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Dele was confused. He hadn’t discussed any money with the fellow on the phone. Anyway, the fee seemed to be paltry compared to the havoc he had caused in the office.
“There is a dustbin at the side of First Bank, Marina, put the money in a black nylon bag there. I will call you on how to get your phone back.”
So his phone had been stolen. There was no point haggling with a phone thief. He cut the phone line. As soon as he put it in his pocket, it started ringing again. He looked at the number. It was Mr. Phillips. He would be asking for results now. It was already three o’clock. He hesitated before answering the call.
“Dele, have you found him?”
“I am on my way to his house now sir,” he lied.
“Get him fast. The Ministry of Works is on my neck now concerning the projects we should have delivered last week. Have you informed the police yet?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I will do so again. Call me as soon as you catch him.” The phone went dead.
Dele walked toward the car now, confused. He hissed. He hated the pressure that his boss usually put on him.
“Oga, where do we go from here?” the driver asked.
“Andrew,” he called the office hand, “I want you to take a taxi to the Island, get an IOU of 15,000 naira from the office and get the phone from this thief. I will call the police to give you one of their men to follow you. I don’t know what kind of people you may meet.”
The young man nodded.
“Driver, we are going to Idimu.”
Ignatius sat in a corner behind the counter with a sullen look on his face. He had been there for about three hours now. He hadn’t been beaten but he had received a few kicks from rough criminals who were being led behind bars. A sadistic policeman had also slapped him for obstructing him. What traumatized him most were the howls he heard in the cells behind him. He knew the cells would be his fate if some help did not come fast. But where was his accuser anyway? They said that they’d sent someone to fetch him; still, no response. He looked at the decrepit notice again: BAIL IS FREE. It would have been laughable if he didn’t need it now. But, of course, it wasn’t true. People were all over the place haggling for their freedom with the police who didn’t have time for a penniless nobody like him. He needed someone from the outside to help him. He decided to walk up to the policewoman at the counter and ask her to get someone to contact any of his cotenants. Even though he didn’t talk with them much, they couldn’t abandon him now, if only out of good neighborliness.
As he rose and walked towards her, he looked at the world beyond the counter. There were two young girls talking to a policeman who was nodding his head in understanding as they talked. One of them looked familiar, like someone he knew, though here back was turned to him. Then, she turned. Tin the dim light, he could still not mistake that face, even after a few years.
“Cordelia!” he shouted.
“Ignatius!” she called, and ran towards him, stopped by the barrier of the counter.
“What are you doing in Lagos? How did you find me here?”
“Papa Abel told me how to get to your house. When I got there and asked for you, the people in the compound said they didn’t know you. I had almost given up hope until a small boy called me and told me that the police were looking for you. He told me how to get here.”
“Is the boy dark with three tribal marks on each cheek?”
“Yes.”
“That’s Moruf. He’s a nice boy.”
“What did you do?”
“I don’t know. I came here to report that my phone was stolen and they arrested me. But how did Moruf know I was here? I hadn’t sent any message to the compound yet. By the way, what are you doing in Lagos?”
“Mama is seriously sick. She has been admitted in hospital and has to do an operation. They sent me to Lagos to tell you.”
“What kind of operation is it?”
“It has something to do with the heart. She had a minor heart attack and they said to cure here heart condition, they will need to do an operation. But it would be better that they fly her abroad. She is still in intensive care. Uncle Sunday has only managed part of that hospital bill so far. I think they estimated, for everything, 200,000 naira.”
“My God! 200,000 naira! If I had 2,000 naira I wouldn’t still be in here.”
Tears were rolling down Cornelia’s cheeks by now.
“I still have about 500 naira here. Let me see if I can talk to the police to get you out.”
As she turned towards the policewoman at the other end of the counter, the lady started coming towards them in haste.
“Aha! This man said you stole 10,000 naira from his house this morning. Where did you keep it?”
She pointed at a bespectacled short man in a dirty flowing agbada whom Ignatius recognized as one of his cotenants, Mr. Lasaki. He had had several brushes with the man concerning the payment of electricity bills since they never failed to reach an equitable sharing formula each time the collective bill came. The man also hated him because he claimed that Ignatius never accorded him the due respect that his age demanded. Now this! The man had finally decided to take his grievances to the police station.
“Yes yes, that’s him. Yesterday, I brought back some money given to me as advance payment to buy some batteries. I am a battery charger. This morning I woke up at 6.30 am and the money was gone. I started asking people in the compound and they said that they didn’t take it. This man went out before 5 o’clock with my money. Has he confessed?”
“Mr. Lasaki, I have never entered your house in all my life. How could I enter and steal your money now,” Ignatius retorted.
“That doesn’t mean anything. One can enter a house for the first time and steal something,” the policewoman added.
Suddenly, one of the other policemen beckoned the policewoman to come to the entrance of the police station. She dashed down. Ignatius stared at them confounded. Then he gave Cordelia and Mr. Lasaki questioning looks. Cordelia stared back and Mr. Lasaki looked away. Soon enough, the two police officers walked back in with a middle aged man. He was decked in a dark blue suit, a white shirt, a red tie and black shoes. He exuded a certain level of affluence that made one wonder what he would be looking for in a dinghy place like the station. The group walked towards Ignatius, stopping some distance in front of the counter.
