SEEING RED
The second bullet traveled faster than the first.
"Babe you need to slow down.” She was gripping the edge of the seat.
“The global oil and gas industry generates around eleven billion dollars daily, did you know that?”
“It doesn't matter babe. Please slow down!”
“Eleven billion dollars is almost eighty billion dollars per week. Can you imagine!” He sulked. The speedometer was crashing.
“Babe. Babe please I beg you in God's name. Let us just get to the airport in one piece. We can come up with a plan on the flight to San Marino, okay?” she pleaded, reaching for his arm.
“Don't touch me! Don't you dare touch me!” He swerved without any thought. “Seven years in the industry where such money is made, and the one time I don't report a tanker stolen, they pin all the faults on me. I am not going to be anybody’s patsy! I have always ensured his money continued flowing, and they now treat me like this? That dirtbag!”
Her mouth was dry from the dread. She couldn't think of taking over the wheels because that'd lead to an altercation that'd lead to worse since they were already on maniacal speed.
“Babe I understand. Babe! Babe watch out, watch out! Jesus! Babe!”
The car screeched to a fierce halt.
The sickening crunch polluted the silence of the lonely expressway.
“Where did you say Chimdiuso went to?”
“Gini?”
“Chimdiuso, you know the only child we both gave birth to? Still remember him? Where did you say he went to?”
Turning down the music, she turned to face him. “Yes, I still remember the son we gave birth to, you this sarcastic deep-voice man." She chuckled. “He went for the basketball trials. I've told you it's a good thing he's not letting all his height go to waste.”
“It's almost 7pm. What type of ball needs trials by this time?”
“Nna m, relax. Basketball is good for him, inugo? I know you can be protective of him but let us allow him to grow on his own sometimes.”
He joined her in the seat where he made himself comfortable on her laps. “Are you sure it's not my gun that boy snuck out to practice with?”
“Haba nna m. How can it be? The gun is still where it's supposed to be. Besides, I have begged you to remove it from this house, you refused.”
“That is because I have a feeling the time is coming when I'd need it. If Chimdi is not back by 7:30, he will have to sleep outside.”
“Haba nna m, you know he's just 15, he cannot sleep—”
“Then he better be in this house in the next thirty minutes.”
“He will, nna m. Inugo? Will you be going to break kola with your dad tomorrow?”
“Ah. That is true. I even—”
“Shhhh. Nna m did you hear that?” The hairs on her skin stood sharp.
“Hear what?”
“Is he dead!” She screamed, flying out of the car to join him on the road where the young boy lay.
Her fiancé flipped the boy to both sides twice for any sign of life. Nothing.
Suddenly, he got immobilized and sat with his arms over his head on the dirt patch. “They have finally ruined me. Oh my God, they have finally ruined me.”
“Babe calm down, we need to think fast, okay? Now check his wallet for any address. I may have a plan, okay?”
“They have ruined me oo! What have I done to myself!”
“Babe!!” She crawled to his side and shook him hard. “Babe—” then she slapped him firmly. His eyes widened at her. “Now listen to me. I told you to slow down. I begged you to. Now I am not going to marry my fiancé from prison! Because that's where you'd go if they find out that this hit-and-run happened because we were fleeing the pending litigation against you from the oil company. Do you hear me? Nod your damn head if you understand!”
He nodded shakily.
“Good. Now, check his wallet for any address.”
While he rummaged the boy’s wallet and sports bag, the fiancée did CPR. Her thumps were lousy at best.
“Found something,” he croaked, sniffling.
She snatched the ID from him. The road they had been tearing through was a lonely one so there was no help in sight. But just ahead, about five minutes away, after the first bend by the left was an estate she was all too familiar with. The address on the boy's ID was where her blossom friend had squatted her right after university.
She couldn't believe their luck. She knew that house like the palm of her hands and could trace even its silhouette in her sleep.
The plan that had been just a whiff of smoke now coalesced into terrifying inferno. She sucked her teeth and clicked her tongue in quick succession. In the boot of their car was about fifty million naira. Cold, hard, cash. There was another two hundred in banks scattered across the Cayman.
Her fiancé wasn't innocent of the accusations the oil company he worked for were laying on him. He was only furious that they wouldn't let him get away with just a small piece of their larger than life fucking pie. Frankly, she was pissed too. And she would be damned if she let a hit-and-run taint their immaculate, watertight plans. The finish line was in sight and it was her job to ensure they got through.
“Maybe…Baby maybe we should call the police. I have contacts—”
“Shut up and help me get him to the car. I will tell you my plan on the way.”
They labored with the boy who they couldn't tell if he was alive or not. At the driver's door, she seized the keys from him. “I will drive this time.”
9:00pm
“You say your car broke down where?”
