Banks, Cops and Robbers (5)

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BANKS, COPS AND ROBBERS (5)

*** BADA BING! BADA BOOM? ***

Johnny watched buildings and cars speed by from the back seat of the Peugeot.

It was another successful hit. But deep within Johnny, something didn’t feel right. This was the same feeling he had been having for months.

He began to question the point of the life he was living a few months ago. It was frustrating because he couldn’t talk to any of the members of the gang about his misgivings. He couldn’t have Marcus question his loyalty. That was as good as pronouncing his death sentence himself. He had his doubts but he did not want to die just yet.

And then he couldn’t talk to just anyone about it.

He had more blood on his hands than he cared to think about. He had killed so many people that he had lost count. He had even killed children. Children! How did I come this far?

Killing the boy who got his sister pregnant all those years ago had been a mistake, but every life he had taken after that had taken him further down the dark path he now walked.

He had been running errands for Marcus for four months before he found out who Marcus really was. By then, he knew he was already in too deep to get out. And the money was good too.

He had moved out of his single room into a two bedroom apartment in Aguda, Surulere and had saved a million Naira. Finding out he was hanging out with and running errands for a criminal mastermind was scary but he knew he never wanted to go back to being a bus conductor. So he had kept on gun-running and serving as a go-between for the gang.

His first time out on a hit had been an assassination. Their target was a high profile business man whose business partners wanted dead. It had something to do with him not wanting to sell his shares in one of his companies. As a rule, Marcus never asked for details except when he felt he and his people could be put at risk by not knowing all there was to know about a job.

Johnny had just gotten back from another run when Marcus took him aside.

He remembered very vividly the first words Marcus had said to him.

“I finally trust you enough for you to be one of us”

It had been a shock. He never imagined his involvement with the gang would go beyond him moving guns for them. He remembered the fear he had felt. He knew he was stepping into something he could never again walk out of. He also knew that saying no to Marcus would have cost him his life. He already knew too much.

So he smiled and thanked Marcus and told him how happy he was to finally be one of them.

He was the lookout and getaway driver for that night. They parked their van across the road from the target’s house and waited till he drove in at about 10pm. The van was plain with the mirrors tinted over and the streets were virtually empty so no one had noticed them. Marcus, Jenny and Dare were in the back of the van and if anyone had bothered to look closely enough, they would have seen only Johnny sitting in the car.

Five minutes after the target drove in, Marcus tapped the partition between the front compartment and the rear of the van thrice. That was the signal to tell Johnny they were going in. He watched them walk up to the gate and knock, saw the guard fall as Marcus shot him in the head with his suppressed Ruger MK III and then set his watch timer for seven minutes. That was how long Marcus had estimated the job would take.

Johnny was so nervous he almost didn’t notice the man who had jumped over the fence of the house. Whoever it was had sprained an ankle coming over the fence and was limping as fast as he could away from the house in Johnny’s direction.

When the man passed under a street light, Johnny saw his face and realized it was their target. He didn’t have time to wonder how he had gotten away from the guys because the gate of the closest house was a few yards from where the van was parked and Johnny knew that once the man got there their operation was up in smoke. He took a deep breath pulled his gun out of the glove compartment and stepped out of the car.

When he saw Johnny step out of the car, the man began to wave and shout at Johnny to help him. He was saying something about calling the police when Johnny pointed his gun at his head and pulled the trigger.

He still had the gun up when Marcus ran up to him. Jenny and Dare headed straight for the van and got in. All he could remember of the next hour was Marcus taking the gun from his hand, dragging him to the van and making him get in the back with Jenny and Dare. Back at Marcus’ house, they had to drag him out of the van and into the house.

The next day Jenny, told him he had been saying over and over again “I just shot someone. I just shot a man dead” .

Jamiu laughed at him and called him a baby for weeks after but Marcus had sat with him when he was finally calm enough to understand anything that was being said to him.

“I remember the first time I took a man’s life”, he had said. “It felt like I had crossed a line human beings were never meant to cross. Even though I had done it in self-defense, I was in shock for days”. He put a hand on Johnny’s shoulder and smiled.

“I understand perfectly well how you feel and I can assure you this feeling will pass”.

He was right. The feeling had passed but the nightmares had come in their place.

He knew the nightmares would come again that night. He had come to accept them as penance for all the wrong he had done but that didn’t make them any easier to live with.

***A MOTHER’S PAIN***

It had been twelve years.

Twelve long years. No mother had to suffer this much.

And it was all so unfair. Whatever he had done, he had done out of love for his sister; because he wanted to protect her.

After all these years, the pain was still as fresh as it was all those years ago when her Johnny had run away from home.

She was sitting under the shade of the almond tree in front of the house. There hadn’t been power for over a week and whenever she was at home in the afternoon she would get a recliner and sit under the tree to escape the heat in the house.

She heard footsteps and looked up. It was Karen.

She had grown into a beautiful confident young woman although deep down, she still carried the scars of all they had both been through over the years. 

Karen had lost the baby after 3 months and had been devastated. She refused to eat for days and had not spoken to anyone for almost a month. She missed another 3 months of school after that.

It was an uphill task to survive and there were days when they went without food. And then one day an envelope arrived in the mail. There was money in it and a letter from Johnny. He was doing fine and had started doing business in Lagos. He said he would send money every month and left an address where they could write him.

The money had kept on coming and the amount would increase every now and then. It had been enough to see Karen through school and when she graduated, Johnny insisted she get a Master’s degree. All the money in the world couldn’t take away the pain though.

The last time she wrote him, she asked if she could come and visit and he had said no in his reply. She wasn’t going to stop asking. Twelve years was too long and she really wanted to see her son again. It had been too long.

TO BE CONTINUED…