked two with both hands, and made them disappear. I saw the how-the-hell-did-you-do-it expression on his face before he shook it off. I thought, he ain’t seen anything yet. I picked another set of cards, turned them to blue, then to the initial black again. My hands were barely two inches from the table while I did all this. I made the previous cards appear back, sealed them into one card, and shook the card to show him that I hadn’t just placed them above each other but actually made them one. Then I made the one card become a full blue deck. I spread my palm over it and removed it to reveal the previous black deck in full. I dropped the black deck on the handkerchief, covered it with a palm, and snapped my fingers. I removed my palm from the deck, and it became two decks, a red and a black one. I packed both decks of cards and made them into just one card, then I made the card plain on both sides.

By the time I was finished. Dada was holding his jaw. He was beyond marveled.

“How did” he paused and swallowed anxiously “you just do that”

“I have been doing this for years man, this is just a little piece from the tricks I know. If I had done this for you with my original gears for it, you would have begged me to stop and not let me run you mad with amazement”

“Can you teach me one or two of these tricks?” he asked eagerly.

“I would teach you, but I have something important to tell you first”

“What is it?” he asked hurriedly.

“I want you to keep this between us. It is for your own safety as well as mine”

I could see that his senses had heightened and the suspense of whatever I wanted to say was killing him.  

“Boy, get on with whatever you want to say”

I turned to look left then right. No one was in the room and I knew nobody was coming from both sides, I did that to further the suspense. Then I moved towards him and whispered. “Yesterday, I overhead Josephine telling Phillip that not all of you would get to spend the money after the heist. Some of you would have to be killed so as to allow the rest to get your share to top theirs, and they said especially you, that because you have done nothing really important so far and even failed in your mission to plant a camera on Banda Salihu”

“Shut up” he yelled. “I know what you are trying to do, you are trying to turn me against my friends. I am no fool” he raised his hand to slap me but I saw it coming and dodged it.

“I don’t quite agree with that. Think about it, why is it that, it is only Phillip and Sylvester that Josephine gives the most important jobs to do? She has a private arrangement with Phillip and is trying to keep Sylvester at bay, so that he won’t revolt against her, and try to lead. If you really had brains you would discover, I ain’t lying”

“Didn’t I just ask you to shut up boy” he yelled again.

“Ok, I am sorry if my words seem offensive to you” I said, but I saw that dullness in his eyes that told me, I had planted something in his mind. I had planted doubts and needed only to give it time to germinate. “Do you still want to see some more interesting tricks”

“Just get on with the tricks, and stop saying nonsense”

“Ok, sorry. Can you give me your hand” I said and he dropped his hand on mine.  

I held his hand in a handshake, staring at it for a while as if admiring it, then I carried my eyes to level with his so that he stared into mine and I stared into his. Suddenly, without giving him a chance to suspect what I was about to do, I gave his hand a quick, but slightly forceful jerk downwards, and immediately, keeping my voice low but authoritative, I said. “Sleep” and I watched his eyes begin to close slowly as he fell to slumber.  

He was hypnotized. I had him in a trance already. I had to learn hypnotism as a backup for my magic tricks years back, and now it was proving to be my lifesaver, I and Courtney’s lifesaver.

I carried my hands to his back to guide him to me, and I rested his head on my shoulder.

“You will listen only to my voice, and let it guide you, and you will follow my every suggestion. Every other sound and every other voice will be shut off from your mind as you wake up slowly, and sit up to face me” I said into his ears and he raised his head from my shoulder slowly and sit up to face me.

“You will answer my questions truthfully and fast, nod your head once if you will”  

I watched him nod his head.

Then I asked. “Where are you guys keeping my wife, Courtney”

“I don’t know where they kept her” he replied drowsily.

“Who amongst you know where she is”

“Only Susan and Sylvester know. They are the ones that locked her up”  

I figured Susan was Josephine.

“If you were to make a guess, where would you think they kept my wife”

“Susan’s house”  

“And where is Susan’s house”

“I don’t know”

“Who owns this house that we are in”

“Sylvester”

He couldn’t be lying under hypnotism, he doesn’t really know where they kept Courtney, but he wasn’t useless still. I had another job for him.

“Now I want you to follow my voice as I help you bring out the memories buried in your mind. I also want you to store these memories somewhere in your mind and remember them every day of your life. Are you ready” I said and he nod his head drowsily.  

“Now remember, remember sometime last week, you were in your bed at night, sleeping and snoring loudly. Suddenly, you heard a noise, the noise of the door opening slowly. You didn’t think much about it so you did not get up from the bed, but you were awake already. Then you heard someone crawling towards your bed and you were afraid, you were scared, very scared. Then again, your ears picked up the sharp noise of a knife, slicing through the air, and you turned towards the noise and saw Phillip, standing by your bed with a knife in his hands. The instant Phillip saw you were awake, he dropped the knife and ran out of the room. Then you sat up, with your heart pounding, and you were thinking, why did Phillip want to kill you? But then, you knew the answer already, as you have overheard Susan and Phillip discussing three days before that day, that they were going to kill you and divide your own share amongst themselves. Do you remember”  

He was trembling and sweating profusely as he answered “Yes. Yes, I remember”  

Following the pattern, I painted two other scenarios of his friends trying to kill him and had him remember them. I was about to begin another one when my ears picked up on approaching feet. The low noise told me, I still had about two minutes max before an interruption. I skipped immediately to the last part.  

“You will forget everything that we have done for the past thirty minutes except the memories I helped you remember. You will never forget the memories as you will have them etched in your mind. At the snap of my fingers, you will wake up feeling refreshed and invigorated and you will, as I have said forget everything except those memories, which will forever remain at the top of your mind”

I snapped my fingers before his ear and brought him out of his trance and he was smiling so unnaturally with all his teeth as if he had just won a lottery.  

Half a minute later Josephine or Susan walked in. I wouldn’t let her the idea that I now know her real name. It would only make her suspicious.

“How has your day been Josephine” I smiled at her and so did Dada.

FOURTEEN

TOLU AND PHILLIP walked through the glass trapdoor into the busy little world of ABH bank at exactly 12noon.

Big hefty men in neat blue uniforms flanked the room. Phillip was intrigued by how serious and professional looking they are, as he walked with Tolu to a group of waiting chairs, choosing the most secluded spot.

Before them were two separate queues on a roped area, and out of four wickets structured to attend to them, only two tellers were operating, sweats beading their overworked faces. The typical Nigerian syndrome, Phillip thought. No bank in Nigeria ever has its whole wickets operating.

“Your round bro” Tolu passed a smartphone to Philips, then marched towards the toilet. Phillip unlocked the phone and operated the camera as instructed by Charles. He sighed as he plugged an earpiece to his ears, shutting off the cornucopia of noises in the room. The whirring noise of counting machines, thunk of stamps as the tellers authenticated payment slips, endless ruffle of papers as bills changed hands, and the practiced voice of tellers hollering NEXT. He thought, what a boring day today was going to be, as he leaned back onto his seat to watch and record the movement of Michael Ogba as covertly as he could manage, waiting patiently till Tolu would come to relieve him.

At this same time, Jerry was walking up to Bella's door. After the bar, they had spent the better part of the week chatting themselves up. She had told him that she lived alone and urged him to visit, and Jerry had been more than happy to comply.

For him now, this was more than a task assigned him, this was personal. He couldn’t really describe the feeling, whether it was love or lust, but he was sure he felt a pull toward Bella.

He didn’t let the bell ring through before he thumbed it again. He breathed into his hands and bath his hair with it. The door opened with Bella before it. She was in her nighties. A long robe, with an inner that was more of a net than cloth. He could clearly see her bra and panties. He suspected the dress was for his benefit. She was keen to go straight down to the lust part of the business, and so was he.

“Good morning beauty” he smiled.

She returned his smile and made a hurried show of covering herself up with the robe. He leaned towards her and kissed her on the cheek, and at a thought he let it slide to her lips.

She didn’t push him away, so he let it stay and when he thought he’d let her have enough of him, he pulled back.  

He saw her cheeks turn pink as she chuckled softly. “Do you kiss every lady you visit at her door”

“No. Only the beautiful ones with the name Bella” he cooed. She eased off the way for him to enter.

Her house was colourful, with an interior decoration that spelled femininity. There was a mini bar at the right end of the room beside the stairs, manageably stocked, and against the wall, was a bookshelf, also manageably stocked.

“Make yourself at home Jerry, am coming. I just want to shower and change into something better” she said, riding up the stairs. He watched her leave, following keenly with his eyes, the sensuous sway of her hips till she fell out of sight.  

Without her hips to feast his eyes on any longer, he turned his attention to some framed pictures on a wall in the room.

One was of her and a group of people on Olumo Rock, their business-like expressions suggest they were her colleagues. There was also a picture of her bathing under a waterfall. A picture of her in some place in Port-Harcourt, another in Zuma Rock, Abuja. The pictures were all of her in different places. An idea grew in his head as he stared at her pictures. He should help her dress, he thought, and with that, he set out to find the master bedroom. He pushed the door to what he suspected was the master bedroom, and let himself in.

Bella had just her towel as a wrap on her and was about to rub her thighs with a lotion when he came in. He shot her a sensual smile.

“You are making yourself very well at home Mr. Jerry. You are taking my words down to heart” she adjusted her wrap to reveal more of her thighs.

“I can’t find another thing to make me feel at home but you” he said. He takes his hands to her thigh and rubbed it softly, then he eased her wrap off her carefully, and kissed her.

An hour later, they both lie spent and sore on the bed, after what Jerry could only describe as the most thrilling, longest, and unforgettable sexual experience, he has ever experienced in his life. Then he watched her brows rise in remembrance of something.

“Oh my God” she cried, starting from the bed. “I’d forgotten I have to be at an important meeting at 5 pm. I am sorry dear” she kissed him. “I’d be back before you know I have left” She scooped her towel from the floor and ran into the bathroom.

He made sure to hear her bolt the door to the bathroom before he rushed to his feet, searching for her cell phone. He found it after a minute. It was connected to a charger, plugged into an electric socket just by the bed.

He unplugged it and brought his out of his pocket. His heart was beating furiously and his hands shook as he tried to unlock her smartphone. He tried her birthday, then her phone number in full, then her phone number again without the country code. That finally unlocked it. He scrolled fast to a sharing app on his smartphone and hers. He was sharing the cloning app when she stepped out of the bathroom and their eyes met in that uncomfortable situation.

“What the hell are you doing with my phone” She yelled, her brows drawn dangerously upward, and her eyes full of fury.  

FIFTEEN

WE ALL WATCHED THE CAMERA recordings, sieved through the great mass of details it provided, and tried to note down the important ones, but we found, there were really no important details, and there were mostly scraps. We were stuck with only Micheal Ogba’s movements after Tolu and Dada failed on the Salihu Banda part of the plan, and Michael Ogba barely left his office today.

It was at the point where everyone was beginning to acknowledge that the recordings were all scraps that Jerry sprang a surprise on us.

For a while, we all stared speechlessly at both of them, he and the lady, and they stared back in return. Everyone knew without being told that she was Bella Omotayo. Jerry had failed the one task he was given. Well, I thought it was their headache, not mine. In fact, the earlier things began to crumble, the merrier for me.

“Jerry boy, what is she doing here” Dada was the one to break the silence.

Jerry ignored him and gestured for her to sit, then he sat beside her. He was a little too much chivalrous, that I suspect the seducer had been seduced.

“She wants to join in this heist. She knows the bank more than any of us here, and she would prove to be a useful asset”

Susan stood up without a word, her deadpan face gave no hint to her thoughts. She turned to herself thoughtfully, and when she turned back, she had in her hand, a pistol.  

“Who the hell are you to decide who gets added into the group” she yelled, covering Jerry and Bella with the gun.

Jerry scrambled to his feet, pleading continuously, while Bella remained seated. Her face was expressionless, but it was also full of confidence. Confidence that unnerved me. She must have more than one life, I thought, as she showed no fear before the gun. I was afraid as I watched everything. Guns scare me more than anything in the world.

“The bank opens officially at 7 am in the morning and closes at 4:00 in the evening but the staffs remain till 7:pm for accounting activities, especially on Fridays. There are a total of twenty guards in the bank, five are stationed outside, at the gate, while the remaining fifteen are distributed evenly between the first three floors. The other floors are accessed only by administrative staff. The guards at the gate are the only ones licensed to carry guns, the ones in the bank are not. There is also a private arrangement with the police, where they are to answer immediately, a distress call which can only be made from the office of the CSO, and only him knows how to make that call. Three of the main vaults are on the fifth floor and a room for safe-deposit boxes is on the second floor. The sixth floor contains other vaults and also the offices of the key staff and likewise the senior staff of the bank. The vaults use a bimodal biometric bank vault access control, meaning it can only be unlocked by two people who will have the system scan their irises simultaneously and authenticate them simultaneously. Is that enough or should I continue” Bella said confidently.

I saw a flicker of pride for her in Jerry's eyes on how she had handled the situation. I had to agree she was a necessary addition if the heist was to scale through, but I kept my opinion to myself.

Sylvester saw the opportunity to challenge Susan’s authority. “Drop the gun and look at the bigger picture, we need her. We need an inside man”

“The only picture I am seeing is one where I am dancing around your casket. You think she is doing this for charity. If we lean on her help, she'll start to make huge demands that would be harmful to us”

“I just want the same share as you all, nothing more and nothing less” Bella chipped in.

“Watch the way you talk to me” Sylvester yelled at Susan “You might be chosen to lead but you are nothing and I could crush you with my bare hands”

“Let’s see about that” she smirked. What happened next took everyone by surprise, even Bella lost a bit of her bravado.  

Gunshot reverberated in the room as Susan fired point blank at Sylvester’s hand. It was so expertly taken that the bullet drilled a neat hole through his palm. Sylvester held his hand with the other hand, dancing around in pain, swearing and cursing furiously.

“Whoa! Whoa! let be civilized here” Tolu moved cautiously toward Susan, and she allowed him to take the gun from her hands. Her face was still emotionless as she returned to her seat. I wasn’t the recipient of her shot but I was scared silly by it all. I knew she was heartless, but I never thought she could be this cold-blooded.

“Let’s put this to vote” Tolu suggested.

“We are not running a democracy here”

“The leader makes the followers as the followers make the leader. You can’t run this thing alone, you need us as we need you. We have our rights as you have yours, and we demand to have a say on this”

“Just get on with whatever you want to do” she conceded.

Tolu turned to the whole room. “Those in favour of the lady leaving, raise your hands, and those not in favour keep your hands down”

I counted only two hands up, Susan's and Phillip’s.

“The Nays have it then” Tolu declared. Susan snorted and stormed out of the room, heading in the direction of her bedroom.

Jerry quickly grabbed Bella, and dragged her out of the house before Susan could change her mind.

Two days later, after putting Susan and the others and the heist out of their mind, they came to enjoy the night in an open bar cum restaurant, where they could fill themselves up with some naturally cooked local dishes and some drinks at a price sympathetic to their pocket, and still get fresh air to their lungs.

The local band played something original on love whose lyrics Jerry couldn’t help but agree had a synchronous flow with the rhythm and the instruments that together exploded into a melodious and enthralling music, urging half of the bar to their feet.

“Can I have a dance” he gave her his hand and she took it with a chuckle.

“Yes you can”

He led her to the makeshift dance floor which was just a small expanse of space free of the usual round plastic tables and chairs, and they danced, holding each other close. Jerry felt maybe for the first time in his life, he was falling in love. He hadn’t really been a lover nor had he been a player, though more than half of the ladies he had known believed he was the latter, much on his looks than anything.

After dancing for a while, they headed back to their table. A waiter brought two bottles of Trophy beer and an equal amount of chicken pepper soup bowls as their last course. Jerry watched Bella’s eyes lit with delight and he was glad he brought her here.

Indeed Bella did love it here, the open air, the food, and the music all did much to liven her up after a stressful day at the office.

“Jerry, there is something I want to talk to you about” she said, after scooping a spoonful of the soup into her mouth.

There was something about the way she said it that he froze on his meal, and its hitherto delicious aroma developed a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. Was she tired of him already? Does she not want to hang out with him again? He was asking himself many questions as he asked her. “Hope nothing's the matter”

She caught his apprehension and smiled. “Relax love, there's nothing to fret about”

“Then what is it” an anxious note to his words.

“I just want to ask why you got involved in this heist”

Jerry watched her carefully. He found that he didn’t really know how to answer that. His one goal had always been to live a life free of financial troubles, but right now, he felt he wanted to live her dream with her and travel the world with her and their kid. He didn’t want to share with her yet the fact that he might have fallen for her.  

He said. “I want a life of extreme freedom, and riches and that’s something only money can provide”

She carried her hands across the table and fondled his affectionately. “Jerry, I love you” she said.

Jerry could only stare at her, he said and did nothing. His hands trembled nervously beneath hers. “Or don’t you feel the same way about me, Jerry?”

Jerry was taken aback by the suddenness of her words that he still couldn’t reply her.

“So all this never meant anything to you. It was all just meaningless sex and dates”. Still, she couldn’t get a reply out of him. She picked up her purse and stood up to leave, but he held her back.  

“I don’t know, but I think, I might love you” he blurted out.

She bent and kissed him. “That'll do” she smiled at him, sitting back. “Jerry. How much do you trust your friends”

He regarded her warily as he replied “I don’t really trust them. We don’t really trust each other. We are all together because of a common goal, which is the heist”

“Knowing this, are you sure that they wouldn’t betray you when the opportunity arises”

“Just get to the point. What are you trying to say?” Jerry asked impatiently.

“I am saying that you should act fast before someone pull a fast one on you. Betray them before they betray you. Someone is going to betray another sometime soon. Shouldn’t you just try to be on the safer side of the situation”

Jerry laughed. She knew nothing. Her little bravado the other night was doing much to her head. Giving her grand ideas.

“Listen and listen good. If you don’t love your life, I love it. All of us in that group are far from saints. Sylvester was once a killer for hire and a robber rolled into one. He has plans to travel out of the country with his share of the money, and no human in the world is going to get in the way of that. Tolu is also a ruthless killer, though not like Sylvester, he has a daughter suffering from cancer and needs a lot of money to take care of her chemotherapy and other sorts of medical bills, and if a soul tries to stop him from getting the money for his daughter’s medical bills, he wouldn’t be lenient on such person. Dada plans to leave this country just like Sylvester but he is keen on marrying a white woman to clinch the citizenship of her country and someone who will wake him from his lifelong dream would only die from extreme torture. Phillip has plans to invest his own share of the money in politics and Josh in oil, and both men won’t like anyone robbing them of that. The lady amongst us, Susan, is the devil's bride. That is what she is called by the people who really know her and half of those people are lying in their graves already. She talks more with a gun than she does with her mouth. Sylvester knew that the other day, only his bitterness of not being appointed the leader got the better of him. She has respect only for Tolu. She could shoot you and not bat an eyelid at your corpse, that is the kind of lady she is”

If he had expected her to be shaken he was wrong, that only bolstered her arguing power. “So how can you trust such vile characters with your own, our own share of the money? I'd love to travel around the world with you if you want to, and even supposedly we get our share of the money which is unlikely. A few billion Nairas would get us nowhere love” she squeezed his hands affectionately.

Jerry could find the sense in her thought, he didn’t trust the others a bit. None of them trusted each other. They just depended on the idea that if one of them betrayed the rest, such a person would have five heartless killers on his/her trail fast. Yeah, five heartless killers. He wasn’t a killer. He had no history of violence. He is the odd one out. He is the weakest one.  

She was right, he was a sheep dealing with lions, who says they wouldn’t have him for dinner when the deal is over. “And what would you have me do?” He asked.

“In any heist, the inside man wields the most power, and I know just how to use that power” She saw the calm in his eyes that said she'd convinced him. She smiled secretly. She couldn’t wait to tell Micah everything.

SIXTEEN

THIS WAS THE SECOND TIME in a week that I would be finding Dada alone, and at exactly 5:pm, a few minutes from now, I had to brief the gang on my plan as to how they could successfully rob ABH bank, still, I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity with Dada. I had to make the most of the few minutes to 5:00 pm.

It wasn’t enough that I had planted doubts in Dada’s mind about his friends and I had further instilled those doubts and hatred with hypnotism. I had to keep reinforcing it, for it to take firm root in his mind. Manipulation wasn’t a one-step thing.

I stood from one of the cushion-less dining chairs, where I had been shuffling a card in solitude, while Dada watched me from the sitting room, even while he busied himself with his smartphone. I claimed a spot directly opposite him, and he looked over his phone at me.

“Wassup Boy. Sorry, our master planner” he joked, making a hilarious attempt at a salute.

“You wanna see some more tricks”

“Sure, sure, boy” he said enthusiastically, ditching his phone to beside him. “Remember you promised to teach me one of those tricks you did the last time”

I mused an apology to him for my forgetfulness, which was far from genuine. No magician willingly gives out the hows of the trade, it was a silent rule. While I showed him some tricks, I chatted him up on topics, where every man share interest, women and sports.

I dazzled him with some tricks for a while till I felt he was ready for our session, then I alluded one of the tricks to the idea of trust and I asked. “You must still trust your friends even when you know that they are planning something bad against you”

“If you still want an audience for your tricks, you'd better make use of your hands more than your mouth” He said, an aggressive bite to his words.

“Ok” I conceded “That’s your bad, not mine. Let us do another form of magic”

“Which type of magic?”  

“You will know, just follow my instructions”  

“No problem”

I said to him carefully “Look straight into my eyes” I pointed to my eyes “Focus on it, focus on my voice also, let it guide you, let it flow into your ears and fill your head” I snapped my fingers, and the little drowsiness that appeared in his eyes told me, I already had him in a trance.

“Take your phone” I said and watched him pick up his phone. “Unlock it, and click on the voice recording app. Make a twenty seconds recording of yourself telling yourself "Don’t trust them". Then use that recording as your phone’s ringtone and alarm tone” I snapped my fingers again.

After he did as I had told, I said to him “You will forget everything that I had told you to do, you won’t remember making that recording or even using it as your phone’s ringtone, you won’t remember a thing except that I showed you some magic tricks and we chatted” I gave him a quick push on the forehead and that brought him out of his trance.  

I hadn’t settled to show him more tricks when Susan strolled in. I slid my gaze to the wall to find the old wall clock, planning to chime 5:00 in a minute. Susan didn’t bother about greetings, she just took up a sofa. In no time, Josh made his way into the room, then Tolu, and so was Phillip. Bella and Jerry came in ten minutes after the scheduled time. Jerry held her at arm's length as if trying to shield her from Josephine’s wrath. I couldn’t help but think that the two have gotten too close to still be running the seducer and seducee relationship, and I suspect most of the room shared that thought.

Sylvester breezed in last, reeking of iodine, methylated spirit, and his band-aid was dyed red with blood. The only sympathy he enjoyed at his injury was his own. He was nobody’s best person, especially not mine.

I enjoyed all their attention as I stood up and turned on my presenting charm. It wasn’t like I was enjoying doing this, but I couldn’t help flaunting my abilities sometimes. I began. “I have devised a plan taking in cognizance the initial arrangement where you want to steal and replace the bank money with fake ones so that the Police wouldn’t know that the money had been stolen. This can be achieved in two steps: First, the money should never leave the bank, because when it does, the bank officials are wont to examine the money and secondly, the fake money has to be identical to the real ones in all ramifications to pass as real ones. Fake mediums do this in fake letter séances, they open letters to read their contents and then seal them back carefully as they had been previously sealed, considering all the circumstances that surrounded its initial sealing, so that when the letter finally gets back to the owner, he/she wouldn’t be able to detect even in their wildest dreams that the letter had been tampered with. So, If the money in the vault is rough looking, the fake ones have to be also, the fake ones have to be arranged in groups of a hundred pieces and bond with the bank's stamped binds, as the original ones in the vault must be, and also the denominations must be respected, a thousand naira note should be exchanged for a thousand naira note and not a five hundred naira, so also for the rest. These all create the simple illusion that the money hasn’t been touched. Most of these, Miss Bella would have to help with, by giving us details of the denominations each vault contain and especially help procure the bank’s stamped binds”

Bella winked at me. “No problem Mr. planner” she joked “Carry on”

“So, the first challenge is how to get the money into the bank, and for that, I have a solution. The bank must procure the necessary stationaries and materials to run its operations and considering the position of ABH Bank, it must be on a large scale. We would have to intercept the delivery of these inventories to the bank and create what we magicians call ‘False bottoms’ for the pack of goods to conceal some of the equipment you will need for the heist and also to smuggle in the money. The rest lies with Miss Bella. She would have to help make sure that the packs that had been tampered with are not used before the heist takes place. They will have to be marked so that she can recognize them, and also on the day of the heist, she is going to have to help bring a few of the tampered packs out as the equipment in them would be needed immediately when the heist begins. Can you do that?”

