You can contact the author, Larry Sun, via larrysundynasty@gmail.com or WhatsApp him on +2349061754872

Cheers,

LSD

As he tried to park his car, Peter saw the most beautiful vehicle he had ever seen drive by. It was a stretch limousine. It was white and glittering. This was the first time he would ever see this kind of car in reality. He had seen it only once in the television and had read about it many times in newspapers and magazines. Limousines were reputed to be politicians’ cars. People who saw limousines usually went home to narrate the good news of what they witnessed to people who were not so fortunate to have seen what they saw. And of course, a politician must be in this particular limousine. The rich person most probably wanted to see the movie too. He stared at the car with drool almost running down his mouth. He knew he would be finding a way to steal it if he was still a thief, but he was no more a thief. Besides, stealing such a car would be a dumb thing to attempt. Nobody would steal such a car and get away with it. He would be caught, no matter how skilled he might be. If Peter had stared a moment longer at the limo, he would have driven into the back of the car in front of him, for the driver of that car too was staring at the same thing. But before his fleeting impression for vanity could land him in trouble, the vehicle disappeared down the busy road.

He turned out the engine and made to get out of the car to join the throng of theatergoers. Suddenly, his passenger door was opened and a lady sat down. Peter had never seen anyone more beautiful in his life. And like the limousine that passed a few moments ago, Peter could not help staring at her. The lady was sweating; some strands of her hair were matted against her forehead with sweat. She was breathing hard. She had obviously been running from something – or someone.

For the first time in his life, Peter Black was in love.

“Drive! Drive!” the lady screamed. Her fair complexion, her bright eyes, her lovely shape, olive skin, all contributed to her beauty. Somehow, Peter knew he had just found a soulmate.

“Please drive!” she begged, “He’s coming!”

“Who is chasing you?”

“Officer JB! He’s coming!”

“Officer JB? Who is that?”

“He’s behind us!”

Peter checked his rear-view mirror but didn’t see any policeman. He checked the side mirrors but there was still no one fitting that description. He decided to open the driver’s door. He poked his head out and looked behind.

His heart nearly stopped at who he saw. It was overwhelming! Crazy! The pursuer too stopped in his track – he was about fifty yards away. The man mouthed a word in utter surprise; a word which Peter knew to be ‘Blackie’. Only one person in the world usually called him that name, and this man was that person.

It made sense to Peter now; Officer JB is Officer John Balewa. His old friend who walked out on him five years ago had resurfaced. Here he was wearing a police uniform and holding a pistol.

“Blackie!” Peter saw him mouth the word again. They were both shocked to see each other.

Peter said the name he had never said since the last five years:

“Basky!”

Maria slowly turned around and her fear was confirmed; it was Officer John Balewa, the same man who had been responsible for her imprisonment. She could see the utter surprise etched on his face. She felt defeated once again; she had come so close to escaping. Why had the man surfaced now, why couldn’t he just stay away for about ten minutes before now. Then she questioned herself; why didn’t I wake up earlier than this? She felt like everything in life was working against her.

The officer had started to walk towards her.

“Stay right there, don’t move,” she heard him say.

Stay right there, don’t move. The words resounded in her head. What if I don’t stay right here? she thought. What if I moved? Adrenaline started cursing through her body. What if I make a run for my freedom right now? What if –?

She turned around and ran.

“Maria, stop right there!” she heard the man speak; but her mind had been made, she was not stopping. She ran as fast as she could. She knew her pace was slow; she was very weak right now. She looked behind her, the man was in hot pursuit. She could see that he was beginning to draw out his gun.

“Maria! Stop right now or I’m going to shoot!”

That’s a lie, Maria thought, he’s not going to shoot me. She continued running. She knew this was the only chance she would ever have. Other chances had been blocked; she must grab onto this one. No, she was not going to stop because of the threat of being shot in the back. She ran faster.

Then she heard the gunshot. It was deafening. Other people began to scatter in different directions in fear. Market-women left their goods and scampered to safety. The police officer had actually shot his gun. She froze once again. She turned around, the man was running towards her, his gun drawn. She could see that he was a bad runner; even with her weak health, she had created a significant distance between them.

“I’m going to shoot you if you run,” he warned her, “I am not joking this time. I will shoot you in the back if you run.”

For the first time she stared directly into the officer’s eyes and drilled into his soul. With her eyes, she was daring him. She was willing to gamble her chance; she guessed it was better she was shot dead right now than to be dragged back to prison.

“I’m not going back to jail,” she said, turned around again and dashed into a run.

