Game plan

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…

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