Bella rows her head indecisively “I should be able to do that”

“Why is she getting the bulk of the work anyway” Jerry complained.

“Will you just shut up” Susan snapped “So she should earn billions by just giving us some useless layout of the bank and its operations”

Jerry made some inaudible grumblings and finally shut up as she had commanded.

“Also, does the bank have any area where it seeks repairs, like a toilet, or an office?” I directed at Bella again.

“Yeah, there is a toilet on the third floor, usually used by the security guards. It has some pipe work issues and is slated to be fixed next week”

“Can you get them the job”

“I should be able to”

“Good then, because when carrying equipment for the repairs, they will have to smuggle in guns too. The guns should be pistols, small ones, that can be disassembled so that I can help hide them in the soles of some shoes for them to smuggle in. If truly the bank’s metal detector works, it won’t be able to really detect if it is a gun or a hammer. If any of you doesn’t know about plumbing, then that’s your loss. Because I have thought hard and found no other way around this” I didn’t wait for an answer to that, I continued. “You guys will have to hide the guns smartly in the pipe works, how you do that is also left to you, as I have said, I know nothing about plumbing. That aside, I have a question for you again” I gestured at Bella.

Jerry gave me a look like I was disturbing his heartthrob with my questions, but I could care less, he'd helped in keeping me from mine. “Tell me in brief, the character of the CSO”

She raised her brows ponderously. “Demilade Thompson is a nice and jovial person. Talks much, usually about his kids, how they did well at school, and the other usual blah blah blah, and he can be hard on his subordinates at times”

“That’s ok. For him to always talk about his family, then he must love them very much. So, you would be given some voice recording devices which you will help plant in his house. This is just to capture at least two of his children’s voices, you will also help get their names, routines, the name of their schools, etc...”

“I don’t think I can do that” Bella blurted. “This is more than I signed up for”

“You have to earn your keep. If you know you can’t do something as simple as that, you better use the door” Susan shot at her.

“And lose my life” Bella returned. “Who's to say you won’t shoot me the moment I stand up to leave”

“I thought you were only pretty, never knew you were smart”

“Perhaps smarter than you without a gun”

I wasn’t bothered about the ladies' exchange, but they were disturbing my presentation, so I felt obliged to take back the stage. “After getting the voice recordings of the kids. Phillip would have to imitate their voices. Which will be used to threaten the CSO on the day of the heist that his kids had been kidnapped....”

“Why don’t we actually kidnap them” Sylvester proposed.

“You don’t have the numbers for both operations and also whatever the cost, I am not touching kidnapping”

“We’ll work with the voice-imitating thing. Continue” Susan said, much to assert her position as the leader.

“The assistance of Miss Bella would also be required again. She would get us, the name of one of the most introverted staff on the third floor, preferably a male. She will get us his full picture, and also must be able to describe in brief his mannerisms, his way of walking and talking, etc, this would be needed on the day of the heist. So now, to the day of the heist, of the seven of you, only six would go in. The seventh person, preferably a man would wait outside the bank in a car and the car must be loaded with signal jammers, which he/she can control at will. He must also have access to a truck nearby, which would have police stickers pasted on both of it sides. When I say nearby, I don’t mean directly outside the bank, but where the truck can be reached at least within twenty-thirty minutes, and it should be staying hidden from most eyes. The man in the car would call the CSO privately, telling him that his children have been kidnapped. There has to be a threat not only in his words but also in the way he says them. He would then play the voice recording prepared by Phillip to the CSO as evidence of his children being kidnapped and also switched on the signal jammers so that he won't be able to call anyone to confirm his children’s kidnap. Then he would tell the CSO to allow a man asking to see him into his office. This man would be Tolu. Tolu would go in and convince him not to press the button to alert the police unless he wouldn’t see his kids again, and would also convince him to put off the CCTVs in the bank and also lock the security door, letting no one into the bank. He would also have to make a speech to the bank security inside and outside the bank, that they shouldn’t be worried and should keep at bay the customers who want to go in or out, that the door had some technical issues which are currently being attended to. This is to prevent the armed guards outside from getting into the bank and also being aware of whatever is going on in the bank. At this time somewhere else, Phillip would wear the disguise of the staff on the third floor, so as not to be disturbed on his way to the toilet. There, he would get the guns from the toilets and then find a way to distribute the guns to the rest downstairs. But to be on the safer side, in case any of you isn't able to get a gun fast from Phillip, each of you will wear a disassembled fake gun in your shoes, concealed expertly in the soles. At this stage, you all would put on your mask and the heist officially begins. What remains is for you to create some other Illusions. Two of you will wait to control the hostages on the first floor, while the remaining four set out for the other floors. One or two will also wait to control the second floor, while the rest of you climb further to the other floors. You will bring everyone from the upper floors downstairs and share them between the first three floors. Now comes the part where the inventories brought out by Miss Bella would be useful, in them would be folded plastic frames of men, and little MP3 players with voice recordings of men chatting about how the heist is going well, making a call, telling someone that they are successful in the heist and other stuff like that. With these frames and MP3 players, you would create the illusion that they are more heist-men than there actually are. You would put these frames in some secluded spots in the bank from the first to the third floor, then with one man on each floor, the remaining three will handle the remaining tasks. This three would find the bank’s store and get from the store the equipment and the fake money that had been smuggled in. They would choose a room for the operation. Two of them would go fetch the people who can open the vaults and have them open all the vaults, and then, would return them back to the rest. The next stage is where the swapping takes place. After swapping the monies, they would then load the money into a compartment in some jumpsuits, which is among the things to be smuggled into the bank, and also load some extra money from the vaults, not among the swapped ones into some bags. This is to create the illusion, that it is the money inside these extra bags that you stealing, so no one would think of the jumpsuits as actually containing the money. Then they would take these jumpsuits downstairs and force some of the hostages to wear them, preferably females, the older ones because they are the more emotional types. You will tell them that the jumpsuits contain bombs and that if anyone goes contrary to your rules, or tries to tamper with the bomb, then the person would be bombed, and you will also act out a magic illusion for them, where one of you will infiltrate the hostages, wear one of the jumpsuits, and the rest will do a show of picking him at random, sitting him on a chair, and make a show of blowing him off, using fake bomb and blood. The magic illusions will be practiced days before the heist so that you can do it expertly before the crowd of hostages. This is necessary to convince the hostages with no doubt that what they wear is actually a bomb and not money, and also to alert the guards outside at that time that something is going wrong inside the bank. The guards outside will call the police.....”

“Wait! The police, what do they have to do here” Tolu inquired. His eyes watched me carefully with suspicion in them, just like the others.

“The police are necessary to get the money out, or how do you propose to get the money out and not have your asses followed after”

“I don’t see the way in which the police can help get the money out. Hope you aren't planning something funny here” Sylvester said and Josh supported.

“Have you given me a chance to explain how” I challenged.

“Ok. Then explain how, because I also don’t see how” Susan said.

“When the Police come, you all feign panic and begin to argue between yourselves, and then you will say something about escaping through a secret passage you had created through the toilet on the fourth floor for the hostages to hear. After that, you will pick from the hostages six people from different groups who seem to have come alone to the bank, and you will take them up to the fourth floor and swap dresses with them and give them jumpsuits to wear, jumpsuits filled not with money but junks you can find around. You will also give them the fake guns and the bags with money and have them stand around, after threatening them that you are going to detonate the bombs on them if they should ever leave the floor. Then you will infiltrate the separate groups of hostages. You will make sure not to infiltrate the group from which you had picked a person whose dress you wore so that no one would be able to identify you. At this point, you all will ditch your guns and one of you would connect the MP3 players to your phone, and play a recording from it which will ask everyone to get out immediately through the emergency exit. Before this time, the last man outside would have driven the truck to the bank, meet with the Police, and show them a fake ID card that says he is from the bomb squad sent by the state. So when everyone runs out of the bank and overwhelms the Police, he would take the bombed jumpsuits and drive off with them, everyone including the Police would be too afraid of the bombs to stop him. The hostages would inform the Police that the robbers are still inside trying to escape through another means and some police would rush into the bank. The remaining police won’t be able to hold such a large amount of people, they would just search you and would have no choice but to let you go, as the crowd would be complaining to be released badly. And that is finito” I said, with much aggrandizement on the word FINITO for dramatic effect.  

“What remains is luck, every plan whether grand or not needs luck” I said, staring round at their faces.

There were grumblings and smiles all around, but no major antagonism against the plan. I smiled broadly with the knowledge of what I had in store for them.

SEVENTEEN

JOSH AND JERRY PATIENTLY waited in a Camry parked some few meters away from the Thompson’s place, watching interestedly as Bella drove her Prius into the Thompson’s compound and the massive house gate swallowed her.

To Jerry, she might as well have driven into a terrorist camp. He was fidgety and nervous as he turned to Josh. “Do you think she will be safe? They wouldn’t catch her planting the recorders” he asked Josh.

“They are definitely going to catch her, she doesn’t stand a chance” he joked and the fear that crawled into Jerry’s face at his words had him blurt out laughing, while Jerry shifted uneasily, wondering why.

It was fun for Josh to see Jerry behaving like a fool because of a woman. He had to agree, ever since Bella came into the scene, Jerry had only grown more foolish. That’s what love does to men.

Josh had never in his life felt anything for any lady. To him, women are mainly for sex and procreation. His father had taught him so, and his father was never wrong. He'd grown up watching his father beat up his mother for every slight misdemeanour. At first, he'd hated his father and sided with his mother, but not until the day, his father sat him down for a man-to-man talk.

“Josh. The moment you give a woman an opportunity, no matter how little it is to make decisions for you, she dominates, and when she does, you can never get back to being the man. The trick is never to give her the opportunity, and always show her the power of your fist” his father had said and it had sounded right to his twelve-year-old mind. So Josh had used his fist through everything in his life, especially his relationships with women, and it had worked out just as his father had said, he had dominated. He was quick to learn later that that rule doesn’t apply to all women, especially not women like Susan. He respected and feared Susan.

“Just relax, If there is one smart woman on earth, it's that lady. Everything is probably going without a hitch in there” he said to quell Jerry's fear.

And indeed it was going without hitch for Bella as Mrs. Thompson, an ever smiling chubby woman welcomed her warmly into her home. As far as Mrs. Thompson was concerned anyone working with her husband was family.

“How are you doing Bella” she asked, squeezing Bella in a tight hug, with her big body.

Bella forced a smile as she pulled away. “Doing just fine” she answered. “I was just passing by your neighbourhood and thought to stop and say hi”

“That’s so thoughtful of you” Mrs. Thompson beamed, almost leaping on her toes.

“How are the girls, I heard they were awarded the best students in their schools this term. By the way, what’s the name of their schools, A cousin of mine is looking for a good school for her kid”

“Demilade had told you already”

Bella scoffed. Told her. That had been the man's personal anthem the past weeks. After greeting anyone, what comes next is ‘Did you know my girls were awarded the best students in the whole of their school'

“Rita attends HERITAGE model school, and Anabel your namesake, attends YOUNG SCHOLARS group of the school. And trust me, both schools are the best for your cousin’s kid. Demilade never fails to donate a part of his annual salary to them to appreciate their great academic system”

Bella thought if her father had donated part of his salary to her school, every year, she would have won the award for best student every year.

“Where are the girls, I have some little gifts in the car for them, to celebrate their academic victory”

“Wow” Mrs. Thompson was ecstatic “You got them gifts, that’s so nice of you. Let me go get them to come thank you” she turned and descended the stairs.

Bella sighed, watching her leave and thankful that she'd left. Mrs. Thompson’s melodramatism was already beginning to bore her as it always did. She placed a mini recorder under the center table and crossed over to a large dining table to do the same, then the kitchen and also the study room which fortunately was also on this floor. After everything, she settled on a sofa and waited for the Thompsons with her best smile.

Sylvester was careful not to hit his hand on anything as he made his way to the room where Phillip and Tolu were binding the fake money with the stamped binds provided by Bella.

The room had been under lock and key for a while now and he'd been waiting patiently for an operation that would involve the room, so he could pocket some of the money for his personal proclivities. And just when an opportunity came by, he couldn’t make use of it because he had been shot in the hand.  

This wouldn’t have happened, if not for Susan. He cursed her with every obscenity his brain could think up. One day, he promised himself, he was going to treat her like the bitch she is.

“How is it going guys,” He asked.

Phillip gave him that what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here expression. The kind that says he actually had the idea of what he was there to do but was against it.

“Going well” Tolu answered almost absentmindedly.

They had brought down what had been a wall of money to little piles scattered all around them. The money had been in four denominations, Five hundred Naira notes, a Thousand Naira notes, Twenty dollar bills, and Fifty dollar bills. They had done the Naira bills and were on the dollars. Just as he had hoped.

Sylvester moved further into the room, trying to pursue a conversation with Phillip, but Phillip gave him the shoulder.

Sylvester was persistent till a tiny bundle of ten dollar bills came within reach, and he palmed it into his back pocket.  

Phillip caught his surreptitious movement and shook his head disapprovingly but Sylvester just stood up and gave him a friendly wink. If anyone, Phillip wasn't going to tell on him.

Sylvester hummed under his breath as he made his way to his room. He always hummed whenever he was happy, and he is happy only when he sees money. The question of its originality was secondary, there were always ways to spend even fake money.

He showered and dressed in his most expensive suit. He stared at the full-length mirror in his room and who he saw, staring back at him might as well be a Prince in some faraway fairyland.

In five minutes he made it to his battered Camry, which might as well be a Bugatti, and thirty minutes later he was before Cynthia’s place. Cynthia was his girl for months now, and the only woman he'd ever really loved. They get along fine in everything, except the words from her mouth. He placed a call to her.

“Dress to kill babe” he laughed. “We are hitting the street in style” Then came a bored response from the other end that irritated him.

“I am waiting in my car outside your place, be fast about it, or I would leave and get myself another girl. Remember, they are many fishes in the ocean baby”

“Except you’ll scare them away with that face of yours”

“Just come out or I am leaving” he yelled.

“I am coming” she said and in a few minutes' time, Cynthia walked gracefully out of a tenement bungalow that had a pack of kids playing loudly before it.

She raked her eyes on the car. ‘in style' she sneered as she got in. Her sneers grew to pouts of wows, as they stepped into a Chinese Restaurant later. It was so grand, so like stepping into a Chinese blockbuster movie, that she had doubts if Sylvester could really afford the place and not let them be disgraced out of the restaurant in the end. Sylvester was a big talker.

The doorman bowed to her, even the waitresses. The Restauranteur, a voluptuous Chinese man with a small face came also to address them. A big mole sat above his bloodless and tiny lips.

“Good Afternoon Madam” he said, with a half courteous bow.

Everything was so overwhelming that Cynthia turned to Sylvester and hugged him tightly, her face all smiles. Then she let him lead her to their table, with his hands on her waist.

“Do you like it here?” Sylvester asked even though the smile on her face was answer enough.

She leaned closer. “Are you sure we can afford this place? I hear they deal in dollars” she whispered.

“Don’t be a doubting Thomas and a worrying Judas. I won’t bring you here if I don’t have everything all sorted out.  

This evening, we are Mr. and Mrs. Sylvester, the couple bankers who run a Micro-finance bank somewhere in Lagos and are here on our third marriage anniversary”

“Hmmm Hmmm” she hummed excitedly. “but don't kid yourself about marriage though, as long as I still have my senses, I am never walking down the aisle with you, so” she leaned forward again to whisper “You have dollars”

“Just fricking order something woman” he thrust the menu at her. The Restauranteur walked to their table to take their order himself. The list on the menu was alien to both of them and the Restauranteur helped them choose, jabbering excitedly about how they’d loved the meal, and down to how it was to be prepared.

The meal was actually brought in some Classic yet modern Chinese ceramic wares.

Sylvester and Cynthia found the meal just as the restauranteur had described, exquisite. They had desserts and then ordered bowls of ice-creams for the road. Sylvester asked for his tab, and was given, and directed to pay a cashier, a Chinese man who was a little engrossed in a video call he was making to someone. It was just perfect for Sylvester who had been thinking up ways to distract the cashier as he walked up to the compact glass cubicle.

The cashier collected the bills and merely counted them as he tore Sylvester his receipt. Sylvester didn’t wait for him to discover the bills were fake. He hurried Cynthia out of the restaurant before she could gush more about the place.

“Get in fast” he said as he opened the Camry’s door for her. “You don’t want them to find us here when they discover that the dollars are fake”

Cynthia threw her hands in resignation. “And here I am, believing that for this particular time in your life, there was nothing criminal”

Sylvester just laughed.

******

Mr. David Lu had retired to his office for his usual little evening siesta, before the night rush, where he would have a ton of VIP customers on his hands. He hadn’t more than a few minutes of sleep when his cashier, Stephen Xi came knocking.

Stephen Xi scrambled in as David Lu opened his eyes to whoever had disturbed his sleep, ready to rebuke the person but Stephen’s hurried movement rather jolt him to attention.

“What is wrong Xi”

“We were paid counterfeits today. I came to inform you immediately I found out” Stephen Xi said in English but with a strong Chinese accent.

David Lu's face was an angry mask and he slapped the table angrily “Who gave you the money”

“The banking couple that booked a reservation today for their third marriage anniversary”

“I should have suspected that those two were crooks” he grunted, folding his fist in anger. “And why didn’t you detect that the bills were fake when you were given”

“I am sorry sir, I was a little distracted. But what’s the way out now”

“The way out is that you are those dollars short in your salary”

Before Stephen Xi could protest he shooed him out, then David Lu remembered Mr. Dennis telling him something about being on the lookout for fake bills. Mr. Dennis was one of his VIP customers and was to be here at 8 pm in the evening. Perhaps, Mr. Dennis might know more about these fake dollar bills, he thought and forced himself through his siesta.

David Lu spotted Mr. Dennis later that evening and he waddled to his table immediately. He was keen to find out more about these fake dollar bills, as it was bad for business. Anything bad for his business, he always likes to know about.

“Good Evening Mr. Dennis”

Dennis raised his face to him, his irritation wasn’t disguised. “What do you want” he said, knowing the big man had nothing for him but a long monologue about international politics, and a good Chinese-Nigerian relationship, as if he looked like one of those big bellies running the government.

David Lu sat before him. “Someone paid us in fakes this evening, then I....”

“Fakes, as in fake dollars” Dennis inquired sitting up.  David Lu nodded positively.

“Where are the fakes, show me the fakes, I want to check something on it”

“Xi has it, he....”

“Take me to this Xi”

David Lu was surprised by Mr. Dennis's behaviour as he walked him to Xi's box. Dennis shot a condescending look at the over-thin Chinese man before him called Xi.

“Where's the fake dollar bills you were given this evening” Denis asked.

Xi looked to Lu for guidance, and Lu made a shake of the head his way. Then Xi squatted lower in his box and produced some perforated dollar bills which he handed to Dennis.

Dennis inspected the bills on both sides. Even with the perforations, he still made out what he wanted to. The serial markings, watermarks, and security threads were the same. He even spotted the secret mark in the bill’s citrography. These were the bills stolen from him, the ones his boys and Don Clinton boys had died for.

“Do you have CCTV in the room”

“Sure, Sure” Lu answered.

“Did it capture the man that paid you these fakes”

“Yes”

“Take me to your control room, or CCTV room, or whatever you call it”

Xi wanted to tell him that customers aren't allowed there but Lu held him with a disapproving look. Customers are always right, especially customers like Mr. Dennis. Mr. Lu led the way to the control room.

Dennis was introduced to some other Chinese men in the room. They showed him the video of a couple dining at what must have been 3pm in the evening. He had them print for him, the photos of the couple, while he made a call to Chief Lewis.

EIGHTEEN

BOSS FRIDAY HAD THREE plastic bags spread open on a low wooden table before him. One was full of cocaine, another of skunk, and the last of marijuana. He was preparing them into some transparent wrappers with the help of one of his boys, Tunde, a big brute of a man with surly eyes and face when suddenly he hears some strange noise outside.

Tunde stood up and leaned his ear towards the door to decode the cause of the noise, while Boss Friday watched him with heavy apprehension, his arms gathered around his goods, ready to swoop them into a bag under the table.

Tunde didn’t hear much but he hears bones snap and a colleague scream in pain. And that was enough to lead him to a conclusion. “Popo” he screamed and with one clean sweep of his arms, Boss Friday emptied the table of his immediate indulgence.

He pulled out the seater of his ancient sofa and throws the bag beneath him. Putting the seater back in place, he wore a bored frown as he waits for the police to burst into the room, but Dennis bursts in instead, holding one of his boys by the neck. He threw the man outside roughly and shut the door the same way.

“Your boys need some tough shake-up, they are too rude” Dennis commented, walking over to Boss Friday.

“Are you Cra....” even his anger wouldn’t let him the mistake of completing the statement. “What do you want Dennis” Boss Friday asked harshly. Dennis visiting, was beginning to become a habit, a habit he hated but could do nothing about.

Tunde tried to attack but quickly withdrew his assault when he recognized Dennis. He retreated into the background and left Boss Friday to handle things.

“Do you know these peeps” Dennis spread the photos on the table. Boss Friday raised his eyes to him with unconcealed hostility but quickly swept them back to the photos before Dennis could notice.

“The lady is nobody important, just a neighbourhood prostitute, ready to spread her thighs for the right amount. But the man is Inspector Sylvester of a notorious SARS team led by the devil’s bride”

“The devil’s bride” Dennis traces the name through his mental library and decided he hadn’t heard it before. The name sounds interesting though, he thought. He takes a seat adjacent to Boss Friday. “Tell me every damn thing you know about Inspector Sylvester, this SARS team, and the Devil’s bride. She sounds like my kind of woman”

“Sylvester is a nobody. A typical street product before joining the police, with no brains for the big game. He is a perfect brawn though, over 6ft tall and with a whole lot of pounds of muscle. He can do anything for money but just doesn’t have the brains for it. In this SARS team is also Sergeant Joshua, aka Josh. He is also another brawn and no brain, but as scrupulous as they come. Also is Sergeant Dada, another brawn and no brain, the jester of the pack. Then there is Inspector Tolu, the oldest in the gang, and Sergeant Phillip. Both brawn and brains, very smart officers. The last man on the crew is corporal Jerry. This one is no brawn and no brain, the most stupid of all. Just a pretty boy, a typical lady's man. He would have had no business with this crew if fate hadn't brought them together as a team. Then to the leader, of the crew, Susan, the devil’s bride. She is a beauty with brains, and at the age of 29 she managed to become an ASP (Assistant Superintendent of Police), She is the cruelest, most ruthless, and deadliest of the gang, that’s why they call her the devil’s bride. All of them except Jerry have long histories of crime and violence behind them, but as always, Nigerian police never really do background checks before recruitment. Whatever this team does is off the book, purely against the law. Extortion, car snatching, and even armed robbery. The only crime they hadn’t fully touched is kidnapping”

“Just my kind of crew” Dennis chuckled, rising to his feet.  

He brings out a bundle of notes from his back pocket and peals out a sizeable sum, which he threw at Boss Friday. “Suspend your drug trade for a while and put your boys on them. Watch them. I want to know who they see and who sees them. Where they live, and who lives with them. I want to know their friends and kin, and also where these friends and kin live. I want to know every detail about them. Prepare your findings within three days and find a way to forward them to me”

He takes another look at the scared face of Boss Friday, chuckled again, and leaves the room. Boss Friday watched him leave with hostile eyes.

Tunde rushed to him. “What do we do boss, you obviously are not considering spying on that SARS Team” he rambles.

Tunde merely said his thought. Boss Friday knew this was risky business. He has not only to deal with Dennis but also the devil’s bride. If he refuses Dennis, Dennis will kill him, and if the devil’s bride caught him spying on her and her boys, he is also as good as dead. He realized also that he couldn’t stay in between either as Dennis wouldn’t like it. If he has to pick a side, it would be with the bigger devil, the one with a wider protective net and a bigger pay. Dennis.

“You heard the man, get the boys on the job quickly” he yelled at Tunde.

Tunde grunted his disapproval as he marched out of the room to Boss Friday’s bidding. He was just a small-time drug peddler and the surveillance of a team of corrupt and dangerous SARS officers doesn’t quite fit into his expectation of job activity. He couldn’t fault Boss Friday either, against Dennis, the man really had no choice.  

