Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

Ruby and Opula eloped to London

from where they will be supervising the entire Ziu Tech conglomerate.

One of the nights, Ruby kissed her

on the forehead, and once she woke up, he flashed a diamond ring in her eyes,

and she withdrew her face.

“Marry me,” he said and she was

dumbfounded, but hugged him hugely.

“Yes, yes,” she replied and kissed

him all over his lips, neck and face.

He bent her to the bed and sucked

on her nipples with a great moisture before parting her legs and pounded her

vagina gently, leaving her moaning, “Oh Ruby **** me well, because I am

carrying your baby and we finally made it…”

And he responded and gave her

furious repeated pound and she moaned at the top of her voice, disturbing the

peace of the neighborhood and recalling that, of a truth in bed, billionaires

didn’t only taste as the luxuries they showcased but also like the fresh juice

from the first apple eaten by Adam and Eve.

Light gave way for darkness…

-----------

The

beginning

The pair of sneakers tiptoed stealthily into the dark corridor and clung at the edge of the wall

when he heard a shuffling walker. His heart pounded effortlessly, suffering

from the fear that churned his stomach – he farted with the grace of a newborn

baby and stuck mosey to the wall.

Farting was the only chimney through which he could efface the fear of a

domesticated thief who stole his father’s gratuity. Clasping the sack of five

million dollars to his narrow chest, and looking out for the shuffling walker,

a shrill voice crossed his mind – the contradicting voice common among thieves:

“Do you want to kill that retired police officer? But he saw you through

school. You can go right in and drop his gratuity.”

   “No,

Monkeys software is a damn, fabulous project I can’t let go. It is going to be

a breakthrough for me. Do you understand?” He said in his head. He took a quick

peep into the dark exit before gazing considerately at the door to his father’s

room for the very last time. The former voice hounded more audibly now and he

protested thoughtfully;

  “Did I kill

him? Or was it not sleeping pills that I added to his tea?” The voice gave way,

and then he peeped again before chucking his toe farther into the staircase.

He barely could catch his hasting breath when he

arrived downstairs. The chilling wind of November swept across his face and he

became conscious of the balls of perspiration on his brow and nose. The last

rain just pelted the night before and winter was home coming. With the air of peril

hanging around him and wobbly eyeballs combing impatiently for taxi, he made

into the scarcely lit street, staring fearfully backward as his feet swallowed

the distance in front. His movement gathered desperation and it had the force

of forward-ever, which pushed him along residents with the hoarse woof-woof,

woof-woof of dogs. His hands were still clasped around the sack on his chest as

he made every effort to ignore the itches of suspicion all over his body. He

was on Ford street now; the same Ford street where two men were robbed of their

salary at twilight; where the mutilated body of a busty woman was found. Sweat

trickled down his face as he wondered about the street on which he stood and

then he held the sack tighter, nagging back at the loneliness of the street

with his sideways stare. His plans were working out; drugging his father with

overdose of sleeping pills at 8:00PM, giving the space of thirty minutes for

reaction, stealing his gratuity at 8:30PM, settling in the bus at 8:45PM. In

the moonlight, he stole a glance at his watch and it was 9:00PM and he had put

that in his risk plan; getting taxi at night on Ford street  was an expected risk, and it was worse off

waiting all alone.

An owl howled overhead and then he kept watch,

straining his eyes at the two figures prancing from the street opposite. He

started walking gently and switched faster now. A dried tongue rolled in his

mouth and he searched for saliva to swallow down his pounding heart as of a

woman in labor.

I would die with them if they tried to come closer,

he thought. He could sight logs across the gutter and his edgy personality

could sense their nearness. I would make haste to a log and deliver a glancing

blow at their skulls, the skulls of kites that want to feed on my meat; he

thought figuratively.

 He kept to

his rush and the two figures stamped their feet as much as he did, closing up

his distance. “Christ!” he whispered. “If they confront me I would run into the

dark street and continue my journey the next day,” he thought.

From somewhere behind he heard the jolting of a car.

Police or taxi, “God, I hope I survive this.” He panted. “It is end of the road

for me.”

Bang!

Thought of police infected him so much that his

breath became asthmatic; panting heavily as he walked. He scouted sideways and

saw a dark street yawning at him.

“I would disappear into the dark street if they

tried anything funny. But they may shoot at me. I will have to run as fast as

the wind. If I must die I must die with this money; let that be my legacy.”

He could hear the puttering of the engine as its

speed reduced; obviously, it could be the police questioning the two figures

now and pushing them into the car, he thought.

