“Where are you headed?” the driver asked him.

“Austin train station,” he said coldly, still staring back to see if the two figures had dug out their guns to come after them. He expected the driver to be moving now. Otherwise if he sensed any attack, he would be the first to give him a daze punch in the face, push him out and drive away. Who knows? The driver could be a joint of the two figures and five million dollars was his life and after life now.

“Two hundred dollars,” the driver replied, wishing to see the face of his last passenger for the day; he turned on the inner light and looked back to behold a sweating face in the light and a black sack measuring up to his neck. “I said two grand. Can’t you hear me?” His beseeching voice sounded for the second time, perhaps thinking his passenger was deaf to bills.

Ready to explode, Azuaka Jnr. asked, “Are you carrying an airplane?” He just noticed tattoo running down the sleeveless arm of the driver and his bearded porcine face. He could be the age of his father, one of those countrymen that so much enjoyed life that they wished death could be bribed. “I have one fifty dollars.” Beneath his aggression came his voice.

The beardie turned off the engine with the oomph of someone that would drag him out of the car soon. “Passengers like you keep us at Polo Park, leaning on our cars and regretting this business. Since morning, buddy,” his stubby hand waved across his head severally. “You are my second passenger. You may have to find another taxi or you return home, OK.” His voice became strident and then he turned on the engine. “Are you in or out?” he asked.

Upon hearing that, he glanced backward again and saw the two figures had disappeared, the dark street behind looking ghostly with the assembly of frogs croaking into the night. When he peered at his watch it was 10:15PM. Impatience inspired his sweating palms and armpit. His usual brash tone gave way for humility. “Please, sir, I can add twenty dollars to it.” He emphasized further as he wiped his face of the sweat that rained down, “I am a jobless graduate who is on a journey.” As the beardie turned front he believed he had been considered.

“Jobless graduate,” he repeated. “That is what you youth of nowadays use in deceiving us.” He turned to Azuaka Jnr. again. “You will add ten dollars,” he said and spittle spurted on Azuaka’s nose with an accompanied peaky odor of rum. He knew the beardie was an alcoholic and had not been in his right senses. But that did not matter now; he had to travel against the clock. They were already driving out of Ford road.

“You will do me a favor,” said the beardie, breaking their brief silence. Azuaka Jnr. quietened, unwilling to talk so as not to delay his journey yet further. “We will drive through Beyer Road.”

He did not know when it burst out, “What! Beyer? That means we are going round Texas and I can’t remember telling you I am on a pilgrimage tour.”

Searching for the face of his bewildered passenger in the front mirror, he said, “I have to visit my hole.”

“Hole?” he inquired confusedly.

“My broad,” the beardie emphasized.

“Broad? What’s broad?”

“Are you a stranger in 042? Ok, my whore. I must fuck tonight, my son,” he said ‘my son’ with the sense of a bereft soul who never had one; a high breed street man that wanted to live life to the fullest.

“But, sir, I told you I was on a journey. You can do on to me as your son. I am already late. I need to catch a train.” He expected it but never knew it would come. Of course the five million dollars was not his yet until he achieved the Monkeys’ software.

“I wonder how stolen money could invite all the craziest people in the world. This driver is out of his mind,” he thought.

More hurdles on the way? – No, he was ready to lose the money and his life. And if the beardie would not heed, then he would use his fist on his skull.

“I will take no chances. We rather die together tonight than losing this money to a fool. Why is he taking Beyer Road if not to rob me,” he conversed within himself.

“Because you’re a jobless graduate I’ll do as you said,” he said finally, speeding through the scanty roads and still having an itchy mouth. “Yes,” he said, immediately his thought reminded him of what was making the news earlier in town. “My son, do you know what happened earlier today? A stupid, mad, foolish – “ he lost more words to describe his offender and then he shook his head instead and continued, “- boy stabbed his father twice in the neck and made away with his gratuity. His father was a retiree at the ministry, “Oh Lord!” he exclaimed in strong Mexican accent. “You know some batch of police officers have retired and in the month to come, hmm,” he hummed, “We will bury more retirees.” When he got silence for a response he hammered, “Can you imagine, my son? Youth of these days don’t want to exercise patience and work hard for true success. Arm robbery is the order of the day, and these days evil impregnates evil.”

