Night Runs – chapter 16 – Tenant

Chapter 16

Tenant

Adio felt the need to move almost without end. By his thinking, if his limbs were moving constantly then the anxiety that had taken over his fear centre would be gone, or at least he would be able to ignore it a while.

His limbs could only move as far as within the four walls of his room. His bed occupied more than half the floor space causing him to almost oscillate about a small space rather than pacing.

His inner critic, Don, was a bit loud that morning too, questioning his actions, thoughts, and mistakes. Somewhere in the confusion, paranoia sneaked in too, surfing off the rising waves of his erratic heartbeat.

Only moments earlier, seated on his bed, in yoga asana posture, he had combed through the laptop bag that one of his passengers had left in his backseat three days earlier. He had gone through the bag twice over hoping to find contact details of the owner but what he found stunned him.

“You have to return the bag to that man, or you would be in even bigger trouble”

Adio replied with a deep sigh.

“Just look at the mess you have gotten yourself into.”

Adio stared down at the half-a-dozen fake identity cards bearing the same face scattered about his bed. They had been neatly tucked into a zipped pouch within the bag. There were dozens of documents all bearing different letterheads and stick-on notes with names and addresses inscribed at the back of each document.

Of course, there was a hp laptop in there too, along with its accessories, but tucked in a corner was a cleverly disguised bladed weapon- a combat knife. Those fighting knives that had small teeth like a saw and jagged edges that curved upward to rip out innards with ease.

“How on earth did you end up mixing yourself up with these sort of criminal elements as passengers for Christ sakes?”  

Adio shrugged.

“The other day, it was a gun! Where is that gun by the way?”

Adio’s eyes darted about the room as though his thoughts were audible enough for the walls in his room to hear. He remembered the gun, but it was tucked in the glove compartment of his car. It had been there since the day he found the gun on the floor mat at the back seat of his car.

He knew that the police rarely checked the glove compartment whenever they stopped him at checkpoints during his night trips and therefore never worried about been found out.

But Don was right about how he often got mixed up with questionable characters on his night trips. But what was he to do? His late evening trips earned him more money than the afternoon trips. He was simply exploiting the economics of demand and supply. He had little control over the risk of the business, especially the characters of his passengers.

“How was he to know that his next passenger would not be carrying a gun?” he seemed to ask his paranoid self.

Clearly the criminal owner of the laptop bag would soon come looking for it and if there was any comfort he had, it was in the gun tucked under his car papers in the glove compartment of his car.

The sudden loud clobbering on the door to his room jolted him back from his thoughts.

He stared down in heightened horror at the laptop bag on his bed with its contents scattered about his bed. He had to clear it up before he opened the door.

But the knock on his door was persistent and impatient.

“Wait oh, allow me wear my cloths.”

He opened the door a few minutes later with the laptop tucked behind his bed and his bed looking like it hadn’t been sat upon the whole morning.

“Please I need you help?” the only neighbor he was friendly with in the house looked distraught and very worried.

“What is the problem Ibinabo?”

“Please I need to get someplace and it’s quite urgent. Can you take me there right now. It’s a matter of life and death.”

Adio’s looked at the younger woman’s face for answers to questions he wasn’t going to ask.

“Right now?”

“Yes, it’s a matter of life and…..”

“Death. I heard that earlier.”

“Please hurry, wear your shirt let’s go, quickly.”

“But I haven’t had a bath yet?” Adio looked down at his jeans and his bare feet.

“You look and smell good. No one will notice let’s go Adio.” She leaned into his body as though to sniff him for unpleasant odor, but she could care less if he stank to high heavens.

“Let me at least brush my teeth Ibinabo.”

“We don’t have the time for it.”

Those questions he had stifled were starting to slip out of his lips.

“Where are we going exactly?”

“isn’t that the first question you should have asked?” Don couldn’t help but chime in.

“I don’t know the exact address yet, but it is somewhere in badagry?”

“Badagry?!!!”alarmed, Adio turned to look at the woman who hadn’t left the door to his room.

They stared at each other for a moment and some before she broke the silence.

“It is a matter of life and death.”

“Have you got any idea how long it would take to drive all the way to Badagry from here. Not to talk of the bad roads, police checkpoints and the area boys in that area.”

Ibinabo looked away.

“What is wrong, tell me please, this is quite unusual.”

“Are you taking me or not?”

