CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Nairobi Cocktail, The Sleaze

“When is the burial?” Samuel asked with the most neutral voice he could summon. It had been two days since the Kamaus passed on, two days of living with a woman hell-bent on pretending the deaths had not affected her. Two days of him trying to act like the centre of her universe had not shifted. He hated playing hide and seek, hiding from the display of feelings they both needed to display, but he was not ready to confront her and she was not ready to be confronted, not yet. Kerubo was stretching her mental strength, walking across a valley on a thin line.

The only thing he could do was literally stalk her until she snapped, then he would rescue her, hopefully. That snap however needed to happen within the next two days because that was all he had before returning to the streets where things were getting hotter by the hour. Earlier he had spoken to Onyango and according to him, trouble was imminent. “The newspaper seller says the newbies are either not hiding anymore, or they are getting careless.” The newspaper seller walked up and down Kirinyaga road selling newspapers when Samuel was off.

“The Kamau children all arrive tomorrow.” Kerubo answered.

“How many are they, again?”

“Three girls and one boy…”

“Were you ever close to them?”

Kerubo remembered how, as a little scrawny kid she would go to Mrs Kamau for food and as soon as the children saw they would find something to do, away from her. She shrugged. “Mh…I wouldn’t say we were but I think the appropriate thing would be they were not interested in me. Also, they were also much older and probably didn’t know what to do with me.”

Samuel wanted to say more, like how their being older should have nothing to do with how they behaved to her, but he let it pass.

“They want the burial to be the day after tomorrow. Their flight back to America is in four days. I guess they have lives to get back to in America.” Kerubo answered bitterly.

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“What is?”

“That the burials will happen soon… there is never any point of keeping a dead body in the morgue longer than necessary…”

Kerubo scoffed.

“Will they have time to visit their grandmother in Nyeri?”

Kerubo shrugged. “I didn’t ask them. We were never that friendly for me to ask such questions…”

“I know you hate this question, but if I do not ask you, I don’t know who will. How are you feeling? Like, really?”

They were at Samuel’s balcony, sitting on the swinging chairs, watching the rain and the invisible mountain peak while drinking coffee. For two days, Kerubo had drank a lot of alcohol, like someone trying to fill a void, and eaten little food. That this was the first time she was drinking something that was not water or alcohol was a good sign for Samuel.

“How are you feeling, Kerubo?” Samuel repeated when no answer came forth.

Kerubo started swinging on the chair faster than before. “Honestly, I don’t know, and that sucks. It sucks because I should feel something…I mean, those two were practically my parents and I think it is unfair to have the same reaction I had at my blood parents’ deaths…I feel nothing. What is wrong with me, Samuel?”

Samuel held his breath, just for a moment. He had detected emotion in Kerubo’s voice, a raw emotion that could be the perfect timing to get her to break down. He knew why Kerubo was acting the way she was. She was juggling all sorts of emotions including sadness and guilt and then there were the memories of her parents and how un-parental they had been to her and how she had not mourned them.

“There is nothing wrong with you.” He said gently, almost to himself. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. We react differently to trauma, this is your way…”

“How do you react to trauma?”

Samuel thought about how un-bothered he had been about his father’s death. How even relieved he had been, like finally getting rid of a recurring wart. How angry he had become because of the drama that had followed. How he had not mourned his father. Then he remembered how his mother’s death had almost broken him. “I react accordingly. I didn’t mourn my father, but when mom died, I was ready to die of grief.”

“Shouldn’t I be crying for the Kamau’s?”

“Perhaps you should, perhaps you should not. I don’t think tears particularly validate mourning. What is in here…” he stretched his hand, placing it on her left side of the chest. “What is here is more important. Also, just because somebody is your blood relative does not automatically mean you mourn them…your parents were not nice to you, I think it is perfectly in order not to have mourned them…”

“I always feel so terrible about not feeling sad…”

“That’s guilt, but that’s because you think you should have mourned them. But what did they ever do for you to deserve your mourning? From what you have told me, the only thing they did for you was give birth to you…”

“Still…”

“Still nothing.” Samuel cut it forcefully, gaining courage to go full throttle with every ounce of weakness her voice was displaying. “The only thing you should mourn about is that you had no relationship with them, but you cannot take responsibility for that. So they were alcoholics, so alcoholism is a disease, but you did not give them the disease. For all we know, they were alcoholics before you were conceived. You were just a frigging kid. Come on Kerubo. The Kamaus were your parents, end, of.”

And Kerubo broke down, starting with a howl that made Samuel pour coffee on himself because it was so sudden and loud.

***

 Samuel was busy in the kitchen while Kerubo was in the shower. The shower had been running for over twenty minutes and if the mood was no so sombre, he would have knocked on the bathroom door to complain about the water and electricity consumption. For now, if she wanted to shower until water ran out, he would let her. She had cried long and hard. He had held her just as long and hard, felt her every heave, his tee-shirt soaking her every tear.

