Securing The Bag (The Lagos Hustle)

The easy way or the Hard way

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KANAKU

I left my pregnant girlfriend and 3 year old daughter by 8pm on Wednesday Night and headed to Fuoyo's address in Ikeja. By the time I left the house, I was already in a bad mood because Barakat had thrown a tantrum when she found out I was going out. It wasn't pretty, she accused me of having an affair and went from violent sobs to hitting me on my forearms while I tried to deflected her assault as gently as I could, assuring her I was going to look for money for the family. Thankfully her elder sister was coming to look after her the next day till whenever I got back which I decided wouldn't be till nightfall. Her sister Sukirat hated my guts and I hated hers too. In my opinion, she put half the crazy ideas in Barakat's head and interfered in our lives too much. As I walked towards the main road, I still felt a little guilty remembering Barakat ask me, "who'll help me up in the night when I want to pee?"

"This bastard Fuoyo better not mess with me..."  I growled to myself as I hitched a ride from one of the bus drivers I was familiar with, heading towards the closest Ikeja bus-stop.

My initial plan was to scope the house through the night and make my move early in the morning but when I traced the address, I realized his flat was too easy to break in. He lived in a Townhouse that had been divided into 6 flats. His flat was downstairs on the left. The staircase entrance was on the right side of the building, beside the other ground flat which meant his corner was totally secluded and people coming up or down the stairs couldn't see his entrance. To further tempt me, his entrance was only partially lit up by the light that passed through the sides of the curtains from one of the windows. The icing of the cake was the loud music coming from the living room. Perfect.

The only challenge was the burglary bars and the double locks on his gate. I couldn't attempt to burst open the padlocks, they looked to sturdy and even the music wouldn't disguise the noise I would surely make. The good news was, he had a net door so the burglary was the only serious obstacle.

His lexus was parked just beside his flat, deeper into the shadows, so I dug into my small side bag for my 8inch fiber wire with the curved hook tip. I had been breaking into cars through the boots since I was 12. Then I was much smaller and somehow had the talent for picking the locks of car boots. The trick was then to push the back chair flat and crawl into the car from the boot. The radio, gear box and battery were my usual targets in those days but now I was tripple the size I had been and wouldn't even dare get into the booth of a car.

I fiddled with the key hole for some minutes until I heard the click and pop. I got what I needed from the booth; his toolbox. I got his jack and set it horizontally between the weakest iron bars directly after the gate. It was very hard work but I worked it tirelessly for about 25 minutes until I had managed to expand the space between the bars a couple of inches more, not much but wide enough to allow my head and shoulders through. Once my upper half body was in, I twisted and turned and grunted till I finally broke in.

I got into his house a little past 1am and tried my best to wake him but to no avail. I nudged him roughly, shook him hard by the shoulders and even gave him some heavy slaps and a terrible knock but he just continued snoring and murmuring incoherently, his eyes half open, half shut. The fool was asleep

I raided his house, removing the plastic he had spread over his furniture and taking whatever I deemed was worth something. By the time I was done with my raid I had filled up 2 Ghana must go sacks with items I planned to cart to my own home. From glass figurines I planned to place on the Tv stand in my living room, to wall clocks I imagined would go perfectly above the room door and even fancy plates and cutlery to bring color to my rather drab kitchen.

I found his wallet and was pleased to see two hundred dollar notes and about 10,000 naira. I cleaned it out and also took his atm card. I admired the wallet's fine leather and on second thought decided to keep his wallet. When I was done with his pockets, I raided his fridge and helped myself to a very creamy bowl of cold cereal.

I slept off for a couple of hours and was up by 8am. Sleeping beauty was still snoring on the couch.

By the time he woke up and saw me, I already had the upper hand. To him I had appeared out of nowhere like an avenging angel and my face was in an unending scowl mostly because my stomach had been troubling me since I woke up. All that milk last night had clearly been a bad idea. Still it seemed to work out perfectly because I could see raw fear in his eyes. Oh he was scared all right. This was going to be easier than I thought.

"How.....how did you...who are you?" He stammered"

I'm here for the money Fuoyo, where is it? we could do this the easy way or the hard way, I believe I don't have to talk much"