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ROAD TO PERDITION
By George Onmonya Daniel
n ill looking young man walked through immigration checks at Larnaka International Airport one hot August summer mingling with tourists from Western Europe, Far East Asia and others. If immigration men had been careful they would have noticed something about him, but then Cyprus airports are the most porous airports in Europe. With his fake Belgian passport, it was easy to get lost in the crowd and pass all the checks.
As he came out of the airport a taxi driver walked to him holding a cardboard with his fake name written largely in capital letters. It was easy to identify him because he was the only black amongst sea of white folks and coloured that landed that day at Larnaka.
“You Mr. Maviska Valks?” the stout potbelly man asked hopefully. He had waited for more than an hour and his patience was running out. If it was his own working time he would have driven away but the company had called him to pick this client.
The stoic face stared into his. He could only see the eyes. He had carried many people in his life before and when a client does not want to be disturbed he knew perfectly well. When the client nodded he was relieved and led him to his taxi parked in the car park some three hundred meters away. He had rucksack clipped on his back like those hippies, but nowadays most young travelers prefer it for easy luggage, so the driver assumed that it must be his only possession on this trip.
He drove quietly without bothering his client who was lying in the back of the E-Class Mercedes Benz obviously so tired from the journey. He wondered where he was coming from, perhaps, South Africa. The previous summer he had picked up a young black and white couple from Johannesburg and for a whole week he drove them all around the Island. They had paid very well. He smiled to himself but the smile was cut short as some youngsters overtook him in their jeep shouting obscenities in a very high speed. Many of them had died on this same road, drunk and stoned with cocaine, heroine, marijuana or some other ecstatic drugs. Where are the policemen? They suddenly disappear at night from the roads allowing this bunch of crazy boys to endanger people’s life.
It took him forty seven minutes to get to Limassol and the hotel by the beach park. Many tourists were outside mooching around aimlessly arm in arm with their girlfriends, boy or men friends: nowadays he did not know the adjective to qualify these homosexuals. In Spain, Netherlands and across Europe, the law allowing same sex marriage has made them bolder than even the normal couple of man and woman.
The tall lanky Blackman came out; his pallid face looked into the driver’s. The man realized this young man was younger than he had thought, almost a teenager. He handed the driver a fifty dollar bill without talking and walked into the hotel as the automatic sliding glass door opened. He had a reservation paid and even the taxi fare had been paid. The driver watched him as he walked groggily to the reception area. An elderly man and his woman having Britain written all over them had just walked into the hall from their room and headed to the receptionist who was looking at the passport of the Blackman and writing the details down on his record book.
When the driver entered his car and drove away, fifty dollar richer, he thought the young man was obviously under the influence of some ecstatic drugs. What has gone wrong with the whole world? What is it with young people and hard drugs? He himself had been induced by a young prostitute he had taken home, when his wife Anita was on vacation in London, to take some sniff of cocaine and it wasn’t a pleasant thing to remember. He had passed out and if not for the milk man who found him early that morning on time he would have been a corpse. His doctor had warned him that he would have a heart attack next time he indulges in such escapades. Sixty-one years of life is not an age for such adventures.
What he did not know was that as he drove away, the receptionist had given the young Blackman the key to his room and a complimentary card with an instruction to call some telephone numbers on arrival. The Pakistani receptionist looked at the young man as he headed for the elevator, so did the two elderly British old couple.
“Is he okay?” They asked the receptionist almost together looking searchingly into his face as if to get the answer. The Pakistani wondered why these old people never mind their own business. He would have loved to spit it on their faces but instead he smiled.
“Mr. and Mrs. Jones, What can I do for you again?” He looked at the wall clock which told him it was past midnight with two minutes and wondered what this two old problems were doing outside at this hour of the night. He hated tourists. Even though they spend so much money, especially this season, they always assume ones only job is to solve their lousy problems and answer their stupid questions.
“We are going for a walk. We want to leave our key with you.”
The Pakistani nodded as he took the key and wondered why the women always do the talking leading the man threading behind. He was almost sure she suggested this night walk to poor Mr. Jones. Anyway, that was not his business.
The Blackman got out of the elevator and walked into the pavement with doors and numbers written on them. After about ten steps he saw his room at the left corner, inserted his key and opened the door. He locked it back from the inside and headed for the bathroom, his hand pressed hard on his stomach. When he entered the bathroom he knelt down by the sink and put his finger into mouth, forcing it into his throat to vomit but nothing came out. He only coughed a dry cough and felt very sick. He knew he was losing consciousness. He remembered he had to make the phone call. Maybe those guys have some sort of remedy for his problem. They should. They must. He almost thought of alerting the receptionist to get him an ambulance or a doctor but he knew he could not do that. The pain in his tummy was becoming unbearable that he began to cry silently.
In Ayia Napa in the busy heart and heat of the summer two black men walked out of Black and White night club. The streets of Ayia Napa was full of young people in different short knickers and skimpy shirts, some with no shirts on, mostly high on ecstasy cocaine, or drunk, moving around, hanging out in dark alleys here and there having sex and all that.