Azuaka Jnr. cleared his throat; he hoped that gave him the right response, the response of a similar thief who would not want to discuss the art of stealing gratuity.

Oh Azuaka Jnr. is this me? He thought. Crossing his mind was thought of his father still snoring in the sofa. Who would believe that the police in his father could let him succumb to the drugged tea? At that moment when he came back with the money, he met Azuaka Jnr. sipping at his cup of tea while the other drugged one lay on the table. Given the awareness of his father returning home with his gratuity, drugged tea was the only possible bait he could throw. They had planned and discussed how to spend the money; running a wine stall and buying a house down town, before his father gulped the tea with the cheery approach of an achiever and zoned out.

“Oh thank goodness, we’re at Beyer Road,” he said in his head.

******************

The rowdiness of commuters dominated the terminal as murmuring bees and his thought snapped at the citified train terminal. The taxi came to a smashing halt and he alighted, stretching his hand to pay the beardie. “So you can’t add ten dollars, this boy, at least to buy rubber for tonight with my whores,” the beardie queried, giving a fascinating stare and bringing out a bottle of rum to sip.

“That is what I can afford, sir,” he frowned, shaking his hand impatiently. The beardie collected it and he did not hear the rest of his babble because he was already hastening to the ticket counter.

His seat was the last one at the back and as he sat, he thanked his goodness because he and the nearest passenger alone could perceive the notes. He studied his neighbors and the one very close was a light-skinned woman who was breastfeeding her baby. He would arrive the next day in California and unite with the rest of the boys; Agu who resided in California and the only software guru among them, Nku, who would arrive from New York. They had agreed each of them would contribute ten million dollars to the pioneering of the Monkeys’ software but he would plead with them and make them realize how chancy it was to get that sum.

“It is not easy to steal five million dollars from a police officer. I celebrate myself. So they must consider me and let me be a reaper of this great project. I must not die a poor man,” he thought.

Right after then, he would be squatting with his girlfriend, Opula, throughout the period of commissioning the software and launching it to render the world broke, and then he would surprise her with a mansion, a brand new car and a bulky account. His father would get double of his gratuity. He would never pick offence at him after all.

“I made it. I made it,” he intoned inwardly.

“Thief!” the nursing mother shouted and Azuaka Jnr. was startled, staring hostily at her, his heart banging. “You had better take this tea and leave my breast alone.” The nursing mother was scolding her baby in Spanish, squeezing her big breast into her black brassier and putting a feeding bottle to the baby’s mouth. But then the train had started clacking out of the park.

More mystery was yet to be revealed…

Azuaka Jnr. stood on the veranda, his hands cupping his jaw, as he watched the two men whisper at the corner. Agu stood around the garage staring at the men and seething with frustration. Their delay was on to him one of bafflement; he was not happy selling his only inheritance to a big belly Mexican man, but Monkeys’ software deserved something much better.

A month ago he had put up the bungalow and Benz car for sale, hoping a generous buyer would stop by and fetch him the ten million dollars so he could secure his stand in the Monkeys’ software project. Buyers started stopping by and their increased number soon cloyed him. None of them was willing to bite out, at least, eight million dollars, their most offers were two million dollars and he remembered cursing a handful of them:

“Go and sell your father for fifty cent! Your stroke-eaten grandfather! Buy your mother’s breasts at five cent!”

With time he grew weary of upbraiding his buyers and took off the ‘for sale’ placard. Impatietly groaning inward, he went on telling as many money-bags as he could, mostly those away from his street, and they awed him with promises of buying it soon. It became a reverie about everyday: Monkey’s software was a huge ice to let melt away; rendering the world broke was his own end of the world and beginning of riches and wealth. Every night he said thoughtfully,

“When we achieve the Monkeys’ software, I would tour the world in my private jet, spend on luxurious fashion, drive in stretched limos, trade on diamond, visit my Indian girlfriend and propose to her.