When she had finally stopped, eyes puffed up and looking drained, she had said she was hungry.

“That’s such a coincidence because I am hungry too. I am hoping you are hungry for some pork ribs and ugali.”

She had given him a sad smile. “Right now, I could eat you…”

“Ha! Another coincidence because I am well marinated.”

And they had laughed. She had thanked him before dragging her feet to the bathroom.

Samuel marinated the pork ribs with his favourite spices, ginger, garlic and rosemary and green pepper, wrapped them in foil paper and put them in the oven. He was whistling and dancing to his own whistles. The hard part was over, the part of making Kerubo release her tension. Now he could think about Kirinyaga Road and if Kerubo could handle it. Onyango would be glad to hear Kerubo’s progress. “Can she handle it in her current mood?” He had wanted to know. “How is she, really?”

“Angry at a million and one things, understandably so.”

“That’s not good. She needs to be rational, not angry.”

“Dude, that’s a lot to expect from someone who just lost two parents, but if it makes you feel better, her physical fitness is tops. Yesterday we went for a long run and she kicked my butt. Later we went to the gym and she kicked my butt too, mine and the punching bag’s.”

“Your gym has a punching bag with a butt?” Onyango had asked in amusement.

“Might as well. The way she was punching it, you would have thought it had wronged her. The gym instructor had to stop her. He told her he was sorry that the punching bag looked like her ex…”

Onyango laughed. “I hope you didn’t take that personal…”

“I am not her ex. I am her current…”

“You and a few others…”

“Don’t rub it in.”

“Anyway, Kerubo needs to sort her head soon. I cannot have her in such an operation if she is not mentally sharp…”

“I am working on it.” He had promised, and he was glad he had. At least he hoped he had.

***

Whenever Oti had at least twenty four hours to himself, he spent them indoors doing pretty much nothing. The nothing included going to a nearby mall for two large size pepperoni pizzas, ten chicken wings and a litre of cola. He would place them, together with the remote control gadgets, on the coffee table and pull it close to the sofa. On the same table, he would roll five joints of weed and place them between the lighter and the ashtray. He would then turn on the television to a music station and listen loudly on the surround system to muff out the external sounds. Then he would lay on the sofa and consume his products accordingly. On such days, the most exerting activity would be his walks to and from the toilet a few feet away.

Today was one of those days.

At six thirty PM, he was as high as he had been at ten AM. On such days, he hardly checked his phone, but that was because the only person who ever called him was Kamau, and Kamau never called him unless there was a job happening that night. Sometimes he felt sad for himself, that had had an expensive phone, ‘legitimately’ owned, yet he had nobody to call, or call him. It was during such moments the temptation to call his mother sneaked on him, but then again, he did not have his mother’s phone number. He did not even know if she had a phone or not. It was then by pure accident that he checked his phone at six thirty PM and found six missed calls from Kamau.

He cursed and dialled Kamau back.

“Where have you been?” Kamau demanded, sounding pissed. Oti hesitated before answering then looked at the phone screen to make sure he had called the right number. The only other number saved on his phone belonged to the slum broker. It was Kamau indeed, but his tone did not make sense. What Kamau should have said to him was ‘vipi brathe,’ hi bro.

“In the house. Why?”

“You need to check your phone more often bwana. What if there was an emergency?”

There went the tone again. Oti came close to asking what the chances of an emergency were in their line of work, but he was still trying to work out Kamau’s tone. Or perhaps, he thought, he was too stoned and he was hearing things. He took a sip of the cola on the table.

“Si ni sorry basi…sema.”

“I need to see you…”

“Today?”

“Now. Someone is waiting for you outside that pub you took me to some time back. Half an hour.”

 “Why can’t it wait until tomorrow? I am so stoned.” Oti protested. He had already smoked four joints, was about to light the fifth one.
            “Because it has to be today. Be there. Thirty minutes.”

“Is it a job? Because if it is, I am too stoned to do it.”

“Thirty minutes, Oti.”

“Hello…” but Kamau was gone.

Kamau had disconnected the line quickly because he had started feeling like an ass, a fraud. He had listened to Oti answering him, using same tone of voice as ever, the friend tone while he cringed at his own tone. But what was he supposed to do? Boss was there, staring at him unblinkingly. He was being tested and failing was not an option. Besides, his loyalty lay more with Boss than on Oti, as much as he liked him.

Oti stared at his phone in confusion. ‘What was that? Am I that stoned?’ Once in a while, weed did things to his head. One time he had been sure his mother was in the room, having a conversation with him as she tidied up for him. How about that time his table had turned into a giant locust? Yes, that could be it, because otherwise it would not make sense for Kamau to order him around, like he was Boss. It was even possible that he had imagined the call, but he decided to go anyway.  

  He took another slice of pizza and chewed on it slowly, bit by bit while staring at the television, wondering if he should shower before leaving. He was sweaty, he could smell his own sweat, but the walk to the bus stop was fifteen minutes away and Kamau did not sound like he was in a mood to be delayed.

