“Entering this estate won’t be easy.”
“Why?” asks Sammy.
“Because all these estates get security.”
“So tell her to tell them we are coming.”
“No. It has to be a surprise.”
Women don’t always know what they want, especially island women. They have allowed all this “women are the same as men” stuff to confuse them. But when he and Treasure meet, everything will fall into place.
“So wetin we go do about the security?”
@Sho4Sure frowns. He hates security men; many of them came from the same sorts of places that he is from, but they have forgotten. They talk to him anyhow. They think they are better than him. They don’t realize that they are only dogs for the wealthy. They will definitely give him problems.
“Sammy, shebi your uncle na policeman?”
Sammy nods.
“He dey house?”
They head to the bungalow. The door is slightly ajar, and the police uncle is in his chair, snoring with his mouth wide open. A fly sits comfortably on his fat lower lip. The rifle is on the stool beside him. Sammy tiptoes over and carries the weapon away.
They are gone just before Sammy’s aunty returns to ask her husband what he wants to eat.
Everything is going well.
“Fate,” Sammy offers.
“Yes, fate.”
They take his okada; Sammy sits behind him. The wind is whipping them both. He may not have a Prado or a G-Wagon, but he has freedom. The cars are piled up on Falomo Bridge, inching along, unable to stretch their engines, unable even to dodge the traffic, but he, in his old scratched-up okada, is weaving in between them, leaving them and the murals of the missing Chibok girls behind.
It takes only forty minutes to get there. It is not so far. Pious Estate rises up before them. It is surrounded by cement walls shutting him off from Treasure. They remain seated on the okada and observe. Cars go in and out of the estate through wide black gates, which are opened and shut by security men.
They watch a Jeep Cherokee drive up to the gate. Sammy whistles. The windows are tinted, but the man in the back has rolled one down and is shouting at one of the security men. They can hear him from where they are, parked beside a palm tree. He is threatening to call this person and that person.
“I have told this imbecile that I am heading to house 2B on Pure Drive, and he is asking me stupid questions.”
The voices of the security men are low, but he can tell from their gestures that they are trying to calm the rich man down. This may be the time to enter the estate, while they are distracted.
“And I have explained to you people already that my phone is dead,” the rich man bellows.
The people who enter the estate on foot appear to have IDs. They will need IDs. There are too many people coming in and out each day for the security men to be familiar with all the faces; he is sure of it.
He sees two men exit together. They are construction workers who have spent the better part of the day building another man’s house. They are probably already dreaming of the food they will eat when they get home.
“We go collect ID from those ones,” he tells Sammy.
They follow the men for a mile before they jump them.
The men don’t resist. They don’t remove their eyes from the rifle. No one wants to die, not even for the title of hero.
When they return to the gate, the Cherokee is nowhere to be seen. But there are plenty of construction workers leaving the estate now, and all their bags are being checked by security. They rarely search the bags of the people entering. But even the most distracted security man will notice a gun. @Sho4Sure tucks the rifle into the belt of Sammy’s trousers and under his shirt. They are less likely to check Sammy than him, and Sammy’s uncle is the owner, so he could make up some story about being sent by his police uncle.
In the end, their IDs are given only a cursory glance, and they are in.
VI
The houses are all different. It looks as if Pious Estate allows its residents to build their houses anyhow. There are gold houses and pink houses. Some are narrow, and others look like three houses combined. Many of them are mid-construction. When he marries Treasure, maybe they will also build a home here. Why not? A massive yellow house, with orange columns and a green roof. He likes how even the trees here look fresh, and he has not seen a single rat. The air tastes different too.
“I never knew a place like this could exist inside of Nigeria,” says Sammy.
“Yes o.”
“How will you know which one is her own?”
“I have seen the house before in pictures. It is blue.”
“This one?” Sammy points to a light-blue house. The house even has gold statues in front. But it is not her house.
“No, like my shirt. This type of blue. And it has big windows.”
Sammy nods and looks around for more blue houses. They pass a woman walking with three dogs. They cross the road to avoid her and her animals. Island people are crazy sha. And they will pay plenty of money for a dog. His cousin used to sell dogs, before one of the dogs bit him. Now he sells chickens. There is less money, but it is safer.
There are many houses to look at, but fate is on his side. The fifth road they enter, he sees her house on the corner.
“That is it!”
Sammy whistles as they approach it. It is finer than it looked in the picture. It has big columns, and there are three cars in the compound. He cannot see the G-Wagon, but the other cars are also big people cars.
“Oya, bring out the gun,” he tells Sammy. Sammy unbuckles the belt of his trousers. “What are you doing?”
“What? I can’t just pull it out! I have to be careful, so I no go shoot myself!” says Sammy as he slowly takes the gun out from its hiding place.
He can barely even carry the gun well. But anyway, there is no security man at the gate, so they walk in. He saw other houses were manned by security men. They were not in uniform like the ones at the estate gate, but every home had a personal guard. Treasure and her family are too trusting. He will have to talk to them.
Sammy runs to one of the cars.
“Mehn, can you see this? This car has a turbocharged engine. Guy, when you start the car, it is like a woman breathing in your ear.”
“What do you know about a woman breathing?”
They laugh. Things are going well. Better than he could have thought. Imagine, no security guard. Imagine!
VII
Papa Tobi sees them first. Later, when asked, he will say that they threatened him with guns, and when he tried to stand his ground, one of them punched him. But in actual fact, the scratch on his face is a result of him scrambling inside the old doghouse. He did not interact with the trespassers at all. He has worked as a security man for the family for years, but the truth is, he is merely a glorified gate man.
He watches from his post in the kennel as the two men stand and look up at the house. One of them is thin; the other looks as though he has been working out since birth. But even if they were both small people, they have a gun. He saw it as he was returning to the guardhouse. In his hurry to escape, he dropped his phone, and now he cannot even alert the girls in the house. Even within the safety of the kennel, he is shaking.
He had never liked the dog—an Alsatian his employers named Brutus. They’d had a healthy distrust of one another, even though he was the one responsible for bringing the dog her food. But the dog had aged, her brown hair turned white, and one day she slept and did not wake. She would have been useful now; she would have finally earned her keep. All that expensive dog food. Sometimes they spent ₦100,000 on the dog’s medication. They would even celebrate the dog’s birthday and buy the dog squeaky toys. But they did not know Papa Tobi’s birthday. When he told his madam it was his birthday, she gave him ₦1,000, even though he had seen her buy a chew toy for ₦3,500. Then one day they insisted that Brutus needed a friend, as if one dog was not enough work for him. Luckily, it was the girls who got stuck with the puppy. It barely even came outside. They carried it around like it was a child. In the end sha, Brutus had died, and now these men have walked into the compound as if they own the place.