I have to wear “rags” to the office every week so no one will give me a second look. I live in a luxury flat on the Island, but my phoney residential address is downtown Mushin. So much for my double life, I also drive a battered Toyota to work but I have an impressive garage with four luxury cars back home. My local bank account is in the red, but no one would ever believe how much I have stashed away in a few offshore accounts. I own some landed properties in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt but I applied to get a housing loan from my employer. I must not appear to live beyond my means which is really what I do outside the office. I am a mid class executive with a financial investment firm on Broad Street. In my position as a portfolio manager, I have access to millions in client funds. My job is to reinvest such liquidity in other viable business concerns that will yield a quick and handsome profit for the investors. However, I have not been so prudent with any of the client funds under my care. I use their investment to take care of my own interest and try to cook the books as much as possible. I have to keep up with the big boys some of whom are my co-tenants. These people have private yachts and drink the finest wines and I want to live the good life just like they do. I like to think that I’m just borrowing the funds from my company and my intention is to repay whatever I have taken when I eventually set up my own company. I find it very easy to cover my step and when a client needs their money, I just give them what belongs to other people. Its a swindling cycle where I have to pull the wool over the eyes of my employers and clients.
My co-tenants are expatriates and business executives who can afford to pay the exorbitant rent for a luxury apartment. They don’t have any reason to doubt my phoney lifestyle, but I try to be very careful and unsocial as much as I can be. I leave home very early and return under the cover of the night. I have a reserve room in a hotel close to my office where I do a daily transformation. In the morning, I drive an exotic car into the hotel, change clothes and drive out to the office in a jalopy. I do this ritual everyday, except on weekends when I have to unwind and have a no hold-barred time of my life. I still take care to avoid being seen by senior colleagues and some of my clients who frequent the same nightclubs and cinemas that I visit. Every Friday, I jet out of town so I don’t have to look over my shoulders to see who’s watching. At work, I am a docile employee who occasionally shows some flash of brilliance. That attitude and the overrated perks of my senior executives meant that I could operate undetected for some time. However, our internal auditors began sniffing around a couple of weeks back. Everyone was supposed to be on their toes, but I seem to be the only one he is after. He gives me a piercing look each time we run into each other; in the hallway or in the boardroom. A full scale internal audit of our books was in the offing, and I knew I would be game if it ever happened. The audit was not removed from the global economic meltdown, and the bubble was ready to burst in my face.
When one of the luxury flats in my block became vacant, I was tempted to take it up. It would make sense if I took it and put it up for rent. The former expatriate occupant was returning to his home country. As usual with the availability of such vacancy, expectations were high among us tenants as to who would move into the place. Forget that all tenants had to pay rents in US dollars, we were humans too; with an eye for our neighbours. There was always the opportunity for business and social networking. I have used a few contacts in the place to bring in investors for my firm. I was still contemplating my next move on how to weather the storm of the looming audit in my office when something terrifying happened. I almost ran into the internal auditor in my luxury apartment. Ordinarily, it shouldn’t have been an issue, but I was still in my night dress when the Internal Auditor came on an inspection tour of the vacant flat. He was in company of some other senior executive in the firm. I had been on the grounds to pick up a file from my car when I saw them. I literarily froze beside my car for a few hours. Luckily, they left without seeing me. My hide-and-seek game would be seriously compromised if I was found out so easily. But what was he up to inspecting a vacant luxury flat in my block. If the internal Auditor is going to be my next-door neighbour, then I’d be in for serious trouble.... [to be continued]
No comments:
Post a Comment