Looking back was more infectious as he studied his

escape: there was no gutter before the dark street and it would be easier to

run swiftly. The car was coming now; it sped and stopped abruptly on his side

and he made a powerful leap like a horse, his heels barely touching the ground.

“What is it? Why are you running?” a voice in the

car asked.

Azuaka Jnr. halted. There is no police in that

voice, he thought.

He turned and peered fearfully and it was

black-and-yellow; a taxi with a corpulent driver looking out to him. He looked

aback: the two figures were standing by, pretending to be waiting and he

scuttled to the taxi, heaved at the back door and went in. it would be

comfortable at the back seat: I don’t want this man to smell money… he thought.

Danger and peril ahead…

Chapter 2

Game plan

“Where are you headed?” the driver asked him.

“Austin train station,” he said coldly, still

staring back to see if the two figures had dug out their guns to come after

them. He expected the driver to be moving now. Otherwise if he sensed any

attack, he would be the first to give him a daze punch in the face, push him

out and drive away. Who knows? The driver could be a joint of the two figures

and five million dollars was his life and after life now.

“Two hundred dollars,” the driver replied, wishing

to see the face of his last passenger for the day; he turned on the inner light

and looked back to behold a sweating face in the light and a black sack

measuring up to his neck. “I said two grand. Can’t you hear me?” His beseeching

voice sounded for the second time, perhaps thinking his passenger was deaf to

bills.

Ready to explode, Azuaka Jnr. asked, “Are you

carrying an airplane?” He just noticed tattoo running down the sleeveless arm

of the driver and his bearded porcine face. He could be the age of his father,

one of those countrymen that so much enjoyed life that they wished death could

be bribed. “I have one fifty dollars.” Beneath his aggression came his voice.

The beardie turned off the engine with the oomph of

someone that would drag him out of the car soon. “Passengers like you keep us

at Polo Park, leaning on our cars and regretting this business. Since morning,

buddy,” his stubby hand waved across his head severally. “You are my second

passenger. You may have to find another taxi or you return home, OK.” His voice

became strident and then he turned on the engine. “Are you in or out?” he

asked.

Upon hearing that, he glanced backward again and saw

the two figures had disappeared, the dark street behind looking ghostly with

the assembly of frogs croaking into the night. When he peered at his watch it

was 10:15PM. Impatience inspired his sweating palms and armpit. His usual brash

tone gave way for humility. “Please, sir, I can add twenty dollars to it.” He

emphasized further as he wiped his face of the sweat that rained down, “I am a jobless

graduate who is on a journey.” As the beardie turned front he believed he had

been considered.

“Jobless graduate,” he repeated. “That is what you

youth of nowadays use in deceiving us.” He turned to Azuaka Jnr. again. “You

will add ten dollars,” he said and spittle spurted on Azuaka’s nose with an

accompanied peaky odor of rum. He knew the beardie was an alcoholic and had not

been in his right senses. But that did not matter now; he had to travel against

the clock. They were already driving out of Ford road.

“You will do me a favor,” said the beardie, breaking

their brief silence. Azuaka Jnr. quietened, unwilling to talk so as not to

delay his journey yet further. “We will drive through Beyer Road.”

He did not know when it burst out, “What! Beyer? That

means we are going round Texas and I can’t remember telling you I am on a

pilgrimage tour.”

Searching for the face of his bewildered passenger

in the front mirror, he said, “I have to visit my hole.”

“Hole?” he inquired confusedly.

“My broad,” the beardie emphasized.

“Broad? What’s broad?”

“Are you a stranger in 042? Ok, my *****. I must

**** tonight, my son,” he said ‘my son’ with the sense of a bereft soul who

never had one; a high breed street man that wanted to live life to the fullest.

“But, sir, I told you I was on a journey. You can do

on to me as your son. I am already late. I need to catch a train.” He expected

it but never knew it would come. Of course the five million dollars was not his

yet until he achieved the Monkeys’ software.

“I wonder how stolen money could invite all the

craziest people in the world. This driver is out of his mind,” he thought.

More hurdles on the way? – No, he was ready to lose

the money and his life. And if the beardie would not heed, then he would use

his fist on his skull.

“I will take no chances. We rather die together

tonight than losing this money to a fool. Why is he taking Beyer Road if not to

rob me,” he conversed within himself.

