FOUR: THE ARSONIST'S ESCAPE

'I dey warn you oh! Put me for ground. Nah Skull's message I dey carry go oh!' Akin yelled and banged the big man's back as he slung him over his shoulder fireman's style and made his way up the stairs.

He pushed open a burglarproof gate at the end of the stairs and entered a dark hallway stacked on both sides with broken pieces of furniture: desks, chairs, and chests of drawers to be precise. Off to the right, a dirty brown woollen curtain billowed at the entrance of a room. The thug entered the room and threw his burden on a brown cushion chair whose foam was already flattened.

Akin landed with a grunt and rubbed his backside as he squinted his eyes to adjust his sight to the brightness of the room he was now in. The room has four wide windows, one off to his right where the brute that brought him up had jumped out from - where the four other thugs are still standing - and the three others are at his back overlooking the express road. The sofa he is seated on has its back against the three windows, he twists in his chair to look back and sees that there is a huge mahogany table between the chair and the window. The surface of the table was covered in circular plates with white paper in them and white substances in those papers. Hemp and Cocaine probably. Several rolled-up white papers also lay in a neat pile across the table. At the head of the table to his left a lanky man is seated filling up white papers with the drugs, wrapping them up, and placing them in the pile. When he noticed he was being watched he looked up and gave a nasty smirk.

Akin heart fluttered and he almost snapped his head back but he remembered he must not show them that he was scared so he returned the smirk. The man sniggered and went back to his work. Turning back his head to take in the room, he saw the man who brought him in now seated on a bench beside the entrance that was covered with just the curtain and a blackened brown woolen doormat that Akin is sure was covered in centuries-old dirt and dust. Another armchair is beside his chair and one of the thugs at the window comes over and sits in it patting Akin's head with a remark that he would 'sell well'.

The one who brought him in nodded in agreement and brought out a wrapped paper lighted it up and started smoking. Two of the three still left at the window joined him on the bench and started smoking while the other one hitched himself up and sat on the window sill.

Akin was perplexed. Why in heaven's name had he come out to these parts? For two years he had succeeded in eluding the street gangsters' trouble: Pimps, Falcons, and Lords; and he has outsmarted any senior rat who came his way to bully or steal from him. Being the smallest and weakest on the streets, he had survived on smarts and it has always helped him get what he wanted but he seems helpless now. These Street falcons would not be fooled and even if he convinced them he was on an errand for Skull they would not care. It is no secret that the falcons though controlled by the Lords– Skull's lieutenants– despised Skull himself because he is young and has that level of power. They hate the fact that they have to pay respect to him with forty percent of the earnings of every business deal they close. Their hard-earned money goes to the pockets of the twenty-five-year-old rascal. So most of their business deals are kept hidden from him to avoid paying more than necessary. It would even be a pleasure to them to know that they have taken something which belonged to him.

So he is in a fix and cannot trick them like he did to the pimps.

The smoke coming from the hemp the thugs are smoking is starting to disturb him as he struggles to breathe normally and inhale less of the smoke.

The man who brought him in, who Akin had learned is called Bones, seemed to notice his discomfort sniggered, and said 'He don dey choke you ehn? I think say you be Skull's boy nah.' The others started laughing and the lanky man behind Akin even banged his hand on the table.

Bones gave him an irritated look and asked if he had contacted their special client. He answered in the affirmative remarking that he would be there by nightfall as usual.

'Before midnight Skull's boy go don land for Ikeja, Lagos.' he joked, sending the others reeling with laughter.

Akin remained unfazed and he faced Bones 'I dey see weed every day and he no mean anything to me. If to say una get better cigar now I for follow una smoke. Nah smoke palace I dey live abeg.'

'Ehn no wahala nah.' Bones leaned forward and puffed smoke in his face desperately wanting to see him slip up and cough.

Akin steeled himself, held his breath, and swallowed repeatedly. His eyes sting and his throat hurts but he keeps swallowing to suppress the cough. A trick he had learned years back while tending to his mother's cooking fire, anytime he was choked by the smoke, he would be spanked if he coughed while at it. Mother always claims spittle would fall in her food if he coughed while she was cooking so he has learned to hold it in till he could escape and get fresh air.

Bones smiled and asked the lanky man if he had any hemp-free cigars and he was given one. He lighted it and handed it to Akin 'Make una burn yourself make I see I been dey hungry for fun since.' Bones remarked as he puffed one last smoke in Akin's face before taking his seat.

Akin has never smoked a real cigar and he had not thought he would be handed one to smoke by his captors he was only bluffing thinking they would think he really is from Skull and might have a rethink about offending Skull. Looks like he was wrong. The only thing he had ever smoked was paper. He remembered those Saturday mornings he would visit his friend James and they would steal away to the back of their ramshackle building to smoke lighted papers imitating the area boys: senior street rats working as bus conductors and the street pimps they always see around the excavation site in their area. Smiling sadly at the memory, Akin lodged the cigar in between his index finger and middle finger and touched it to his lips. He inhaled and blew, the ash end burning slowly as he withdrew the cigar and puffed out the smoke smirking at Bones who was staring at him with disbelief. He himself could not believe he did it so well for a first-timer.

'So una no go burn yourself make I laff small ehn?' Bones said making a face.

Akin laughed and he was about to make a sarcastic retort when he had an idea. If it worked he could get out of here alive and safe. He took a casual and cursory glance around the room just to be sure, wooden furniture, woolen curtain, and doormat, this place is perfect! He took a long drag at the cigar and puffed slowly. He choked midway and spat, he needed to create a distraction for a few minutes and now he knows how to go about it.

Taking another drag, this time long enough for the ash end of the cigar to light up slightly, he choked himself on the smoke and threw the cigar away, it landed on the doormat right below the bellowing curtain! Now his distraction. He doubled over and coughed and as he had predicted they all bursted out laughing. Bones threw his head backward eyes closed and throat croaking, the lanky man behind him banging the mahogany table, the man seated beside him doubling over, laughing and dripping slobber and the other two on the bench beside Bones thrown against each other laughing themselves silly. Out of the corner of his eye, Akin saw the man seated on the window sill now on the floor laughing with tears in his eyes.

Hurry! Hurry! He pleaded silently

A crackle!

A puff and then the Heat...

'Holy shit!' The man seated beside him shouted and sprang up to his feet and for a moment all was silent, all six men stood staring at the burning curtain, doorframe, bench and floor boards below the doormat and then the furniture stacks outside the hall crashed into the fire and blazed.

Then, the commotion.

Now was his chance. Akin jumped off the sofa he was sitting on as the fire licked its way towards it, most of the floorboards in the room were missing exposing the bare cold cement floor, but the one in the hallway was still intact and the floorboards at the entrance connected with the sofa and armchair in the room, landing on the table behind he ran to the window. Looking out he hesitated, here's the hard part, he sat on the window sill with his legs out, and with one glance behind he noticed with relief that the thugs had forgotten about him momentarily. Focusing on the task at hand he stretched his hands towards the thick black conduit pipe that carried sewers down to the soak-away pit beneath the building and jumped.

Akin fumbled for a solid grip and for a moment thought he would fall to his death, but he caught a firm grip on the metal conduit and heaving a sigh of relief he slid down. Once his feet hit the concrete ground he ran across the road recklessly not minding the motorists raining invectives on him.