“Em, my friend,” finally, the buyer called out, his hand gesturing at Agu. He thrashed the buyer, wondering if he was actually the one that banged on his gate this morning, looking all chummy and determined. Since morning he had refused to add to the Seven Million dollars offer, despite Agu’s unraveling of their selling points; he had reminded them the bungalow was in the heart of texas and Benz 4 Matic was still classic be found in the crowd.

“We want to patronize you and leave. The sun is blazing already,” said the other man, whose thunderous looks irritated Agu. He was the buyer’s lawyer, the first lawyer that earned Agu’s poison if he could set his hands on one. “Our final bidding is Seven Point Five.”

“Oh, the makers of Benz will not forgive you, sir. That is Benz 4 Matic. The engine is still alive.” He pointed to it, as though to show them something outstanding about it which they had not see. I beg of you add more money for the Ben.” he barely said, when the buyer cut in.

“Yes that is Benz .” His head shook on a thick, boneless neck. “I don’t like Benz. I am buying it for my servant, you understand me. I want to pay him off, you understand me.”

Agu saw a lot in his accent; especially around ‘you understand me.’ He looked like those Mexican that had spent half of their lives abroad yet more eloquent in their mother tongue than even a Mexican thug.

“Should I take my fortune elsewhere?” the buyer enquired. Agu sensed the eruption of anger, one that would curse him in his mother tongue soon and draw in the curtain against considerate buyers the moment he passed that gate.

“Deal or no deal?” the lawyer beamed and Agu glared at him like a watchdog, inwardly measuring his height for a coffin.

“Cut and nail lawyer! May God punish you! Idiot!” He cursed in his head. “Deal,” he mumbled beneath his breath and led them into the sitting room to finalize it; he handed them one title deed, car documents and car keys and in return the buyer fondled into his pocket and slid out a cheque.

Azuaka Jnr. was peeking through the window, wondering at Agu; how they prepared the cheque from home, how they might have agreed not to pay anything more or less. Agu gazed at his inheritance and then snorted; taking a bold step without seeing the staircase needed a snort; Monkey’s software had been my bold step and rendering the world broke my staircase; he said thoughtfully. He was 26 and he hoped to be rich and powerful at 27; having local and hard currencies in his pocket was worth dying for now. Way back on campus where he was brought into the project of programming a software, he had started seeing himself at the top; over there, he heard there was no much room to sit but with Monkeys’ software they would stare down at poverty and keep rendering the world broke through their it. It is possible. It is possible; he encouraged himself inwardly and his thought snapped when the buyer said something.

“I want you to vacate in two days. My daughter is celebrating her birthday tomorrow and I would be glad if she can access this place the day after.” He blinked powerfully at his beholder and Agu rubbed his snout, feeling how those words made through his face; how everything in this world could easily be converted into money in few seconds, and awareness of his homelessness just started seeping into his brain. Silence overtook him and he remained a watcher and less a doll.

“You know girls don’t joke with gifts, especially this.” The lawyer pointed at the bungalow, “So heed to our wish,” the lawyer said and borrowed innocence with his frown, as though he never made a comment.

Agu rolled his eyes at him. “Lawyers like you are the reasons our justice is lamed because you fight for your own interest. Stupid street lawyer,” he cursed in his head. He would love to slap the lawyer into the floor, even if not right away, maybe sometime out there on the street. He knew he advised the buyer against being generous and what more could be ruling over the lawyer than the legion spirits of street lawyers; they behaved like touts and prostitutes.

“Nice doing business with you.” The buyer pulled out his hand and Agu shook hands with him. “I wish you success in your chosen endeavor.” The buyer added.

“Do you know my reason of selling my inheritance?” asked Agu.