Tunde had some boys dig up on the relatives and friends of each member of the team, while he himself set out for surveillance. Using Boss Friday’s network of drug peddlers and influence in the street, he traced the team to a modern bungalow on the outskirts of the town, believed to be Inspector Sylvester’s place, and where the whole team is holed up in. He wasn’t stupid enough to go watch the house all by himself, so he tried to find a partner, but he failed to convince most of his colleagues that tailing the devil’s bride and her team was safe. He was finally able to convince Alex, an overzealous and oversized man with a bear-stuffed belly to be his partner. Alex badly needed the pay, it would settle half of his debt and still keep some for beer, which he couldn’t do without.

By 7:pm that night, they were both in a rented Volkswagen Golf parked some 30km from the house.

Alex pulled a can of beer from his oversized trousers and to Tunde’s displeasure, fatted through the action. He popped the can and poured the content down his throat with no regard for Tunde.

Tunde shot him a look of utter disgust, then spat out the window. “Did your father not teach you some manners” he scowled.

“The man never had any himself”

Tunde not wanting a fight turned to concentrate on the bungalow. In no time, the devil’s bride popped out of the door on foot, crossing into the other side of the road. She didn’t notice them as she hailed a bike.

“Show time” Tunde said anxiously and started the Golf after her. The bike ran fast but Tunde was able to keep pace. The bike man dropped her before a Sunflower Bar and continued to further his ends-meet, while she walked into a deafening music, that boomed out of the bar and bounced off in all directions.

Alex had finished his beer, and the posters of different brands of beer before the bar made him thirst for more.  

“I could follow her in” he offered as Tunde was about to drop off the Golf to do just that.

Tunde turned and forced a smile. He knew Alex wanted to re-stuff himself, he was more than happy to allow him. It meant less trouble for him.

“Ok” he said, dropping back into the car as Alex got out and waddled to the bar.

The devil’s bride was sharing a table with a hunk of a man, who was aggressively handsome, with square jaws and large square shoulders. He wasn’t one of the SARS team and Alex hadn't seen him before but there was something about the man that scared him silly and he wasn’t easily scared.

He ordered some bottles of beer and sat two tables away from them. The devil’s bride and her partner were talking in hushed tones that he couldn’t hear a word. He carried his drinks and quietly settled on the table behind them. He hears something about a heist, about betraying some people, and some ‘I love you lines', then they kissed. Still, he couldn’t match up the little he'd heard to make it sensible. His curiosity got the better of him as he edged his seat back, and leaned his ear closer. His massive weight caused him to trip on his chair and he fell on the floor, just beside them.  

The man paused in his conversation and for some uncomfortable seconds locks eyes with Alex. Alex thought his eyes had the effect like they could look through him. He quickly picked himself up, pretending to be drunk. He staggered back into his chair and forced himself to concentrate on his drinks. He dared not show the slighted interest in them again.

The devil’s bride and her partner continued in their hushed whispers like he hadn’t just interrupted. Not long after, she got on her feet and announce her wish for departure. This time, aloud. The man got to his feet and kissed her. He saw her out of the bar and came back to his table.

Just as Alex stood up to go join his partner, he feels a gun on his back, and the man rose behind him.

“Smile and walk slowly towards the toilet” the man said into his ear.

Alex could barely smile and keep his legs steady as he did as ordered, walking to the toilet.

The man pushed him in and slammed the door behind them. “Who are you and who are you working for” He thundered, pressing a Beretta into Alex's soft tummy.

Alex stared at the Baretta, then the man. Even without the gun, he couldn’t take the man but he was no snitch. “I am just a man who came to drink in a bar like you came to do”

The man gave him a sly grin. “If you want to play it the hard way, well, am game” he kicked hard against the little wash hand basin fixed to the wall, and it fell to the floor with a sharp cry, breaking into many spiky pieces. Alex watched with dread as he picked the spikiest shard and dug it into his arm, and it gushed out blood. Alex tried to scream but the man shove some toilet paper into his mouth before his scream could even make it past the toilet, and Alex choked on his scream.

“Are you ready to talk now” the man asked as he twisted the shard, digging it further into Alex's flesh, and an excruciating pain followed for Alex, but still he wouldn’t budge.

The man repeated his question three times and each time, he twisted the shard more severely, digging deeper into Alex's flesh, that Alex was producing sweat in excess, and wailing in pain as much as his gag would allow. His pain finally override his self-rule and he nodded to be allowed to talk, then the man removed his gag.

Alex told him of Dennis visiting Boss Friday, asking about Inspector Sylvester, the devil’s bride, and her SARS team, and also asking Boss Friday to have his boys tail the devil’s bride and her team.

The man listened to the last detail and when he felt he'd heard enough he shoved the gag back into Alex’s mouth. He pulled the spiky shard from Alex's arm and dug it into his neck.

Alex held his neck as blood poured out of it in great torrents, spraying about the toilet, the gag made him choke on his own screams of pain. He fell to the floor slowly and succumbed to the cold welcoming hands of death.

The man took off his jacket and turned it the other way to hide the blood stains on it. He wore it back and left the toilet quietly, taking another exit out of the bar.

Tunde had watched the devil’s bride walk out of the bar with a man. The man had his back to him and from his point, he couldn’t really make out his features. He figured Alex would have seen the man, as he waited impatiently for Alex to come to join him in the Golf. He watched the man go back in and regrettably also watched the devil’s bride hail a bike for another destination.

Thirty minutes passed and still, Alex didn’t walk out of the bar. He stood up impatiently and bounced into the bar. He carried his eyes everywhere but couldn’t find Alex. His eyes strayed to a corridor, and he followed it to find a toilet. He pushed the door, and almost threw up as he pulled it shut back and ran back to his car.  

He couldn’t shake off the image of Alex covered in blood with a spike to his neck as he start up the Golf, and raced down the road, driving straight for the ghetto.  

He drove into the ghetto minutes later and maneuvered the Golf through the maze of houses till the road became unpassable for a car. Then he continued on foot to Boss Friday's abode.

He didn’t knock much that Boss Friday answered the door, his little old owl-like eyes gleaming suspiciously under the moonlight.

“Why are you here, shouldn’t you be keeping an eye on that team”

“I am out of this” Tunde yelled, pushing Boss Friday aside and making his way in. He'd figured no job was worth his life.

“Alex is dead. He was killed” he screamed.

Boss Friday gasped, his eyes almost escaped their massive sockets.  

“Are you sure?” he asked, stuttering.

“Sure” Tunde scoffed at the ridiculousness of the question. “I saw him, covered in his own blood, with a spike stuck deep into his neck. You don’t think he was doing some photo shoot for some horror movie in that pose”

“So what do we do now” He asked, shaking his frail shoulders demandingly. He still had Dennis to deal with, and the bastard could care less if he loses all his boys to this endeavour. Dennis wanted only one thing, and that was results.

“I don’t know. You are the one crazy enough to get involved with Dennis. All I know is that I am not doing this again. The best I can do for you is have someone bring in my written report, putting together everything I had gathered so far. I am less concerned how you handle things from here on” he said, took a last look at Boss Friday’s distressed face, and excused himself.

Boss Friday’s slumped lazily into his sofa, thinking. There was nothing more he could do than turn over Tunde's report to Dennis and tell him it was the product of a three-day surveillance and not one. Alex's death bothered him, largely on its financial implication. He would have to settle a lot of people, most importantly, his wife and kids. If Boss Friday hated one thing in his life, it was parting with money.

NINETEEN

SUSAN CAME AGAIN this morning “Wake up Mr. Man” she yelled into the room.  

Her voice sounded far away as I pulled myself from dreamland. I woke up to see her glaring down at me. And as I looked at her, dressed in her baggy shorts and shirt, her eyes full of hate, and her mouth clipped in contempt. I realized that her body had lost its sexual appeal to me. I no longer wished to have her in my arms and no longer find her as beautiful and interesting as I used to. I now see her for the devil she really is.

“You are not here to sleep........”

“Yourself to death Mr. Man” I completed for her. It was the mantra with which she woke me every morning. Every morning at 6 am for a week now. So I would prepare to lead them for the practices at 7 am, which would last till 1 pm noon.

Then after, everyone would be free to go about their daily businesses, except me, who would still have someone watching my every movement or be locked up in a room.

I stood away from the bed grudgingly, sleepwalking to the bathroom, aware that her eyes were following me with hate in them. I showered myself to complete wakefulness, and it took almost thirty minutes to achieve that. By the time I came back to the room, she was musing annoyingly as I wanted her to.

“What took you so long” she snapped at me. I didn’t give her the satisfaction of an answer as I dressed, deliberating taking my time through it, by the time I was through, and I caught her eyes. I realized if I had wasted another minute, she would have made me regret it.

“Shall we” I said and she followed behind me to our practice room. Seething with anger all the way.

The boys were already gathered in the room. Jerry picked up some optical frames as I entered. He was always keen to finish quick with his own part of things so as to leave early to be with his newfound heartthrob. Susan does allow him the privilege even when she allowed no one else, she treats him like a kid, probably because he was the youngest of the gang and the stupidest.

“The frames first then” I said and walked up to Jerry.

Jerry and Sylvester were to handle the frames and MP3 players. Sylvester picked some optical frames also and joined us, while the others watched. The MP3 players didn’t feature today, we had already made the needed recordings on them, during the past practices, it was only the optical frames for today. I spent close to an hour teaching them how to set it, and where to set it, considering the light, perspectives, tone, and shape of the place it is to stay.

I told them to find only secluded spots to place the frames, and whilst one of them is setting the frames, the other one should look at the frames from the perspective of the hostages and steer his partner in the right position for the frames.

After that, the whole room gathered for the bomb trick. Jerry was chosen as the man who would infiltrate the crowd, and be fake-bombed. I told them to make it look like he was chosen at random.

“And how do we do that” Susan asked, watching me curiously, her eyes and attention entirely on me, same as the others.  

“That is simple, you have to make the hostages pick him themselves” I said “What you have to do first is to know where Jerry is among the hostages and then force the hostages to make some calculations leading to a certain number. Which should be the number Jerry falls among them, when counting either from the right or left”

We practiced that part for a while. We acted as the hostages and Susan made us make some calculations leading to the number Jerry falls from our right. We did this continuously till Susan was sure she could actually pull it off.

Then we began to discuss the hardest part of the trick. How to make it seem like Jerry was blown up to pieces in plain sight.

“Magic is all about Deception” I said elaborately, with the flair of a lecturer. “Doing one thing and showing the audience another thing. You just have to deceive the audience, make them think you are doing one thing, while you are actually doing another thing” I said, and paused to take in the whole of their faces, to see if they were following.

“You have to use any tool in your repertoire to deceive them, lying, distraction, just name it. For this trick, we use distraction, high-class acting, and also importantly, speed. At the moment when Jerry is seated and is about to be blown up to pieces. One of you should find a way to distract the hostages and shift their attention from Jerry. Something like just walking into the crowd impulsively and pulling out another victim, or shooting a gun, while another two from the gang block the hostages' view of Jerry for a few seconds. Within that split second and under great speed, Jerry should replace himself with a male balloon mannequin in the same dress as him, containing a red powder already mixed with water, and having a reasonable amount of knockout around it, already lit. This balloon mannequin and knockout should have been prepared beforehand. After it explodes, let the hostages watch the scene only briefly, to see what they would think is blood splattered everywhere, then turn them away from it, before any of them could put two and two together. While all this is going on, Jerry should have redressed as one of you and joined you all once again. Remember you have to make the acting super believable unless you would fool no one but yourself”

“Wow, You sure have great ideas in that little head of yours” Tolu complimented. At his words, I felt some pride.

Susan was stone-faced as she suggested “Let’s put it to practice”

Everyone gathered for the performance, and we all did it together for what seemed an hour, using things we could scrounge about to pass for the mannequin and bangs, as they weren’t currently available.

During the performance, I caught Dada's eyes stray in my direction at different intervals and for the first time today, I noticed that he was unnaturally pale and his eyes were heavy. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.

We finished with the performance, and I was stuck with Phillip and the recordings of the voices of the CSO's girls.  

“You know, I had only developed this impersonating skill to put a smile on my face as a kid and forget all the problems in my life. I never knew it could help make me billions of Naira one day” Phillip said thoughtfully.

“Will you just play the recordings and let's get this thing over with” His words sounded to me like nonsense and I saw no reason to hide my feelings.

He regarded me contemplatively for a while, his expression pained. His frown finally eased and he played the recordings. He played it again and again, continuously for a while. Then he settled to imitate the voices.

His first and second trials were disasters. He did it the third time and got it right, but I thought it lacked the character of the girls, and I shared the thought with him. He replayed the recording he made and realized I wasn’t wrong. He tried continuously for the large part of an hour before it finally convinced the room that it was excellent. Before then, Jerry had said his goodbyes and left us to practice.

I caught Dada's eyes on me again, which he quickly took away before the others would suspect there was some sort of bromance between us.

After Phillip's voice impersonation, we revised the plan and everyone went over his or her own part of the plan, especially Tolu who had been chosen to approach the CSO, and Philips who was to dress as the bank staff, as a man named Williams Momo.

Dada was chosen as the seventh man who was to put a bite on the CSO and then bring a bomb-proof truck to take the money. I guessed he was chosen because of the way he speaks and behaves and because of his overzealousness, which could do more harm to the plan inside than outside.

Dada playing that part suited me fine, it followed with my bigger plan. The one I had for myself to get out of this in one piece with Courtney.

By the time we'd finished with everything, it was 12 noon already, so we called it a day, and we all retired to our separate indulgences, mine was my bed. Susan followed me to the room, and as I walked in, she pulled the door after me. I heard her lock it shut as I slumped on the bed.

Less than an hour later, Dada came by with my breakfast cum lunch. He was fidgeting unnaturally as he ambled into the room. To anyone, he might be having sleeping troubles. But I knew better. He was sick. Doubts and hatred could be sicknesses to the body sometimes.

“I know that there are all planning to kill me” he dropped the food container by the bedside and rambled continuously, he searched everywhere with his eyes uneasily, finding he'd left the door ajar behind him, he ran to it and shut it from behind. “The whole of them. They are planning to kill me after the heist and make out with my own share of the loot...”

I kept him from rambling by urging him to relax, and when he finally did, I made him go over everything again. He told me, that they were all planning to kill him, that he saw all of them in his dream laughing at how stupid he is, jeering at him. He told me he caught Josephine trying to stab him at night. He told me that Phillip once tried to strangle him and he caught Tolu once crawling around his bed with a gun in his hand. He told me a lot of things. In the end, he asked me to help him, and what a good Samaritan I was.

I realized that just as I had planned, his mind was playing tricks on him, wrecking slowly. He was getting paranoid and any further effort at pursuing the idea in his mind might run him fast into a psychiatric home. Even then, I had some tasks for him. I hypnotized him, and he went into a lethargic state. Then I prepped him up on mundane suggestions, till I felt he was ready for my task.

“Where is your Smartphone” I asked.  

“In my pocket” he replied.

“Give it to me”  

He gave the Smartphone over to me and I took his finger to unlock it via fingerprint. I needed the phone to send an anonymous message to my sister and her Cop husband. Technically, I needed him to help me send a message to my sister and her husband. For a while, I pondered on how to send the message, an anonymous text message to my sister’s phone number, which I wasn’t sure she still uses, or find an online platform that would send a physical mail to their home address, using a fake sender's address. I finally settled for both.  

I took a paper from under the bedsheet on which I had scribbled some notes, giving details about my childhood days, an abridged detail of my American life, explained my innocence and how I had been trapped in this heist, gave in detail how the heist was to unfold and even how to trap the heist-men and ended it with an apology to my sister for not coming to find her sooner. I handed him his Smartphone and the letter.  

“You will type this letter into your Smartphone and give the Smartphone back to me when you are done”  

I lie on the bed as I watched him hearken to my command/suggestion. He was done twenty minutes later and he gave the Smartphone back to me. I forwarded the messages in both ways that I had intended, then I returned his phone to him.  

“Now, at the snap of my fingers, you will stand up and leave this room without locking me in. And you will awaken from the first voice other than mine that you hear, and you will not remember anything that happened in this room. You will forget everything you have done for the past thirty minutes” I snapped my fingers beside his ear and watched him do exactly as I had told.

TWENTY

AFTER HER FIFTH MARRIAGE crashed within its first year, Bella hadn’t bothered to invite anyone to her next wedding when she found love again. Only she and Micah, her new love and two witnesses produced by Micah himself had gone to the marriage registry to sign them into matrimony.

Bella had known nobody would come anyway. Her family and friends had long given up on the idea of her ever keeping any matrimony. She'd found love five times and they’d supported her that fives, and it had all crashed prematurely.

It wasn’t all her fault that they crashed. Peter, her first husband, had been a complete Casanova, anything in skirt seems to excite him. She'd caught him having it out with his secretary in his office, and immediately, she'd filed for divorce. Moses, her second love was a nagging husband, to him, she could never do anything right. She'd divorced him before he could cost her, her sanity.

Raymond, her third husband had been partially impotent, he couldn’t satisfy her sexually, as he couldn’t satisfy any woman sexually, his manhood was barely the size of her pinky. She'd wanted desperately to keep the marriage, just to please everyone, but she'd realized long enough that her mountainous sexual appetite needed to be addressed badly, so she'd divorced him to save him from an impending heartbreak. Richard, her fourth husband was hooked on drugs and alcohol, while Tommy, the last had been violent.  

Micah was unlike the rest, he wasn’t a complete Casanova like Peter, and wasn’t a nagging husband like Moses. He was dangerously active in bed and wasn’t a drug addict like Richard and a wife-beater like Tommy. Also unlike the rest, he was younger than her and lacked feelings towards anything. He’d proposed they live separately even when married. Also unlike the rest, she loved him unconditionally and was ready to put up with his misgivings, as he refuses to be bothered by hers.

As she drove to his house from the office, under an intense sun that beat down on the world severely but still managed to make a fine day. She considered telling him about the heist. If he helped out, she could beat Jerry and his gang to the money, and they would have everything to themselves and be able to take expensive vacations around the world till their deaths, without much bother about the money running out soon.

She parked before an apartment block and took the stairs to his flat. She rang his doorbell and waited for him to come to it, while she watched some kids from the next flat play with their baby brother on a baby bicycle. The baby farted loudly and the kids burst into a hearty laugh. The smell that made it to her told her it was more than just a fart. The kids realized it too and one of them ran into the apartment to call out a middle-aged woman who scooped the baby into her arms and began to undo his diapers. Bella thought as she watched, that, that was one of the reasons she was scared to have a baby.

It was a long wait before Micah finally came the door, and let her in. And as usual, he didn’t offer to kiss her or even hug her, still, seeing him warmed her heart as always.

“Go take a shower and lie on the bed for me and I'll join you in a while” he said to her in a flat voice.

If he had been a little romantic, she might have been tempted to, as she longed to feel his soft experienced hands on her skin but the flatness of his words turned her off. “I have something to tell you, Micah”

Micah regarded her cautiously. “What is it”. He couldn’t believe anything could ever be on her mind except work and sex.

“Two weeks ago, a handsome guy, Jerry, approached me and we got talking. I invited him over to my house after some days of intense chatting. Then I left for the kitchen to find him something to eat, and I returned later and caught him snooping around with my phone. I interrogated him and he confessed to me that he was a member of a gang that was planning a 10 billion Naira heist. That he was sent by his gang to clone my phone so that they could get some information on the bank through me.....”

Micah wasn’t one for stories, but at the mention of 10 billion naira, a greedy gleam sparked in his eyes and he settled on a sofa to listen with rapt attention.

“I asked him to introduce me to his gang, which he reluctantly did. I proved my usefulness to the gang by giving them some layouts of the bank, and they accepted me as a member. Their plan to steal from the bank is very water-tight and safe, and I am sure it would be successful”

“So how much would be your share, our share”

“Don't be a fool, Micah, why settle for peanuts when we could have the whole thing”

“I don’t see us having the whole thing, without taking some bullets to our grave. Criminals plan heists, not Priests. These men would be very dangerous” as much as he would love to get his hands on such money, he would love to keep his life with it.

“That is where you come in. I plan to have this guy introduce you to his gang....”

“To do what” Micah replied, his tone critical.

“According to the plan, they would be a last man to take the money from the rest after they have successfully brought it out of the bank. So this guy would introduce you to his gang to be a partner for the last man, and I would reiterate that you would also be securing my own share of the money since I don’t trust them and when they agree as I am sure they would, we would find a way to have you overpower the last man on that day and in control of the money”

“What makes you so sure they would agree”  

Bella smiled. “I am the center of their plan. The plan is built around me, the moment I withdraw from the heist, everything crumbles, and these people are desperate not to let that happen. Jerry would also do whatever I tell him to”

Micah considered it and he finally saw sense in her plan. It could work and when it does, he would be 10 billion Naira rich, he could take the risk.

He smiled at her “Ok love” he said and leaned closer to her. He drew her close and nibbled lovingly at her neck. He could afford to show her some love now. She was worth 10 billion naira to him now. He carried her carefully, and laid her on the sofa, watching her undress herself hurriedly as he undid himself of his own clothes also. He collapse into her arms and took her lovingly and carefully on the sofa, and she screamed with raw pleasure and delight beneath him.

Jerry has been in Bella’s place for a while now. He'd gotten addicted to her, her body, and the pleasure it offered him that he couldn’t bear to leave her for a day. Was this what love feels like? He thought as he gelled his hair. If it is, then he was definitely in love with her.

She had left for office since morning and as far as he could tell she should be home in an hour or two. But he could still feel her presence in the room. Her scents were alive everywhere in the house, that feminine scent that fills his nose and his heart with longing for her.

He dressed and left for the kitchen. Even the kitchen boast of her scents too. Bella was the kind that leaves imprints of herself everywhere. The cup on the tabletop had her lipstick on it, one of her artificial nails was by the window, and the row of cupboards on the wall had her initials B.O. scribbled on it in beautiful handwriting.

Water gushed into his hands as he turned the sink’s tap on and set to prepare them lunch. He wasn’t a good cook but he'd picked up some bits from his mom who was ever ready to prepare her only child for bachelorhood. He was determined to dazzle her with the little he knew.  

He made some Ghanian Jollof which he spiced with canned beef, and some other ingredients he could find in the cupboards. He was setting the table when she came in. She wasn’t alone, there was a man about his age behind her. He was thick, strong, and of good athletic build, and also handsome. The momentary shock almost fell the plates from his hands as he laid them.

“Good Afternoon love” She greeted, blatantly ignoring his shock.

“What have you been doing in my kitchen” she joked, as she took a spoonful of the food. “Hmm, you are a damn good cook” she commented between the mouthful.

Jerry couldn’t share her joke. “Who is he” he demanded, his gaze resting fully on the other man.

“Oh! Him” she said as if she wasn’t aware that she came with someone. “That’s Micah, my brother. Micah, this is Jerry, my boyfriend”

The man named Micah came forward and offered his hands to Jerry.

“Micah is the name” he said unenthusiastically and as Jerry wouldn’t take his hands, he returned them to his side.  

Jerry carried his eyes from one to another, and so far he saw nothing that suggest familial relations between them. “Your brother, you say. How come I am just meeting him now”

“I get the Alpha male thing, Jerry, but your question seemed more like you think I am introducing my other boyfriend to you as my brother”

“I wasn’t thinking....” Jerry tried to explain but she shut him up with a kiss on the lips. “Trust me, Jerry. I love only you and you alone” She let him grab her closely. “Micah is my brother, don’t get jealous of my brother, because I can’t break our family ties for you” she said jokingly.

She strayed her eyes a little to the side to catch Micah staring at them placidly. She was glad he did nothing but was also pained by his placid look. For God's sake, it was his wife in such a romantic position with another man. A little bit of emotion would have been kind. She pulled off Jerry’s hold.

“I have something to tell you Jerry” she dragged him to the sitting room and into a sofa. “According to our plan, we need an extra hand on the deck with us”

“Your plan, not ours, because I know nothing than the part where I was to betray my friends”

“Jerry” she cautioned. “Our plan Jerry, our plan to live the life we want. To travel around the world together. Or don’t you believe in my plan, our plan Jerry” she said giving him a silent loving look that he couldn’t help but agree with her.

“Yeah, yeah. Our plan” he agreed reluctantly.

“So I want you to introduce Micah to your crew to be the eighth man. You know as well as I do that the seventh person can’t handle that part alone. He would need a partner to convince the Police that he is from the bomb squad. And Micah would make a perfect partner, or what do you think?”