He turned off the television and the surround system, letting in the ghetto noises of drunks and unruly children and laughing women. How the women still managed to laugh all day, in the midst of all their troubles, was beyond him. The men never seemed to laugh. Their voices were only heard through loud drunken monologues or during fights. Oti slipped into a pair of jeans on top of the boxer shorts he had worn all day, covered the vest with a tee-shirt and a jacket, tucked his empty gun and walked into the approaching night.

***

As Oti entered the house, his heart, one that had been racing erratically since he was picked up by two men, started racing even faster. The men could have been the same men who had picked him and Kamau from jail, in a big, black car, which could have been the same car that had picked them from the said jail. The men had spotted him before he spotted them, something that should have been impossible because as far as he was concerned, he had the best night vision and had a knack to spot trouble from far. A more bothering thought, how could they recognise him so easily at night, like they were familiar with him.

One of them had walked to him from behind, poked him with something that could have been a gun or finger and roughly whispered, ‘get into that car.’ He had, in silence, touching his gun then cursing internally because it had no bullets. Perhaps he should talk to his guy in the slums to see if he could get bullets for him. What use was a gun without bullets?

They had driven in silence. Oti, along the short drive, considered jumping out of the moving car, even tried the lock but it refused to barge. He had let his fingers feel the door but could not locate the lock, so he had sat back and tried to guess why Kamau was sending scary people to pick him up, the kind of thing Boss would do. 

It was now dark but he remembered the house they drove into. It was the house he and Kamau had spent the night after jail. “Get inside, Kamau is waiting for you.” One of the men said to him after opening the door from outside.

There were four figures in the dimmed room and he was sure none of them was Kamau. Three of them were huge, like the ones who had driven him here. One of them was Boss. He had only met him once before, but he could never forget him because his memory was as good as his night vision.

“Oti, have a seat.” Boss was sitting in the same position he had occupied during their first meeting, the top seat at the dining table. The other men were sprawled on the sofa, their long legs sprawled in front of them. He hesitated, wondering where to sit.

“Anywhere?”

“Anywhere.”

Oti sat on the floor. He was sober by now and his instinct told him this was not exactly a social call. He rummaged through his memory, wondering what it was he may have done wrong. He couldn’t think of a thing, unless Kamau had told on him about his suggestion to branch off independently.

“I guess you like the floor. Suit yourself. How are you?”

“Fine. Fine Boss.”

“That’s good. How is work?”

“Fine Boss.”

“Kamau will be here in a bit then we can start off. Would you like something to drink?”

Oti shook his head. “I am fine, thank you.” He was. He had been eating all day. Out of the two pizzas and ten chicken wings, he was down to the last two slices and three chicken wings. Smoking weed upped his appetite but he was sure even if he was hungry, this would not have been a place to spark his appetite.

For five minutes, nobody spoke. Oti did not look up, instead he concentrated on his toes, but he could tell the four pairs of eyes were watching him from both directions. He had an urge to cough but he fought it down. It was a cold evening but he was sweating, his unwashed body had doubled its odour. He hoped they could not smell him. If he survived this he promised himself never again to think of going against Boss. The fear he was experiencing was a perfect deterrent.

Kamau made his entry from the bedroom. He had been waiting in his new bedroom like Boss had instructed him. The idea was for Boss and the three torturers to observe Oti’s body language. To see if Oti would exhibit fear or stubbornness. If he exhibited the former, he had a chance of survival. The latter would send him straight to hell sooner rather than later. Kamau had spent the whole five minutes crossing his fingers in support of Oti.

“Oti…” Kamau said, standing a few feet away from Oti. Oti looked up in confusion. “Won’t you take a seat?” Oti shook his head, not because he did not want to take a seat but because Kamau did not sound afraid of Boss. Kamau, the same man who told Oti over and over about how to behave in front of Boss, the one who never let  him forget that Boss was capable of cutting off a finger for a misdemeanour as minor as not calling him Boss, was behaving like Boss was his equal.  He stole a quick glance at Boss, but Boss was doing something on the phone, unbothered.

“Come on, take a seat. Sit on one of the chairs.” He pointed at the dining table. Oti slowly got up and selected the seat farthest from Boss. Kamau took the one closest to Oti. “I know you are wondering what is happening. Don’t look so scared. You haven’t done anything wrong…yet.”

Oti’s head almost snapped as he looked at Kamau. He went to say something but Kamau put up his hand. “You and I will not be working together, not like we used to. Boss has asked me if you can work alongside someone else, I said you could. Do you think you can?”

Oti, in both relief and more confusion, nodded in quick succession.

“You cannot do the night duties for now, but I have a proposition for you.” Kamau cleared his throat and turned towards the men on the sofa. “If you are okay with it, you will be working alongside those gentlemen.”

“What is it they do?”