“I don’t know,” the buyer replied, throwing his away his gaze.

“Smelling Mexican,” Agu said in his head.

The lawyer brought out his hand for a hand shake and Agu snubbed him by leading them outside. The lawyer only stared with his hand stretched and shook his head.

Azuaka Jnr. adjusted himself from the window when they were going outside. They waved at him and he waved back. He kept to his gaze yet thinking; I am not alone now. If he and Agu were yet to get the complete ten million dollars then Nku would have no option than to consider them. He was not alone.

Earlier in August Nku had briefed them over a chat – their contribution would be refunded to the financiers in New York, who helped to source the bills he used in procuring gadgets and prepared machine codes for the software. Upon his arrival in California, he would collect the dollars and wire it into the financiers’ account.

Catastrophe was about to happen.

“Nku is our man. He will consider us.” He tried to convince himself inwardly, knitting his brows at Agu, who just walked in, looking bored and drawn. He handed the cheque over to Azuaka Jnr. and went in to bring out a tray containing two bottles of beer and a pack of cigarette.

“That asshole will earn my punch anytime; that very stupid lawyer.” He uncorked his beer and slid out a cigarette.

“I sensed a kooky in him. But never mind,” Azuaka Jnr. slid out his cigarette and a glow from the lighter caught its butt. He drew and puffed like a true Texas street boy; smoke spiraled through his nostrils as he said figuratively, “With seven point five you are inches away from white house.”

“I am nervous,” Agu muttered and sipped at his beer, staring in the space with the cigarette burning away between his fingers, smoking not really appealing to him.

“Why?” asked Azuaka Jnr., searching into Agu’s tetchy face. He stopped puffing and drinking to lock eyes with him.

Agu cleared his throat. “Nku makes it to California tomorrow’s night.”

“Yes, yes.”

“I just sold my only inheritance.”

“And I stole my father’s gratuity, a disguised inheritance too, so?” said Azuaka Jnr. and his cigarette came between his thick lips; his eyes dimmed; he was already drawing as much smoke as he could.

“Are you sure we are going to make it? Do you believe in this project? I mean I have been happy all this while until those two men bought my inheritance, coming to take over in two days.”

Azuaka Jnr. sipped and puffed on, shielding his outburst and he said, “Sometimes I doubt the project too. I always doubt its impossibility. But I don’t want to be feckless. It is possible to create software that can siphon money from any bank account within five seconds. Besides Nku is an ICT genius now; whenever I remember that, all I see pessimism, money, wealth, possibility.”

Azuaka Jnr. chuckled. He knew Agu as much as Nku. They had been cronies way back on campus and Agu was an experimental, fearful, capricious fellow whose only possibility of life’s events was result.

“The night before I stole my father’s gratuity,” he continued, “I spoke with Nku. He said everything was working as planned. He only emphasized on our individual contribution which will be transferred to the software financiers. He has spent three years in New York for this project, remember and he’s a software guru now. We will make it.”

“Yes, in less than three months we will be stealing from bank accounts of people, banks all over the world. The software will help us steal and render the world broke. I know all that, my man.” He puffed his cigarette to the butt and squashed it under his sneakers.

“So why are you nervous then?” he handed the cheque to Agu and uncorked another beer; It frothed over and some dropped on the floor.

“Our money isn’t yet complete. Is he going to take that excuse from us?”

“We will reason together. We will explain things to him. It has never been easy for any of us. He will be considerate. We are safe, son of man. Hope you’re not nervous anymore?”

“Come on, a normal American dude would do same isn’t it?” he mumbled and his smile came from an unsatisfied, fearful soul.

“Believe it, we are rendering the world broke, do you understand me?” He looked sternly at Agu, wishing he would come off that dizzy atmosphere of his, wanting to bring on his mind the possibility of making it happen. He knew Agu had thorny mindsets and he went on to encourage him with the uncertainty he faced in Texas;

“My dad and his five million dollars, hmm!” he chortled, clicking his fingers, and continued. “I didn’t see myself stealing that money from him. I am not boastful but I want you to know the possibility of making this software happen. If I could do that then Monkeys’ software is possible.” He shook his crew-cut head.