“Are you Ignatius Imodibo?” the man asked.
Ignatius stared, confused, then slowly nodded. “Yes.”
“My name is Dele Durojaiye. I am from Octan and Phillips, concerning the program you wrote for us.”
“Passmark Pro? It’s a portal, not a program.”
Cordelia and Mr. Lasaki were the ones who now looked bewildered.
“Well, it has crashed our network and we can’t access any of our systems. So I was sent to find you to fix it.”
“So it worked!” Ignatius exclaimed, showing some excitement for the first time. “Well, you can see my condition. I will have to get out of here first before we can talk.”
“Why are you being detained?”
“This man,” he said, pointing derisively at Mr. Lasaki, “claims I stole his money: 10,000 naira.”
“Yes, yes, you stole my money!” Mr. Lasaki shouted, suddenly invigorated.
“So if I give you 10,000 naira, you will let this man out of this cell?” Dele asked.
“Yes, now,” the police officers chorused.
Dele flipped out his wallet and counted out the money very quickly, holding it out to them. Mr. Lasaki lunged at it but Cordelia blocked him. “Don’t give him, he is lying, he is a thief!” Mr. Lasaki pushed her away and grabbed the money. The police officers blocked his retreat.
“Ah, oga, anything for us?” the policeman asked for his own kickback. It wasn’t clear if he expected to get it from Mr. Lasaki or from Dele. Dele counted out five two-hundreds and handed them to the police.
“Now, can we go?”
It wasn’t really a question because he started walking away before they replied. Ignatius followed behind him while Cordelia walked beside him.
“Thank you sir, God bless you sir, May you live long sir,” she prayed as she walked beside him. The words seemed inadequate. He was like an angel from God. When they got next to his car, Dele suddenly asked: “Is your sister going back with us? She is your sister?”
“Yes she is and I think she should come with us. I don’t want her anywhere near those vultures who call themselves my neighbors. Her name is Cordelia. Cordelia meet Mr... er…”
“Mr. Durojaiye, I work for Octan and Phillips, a consulting firm that Ignatius, em …works for.”
Cordelia turned to Ignatius, confused.
“No, I just did a small contract with them and they haven’t paid me for it yet.”
“I spoke to Mr. Phillips once we had confirmed you were in this station. Anyway, he told us to bring you to his office to talk, as soon as we got you out. Do you want to speak with him before we go?”
He brought out a handset from his pocket. Ignatius took the phone recognizing it at once. It was his phone.
“How did you find it? How did you find me?”
Dele didn’t respond immediately. He only waved them into the car. Cordelia sat on the passenger’s seat while Ignatius and Dele sat at the back.
“It was your friend at Jazzy Networks, Yisa, that lead us to your house: a real mouthful.”
“How did you know I worked for Jazzy Networks? I just worked there for a month.”
“I think only Peter can answer that. He said something about a program leaving tracks of where it was made, something like that.” Ignatius nodded his head in understanding.
“Now, why did you decide to wreck our office with your program? I think it was highly irresponsible. If not for Mr. Phillips, I would have let you spend a night or two in that cell to teach you a lesson.”
“I won’t say I am sorry. I am proud that it worked, so well that you had to overcome all the obstacles to find me. Thank you. I thought that you would just have to call me. But how did you get my phone back?”
Dele eyed him, annoyed. “What do you think? We simply contacted the guy and paid for the phone back. Again, Mr. Phillips’ prerogative, not mine.”
“Well, maybe I will save all the thanks for him.”
“Thank you sir,” Cordelia chipped in.
By this time, they were on the bridge to the Island. Most commuters
were going out of the Island. Since they were going in, it was smooth sailing. It was seven o’clock now. There was silence till they reached the Island. As they descended the bridge to the Island, it shone with a thousand lights of different colors, beckoning them to come. The buildings, which were beautiful in the day, looked magnificent at night. Mr. Phillips called to confirm that they were on their way. Afterwards, silence enveloped the vehicle again. While Cordelia stared wide-eyed through the window, Ignatius had a short nap.
They soon got to the office building. Ignatius was nudged awake. They quickly shuffled out of the car and into the main building. It was 9 pm now and there was virtually no one left in the building. Two security men strolled around the compound. Ignatius only noticed lights in two offices, all on the uppermost floor. He imagined one of them belonged to his client.
“I think your sister should wait in the car since we shouldn’t be long.”
“No,” Ignatius protested, “I want her to come with us. She didn’t come here by accident. She has a role to play in this now.”
One of the security men rushed to open the main entrance but Dele waved him off, telling him not to worry as he opened the entrance door with his own key. They entered the dark and empty reception. Dele turned on the lights so they could find their way to the staircase. They walked up the stairs to the fifth floor. Mr. Phillips’ office was at the end of the corridor.
Ignatius mulled on the fact that he had been here almost twelve hours ago. Then, it had been all excitement, now he had mixed feelings, a deeper sense of purpose, even a bit of anger. Then, he was thinking about money for himself, now his family was involved, desperately. He stared at Cordelia, his lips becoming taut and a deep furrow forming on his brow. His face hardened as his will became resolute.
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