“Because you’re a jobless graduate I’ll do as you

said,” he said finally, speeding through the scanty roads and still having an

itchy mouth. “Yes,” he said, immediately his thought reminded him of what was

making the news earlier in town. “My son, do you know what happened earlier

today? A stupid, mad, foolish – “ he lost more words to describe his offender

and then he shook his head instead and continued, “-  boy stabbed his father twice in the neck and

made away with his gratuity. His father was a retiree at the ministry, “Oh

Lord!” he exclaimed in strong Mexican accent. “You know some batch of police

officers have retired and in the month to come, hmm,” he hummed, “We will bury

more retirees.” When he got silence for a response he hammered, “Can you

imagine, my son? Youth of these days don’t want to exercise patience and work

hard for true success. Arm robbery is the order of the day, and these days evil

impregnates evil.”

Azuaka Jnr. cleared his throat; he hoped that gave

him the right response, the response of a similar thief who would not want to

discuss the art of stealing gratuity.

Oh Azuaka Jnr. is this me? He thought. Crossing his

mind was thought of his father still snoring in the sofa. Who would believe

that the police in his father could let him succumb to the drugged tea? At that

moment when he came back with the money, he met Azuaka Jnr. sipping at his cup

of tea while the other drugged one lay on the table. Given the awareness of his

father returning home with his gratuity, drugged tea was the only possible bait

he could throw. They had planned and discussed how to spend the money; running

a wine stall and buying a house down town, before his father gulped the tea

with the cheery approach of an achiever and zoned out.

“Oh thank goodness, we’re at Beyer Road,” he said in

his head.

******************

The rowdiness of commuters dominated the terminal as

murmuring bees and his thought snapped at the citified train terminal. The taxi

came to a smashing halt and he alighted, stretching his hand to pay the

beardie. “So you can’t add ten dollars, this boy, at least to buy rubber for

tonight with my whores,” the beardie queried, giving a fascinating stare and

bringing out a bottle of rum to sip.

  “That is

what I can afford, sir,” he frowned, shaking his hand impatiently. The beardie

collected it and he did not hear the rest of his babble because he was already

hastening to the ticket counter.

His seat was the last one at the back and as he sat,

he thanked his goodness because he and the nearest passenger alone could

perceive the notes. He studied his neighbors and the one very close was a

light-skinned woman who was breastfeeding her baby. He would arrive the next

day in California and unite with the rest of the boys; Agu who resided in

California and the only software guru among them, Nku, who would arrive from

New York. They had agreed each of them would contribute ten million dollars to

the pioneering of the Monkeys’ software but he would plead with them and make

them realize how chancy it was to get that sum.

“It is not easy to steal five million dollars from a

police officer. I celebrate myself. So they must consider me and let me be a

reaper of this great project. I must not die a poor man,” he thought.

Right after then, he would be squatting with his

girlfriend, Opula, throughout the period of commissioning the software and launching

it to render the world broke, and then he would surprise her with a mansion, a

brand new car and a bulky account. His father would get double of his gratuity.

He would never pick offence at him after all.

“I made it. I made it,” he intoned inwardly.

“Thief!” the nursing mother shouted and Azuaka Jnr.

was startled, staring hostily at her, his heart banging. “You had better take

this tea and leave my ****** alone.” The nursing mother was scolding her baby

in Spanish, squeezing her big ****** into her black brassier and putting a

feeding bottle to the baby’s mouth. But then the train had started clacking out

of the park.

More mystery was yet to be revealed…

Chapter 3

A Ticking Bomb

Azuaka Jnr. stood on the veranda, his hands cupping

his jaw, as he watched the two men whisper at the corner. Agu stood around the

garage staring at the men and seething with frustration. Their delay was on to

him one of bafflement; he was not happy selling his only inheritance to a big

belly Mexican man, but Monkeys’ software deserved something much better.

A month ago he had put up the bungalow and Benz car

for sale, hoping a generous buyer would stop by and fetch him the ten million

dollars so he could secure his stand in the Monkeys’ software project. Buyers

started stopping by and their increased number soon cloyed him. None of them

was willing to bite out, at least, eight million dollars, their most offers

were two million dollars and he remembered cursing a handful of them:

“Go and sell your father for fifty cent! Your

stroke-eaten grandfather! Buy your mother’s breasts at five cent!”

With time he grew weary of upbraiding his buyers and

took off the ‘for sale’ placard. Impatietly groaning inward, he went on telling

as many money-bags as he could, mostly those away from his street, and they

awed him with promises of buying it soon. It became a reverie about everyday:

Monkey’s software was a huge ice to let melt away; rendering the world broke

was his own end of the world and beginning of riches and wealth. Every night he

said thoughtfully,

“When we achieve the Monkeys’ software, I would tour

the world in my private jet, spend on luxurious fashion, drive in stretched

limos, trade on diamond, visit my Indian girlfriend and propose to her.

