Tolu came around eleven that morning and the three of us went over the plan again. Eric and Tolu thought the plan was flawless and they both gave me a hi-five at the end of my presentation. But a nagging unease lingered in my mind; I couldn’t place my hand on what was wrong, but it was there—teasing me, warning me.‘Dominic James is your scammer name?’ I asked Tolu. ‘I saw it in the email.’He smiled. ‘Yeah; that’s the name Mr. Potter knows me with. Don’t call me Tolu in his presence or he will know we are up to something.’I nodded. ‘Is that the name you use in all your scams?’‘No!’ he said. ‘You use a different name and email for every scam. That way no one can keep track of you.’ He smiled and looked fifty times more handsome. ‘Once you are done, dump the name and the email.’‘How do you keep track of all the names?’ Eric asked.‘That’s easy,’ Tolu said. ‘You read the previous conversations so you can remember what your name was.’Eric smacked his hands together. ‘You guys are sma

‘Don’t come to my house without telling me,’ Eric said, taking a space on the settee.‘Oh, stop it, Erico,’ Maria said. Her voice was like a thunder in the quiet night and I had a feeling she was waiting for Eric to open his mouth. ‘Do you think I wanted to come and stay in this stuffy room if my uncle was in town?’‘Don’t shout in my house,’ Eric retorted. ‘I am a responsible person; don’t make my neighbors think I am not.’Maria laughed, waved her phone at Eric as if he was a clown whose act had backfired. ‘This is not a house; this is a room. A room; a stuffy, little, poor man’s room; that’s all it is.’Eric got up and walked to the edge of the bed. ‘Get out of my house...my room. Get out or I will throw you out.’‘Eric,’ I said. ‘Take it easy. Take it easy.’Eric turned to me, eyes blazing with naked fury. ‘Stay out of this, Paul. You don’t know her; she is a trouble maker. She is the devil’s sister, that’s who she is.’Maria tilted her head and gave a loud, unperturbed laugh. ‘Yo

We took the bus by around ten the next morning from Alpha Beach junction to Ojota where Tolu stays. We dropped at the bus stop and trekked the remaining distance to the house. Maria walked beside me with a flutter of excitement in her steps as if she had forgotten the quarrel she had with Eric before we left the house. Eric had suggested she wait in the house while we see Tolu to decide what to do next. Maria had refused this suggestion and had threatened to go to the police station right away if she was not allowed to come along. She pointed out, rather wisely, that it will be better to get to the airport from Tolu’s house instead of going back to the Island to pick her up.‘Besides,’ she had argued. ‘It’s not that I am bedridden or something. I can walk to Tolu’s house if that’s what it takes. But for sure I am not staying here. I intend to earn my keep and no one can stop me except they want to know how the inside of a police station is.’They had argued further, going back and fo

By three thirty P.M, we succumbed to Maria’s cry for food. Eric walked to the boot and picked out three bottles of Fanta and three Gala sausages. He entered the car, dumping the drinks and the sausages on Tolu’s lap. He closed the door and picked a sausage and a bottle of Fanta and stretched them to Tolu. Tolu took them, a sly look covering his eyes. Eric picked the second sausage and the drink and handed them over to me with a deliberate, easy movement. I took the bottle and the sausage and glanced at Maria. Her eyes stretched wide in an expression of wonder.‘I thought ladies are supposed to be first?’ she asked.Eric turned to her. ‘If you make another sound, you will not eat. Do you understand?’Maria glared at him. Eric held the bottle of Fanta in one hand and the sausage in the other. ‘I dare you to make another sound.’Maria said nothing and Eric remained with the drink and the sausage in his hands—just out of her reach. Several seconds crawled by before his hands moved forward

We got stuck in traffic at Oshodi. The yellow buses ran everywhere, picking and dropping passengers like a rural Indian train. Tolu blasted the horn all the way through the crawling traffic, vainly trying to keep the notorious buses from crossing our path. At last, we crossed the Oshodi Bridge, and Tolu let the horn to rest. I looked back at the trio sitting in the back seat and that was when I heard the soft snore. I looked from Maria to the others and then my eyes returned to Mr. Potter’s face; his eyes were shut and his mouth hung opened.I looked at Eric.He shrugged. ‘He fell asleep.’‘Is he okay?’ Tolu asked. ‘Why is he sleeping like a bad palm oil?’‘Maybe he is tired,’ Maria said. ‘Allow him to get some rest.’‘I don’t think he is well,’ Tolu said. ‘I hope he won’t die on us.’‘He is not dying on us,’ Maria said, the anger very clear in her voice. ‘He will not die. Nobody is dying until I collect my portion—’‘Let him sleep!’ Eric shouted. He turned his face to Maria. ‘Let’s t