The Good Man

THE WRITER

SAMUEL COBBY GRANT

THE GOOD MAN

TWO MONTHS LATER
Kobina was alone in the office doing some paperwork concerning some cartons of beef and sausages he had cleared from the Ports when a young man visited him.
“How may I help you,” he asked trying to place him. He seemed familiar.
“My name is Michael. I am here to tell you that someone is trying to get you killed.”
“Whaaaat?” Kobina exclaimed, getting scared.
“My ghetto friends at Top 10 Main Spain told me that someone has asked them to kill you. But as you used to allow me to be at the club for free, I felt I should tell you,” Michael said.

“Do you know who placed the contract?”
“No but the person is very rich. He gives them 100 cedis each anytime he sees them.”
He called his old time friend Joe Amoah and told him of the situation. Joe Amoah was a private investigator.
In just a half of an hour, Joe Amoah had arrived and was questioning Michael to learn more about the case.
Michael was persuaded to wear a listening device that had an audio visual component.
Joe then informed his contact at the police who promised to send men in for arrests should the need arise.

Kobina’s office was fixed with a secret camera that could pick up the tiniest of sounds. But all these did nothing to lessen the feelings of jittery in Kobina. He became paranoid and saw every stranger as a threat despite assurances from Michael and Joe Amoah.
Joe Amoah even placed Michael under 24-hour surveillance without his knowledge to protect him.
Joe Amoah, having learned of the name of Michael’s friends. placed a mole on them. Solo and Polo were the hoodlums and Solo’s new girlfriend Ataa Adjoa, a hooker, was part of the investigative team. She even slept with Polo on the blind side of Solo.

They struck when no one expected them to. Kobina, Aba and Aku had arrived back in Takoradi after seeing Naakpe off to the Kotoka International Airport to board her flight to London. He had driven to Apremdo to drop Aku and as soon as they got to the flat and were about to have the Banku and tilapia they had bought at God is Love Chop Bar when a call came in from an unsaved number.
“Am I speaking with Mr Kobina Ferguson?” a lady’s voice asked him
“Yes.”
“I have a package for you from a client of yours, send me your location,” she said.
“Why don’t you come to my office tomorrow morning, it’s late,” he told her.

“Aww, sorry, I am going to Accra at dawn so it should be now or never,” she pressed.
“Okay, I’ll send you my address now,” he said and quickly called Joe Amoah to tell him.
In about 30 minutes, the whole place was surrounded by gun-wielding plain-clothed men hidden at various points around the area, waiting for the assassins.
Aba had been listening in on the conversations, wide-eyed. She was beginning to understand the situation and was very frightened. Moreso, when the gun-toting men got there and it took all the persuasive powers of Kobina to get her to calm down.

Presently, two motorbikes arrived at the front of the house bearing three people. Both Solo and Polo were on the handles with Ataa Adjoa sitting behind Solo. She got down but both men remained in their seats, with the engines kept running.
“I am here, with Okada,” she spoke into the phone.
“Okay,” was the reply.
What happened next was a well-coordinated ambush. Two men wearing shorts with unbuttoned shirts were arguing rather loudly about the weekend’s match between Barcelona and Real Madrid, and when they got to the assassins, they bumped into them and made as if to help them up when they fell but smoothly clamped handcuffs on them.

Ataa Adjoa took to her heels with Joe Amoah in a hot chase, but when she rounded a bend, she stopped and waited for him. He got to her, paid her handsomely and off she went.
As for the luckless assassins, they were searched and guns, knives and other weapons were found on them.

When everything was quiet once again Kobina and Aba wondered about who could be behind the attempted murder.
Kobina was deflated and spent emotionally when they went to bed.
“Please hold me Aba, hold me,” he beseeched her. And so Aba, seeing the enormity of what he was asking of her, spread her arms open and Kobina clung to her and fell asleep, his face around her neck area.

The next day, the assassins were interrogated extensively but it all came to nothing. They refused to say who was responsible for the hit.
Joe Amoah then had no option than to hand them over to the Police for them to be charged with illegal possession of firearms.
Julius Kyintoh, an importer of meat products, had known immediately that the hit had been unsuccessful when he didn’t receive the needed message from his boys.
“This calls for plan B,” he said as he sipped his cognac.