“They are in charge of surveillance. In charge of making sure all turncoats are taken care of…”

“You mean, kill?”

“I am glad you are catching on fast. They keep Boss safe. They keep everyone else in line…really, they are nice people, unless they do not have to be nice.”

Boss, from his corner, was fighting a satisfied smile. The more he listened to Kamau, the more he was sure he had made the right decision with him. Listening to Kamau talk to Oti, giving him options that were really not options, something he, Boss, excelled in, was like looking into the mirror. He hoped Oti would say no to the proposal to be deployed, just to see if Kamau would be have the guts to kill his own friend. 

“I…I have never killed anyone…”

“I know. I hope it stays like that.” Kamau answered, hoping so because he remembered the first time a man had died in his hands. It had taken him months to stop having nightmares.

“If I say no?”

Kamau shrugged, eyeballing Oti. “I would be disappointed. We would all be disappointed, but we cannot force you.”

Oti shivered, not from the cold temperature but from the chill that went down his spine. Right at that moment, he remembered his time in the cell with Kamau. How Kamau had been the alpha of the cell, yet never got into fights like the rest. The food and cigarettes he dished out to other prisoners had helped, but Oti could bet that even without the freebies, Kamau would still have been the alpha. There was a quiet coldness about him, a calm air of debauchery. It was possible their one year old friendship had crowded Oti’s vision of Kamau, but it was there, and he was looking at it right at that moment and it was sending chills down his spine.

“Can I…can I think about it?”

“You have twenty four hours to think about it.”

“Thank you.” 

“Hungry?”

Oti shook his head. He wanted to go home. Kamau shrugged and stood up. “Alright. You can leave whenever you want. The same people will drive you back to the same spot they picked you from.” Kamau walked to the bedroom. Only when he softly shut the door behind him did he start shivering, and not from the cold. Not from guilt either. He shivered in disbelief, that as much as he liked Oti, he had realised he would not think twice about driving a knife down his throat through his mouth if he did not say yes.

***

When Oti alighted from the vehicle a few minutes past nine PM, he had to fight the urge to run. He only managed to fight the temptation because he had heard many ghetto stories, that police often ordered criminals to run, then they would shoot them from the back. He didn’t want to be shot from the back. So he walked away, in reverse, watching the car’s tail lights disappear. He still did not run, but he walked fast, not towards his house but towards his mother’s house.

The scary and confusing episode with Kamau had given him a sudden urge to be near his mother, something he had never felt even when he was a needy little boy. He stepped over what could have been poop or mud puddles, rubbed shoulders with people who could have been fellow criminals or just ghetto residents walking home. It took him ten minutes to walk to his parents’ house.

He stood outside the door, went to knock it then changed his mind. He leaned on it, it creaked and for a moment feared he had been heard. He could hear a mumbled conversation from the inside. His mother and father. They now lived on their own, all their children having left to either get married or live on their own.

His parents were laughing in between the mumbled conversation. It was strange hearing his mother laugh. He had no memory of her laughing. When he lived here, she was always shouting or moaning about something one of them had done, or not done. He allowed himself a smile, genuinely happy that she could finally have time to herself, time to laugh, time to enjoy some meat dish and he could tell they were cooking meat. A few days ago he had done his night deliveries and he had put money in the bag – they must have found the money.

He was sure he had turned off the lights but he found them on. Again, he blamed the weed, and the fact that he had left in haste and might have forgotten to turn them off. He took a step inside then paused again. He was not the neatest person, in fact, he hardly cleared up stuff unless they became a health hazard, and no wonder the pizza and chicken boxes neatly piled on each other was something that caught his attention. He opened the boxes – empty. So was the soda bottle. He blamed the weed again.

 With his heart beating so hard that he could hear it, he looked around the room, looking for missing things. If somebody had broken into his house, his electronics would have been missing. Nothing was missing. If somebody had broken into his house, there would have been clues at the door – like a broken padlock. Even with a master key, they would have been in too much of a hurry to bother locking the padlock. The padlock was intact.

As much as he blamed weed because it was the only rational explanation, he tiptoed to his bedroom. He gasped and took several steps back. He never made his bed, yet what he was looking at was a bed made the way they made them at the hotels he took prostitutes to. By this time, his heart was nearly beating out of his mouth as he checked his house bank located in a box under the bed. The padlock was intact. He opened it – no money seemed to be missing, but there was something else, a wad of dollar bills on top of the Kenya shillings.

That was when his body turned into liquid and if he had not stopped to take a piss outside his house, he would have peed on himself. Somebody had come to his house in his absence. Whoever was here had not come to rob him, they had come to leave him subtle messages, to let him know he was not that well hidden in the slums, that could get to him if they wanted to.