Jerry wasn’t surprised, he had stayed enough with her to know how her mind works. He knew also that her question was purely out of courtesy. She had no use for his opinion but he had to give it to her anyway because it was both their lives on the line. “I think Susan would shoot the three of us to death, starting with him, then you. I might get to live if I agree to relinquish most of my part of the loot”

“Jerry, can’t you see? She can’t kill us. According to the plan, she needs us. She needs you because, killing you would reduce the needed manpower, and killing me would affect the plan. Remember I have important things to do, according to the plan on that day”

“But that doesn’t stop them from killing him” he gestured at Micah, who acted as if he had no idea he featured in their discussion. “And bet me, none of them would think twice about it”

“That’s where our persuasive power comes in. We can persuade them, Jerry. We can even threaten them. Jerry trust me, this will work” she drew closer to him and kissed him on the lips. Then she carried his hands to her back and let him grab her behind.

“Jerry, believe me, this would work” She purred softly into his mouth. “Or don’t you believe me Jerry”  

“I do” he said hurriedly.

“Then do what I ask Jerry” She tried to pull away from him but he pulled her back.  

“Ok” he said, carrying her from her thighs carefully and taking her up the stairs to the bedroom.

Micah did nothing but watch. It didn’t affect him that it was his wife that was being carried up the stairs. He never did love her, he'd married her for the same reason as the man who was carrying her to the bedroom, and he's had his fill of her already. He was going to ditch her immediately after the money comes through. He hated hot pants and manipulative women and she was both.

TWENTY-ONE

THE HIGHWAY STRETCHED far and far, and seemed to never end. On both sides of the road, were shoulder-height thickets stretching back to nowhere. Highway robberies were common in this part of the road, but no sane robber would attempt to rob four hefty Policemen with ungentlemanly arms slumped over their shoulders.

Between the four men was a makeshift roadblock made of four car tyres in groups of two on both ends, and carrying a long iron rod.

Phillip whispered discreetly to Josh, gesturing at Dada across the road and Josh laughed at their secret joke. Dada discovered he featured in their discussion and gave them each a malicious look as he continued to pace to and fro.

He knew they were making jest of him again, saying how stupid he was, how stupid to not have realized their plans for him. Their plan was to finish him off before he could get his own part of the loot. He had thought they were his friends, and he had trusted them, only for them to plan to kill him. He had been shocked when he found out, but then, he'd never really had real friends in the whole of his life. When he was a kid, he had been the butt of everyone’s jokes. His schoolmates and playmates always made fun of his hard and ugly face and his dullness. Even his class teacher would call him out sometimes during lessons, and ask him questions he couldn’t answer just to make the whole class laugh. He had been everyone’s private joke.

Things had changed when he beat a schoolmate to a pulp, every kid in school began to fear him. He tried it also on some playmates at home and before long every kid in the block stopped taunting him. Then he'd realized that what he lacked in beauty and cleverness, he'd made up with strength. With that realization, he resolved never to be the butt of anyone’s joke but the one making the jokes, and whoever challenged that resolve, met with the power of his fist. He knew he couldn’t use his fist this time, he had to use tact, and for that, he'd made sure he had Charles on his side. Charles would help him defeat them if he helped Charles get his wife back.

The delivery truck cried its arrival with a loud horn and all men stood to attention. Phillip and Josh took position before the road, carrying their rifles also to position, just as Tolu rose from the tyres he had sat on.

The truck died to a halt before them and the driver wore a look of confusion as he peered out of the window. For the two years that he'd been touring this road, he'd never encountered roadblocks here. It was a complete shock to him when he saw them. He remembered the Nigerian syndrome and he bent into his car and pull a five hundred naira note from his glove box.

He smiled as one of the policemen approached him. He tried to dip the note discreetly into his chest pocket but Tolu waved it off. “Where are your papers”

The driver’s confusion doubled but he got over himself and brought out a wad of papers from the truck's ceiling pocket, which he handed Tolu. “That’s everything Sir”

Tolu checked everything and made a crooked smile. “Your driver's license has expired five months ago Mr. Man. What do you have to say to that”

“I haven't been able to renew it Sir. You know the Nigerian problem” he bent into his car and produced two extra five hundred naira notes.

“Bribery” Tolu cried, staring at the notes, then the man.

“You are trying to bribe an Inspector of the Nigerian police force. Get down Mr. Man, or I'll get you down. Boys!” he called to the rest who hurried to him. “Get this man down immediately” he thundered.

The driver shook as he grabbed the steering wheel. A voice in his mind told him to just speed off, that they wouldn’t catch him, but the sight of their rifles override that thought. It took just one bullet in experienced hands to end his life, and the men seemed experienced enough. He got down.

“Sir, I have......” he tried to explain but Phillip shut him off.

“Come and open your truck for us Mr. Man. You unlicensed drivers usually smuggle Indian hemp around. Open your truck let us see what you are carrying around”

The driver was about to say something in disapproval when Dada dropped a slap on his ear. He held his cheeks in terror, staring at all of them bitterly. He grudgingly led them to the carriage end of the truck and opened it for them to see a mountain of cartons.

“How are we sure these cartons do not have Indian hemp in them or arms in them”

The driver threw his mouth open at the ludicrousness of the statement. At that instant, another truck approached the roadblock, and the policemen stopped it. He watched them bring the other driver down, a big man, wearing a bandaged on his right hand. He also seemed to have the same problem as him, Incomplete papers.

The policemen heralded them both to a little shed in the thickets. The shed was so far away that when he looked back to check his truck, it looked a mile away. The other policemen left them with their boss, and for what seemed like hours, he haggled with them on a price, for which he would weave off their little offense. Surprisingly, he released them after without taking a dime from them.

The driver was wary as he walked back to his truck. Something was off about these policemen, he could feel it. Were they thieves? He crossed to the carriage compartment and checked the goods he was to deliver and he found none missing, and it was just the way he'd left it. He shrugged his little shoulders, maybe he was just overthinking things. He got into his truck and drove off.

Later, the five men congratulated themselves on another task well done. They got into Sylvester’s truck and drove off too.  

Two days after, Sylvester and Phillip drove into ABH bank quarters in a mini-van that had large stickers pasted to its sides reading 'DELUXE Plumbing works'. They also wore matching jumpsuits that had the same words printed on them. Sylvester knew enough about plumbing. His old man had tried his hands at so many jobs and plumbing was the chief of them. His father had also been so keen to teach his sons the trade, and at the age of ten, Sylvester and his brother Kelvin had known more about pipes than they knew to read.

Sylvester lived this life till he turned 20 and decided that fixing pipes wasn’t going to get him the fancy house and cars, and expensive vacations that he had dreamt about as a child. If anything, plumbing was just going to bind his lineage's current generation to a life of poverty as it had the previous one. So Sylvester had gone into the street to make fast cash. Trying his hands at anything illegal but with fast pay, and the more he made fast cash, the more he spent it on women and gambling, and the more he found himself very broke.

Things followed that pattern for him, till a friend convinced him to join the Police, that he could legally commit crimes that way and get away with it whilst making fast cash, and that had proved to be just true.

Phillip had had it rougher. He never had the opportunity of learning any trade, so he had not the slightest idea about plumbing. Susan had only chosen him to be Sylvester’s partner on this because he was the only one who could keep a leash on Sylvester.

Phillip had been the biological product of an occupational hazard in his mother’s line of business. He had never known his father, and even his mother doesn’t really know. She could only narrow down his probable father from amongst her multitude of customers to six of them, and the six had denied the child growing in her to be of their sexual orchestration.  

She had birthed and bred him singlehandedly in the street, till she passed on the line of duty when he was just eleven. If things had been bad before her death, they became worse after. Phillip not only had to deal with the stigma his mother’s sordid profession created for him, but he also had to fend for himself, so he had to do anything to survive, be it legal or illegal.  

At some point, some guys in the hood saw his big build, hard eyes, and strong sense of determination and conviction and were convinced that he was a natural for their line of business. They brought him into their midst and groomed him into criminality.

Phillip had lived like that till the opportunity of being a Police came his way, and he took it. He wanted to see what the other side of criminality looks like, and after a few years in service, he'd come to realize that there wasn’t really another side to criminality, there was just criminality.

Phillip and Sylvester introduced themselves to the guards, guarding the gate, who in turn went in to inform the administrative staff of their presence.

The guards came out later with Bella and a middle-aged man with a large goatee. Bella wore a nice fitted suit that glorified her curves, and Sylvester whistled admiringly.

“I wished I had volunteered to be sent to her instead of Jerry. She's a whole package. I see why she is running Jerry nut” he whispered to Phillip as he watched her come.

Phillip sneered “One look at that horrible face of yours and we would have said bye-bye to the heist”

“Women love men who are more manly than those with only pretty faces”

“No wonder I see why ladies flock you” Phillip remarked sarcastically.

Bella and the man got to them before Sylvester could reply. Bella had on a high-class professional bank staff demeanour. For all her face said, she had never seen them before and never knew they existed, and doesn’t care.

“You are the guys from Deluxe plumbing works right” She asked. Phillip and Sylvester nod their heads in reply. “Yeah” they said in unison.

The middle-aged man who was Mr. Thomas by name appraised them professionally. “Do plumbers now workout?” he asked, considering their big builds.

“The world is changing fast Sir, everyone workout these days, even kids” Phillip grinned but Thomas refuse to share his humour.

“Search them” he commanded the guards and they descended on Phillip and Sylvester.  

The guards searched them from head to toe and also searched their bag of tools but found nothing incriminating. If they had asked them to pull off their hard-soled shoes and searched the shoes, they would have found the small pistols, and the filled magazines, Charles had spent days concealing in the shoes, but the guards just pulled back throwing a dry grin Thomas way, and shaking their heads.

“They are clean” they said.

Thomas sneered as if he thought that ridiculous. Then he led them into the bank and to the third floor, to the toilet to be fixed. The bank went about its business, with the clicks and clacks of keyboards drumming everywhere as Sylvester and Phillip set to work.

“I’ll stay to keep an eye on them” Bella said to Thomas.

Thomas looked like he was about to argue, but she drew closer to him and kissed him on the cheek, and he grabs her buttocks playfully. She let him have his fill of it before he turned and continued down the hall. Then she shot them a triumphant grin.

“It is amazing how women solve problems” Phillip commented as he quickly removes his shoes and fished out the pistols for Sylvester, who also removed his own shoes, to bring out his own pistols. Sylvester unhooks the flush from the wall and brought it down, revealing an untiled wall, then with his hammer, he dug a little hole in the wall and slipped the guns through.

Phillip quickly leaves for the Camry downstairs. He lied to the guards at the trap door that he'd forgotten his hammer in the car and was going to get it and they allowed him leave. He got to the car and swapped his shoes for another set of shoes, with pistols concealed in them. The shoes were of the same make and look, that the guards won’t be able to tell a difference. He then grabbed his hammer from the car trunk and hurried to the door.

The guards searched him, and still finding nothing incriminating on him, they let him in. Phillip grins wryly as he made his way to the third floor. What fools they were.

TWENTY-TWO

IT WAS THREE DAYS before the agreed date for the heist, and every one of the post-heist tasks had been successfully completed. Everyone was relaxing from the after-stress that came with the tasks and preparing for the big day, including me. I was waiting for that day. I would spring my own surprise on them and turn the tide of things.

As usual, the house was full, except for Jerry, who had suddenly found himself a wife and a new home. The wife Bella and the home Bella’s place. He only comes by when needed and when the situation calls for it.  

I had Sylvester and Tolu on my back tonight. They were both keeping watch on me while they gambled with the game of LUDO. I had not the faintest idea how to play the game and had no money to gamble even if I wanted to try, so I receded into a sofa, nursing a painful solitude and boredom.  

I was still nursing my solitude and boredom when Jerry swaggered in with his hands wrapped possessively on Bella's waist. Their arrival should have been something ordinary but the man behind them changed that.

I watched them make their way in steadily just as well as Sylvester and Tolu and I smiled at the knowledge of what tonight promised to be. Hell. Well, not for me.

“Who is this man Jerry” Sylvester challenged, his eyes had fire in them.

“The eighth man” Bella chipped tartly.

“What does she mean by the eighth man Jerry”

“We’d like to discuss this with Susan first” Jerry said casually.

“And what do you mean by, you want to discuss this with Susan first”

The new man side-swept Sylvester to find himself a seat in the room. There was an overpowering sense of self-importance in his movement and manners as he sat with a leg carefully over another. He'd probably figured the introduction wasn’t his to make.

“You can’t just bring anyone into the group as you like” Tolu said, not angrily, but there was a sharp edge to his voice.

“Does this guy thinks he runs things here” Sylvester yelled. His lungs might as well have been amplified, as it brought the others into the room in seconds.

“This is Micah... He is a friend that I want to introduce to you. He wants to be part of this heist” Jerry said, immediately after he saw Susan.

She acted like she hadn’t heard him, and within a speed, even I as a magician must envy, a gun appeared in her hands. She must be carrying the stuff as other women carried a purse.

She wasted no time in pumping two bullets consecutively into Micah’s knee.

There was an uproar as the man held his knee wailing. Bella rushed quickly to his aid. The sight robbed everyone of words, we all just watched. Micah was losing a lot of blood, except Bella, nobody dared help him, and nobody wanted to.

“Now I am all ears for whatever you want to say. I never remembered rolling out forms for membership” Susan said, claiming a spot beside Tolu.

“Do something Jerry. Just say something” Bella wailed, grabbing Micah’s bloodied knee.

“I told you it wouldn’t work a second time. I told you...”

“Will you just shut up, you lousy lily-livered swine, and just do something, Just do something” she screamed at Jerry, pulling at his trousers with her bloodied hand, but he wouldn’t budge. He probably didn’t want to end up as another Micah, and for that, I’d say he was wise.

When Jerry wouldn’t budge, she turned to the room. There was a deadly look about her.

“You can count me out of your heist. I am heading straight for the Police when I leave here. I’ll tell them everything without sparing a detail” she yelled furiously at everyone.

“And who says you are going to leave here? Him?” Susan pointed at Jerry with her gun. “Darling, he doesn’t run things here. I do”

“You wouldn’t dare kill me, you know if you kill me. Then that’s bye-bye to your billions”

“Ok” Susan made a little pretense at pondering. “I agree we need you, but suppose I lock both your lover boys away, can’t I force you to cooperate.”

“He isn't her lover but her brother” Jerry chipped in.

Dada must have been irritated or felt the need for his thick fingers as he walked up to Jerry and dealt one to his ear. No one paid Jerry even a sympathetic glance as he held his ear in fright.

Suddenly a group of men burst into the room, and in their wake was a rush of warm air. We were all frozen to our feet, like the guards of Birmingham Palace, and confused except for Susan who hurried for her gun, she found it and aimed it at them.  

They appeared gentlemanly, though only in appearance, as there was nothing gentlemanly about the AKs they carried. Susan realized the obvious and relaxed her arms.

The leader was a short thickset man with a chilling look on his face. The long scar that ran through his neck wasn’t one any mother would wish on her son, and he was definitely no mother’s idea of a son. There was something about the group that suggests, Jerry had no hand in their gate crashing.

“Good evening everyone” the leader said. His men circled the room, forcing everyone to their knees, except Micah who was going to be on his back for long. They dispossessed Susan of her gun and searched me and the others for guns. Their search produced nothing.

I caught a knowing glint in the man’s eye as it strayed toward me. He must know who I was. I was popular, and apart from being a wizkid to the lovers of magic, the papers had advertised me as a wife murderer and a wanted man worth a reward of 20,000 USD. Surprisingly, he said nothing to me.

“Without wasting all your time, can somebody please tell me where my money is and what is it I hear about some heist"

“Nobody knows where your money is Mr. and who the hell are you” she yelled at him, but she was a bad liar.

“Sorry for not introducing myself properly” he said. “I am Denis Ishaku, and you must be Susan Odegbare. A 29-year-old woman from the southwest, who joined the police when she was twenty, with a reputation for cruelty that she was nicknamed the Devil’s bride”

He turned to Phillip and read him his bio also, then Tolu, Dada, Josh, Jerry, and Sylvester, skipping me, Bella, and Micah.

He ended it by saying. “You are all members of the same SARS team, organizing the very robbery you should be preventing from happening”

“So for clarity, maybe I wasn’t clear enough” He cocked his gun and shot Micah point blank in the face. Micah managed only a croak as life left him. If Bella had wailed before, now she screamed. “And maybe, she is next” he shifted his gun to rest on Bella.

“Ok, Ok” Jerry wailed, stepping forward. “I'll tell you everything”

Jerry told him that his fake money was in a bank right now and is planned to be swapped with original banknotes. Answers followed questions, as questions beget questions, and in what seemed few minutes, Jerry had told Dennis everything down to every detail of the heist, leaving only the part about Courtney. It took just an aim of the gun at Bella to get him to continue talking whenever he'd felt he'd said too much.

I wanted to scream that they had my wife. That they had Courtney locked up somewhere, but somehow, I held back. The man seemed interested only in his money. Suppose he just murdered me and Courtney as he did Micah, we are dispensable to both groups.

At the end of Jerry’s narration, Dennis smiled thoughtfully.

“Now I run this heist. Since the capital was mine to begin with, I am the only one entitled to the loot, you all only get to keep your lives. So now, there would be some rearrangement to your initial arrangement. First, no one leaves this house until the day of the heist which is the day after tomorrow, except the bank lady. My men would stay to make sure of that. They won’t also be need for the last man from your side as my men would handle the collection part”

“What if we refuse to partake in the heist” Susan asked, her eyes screamed of spite as they rested on him.

Dennis made a signal to one of his men who slammed his gun butt severely against her forehead. I watched her hold her head in pain, while she murmured obscenities in sheer spite.  

“I would kill you, every person you have ever called family, every person you have ever loved, and every other person you had once used the word 'Friend' for”.

“And for you” he turned to Bella. “That nonsense about informing the police about the heist should better stop. I have substantial proof of your willing involvement in this heist. If you refuse to go through with this heist, I would first make sure you never set foot in any bank in your life, except as a customer. Then I'll kill your mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, and even friends, after making you witness all of them die, then I'll kill you. Isn't your brother staying at.... with his wife and kids and your mother staying also at.....” he read her two different addresses.

Her silence only confirmed he was right. “May God bless our heist” he laughed heartily after.

I realized I was still very much in this, just under a different nutcase, but a nutcase all the same.

TWENTY-THREE

DENNIS ENTERED CHIEF Lewis’s office. Though, he'd told him everything over the phone. He knew they’d go over it once again.

Chief Lewis rushed to him as he walked into his relaxation space. “Are you sure this is going to work?” He asked anxiously.

Dennis made sure to settle comfortably on a sofa, then he raised his gaze to the anxious face of Chief Lewis. “I can’t answer that question. I don’t think even God can. The fakes are in the bank, as well as the equivalent original bills. Getting either of them out of the bank is no easy task. You just have to choose which one you want to bring out. This gamble has been forced on us, so you have to choose. Which is it?”

Chief Lewis went silent, then he began pacing ponderously before Dennis, his fingers below his chin. “The cost of producing the fakes is roughly 1 billion naira. There are worth 10 billion naira, and after distribution, that’ll drop to at least 7 billion naira. If the heist was to succeed and all the fakes get exchanged for original bills, then instead of making a 6 billion naira gain. I actually could make 9” He turned to Dennis “I am no careful man, I am a risk taker and a gambler but this is one hell of a gamble. Suppose these guys refuse to cooperate or suppose they steal the money for themselves as they had earlier planned to do”

“Cancel out either of both scenarios. I have them by the jugular. They can’t pull any fast one on us. The only risk here is getting the money out of the bank”

“I would say we take the gamble”

“That settles it then” Dennis stood up to leave.

“What about that magician guy? His in-laws have placed a reward on his head, you could cash on it. $20,000 would do you good”

Dennis knew there was nothing pure about his intentions for telling him about the reward on the Magician. He was trying to avoid paying him for his troubles. He had no qualms about that, Chief Lewis was never going to get his money in full anyway.

“We need him for now and when he's no longer useful, I'll turn him up to his in-laws”

Meanwhile, Nathan was making his way to Chief Lewis's office. The elevator drooped him with a lonely ding before a group of mean-looking guards in suits, huddled together watching something from the mobile of one of them, which by the laughter on their faces, should be a comedy video. They knew him too well, to pay him more than a professional glance and flattering salutes. He came to hear from Chief Lewis the latest details about the search for Charles.

Both men in the office heard the door creak and their attention shifted immediately in its direction just as Nathan gasped, having heard only the last part of their conversations. The part about Charles. They had the bastard who killed his sister.

Dennis pulled off his shoes and continued to speak to Chief Lewis about mundane topics as he made his way on careful tiptoe to the door, but before he got to it, he'd heard the report of feet, suggesting whoever was at the door had departed it. He wore back his shoes and turned towards his host.

“It’s probably nothing. Could be one of my guards. Just got one we've trying to blend into corruption”

“If you say so” Dennis shrugged. “You are the one with a title to protect. I have always been a criminal”

Nathan ran into the penthouse, and fast for his father’s bedroom. He found his parents in a heated argument. Aside from the issue of his sister’s death, there was also the talk of a potential divorce. As much as he would like to blame Charles for it, he had to admit, it had nothing to do with his sister’s murder but much with the individual character of his parents. He'd never known them to show love to each other, they never felt it towards each other in the first place. Their marriage had been an arranged marriage between two wealthy families to seal connections and not love. He would have turned if what he had to say wasn’t heavier than their argument.

Claudia Battise forced a smile to her son as much as her sad face would allow. “How’s your day my boy” she said as if he hadn’t just witnessed them arguing.

David Battise forced a smile too.  

Nathan moved up to them. He greeted his mother with a kiss on the cheek and turned to his father. “Chief Lewis has Charles. I was just from his office. I overheard him discussing with someone, saying that they had Charles and were going to release him to us and claim the reward after he'd helped them do something”

“Do you fucking see now? You never make good friends, except crooks. This is the very man whose care you left your daughter. Now he is protecting her murderer”

“Calm down woman, let me think this through” David Battise returned, he turned into the room with his brows raised thoughtfully. But Claudia wouldn’t allow him think.

“What the is there to think through than to call the police on this man”

“Think woman, don’t allow your emotions rule you. We are in Nigeria. Here, between we and Lewis, we are the ones without power”

“Don’t tell me that after you and your crook friend murdered my daughter”

“With the way you are going about this, one would think she wasn’t my daughter too”

“And I wish she wasn’t. She would be alive right now, if she wasn’t” with that she stormed her way to the telephone.

Nathan watched her, regretting having divulged what he'd heard in her presence. His father was right, they had to approach this with tact and not with emotions. The police would do nothing to help them against Chief Lewis.

They both heard her make a call to the police, and after what seemed like an hour, the receptionist called back and Claudia answered the phone herself.

The receptionist told her of two policemen asking to see her, and she asked that they be sent to her suite.  

In no time, the private elevator opened and two thick men poured out of it. Claudia received them herself. Nathan and David Battise just watched in the background, without a word. They knew better than not to let her have her way.

There was naked admiration in the eyes of the Policemen at the poshness of the suite. They introduced themselves. A man with tribal marks etched deeply onto his face and had the look and intonation of a northerner, said his name was Bala, while the other man with a face that seem to never smile called himself Deji. He had the build of a prize fighter.

“So why have you called the Police Mrs. Battise?”

That simple question sparked a long emotional monologue from Claudia. She told them of how her husband made bad friends, how he'd allowed their only daughter to come to Nigeria, with her husband of questionable character. How her son-in-law had murdered her daughter and even showed them Charles's picture from a newspaper on the table. Then she told them that he was being harboured by her husband’s friend, Chief Lewis.

“Do you mean Chief Christopher Lewis, Madam?” Bala asked incredulously.

Claudia confirmed with a nod.

“Chief Christopher Lewis” Deji whistled. “But Chief is a very good man. Are you sure you don’t have the wrong man, madam”

Claudia suspected the reason for their skepticism, and her face took on an angry hue.  

“I know what I am fucking saying you morons” She snapped. “That ape is harbouring another ape that killed my daughter, can’t you get that into your little brains”

Bala showed he was pained by the insults, but a greedy gleam rose in Deji's eyes. “I believe you are not wrong mam, but how much are you willing to pay to get your daughter’s murderer from Chief's haven” he made a mischievous grin at her.

“How much am I willing to pay” she repeated. “I am asking you to do your fucking jobs, and you are asking how much I am willing to pay” She raised her hands to slap Deji, then she dropped it and broke down instead.

At this point, David Battise and Nathan felt obliged to intervene. David Battise shooed the Policemen out while Nathan walked his mom to her bedroom. Nathan came back to his father later.

“What are we going to do now Dad”  

David Battise dropped his weight into a sofa and sighed lengthily. “I don’t know. How about we find someone to tail that Lewis’s man. He's bound to visit where they kept Charles soon”

“That’s a great idea Dad, except we have no man for the job”

“I am not sure, but maybe I can work that out with my other contact in this God-forsaken country” he shot Nathan a thin smile. “It just might turn out good”

“It just might” Nathan agreed.

