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…

When they got a call from Nku about his arrival, Azuaka Jnr. stayed back at home while Agu went to the airport by taxi. Earlier, Agu did not see Azuaka Jnr. staying back, keeping to himself while Nku arrived at Long Beach Airport. But he wished Azuaka Jnr. would understand he allowed it on sufferance and not his reason – his allergy to cold. Before Agu left for airport that evening, exactly at the estimated time of arrival, Azuaka Jnr. had his face suffused with smoke from his cigarette; body cloaked in hoody and eyes clamored for the chilled champagne on the table. Agu shot his warning about Azuaka Jnr. not drinking from the champagne because they would toast with it upon the arrival of the computer genius himself, Nku..

“It is about to begin,” Azuaka Jnr. reminded himself inwardly. He stared at his T-shirt, which had ‘My Money Grows Like Grass’ blazoned across it and he blinked out of it. He had always worn that T-shirt and kept it until the day it would happen; when his ice cube would melt the sun; when money would choke his bank account and his spending spree would be in the direction of keeping problems at bay. He had endured a beggarly life; trodden upon by job hunt; ignored by dashing girls he admired and reproached by the lavished lifestyle of the rich. Regrettably, even in the fantasy world he could not be found; poverty had recreated him invisible, something less than stones, somewhere out of the underworld. He had only endeared as one of the 1 billion Azuaka Juniors that stood breathing; reviled by wealth because of a long stay in the uterus of poverty. And he could not wait to be born; only Monkeys’ software would deliver him and breathe life into his world.

“I will make it,” he assured himself.

Azuaka Jnr. snapped out of his thought as he sniffed and sneezed like a goat. He rubbed his nostrils and smeared the catarrh streaming through. His phlegm was much now and he sneezed into his handkerchief to collect it.

“Fear or what,” he thought.

The jug on the shelf came in sight and he reached to it; shook it, poured himself a cupful of hot coffee, since he had been warned by Agu not to touch the champagne. He lit a fresh cigar and sat to it. His thought turned on; “I need money, whatever Monkeys’ software would bring to the table. I just need to be made before I turn 26 years. Agu might have seen it since he was born with the egg of a dragon, Nku might have counted cool money in New York but what has the son of a police officer got to offer?”

And he earnestly needed to see and count his first one million naira and beaucoup more. He stole his father’s gratuity on the off-chance of making it through Monkeys’ software. Back on the surface of Texas Tech University, in their final year, when they seized the vision, he did not see himself in the plan. Nku had travelled to New York, leaving him brooding over plans of making ten million dollars to secure his place in the project. It was less off-chance when he realized endless job hunt could not save him the bill and then he relaxed at home, rubbed his stomach and waited for his father’s retirement. Azuaka Jnr. snorted and shook his head. “I will make it. It is possible,” he whispered and glugged down the now warm coffee. “I would return to see my father, kneel before him and beg him with thirty million dollars; that is more than triple of his gratuity. He would not dare do anything funny; the police in him would contend that I did well. And then the rest of my life would be dead set on getting richer through Monkeys’ software,” he said thoughtfully.

There was a stormy noise at the outside and his thought blanked. There were around. He adjusted himself to put on a bodacious look. A car buzzed into the compound, doors opened and slammed furiously before the thwacking of shoes on the veranda. The door creaked open and three people walked in. Azuaka Jnr. looked queerly at the white man in the door – his frown gathered around his eyes.

Nku gave Azuaka Jnr. a hug that seemed to last forever. “Hello, bad boy! I am back,” he said and Azuaka Jnr. was still staring at the white man; something in him was already spiking Azuaka Jnr. He remained in the door, his enviable smile held and his luggage in front. Agu came and took the luggage from him and then he started strutting forward.

At night the boys sat in the sitting room, round a tray of cigarettes, a laptop, and a bottle of champagne.

Azuaka Jnr. was smoking heavily and studying the white man who had been bringing out his cigarette from the pocket and smoking gently all this while.

Nku had been going through some documents while Agu tried to peep into the documents. The quiet mood hung over them for a while until Azuaka Jnr. said, “Who is he?” he asked, pointing at the white man. “I mean we haven’t known one another up till this time.” Azuaka Jnr. blurted, his eyes gathering bullets. I wonder what he is doing here,” he said in his head.

“Oh, yeah, introduction isn’t late,” said Nku, drawing from his cigarette and puffing a narrow smoke. “Guys, meet Ferguson, my friend and big gun in this project, Ferguson,” he said, throwing his toned, hairy hand across Agu and Azuaka Jnr., “Meet Agu, the graduate taxi driver.”

They burst out laughing ecstatically except Azuaka Jnr. he was thinking; so if he is the big gun we should twist our necks and kiss our buttocks.

Agu cursed, “Your father! Your stroke-eaten father!” They laughed.

“Yeah, this is Azuaka Jnr. the son to one of the men in black we often call cops. I think the last time I rang him he was jobless.”

Agu thought it laughable but smiled. Nku and Ferguson laughed out loud. Azuaka Jnr. thought it scornful because Ferguson laughed at a joke directed to him. He should have scowled like a dog migrated into a strange cage.

When he walked to Ferguson he said, “I am Azuaka Jnr.,” His disgusting voice, he thought, would be best appreciated if Ferguson perceived the hatred it gathered. He shook hands with Ferguson, his eyes scanning through his white sleeves and blue waist coat to his jeans and black boot. With his long hair, goatee and chiseled face, Azuaka Jnr. saw nothing than a desperate Ojubwa possessed with his American dream. He wanted to tell him to his face that he didn’t like his presence; ask him who made him part of the project; and where he was the day they strategized to render the world broke. He had never hated anyone at first sight. Maybe it was because of something more than Monkeys’ software, something clustering into the pocket of mystery. He would have to ask himself why he hated Ferguson, some white stranger he just met. As he withdrew his palm from Ferguson’s he wanted to tell him that his presence irritated him so much but he reserved his comment. “Hey, Mr. Man, please, have a haircut, this project is for clean guys with clean asses,” he said and that was the only broadside he could shoot.

Nku and Agu smiled and took it for a joke.

Ferguson forced a smile and knew he had an enemy in this project already, and the days ahead were going to be tough and dark, with blood, sweat and survival being their battle ground.