Chapter 2 Snake in the Shadow

2.30PM; Zadillo checks the message that has beeped on the phone. At last, it is about time something came up from Kospa, one of his trusted goons on whom he has a lot of compromising dirt, hence, could never dare rat on him, no matter the case, or so he thinks. Besides, he has been nothing but good to him since he plucked him from the dungeon of poverty and destitution, taking him in as one of his own. He is his meal ticket and everything, and Zadillo makes sure Kospa never forgets this fact, not even for a split second. So far, he has been anything but a traitor. His zeal to please him is unparalleled, his loyalty a classic case study of servitude, just falling short of literally worshipping him while on his all fours. He carries out some of the most dangerous errands diligently without any whining like his very life depends on them, sometimes surprising even himself which in another life would have scared Zadillo. But definitely not in his present thug life. He has seen it all. Been to hell, faced the devil and all that prevailing jazz. In short, Kospa knows his place and what is expected of him. Failing which, or if, God forbids, any stupid thoughts ever cross his mind…!

“TD ripe, let’s Jenny spin.” The short-coded message says, and Zadillo understands it perfectly. He came up with the code himself as he does for almost all operations since he turned into a vicious underworld kingpin just under ten years ago. It had been long in coming. Having ventured into various legitimate ventures, but which with the cutthroat competition, the rampant corruption and numerous other underhand tactics involved, conniving to frustrate him at every turn, as if in response to the cliché, if you can’t beat them join them, he started drifting slowly, thinking he would get out of the rogue life after only a few big operations, but as his influence grew, so did the feeling of sweetness from the power to lord over so many. Like one hooked on hardcore drugs, he found the pleasure he derived from exercising the ill-gotten power so good and irresistible, wanting just this one more time that before he knew it, he was up to his neck in it as one of the most feared brutish leaders in the underworld.

Deep down in his heart, Zadillo conceded he was innately predisposed to evil because he never remembered a period when he fully enjoyed being completely good to anyone or anything apart from his close family, hence, crime naturally made him feel whole. In his warped mind, he was only reciprocating what he received. He barely remembered being at the receiving end of much love from the world either. The world to him was existentially bad, and he had to merely play his rightful part. Seeing people in general suffer, gave him a strange sense of satisfaction. Making his enemies quiver and squirm in his presence was not enough. Since then, making anyone who had the misfortune of picking a fight with him, pay, or even for merely thinking they wished him bad, almost quenched his queer sexual lust. One does not need to be a genius to see him for what he is- a sadist par excellence!

Having reached the pinnacle of the city’s crime world, he has now decided to make all his previous enemies and opponents taste his cup of the bitter revenge. And he does not have to toil to find the perfect candidates. In his trade, he is spoilt for choice; those who grabbed business opportunities he thought deservedly belonged to him during his rough patch in the cutthroat legit business world, would have it easy- a few armed robbers to their places to ransack them of every penny and valuables they could lay their hands on, and later visited with even more demands for compensation in form of insurance so that nothing of the same should befall them again, of course he knows exactly the source of those very misfortunes. Even the police whose most top structure has been on his payroll, would not bother wasting its time and energy to look into certain specific cases that had Zadillo’s signature written on them. They know his trademark when they see one and what that means exactly. They simply do what is expected of their lot- collect their cut of the loot and move on to more worthy cases, or else, they too would find themselves in equally, if not worse situations- on his dreaded hit-list.

One other thing; he loathes rejection. Women who had the misfortune of provoking his amorous desires in them without reciprocity on their part or worse still, looking at him with contempt in his dire straits, pay double-fold. If one showed disdain when he tried to civilly court them for a good time, they have to be discreetly tailed and visited at night. As the boys scared the hell out of the other household’s occupants in the usually dare-devilish housebreaks, he would do to them to his full desire without mercy. In short, he has turned into a god of the city unto himself.

Having made enough enemies to last one a few life times, Zadillo saw danger in every dark corner, hence, like many back in his rural home, decided to traditionally fortify his ill-gotten power and get assurance of his invincibility thereby finding himself a regular at voodoo priests’ premises because every time something strange happened he still felt vulnerable and went to another dark realm boffin. It was a must. Everyone who mattered in the trade applied something on their body including making painful incisions on which black soot was rubbed in until it was thoroughly mixed with their blood thus being assured of permanent “residence” in their system.

Of all his enemies, there was one he had come to particularly hate with a passion and a half. It was a long hatred he could not fully explain but a longtime of jealousy and envy since primary school was part of the equation. Despite a reasonable stint of superficial friendship after school, it would resurface, making him do some stupid things aimed at inflicting some kind of pain on his nemesis. Initially, it was little things that bothered him about this particularly, too-proud “loser” who always seemed to be popular among friends, and usually stole the limelight even with the coveted female folk and prospective dates without much effort. He simply did not understand why everybody seemed to be fussing over him so much. Yet, even he, in some kind of twisted logic, admired the guy’s guts too. He had on more than a few occasions discretely tried to embarrass or harm him in some way or another without any real cause with little success. In fact, only on one occasion did he come out close to success if one were to be too magnanimous, with the rest slightly, if he was lucky, or pathetically, backfiring, resulting in his self-inflicted embarrassment which only further fueled his dislike for him.