“Can you describe this person that Lewis was speaking with”

“Yes. Yes” Nathan said and gave his father, a detailed description of Dennis. David Battise remembered having encountered the same man in Lewis’s office. He corroborated his son's descriptions, then he made some calls.

He spoke to his only contact in Nigeria now, Mike Smith for a while and Mike recommended just one person for the job.

He is a killer, Mike had said, and that was just what David Battise was looking for. He knew whoever could take out that Lewis’s guy, must be someone of the same caliber. A killer.

About 7 pm that evening and even with the luxuriousness of the environment, somewhere in the heart of Banana Island, the noise of the adhan, calling the Muslim believers for the Magrib prayer filtered through the expensive shutters, though tuned manageably low by the distance. David Battise had a bottle and a glass full of whiskey by his elbow.

Nathan was waiting by the long row of ten-foot glass windows, strangely admiring the view of what the Lagos lagoon looks like from twenty storeys and at dusk. He was thinking of his sister, reliving their happy memories together when the ding of the elevator announced a guest.

Nathan watched a man in a business suit strut out of the elevator. He was barely muscular. Had striking cocoa skin and a face that fits Hollywood. He made his way to David Battise and offered his hands. “Brown Bello” he said. “BB” for short, he smiled.

David Battise was a little disappointed seeing the man before him. He had been expecting an ugly, mean-looking brute of a man. That was his own idea of a criminal, not someone who looked like a runway model.

Brown Bello suspected the dissatisfaction of his prospective employer and to show that he was worth more than he looked criminally, he drew a gun from his back with lightning speed and replaced it with the same speed. Nathan marveled at the act, but it didn’t have much effect on David Battise.

David Battise gave him the outlay of the situation and a detailed description of Dennis. Then he said. “I want you to tail this man, and find where he keeps my son-in-law, and bring him to us” he slipped a picture of Charles across the table. “That is my son-in-law”

“Are we transacting in dollars or naira”

“Dollar” David Battise answered irritatedly. The steep progression to his bill irritated him.

“That’s more than fine by me” he smiled. “How much USD”

“20,000 USD”

Father and son watched Brown Bello thrust his head up, making a mental calculation of how much 20,000 USD was worth in Naira. Satisfied, he brought his head down.  

"It is nice doing business with you then” he said and stood up to leave.

He shook hands with Nathan as David was reluctant to take his hand. Then he strutted out of the room as confident as he had come.

David Battise watched him go with a bored frown.

“Do you think, he's capable Dad”

“I don’t know son”

TWENTY-FOUR

DENNIS WASN’T TAKING any chances. His boys separated us into groups of three, confined us into three separate bedrooms, killed the lights and broke the switch, and locked the door.  

We were thrown into darkness as the only illumination were the tiny strands of moonlight that filtered through the louvers of the only window in the room. At worst, I couldn’t see the movements of my confinement mates, Sylvester and Dada, and at best, I made out the outlines of their faces as they grumble and murmur their complains and grievances.

The turn of events didn’t come in my favour as it didn’t come in theirs. For one, I would lose the money. I had planned to have control of the money once they had gotten it out of the bank. It was to be my bargaining chip. Also, they have my wife, and if Dennis killed them as I know he would after the heist, then I probably might not see Courtney ever again. Then there was me, would he kill me or deliver me to the Battise and claim the reward? The probability of both happening was high and I wasn’t prepared to take my chances.

I had to find a way to communicate with Susan. Dada and Sylvester were no less scatterbrains, I couldn’t reason anything with them. Hypnotism was my only weapon but I hadn’t found a way to get one of the guards alone or a way to hypnotize one without letting Sylvester in on my little secret with Dada.

“Shut up you fools” I screamed at Dada and Sylvester when their grumblings became unbearable.

They both paused. The darkness robbed me of the shock that must be on their faces.  

“Did he. Did he just talk to us” Sylvester inquired from Dada.  

“Leave the boy alone. He's as stressed out with all these as we are”

Sylvester ignored him. “Did you just say something” I heard him prancing intimidatingly toward me. I said nothing, I knew my silence infuriated him as I wanted it to.

He knelt before me as I was seated with my back against a wall. “Did I just hear you call me a fool”

“If you aren’t a fool, then it is hard to guess what you are”

“This punk is getting some guts because we are locked up together. He thinks we are now on the same level”

I didn’t make a reply to that, I knew he needed no further encouragement to do what I wanted him to. Before I knew it, he was on me, throwing punch after punch into me, kicking me. I screamed more, to get the guards in faster, but before they could rush in and get him off me, he'd broken some of my ribs and my sides were aching badly, that I whimpered hard and continuously in pain.

One of the guards laughed wryly as he hurled me up, and his friends held back Sylvester and Dada. “If we don’t get him out of here. He's not going to be alive by the time boss comes back” And I wished desperately to be alive, if not for my sake, then for Courtney’s sake, I thought as he led me out of the room.

He was leading me to another room at the end of the hallway. To Josh, Tolu, Jerry, and Phillip, instead of Susan, as I suspected he would.

I pretended to falter in my steps, and he made a spontaneous attempt to catch me. That brief sudden moment was everything if I could use it well and if he was the kind of guy that gets hypnotized, his cognitive filters would be exposed and I could slip my command in, but I had no time to confirm if he was suggestible.

I snapped my fingers sharply by his ear. “Look into my eyes” I said, then carried my hands to his shoulders, bringing him up slowly, and have his gaze level with mine, and fixed solely on me. “Hear my voice and let it fill your head, that you hear no other sound but my voice and my words, and you will do no other thing than what I tell you to. You will lead me to the room where you kept the ladies. You will convince your friends at their door, to let me be kept there. And if your other friends ask of where you kept me when you get back to them, you would lie to them, that it was with the other guys and not the ladies. You will do all this being your natural self that no one would suspect a thing. Do you understand” I snapped my fingers again near his ears and I watched him nod.

He was the kind of guy. He was hypnotized, I screamed in my head, and I followed as he led me to where Susan was kept.

He needed to convince no one when we got there as there wasn’t a soul at the door. He thrust a key from his pocket into the keyhole, did some twists and turns, and pushed the door.

"Now sleep" I said sharply into his ears and guided him with my hands so he could rest with his back against the wall.

I locked the door after me as I entered the room.

The room was also dark. The switch had been broken like ours, but I could still make out Susan, it wasn’t hard too. She was pacing about the room restlessly anyway.

Bella just lay on the bed. For all her body suggest, she might as well be a corpse.

On seeing me, Susan rushed up to me. “How the hell did you get in here” she demanded.

“Wait there” I yelled at her and she paused in her stride.

I couldn’t see her face to know if she paused out of surprise or shock or fear. But I knew I had the power now and was determined to use it.  

“I have a plan for you to win this” I said. “But first, you have to tell me where you kept my wife”

She turned back. “Shove your plan up your ass. I am already thinking of something” she scoffed.

I walked further into the room, and sat on the bed, beside Bella. “Tell me when you are done thinking” I said and pretended to wait, unbothered, but in truth, I was more anxious than she was.

“How did you get in here in the first place”

I smiled. “I have my ways, ways you can’t comprehend”

“Try me, and see if I can’t comprehend”

“Drop the subject will you, and let’s get on to what is important” I yelled.

“How can I trust you”

“That sounds sarcastic coming from the woman who lied to me that she was Josephine Phillip when actually she was Susan Odegbare and blackmailed me into planning a heist for her”

“I never did tell you I was Josephine Phillip”

She was right though. I got the name from the waitress. “That doesn’t change the fact that you got me and my wife into this”

“I didn’t force you into my hotel room. If I remembered clearly, you forced your way in”

I grated my teeth in anger but calmed later and swallowed the bitter pill. “Are you in or out, I am getting impatient already”

“If I tell you where your wife is, you can’t find the place. My bet is you know nowhere in Nigeria except your fancy hotel suite”

“Try me” I said. “and see if I can’t find out the address”

She moved closer. “She is my leverage on you and the moment I tell you that, I lose that leverage. The best I can do for you is take you to her after surviving this. This is a test on your plan also. Let’s see if it gets me the money and out of this problem. If it does, I am a man of my word, I would definitely take you to her”

“Technically speaking, you are not a man, but a woman dressed as a man”

“Now I put the question to you. Are you in or out”

I pretended to think for a while. “Ok” I said and moved up to her. “Dennis is going to have some of his men in the bank to keep an eye on you” I said.

“I have already figured that out already”

“But not this” I leaned closer to her. Before, her rich feminine scent arouse me sexually, but now, it revolts me. I whispered my plans in her ear and drew away.

“How are you sure she will do that” she said, her gaze slid to Bella.

“You have to convince her. You have less than 10 hours to. You know she would be released tomorrow”

With that, I left the room and locked the door behind me.  

"Wake up" I snapped my fingers sharply before the guard's ears and watched him shake out of his mild slumber, but he was still in a trance. “Do you have a pistol on you”

He nodded affirmatively.

“Hand it over” I said and he reached for his trousers and handed the gun over. I tucked it into my trousers, then I snapped my fingers again. “Now you will take me back to the previous room. You will tell your friends that it seemed I have a quarrel with the other guys also, and I can not stay with them. And you felt you shouldn’t put me together with the women, so you reasoned that instead, you should just take the troublesome guy out of the room. Understood” I snapped my fingers again and he nods. “Let’s go” I said and led the way.

The guards were surprised when he brought me back. “Why did you bring him back” one of them inquired.

The guard recited what I had said to him word for word and so unnatural that I feared it wasn’t going to convince his friends. But I need not worry as the other guard shrugged his shoulders with a loud “Hmm-hmm” and let us in.  

Dada and Sylvester must be shocked to see me being brought back. Before Sylvester could comment, the guard hurled him out and shut us back into darkness. I had no opportunity to pull the guard out of his trance but I figured he was going to snap out of it soon, when he encountered a powerful trigger, like a sudden loud noise, and if he doesn't get out of it soon. Well, that's not my headache.  

Dada moved towards me. “Why did he bring you back and take Sylvester out? Are you planning something?” he was annoyingly curious. “Tell me if you are. You know you and I are buddies now”  

I scoffed at his words, but the darkness wouldn’t let him the knowledge. How ridiculous the word ‘BUDDIES' sounds between him and me. I slipped him the gun and said. “By dawn. You should leave here. I would make sure to see that happen. After you are successful in leaving. You will go rent another delivery truck and come back here to pick me up, the day after tomorrow on the day of the heist. You should come at noon when they would have all gone for the heist, and the number of guards in the house would have depleted”

“What do I have to do after that? What is really your plan?” he asked anxiously.

“You will know in due time” I said and slumped wearily on the bed.

Dawn came faster than expected or maybe I slept deeper than intended. I was woken by the first rays of sunlight, making it way through the window. Immediately, I woke Dada from his slumber.  

He started as if having a bad dream, scrambling for the gun, and when he found it, he clutched it hard and pointed it at me. His eyes were full of terror.

For that split second that the gun stared at me, I was more than scared. I knew it was the brainwashing and hypnotism backfiring. He must have been having one of those dreams he'd told me about. One of those dreams where his friends were trying to kill him.

I heaved a heavy sigh of relief when he recognized me and released his aim. I thanked my stars the recognition came become he could pull the trigger, otherwise, I would have been another Micah.

“Sorry about that” he apologized. I was further shocked he did. “What’s the plan now?”  

I didn’t reply, I was still trying to get my bearing.

“What’s the plan?” he asked again.

“You are going to act like you are beating me and I am going to scream, and then the guards would rush in, at least three guards would. At that instant, their attention would be divided between me and you, and as they have no idea that you have a gun. It will be a further surprise to them. The rest depends on your gun handling skills”

“My gun handling skills are superb” he grinned, kissing the gun.

“Show time” I said, and we both acted as I had instructed.

In no time, four guards poured in. Two of them pulled Dada away from me and only those two had guns. The remaining two attended to me. Their eyes were heavy. The noise was probably what woke them, and they were disorganized. Just as I had expected.

Dada shook himself away from the hold of both men. He brought the gun from his back and slammed it against one of them on the forehead. He kicked the other in the groin and jabbed him also in the head severely. Both men went down hard and their cries took the room. He kicked their guns away from them.

The other guards left me and one of them lurched at Dada with a hook. Dada pulled the trigger and the man was dead before he could reach him. The other guard acted wisely, he quickly made a dash for the door, but my leg was in the way and he fell face down on the tile. He must have broken some teeth, as I heard some crunching noise from his end.

Dada shot me a brotherly grin, then he bolted out of the room. The other guards poured in sometime later, in great numbers.

I suspected the whole lot of them. They had all been called to the room by the gunshot. For all of them to come into the room without bringing Dada with them, meant one thing. Dada had successfully escaped. He must have hidden somewhere and let them rush into the room first.

The guards stared at me and their mates, stunned and confused. I compensated them for their confusion with my most brotherly smile. They ran out immediately to find Dada, but he was already gone.

TWENTY-FIVE

BROWN BELLO KNEW HE couldn’t work with just the description he was given by his employer, over a hundred thousand Nigerian fits that description. In some respect, it was vague. So the first thing he did, was to get his hands on the CCTV to Chief Lewis’s office on the day his employer had specified. He had had to bribe one of Chief’s guards, fifty thousand naira for it. He hated to part with such a sum, but he'd realized long enough that in his line of business, some money had to be spent.  

He had made sure to surf through the footage to know if it was worth paying for before he paid for it, and when the guard tried to swindle him for more, he made sure they parted ways not with handshakes and hugs but with a black eye and some broken ribs, all on the other man's end.

He'd been shocked to find that the man described was Dennis. Who doesn’t know Dennis in the criminal world?. He was the Ramsey Noah of their business. Popular and classy, though far from handsome, but outright deadly.

This job excites him, pulling this job successfully is like no 20 thrashing no 1. It will make him popular, and popularity is good for business. He would deal with the backlash later, for a man such as Dennis, they certainly would be one.

He watched Dennis's fancy apartment patiently from his Camry, parked some yards away, on some private street in an affluent estate. Dennis certainly didn't live like a criminal.

He was at it for a long dull hour. He saw Dennis drive out of his gate in a Mercedes, and he wasted no time as he engaged gears and threw the Camry in pursuit.

To beat a pro, one had to be smart. Dennis was a pro, so Brown Bello had to be smart. Brown Bello was very careful and cautious, he couldn't risk Dennis being wary of a tail. He kept at least two hundred yards behind the Mercedes and whenever there was an alternative street, Brown followed only to arrive behind the Mercedes later.

The Mercedes finally drove into an isolated Bungalow in a run-down environment and Brown parked over two hundred yards away.  

This must be the place where they hid the man his employer was paying him to find. He settled for another round of patient waiting. He wasn’t going headfirst into the unknown. His number one mantra for his work was PATIENCE, and he had plenty of it. It was his talent.

Brown Bello had to wait another agonizingly boring and long hour before the halves of the gate parted and a bus drove out, then the Mercedes. Both drivers paid Brown and his Camry no attention, just as he wanted.  

He watched both vehicles, till they disappeared down the road. Then he took his gun from under the seat, tucked it in his jean trousers, and marched to the gate. He knocked and a sweaty, over-bearded man, with bumps around his chin appeared before him.

“Who are you and who are you looking for?” he snarled.  

Brown Bello threw him his best smile. His second talent is the ability not to appear a criminal. Thanks to his physique and innocent smile. “I am sorry sir, I am asking of Mr. Daniel, I am the estate agent that got him the house” Brown said, deliberately riding the man back into the compound. He walked further into the compound, ignoring the man’s calls to get out. “Mr. Daniel called a week ago, saying the house needs some repairs. I came to check the areas that needed repair, so I can inform the owner. Can you please inform Mr. Daniel that I am waiting for him” Brown turned to the man.

“Mr. Daniel is away. You can check back in a week's time. So would you please get the hell out of here”

That told him two things. First, the man had no idea who owns the house, so he was new here, and second that he was anxious for him to leave, which means he was hiding something, hiding Charles.

Brown drew his Baretta, and the man saw it. He tried to scramble for his gun, but before he could, Brown hit him on the skull with the Baretta.

The man didn't fall, he just staggered back a little and was dazed for a while. Brown searched him, found his gun, and threw it away. Then he pushed the man into the house. It had been easy thus far, Brown thought. He wanted it to continue that way.

******

It was the day of the heist and Dennis arrived at the bungalow early. He had his guards bring all of us out. He was furious at the escape of Dada.

“I hope you guys aren't planning anything funny” he thundered raking his eyes sternly at us one after the another. If he was hoping to get anything from our faces, he was wrong. Only I, Susan, and Bella knew of the plan. I trust Susan to put on her expressionless face, and Bella wasn’t here, she had been released the day before to her house, as the plan required.

I had yet to confirm from Susan if Bella agreed to play her part in the new plan, but I had no doubts about that. I knew a greedy woman when I saw one. Even with her boyfriend dead, she still hungered for the money.

“I will find that your friend that escaped, and would teach him a lesson of his life. I will start with his wife and children, then his brothers and sisters, and I would save his parents for the last” he threatened, but nobody as much as gave him an encouraging expression, so he turned to his boys.

“Bring me those idiots that allowed him to escape”

The guards went in and brought out three guards. They couldn’t come with the fourth guard. He was a corpse now.

Dennis ranted out angrily at them, he was livid. “Beat these idiots to pulp” he ordered.

The guards hesitated at first.

“I said beat these Idiots like thieves, you morons” he barked.

That shook them, they were all scared of Dennis, and without as much as a grumble, they descended on their friends, as he had ordered, with no mercy. In the end, it was just everyman man for himself.

Within minutes, the three men were a shadow of their former selves. I was more sympathetic to the guard who had broken his teeth. My action had already left him a fright, he'd lost some good teeth, and with this beating, he was definitely not smiling for a long time. Every one of us watching, knew the beaten was a lesson to us too.

Dennis had his boys throw their friends out of the room. Then he had Susan and her crew prepare for the heist and had his boys haul them out into a waiting bus. I heard two engines start, as I was thrown back into my room, with four guards left to guard me.

I was patiently waiting for Dada, but thinking about Courtney. Since Dennis came into the picture, I haven't been able to speak to her, and with all of them here, who was attending to her? Had she had anything to eat? I was asking myself these questions when reports of gunshots made it to my ears.

I started immediately, Dada was here. I had already snatched the key to the room from one of the guards, so I let myself out. I ran into the sitting room, to find the guards in a gunfight with a man, who definitely wasn’t Dada. He was hiding behind a large pillar that separated the sitting room from the dining room. Maybe Dada sent him, I thought, as I ducked behind a sofa.

My arrival into the room cost one of the guards his focus, and he paid for it with his life as he took a bullet to the chest.  

That made three dead guards. One was by the foot of the new man, with his scull cracked open on the floor, and blood pouring out, as the other had a bullet lodged in his forehead. The sight of the carnage and the smell of blood raised bile in my mouth and had my stomach churning badly.

The last guard rushed in a low crouch to make a grab at me, even as bullets loomed threateningly over his head on his way. I wasn’t waiting for him to get me, I made a quick dash for the door.

The new man tried to grab me also, but the guard forced him back to his little haven with a series of bullets. I got outside, away from the corpses, the blood, and the sight of carnage but the noise of the gunshots followed me even as I ran out of the gate.

I was still trying to think up what to do when a truck pulled up before me. Dada smiled from the driver's seat.  

“Get in” he beamed.

I jumped into the truck and he sent it racing down the road. “Aren’t we waiting for your friend?” I asked.

He gave me a look of pure incredulity “Which friend” he answered.

TWENTY-SIX

A VAN PARKED ACROSS ABH bank headquarters. ABH Bank was a straight looming structure that rose high against the sky, seeming to almost poke its head at the clouds. Typical foreign architecture and as if to ridicule its magnificence was before it, the typical Nigerian brand of disorganization, potholes, opened sewers, petty umbrella stalls, traffic of yellow vans and tricycles, and a large mass of busy people.

The man Dennis left in charge of the operation was Farooq. Farooq scanned the environment and when satisfied that there wasn’t any looming trouble he ordered that Susan and her gang be released, and had them marched to the very gate of the bank, then his boys retreated to the van.

He personally watched Susan and her crew file into the bank, then he sat back, winded the windows shut, and resumed for his own part of the plan. He was taking over the roles of the seventh man, except the collection part. Dennis had a man from the police, Daud, handling that.

Farooq clutched a cell phone with an unregistered sim card in his thick hands, looking forward to calling the CSO and putting a hell of a bite on him. He waited for some minutes, then dialed the number and carried the phone to his ears. He signaled for silence in the van as he heard a click.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Demilade Thompson” he greeted.

“And who am I speaking with” Farooq had to agree, the voice on the other end was full of authority. Let's see how much of that remains by the end, he thought.

“With the man who kidnapped your daughters on their way to school this morning” Farooq laughed. “Say hello to Daddy” he laughed again and played the recording from another phone for Demilade Thompson to hear.

“Release my daughters, or I'll track this number and have you arrested immediately” there was an angry yell from the phone.

This time, Farooq made his laugh very hearty. “Look here man” he became serious. “You are in no position to threaten me, I am the one who should be threatening you. Besides, this number is untraceable, as it is unregistered, and if you try to track it, I will know, and I will become angry, and you wouldn’t like it when I am angry, because I will begin to send you chunks of your first daughter, little by little, till I have exhausted all her body parts. Then I will make you do thrice what I want you to do before I release your other daughter to you. Are we clear?” he said.

Demilade Thompson was calm now, and his voice was badly strained as he said “What do you want”

“The first thing I want is that you shouldn't call anyone, not even your wife or the school because if you should involve the Police or anyone involves the police on your behalf, I will have no choice but to carry out my threat. A man would be asking to see you in a minute, allow him into your office, he has a task for you” Farooq ends the call abruptly. Then he turned and grinned triumphantly at his boys, they returned his grin.

They waited for a minute, then one of his boys reach for the signal jammer, and raced its frequency.

******

Susan thought of the past two days as she entered the bank. Dennis coming in had changed everything. Now, she was at the mercy of both Bella and Charles, and she was already losing the leadership respect of her gang. But how had Dennis gotten onto them? The plan had been so slick and smooth, that he shouldn’t have. There must have been a slip-up somewhere, but where, she couldn’t exactly pinpoint.

A guard flashed her a smile, and she replied with a stern frown, while making her way to a wall table, pretending to fill out a deposit slip.

Sylvester came out of the trap door, picked a deposit slip, and deliberately bumped her. He joined the queue before a wicket.  

Susan ignored him as she watched Phillip through her peripheral vision creep into the toilet, and came out a slightly different person, with a fake tag on his neck and a wig on his head. He marched to the elevator in long gaits, just as Tolu approached a guard.

“How's work going brother” Tolu smiled, and the guard returned his smile to the best of his ability. “I am here to see, Mr. Demilade Thompson. The chief security officer”

The guard raised his brows warily. “For what reason exactly, he doesn’t entertain visitors in his office”

“I am his brother from his hometown. I have come a long way to see him. He's expecting me”

“Didn’t he tell you, he doesn’t receive visitors in the bank”

“He didn’t tell me” Tolu answered.

Suddenly, the guard's phone rang, and he took it to his ear. “Yes sir” he said, turning away as if afraid Tolu might listen in, on his conversation.

Tolu reckoned the CSO must be watching him right now, through one of the numerous CCTV cameras that filled the hall's ceiling.

“I have a man right here asking to see you” the guard said, then he repeated YES SIR twice again, ended the call, and led Tolu towards the elevator, and to the CSO's office. He showed Tolu into the office and went his way.  

The CSO held on to himself till the guard left.  

“You have to release my daughters or I'll have the police arrest you and your crew immediately” the CSO shot up from a swivel chair almost knocking over a framed picture of him and his daughters, where both girls were receiving an award for something and their father was smiling proudly. The desk was filled with other pictures like that.

The pictures reminded Tolu of his daughter. He remembered how deadly pale she was when he last saw her. Her skeleton was almost out for all to see, and her little eyes had shrunk into her skull. If leukemia had been eating her up slowly before, now it was devouring her greedily. He remembered how Doctor Ben, the doctor whose care he had placed her called him into a corner, his face serious but sympathetic as he told him, that his daughter had barely two months to live.

Tolu had challenged him that he would get the money to fly his daughter out of the country soon, and get her the best medical care possible on earth. Doctor Ben had replied that no doctor or even a miracle could save his daughter at this stage.