He sat on the floor against the bed and looked up at the ceiling, for the first time noticing the cobwebs gracing it. On his walk back from his mother’s house, he had made a decision to run away to another town, perhaps Kisumu. He had enough money to start him off in a business. Surely nobody could find him in Kisumu. He did not consider himself to be a good man, but he had never had the killer instinct. Never in his time as a thief had he felt the urge to take a life. He did not want to start. Kamau and Boss, now that he was starting to think of them as the same person, wanted to turn him into a killer.  Looking at his house, knowing Kamau and Boss had sent their goons here, he knew running away was not an option. They would know, they would kill him before he boarded the bus.

Ten minutes later, still sitting on the floor, he dialled Kamau’s number. “Kamau, who was in my house?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” That was all Kamau said before disconnecting.

And he cried. He cried and cursed the day he met Kamau. And he missed his pickpocketing days.

***

Kamau was finally alone in his new house, alone, if he didn’t count about ten security men lurking outside. He was physically ready for bed in his sleeping boxer shorts and tee-shirt. Mentally he was nowhere near ready for bed. He sat on the most comfortable queen’s size bed he did not know existed until earlier that day and wondered what use the bed was if he could not have sex on it.

Most of all, he was having a mental fight, and that was what was keeping him awake. He was thinking about Oti, if he would see him again alive. He was aware a couple of men had gone to Oti’s house. What Oti would do with the information was what would determine if he lived or disappeared.

He entered the bed, positioned three pillows under his head and faced the white ceiling. He reached for the bed light switch and turned it off. He shut his eyes and willed himself to sleep. It would be two hours before his brain finally succumbed to fatigue. Those two hours would be spent thinking about the new direction his life was about to take. Nobody had told him directly, but he did not need anyone to tell him that he was about to become a crime boss. Nobody had asked him if he wanted the position or not but he knew, if he wanted to live, he had no choice. The question was, where was Boss going? Retiring did not look like a possibility, not for Boss.

Could he run the organisation? He could. He more or less knew where the money was. He was in charge of paying the thieves and knew all of them by name. He even knew how the car yards worked and once in a while appeared there and pretended to sell cars. He knew where all the bank accounts were and he certainly knew where some of the bodies were hidden.

Would he be okay to run the crime? He was certainly starting to warm up to the idea of calling the shots although his ambitions had never been that high. He had never desired Boss’ job. He was satisfied to be the teacher’s pet, but now he wondered if he had been groomed right from the start. Now it made sense why Boss forgave him for a misdemeanour that saw his fellow thieves fed to the lions of Amboseli.

Again, could he do it? He supposed he could. But where was Boss going? That was the nagging question of the night.

***

Naliaka’s view from Queen’s bedroom on second was better than her view from her room on first floor. She saw farther, and there was a balcony. Time was ten AM. She would have preferred to be outside enjoying the sun that had decided to surprise the rain, but Kaggai was around. From the balcony, she had watched him waddle in. He looked fatter than she remembered him. An hour later, she watched him waddle out, a smug smile on his face.

She tasted bile. She looked around Queen’s balcony that had several potted plants, selected the one closest to her and spat the bile into the plant, apologising to it immediately. Boss’ call came through just as Kaggai’s car disappeared out of the gate.

“Hey…”

“Hey you. Why do you sound like that?”

“Like how?”

“I don’t know…angry, perhaps?”

“I am fine. Just bored. I need to go out there…”

Boss cleared his throat. “You will love what I am about to say then. I am about ninety eight percent sure that my enemies do not know about you…”

Naliaka wanted to laugh, but she smiled. “Are you sure?”

“I am. If they did, they would have by now managed to find their way to you, or your house. All clear, I am glad to say. Besides, I have information that they were asking around if anybody knows my girlfriend. If they knew about you, they wouldn’t be asking that…”

Naliaka felt her earlier happiness ebb away, replaced by dread and some bile. She spat on the plant once more. “So they can still find me?”

“If someone talked. But…the people who know about you are unlikely to talk. Also, I am retaining your security, but you can go out if you like.”

“I am so relieved.”

“Just a few things. Only go out with my guys if you decide to venture into the city…I have a few people operating taxis. I will send you two contacts. Only use them, please.”

“So they can report back to you?”

“I am so insulted!” Boss retorted. “I have never stopped you from doing whatever you wanted to, why would I start now?”

“Sorry…”

“But to answer you, no. For your own security. For my own peace of mind. If something happened to you because of me, I would be very angry with myself…”

“Thank you…I…I can go and see your parents?” It was her way of apologising.

“You can, indeed. When?”

“Day after tomorrow? Today, I would like to go out…”

“Oh…” She could almost taste the disappointment in his voice.

“I will stay away from the usual joints. I want to go out with the priest…”

|”Oh…okay. Just be careful….”

“I will. The priest, if he is available, will be driving. What will happen to my taxi guy…”

“He will follow you discreetly from a distance…”

“And wait all night?”

“And stay all night, and day if necessary.”

“Thank you.”

“Please, take care of yourself…”

“I am trying. Alright then, enjoy your night out. I will call you tomorrow at four PM.”