She ran with all her might. She was beginning to feel tired; she was too weak to run a long distance; she must find a place to hide now or she might collapse out of exhaustion. And if he collapsed, she would definitely be caught. She ran further and further into the crowd; these ones here had not heard about the gunshot and so they had continued their daily businesses. She figured it was better to blend among the crowd; by doing this, it would be hard for the officer to shoot at her. Maybe she might even be lost in the crowd. He looked behind her, the officer was still having her in his sight and he was pursuing her with zeal. Apparently, he wasn’t running as fast as she was, and so he didn’t look tired. He could do this all day, but Maria didn’t need all day. Very soon, she would not be able to run anymore. She was sweating profusely.

She was looking frantically for where to hide but didn’t find. Then at the last moment of giving up, she saw a car that contained only the driver. Without thinking she ran towards the car. She went to the passenger’s side beside the driver and quickly opened the door. She sat in without asking for permission.

“Drive! Drive!” she barked at the dark-skinned man behind the wheel.

Officer John Balewa was getting tired, too, but he would be damned if he allowed himself to be outrun by a convalescing patient. He was amazed at the speed of the girl; he almost couldn’t believe that the same person who had just come out of coma was also the one running this fast. Where had she got the strength? What an extraordinary girl! As he ran after her, the girl reminded him of only one person; there was only a single person in the world that he knew could run as fast – Peter Black. Peter had been his friend, his confidant; they had gone through thick and thin together while growing up, he had offered him shelter when he was homeless; but the same friend, the same person he had always seen as more than a mere friend, had stabbed him in the back when he wasn’t looking. Peter Black had struck him a blow in the most painful region – the heart; and it was by sheer miracle that he survived that attack. The only thing he knew he could do, the only thing that could ensure that his sanity stayed intact was to just walk away. If he had remained with Blackie, he might have committed a grievous crime; it was only fair that he walked away; he would not stay under the same roof with that traitor for another day.

And he had left for a place far away. He had gone off to lick his wounds and restrategise. Indeed, he had denounced the thieving profession simply because he didn’t want anything that would remind him of his time with his old friend. But deviously, he chose to become a policeman; he spent the first three years learning policing skills. And when he was established, he dedicated his time into apprehending thieves. He was less interested in any other form of crime; the only thing he was passionate about was arresting any criminal associated with thievery in any way. He was obsessed with putting thieves behind bars; he was always on the hunt for them. He measured his achievements with the number of thieves he had put down. Even armed robbers were of no exception; he trod boldly into where even angels feared to ply. While his colleagues would be hiding, Officer John Balewa, who now preferred to be called OJB, would approach the robbers and overpower them. The other policemen often wondered how he was always able to do that. Sometimes, OJB would engage in a series of gun-battle with the thieves but he usually emerged victorious, and he had never sustained any casualty. There were times when he would shoot those robbers in their arms or legs, but never anywhere fatal. He wanted them to be alive to suffer their punishments.

In 1991, after three years of riding away from Black in the same bicycle he had stolen during his last operation with his friend, OJB returned to Port-Harcourt. He had come back to take Peter Black in; he wanted to watch his old friend steal something and then arrest him on the spot, red-handedly. That would be the best payback; that was the only thing that would calm him down. Perhaps this was when he would be able to forgive Black for what had been done to him; but one thing stood certain, they were never going to be friends again. Unfortunately, he found no sign of Peter when he returned to the place. Their old home had been vacated and no one could tell him where his former friend had relocated to. He had been grossly disappointed; he had asked around from everyone he had known. They had all been glad to see him, they were happy he was now a policeman; everyone had agreed that police work a perfect job for him. Although no one was able to tell him the whereabouts of Peter Black, they were able to educate him on the recent happenings about his friend. They had told him that Black was a wanted thief and no one wanted to be seen associating with him in the community. They had congratulated Balewa for turning out to be a more responsible person as opposed to his friend who had become a complete negative of Balewa himself. He had also gone to their old school and met with the new Principal of the school; the man could not give him any helpful tip on how to locate Peter Black, he was just saying the same thing almost everyone in the community had been saying about Black.

He decided to spend about a week in the community. He lodged himself in a hotel and hoped that within a week, his path and Black’s would cross. They never met till he departed. And so from Port-Harcourt, he was transferred to Lagos after a year. But no day went by that he ever forgot about Peter Black, or what the friend he trusted did to him. He had contemplated about returning to Port-Harcourt to search for him all over again but he knew that would be another futile effort; he was not ready to go through that again.