The doctor was asking him to give up on his daughter, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t lose her as he’d lost his wife, the only woman he had ever loved. He'd watched his wife die in his arms after some drug mob attacked his home in retaliation to the burst, he had made on them. He’d caught some of the gang later and taken the case to the court. The court had dismissed the case for lack of evidence, following the professional prowess of the defense lawyer. 'Was his dead wife not evidence enough' he had screamed to the Judge, who refuse to listen to him and had him thrown out for disturbing the court session. Then, Tolu realize that the law was a sham, and the court was a comedy house to entertain the whims of the rich, and that marked his transition from a good Policeman to a bad one.

The CSO was clutching his cell phone hard in his small hands “Release my daughters or I'll have you and your gang arrested” he repeated his threat.

Tolu made no attempt to answer him till he found himself a seat. “You are in no position to make demands, Mr. Thompson. We are” Tolu said, finally bringing the CSO out of his misery. “We demand that you permanently erase the CCTV recordings of the past hour, and put off all the CCTV cameras in the bank. Have the trap door locked so that no one is able to enter or leave the bank. Then communicate to the guards, both the ones outside and inside that the locked door is a technical lapse and nothing else and refuse to thumb that alarm bell that would bring the police here fast on their heels. Our demands are that simple”

“Are you trying to rob the bank? Is this a heist” he demanded, watching Tolu suspiciously.

“If you put it that way. Maybe”

“Your plan can never work, even if you succeed in getting the money, you can’t get it out”

“Let us worry about that”

“I can’t comply with your demands. It is not in my power to”

“Perhaps you need a little convincing” Tolu sneered, as he reach for his shoes, he dug out pieces of a gun from it, assembled it in seconds, and aimed it at the CSO. “So what’s it going to be Mr. Demilade”

The CSO jittered at the face of the gun. Tolu could tell he was thinking, weighing the importance of which, his job or his family.

The door opened slightly and the earlier guard poked his head in. He saw enough to decode the situation. A man, a gun, and his sweating boss. He shut the door back and ran off.

“Holy Fuck” Tolu cursed. He placed the gun against the CSO's forehead threateningly. “Do what I ask of you immediately, or I would put an end to your bloodline right here and right now”

“Promise me you are not going to harm my daughters” he pleaded.

“I cross my heart” Tolu made a hurried cross sign on his chest, even though he was of the other faith. “I don’t harm children if I don’t have to, I have a daughter too”

The CSO walked back to his table. Tolu took his phone to alert the others of potential trouble, but he found no network reception on his cell. “Damn” he yelled, realizing the signal jammers must have been turned on.

Mr. Demilade paid him no attention. He was before his laptop doing as he was told. Hoping to save his daughters by betraying his employers.

The elevator brought Phillip to the third floor. He tried not to speak or make eye contact with anyone as he went for the toilet. He entered the toilet and shut it behind him.

He brought down the flush and pulled out a black plastic bag containing the guns. He put the flush back in place.

Covering the bag with his jacket, he left the toilet, only to bump into a man, heading for the toilet and the bag fell to the floor.

Phillip's heart skipped a bit as he watched the bag fall. He sighed with relief and thanked his luck when the content didn’t pour out. He grabbed the bag back into his jacket and continued on his way ignoring the other man's murmurings of apology. The man entered the toilet and came out immediately.

“You dropped your handkerchief in the toilet” he called out to Phillip.

Phillip bit his lips hard for his bad luck. A wave of tension began to build in him, growing fast and fast inside him, he couldn’t reply the man or turn back but continued for the elevator.

The man realized he must be phony, and he screamed to the hall. “Get that man” he pointed at Phillip.

He must be someone of authority Phillip thought as he heard almost half of the hall coming for him. Why was this happening, he hadn’t distributed the guns yet.

He was still wearing his disguise so they couldn’t see his real face. He dug out a gun from the bag and turned to the rushing crowd. “Get on your knees, all of you” he yelled at them, prancing forward menacingly.

The gun came with greater authority as the whole hall fell on their knees.

It was getting to her turn already in the queue, and Susan stared at her wristwatch impatiently. Phillip should have been here already with the guns. She watched Sylvester make a deposit of two thousand naira and the Teller didn’t bother to run the counting machine. She just sized him up and frowned, before accepting his slip.

Susan imagined what the Teller was going to do when it got to her turn. That of the two hundred thousand naira she'd written on her slip, she had just two hundred naira with her.

She stared at the elevator for a while and decided to wait no more. She broke off the queue for the elevator.

Phillip saw the elevator about to open and he covered the elevator with his gun. He was relieved when he saw Susan come out of it. He dropped the bag to the floor and kicked it toward her. “Got my hands full here” he smirked mirthlessly and gestured to the crowd of kneeling people with his eye.

Susan picked up the bag and made to run with it. Suddenly, the alarm lights on the wall began flashing continuously. Someone had thumbed the panic button.  

There was an uproar downstairs. Susan lost her sense of direction as she ditched the elevator and ran fast for the stairs. In her rush, she bumped into a guard, and the bag fell to the floor. This time, the guns poured out.

The guard had just been from the office of the Chief Security Officer and the panic room, which were both on the third floor, the former where he'd seen a man threatening his CSO with a gun, and the latter where he’d turned on the alarms.

He saw the guns and knew immediately what was happening. This was a heist. He made a grab at Susan, but she dodged his clumsy grip and kicked him hard in the groin. The guard refused to go down, he was strong. He managed to grab and trap her to his body. The sweaty smell from him almost made her puke.  

She made attempts to escape his hold, but against such strength and force of masculinity, she was powerless. She kicked at his knee and forced both of them to a crouch, then she tried for a gun. She got one and squeezed the trigger to his arm. That broke his hold, then she squeezed another one into his chest.

She stood up, gathered the guns, and raced downstairs. She got to the first floor to find a crowd of people before the trap door, thumping nervously at its buttons but it wouldn’t open, only giving hints of something about a technical lapse each time. The gunshots had escalated everything, everyone now knew that there was danger around, and even the tellers and cashiers were dancing in fear behind their wickets. Everyone. Even everyone outside the bank. The guards outside. The heist was crumbling before it began. The police would be on their way now.

She braced herself up, as she scanned the hall for the others. Finding them, she slipped them the guns. They put on their mask and together they brought order to the hall.

The CSO had just confirmed that he had done as commanded when a group of four guys trooped in angrily. Must be the I.T guys in-charge of the bank’s technological security. They were grumbling about him logging them out of a software of some sort. The men saw Tolu with a gun over the CSO's head, and immediately they turn to run but Tolu called them back in with the threat to shoot them if they moved an inch forward. All of them marched inwards wailing.

“Shut the door” Tolu yelled at them, and one of them sealed it shut.

“Now come in slowly” He ordered and the group filed slowly into the room. They weren’t giving him trouble. It had to remain so, because the moment they did, he was fucked. The gun was a fake.

“Join them” Tolu prodded the CSO forward to join his colleagues.

“Hope my daughters would be safe, I've done all you ask of me” he said much to let his colleagues know that he hadn’t betrayed his job for something worthless.

Someone pushed the door open suddenly and the group was ready to bolt out, but there was another man with a gun before the door, and he wore a mask.

Josh came in and the group marched back in fear of him. He pulled a gun from his trousers and threw it at Tolu, just as Tolu also threw the fake gun at the group.

A man in the group caught it, but the smirk on Tolu's face told him all he needed to know and he dropped it as if it was hot lava.

“Now let's get out of here” he said, wearing his own mask, and together with Josh, they herded the men out of the room.

They secured all the floors and brought everyone in the bank into three groups and separated into the immediate three floors. Bella was found on the fifth floor and brought down to the second, and when Susan found Jerry's intense stare on Bella disturbing, she had her moved to the third.

The inventories that were to be brought out of the store by Bella were also traced to a corner of the third floor, and the pictures for the optical illusions were taken out and set at the right angles, considering, the light, the perspectives, and other factors as they had been taught by Charles. The MP3 players had also been placed at their required spots. Altogether it made a swell illusion as Charles had predicted.

There were about to single out the senior bank officers who can open the vaults when they heard the loud shrill of police sirens from outside. With the gunshots she'd made earlier, Susan wasn’t shocked at their arrival, she was even surprised they took this long to come. They now had to speed up the remaining processes. She could sense panic and fear from the others in the room with her. Sylvester and Phillip were conversing excitedly in hushed tones, likewise Tolu and Josh, but they did theirs much to themselves.

“Who is Mr. Odeh Bamson here” she asked the hostages.

They’d asked on the first floor, the second floor and now the third and no one answered to the name or attempt to point him out. It was a silent solidarity between the bank staffs.

“So there isn’t a Mr. Odeh in this bank” she asked sarcastically. She walked into the hostages and pulled out one of the female staffs by the hair. A tag on her says she was an account analyst.

“I guess she has to die for Mr. Odeh then” she placed a gun on the now sobbing woman’s head, and pretended to want to pull the trigger.

That instant, a man shouted from the crowd. “I am Mr. Odeh” he stood up. “Just please don’t harm her” he blurted nervously.

“I am not going to if you point out your partner with which you would open the vault” she pressed the gun further to the lady's forehead.

“He should be downstairs” he screamed.

Susan signaled for Sylvester and Josh to take the man to get his partner, and then Tolu and Philips to go to the store and bring out the tampered inventories and prepare for the swapping. Now seemed the time to bring the rest up to date with the new plan. So she called back Tolu and Philips and whispered to their ears.

Tolu whistled excitedly after, but Phillip didn’t seem convinced.

“Are you sure we can get out of this alive and with the money?” Phillip asked Tolu as they took the elevator to the store. “Dennis is unlike any of us. He's a bastard to the core”

“We aren’t saints either and certainly are no better than bastards”

“Stop being sarcastic Tolu. You know this guy dines with politicians and he's friends with most of our bosses”

Tolu paused to face him as they step out of the elevator. “What do you think gave him such power? Money!” he said. “If we get this money out of the bank successfully. Some billions of naira will make me more powerful”

“I had a dream last night, a bad one. I saw Dennis shooting us all to death”

Tolu was getting bored with his superstition and pessimism already. “I don’t know about you, but that nigga isn't going to be my murderer. I am getting out of this alive and to my daughter. I am going to fly her out of the country and get her adequate treatment, then I will buy her, all the best things the world has to offer”.

They found the store without much stress, and just as Bella had described to them. Tolu pulled at the door to the store and they were faced with a mountain of boxes. Tolu got in and Philips followed, then they set out to find the marked ones.

Meanwhile, Sylvester and Josh were leading two frightened aged men out of the elevator to the second vault on the fifth floor. The vaults with dollars.

The first vault made Sylvester hunger for the rest. Seeing so many one thousand naira notes stacked together almost ran him mad. He'd almost popped his eyes onto his hands at the sight. To see so much money together, and to smell them was a dream that none of his ancestors have managed to achieve, and he had broken that jinx. He was even going to own the money and spend them. He was going to be stupendously rich and was going to live the best life with Cynthia by his side and he would spoil her plenty.

They all stopped before the vault's steel door. There was a wheel, like a truck’s steering wheel connected to it, and it was made of pure silver.  

“Do your thing old men” He yelled at the men. He carried his gun from one man to another mischievously. “And no funny business” he snarled.

The men carried their eyes simultaneously toward an iris scanner fitted to the silver door, and in a minute, they announced to have had the door unlocked. Josh shoved the men aside, grabbing at the wheel. He turned it clockwise and pushed the door.

A wall of neat dollar bills stared at him, and he stared back. Enthralled by the sight. He screamed with delight as he flew into the money.

If Sylvester’s eyes had almost popped before, now it popped. He took a satisfying eyeful of the bills before pushing the men forward for the next vault. Leaving Josh to take care of transporting the bills in the already-opened vaults to Tolu and Phillip.

It took close to two hours to get everything ready, and in the end, there were 25 stuffed jumpsuits, and eight bags of money before them. The police siren still rang noisily and non-stop outside.

Susan thought, this was the blessing with banks, there is no way in, except the secured front door and if that is sealed, then it is a fortress. The only problem with fortresses was that it was also a trap. A trap for a patient hunter. And if the Nigerian police had any skill, it was patience. They had no psychologist or negotiator and won’t even bother calling out with a megaphone. They just secure the area and wait for you to come out. Anytime you do, they'll be outside waiting.

Susan knew this because she was in the system. The rotten system that prematurely retired her honest father, just because he had challenged the then-corrupt commissioner of police. Her father had evidence of the commissioner being involved in the death of a witness in detention and had sought to prosecute him against the advice of his colleagues and Seniors. The commissioner had found out and was enraged. The commissioner had tried to have her father drop the case, but her father had been reluctant and adamant on pursuing the case. Left with no other alternative, the Commissioner had had her father falsely accused of a crime and discharged dishonourably from service, and also found a way of destroying the evidences against him.

That single event had turned her family practically into beggars. Her father struggled, but couldn’t find a permanent job, with which to fend for his family. That had led Susan and her siblings to lead a rough life, a rough life that claimed the life of two of her siblings but toughened her into the woman she was today.

The rotten system also demanded she lay on her back, and get grunted on by her flabby bosses before they could steer deserved promotion her way. The system had no regard for anyone except the rich and powerful, and she was about to join the clique. She has just an heist to finish.

She turned to the crowd of hostages on the first floor. Her voice was high, so as to be heard all across the hall as she said. “I need twenty-five female volunteers for these jumpsuits, or I'll pick you out myself” but none of the female hostages came out, they all seem to prefer the second option.

“That’s fine then” Susan shrugged, as she walked into the crowd of hostages, and they parted like the red sea, into two groups for her. Tolu was behind her, ready to drag out her choices of volunteers.

Susan paused before a woman who looked to be in her fifties and was clutching the hand of a man of the same age range. Husband and wife, she thought, she would make a good volunteer. She pointed at the woman and Tolu dragged her away from her husband. Now, loud cries and wails had tore through the room, every male held close and shield his female relative, spouse or friend, from Susan scanning eyes.

Susan wasn’t bothered by this, but by something else. She thought she would have found Dennis's spies by now. But she'd found no way to recognize them, they have melted expertly into the hostages.

She pointed at another woman, then another, till she got the needed number, and got to the end of the hall, and just when she was about to turn back she caught a pair of male eyes on her, from the top of the line. The man threw his face away immediately.

He was an average thin man, with a large mole atop his fleshy lips and he looked familiar. She moved closer and recognized him as one of Dennis henchmen. Dennis spy.

She walked carefully towards him, watching as his hands shook inside the pockets of his joggers pant. “Can you spare me a minute” she smirked to his nervous face and dragged him out by the collar. She led him away from everyone, to the foot of the stairs.

“Where are the rest”

“Who are you talking about” he stammered.

“If you make me repeat myself, you’ll end up being sorry you did”

“I don’t understand a thing you are saying woman” he snapped, even with the fear lurking in his eyes.

“You don’t” she grinned peevishly as she cocked the gun. “Let’s see if you will understand after this” she pulled the trigger twice into his knee.  

The man held his bloodied knee, and an animal-like scream, filled with pain escaped his lips. Susan then carried the gun to his forehead.

“Shut up” she yelled at him, and he sealed his lips shut, his cheeks bulged, forcing down a thousand screams of pain.

“Tell me what I need to know before I get touchy with the gun again”

He immediately pointed at two men from the crowd of keen audience. A man in an Adidas polo and another one wearing a thin gallas haircut on a dome-like head. The men were already shaking on their feet before she got to them. She dragged them out and pulled the trigger twice to their chests, and the two men fell to the floor lifelessly.

The gunshots and the crude way she had done it, raised another torrent of wails from the hostages. She went back for the first man and dragged him with her, while he limped and cry out in pain at the forced movement.

She threw him into a chair with his back to the hostages. With the availability of a sacrificial lamb, Susan no longer felt the need of a magic trick and instead of preparing a male mannequin, she had prepared a special jumpsuit. One with a reasonable amount of gunpowder concealed and compressed in it chest area, gunpowder which they had extracted from the knockouts intended for the earlier performance. She picked up the jumpsuit and threw it at him. Now, there was going to be a different illusion, one with a real explosion.

Tolu had forced the women into the other jumpsuits, and they lined up straight, feet away behind him, trembling helplessly.

She gave the man a shake of the head that says he should put it on and he scrambled into it. Then she turned to the audience and began like a lecturer before a group of dumb students.

“In these jumpsuits is a hypersensitive bomb. Once it is worn, the careless attempt at getting it off, or tampering with it without switching off the detonator which is with me, is just pure suicide. Follow my instructions and they'll be no trouble. It'll be an happily ever after kind of story end but otherwise, we all get blown to dust. I want to do a simple demonstration for you so you can see how suicide can be before you choose it”

The man didn’t plead as she approached him. He probably thought it was a trick, following the original plan. He would have died before he realized it was not, Susan thought.

She took out a lighter from her pocket and bent surreptitiously toward him so that the hostages couldn’t see what she was about to do. “Adieu” she said and lit his chest. Then she ran as fast as she could for cover.

The explosion vibrated the hall, and the chain of chemical reactions threw her against the wickets wall before she could successfully find cover.

The lower half of the man remained on the lower half of the chair, both upper halves had been blown to pieces, with blood and bones splatted on the white walls and tiles of the bank hall.

Half the room was in tears now. The other half were lost in trance-like prayers with their God. Susan rose to her feet, picked up her gun, and walked back to the hostages.

They all looked upon her with dread, as if she was the devil and they were seeing the Devil before them.  

“Now you’ve seen what will happen if you disobey my orders. I trust you will obey me now without complain”

She didn’t get a word from the hostages, she wasn’t expecting one either. She walked into the crowd, and they parted for her again. She saw what she was looking for, before getting to the end of the line, or who. She dragged out a couple, a man and a lady clutching each other tightly. The lady was about her size and height, and the man was about Jerry's.

She brought them both out of the crowd. “I'll send them back down in a while, but for now, it's bye-bye. My comrades in that room, that one, and that other one over there would watch over you as they do what they do, so no funny business”

The hostages refuse to follow her finger as she pointed to the rooms with the optical illusion frames on that hall. They already knew of the presence of those men, they were more scared of her than they’ll be of the men. They had their full attention on her.

“This is to the bank staffs if you don’t want these women to be blown to pieces when you hear the shout of “GO” from my comrades, lead everyone to the emergency exit, and open it for everyone to get out”  

With that, she prodded the man and woman up the stairs with her gun. Tolu and Phillip followed closely behind her and they all move to join the others on the other floors. They got two other hostages from the second floor, the right height and size for Tolu and Phillip, and also repeated the same instructions to the hostages there, and did the same again on the third floor, picking out hostages, the right size for Sylvester and Josh, and giving the same instructions.

Then the six of them with the six hostages moved up the elevator to an fourth floor, where both groups swapped dresses and the other group gets locked up in the toilets, at gunpoint. They ditched their guns and marched down the stairs to the lower floors separately as Sylvester brought out his phone, which was on a wireless connection with some of the MP3 players. He played a recording, that screamed “Go Now” on the first three floors. Then they joined the uproars on the lower floors, and melt with the hostages as the bank staffs tried earnestly to control the situation and lead the eager crowd to the emergency exit and out of the bank.

TWENTY-SEVEN

ASP FRANK WAS ALSO KNOWN as torture-man-Frank, because of his great penchant for torture, and his experience and mastery of the act. It was a private joke amongst the officers of his division, that he could make even the devil confess his millennium-old sins if he had the devil in a thirty minutes torture session.

ASP Frank was nobody’s favourite. Nobody liked him, and nobody pretended to, neither his seniors nor juniors. To everyone, he is a cruel, inhuman, and ruthless bastard. Some were bold enough to say it to his face, but his hard cruel eyes deterred most people even from the thought of saying it.

ASP Frank was a big hunk of a man. He dominated the swivel chair in his office as he dominated every single thing in his life. He was picking his tooth after a spicy and meaty lunch when he was alerted of a bank robbery at ABH bank. Instantly, he became alert. He carried his eyes to his wristwatch. It was just Twelve noon. The anonymous information he’d received from someone claiming to be his brother-in-law had said the heist would be happening at 2pm, two hours from now. What had happened?

The time must have been changed, and the anonymous informant was unable to inform him of the change of plans. He gathered his essentials from his table and strutted purposefully out of the room. He hollered at his boys from their separate duties to gear up, and in no time, they were all gathered in two large SARS police trucks, armed with their AKs for the bank. ASP Frank got into the seat beside one of the drivers and thundered for the driver to get them on the move.

They got to the bank in what must be thirty minutes, only to find another police truck on the scene, and a short, big-bellied policeman known as ASP Daud leading the crew. ASP Daud had no right to be here, this was his fucking jurisdiction. He got down from his truck angrily and approached ASP Daud with the same expression.

“What in the world are you doing here” he snarled.  

ASP Daud tried to smile, but the expression on Frank's face advised him not to, so he wore his own cold look. He never liked Frank anyway. “We were on a patrol when we heard gunshots from the bank, so we pulled over to see what was happening, and I had my boys surround the area”

“Well, you've seen enough, pull back those idiots, and send your legs packing”

Just then, a van pulled over and both men turned to watch two men alight. The men both had on a black vest that says Police on the back, written just as it was written on a large sticker pasted to both sides of the Van.

One of the men approached ASP Daud and shook hands with him. “Long time Sir” he said and followed with a long list of pleasantries.  

ASP Frank merely watched, anger building in him with each passing second.  

“What is the situation Sir” the officer finally got down to business.

“He isn't the one running the show here, I am. He will be getting the himself and his boys out of here in a minute now and who in the world are you”

“Inspector Fati” he said and apologized for his non-acknowledgment of ASP Frank earlier. He tried for a handshake, but ASP Frank just gave his hands a condescending flutter of the eye, and the man returned his hands, embarrassed.

“Which division is Inspector Fati from and what is he doing on my crime scene”

“I am from the state’s bomb squad Sir, ASP Daud informed us of a possible use of bombs in the bank robbery when he heard an explosion from the bank a while ago. The rest of my crew is on their way here”

ASP Frank looked to Daud for confirmation.  

“That’s True” ASP Daud agreed as he caught his eye.  

He looked back at the van, which was to be a bomb-proof van, but the vehicle he saw made a mockery of the very term.

“Well you, don’t get in my way” he said to Inspector Fati. “And you, get those fools you call policemen off my crime scene immediately,” he said to ASP Daud, and when he wasn’t quick to react, he marched forward and began replacing ASP Daud's boys with his.

ASP Daud walked back to his truck with his boys, his face full of embarrassment. If he had known Frank would be here, he wouldn’t have accepted the job from Dennis. Frank was a typical son of a bitch.

He got into his truck with his boys and they drove off. The headache was for Inspector Fati to bear alone now, he had to earn his own part of Dennis's paycheck.

No sooner than ASP Daud left, a strange and loud noise rose from behind the bank. It was the emergency gate being slid open. From both sides of the building, people began pouring out in large numbers. In the lead, were some women in orange jumpsuits, which had a bulky load sewn onto the chest area. The black lines below their eyes told anyone they must have cried their hearts out already.

ASP Frank ordered his boys to fire sporadically into the air to try to control the crowd, but the order it brought was made temporary by the new and confused arrivals from the bank, that were pouring into the crowd, thickening the crowd.

The crowd was screaming something about bombs, and when hundreds of hands pointed to the women, the Policemen understood the message and allowed only the ladies past, steering them towards Inspector Fati who in turn steered them to his van and had them pull off the jumpsuits and deposit them behind the Van.

Inspector Fati looked through at the crowd to confirm that they were no more women in jumpsuits, then he and his partner got into the Van and drove off.

ASP Frank saw the bomb-proof Van leave as he managed the crowd with his boys. He felt there was something odd about Inspector Fati, so he gave the description of the robbers as given in the letter to the most senior officer on the scene, Inspector Ramon. He got into one of his Police truck and followed the bomb-proof van, who had no idea, he was being followed. When the Police truck became too conspicuous to proceed further, ASP Frank ditched it, and hailed himself a bike, asking the bike man to tail the Van.

The bomb-proof Van stopped on a lonely stretch of sand, an untarred household road interlinked to the main road. Suspecting that the men were going to alight, ASP Frank asked the bike man to hide behind a group of scrap vehicles. He watched Inspector Fati and his partner jump down and sweep the area clean with their eyes for witnesses. Then they walked over to the Van and tore off the large police stickers on it, which they deposited behind the van and continued on their way.

The van led ASP Frank to a luxurious car-wash facility, where ASP Frank ditched the bike man without pay. The bike man knew better than to ask for his fare from a policeman on duty, so he cursed his luck for his forced patriotic duty and continued on his way, while ASP Frank continued on foot into the facility, pretending to be a customer.