“The world is in trouble,” Agu said, looking cheery now. He started smoking at ease. He said after gulping his beer, “Seven years of joblessness needs anything more,” said Agu.

“Yes bro, I believe you,” replied Azuaka Jnr. and his toothy smile came from his mind; it seemed something remarkable crossed it. “And when I thought it was over, the maddening one happened. Didn’t I tell you how I applied at the ministry and waited for one year endless recruitment? One morning I went out to buy doughnut only to see the doughnut seller dishing me doughnut with my CV papers, the same CV I used to apply at the ministry.”

Agu laughed, swaying within his chair and then coughed.

“Is not funny, Agu.”

“And I could remember asking you if that very doughnut was sweeter than ever. Do you know your experience discouraged me from applying further, although I was faced with one of the ministry workers who demanded a three-hundred-thousand dollars bribe if I must get the job? I had to keep to my taxi driving even when I got little from it. Now I need money to rain. If it wants to rain let it rain and not drop.”

“Yes, we need that now. This is our heyday.” Azuaka Jnr. cheered, pushing the bottle against the air.

Agu gazed upon the cheque and thought of his homelessness thudded in his head. “We are homeless,” he said with arms widespread, showing Azuaka Jnr. what remained of them.

Azuaka Jnr. puffed hugely this time around and smoke clouded his face. The smoke was disappearing behind his head when he asked, “Are we really homeless when my girlfriend is somewhere around town?”

“Who could that be?” His eyeballs rolled before he said, “Opula I guess.”

He shook his head.

“Pretty Opula. I can’t wait to see her again. Hmm… love on campus, boy,” Agu shook hands with him.

“Hey, come on, back then I was her assignment and exam boyfriend.” He tittered.

“Save your honesty, AZ. She must be a big girl now.” He guzzled his beer and reached out to another.

“She works at a factory. We will meet with Nku before squatting with her.” He stared at the cheque in Agu’s hand and a strange thought crossed his mind. “I think that cheque will be useful.” He smacked his lips at the cheque.

Agu blinked at the cheque and seemed unable to see into the mystery of his words. Among them, Azuaka Jnr. was the only buffer whose canny thinking had clinched them success in the grey days on campus. In everything he saw good or evil and would always blare his warning or opinion.

Agu asked, “How do you mean?” He had always asked that question whenever Azuaka Jnr. confronted with his foresight.

“After launching the software we will be hunting for account numbers, right?”

“Yes, yes.” He was wondering, “Ok, OK,” Agu seemed to have understood now. He shook his galaxy-hair style.

“We will first launch into his bank account and steal as much as we can. Isn’t he a rich, influential Mexican man?”

They stood up almost at once, shook hands and hugged each other with an indispensable excitement hanging over them. They slumped back in their chairs.

“You know that buyer is a big cockroach,” Agu intoned.

“One that skipped larva,” Azuaka Jnr. added and they laughed. “We will make it,” Agu said, lifting his half drunken beer.

“Yes of course,” Azuaka Jnr. said and then hammered, “Monkeys software!”

“The world is in our pockets!” Agu responded and their bottles clicked as they toasted to it. A toasty silence hung over them while they smoked on and reasoned within themselves.

I rather die than lose out of this Monkeys’ software, Azuaka Jnr. thought. I am made, yes, I am. I have come a long way, a long way from my father’s gratuity. I wonder what would become of the old man now. I am sorry, father. Monkeys’ software will make it up to you. I will make it up to you when I become rich.

***

Hmm, if it is not working out show me a sign, Lord, Agu came with his thought. All my inheritance is deeply involved, Lord. Please, God, don’t fail Agu, your street son. I just need more money. Let the world be in my pocket now and the declining days of my life.

The whistling cold wind of winter outside took over their thought.

The software loomed on…