“Maria, stop right there!” he spoke out loud as he ran after the girl. At this juncture, he felt a strange sensation cursing through him. It was ironic being the chaser now. He remembered his early days, he had always been the one running from the police. Now he was the police, and someone else, a thief, was running from him. He felt like he was living two lives at the same time. But he knew himself; he would never become a thief again. He had dedicated his life to getting rid of thieves, he would never be caught dead again in the act.

But the girl kept on running; she wasn’t listening to him. It was very important that she stopped. He needed her to stop; she still needed to do surgery. This was a wrong time for her to attempt an escape. She needed to get treated first. He ran with his might; he found himself jumping over potholes and gutters, cutting from street to street, but he was not gaining on the girl. He was scared that something terrible might happen to the girl and she might collapse. She was not supposed to be exerting this kind of energy; not after everything she had gone through since the past couple of days.

Instead of tiring out, the girl continued to expand the distance between them. He remembered the first time he had chased after her; she had been accompanied by her accomplices at the time. Although she had escaped from him that day, he was sure her speed wasn’t as much as it was now that she was not even entirely fine. Now those accomplices were in jail, rotting away there, and here was the girl still doing everything she could to stay out of jail, even at the expense of her health.

The doctors had informed him about the ailment afflicting the girl and he had been scared for her; he had felt sorry for what she had been through, he had blamed himself for being responsible for her incarceration. He had been searching for a way to make it up to her, perhaps request for a lighter sentence in a supreme court. He had been hoping that he would use the doctor’s report about her health to change the mind of the judge. But the most important thing was that she must first get the proper treatment, and it was urgent. But here she was, escaping, running, without the knowledge of what was at stake.

As he ran further after the girl, people were looking at him. They would see Maria first and wonder why she was running, then he would run by them and they would still continue watching. Balewa was angry at them. Why were they looking like a bunch of idiots? Couldn’t they see that a criminal was escaping and he was trying to stop her? What happened to their civic duty of helping to stop the criminal? He expected them to help him apprehend the girl and hold her down until he caught up, but they were all staring instead. Such a bunch of fools. Then it suddenly occurred to him; he understood why they were not stopping her. The girl did not strike them as a thief; as a matter of fact, from the way the people were looking at him, it seemed like he was the bad person here. And they would have stopped him instead had he not been wearing a policeman’s attire. As far as they understood, the girl was running from him because he wanted to take advantage of her as they knew most bad officers were fond of doing. They couldn’t stop him now because he was a police officer, but they would not help him in arresting an innocent and beautiful girl fighting for her dignity and her freedom. To hell with him.

To hell with them, Balewa thought disgustingly. If only they knew what was going on; then again, he questioned whether they would help him if they really knew what was going on. The society was a complicated school of thought.

The gap was getting wider, and he started to panic. He had no choice but to do what he never intended doing. He reached towards his side holster and pulled out his pistol.

“Maria! Stop now or I’m going to shoot!” he warned; he had spoken loud enough for her to hear, and he knew that she had seen the gun in his hand in the brief moment that she looked back at him. Now this warning was always effective on most criminals. They usually stopped running and gave themselves up for arrest after hearing that, for they knew they would be shot dead if they continued running. On some few occasions, he had been forced to shoot disobedient criminals in the legs to stop them from running. While other police officers usually found their disobedience the right excuse to shoot to kill, Balewa always ensured that he never took anyone’s life; he would rather incapacitate them than to kill them outright. He had expected the girl to heed to this warning, but she was not stopping. Rather than slowing her down, the threat had actually inspired her to increase her speed.

He thought about shooting her in the leg; he knew that within that distance, he could get her. He only had to shoot one of her legs and she would not be able to run anymore. He would then get a car and transport her back to the hospital. Maybe in time, they could extract the bullet and might not have to amputate her. But he was reluctant to do that; he was in a quandary at this juncture. What if he shot her and she ended up losing one of her legs? Would he be able to live with himself knowing that he had added more to the girl’s problems? How would he be able to seek for a reduction in her sentence after doing this? The judge would think it ridiculous that he came to plea for mercy on her when he was responsible for the loss of her leg. He might even miss his mark and shoot her in a fatal region. What if he missed and shot her in the back instead? There were a lot of what-ifs and none of them appealed to him.

He didn’t know what to do anymore; and the girl was slipping away from him as fast as sand through a funnel. He raised his gun up in the air, pointed it towards the sky and pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening and chaos followed immediately. Everyone began to run helter-skelter. Market men and women left their goods and scampered for safety. Thugs smoking hemps in uncompleted buildings threw down their treasures and disappeared from the area. But amidst this chaos, Balewa noticed one thing, the girl had stopped. He continued to run towards her; he had to reach her before she changed her mind. As he ran, he saw her turn around to face him. The expression on her face showed that she was not ready to give herself up.

