THE DEAL – EPISODE TWO

Finally, his feet moved, but it was too late. A hard slap landed on the back of his head, sending him stumbling forward.

‘I’m not a thief,’ he stuttered but nobody heard him. ‘I didn’t steal the phone, he shouted desperately.’ This wasn’t how he was supposed to die.  

In response he got another sharp slap to his head, a violent push and a fierce kick to his mid-section that forced him to his knees. No one was asking questions, nor was his voice heard above the shouts when he tried to speak again. He tried clawing his way out, but the loose sand gave way beneath his fingers when a strong foot stepped on his back, pinning him to the ground.

He struggled to breathe but the air he found was stale, dusty, and bitter. His sight started to blur, but he forced himself to look up, desperate to find a way out. In his search, his eyes met that of a man who stood some distance away from the crowd. He stood like the biblical Saul at whose feet the men who’d stoned Stephen dropped their robes.  The man watched Kolade keenly, unmoving, as if waiting for him to speak.

A hard object slammed forcefully against Kolade’s head, which fell to the ground helplessly. He tasted blood and his vision blackened, but in one last desperate cry for mercy, he stretched out to the man. Then everything went blank.

***

Kolade jerked awake to hands violently shaking him. He coughed and sucked in a deep breath, desperate for air. Two strong hands held him up and another tapped his cheeks in quick succession.

‘Wake up!’ Startled, he stared through a haze at nothing for a few more minutes until his sight cleared. He was sitting on cold tiled floor, dripping wet and wearing only his singlet and pair of boxers. Everything felt surreal, and for a split second he felt like he’d just come out of a bad dream. He looked to his side and saw the same man from his dream sitting opposite him.

Then it hit him.

‘I almost died!’ He blurted.

The man in front of him nodded at him, or so he thought until the two other men let him go and left the room.

Kolade now looked around the room. It was a medium sized barbers’ shop, complete with mirrors and revolving chairs. The man sat on one of the chairs, the back of his bald head reflecting on the mirror behind him.

‘Does your head hurt?’ he asked.

‘Yes Sir.’ Kolade replied with a wince.

‘It’ll get better, and please cut the Sir. Call me Ugo.’

‘Okay Sir..sorry Ugo.. you saved my life Sir!

‘You can say that.’

‘Ha thank you sir. Eh, I could have died. God will bless you and your family sir and preserve you. I owe you my life.

Up to his last statement, Ugo had listened patiently, but now he got up chuckling.

‘Here, here, don’t get ahead of yourself. I don’t take debts lightly.’

Kolade could see his frame better now. Ugo was tall, broad and fit. His brown skin competed with the smoothness of the wood finishing in the room. The line of his black short hair cleanly framed his forehead, defining his thick brows. The soft wrinkles under his eyelids put him in his forties, but he could easily pass for a man in his early 30s.

‘Lightly Sir! Kolade exclaimed when he finished his perusal. ‘This isn’t light at all. Kolade went flat on the floor in a prostrate, defying the searing pain in his limbs and head. ‘I owe you my life.’

Ugo chuckled again.

‘Kolade,’ he called.

‘Sir? You know me? How?’ He stuttered, sitting up.’

‘Yes, I do. Your name is Kolade, from Oshogbo, a first-class graduate of Economics. It looks like you’ve been in search of a job for a while, am I right?’ He chuckled again, then handed a brown envelope to Kolade.

‘This is yours.’

Kolade collected the file cautiously. It was his CV, and of course, it had all his details.

‘I have a job for you.’ Ugo announced.

‘Sir?! Kolade sat up straighter. ‘Ha God is smiling on me. They always said it would get bad before getting better, but I didn’t know it would be this fast. First you save my life, then you offer me a job. Sir, you will never know lack.’

‘You haven’t even heard the job offer.’ Ugo was starting to sound impatient, so Kolade reined in his excitement.

‘Of course Sir, I was just about to ask.’

‘Again, it’s Ugo. He walked over to a cupboard and pulled out a small black bag, the size of a child’s lunch pack.’ He dropped it on the floor by Kolade’s feet then spoke again.

‘The job is simple. You would deliver this bag to an address that I would give you. Upon completion, I would pay you 200,000 naira in cash.’

‘What?!’ Kolade lost his composure. ‘Two hundred Thousand Naira Sir! To deliver this bag! Please sir, what’s in the bag?’

‘I’m not done. Under no condition should you open the bag, or tell anyone about this discussion, not even my boys outside. You look like someone I can trust, so I would give you a forward payment of 20,000 naira, because you look like you need it. You’ll get the balance when you’re back here. Do we have a deal?’

Kolade stared in amazement at Ugo, whose expression relayed nothing but dead seriousness.

‘This guy dey craze’, Kolade thought. But the strength of his desire to jump on the offer surprised him. Thankfully, his voice of reason was stronger. This was Lagos, and he knew nothing about this strange man, or the bag. What if the payment for his debt was to have him used for money ritual? God forbid!  A normal human being would have just said amen to his prayers and let him go right? But this one wants him to make a delivery. Not in this life would he do such.

He opened his mouth to start talking, but a phone rang, stopping his speech.

Ugo picked it off the table beside him.

‘This is yours too. Your sister has been calling you non-stop, so you may want to receive that.’ Kolade collected the phone to receive the call and lifted his phone to his ear as a terrible feeling suddenly filled his chest.

‘Bro Kola,’ his sister was hysterical. It’s mummy o! We’re in the hospital, uncle Gbade helped me rush her here. But I don’t know what to do, nobody is telling us anything.

‘Sewa,’ he called her with forced calm. ‘Calm down and tell me what happened. Ki lo se mummy?’

‘Ha Bro Kola,’ she shouted, ‘Mummy is unconscious. She wanted to go to the toilet, and she just slumped right there in front of me.’

Kolade felt the blood drain from his face, his headache becoming blindingly fierce. This could not be happening.

‘Oh God’, he cried out, ‘please let this be only a bad dream that I would wake up from. Please!’