***

Naliaka stayed away from Moi Avenue altogether. If Boss’ enemies were to look for her that would be the first street they would search. She had also agonised about how to dress. If she put on her hooker clothes, she would attract the kind of people she did not want to attract. If she wore her day persona, it was likely the one Boss’ enemies would know, if they did. Safety first, but she ended up with a mix of the two. She did not own a black wig but Malaika did. She wore makeup, but the fake eyelashes were missing, so did the red lipstick which was replaced by a peach one. Instead of the tiny clothes, she wore a pair of skinny jeans, ankle boots and a sleeveless black top. The rain had brought with it its cold cousin so she wore a beige trench coat.

 She picked a random pub in Ngaara. She did not particularly like the area. When she was starting out on her own, she had gone to several pubs to hunt but she had found the patrons quite unruly and much, much older.

The middle aged men, she had found, did not waste time with conversations. They would walk up to her and touch her buttocks, or boobs, as a chat-up line. They had reminded her of Kaggai and that had been enough reason for her to write off Ngaara.

Now she was back, but not to hunt. Earlier, she had called Father Joshua.

“Oh my goodness Kiki, is that really you calling me?” He had asked in excitement and disbelief.

“Hi Father. It really is me. What are you up to later on?”

“Why?” He had asked cautiously.

“Obviously because I want to see you. It’s okay though if you were not planning to come to town.”

“I was.” He said quickly. It was a lie. He had gone out the previous night, but he would pass himself as crazy if he said no to Kiki.

“Alright. I should be in town by seven PM. Let me know when you start driving down then I can tell you where I will be.”

“Not in the same place?”

“No. I feel like a change of scene. Ngaara okay with you?”

“Ngaara?” He knew enough about Ngaara clientele to know that if any of his congregants, mainly made out of middle aged people, decided to go out, they would most likely pick Ngaara.

“Is there a problem?”

“No…no. Let me know where, I will find you.”

Now.

Like she used to do when on the prowl, she selected a seat at the counter where she could observe a huge section of the crowd without having to turn her head this way and that way. She smiled at the waiter before making her order and asked him to charge her for whatever he was drinking. Waiters, she knew, were important to befriend. They knew everyone, all the trouble spots. They also came in handy for chats, especially when one did not have company, something she tended not to have.

The barman was too busy to chat and getting busier by the second so apart from Googling random stuff on her phone, she watched the crowd, relishing the moment because for the first time, she was not vetting men to go home with, or rob. She was, she thought with a smile, waiting for a date. The crowd she was watching had not changed in four years since she was last here. Pot-bellied men, loud older women drinking away from the men. One man-guitar musician murdering words of songs, nobody dancing on the floor but everybody dancing form their seat.

An hour into her vigil, her interest had been captured by four women sharing a table.

If she had wanted to ignore the women, she would have miserably failed because apart from being in her direct eye line, they stuck out like sore thumbs in the chaotic crowds. Their age was their first issue. They looked well into well into their fifties. Naliaka momentarily thought of her mother who would be more or less their age, but she quickly blocked out the line of thought because thinking about her mother made her sad and angry. The women were uniformly overweight. A quick glance would mislead anyone into thinking they were deliberately sitting with their legs apart, but a deeper look revealed that the meat between their collective thighs made it impossible to sit any other way.

They were not using glasses to drink their beer, and hardly any of them put their bottles down. Naliaka wondered how anyone could drink so fast and not be comatose. They were also laughing very loudly, their deep laughter carrying through the loud music. They were also flirting with two younger men in the next table. Naliaka saw the winks and the come-ons.

For no particular reason, Naliaka smiled. She let her eyes wander to the rest of the crowd, and her eyes locked on his. She could not see it because he wore a hat pulled down to his forehead, but she knew he was looking straight at her, that he had been looking at her for a while.  He sat alone on a high stool at the second counter directly behind the four women. Like the four women, he was drinking straight from the bottle. He raised the bottle at her, she acknowledged. Too bad she was not interested in taking anyone but the Father home.

Her eyes went back to the women. The two men taking seats on the table the women occupied. To Naliaka, the men could have passed for their sons, or much younger brothers, and they looked pretty drunk. Naliaka watched the women pause their laughter to watch the two men and exchange knowing looks. What were they up to? For the first time since she started watching them, two of the women put their beers on the table and reached for their bags and started fumbling inside. The other two got busy with the two men, touching and chatting. Naliaka felt attacked on the men’s behalf, but then again, they didn’t seem to mind.  

“This is interesting…” Naliaka mumbled to herself, but either the waiter who had taken a breather after a long rush heard her, or he knew what she was thinking.

“Those two are in so much trouble…” He told Naliaka and chuckled.

“What do you mean?”

“You see those women? Dangerous. The number of men who have almost died because of them …tsk tsk tsk…” he was shaking his head, but before he could finish up the story, he had to serve other customers. Naliaka turned to look back at the group.

