There And Back On Time - Season 3 - Episode 56

5 years ago

There And Back On Time - Season 3 - Episode 56

(The Dollar Thief)

After eating, we went back upstairs. It was time for me to take my bath.

I removed my T shirt and jean trousers and left it on top of the bed. I wore just the boxers and went to the bathroom.

The weather was cool, therefore I mixed hot and cold water and sprinkled them on my body with the liquid soap I had found in the hotel. It took me about 12 minutes to finish.

When I returned to the room, Chinelo was not there. I became alerted instantly. There was no need to call her name since the room was just plain. I rushed to my Jean trousers and touched the pocket, the $1000 was no longer there. The remaining Cedis from the hotel payment was gone too. The worst of it all was my phone. It was not there.

I stood like a zombie in the middle of the room not knowing the next thing to do. It occurred to me that she may not have gone far, therefore, I rushed into my clothes and ran downstairs
There! Down the street was Chinelo entering a taxi. I wanted to shout for the cab to stop but they were over 200 meters down the road. Before I could began to chase them, the cab surged forward and moved away. I looked up to see if another cab was coming but I saw non.
4101 was boldly written on the back of the cab. I made a mental note and went back to the hotel.
I confronted the receptionist right away and demanded to know why he allowed the lady to leave without me. He was shocked. I told him what had happened. He called the hotel manager who asked that I came to his office.
I went up to the fourth floor where the manager’s office was located. He apologized for what happened and asked how I met the lady.
”We had boarded the same bus from Lagos this morning” I said.

He called the Police and reported the case. Two Police officers showed up some minutes later and took my statement. They also checked on the hotel CCTV cameras and found the rat. They took still images of her and promised to track her down.

There was no need for me to remain in the hotel, therefore I decided to go. However the problem was that my Motorola Razor phone where I had saved my cousin’s number was also taken. I explained to the manager that I was leaving. He offered to refund me half of the money I paid since I explained to him that I had no more money with me…

I walked down the direction their taxi had followed and found a business center. I called my elder brother in Nigeria and told him I had traveled to Ghana for business. He gave me my cousin Chike’s number again and I called him. I told him where I was and he told me the name of the place where he lived. It was already getting dark, as a result, I hired a cab and drove home.
I explained what happened to my cousin and the fanatic said he had dreamt about it. He narrated how God had shown him what will happen and asked that I joined him in their Church for the duration of my stay in Ghana; I declined. I was home already and I still had $1500 in my bag. People should only go to Churches when there had no money or hope.

I wasn’t hungry that night, I was angry for being careless. How on earth did I forgot the money in my pocket? How about my phone?
The only consolation was that I usualy saved all my phone numbers in a simcard and keep it, however, the simcard where all my numbers were saved was in Lagos. I was just empty there in Accra and I pitied myself.

Daisy was never going to forgive me. I was going to find a way to get her number.

After enough drink that night, I slept and had a dream.

In the dream, Chinelo was chasing me with Cutlass. She was shouting that I had stolen her money. When she nearly hit me with the weapon, I woke up abruptly. I was supposed to be chasing Chinelo and not the other way round.

I remained awake and thought about how I defeated madam Grace, how I manipulated Jose and how I defeated the entire Arabs in Brandenburg. How could Chinelo took my money and my phone and disappeared. If not that I had heard her speaking Igbo, I wouldn’t have believed that an Igbo girl could do that to me. Apparently, there were good and bad people in every corner of the World.

Right there in the room, I decided that I was going after CHINELO on my own; police or no Police.

I didn’t have a plan on how to do that yet but I knew that when the day broke, I was going to have a more relaxed mind and figure out how to go after her. Chinelo had just made a mistake and unless she left Accra, I was going to dig her out of wherever she was hiding. I had time on my hand and the chase was going to be exciting.
A thousand dollars and a motorola wasnt that much but it could have been my international passport or even my entire bag if I had not left it with my cousin. I recalled how it was her that proposed that we sleep together in Ghana. I should have seen the hand writing on the wall from then but they said that ”Whoever the gods wants to kill, they first make him deaf”
‘ A crying child who said that his mother will not sleep, He himself will not sleep too”