He then placed a call and said, “Kofi, meet me at the Warehouse in five minutes.”
Aba had decided that she wasn’t going back to Campus that morning. And so after Kobina had left for the office, she cleaned the flat, had her bath, wore a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and set off to Aku’s stall at the market to confide in her about the attempted murder and to also buy ingredients for the preparation of groundnuts soup for she had observed that Kobina had gone back to eating junk foods. In fact he hardly had time to eat.
When she got out, she bumped into a mean faced man who was obviously waiting for her.
“Mr Ferguson collapse for work and doctor say make I bring you?” he said.

She gasped and without calling to confirm, she allowed him to lead her to a parked taxi cab. She saw that there was one other man with the taxi driver and she hesitated, but the man sensed her hesitation.
“If you no enter the car, I go shoot you,” he whispered to her.
Joe Amoah was furious. Just about an hour of the Solo and Polo being in the hands of the Police, they had been poisoned and were at the hospital fighting for their lives
“All my efforts are going down the drain,” he said and kicked his office trashcan.
At the other end of town, Kobina in trying to make some calls saw to his dismay that he had accidentally taken Joan’s phone instead of his.

He was thinking of going to the house to pick up his phone when he had a call on his office line from Joe Amoah that the lady who had aided in cracking the case had been kidnapped in broad daylight at a crowded area in town.
With a heart full of fear, he left the office in the care of his employees and rushed home. Aba wasn’t home, and neither was his phone which Aba Joan had also taken by mistake. He called his phone but it was off . He then drove to Joe Amoah’s office at Type C to brief him on the latest developments.
“Let’s track your phone. It could lead us to her.”

He then opened a link on his laptop, inputted the phone number and some codes.
“Bingo! Your phone is at Funko,” Joe Amoah told him. He quickly arranged a swoop on the hideout. Three cars with two men in each drove swiftly from Takoradi to Funko. The signal got stronger and stronger as they approached the target. Soon, they located the house in question and saw that it was a three-bedroom house without a gate,
As swiftly as possible, one car parked 40 metres from the house. Another parked 40 metres at the beach end of the house and the remaining car, parked right in front of the house. Two men got out and wearing ECG overcoats entered the compound and knocked at the door.

“Who’s there?” a gruff voice asked.
“Meter Readers,” they replied.
The door was opened and the man found himself looking at the barrel of a gun. Silently, they led him into the house and found another man in the kitchen making a sandwich.
“Are we invited?”
He turned and saw a gun pointed at him.
Both men were handcrafted and both Aba and Ataa Adjoa were rescued from a windowless room where they were being held.

Kobina saw Aba coming out of the house and ran to her holding on to her in a tight embrace, squeezing her in relief.
As the handcuffed men were being led out of the house into one of the cars, Julius Kyintoh, obviously going to inspect his handiwork, saw the spectacle of his men being led out, and knowing that the game was up, quickly spun the car around, at 180° at a fast pace, drove towards town with one of the cars in pursuit.

He drove furiously towards the highway and when he got to it, quickly took a sharp right turn but his momentum took the car into the path of a tanker coming from the opposite direction, thereby having a head-on collision with it, and his car spun around again and crashed into the walls of St Mary’s Secondary School.
It took the police close to two hours before they could free him and send him to the hospital.

***

Two Days Later

Julius had been admitted at the Effia Nkwanta Hospital with a policeman guarding him. Both Solo and Polo had been discharged from the same Hospital and were back in police cells. They now saw no reason why they should continue lying about Julius’s role in the attempted murder of Kobina and Aba after he obviously ordered their poisoning, so they sang like Canaries till the police got the whole sordid story. As for Ataa Adjoa, she left town to settle in Kumasi for fear of her life.

Maame Efua, when she was told of the whole tale by both Kobina and by her daughter could not believe what had just happened.
“Is this what the world has turned into. What about Maame Bondzewa, is she still worrying you?”
“No, not anymore. Why do you keep referring to her as Maame Bondzewa,” Aba Joan asked.
“She is from Eguase. When I was in form 4, she was in class 4 and she was responsible for the early retirement of two headteachers for the middle school,” she explained.