“We have to pick Milos and Igor on the way and head straight for the hotel. I wonder why the carrier has not called yet. He’s got stuff worth more than thirty thousand pound down there.” One of them was saying to his partner. They got into a BMW Z 4 and drove off.
The other dialed a number on his mobile phone as his friend drove out of Ayia Napa. He spoke briefly, listened to someone at the other side of the island, and answered “Yes…yes,” then added, “Okay I’ll see you there in an hour’s time.”
Back in the hotel room in Limassol the young Blackman was still slumped in the sink half conscious, hallucinating and dreaming fragments of incoherent dreams. He saw his mother, his sisters, and his friends back home. He saw the contented smile on his mother’s face which was always there. She had never tasted any luxury, never left her little town, never known to be on top, a small woman who in her small ways was a proud and happy woman. All that mattered to her was the kingdom of heaven and all this Jesus crap. He saw Pastor Ayo Francis who had always told them that, “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and lost his soul?” In his condition he knew he was very ill. He knew he needed help but could not even call his colleagues. Colleagues? Business associates? Whatever.
An hour thirty minutes later since arriving at the hotel, two cars drove into one of the parking lots of the Limassol beach park facing the hotel directly. From the BMW convertible came out two Black men and from the Land cruiser pick up two huge male Eastern Europeans dressed in soigné impeccable sewn Giorgio Armani suits like some guys in the banking or stock market business. They shook hands with the Black men without any warmth then walked across the street to the hotel.
The knock on the door woke him up to life, gave him enough strength to walk to the door and open it. Four men walked into the room. They looked suspiciously around and at him. One of the Eastern European looked at his watch then spoke first.
“How is it with the stuff?”
“I am sick I can’t get it out.” The young Blackman blurted out as he staggered back to the bath room leaving them in the room as they looked at themselves. After about ten minutes one of the Blackman joined him in the bathroom. He gave him some tablets to drink. After he had watched him drank the tablets came out to join his colleagues.
“The carrier is having problem bringing out the stuff.” He announced just for announcing sake. If the others heard him they didn’t show any sign. They listened to the moaning and groaning with apathy.
“How long will the stuff take to make him throw up?” One the Eastern European asked impatiently. He had been the one doing all the talking. The other one stood there just watching.
“About fifteen minutes.”
After fifteen minutes the young Blackman could not vomit whatever stuff it was. The Eastern Europeans were already grumbling and accusing the Black men of trying to dupe them. The accusations and counter accusation lasted a very short time. The Carrier, as they referred to the young man who must vomit something, was now helplessly weeping, begging them to get him a doctor. He pleaded that he would not tell the police. Wrong words. The four people looked at themselves intensely and profoundly with the atmosphere solemnly tense.
After thirty minutes more of trying to induce the Youngman to vomit without any solution, one of the Eastern European switched on the television and tune on volume to the highest.
It was room service who found the body the next morning. The police were informed secretly by the management of the hotel not to alert the summer customers. The body of Maviska Valks after being examined by homicide was found to have had the stomach and intestine ripped off in the bathroom. The police in the island had never seen such cruel and crude crime. Autopsy report stated that the deceased was hit in the head by a hard object, probably the butt of a hand gun several times before the perpetrator(s) ripped open his stomach, when he was still possibly alive, to get out contents suspected to be cocaine concealed through swallowing and smuggled into the island.
The Belgian Consulate confirmed that the passport was a fake and issued a report that Maviska Valks was not a Belgian citizen. After thorough investigation the police could not find out where Maviska Valks came from as they were not able to ascertain where he flew into the country apart from Greece. He had flown in from Greece in Cyprus airways but the Greece immigration could not trace where he came from into Greece. Since European Union passports were not documented at the point of entry or departure in member states it was impossible to trace further. When Interpol replied the Cyprus police that the finger print of Maviska Valks was not on record they gave up.
The Pakistani receptionist who was on duty claimed he did not know if anyone went upstairs to see the deceased as during the peak of the summer the hotel was always busy. The elderly British couple was never questioned. They would have loved to tell the police details of what they saw that night. As they walked back to the hotel after a long walk and relaxation by the ocean with other tourists from across the street, they saw four heavily built tall men coming out of the hotel. Two were wearing suit that hour of the night which looked odd as the temperature was above 30 degree centigrade and rising by each moment. They were two white men and two Black men in black leather jackets and jeans.
“Who are these people?” Mrs. Jones had asked Mr. Jones who was also starring as the men walked out of the sliding door, headed towards them and crossed the empty roads heading towards the parking lot. He watched them all through. He saw them got into two vehicles and drove out of the car park heading to their own side of the road. Mr. and Mrs. Jones saw the BMW convertible and the pick up Land cruiser which drove to turn by the traffic light in front of the hotel and drove away following each other. They had crossed the road and were in front of the hotel when the cars made U-turn and headed away. Mr. Jones, a meticulous man, had in that instance memorized the plate number of the Land cruiser pick up.
But that morning when the stench from the room had almost knocked off room service who found the body, they were on board British Airways flight to Heathrow fastening their seat belts.
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