She repeated the practiced story. Car broke down, tired from long travel, sat by roadside contemplating what to do, decided to walk until they found some help, found them instead.
Casmir was wary of these strangers. The husband had a faraway gaze and the woman spoke without making eye contact. The man came in about twenty minutes after and seemed to stagger. When he asked, the man said he had gone ahead of his wife to checkout other possible places they could spend the night.
“So, you, how did you know your wife was here then?”
"I saw her get…I saw her…you know…walk in through your gate.”
“Hmmm.” Casmir didn't believe a word flying out of their mouths. His wife was already running around trying to fix them something.
The man's wife, girlfriend, or whatever, suddenly became hasty. And Casmir didn't miss the subtle glance they shared between them. He could see blotches of red on the cuffs of the man's crumpled shirt. The woman's gown too, looked…disheveled. Did they dance in the dirt because their car broke down?
He shifted his attention from his guests for a minute.
“Chimdi is not back yet?” He started to rise from where he sat; opposite the guests.
“It is now unusual nna m. Let me go and check his room. Maybe he snuck in through the window just to avoid seeing us. You know he has done it before. Then in the morning he will say he slept off,” she laughed.
Casmir stared long at the guests. Something was off. “Go and check, hurry.”
“I know the house well. It's a bungalow. The windows and doors are all burglar proof. But the door from the backyard, it's faulty. It jams too hard so nobody bothers to lock it because if you do, then you will spend an hour trying to open it. Hopefully it's still that way. I will rush in through…Babe are you listening?”
His breathing was raspy. “Yes. But what if it's not the same?”
“It is. Just listen. So I will rush in through the front, make a scene, you know. Stranded damsel in distress, all of that. I will make the scene loud so they don't hear you open that door. Then you carry the boy to the room. If you can't find his room, then any room. Do you understand?”
He blinked, hyperventilating. “Any room?”
“Yes.”
“What if someone is in the room i choose?”
“Nobody will be. This is an urban area. Urban families eat dinner then gather in a tasteful parlor to binge watch their favorite family show. It's the weekend so even if there are other kids, nobody will be hurrying them to sleep.”
“How—”
“Did I think about all that so fast?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that's part of why you love me, isn't it?”
“Yes. But calling the police is easier. This is… what if he is already—”
“Chima Benedict Chidalu, we are not calling the police, understand me? We are not. I am not marrying you from a prison! And I will not spend the first twenty years of marriage to a ghost because that's what you'll be if you enter jail, understand me? He is not dead. We will sneak in, drop him where his family can find him, then continue to the airport. They will think he had an accident or something—”
“Babe, that's…damn that's callous.”
She laughed. “Callous? Honey, I love you so much but you have stolen over five hundred million from the oil corporation. Is that not callous too? Now repeat the plan to me before his body actually gets cold in our boot.”
Casmir kept them talking while his wife checked. Just small talk. He could smell their unease. Three years in the seminary, another seven in the navy, and another four as an importer of dry gin… he understood human behavior better than anyone. Everyone had tells. Right now, this couple were anything but stranded strangers.
His wife was taking too long. The gun's safe was in sight. He calmly walked to it, ensuring his back was to them at all times so they didn't know what he was up to. Releasing the gun and removing the safety, he counted to twenty. God help them if they would be the first to give him a reason to use this .44 magnum.
He was at thirteen when the woman said “I think we will be taking our leave now. So sorry for the inconvenience, Sir. Lovely family. We will find a guest house.”
Casmir cocked his brows. Then he pointed the gun at them. “You better sit back down. Don't be unfortunate.”
He was at twenty-five of his count when his wife rushed back, breathless. Her hands were soaked in red.
Casmir whistled. Please God let his fears not be true.
“Nna m. Nna m!!! Chimdi…Jesus…Chimdi is lying in our room! He's bleeding from everywhere! He's not moving…or breathing!”
Casmir averted his gaze from his wife to the stains on the man's cuff. And the dirt on the woman; even in her expensive, shiny wig. If he wasn't sure, the woman's quick attempt to make for the door confirmed it.
One bullet straight to the base of her hips stopped the woman short. The sound reverberated in their ear drums. Casmir then pointed the gun's smoky nozzle at the man who was frozen in his seat. “Una go tell me how una take kill my son. Then, you will tell me what kind of madness made you come up with the devilish plan to return a dead son to his father.”
Trembling, the man started to speak.
Then Casmir looked at his wife wailing in twisting figures on the cold marbles. He looked at the stains on the man's cuffs again and changed his mind.
The second bullet traveled faster than the first.
Gosh I was so tense from the beginning, I knew this was coming but I hoped that boy wouldn’t die🥲
That devil of a woman got what she deserved…ekwensu
One question tho who was the second bullet for please?