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“Your face is all warped up. Are you sure everything is alright?”

“I’m alright… em… no… yes… I’m fine. ” he muttered.

“What are you saying? Speak out, remember we are a couple, and up, down, we are together.”

There was silence; a spell of seconds, a deep sigh, then he spoke.

“I have been given an assignment to kill my partner.” He said quietly, “It’s really a hard choice, but I think I’m going to do it.”

“Kill!” Tolu broke in, “you are really going to kill your partner…no no no, that isn’t going to happen.”

“Let me explain.” Her husband said sharply.

“You have nothing to explain. You were not a killer, and you won’t be one.” She was muttering after that. Something incoherent that I couldn’t pick up.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Her husband voice pitched against Tolu’s mutterings.

She stopped muttering. “What?”

“I said the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“Elaborate. Is your partner your enemy or a friend?”

“The thing is my partner has not been the best of partner over the years. I have done majority of all our dealings, while he flirts around with women. He is dog in human skin. He wouldn’t even mind sleeping with you, that’s why I never introduced you him to you.

I think he has fucked the wrong woman, and her husband caught up with him. Now he wants him dead. He offered me a whopping N50 million to kill him.

Come to think of it, his death would profit us too. The current dealing we are in is worth N100 million. Once he is out of the line, I will own all the money, no lazy partner to share it with.”

Tolu didn’t reason along with him. “You want to kill your best friend, you want to betray trust. Don’t you remember there is something called Karma, what about the police and special homicide unit?”

“Karma and police.” He made a short cruel laugh, “what is Karma in getting the world rid of a human dog? And about the police, it would be a perfect murder that they won’t be able to unravel for eternity. Two pills of potassium cyanide in his coffee tomorrow would create the mystery that would baffle the entire Nigeria Police force. After that, we can get out of sight. Maybe we relocate to the Cayman Islands, or Maldives, and you can learn surfing on the Caribbean Seas.

“I don’t know,” Tolu said, “I don’t want all these. I’m not in support of blood money.”

I started to shiver under the bed. Tolu knew I was a witness to the murder plan, which must be why she refused to concur with her husband. I knew Tolu well; she could sell her mother for money, not to talk her husband’s business partner. The night has being bizarre: First it was adultery, now it’s a planned murder. Tolu’s husband must be devil’s advocate to really want to kill his partner for money. What would happen if he saw me? He wouldn’t even spare me a minute to say any last prayers. I better start doing it now.

“Lord, I regret all my actions. But you know I didn’t start to do all these by my will. I was pushed into it by my wife. I pray you forgive me and let me enter your heavens where river flows under the inhabitant’s feet, otherwise, send me to the deepest part of hell, with my wife by my side.”

A mice screeched somewhere in the room. It soon came running under the bed. I could perceive its foul smell that smelt like rotten, cooked eggs. I held my breath as its smell filled the air. It screeched again.

“Isn’t that the rat we have being looking for?” Tolu’s husband said, springing up from the bed, “the one that ate the N50, 000 cheque I gave you last week.”

Tolu didn’t say anything.

“Darling, stand up. It must be under the bed; I can smell it.”

“What rat?” Tolu complained, “Let the rat be joor. I can’t get off this bed because of a rat.”

I couldn’t feel my heart any longer. I felt fleshless, and my mind went into oblivion. Let the gate open: Hell, here I come.

The bed gave way as Tolu’s husband lifted it. And there I was, staring at him in the eyes. The very ones I see every day at the office; the very one of my partner whom I thought had traveled; my business partner, Kelvin Folarin… my would-be-murderer. And there we were, with puzzled face, looking at the case at hand… we were all guilty… the three of us.

KayGreins™ ‘Ta’ehanotatau’…2013©