Securing The Bag (The Lagos Hustle)

Wahala be like Bicycle

FUOYO

We Nigerians have a funny saying, "wahala be like bicycle, E no hard to start"
You see a bicycle and all it needs is a push and a pedal and you're on your way, until you find out the breaks are out and you're coming down a slopy road on top speed and you start asking yourself, 'who sent me message..'

"Who sent me message?"
"Oh God why did I jump and accept this deal?"

I should have listened to Shaq. He's been in this game for long and he warned me not to use Lori as a pickup. Lori wasn't a fool, she had been hurt and scorned and God help me, hell really hath no fury like a woman scorned.

It was 11pm wednesday night and about 6pm in the evening in Long Island where Lori lived.

Jackson kept to his word and about 5 hours ago he'd sent me pictures of the proof of payment. A payment of the sum of $23300 to a Lori Mau. a/c: xxxxxxx864 - routing number: xxxxxxxx0910

I shouted in excitement once I had confirmed it, then quickly called Lori. "Hello babe the money is in. He has sent it, 23k....I just forwarded some screenshots to you."

"Okay Josh that's good. I'll be going on my lunch break soon, I'll stop by the bank then"

"okay baby, then from there you head to the crypto outlet like we agreed and send it right? you have my wallet ID"

"sure Josh"

She no longer even called me "love." Since our reconciliation she'd been stuck on Josh while I used enough endearment for the both of us. After the call, I didn't suspect anything was amiss. I even called Offwhite to assure him and Jackson I was fast on the case.

After about 30 minutes I sent her the first message. "Baby are you on lunch break yet?"

No reply. I didn't fret, maybe she was driving, or maybe she was in the bank already.

1 hour later and still no reply. I called her line and it went straight to voicemail. I cut the call and redialed. It went to voice mail again and I left a hurried message. "Hi Lori what's going on? Have you been able to pull out the money? (nervous laugh) the head pilot is practically breathing down my neck right now. Okay call me, bye"

I calmed down a little after the audio message but yet another hour later I was biting my nails nervously.

Hi
Lori
You there?
Can you just answer me
Please
Hey love, my coworkers are expecting their money today please call me
It's been 3 hours Lori, what's going on?
Lori, you there?
come on babe please reply
you're going to get me killed!

With each passing second and each message I became more anxious and desperate. I called again and again, it kept going to voicemail without ringing until around the 20th dial, the pre recorded voice instructed me to cross check the number I was dialing cause it didn't exist. That was when I realized there was no brakes on the bicycle and I was heading fast for a cliff.

Big wahala.

It was by 9pm  Offwhite and Jackson started calling me. They called me till 11pm while I sent about a 100 more frantic text messages to Lori. I knew she was reading the messages. Somehow she couldn't receive my calls anymore but I had a hunch she was reading every line of text as it entered her phone. I pleaded with her, telling her my life was in grave danger if I didn't get the money to the intended recipient. I tried every trick in the book, but it was just as Shaq had warned me. She never typed a single reply.

Shit!

By 12pm I had no choice but to call them back.

They sounded pissed. So pissed that Offwhite forgot about his punchline habit and Jackson actually spoke pidgin instead of his usual African American lingua.