Adio sighed in submission. His thoughts wandered quickly to the times she painstakingly nursed him back to health when he suffered from Cholera during the pandemic. She cared for him in ways that he knew he didn’t deserve. They were only neighbors, and she didn’t owe him any more than a courteous greeting when they run into each other at the shared bathroom or the kitchenette.

But she cared for him during his low moment without asking and for that she had earned his loyalty even before she asked. He owed her. It was time to start paying. She had never asked for anything in return before and there was no way he was going to turn her down in her time of need.

“Let’s go.”

“Woman wrapper.” Don quipped.

“It’s a matter of life and death.” Adio sang as he locked the door to his room.

*******

All through the journey to Badagry she looked pensive and distant, offering no conversation and barely responding to his attempt to chat her up. This gave Adio the chance to look her up and down. Amidst the hurricane of thoughts he was struggling with, many times during the ride, his stare lingered on Ibinabo, who was probably more concerned about her ordeal than his indolent ogle.

He looked at her face, the curve on her nose and her neatly carved lips that twitched occasionally. The distant attraction he remotely felt for her, perhaps from his sick bed from the days when she was the only human being he could lay his eyes on, seemed to have been shortened to less than one meters as they sat within hairs breath.

He could smell her cheap but very feminine perfume and the woody scent of her hair cream. She wore her hair neatly into a pigtail at the back of her head. Her hair glistened in the morning sun, bellying the richness that invited a sensual touch.

Adio grinned.

“Ashawo!” Don teased.

When he wasn’t trying to dodge the potholes that lined the road to their destination, his lids lowered his stare to her perky breast.

“Not bad. Not too big, not too small, just the right size for your big palm, Adio.” Don admitted.

Adio looked around the car as though Ibinabo could hear his thoughts.

“What is wrong, Adio?” she enquired innocently.

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Adio’s attempt to dowse her concern was weak, only not as weak as the stiffness that was beginning to form in his pants.

“She isn’t bad at all Adio.”

Adio blinked his eyes several times. He was trying to reset his thoughts to no avail.

Then he started to nod his head in agreement, after all if you can’t beat them, you join them. Adio and his turgid penis had won.

“I told you; she is not bad at all. ”Don reiterated.

*******

It was a lonely street that meandered into flowing water in an abandoned canal at the end, but lined with uncompleted buildings on both sides. The buildings were all unroofed and at different stages of construction. Some had partly filled foundation trough filled with block works, while some were at the lintel level with partitions already forming the outlines of the rooms and kitchens.

“Park here? I will be back shortly. Just wait here.”

“Are you sure its fine to go alone? I can come along with you if it makes you feel safe.” Adio was starting to open the door to alight the vehicle.

“I am fine. No worries please.” She paused for a moment and then added. “Just wait here.”

Unconvinced still, Adio leaned on the car door as he watched her walk downhill. He waited for a few minutes before he started to walk at a distance behind her. Each step measured to give a causal impression of a lazy walk since there was nowhere to duck or hide. He followed her, pretending to want to relieve himself nearby until she turned a corner.

Something was definitely amiss. Everything about the abandoned buildings, the dirty, smelly and rushing waters in the canal and the echoes of Ibinabo’s footsteps as she walked away was just too sinister to ignore.

The entire area could as well be a haven for criminals.

“I suggest you repark your car to face the entrance of the street for easy get away if it becomes necessary.”

This was the best advice Don had given Adio in a long time and he was grateful for this.

He raced back to his car with an urgency that suggested he was about to leave. But instead, he maneuvered his car out of the line of sight of anyone standing on the street, but close enough to the ingress of the street.

When he started walking towards the same direction Ibinabo had walked a few moments earlier, he ran his fingers over the cold steel of the pistol he tucked inside his jeans, held tightly in place by his belt.

There was no one in sight when he turned into the building he suspected Ibinabo had entered. He could tell as he saw two motorcycles parked by the building.

Then he heard voices upstairs. He paused to listen. It was Ibinabo’s.

“Please, that is all the money I have. I beg you Daniel please.”

“What am I going to do with eighty-five thousand naira?”

“Daniel, please. Its all the money I have. Please don’t post the pictures online. Please.”

“This money is worth nothing compared to the emotional damage you have caused me Ibinabo.”

“But I have begged you already, I am sorry. Please let bygone be bygone.”

Adio listened. He could discern more footsteps than the two voices he had just heard upstairs. In his estimation there were probably at least four persons in the building including Ibinabo.

Adio started to climb the staircase towards the direction of the voices.

Each step taken in slow motion with both his hands clutching desperately to the pistol like his life depended on it.

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