Two of the women were kissing the two men, the other two pulled the men’s drinks. At first, Naliaka wondered why they were caressing the bottles, then it hit her. “Oh my goodness!” She gasped, looking at the waiter who shrugged and continued serving the customers. She knew what just happened because even though she had always been a lone operator, she knew other prostitutes because it was always important to know each to avoid bloody territorial wars. She knew girls who posed as prostitutes but they were thieves who drugged men by kissing them, letting them smell their boobs or by doing what she had just seen happen.

What had shocked her was the age of the women. They looked like somebody’s mother, like Julia. Naliaka looked at the man behind, he seemed to be watching the women but he did not look that bothered, neither did the people in surrounding tables. Now she wondered if she was the only one, she and the waiter, who knew what had just happened.

And she watched. Watched until the men slumped on the table. Watched the women emptying their pockets, pocking their phones, then walking away. She turned to the waiter to ask if the men would be okay.

“They most probably will. Some end up in hospital, others are woken up in the morning by the cleaners…”

She jumped when somebody tapped her shoulder.

“Hi. I have been watching you…” It was the man she had exchanged looks with and watched the robbery with.

“Father Joshua!” She nearly screamed. “What’s with the hat? You look so different!”

“Look who is talking!” Father Joshua answered as he hugged her. “It took me almost half an hour to be sure it was you. You look…what can I say?” He was studying her from an arm’s length.

“Normal?” she asked with a giggle.

“Your words, not mine. But I like what I am looking at…”

“So why are you hiding behind the hat?”

“Because, my dear, my congregants are the sort of people who would come here. I still have people to convert and I am trying to set a good example…”

***

Burial was at Lang’ata Public Cemetery. It was a short one.

Kerubo and Samuel had woken up in the morning, made slow and quiet love. Because the previous night the Kamau children had told them black would be the colour, they had both dressed in black jeans, black tee-shirts and black blazer topped with black sunglasses.

At the mortuary, Samuel had followed Kerubo around and that was how he had been introduced to the son and daughters. The girls had all nodded and walked away. The son had lingered around longer, had tried to talk to Kerubo but had given up when Samuel kept coming between them. Kerubo viewed the bodies in the white caskets as she hang on to Samuel’s arm. The two bodies looked as peaceful as they did  on the day he saw them.

At the burial site with about fifty attendants, Kerubo had kept behind the crowd and as soon as the bodies were in the ground, she pulled Samuel away. “Let’s go…”

“What? Aren’t you going to stay to the end?”

“What end? The end happened five days ago. They have been buried, that’s it.”

“How about the children?  I think the son actually wanted to talk to you…”

“Not interested.” she asked, pausing to look back at the site. “The girls don’t care. I refuse to be looked as, as an imposter.”

“The son does…”

“Why are you insisting?”

“Because Kerubo, it is possible for people to realise mistakes later in life. I would give him a chance if I were you.”

“I will think about it.”

"Okay, but you only have a few days…”

The crying had started as soon as they entered the car. She was not crying loudly, but she was heaving and using tissue back to back to wipe her eyes.

“Are you going to be okay?” He asked as he pulled over at her gate. He was due to return to the streets in less than twenty four hours and he needed to be psychologically ready.

“I will be fine. I promise.”

“Will you go back to work tomorrow?”

She nodded. “Yep. I need the distraction.”

“Sawa. Will see you in the morning then. Oh, and I like my breakfast with bacon…”

“Piss off…” she cussed with a smile and walked out of the car. He watched her until she disappeared before driving away.

Kerubo waited until she was sure Samuel was gone before summoning a taxi. She had debated on whether it would be better to call Selina first or to just appear. She decided on the latter.

Selina opened the door wearing a dera, hair unkempt, like she had just woken up.

“Really, Selina? You need to first ask who is at the door before opening…” Kerubo reprimanded before inviting herself in.

“Yes mother.” Selina said with an eye roll, shutting the door. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Visiting. Do you have food? I haven’t eaten all day…”

“Chic, you cannot just turn up fwaaaa. What if I had my boyfriend here?”

“Pst…you don’t have a boyfriend.”

“It doesn’t mean I don’t have sex…”

“Oh well.” Kerubo was already in the kitchen, checking what was in the cooking pots. “Ooh…nice. Chicken and rice, like you knew I would turn up.”

“Seriously? Anyway, where have you been sick?”

Kerubo looked at her friend in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You told me you were taking the week off work because you were sick…”

“Oh, sorry, that was a lie. My parents died…”

“What the?...Kerubo!”

Kerubo regretted her blunt talk. Selina was her friend, but she did not know her as much as Samuel did. She was talking to Selina the same way she talked to Samuel. She sighed and covered the pots then washed her hands at the sink.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I am sorry…come to the living room. I probably need to tell you a little about my life. Come…”

***

An hour later, Selina had cried more than Kerubo had done in a week, and that had been a lot of crying she had done in a week. “I am so sorry…”

“I know. And I am sorry for not being such an open friend…”

“I wish you told me. I could have come to support you at the burial…”

“Samuel was there…” she said, regretting immediately.

