Man In Black - Season 1 - Episode 55

4 years ago

Man In Black - Season 1 - Episode 55

The dusk was gathering outside. Chuks could see the sun going from bright yellow to a dull orange outside his curtain, and as dusk gathered, he knew that was when most working people were returning home to prepare for the next working day. But he couldn’t focus on that now, he had to—
Wetin dey do this guy? Block, now! Blo—
“GOAL! Ha ha! Forget speaking pidgin, man, this is the real deal. Six-one!” Segun said.
He happily watched the replay of his PSG striker scoring an overhead kick from a corner kick assist. The move was truly impressive, which made Chuks all the more resentful. His friend knew all the tricks of the pad, and Chuks himself couldn’t have done that same skill had his life depended on it.
This was one of the few things Segun bested him at. That and cooking, though the latter was for want of trying.

“Shey na because of ordinary six goals, you no want make I hear word again,” he said, grumpy.

“ ‘Ordinary?’ Ordinary six goals you couldn’t score in eighty-eight minutes? Just admit you’re jealous I can play better than you.”

They got an extra time of three minutes, but still those three minutes wound down. The score remained the same. Six-one, in favour of Segun. A sound thrashing if Chuks had ever seen one, but the both of them had played worse games, something he didn’t want to think about.

Segun was laughing, but Chuks hissed. He tossed his pad on the glass center table, where it fell with a clatter. He didn’t care whether the stupid thing broke. Mostly because it was Segun’s, anyway. He picked up the TV remote from the centre table and changed it back to the decoder. They were both sitting on the chair directly across from the television.

“Honestly, Chuks, I can’t believe we will be involved in a police investigation like this. And if we will, are you sure the six months we’ve been at Star Ranges are enough? We just entered the third class, you know.”
“Bros, forget. The police dey our back, no shaking.”

Segun huffed. “And since when has that become something to boast about?”
“Even though, self, we no dey involved for any “investigation”. We’re only there as firearms consultants.”

That much he had made clear when Detective Tobi Akano and Clyde dé Crozon had come down in person to the cubicle office they’d had to wait in for thirty minutes. The detective had said they needed their expertise in weapons, and Chuks had said they would give it a thought, but that if they agreed, they weren’t policemen, and the only thing they were getting involved in was when their training in Star Ranges was required, nothing more.

And such training as it was. To be honest, their involvement with anything the police were doing was a bit premature. They were a bit satisfactory when it came to normal guns, but after what happened at their remote field operations headquarters in Ogun State yesterday, Chuks knew they were finished if they had to deal with anti-tanks. It was very unlikely that the Eel, minister killer or not, would start firing an M20 Super Bazooka, but still.

“I was just looking at that man yesterday, the detective,” Segun said. “If the Eel can nearly kill someone like that, what’s to say we aren’t signing up for our deaths?”
“I don already talk am, na only consultancy we dey do. We no dey part of anything wey police wan do. If they shoot them or kill them, that one na their business, no be our own.”
They both looked at the tv. The DStv was tuned to FOX, where Chuks liked to watch Power. Right now they were doing Empire, the one with the Lyons and their music. Chuks only watched it at times, and mainly because both were by the same Lee Daniels.

“Are you sure we should agree for the consultancy?”

“Yes, now. No be wetin we don plan to do already before?”

Chuks’ intention when signing up for a field training course at the prestigious firing range hadn’t been just to throw money away for something he fancied. He had wanted to put the training they were getting at Star Ranges into maybe a small assault subsidiary under the police force or DSS or EFCC or any other security agency that could pay their worth as independent contractors, so they would earn back the money they had paid to register many times over.

He had introduced the idea to his best friend, and Segun had been on board. The way he saw it, there was no better way to kickstart that plan than by establishing themselves as independent consultants to the police.
In his opinion, their meeting Clyde dé Crozon today was a big stroke of luck.

Hadn’t it been for that, what was supposed to be his business with whatever the police were doing?

He just prayed that he should be right about this, and that he wasn’t volunteering him and his friend to be killed.