“I’m going to shoot you if you run,” he told her; he discovered that he was beginning to speak in short gasps, weariness was beginning to creep in. Strangely, the girl, although sweating, wasn’t really looking tired. “I am not joking this time. I will shoot you in the back if you run.” His expression was the same he had given when he arrested her the first time and dared her to escape. This time around, however, he noticed that this was not working on the girl. As he ran closer, attempting to shrink the gap between them, he aimed his pistol directly at the girl. But her expression almost brought him to a whinnying-whoa like a horse at the edge of a cliff. She was staring directly at him, drilling into him; he felt like she was searching into his soul, working her way into the innermost core of his being. He suddenly felt naked before her. He had never seen such an expression on the face of anyone before. It was divine, like a celestial embodiment, almost occult. It was like she was looking at him and discovering his past. He suddenly felt a qualm.

“I’m not going back to jail,” she replied him and then continued running.

This was a dare, he knew it. She had dared him in return. She was daring him to shoot her. That girl called Maria was a stubborn one, she would not give up easily; she would rather die than allow herself be dragged back to prison. Balewa watched in awe as she ran off; her speed had considerably increased. Maybe she was not really running very fast, maybe he was the pathetically slow chaser. He guessed escaping runners were usually faster than their pursuers, especially when their lives depended on it. He acknowledged that he used to be faster than this when he was still a thief, but he had never been a match for Peter Black; he was nowhere close. Peter could have made it as a professional athlete but he preferred stealing to any other profession in life. He was just like this escaping girl, or this escaping girl was just like him; she too could have made it as a professional table-tennis player had she not been greedy.

He followed her as she ran from one street to another; he would not let her off his sight. He would pursue her to the end of the world if he had to. They arrived at an open place filled with crowd. He instinctively knew what she was trying to do; she wanted to blend with the crowd and disappear. He started to panic; it was an ingenious plan. If he lost her in his sight, that would be the end. He could not shoot the gun again; it would only cause more chaos and people might be injured while trying to escape from a false danger. He didn’t want to do that. He started running faster but his legs refused to move as fast as he wanted them.

Then he lost sight of her.

Oh Lord!

He started running around without destination. His eyes were scanning the crowd, searching for anyone wearing the colour of her dress. He didn’t know where to turn. Right or left? Forward or backward? He stood rooted in a spot, looking around, tension building in him. He couldn’t afford to lose her; it would be disastrous if the girl successfully escaped. He knew he would never see her again if she escaped; she would certainly make sure of that. He was scared of one single thing:

He would not be able to help her.

For about half a minute, he stood rooted in the same place, unable to decide the next step. He noticed that there was the National Arts Theatre just a few metres away from him. An intuition urged him to run forward, closer to this tourist attraction. Perhaps the girl had decided to seek safe haven in this particular structure. And since he had no further dot to connect, he forged ahead, running and looking around. If she wasn’t in the theatre, then she would be in around here somewhere; she could be hiding in one of the shops, he kept his eyes peeled.

What he saw before him next nearly threw him off balance. It is in the most unlikely moment, at the most unlikely places, that the likeliest things happen. He had not taken note of that particular car parked among some other cars at the side of the road. He would have run past it without even giving it a first glance had the driver not poked his head out of it.

At first he thought, he was seeing someone who had a close resemblance. He stopped in his track. The dark, glittering skin, the roguish handsomeness that had always been the fancy of most girls, the sharp alert eyes, the body structure – there was no difference, no difference at all; except for the fact that he had grown more mature, a lot more mature. The boy of yesterday had become the man of today.

He could not believe his eyes. It was mad, everything was mad indeed as he saw the silhouette of the person in the passenger’s seat. He didn’t know what to think for his brain was whirring wildly like a fan under a heavy current. The passenger was the same girl, the same Maria he had been chasing after; and the driver, the one who had just opened the door and looked behind, was his old friend; the same person who had betrayed him by sleeping with his woman five years ago.

He opened his mouth and only one word could emerge from it:

“Blackie!”

TONYE001:
Following.

Drwords:
Following too

domido:
Bumper to bumper.

EkopSparoAyara:
I am with you all the way...

Kaycee9242:
im present

Dackrapper:
Let me pitch my tent here

LarrySun:
Bro! My Nairaland guardian angel!

Fazemood:
Twodaful wow!

DonHumble1759:
I sent you an email @larrysun