Capital crime episode 35

Capital crime episode 35
continued
Jerry
A gangster who just got shot like a cop.
That’s how I feel right now.
Trying to lift my feet off the cold tarmac felt Herculean. My wh0le body must prolly reak of sores and pitiful sights. Yeah. No doubt.
I felt numb and then pain all over again. How did I end up on this path of life? Who did I offend?
I winced my eyes as tears cloud my eye sight. The bullet hit me hærd in the abs. To the right. Prolly my liver. I don’t know. Or a Vena Cava, or my abdominal aorta, which of course I’ll be dead in two minutes or less.
But Ive lost track of time and I’m still here. The abdomen: a very tricky place to get shot. Id prefer my legs any day. Too many org-ns and vital blood vessels in that complicated space.
This is more than I can manage. The question of how much more can I take? Is switched for “ How long before I bleed out? My body, brain and emotional architecture begin to crumble benearth the weight of all this reality. Not of the gunshot but that of uncertainty.
“How much more?” “ Freedom… All the charges against you. I can make it all go away–” The president’s voice echoed in my head.
“ Come back to me” Ife’s voice. “ Safe and unharmed”
“ And maybe someday, when I’m gone…” Mathew’s voice “ I’ll be proud I did not allow you waste your talent in the streets…. becoming another wasted destiny…”
All in my subsconcious mind.
“ Ever wondered why Ray had you code named TWELVE? ” Seth brought me back to the painful reality.
I could feel vibrations from the iron bars. A loud horn from the distance. My eyes noticed the bars behind him providing support to the bridge were missing a screw. A joint was vibrating in reaction to the freight train coming from afar.
“ Ever wondered? He asked again.
****
Seth
He remained silent. I asked twice before he replied.
“ cause he found me when I was twelve years old…on the … Str…streets? Jerry gro-ned.
“ No! Screw that pity bullcrap” I shared, gesticulating my 9mm against the skin or the night’s air. “ We all came from the streets”
“ Ray always thought you to be a Judas among his boys… The shiny little fox, clever but cunning. ” I paused “ He was right all along and I’d been very impatient to listen…”
“ you don’t get it, do you?
“ Enlighten me” I reply.
“ The society is fuvckd” He says through a sweaty face. “ It’s been a rigged game all along. Crime begets crime. Same goes for murder and terrorism…” He paused, still struggling to pull and sit his weight up against the bridge. “ We lost…”
“ That gives you no right to betray the brotherhood” I yelled angrily.
He remained mute. Kept trying to sit his ass up. Pulling painfully upwards. Empathy. I could feel his misery.
The train was not so far away now. The jostling and whistling of its engines we’re closing in.
I quickly have to check the device. Nine minutes left. Banging it close, I dropped it for a moment beside my right foot. I’d grab it soon enough and jump on the train when it enters the tunnel under the bridge. By the time the federal troops locate this boy’s body, I’d be long gone- thats after I put him out of his misery by planting a bullet in his head. Poor thing- and the missiles would have hit the targets at Central Area.
“ Remember those train tracks we saw at Uromi? The overhead bridge? ” I asked Jerry.“ Well. This is where they ran up to and they don’t stop here after going under this bridge. They run all the way to the Niger Delta” I paused “ So will I”
“ But before I go. I’m curious. ” I continue “ How did the Federal troops find us?
He remained silent. Then laughed a while.
“ Talk to me boy” I grit my teeth.“ How did they find us?
“ That thing around your neck” He says with blood soaking the floor where he still struggled to sit up. Pulling himself from the ground.
Unlucky bastard. Thanks bullet must have hit his spine. He’d not be able to walk again even if I let him live.
“ That thing around your neck..Thing..” He repeats.
“ what thing?
Immediately, I strapped off his bullet necklace from around my collar bone. Stared at him and caught a glimpse of dark circles scoring his eyes. He must really be in so much pain.
“ What about it?
“ Thats how that found us” He says.
Pricking the bullet cartridge open with my dagger, I noticed it was empty- no gunpowder, left for a tiny blinking device and a little scroll.
No time for second guessing. The blinking object is a gps device and the little scroll, what’s this?
The dagger and bullet necklace fell off my right palm as I rolled the scroll open to reveal an inscription.
Very confusing.
“ Genesis 9:5-6” My l-ips uttered.
Now I’m bewildered. Will not say I’m a pegan neither am I churchy.
“ What does that mea–”
I raise my head in anger to ask but the next action is totally unscripted. Jerry’s yelling cut me short. He was already two inches away from my position.
“Oh shit! ” completed my sentence.
I felt light weight, my backbones broke something or something broke them. Eitherways, I found myself in mid air. Sort of dejavu as it flashed through my mind’s eye. The gun in my hand, displaced. In a blink, white beams of light and a monstrous looking creature with a loud sound charged for me- even before I could touch the–. Wait! The bridge is far up. I can’t grab the bar. I’m desc– “ Fuvk me!” It’s the train…
****
Jerry
After that one last attempt and calculated move of ramming Seth right off the bridge. I knew intanstly he was going to die. And indeed, before he hit rock bottom the train smashed him to shreds.
“ To be honest” I said why staring down at the fast moving train “ I don’t know what that Bible passage says or mean… I’ll… I’ll ask Ife and tell you. Soon. See you..see you in hell, brother”
Only if he could hear you, Jerry. I reminded myself. I’m drowsy. I’m feeling a bit dizzy. I don’t know why. Lost in confusion. I immediately grabbed the necklace and the GPS from the floor. I reached for the briefcase and opened it. I pressed the screen and it miraculously rejected my thumb print.
“ Access denied” The AI replied.
“ Damn it! My eyes popped when I noticed it was just seven minutes left. I picked myself up from the ground and retraced steps back to the camp. It’s crazy when you think about how much Seth was willing to sacrifice for this device. Like how was he even planning on accessing it after the missile strike? Really a question for debate.
Well my people say “ A man the gods wish to kill, they first make mad”
I can’t go this slow. I increased speed but the pain in my abdomen did not spare me.
Dizzy. I see blurred figures. Like threads, spiraling and walking. They are running towards me. I winced my heavy eyes. The world spinned around me before I caught glimpse of the blurry moon in the sky. Are those butterflies? Or mosquitoes? They are glowing. Wha–
My head hurt from behind and I know I just fell. Echoes of voices fading into the backdrop of my inevitable reality.
TBC
Author’s note 
Seth played his part well. Nonetheless, he was going to shoot Jerry dead. I guess it got to the point of survival. And I tried all my possible best to give him one last touch of humanity by showing his feelings and thoughts. Obviously beneath all the evil genius and wickedness of his man, he was only human after all.
To redeem him would mean justifying all he did as right. But we can’t, can we? I’m a fan of James hærdley Chase’s timeless thrillers and one thing I’ve come to realize as a general and natural law-even though James did portray it in most if not all his books- is that crime never pays.
An interesting scene too is when a famous gunslinger who terrorised the wh0le of NYC in the early 90’s, ” Two Gun” Crowley wrote at the point of dripping dry with blood and multiple gunshot wounds even after sending a bunch of policemen to the greater beyond- these were his words “To whom it may concern… in,side this chest of mine, lies a heart so gentle and calm. one that would never wish Ill towards any mortal. ”