The bomb-proof Van was parked on a designated lonely spot with a number of men gathered around it, among whom were Inspector Fati and his partner.

Leading those men was Dennis. For some reason, ASP Frank wasn’t surprised to find the no 1 and most celebrated criminal in the country involved in this. He watched Dennis and his men open the truck, snatch at the jumpsuits, and began tearing them out one after the other. What poured out of the jumpsuits was a complete shock to both him and them, wad after wad of useless bank papers. Dennis hauled Inspector Fati off the floor and threw him against the Van angrily. “Where is my money” he yelled.

Meanwhile, in the bank, Inspector Ramon was having a hard time recognizing the men ASP Frank had described to him among the huge crowd. He refused to think about the hell ASP Frank would put him through if he failed this one task.

The crowd had refused to be controlled, they were all eager for their homes. A few of them had been able to squeeze through the police net and run into the road, amongst them was Susan, but she waited, watching expectantly from across the road for the rest of her crew to make it also to safety, but luck wasn’t on their side, for Inspector Ramon asked his boys to fire into the air, and for the momentary order that brought into the crowd, he spotted Sylvester and Phillip and hollered to his boys “Get those men”.

Sylvester and Phillip nervously watched as four Policemen charge at them. They had no guns to defend themselves, so they moved back toward the bank. “Do something. Help” Sylvester cried to Tolu, who was some feet away. That call carried Inspector Ramon’s gaze to Tolu. “And that man too” he screamed, pointing at Tolu, and two policemen were covered him as well.

With the reduction in number, the Police net slackened. Jerry was about to run away with the rest of the crowd when Inspector Ramon spotted him and made a grab for him.

Jerry dodged his arm, but there was nowhere to go for he was now sandwiched between Inspector Ramon and the crowd, so he tried to fight back, but before he could even throw his arm, Inspector Ramon brought out his gun and fired point blank onto his face. ASP Frank had ordered him to shoot to kill anyway.

Josh saw the Policemen cornering his friends. He liked Phillip. Phillip was the best he had to a best friend, so he snatched a gun from a Policeman beside him, brought the policeman to his knees with a kick in the thigh, and shot at the Policemen cornering Phillip and Sylvester. He managed to bring two down before he was disoriented by the crowd and some Policemen grabbed him. Inspector Ramon got to him, and pulled the trigger into his skull, splattering his brain over the floor.

With two down, Sylvester and Phillip charged back at the remaining Policemen, fighting to get their guns from them.  

Two bank guards saw what was happening and rushed in to aid the Policemen through the test of might. They brought the robbers to their knees. For revenge against their dead colleagues, the policemen felt no compunction as they squeeze their triggers satisfactorily into the robbers.

Tolu saw that escape was futile. Phillip had been right, they were all going to die, except not by Dennis's hands but by the Police. He dropped to his knees, cursing his luck, their luck. He hoped Susan survives. She was the only person he could trust with his daughter. He shut his eyes, as he thought of his daughter and of the life he would have given her if the heist had come true when Inspector Ramon walked up to him and pumped some bullets into his chest.

Susan watched the police take the life of the closest people she had to family one after the other, as if swatting some surly insignificant little mosquitoes, and she could do nothing about it. She fell to her knees amongst the crowd of observers and wept her heart out. She had failed them.

TWENTY-EIGHT

THE TALES OF THE HEIST WERE ALREADY on the news. I couldn’t say much for the local TV stations but the local radio stations were already featuring it in their 4 pm news broadcast. Except for the broadcaster’s voice reading out the details of the heist in the usual emotionless voice of broadcasters, the truck was a haven for a nervous brand of silence.

The newscaster said there was a heist at ABH Bank at noon, in which three bank customers, a guard, and two policemen were killed, and that the group of policemen led by ASP Frank, my brother-in-law, had successfully stopped the robbers from escaping the bank with the money. That there had been a shootout with the police in which the five robbers lost their lives.

Dead. I nearly dropped a tear, I hadn’t meant for them to die, but arrested. Was Susan amongst them? Then I remembered, the newscaster said five, not six. Susan had escaped as I had planned, I didn’t include her description in the letter. Now it was just her and Dada and I had poisoned Dada's mind against her. My plan was going smoothly, and it'll continue that way if Bella played her part as I expected her to.

I searched Dada’s face for a hint to his emotions as to the death of his colleagues but he gave me none. He just started the ignition for the bank.

We got to the bank to find it a hub of activity. Armed Policemen were everywhere, just as some news reporters were running around with their mics and cameras, sniffing for more details to broadcast.

Dada stopped by the road, while I remained in the truck as he got down. I was still a popular murderer, worth 20,000 USD to any eye. I watched him approach a bank staff, and the staff led him into the bank.

About fifteen minutes later, he came out of the bank with boxes designated to be carrying defected stationeries from staplers, to copy papers. But Dada and I knew better. It took him nearly twenty journeys to get the truck full of 10 billion naira. Then he jumped into the driver's seat, smiling at me.

“Boy, that was a hell lot of work for a hell lot of money” he exhaled and I forced a smile in reply.

“What next now? Susan’s place”

“No, we shouldn’t just hand over the money to her like that. Doing that is giving her the power to dictate to us, we should be the ones to dictate terms. She should be at our mercy”

He thought about it. “What should we do then” he asked after.

“We pack the money into some larger boxes, seal them with some tapes and find a self-storage facility to stash them. After we have gotten her to agree to our terms, we will then come back for it”

“Boy” he exclaimed. “You have nice ideas in that little head of yours” He engaged gears happily and sent the truck sailing down the road.

We bought larger boxes from an electronic merchant by the road. Parked somewhere discreet and repacked the bills into the boxes. Then we set sail again for a self-storage facility, he knew.

The Lady that attended to us at the facility was infectiously jovial. She would have had what qualified as a killer shape if her legs had been in consensus with the rest of her body. I gave her a thin smile for her accommodativeness.

“Can I see your things, so I can advise you on the storage size to rent. A man once rented a 10x10 for a little box of family frames. He was wailing later” she joked.

“The man must be a novice at things like this. I have been renting self-storage units since my mama had me. There were always things to put away, like my stubborn little sister, and her funny toys”

I watched her laugh. “You are a funny man”

“Being funny keeps me sane in this crazy world. But don’t sweat your pretty brows, our things are just some random boxes of electronics, nothing beyond the might of a 5x15”

“Yeah” Dada agreed, but I suspected, he knew nothing about these things. He handed her the money, which she counted with her eyes and dropped into some draw. “5x15 it is” she stood up to lead us to our unit.

We got a lock for it and began unloading the boxes into the storage. She waited for us all through, and all through which her eyes were on me, but I gave her no encouragement. I was well past killer shapes now. I couldn’t risk getting involved with another Susan.

We dropped the last box and she used her own padlock on the gate, then we used ours. She walked up to me after.

“I think I have seen you somewhere before” she said.

Her words suddenly quickened my heartbeats that I found myself stammering in reply. “God created us in twos is the saying” I knew I was wrong to have shown my face, but I just had to be present for this, for my plan.

“Then you got yourself a twin from another mother, cos the person definitely looks like you, or you look like him” she said then sashayed back to her office. I exhaled deeply as I watched her go.

“Boy, that was a close hit for you” Dada slapped me on the shoulders as we made our way back to the truck.

I let him settle for a while and jubilate a little to the fact that he was some billion Nairas rich, then I said to him. “Dada, I want to show you something”

“What is it” he said.

Then using my eye as an identification point, I launch him into a hypnotic session. I prepped him up for a while then I said.

“You will forget everything that has happened for the past hour. That we ever repacked the bills, that we came to a self-storage center. That we booked a unit and stashed the money there. Instead, what you will think and have on your mind is that we bought some coffins, stashed the money inside, and had it buried in a bush somewhere. And after burying the coffins with the money, you yourself marked the spot with some twigs. Understood”

I watched him nod lethargically, and I snapped my fingers before his ears.

TWENTY-NINE

THE SKY WAS A BLANKET OF GREY with a sprinkle of red over an equally grey world when we arrived at Susan's place. The look of the world proposed the time to be somewhere around 7 pm.

We didn’t find Susan in, as we made our way into her little pad. The sitting room had nothing but two sofas and a center table. I curiously walked into the bedroom to find it had nothing also than an unmade bed and a closet full of male shirts, boxers, and shorts. It looked like a typical bachelor’s home, except it was a spinster's.

We settled on the sofas for a patient wait. In no time had we settled that Bella came in. We might as well be ghosts. She barely acknowledged us.

She sat at the edge of a separate sofa. A gloomy look on her. Her swelled eyes told me she had been crying, mourning her dead boyfriends. The dead were gone but the living needed her share of the billions.

Susan finally barged in an hour later, reeking of booze. She rushed towards me, seizing me by the neck. “Your grand plan was a disaster, you've gotten all my friends killed” she yelled, her eyes dangerously red.

I tried to pull away but I was helpless against her vice-like grip. She tightened her hold on my neck, seizing the breath in my lungs that I had to open my mouth and fight for air frantically.

She was choking me to death, my heartbeat was accelerating as I felt myself nearing death. And just when I felt I was about to die, she threw me against the sofa, walking away as I struggled for air.

“It was like the police knew us already. They identified Tolu and the rest amongst the crowd of people easily. There was no reason for the police to have suspected them. They weren’t armed. What the hell had Frank been doing.....” She was rambling to herself hysterically.  

The name Frank got me alert between my fight for air. “Do you mean ASP Frank?” I asked.

The expression she gave me was sheer murder, and I shut up. I knew one more word from me and she wouldn’t hesitate to use the gun. I could see that she was hysterical and paranoid, and both were developing some sort of cynicism in her. She was going crazy. I saw a mad glint in her eyes.

I considered the possibility, could ASP Frank my brother-in-law be involved in all this? As if to answer my questions, the door was pushed and a giant of a man bounced in.

Dada sat up, fear in his eyes. “So ASP Frank is the eighth man in the heist. I should have known your devil of a boyfriend would be involved in this”.

She didn’t bother to reply Dada, she pushed the man onto the door before he could move further into the room.

“Why did your boys kill my men? How were they able to point them out of the crowd” she screamed.  

“Your captive was able to send a message to my wife and one of my boys was opportune to see the message and he shared it with the rest. The message contained everything about the heist, down to the very details, and even the description of your men” he said “There was little I could do, but act along. I tried to contact you, but I couldn’t get through”

“And why should I believe that”

“You know I wouldn’t do you any wrong. I wouldn’t put you in danger my love” he broke off her hold and kissed her. She was stubborn at first, but then she let go and encouraged him more. They broke up with both of them exhaling hard.

As I watched them, I began to understand everything. It was all beginning to make sense. My brother-in-law got the message that I was coming to Nigeria from my sister, set me up with his mistress, and forced me into planning a heist for them. Now, he was trying to betray her and make me the fall guy. I could see she believed him. She believed his lies.

She turned to me, with murder in her eyes. “You snake” she screamed, charging for me, but Dada was in her way before she could.

“He's my man now, you have to get through me to get to him”

“He got everyone killed, he got all your friends killed”

“None of you are my friends, woman. You all tried to kill me at a time or another”

What happened next was a complete shock to us all. Bella pulled a gun from her purse and shot at Susan, with the gunshot almost deafening us, but it did far worse to Susan. She clutched her stomach hard, and blood trickled down her fingers. She fell onto the floor with life slowly draining out of her.

“That’s for Micah bitch” Bella cried, then she carried the gun to the rest of us.

“I did the most job, so I'll take the highest share. I'll take seventy percent of the money and leave the remaining for the rest of you to share. I think I am fair like that. So where is the money before I shoot you all......”

Frank kicked the center table towards her and it caught her straight on in the leg. As she tried to steady herself, the gun fell from her hands. Dada caught it before it could touch the floor.  

He wasn’t able to use it as Frank brought out his gun and shot him in the stomach. He dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes, gasping for air.

Bella watched with dread as Frank approached her, menace in his movements. She took that look to death, as Frank drew the trigger between her eyes.

“Take me to the hospital fast” Susan blurted, reaching out to him, but he shook her off. I watched realization hit her like a sea-wave.

“Frank, you sneaky bast.....”

He didn’t let her finish her statement, he fired one at her chest, and she died instantly. “Love you honey, but Dennis already knows you. With all of you dead, that’s another mystery for him” he said to her corpse as if she could hear him.

My heart was running a marathon beneath my chest, as I watched him come for me. This was far from how I had anticipated the night, but I still had my trump card. I still had the money.

“Only I know where the money is and I demand to see my wife and sister first before I tell it to you” I rambled with fear.  

He laughed as if I had just told a bad joke. “You and this idiot” he pointed at Dada. “Stashed the money together. I just need to find out from him, where the money is and kill you”

“But he's dying already”

“All the more fun. I'll taunt him with death, that he would so wish for me to give it to him, and he would tell me what I need to know as compensation” he knelt towards Dada and scoop Bella's gun into his trousers.

He tore off Dada’s clothes and shoved them into his mouth, then he dug his finger into Dada’s wound, pushing the bullet deeper and deeper into his flesh, choking Dada on his own screams. He removes the gag after.

“Where is my money” Frank inquired but Dada gave him nothing but a meaningless squabble. Frank got intense with his torture and Dada screamed as much as the gag would allow till he could no more. He finally gave in and told Frank what I had told him earlier.

“You see” Frank stood from him and smirked. “It wasn’t that hard. Now all I need is to torture him again to give me the location of the bush”

“How do you think, I was able to send you the message then? I hypnotized him to do it as I hypnotized him to forget where we kept the money and put some nonsense in his head”

Frank held a puzzled look on his face as he thought about it. “Your wife and sister then” he said, dragging me to the door.

********

BROWN BELLO WAS ENRAGED that his target had escaped, and he had nowhere to look for him. He'd taken out his rage on the Dennis guard that allowed Charles escape. The man had spent his last minutes in extreme torture. He had then cleaned himself of blood and drove to a bar to clear his head and think of the next line of action. He thought better with whiskey down his throat.

The bar was alive with the talk of a robbery. Robbery. Crime excites him. He took his phone to surf the internet for the details. He saw the pictures of the robbers and thought he'd seen them somewhere. Then he remembered. He'd seen them in the bus that drove out of the house Dennis visited earlier. He put two and two together and became convinced that Dennis was involved in this heist.

As if fate decided to step in, at his aid. A lady bumped past him, stinking of all she had drunk. He turned to find she was the lady on the bus with the five robbers. No doubt the last robber.

Multiple witnesses testified of a lady being among the crew of robbers. A lady who wasn’t caught. She might lead him to his target. Charles. He got off a bar stool, settled his bill, and ran after her.

He followed her to a park and watched her board a Taxi. Then he followed the Taxi to a self-contain apartment and waited in his Camry. He watched her hurry in. I should get a lay of the environment first, he thought.

He hadn’t spent much time surveilling when a Honda stopped before the house and ASP Frank got out. He was shocked to see ASP Frank here. ASP Frank was a celebrity in the Lagos arm of the Nigerian Police Force and leading the police in the heist today had upgraded his celebrity status. But again he wasn’t shocked. He knew the man was as crooked as they come.  

He watched ASP Frank enter the house and couldn’t stop himself from thinking that something was brewing. ASP Frank and Dennis could never jointly handle anything that wasn’t going to break down due to trust issues. There was a catch in this that he was yet to figure out.

Gunshots from the house broke into his thoughts. He snatched his gun for action, still, he didn’t leave the car. He was conflicted. Should he go in or wait? He had zero proof that Charles was in there. Breaking in and not finding Charles would be a disaster because he would have it out with two heartless killers for nothing.

He found he needn't make a decision when ASP Frank marched out of the house, pulling Charles with him by the collar. He threw Charles into his Honda, got in, and took a deadly sprint down the road.

Brown Bello cursed his luck, as he realized he still had hours between him and his beauty sleep, but he was glad to find Charles though. He started the ignition and race his Camry after ASP Frank.

THIRTY

FRANK THREW ME INTO the room and locked the door behind him. I saw a young lady creep into the sitting room warily from a dark hallway. I recognize her as my sister.

My heart fell at the ghost of a human she’d become. There was a bloodied bandage around her forehead, her lips and face were swollen, her eyes were heavy and she was dangerously pale. I was seeing before me a victim of an abusive marriage.

Blood rushed into my head and adrenaline flooded my veins. If I had a knife on me that instant, I wouldn’t think twice about stabbing Frank.

“Is that you Charles?” she asked cautiously. She still had that careful voice and that big brown eyes as I remember.

I didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t know how to tell her that I was the brother that never bothered to show up for her for the past fifteen years and brought this upon her. Brought so much pain and misery into her life. I just broke down, tears cascading down my eyes. I shut my eyes and felt my tears stung them.

“I am sorry Lewa” I managed to say. She flew into me and I held her close, sobbing.

Frank pushed Courtney into the room. Her hands were tied before her. My heart leaped on seeing her in person, she smiled at me. I couldn’t return her smile, not when I knew I was the cause of all she had to go through these past weeks. More tears just poured down my eyes instead.

I broke away from my sister carefully and grabbed Courtney into my arms, and kissed her.  

“You finally found your sister Charles” she whispered to me.

All I could say to her was “I am sorry Courtney”  

“Now end this miserable reunion and tell me where the money is” Frank snapped.

“I would do that when you release my sister and my wife”

“You are forgetting that she is my wife” he said, a finger towards my sister.

“She would rather be anywhere than with you”

“Would you Lewa?” he asked her gently. She said nothing but bowed into herself staring at her hands. “Would you” he screamed at her.

“No” she cried “No, I would rather stay with you my husband” she sobbed.

My heart wrenched at the naked fear I saw in her eyes. “You bastard, what more do you still want with her? Haven’t you destroyed her life enough?”

“I want nothing from her, but I am one to take a vow seriously, especially a wedding vow. Till death do us part”

“Didn’t you include in the wedding vow that you wouldn’t lay your filthy hands on her? And is your childhood so warped that your old man didn’t teach you how to treat a lady”

His eyes took on a red note and I knew I had touched a button. “My childhood was definitely warped. My family was a disaster, ever since my mother found out that my father, who inherited charms from his own father had charmed her into marriage with him. She hated him and she hated me. I was a living reminder of her, the village beauty being charmed into marriage with an ugly and poor man. And as if to spite my dad she brought her man friends into his house, and run her little prostitution under his very nose. The guilt and shame ran my dad to the bottle, and eventually to his suicide. He left me nothing but the charms he inherited from his father and a good dose of poverty. Then I vowed to be rich by all means but without the use of charms. And I have done so with your help” he said, moving towards Lewa. He grabbed her. “If you think I brought you here to negotiate, then you are having it all wrong. I brought you here to witness your sister and wife suffer in my hands and hope it convinces you to tell me where the money is”

He pushed her against an aged sofa and forced her onto her stomach. His wingtip pressed hard into her spine and I heard her scream in pain.

“If I press my foot on her backbone with enough pressure for at least twenty minutes. I might break them and she would live and die a cripple. So the time is ticking. Where is my money”

Her scream of anguish and pain fueled my head with anger and my bones with an unknown charge of strength, and even with the threat of his gun. I charged for him. I didn’t get far as he put a bullet to my leg, and I I fell to the floor with my knee. I was flooded with a kind of pain I have never felt in my life. Not my injured leg and knee, but my miserability.

Courtney charged for him too. “Leave her alone you bastard” she screamed but he shoved her away. The table tripped her and she fell against the wooden arms of a sofa. I saw a patch of blood on the wood as I watched her fall to the floor.

I screamed her name and ran up to her. I dragged her into my arms and placed my finger before her nose. She wasn’t breathing. I felt a sticky patch behind her head as she lay on my chest. Don’t die on me, Courtney, I was thinking and shouting.

“Don’t just die on me” I cried.

“So what it is going to be now Charles?”

“It is in a self....” Then there was a knock on the door.

He dropped his foot off Lewa's back and moved towards the door cautiously with his gun. He opened the door and blocked the way with his massive body. He was conversing with someone, who from the voice had to be a man.

Then suddenly, I saw him being pushed into the house, and the earlier mysterious man appeared before the door. He brought Frank to his knee with a shot to his thigh.

Frank tried to return a shot of his, but Lewa fought for the gun from his grasp. The other man saw the threat and shot at Frank twice, but Frank dodged, pushing Lewa in the way of the shot. It caught her in the back and she fell to the floor lifelessly.

Before the other man could find himself a shield, Frank pulled his trigger and the man dropped to the floor.

My heart beat furiously against my chest, and my mouth turn dry. I heard my own rasping breath with my own ears. No. No.

Not her again. “Lewa” I screamed continuously crawling up to her.

I scooped her and Courtney into my arms, trying to bring both of them to life. Trying to get both of them to look at me, see me, touch me, and smile at me. I could feel Lewa growing cold in my arms, her eyes were growing lifeless and glassy. It wrenched my soul to watch both of them die before me. The two most important people in my life. The only people I lived for.

“Where is the money” I heard Frank screaming behind me. But I didn’t answer. He had robbed me of the important people in my life, and he had the nerve to shout at me about some money.

He became impatient by the minutes, firing a couple of shots threateningly before me. I did nothing but mourn my wife and sister.

The door was busted and I heard shouts. “Police. Raise your hands in the hair”  

Frank screamed some obscenities. He must have tried to fire at the Policemen because I heard gunshots behind me and saw him fall by my side, his stomach riddled with bullet holes.

THIRTY-ONE

DOCTOR ADAM STILL SMELLS of the dinner which he had been forced to ditch at the call to duty, as he ran along with the nurses who were wheeling Courtney to the Emergency Room. He went in and came out of the ER an hour later to find the Battises outside the door, waiting eagerly for him.

Personally, he hated to be a bearer of bad news but his choice of profession decided otherwise. As he looked upon their anxious faces, he became nervous himself.

“What happened to my daughter? How is she doing” Claudia asked anxiously, pulling at his coat.

“We have done our best, the rest is for God to handle. She suffered a severe head trauma, which led to her being in a vegetative state, Coma. She is currently on life support. Let’s just hope she comes out of it”

“What are her chances, Doctor”

Doctor Adam shook his head thoughtfully. “It is still too early to decide” he said.

“Still too early to decide” Battise couldn’t believe his ears. It was still too early to decide if his daughter would remain a vegetable or come out of it. He searched the hall with his eyes. He saw nothing but poverty. It was a poor government hospital. It was congested and noisy. He couldn’t let Courtney stay here, she deserves the best medical care in the world.

Doctor Adam broke into his thought. “See the desk Clerk and have her admitted, for proper...”

“Can she be moved? Transferred” David Battise cut in. Doctor Adam considered him, then shrugged “It is risky, but it can be done, but it would cost you a lot”

“Don’t worry about the cost, just have everything prepared. You will get a handsome tip for the trouble”

Doctor Adam made a wry smile and set out to prepare the transfer. In due time, the transfer papers were prepared and signed by David Battise and Nathan. Then Courtney was wheeled into an ambulance with life support at her side. The ambulance set out for one of the best Private hospitals in the country.

The ambulance arrived at the hospital and Courtney was wheeled to a VIP ward. Claudia and Nathan went up the elevator with her, while David Battise drove to the Police station. He was itching to get his hands on the bastard that put his daughter in a vegetative state.

He got to the Police station, and approached the policemen he saw behind the counter, but they refused to let him see Charles.

“You can’t see him now Sir” a policeman with a thin face, and eyes that seem like dots on his face said impatiently, anxious to shoo him off.

“So when should I come to see that bastard” he asked.

“Whenever else but now” another policeman added.

David Battise suspected foul play, but he shrugged off the thought and left the Police station quietly. He thought nothing of what happened until he came by the next day and the day after, only to meet the same response. Then he knew Lewis was pulling strings and was pulling them hard.

David Battise was able to bribe the Police officers on the counter and secure a way in on the fourth day. He waddled into the DPO's; Divisional Police Officer office, (an officer in-charge of a Police Division) who raised his eyes to look at him as if he was a product of some nearby garbage.

“How can I help you Mr.” The DPO, a man with a barren face, sneered. There was no hair on his head as there wasn’t on his jaw. The nameplate on his overworked desk said he was DPO John Bawa.

“I believe you know me, and what I am here for. I demand to see the man who put my daughter in coma and to know if you have prepared him for trial already. I am planning to have him repatriated to Texas”

“I don’t know you and am too tired to guess. if you can’t introduce yourself, just use the door. I believe you know your way to it” he pretended to peruse some papers before him. Both of them knew he had no interest in the pile of papers.

“Let’s cut to the chase. How much is Lewis paying you to do this? A hundred thousand naira, two hundred. I would pay you twice that in dollars”

If the DPO was excited by the prospect of money, he showed it with a gleam in his eyes, but he had his career and life to think about. Chief Lewis was a dangerous man to cross.