“Em, my friend,” finally, the buyer called out, his

hand gesturing at Agu. He thrashed the buyer, wondering if he was actually the

one that banged on his gate this morning, looking all chummy and determined.

Since morning he had refused to add to the Seven Million dollars offer, despite

Agu’s unraveling of their selling points; he had reminded them the bungalow was

in the heart of texas and Benz 4 Matic was still classic be found in the crowd.

“We want to patronize you and leave. The sun is

blazing already,” said the other man, whose thunderous looks irritated Agu. He

was the buyer’s lawyer, the first lawyer that earned Agu’s poison if he could

set his hands on one. “Our final bidding is Seven Point Five.”

“Oh, the makers of Benz will not forgive you, sir.

That is Benz 4 Matic. The engine is still alive.” He pointed to it, as though

to show them something outstanding about it which they had not see. I beg of

you add more money for the Ben.” he barely said, when the buyer cut in.

“Yes that is Benz .” His head shook on a thick,

boneless neck. “I don’t like Benz. I am buying it for my servant, you

understand me. I want to pay him off, you understand me.”

Agu saw a lot in his accent; especially around ‘you

understand me.’ He looked like those Mexican that had spent half of their lives

abroad yet more eloquent in their mother tongue than even a Mexican thug.

“Should I take my fortune elsewhere?” the buyer

enquired. Agu sensed the eruption of anger, one that would curse him in his

mother tongue soon and draw in the curtain against considerate buyers the

moment he passed that gate.

“Deal or no deal?” the lawyer beamed and Agu glared

at him like a watchdog, inwardly measuring his height for a coffin.

“Cut and nail lawyer! May God punish you! Idiot!” He

cursed in his head. “Deal,” he mumbled beneath his breath and led them into the

sitting room to finalize it; he handed them one title deed, car documents and

car keys and in return the buyer fondled into his pocket and slid out a cheque.

Azuaka Jnr. was peeking through the window,

wondering at Agu; how they prepared the cheque from home, how they might have

agreed not to pay anything more or less. Agu gazed at his inheritance and then

snorted; taking a bold step without seeing the staircase needed a snort;

Monkey’s software had been my bold step and rendering the world broke my

staircase; he said thoughtfully. He was 26 and he hoped to be rich and powerful

at 27; having local and hard currencies in his pocket was worth dying for now.

Way back on campus where he was brought into the project of programming a

software, he had started seeing himself at the top; over there, he heard there

was no much room to sit but with Monkeys’ software they would stare down at

poverty and keep rendering the world broke through their it. It is possible. It

is possible; he encouraged himself inwardly and his thought snapped when the

buyer said something.

“I want you to vacate in two days. My daughter is

celebrating her birthday tomorrow and I would be glad if she can access this

place the day after.” He blinked powerfully at his beholder and Agu rubbed his

snout, feeling how those words made through his face; how everything in this

world could easily be converted into money in few seconds, and awareness of his

homelessness just started seeping into his brain. Silence overtook him and he

remained a watcher and less a doll.

“You know girls don’t joke with gifts, especially

this.” The lawyer pointed at the bungalow, “So heed to our wish,” the lawyer

said and borrowed innocence with his frown, as though he never made a comment.

Agu rolled his eyes at him. “Lawyers like you are

the reasons our justice is lamed because you fight for your own interest.

Stupid street lawyer,” he cursed in his head. He would love to slap the lawyer

into the floor, even if not right away, maybe sometime out there on the street.

He knew he advised the buyer against being generous and what more could be

ruling over the lawyer than the legion spirits of street lawyers; they behaved

like touts and prostitutes.

“Nice doing business with you.” The buyer pulled out

his hand and Agu shook hands with him. “I wish you success in your chosen

endeavor.” The buyer added.

“Do you know my reason of selling my inheritance?”

asked Agu.

“I don’t know,” the buyer replied, throwing his away

his gaze.

“Smelling Mexican,” Agu said in his head.

The lawyer brought out his hand for a hand shake and

Agu snubbed him by leading them outside. The lawyer only stared with his hand

stretched and shook his head.

Azuaka Jnr. adjusted himself from the window when

they were going outside. They waved at him and he waved back. He kept to his

gaze yet thinking; I am not alone now. If he and Agu were yet to get the

complete ten million dollars then Nku would have no option than to consider

them. He was not alone.

Earlier in August Nku had briefed them over a chat –

their contribution would be refunded to the financiers in New York, who helped

to source the bills he used in procuring gadgets and prepared machine codes for

the software. Upon his arrival in California, he would collect the dollars and

wire it into the financiers’ account.

Catastrophe was about to happen.