Zadillo’s capacity to keep a grudge was unparalleled. Even where the other party was blissfully unaware of any such conflict even existing, that is, anything worth hating each other for to have ever happened between them, it mattered less. He made sure to not forget- not only on his part- but on their behalf too, until he felt an appropriate price had been fully paid for a score to be regarded as properly settled. Ages ago, they had quarreled over a small matter in the last primary school grade, coming close to blows, but the other boys intervened, or sheer sanity prevailed at last. Typical of all such kindergarten and primary school fights, everyone forgot about it in no time. Well, except Zadillo- it festered in his heart.

Then later on a hunting spree for prospective dates during one weekend of the crazy days, with the other members of their circle, after spotting what they considered would be the greatest conquest of all, Zadillo’s target did not feel the same about him. She had instead taken a liking to the seemingly “smart” Tito, which, needless to say, did not please Zadillo one bit. He had tried to throw everything at her for some days to coax her, including in the process even dissing him but to no avail. The beauty goddess could not bulge. Everyone had thought nothing much about it when they heard and genuinely laughed over it as usual but not Zadillo. He was seething beneath the veneer of the smiles at all the guy jokes. Despite being the one at fault, he kept it in his jealous mind. It was a lingering grudge that grew into an unexplainable passionate hatred that would consume his psyche for some time. Pretense was a game he could play too, especially to the gullible and naïve mind- he put up appearances while biding his opportune time. However, that was needless- something came up that fanned the embers of a raging fury within him!

………………………

Driving back home from work, with the streets teeming with traffic and pedestrians, as he absent-mindedly whistled out of tune while guiding the pick-up truck to avoid the ever law-breaking motor and bicycle bikers thronging every part of the road, sometimes zigzagging around the slow moving traffic dangerously close, in the day’s last minute mad rush for passengers, Tito felt a strange consuming presence which made him very uncomfortable. It was a feeling he could not put his finger on. His hands soon became sweaty and visibly shaky. It was as if he was in imminent danger but not aware where it would come from. Not minding the inconvenience to the other road users, he almost, unwittingly, pulled over to the side of the road the moment he saw some space admittedly disturbing a few pedestrians and cyclists who naturally became interested thinking the abrupt pull-over meant something should have been seriously wrong. Soon their suspicions and Tito’s were to be confirmed for within a second of the car coming to a complete halt, the door violently swung open and Tito leapt out in clear fright of an imminent major danger indeed.

Thanks to local tradition, the car was now public property for a few minutes with everyone in the vicinity carefully scouring it- the beauty of the local Ubunthu culture on full display. His words now becoming steadier, he kept repeating his assertions; a big snake! And upon hearing the word snake, everybody had at first scampered off to a safer distance for dear life, but soon, having recovered from the initial shock, and taking comfort in the larger numbers that soon thronged around, became more confident and brave, started cautiously searching the vehicle which for close to two hours, could not yield anything until skepticism slowly crept in. Then confusion began to take over with all manner of theories being thrown around by everyone present.

Are you sure you were not day-dreaming sir? Did you drink? Maybe it was just an imagination!

Tito could not believe what was happening. In his entire life, he could not have been clearer about anything than about the scary creature he had seen and how scared he had felt coming face to face with death. Only knowing what he had seen seemed to be immaterial if nobody believed him. He needed to convince someone, something which appeared to be a very tall order in the circumstances. If anything, he had now become the whimpering clown the would-be saviors thought had wasted their time! Overwhelmed by the crowd’s unceasing questions, most of which were mere repetitions of what others had already asked before, others having arrived on the scene much later, he could hardly speak audibly anymore, let alone give coherent answers to some “technical” specifics the jostling and over-enthusiastic helpers demanded. He could not properly describe the color or any prominent features of the so-called scary snake apart from “big and scary.”

“How big was it?” asked someone Tito could no longer waste more time to look at who the question came from in the crowd. He just shook his head before repeatedly saying; “quite big.”

“At least tell us its color, don’t you remember Sir?” yet another space-science question, thought Tito. Another head-shake from him, another chorus of frustrations by his would-be saviors.

As for snake names, it had never been his forte since childhood despite growing on an estate in the rural areas for some time where these were more like neighbors. He simply couldn’t start to guess its name if he could not describe its physical features now, could he? He fumed on the inside while looking stupid on the out! In fact, in the heat of the confusion, all the few, mostly, very common snake names he knew, incredibly deserted his mind. Perhaps, a blessing in disguise when he thought about it in hindsight. Imagine blurting out “Anaconda” amidst the already, now incredulous and impatient crowd!

Not wanting to take any chances despite a hint of self-doubt creeping in, thinking maybe, just a little maybe, he had indeed been hallucinating, he called for emergency services and another vehicle from the office. He knew what he had seen- a strong nagging voice lingered persistently within him. During the rest of the day, and into the night, the scary image could not leave him alone for a minute. Several days later, he received word from the emergency services that there was no evidence any such creature had ever been anywhere near the interior of the car, not anytime in the recent past at least. That notwithstanding, to quell his fears, they had taken the precaution of fumigating the vehicle, guaranteeing that no living creature could have survived such a thorough treatment. Slowly, albeit reluctantly, he began to entertain the possibility that perhaps, just maybe, he might actually have been seeing things after all, despite the persistent voice deep within him vehemently telling him otherwise.

From then onwards, as a matter of precaution, whenever he wanted to drive his cherished pick-up truck, unwilling to ignore faint traces of apprehension that lingered on, he consequently decided to give it some distance for a while, or always ensured another person joined him whenever he took it to the roads. Just in case.

…………………..

Peeping into his magic gourd, Zadillo smiled widely with a big sneer on his mouth. The signal indicated that the evil, scare-dishing stealth boy he had sent on the errand, had come back safely, and jubilant- mission accomplished successfully!