“I don’t know what you are talking about. I'd suggest you take your leave if you will result to such petty accusations”

“Petty accusations my foot” David slapped the table angrily, slightly jerking the DPO from his desk. “You have someone who nearly killed my daughter in your custody and you refuse to let me see him”

“He is accused of being involved in an armed robbery case also and he isn’t some freak to be exhibited for your White eyes. You have no right to see him, except if you are his lawyer or family”

“He is my son-in-law for God's sake. Ain't I family enough”

“His family, I said, not his wife's”

David Battise knew better than to fight this. He was going to pull some strings himself also. He had no other option but to get Jeffrey Bannon, his lawyer down to Nigeria fast.

“The next time I walk into this office, it will be me bringing the full force of my power down on you. And you will regret today. You black moron” he snarled and stormed out of the office.

THIRTY-TWO

I HAD BEEN INFORMED that I had lost my sister and my wife was in a coma, struggling for her life. I couldn’t blame myself enough for what had happened to them, but I prayed as much as I could that Courtney survived this. I have lost my sister, I don’t know what I'll do if I lose her too.

For the three days that I had been in police custody, I had come to realize that for Nigeria, the UN declarations on the prohibition of torture existed only on paper. It had been from one form of torture to a different crueler one. I had been drowned, had my back ironed, and even had my fingers burnt.  

I knew I deserved the treatment. This was much my fault as was Frank’s. If I had come back to Nigeria to find Lewa sooner and if I hadn’t gotten involved with Susan. Lewa would still be breathing and Courtney would have no use for a hospital bed.

I had told the Police of how Susan approached me, how she and her crew faked Courtney’s death and had me kidnapped, and then forced me to help them plan a heist. How Dennis came into the scene three days before the heist. I told them everything. The only part I left out was the part about the bank money being swapped and that I had it in my custody. I had a feeling I was better off not letting the police know about it.

The Police didn’t believe a thing I said or didn’t want to. They were intent on framing me as the heist mastermind as I was framed as Courtney’s attempted murderer.

I was pushed into the interrogation room, sometimes around noon. It was like any regular interrogation room you find in movies, except this one had the accumulated smell of a decade-old sweat and half a decade of urine.

This time the IPO; Investigational Police Officer, (an officer assigned a particular case to investigate) wasn’t alone, he was with someone new. The man turned just as I was forced to sit, and it was Dennis. Dennis. Now I realized why the police were keen on making me the heist mastermind and I was also glad I hadn't let on the idea that I knew where the money was.

He waved the IPO away from the room and Immediately the door announced the departure, he said. “Mr. Charles. I thought I warned you and those fools not to try anything funny with me. I thought I made it clear that day”

The look on his face gave me chills. It was the kind of look a lion gives its prey before tearing out its limbs. I was definitely feeling what the prey must have felt. Terror. This was one of the few times in my life where I didn’t know what to say. I just stared at him.

“Now you have cost me 10 billion naira. I wished for your sake as well as mine that you have an idea where the money was kept”

“I have not the foggiest idea. I wasn’t a member of the crew, I was their captive”

“Sure. Sure” he agreed. “But I knew that they were able to fool me only with your help. So like I said, give me something that would lead me to where the money is and we all leave this police station happy men”

“I don’t know where the money was kept. Honestly, I don’t”

He produced an iron bar from somewhere. I had no time to complain or whimper or even think before he threw it and I felt it cold sting against my back. Then against my stomach, then my chest. He continued to beat me with it, not minding which part of my body it landed on. I threw myself to the floor to avoid the beating but he followed me, drumming the iron bar against my body violently. The pain was excruciating, I was breathless and all of my body was bruised, sore and in pain by the time he'd felt he'd done enough.

He bent towards me as I lay on the floor unable to move, unable to think, unable to do anything but stare at the devil before me. “So where is my money Mr. Charles” he asked.

I was tempted to tell him where it is but I knew the moment I let out that secret, I was a dead man. “I don’t have any idea”

He shrugged as he stood up. “Let's see if you are able to keep up the attitude” He called in the IPO, who came in, marveling at the level of brutality he'd exuded on me. Dennis whispered something to him and he called on his boys who rushed in, dragging me off the floor with such carelessness like I was as useless as a bag of soaked weed.

I watched them drag me past my cell, taking me to another cell at the end of the hall. They threw me into it, and I landed on my back, and hard against the floor. I watched my new cellmates gather around, looming over me, like a pack of Gulliver over a Lilliputian. None of them had a pleasant face nor a pleasant look to them. I knew immediately that I was in a wolf's den and that the coming days would be nothing but hell for me. If hell wasn’t an understatement.

THIRTY-THREE

DAVID BATTISE CAME TO PICK UP Jeffrey Bannon, his lawyer from the Airport himself. He watched Jeffrey walk out of the Airport terminal and felt half his trouble lifted from his shoulders just as he'd always felt whenever he saw Jeffrey. Jeffrey was more than his lawyer, Jeffrey was a brother, and would have been his son-in-law if Courtney had been responsive.

Jeffrey saw David Battise wind the Royce’s window down, and he walked over. His huge self was parked into a navy blue Burberry suit and a plain toe Oxford that must have cost a fortune.

Jeffrey had the build of a boxer, the handsomeness of an actor, and the quirks and demeanour of a lawyer that he was.

“You’ve definitely lost some weight” He commented as he got into the Royce.

David Battise gave him a thin smile. Another time, he would have commented on his flawless appearance as always, and then, they would have chatted about politics, then about each other's recent sins, before delving into business. Today, business came first.

David Battise had his driver start the car immediately.

“Do you think repatriation is possible? I want the monkey to serve his penance in the States, under my watch”

“I didn’t get much through the phone, give me the facts, raw first” The whole ride to the Police station was spent doing just that.

“Repatriation is possible only if he is not convicted of the armed robbery case. Charles is as much an American as he is a Nigerian. It might be a long shot, but with the right strings pulled, it is possible. Let’s just hope we can shake the robbery charge off him” Jeffrey said after a lengthy narration from David Battise.

They left the Royce for the Police Station. The two men enjoined unnecessary attention till they reached the counter, where Jeffrey approached a policeman with his intentions to see the DPO and the Policeman volunteered to lead him to the DPO’s office.

Jeffrey didn’t find David Battise by his side on the march to the DPO’s office. He turned back to find him waiting behind the counter.

“What’s wrong David? Why are you holding back?” he asked.

“I am not. I just don’t trust my temper amongst so many blacks, especially not that DPO” he said. “I’ll wait here”  

Jeffrey threw him an understanding grin. “I'll get back to you as soon as I can” then he raced after the heels of his sprinting guide.

DPO Bawa just ended a long phone call from one of his numerous girlfriends, when Jerry walked into his office. He raised his gaze to see Jeffrey, another white man, and instinctively guessed the reason for his visit.

“How may I help you?” DPO Bawa asked, an edge to his thick, throaty voice, refusing to hide his irritation.

“I am Jeffrey Bannon” Jeffrey extended his hand for a handshake, but DPO Bawa just stared at it condescendingly. “David Battiste's personal Lawyer”

The word ‘Lawyer’ rang in his mind and he instantly remembered his fear of Lawyers. He quickly took the handshake before Jeffrey could take his hand back to his side.

“How may I help you Lawyer Jeffrey Bannon” his voice was a shade courteous now.

“I am here for Mr. Charles Biggs whom you have in your custody. I want to know if you have already set him up for trial, the charges against him, and the circumstances surrounding his case”

“I can’t share this information with you, because you aren’t his Lawyer, and if you are offering to be his Lawyer, I must tell you that Mr. Charles had vehemently refused to accept any Lawyer from his in-laws”

“I can’t be his Lawyer anyway, this is way out of my jurisdiction. I am an American Lawyer and only a Nigerian......”

“Then I'll suggest you use the door” His tone was back to being scathing.

Jeffery realized he wouldn’t win this with smiles alone. He leans closer, taking his hands to the desk. “I have a friend, a SAN (Senior Advocate of Nigeria), on his way here to stand as Mr. Charles's lawyer”

DPO Bawa observed him warily for a while and finally decided the Lawyer wasn’t bluffing. He would hate to have a SAN in his hair. Common Lawyers were trouble. Barristers were hell and SANs are on a whole new level. No amount Chief Lewis was paying him was worth his job. He drew closer to the telephone on his desk, dialed a number, and carried the receiver to his ears.

“Bring Mr. Charles Biggs's case file and hurry with it” he said, then he dropped the receiver and continued to observe Jeffrey Bannon warily till a Policeman walked in cradling a file.

The Policeman, a chubby man with a uniform that had seen many wears, saluted and dropped the file before DPO Bawa. He saluted again and left.  

Jeffrey picked up the file and carried a leg over another as he read it. He took his time and when he finished, he dropped the file on the desk. “Be right back with the Lawyer” he smiled at DPO Bawa's expressionless face and left the room.

David Battise stood from a bench to approach him as he came out of the corridor of DPO Bawa's office.

“The way I see it, repatriation is possible. We just have to make sure the armed robbery case doesn’t stand in court. They have no strong evidence against him, other than the fact that he lived with the perpetrators while the heist was being planned. Also, going by his story, they kidnapped him and forced him into helping them plan it. He never took part in it. What we can do now is to find him a lawyer of Nigerian practice who would help clear him of the armed robbery charge, and simultaneously make sure that he is hooked to the attempted murder charge. Then we will ask the court for repatriation, and pull the right strings to see that it is granted”

“Ok. That's great news” David Battise sighed with relief.

“How about seeing him now”  

“Let’s get him a lawyer first. Everything after that is simple. I'll get my friend who is a SAN down here fast and have him represent Charles” he said, taking out his phone from his pocket, he dialed for Femi Duran, his Nigerian Lawyer friend, while David Battise watched anxiously as he conversed over the phone. After the phone call, they both walked back to the Royce to wait for Femi.

Femi Diran was in the Police Station in twenty minutes. He was a pumped-up man with a short angular face. He got off his Lexus and approached the Royce. Both men got down but only Jeffrey took his offer of a handshake. David Battise didn’t bother to hide his hostility for a Nigerian.

Jeffrey and Femi shared pleasantries. “So fill me in on this case” Femi said after pleasantries, as they matched for the DPO's office.

“This guy married my friend’s daughter, lured her to Nigeria, and attempted to kill her. He is also involved in a bank robbery case. The ABH Bank case.....”

“ABH Bank” Femi interrupted with a yell. He followed with a loud whistle with his mouth as Jeffrey continues.  

“The robbery doesn’t really hold water, no substantial evidence to support his acclaimed involvement. We want to get him off the robbery case and have him convicted of the attempted murder case, and then ask for repatriation after. We want him to serve his penance in the States. That’s the drill, and this is your hood. Is it possible”

Femi shrugged his fat shoulders “Should be. Let's just pray the other criminal case isn’t water-tight as you said. You know repatriation can only be possible if he isn't convicted of another crime in Nigeria”

“Yeah. I know” Jeffrey made a bored grin. “Are you standing as his lawyer then”

“Anything for you bro” Femi threw him his hand for another handshake and Jeffrey took it with a smile. Then they strolled into the DPO's office while David Battise waited outside again for them.

The presence and reputation of Femi Diran smitten the DPO as Jeffrey hoped it would, and the DPO was in his best and professional behaviour, as he attended to them. Within what must be fifteen minutes, the men concluded their business, and Femi Diran was acknowledged as Charles's Lawyer and the DPO allowed them to see Charles.  

Femi and Jeffery came out with a policeman to get David Battise and together, the policeman led them to Charles’s cell. David Battise saw Charles sitting dejectedly by his cell wall. His eyes were now swollen and his head bandaged. His cheeks were like lumps of coal, and his body was home to blisters and bruises.

David Battise felt no pity for Charles. He deserved it.

THIRTY-FOUR

I HAD JUST BEEN FROM another torture session with Dennis and was being led to my cell by a policeman who was so sympathetic to my predicament, that he handled me like an egg. That wouldn’t change anything though, since I was walking into another session of torture from my cellmates whom Dennis had paid to make my life miserable in the cell.

Another policeman stopped us, saying something about my lawyer coming to see me. Lawyer. I hadn’t been able to get myself a lawyer. Dennis had made sure of that. He’d allowed me, no contact with anyone. Then I remembered seeing David Battise visit my cell two days ago.

Did the Battises get me a Lawyer? I knew this was my best shot at getting a good lawyer, but still, I couldn’t trust the Battises' help.

The Policeman turned and steered me for the walk to my supposed Lawyer.

The man was at the edge of becoming an obese patient, and his angular face and little eyes reminded me so much of my kindergarten attempts at drawing a human face.

He regarded me carefully as I limped out to the counter, where he was waiting for me. The policeman was at my side.

“Femi Diran” he offered his hands for a handshake, attempting a patronizing smile, which was nothing but clumsy.

I took his hands. “I don’t know you so how do I have you as my lawyer”

He smiled again, he seemed to prefer smiling to talking. But I had the feeling that’s just temporary.

“David Battise got me to help you out of this mess”

Help me out, I scoffed mentally, but still, I wasn’t going to refuse my best offer of a good lawyer.

“Let’s have some lawyer and client talk” he said and led me away from the policeman to a secluded spot in the station, reserved for outside visits to cellmates.

“So what really happened Mr. Charles” he asked, and I told him everything, except that I joined Dada to get the money and that I had the money stashed up somewhere.

“Ok” he commented after, “We should be able to get you acquitted of this charge”

I drew him close from the watching eyes of the Policemen.

“As a man to another man, please I need your help” I said anxiously, staring imploringly into his eyes. “Dennis has an arrangement with the DPO here, where he comes to torture me severely whenever he wishes. Can you please make it stop”

He gave me a chilling smile. “The police wouldn’t allow a private individual to torture a suspect, am sure you are mistaken and the police are just doing their jobs” he said “I can’t teach them that”

That was cue enough to tell me that to the Battises, torture was a welcome development for me and also not to pursue the idea further and I sadly took the cue.

Within the few weeks and months that followed, I got to see Femi Diran exude great proficiency and professionalism in the court. He was a force to reckon with in the court, and the prosecuting Lawyers feared him and could see themselves already losing the legal battle.

It ought to be a joyous situation for me but I had realize quickly that he wasn’t out to help. As he was trying his best to exonerate me for the bank robbery charge, he was also doing his best to have me convicted for the attempted murder of Courtney.

I knew better than to expect anything less from a Lawyer the Battises got me, but it still hurt to watch my back from my own lawyer.

We were just back from the court for another proceeding where as usual my Lawyer was doing his best to exonerate me of one crime and convict me of another when the IPO dragged me from the hands of a junior officer and led me himself to the interrogation room.

I knew it was for another torture session, and I was prepared to hold out as I have been doing the past weeks. The moment I let out the whereabouts of the money, I was a dead man. Dennis would want to tie up loose ends and I was loose ends.

Dennis followed my movement into the room with murder in his eyes. He was getting impatient. His whole body trembled with anger.  

The wooden chair that had always been in the room had been exchanged for a steel one. There was also an iron bucket below it and a bundle of thick rope on the table before it. Even before I saw the bundle of coals the bucket contained, I knew what I was up against.

“Tie the bastard to the chair” he commanded the policemen in the room, and they tied me to the chair without even a question to his order. With no further instruction from him, they left us alone, including the IPO.

He pranced forwards carefully and lit a march to the bucket of coals, then he pulled a plier from his pocket. I had no idea what the plier was for but I found out when he took my hand and held one of my nails with the plier.

Before he pulled, he asked. “Do you have something to tell me”

I didn’t reply. I was already wailing in my head and my heart was racing unhealthily, though my face was deadpan. He pulled my nail and an excruciating pain followed. I cried with pain as I never had. At the same time, I felt the coal working wonders below me. I felt my buttocks about to fry. Both pains drove me to the shores of madness and pulled me back.

He took another finger, and by now, I was dancing on the chair. Nowhere I shifted my buttocks to, seem to offer any solace.

No. No. No. I was screaming both inwardly and outwardly as I watched him pull out the second fingernail. I bit my lips hard on the pain, grabbing the arm of the chair with my spare hand and then screaming, as loud as I could, trying to empty all my pains into the air.

The momentarily rush of liquid beneath me as I emptied myself on the chair didn’t do much to stop my behind from frying. I smelt my own flesh burning. Then a wave of dizziness hit me. Suddenly Dennis became two, then three, and so was the room. Suddenly I saw nothing but darkness.

THIRTY-FIVE

CLAUDIA BATTISE WAS by her daughter’s sickbed. She wished Courtney would just open her eyes. She wished Courtney would just move her feet, her hands, her fingers. She wished her daughter would just come out of her coma.

She saw the oxygen mask shake and started from her seat. She palmed her eyes. Had she just seen the mask move or was she hallucinating. She seems to be hallucinating too often lately. Just yesterday, she saw Courtney shake her feet, the day before she saw Courtney open her eyes, so was the day before that, so was last week, and so was last month, and on every occasion, she would rush to the Doctor, who would come, examine Courtney, then shake his head in disagreement.

But this time, it was different. She could swear to it that the oxygen mask moved. Then her eyes opened gradually, Courtney’s eyes opened. “Mum” she heard her breath drowsily.

Did Courtney just open her eyes? Did she just hear Courtney speak to her? She ran out of the hospital room screaming for the Doctor. She came back with a man, bald just at the center of his head and dressed in a Doctor’s coat. The man took a look at Courtney and smiled at her. He smiled. Courtney had woken up.

“Oh My God” she screamed as she flew into him happily, she remembered he was a Nigerian and a man and she pulled back immediately. She murmured some thanks to him and rushed toward her daughter. She took Courtney’s hand.

“How are you love” she asked carefully. Courtney managed a smile.

“Why does it feel like I have been on this bed for ages” Courtney removed her oxygen mask and sat up a little, regarding her environment cautiously.

“Dear, you have been in a coma for almost a year now”  

“A year?” she asked, surprised.

“I have to break this news to your father and Nathan”

“And Charles too” Courtney added.

Claudia pretended not to hear the part about Charles. She took her phone and hurried towards the door.

She told Nathan excitedly over the phone that his sister had woken up and urged him to rush down to the hospital, and also had him tell his father.

Then Claudia sat beside her daughter ecstatic, pouring out to her daughter things she'd held in her mind, for the past year, since she'd been in a coma.

About an hour later, Nathan and Battise ran in. Nathan hugged his sister excitedly. “Welcome back sis” he said as he pulled away, and his father replaced him.

Battise kissed Courtney on her forehead. “Thank the lord you made it back to us dear” his face darkened, he nearly cried.

Courtney smiled at them, but her smile faded when she realized that her husband wasn’t present.  

“Where is my husband Dad? Where is Charles?”

Nathan looked at his mum for assistance and she in turn looked at her husband.

Battise took Courtney’s hands carefully. “Dear, you have to forget about that no good black boy, he is no good for you. The bastard nearly murdered you.....”

“He didn’t Dad, those robbers kidnapped me to force him into planning a heist for them”

“But still the bastard cheated on you” Nathan shot in. “He cheated on you with one of those robbers. All these wouldn’t have happened to you if he hadn’t gotten mixed up with the lady robber”

“That’s my marriage issue to settle with my husband”  

“What do you see in his black boy Courtney? Has he fucking charmed you with those black voodoo” Claudia yelled impatiently.

“As I have always said, Dad, Mum, I won’t argue with you. Get me my husband. Bring out Charles from wherever you have him holed up in if you don’t want me to return to my coma.”

“Courtney, try to understand, this guy is no good for you. These black people are crooks and criminals. Whatever you saw in him you can see in Jeffrey. Do you know Jeffery is in Nigeria presently? He would like......”

“Dad” she screamed and then paused abruptly. Screaming exhausted her, and made her dizzy, she dropped back on the bed slowly. “I am not interested in Jeffrey and would never be, the sooner you accept Charles as my husband the better for everyone” she managed to say, even as her breathing grew laboured. She turned and covered her ears with her pillow.

David, Claudia, and Nathan stared at each other with confusion on their faces.  

David Battise grunted angrily, making an expression like he was strangling someone. How he wished he could strangle Charles out of existence. He dug his phone from his pocket and put a call to Jeffrey.

He briefed Jeffrey on the situation and Jeffrey said he understood, and then he asked him of Charles.

“Just got a call from Femi. He said the police called to tell him that Charles was in hospital”

“Hospital” Battise blurted and his eyes strayed to Courtney. He instantly regretted his action because Courtney was attempting to rush out of her bed, but he saw a grim twist of her lips as some pain forced her back to the bed.

“Why is Charles in a hospital? What have you done to my husband?” she yelled at her father. Battise promised Jeffrey that he would call back, and ended the call. Then he and his wife persuaded Courtney and managed to calm her down, with a promise that immediately after she was discharged she would get to see her husband.

That promise was fulfilled three days later. Three extremely anxious days for Courtney.

******

SEEING COURTNEY WALKING UP TO my hospital bed, overwhelmed my soul with immense joy, and I said thank you to God, and every deity I had ever known, even my ancestors.

Except for the bandage around her head, she looked as good as new. I could never get it off my mind that she had almost lost her life because of me, or that she'd lost almost a year of her life to the hospital bed in a coma because of me. If I hadn’t gotten involved with Susan, all this wouldn’t have happened.  

I sat up, preparing to get down on my knees to seek her forgiveness, despite the severe disagreement of my bruised body to do anything but rest.

Courtney suspected what I was about to do and rushed to stop me. I saw tears trickle down her cheeks at the sight of my face, which was definitely in a sorry state.

“What have they done to you Charles” she asked softly. I shut my eyes and opened them back, sighing sorrowfully.

“Courtney” I said, taking her hands in mine. “I know I should have told you about the lady, and ask for your forgiveness before things got to this. Can you please just find a place in your heart to forgive me? I love you Courtney and I can’t do without you. My life is meaningless without you in it. What happened was a mistake that would never happen again”  

My heart broke as she looked away with tears in her eyes. I heard her careful sobs, and it hurt me to see that I still brought tears to her eyes. She returned her gaze to me, flicked off her tears with a finger, and forced a smile. “I forgive you, Charles. I forgive you.

But promise me Charles that this would never happen again. That you would tell me every single thing that happens to you, good or bad, great or worse. Promise me that it would be just like we started, that we wouldn’t keep anything from each other ever again”

I drew her close. “I promise you Courtney that this would never happen again. And I will never keep you in the dark on anything....”

“That OK’s” she interrupted, then she leaned towards me and kissed me. I tasted the strawberry gloss on her lips and we hugged.

She drew back with a chuckle. “Dad promised to get you off the attempted murder charge, you just need to push through the re-trial and when the Judge acquits you, we fly back to Texas.

The torture would also stop before we are able to push for your bail as we are making a case against the police for extreme torture. They wouldn’t think to touch you again.” She kissed me again, and I sent dozens of shiploads of love to her through the kiss. She withdrew smiling.

“And speaking of which. I have something to tell you”

“What is that love?”

I shared with her the details of the heist she didn’t know about, especially the part about the bills being swapped, and me having it stored in a self-storage somewhere.

Her brows shot up in shock and concern. “So what are you going to do about this now”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell the Police about the money, because they would try to pin this on me at best and at worst inform Dennis. The money is the only thing keeping him from having me killed. I am a living witness to his and Chief Lewis’s involvement in the heist. I also can’t tell the court. It contradicts my initial statement on the heist. If the court finds out that I lied, I would lose my credibility before the court”

Courtney thought for a long while. “How about we do it like this? I would go meet the bank executives. I would tell them that during the time I was in captivity, I overheard Frank saying something about swapping the money from the bank, and keeping it in a self-storage somewhere. Then I would give them the key to the self-storage and claim that he made a slip-up of where he hid the key to me. This way, we are sure the money goes back to the bank because the bank would act themselves”

“No” I said. “I am not putting you at the center of this again”

“Darling, I am already at the center of this already, and see this as my condition to forgive you”

“But Courtney”  

“Save your but, you know me too well to know that I wouldn’t listen anyway. I guess we just have to wait till you get the bail before we do this. We have to get you completely out of Dennis's claws first before we try to pull this off”

She kissed me again.

THE END

Thanks for reading my book, hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please leave me a review at the retailer. If you didn’t enjoy it or you felt it didn’t meet the standard of its average kind, leave your criticism also at the retailer, we should all learn from our mistakes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sa'ad Ibn Sa'ad

The author is a student of one of the best universities in Nigeria, which is the University of Ilorin, Kwara state. He is so passionate about writing and hopes to become a thriller sage, like the likes of James Hadley Chase, James Patterson, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, and others.