Kobina Ferguson later visited her and formally asked for Aba’s hand in marriage.
“Ok Kobina, you know that I, as a woman can’t give her to you in marriage. Tradition doesn’t give me that right, otherwise, I would have given her to you at once. I will consult her uncles and get back to you. Where exactly do you hail from?” she asked elated.
“I’m from Egyaa no. 3.”
“Great, we are from Anomabo. I will give you an answer by next week.”
“Thank you, Ma. I appreciate this.”
Life went back to normal. He expanded his business and opened cold storage facilities at the Tema Port.

As for Aba Joan, she settled in nicely as a bride in waiting and continued her academic pursuits as the issue on board was whether to get married now or wait until she was done with school but her mother convinced them to wait until graduation. Her friendship with Aku had passed beyond mere friendship and had gone up to them being sisters, and she was the Maid of Honour when Aku’s Spain-based boyfriend arrived to wed her.
On the day of judgement in the short trial of Julius and her co-conspirators, they were all found guilty on various counts and were given befitting jail terms according to each other’s role in the whole sordid affair.

“I am sorry, Mr Ferguson, I wanted to monopolize the frozen foods market,” he said to no one in particular.
Kobina, Aba, Aku and Maame Efua left the courtroom in a sombre mood and joined Gregg in his car as he drove them home.
Joe Amoah followed them with his car.
Gregg invited them to his apartment for a late lunch. Saying that he had something important to share with them.

And so, after the dishes had been cleared he stood up and clearing his throat.
“Aba my sister, Maame Efua my mother, Mr Amoah and Aku, please help me thank my friend and brother Kobina for what he did for me a long time ago. I am a man of few words so all I can say is that in this envelope I am holding is the documents for this four flat complex it’s his now. I am now a tenant here,” he told the stunned audience. They all shook his hands and thanked him for the suddenly mute Kobina. Kobina just hugged him and said, ” Gregg, you are a good man.”
Gregg patted him on the back.
” Kobina, you are the Good Man,” he stated.
Yeah, he is a good person,” concurred Joe Amoah.
“Gregg my American son, thank you. You are a good man.”

***

TWO YEARS LATER

The groom was dressed splendidly in a grey three-piece suit. And Gregg, the Bestman was also dressed in the same manner. The beautiful bride was dressed in a flowing white wedding gown with white shoes to match; her tiara was sparkling dazzlingly and constantly reflecting on her beautifully made-up face.
And the proud mother of the bride could hardly sit still. Making sure that nothing went wrong with the wedding of her daughter.
They said their vows, they wore the rings, and they kissed for the first time as married couple.

At the reception which was held at the plush Atlantic Hotel, a buffet had been set up for the guests to serve themselves. The groom’s friends and business associates and partners were there in their numbers. So were former course mates of the bride who had arrived from all over the country to attend. So did a heavily pregnant Aku, Mamaga Ethel, Tiiwa, Tessy and of course, Naakpe who had come all the way from London to be with her friends.
“I have never seen this large number of white men at a wedding before,” Mamaga Ethel said.

“I have never seen a white man who is a best man before,” Aku said.
“Go to London and see they are there chaw,” Naakpe told them.
Maame Efua opened the dance floor and ended up doing the apatampa dance. The couple also danced.
“I have never danced with a married woman before,” Kobina whispered into her ears softly.

” Neither have I danced with a married man before,” Aba said smiling at him.
“Aww, aren’t they beautiful,” Aku said, shedding tears.
And all hell broke loose when Aku, Tiiwa, Mamaga, and Naakpe took over the dance floor.
The married couple after dancing with their friends for a while, left the dance floor and slipped out of the hall into a suite they had booked at the hotel to begin their married life…

THE END

Another epic tale from Guest Writer Samuel Cobby Grant.

Enjoyed to the max.

Thank you, Cobby.

The Klever Team

Samuel Cobby Grant is the name, Trained in Electrical Installation (Intermediate) at Takoradi Polytechnic.

Works as a Security Supervisor in a Logistics Company.

A widower with two children.

A proud resident of Takoradi.

Love reading, swimming and now writing after completing the REWA Writing Course by The Klever Magg. He started with THE TRUCK DRIVER and THE BITTER ENEMY, and now brings his third story, THE GOOD MAN.