Forgive the Godfather

1: Brush with a speedy blue van and cops

Luke Dew watched through his rear view mirror the approaching blue colored van as he stopped by the traffic light.

The van was coming at a tremendous speed. It swerved to the left to avoid running into Luke's Mercedes coupe, overtook Luke's car by a hair's breadth, crashed thru the red traffic light, made a dangerous right turn at the next intersection and disappeared out of Luke's sight.

Luke cursed, "Punk!"

He had caught a brief glimpse of the van's occupants, the driver and a woman in the front passenger's seat, as the van whipped past.

The driver of the van was a dark, heavily built man with a clean shaven glistening head. His companion was a young woman with a fair complexion and plaited bronze coloured hair. Luke had also memorized the plate number of the van as it passed him.

The guy driving the van was lucky to have had no vehicle crossing his path otherwise a crash would have been inevitable.

Luke was still waiting for the green light when he heard the sound of police siren approaching from some distance behind him.

The piercing sound of the siren grew louder as two squad cars approached the traffic light, closing up behind Luke. Running nose to tail, the squad cars whipped close beside Luke's car as the light turned green.

The squad cars continued straight beyond the right turning where the blue colored van had turned moments earlier.

If the two squad cars had been chasing after the van, Luke thought sarcastically, then they'd missed. Unless they were on a different mission, perhaps responding to an emergency elsewhere.

Luke almost went after the blue van, but quickly checked himself. It wasn't his business. He reminded himself that he wasn't a traffic patrol cop.

Idly, Luke wondered what the blaring siren was all about. Then, again why the driver of the blue van acted the way he did, if he wasn't trying to avoid the cops? Could the van have been ferrying illicit drugs, which was rampant these days, or the getaway from a bank robbery, a car jack, or a kidnapping? They certainly acted phoney.

Pushing the thought out his mind, Luke continued forward, turned left at the next junction and drove for about three kilometers.

He arrived at the entrance of the Earth House. Swung his car onto the spiral driveway, up to the first floor of the two-storied car park and cut the engine.

His office was located on the the third floor of the nine storied Earth House, a spherical contraption designed by the famous Chinese architect to resemble the shape of the earth. The concrete structure was padded all round by large sections of tinted rectangular glass panes. This gave the building the appearance of a giant crystal ball tilted about fortyfive degrees against the sky. The building was quite a sight to behold at night when the lights came on.

Renting an office in this building put a big hole in Luke's bank account. But it gave him a kick having his ofice in a modern architectural masterpiece. He loved the style and sophisticated corporate image it gave his business.

He was lucky to have a steady income from a clientele of high profile, mostly wealthy people, who paid good money without much fuse.

Fortunately for Luke also, his office took up only a few square meters of space within the enormous building that also provided lodging and accommodation to about one hundred guests. His few square metres contained two offices, a reception and an inner office with a convenience attached.

Luke left the wide, curved elevator as the arch cage came to a halt. The double glass doors spilt open. Luke walked the short distance along the curved corridor. On the double paneled mahogany door leading to his office reception was black lettering engraved on a matt gold plate: Xclusive Services.

He entered the reception and Rita Marshall, his secretary, looked up from the the All-in-One Mac Desktop computer on the polished glass-topped desk.

She was a tall, chocolate-skin woman between twenty-two and twenty-five, good looking with a shapely figure. Today she was dressed in a snug-fitting cream suite and skirt to match.

Rita eyed Luke through her gold-rimmed glasses. "Good morning, sir," she said, her large clear eyes scrutinizing Luke as he passed by her desk, entered his office and shut the door behind him.

What's up with the boss today, she wondered briefly. Shrugging mentally, she returned her attention to the computer in front of her. She had been going through the day's emails when Luke walked in. Now she resumed scrolling through the long list of emails, found a few spam messages which she promptly deleted.

There was an email from an IT firm, making general enquiries about Xclusive Services. To this request, Rita uploaded to them a pre-formatted email explaining the kind of services that Xclusive Services provided with their fees, which she added were negotiable.

The cool temperature inside Luke's office was maintained by the humming split unit air conditioner that was fitted into the customized POP ceiling that formed the shape of an 'X' for Xclusive Services.

Luke took off his jacket, hung it over the back of the chair and eased himself into his executive wheel chair behind a spotless glass-topped desk. The desk was devoid of any paper except the slim silver colored Apple laptop.

He pulled the Mac laptop towards him, flipped it open and pressed down the power button. While waiting for the system to boot, Luke leaned back and gazed at the large scale cadastral map of the city that was pinned neatly against the opposite wall.

Luke walked over to the map. He located and traced the Ahmadu Bello Way with his forefinger, the route he that he'd followed to his office this morning.

His finger paused near the traffic lights, the point where the blue colored van had shot through the red. Continuing, Luke paused his finger at the intersection where the speeding van had turned.

He made note of the name of the street, Okojo Ella Close. He also noted the fact that the side road stretched for only a short distance of about three kilometers then the road terminated as a cul-de-sac.

A knock sounded on the mahogany door and Rita

Marshall looked in. She didn't see Luke at his desk. She found him gazing quizzically at the map on the wall.

"Oh, sorry you are busy," she said, eyeing Luke who was still studying the street map.

"That's alright," Luke said, "I was just refreshing my memory of our city's geography."

Luke walked back to his desk and sat down.

"Three prospects," Rita said. "One lady from Rigwa, wants to find out who is dating her husband. Another email from Opa, a man who wants to know who his wife is going out with. Three, a man from Tama, wants to marry a young girl but he is suspecting her of secretly going out with another man, he wants proof so that he can confront her."

After a pause, when no response came from Luke, Rita added, "The first two want to know our rates.

The third fellow is ready to pay anything."

Luke waved her away. "Trash them," he said carelessly.

Rita hesitated. "Sir, don't you think we should consider at least the last one that will pay anything? We don't have any business on our hands at the moment."

"I'm done with working for peanuts," Luke said, sourly. "If there is nothing worth my while, I would rather rest my feet."

Rita looked at her boss, then shrugged. "If you say so."

As she was turning to leave, Luke said casually, "This morning while I was on my way here, cops appeared to be in hot pursuit of a van that nealy bumped into my car."

'Wao! What happened? Did the cops catch up with the van?"

"Hell, no." Liuke stretched his legs over the corner of the desk and pushed back his chair.

"I wonder who it was that the cops were chasing. Was it the blue van? And if it was, was it a bank robbery, or drug dealers or were they kidnappers? Keep your ears open for the news at noon. Let me know what the crime was all about, if at all there was a crime. In our kind of business it pays to keep tabs on happenings."

"Okay, boss," Rita said. "I'll keep the radio on. Let you know as soon as I hear anything." She turned and left the office.