“Who is Samuel?”

“Oh…erm…he is just a guy I knew a long time ago. He heard about the deaths and looked for me.”

“That’s good then. I thought I had a rough life but shit…you sound cursed.”

“Thanks.” Kerubo said with a giggle. “It’s what I always thought…”

“Who would have thought?. That’s why you have trust issues…”

“What do you mean?”

“What? You want to tell me you don’t know you have trust issues? I have known you for years, I can swear I am your closest friend, and only after your parents die do I find out about your life. You, the same person who prefers one night stands…trust issues right there.”

“I just hate burdening people with my issues…”

“Trust. Issues. Anyway, are you still hungry? Let me warm some food. I have a bottle of wine too…”

The two girls sat into the night, talking. Selina talked more, about her father who had her operation but was not doing very well. About Kamau who kept sending money to Selina’s phone. A couple of times I returned the money, but he would send it back with extra. I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Use it.”

“For what?”

“Your younger siblings. You keep telling me they haven’t joined college because there is no money. Use it.”

“Two problems with that. One, I would have to explain the money to father and two, I am not sure I actually want money from him.”

“Have you ever asked him exactly what he does?”

Selina shook her head. “Not me, but dad has. He says he is a car salesman…”

“You don’t believe him because...”

“I don’t know, actually. There is just something sinister aura about him…”

“If I were you I would ask him to take me to his work place…”

“Why?”

“To see if he really is a car salesman. Ask him to show you where he works and if the place does not exist then you have a reason to suspect him of anything you want.”

“You have a point.”

“Of course I do. He doesn’t look like a thug to me…” She lied.

“That’s because he is a good looking man and nobody expects a good looking man to be a criminal…”

“Yeah, you are right.” Kerubo thought of Boss, then thought about the danger that he and Kamau were in. She hoped neither of them died. “Traitor…” she muttered to herself.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. Is there more wine?”

***

The alarm went off at two AM. Samuel always had a problem saying bye to his house, knowing he would be away from his comfortable bed, long showers and scented baths, sex and hot food. As he put on his white vest and white underwear, as packed the dirty looking clothes (only they were not dirty but full of different coloured paints and cement dust from Kerubo’s shop) and gathered packed them in a disposable bag, he felt a certain kind of sadness overwhelm him.

He turned off all socket and light switches, grabbed his car keys and walked out.

Forty minutes later, he packed the car on a random street where Kerubo would pick it up and return it to the insurance firm. He hoped by the time he took his next break he would have a new Benz. When he came out of the car, he had transformed back to Mwenda Samuel. He took a few steps away from the car, aware that if anyone found him lurking near any car he would be a natural suspect of a vandal.

It was cold, but the rains that had been beating the streets earlier had subsided. He cursed because instead of wearing a pair of old boots that would protect him from the mud puddles and goodness knew what else was mixed with the rain water, he had worn sneakers. Already his feet were soaking in water. He would send a message to Kerubo to bring a pair of boots for him.

He shivered and pulled his sack coat closer to his body. When it was not raining, he enjoyed this quietness in the city. It was four AM, the quietest time of the city. It was a pregnant kind of silence because in less than an hour, the city would burst with noise from the early risers.

Ten minutes later found him on Kirinyaga Road. He did not stop by his booth. Instead, he walked on to the end of the street, right outside Boss’ house. It was quiet except from the usual street boys. They called his name in greeting and offered him hot mandazi. He ignored them and walked to the end of the street then retraced his steps back to the booth.

***

Samuel watched Kerubo walk towards the booth at eight thirty AM and sniggered. She didn’t hear the snigger though. But he was glad because instead of the dejected girl he had expected to see, she walked towards him with a smile and a bounce.

“Don’t smile so much. People may suspect you are in love with a mad man…”

“The horror!” She feigned shock, taking a seat next to her.

“You are late.”

“Shoot me.”

“Where are my boots?”

“I will get you a pair when the hawkers come in. I refuse to spend money on new boots for a mad man.”

“You have a hangover?” She could smell drink on her breath.

“”Brrrr…what’s your problem, mother?” She removed an unfamiliar flask and food warmer.

“I would congratulate you for buying new utensils but they don’t look new.” He pointed at them with his mouth.

“I did not sleep at home…”

“What? I drove you home…”

“You also left my legs with me.” She said with an eye roll.

“Gosh, glad to have your salty self back. Where did you sleep?”

“Selina’s. I felt lonely when you left…’

“Makes sense. Can she give it as good as I can?”

“You rate yourself too high mister. “ She laughed. “But she and I have something in common – we like our men raw.”

“Well, they don’t come rawer than me…feeling better though?”

“Oh yeah, and then some. I convinced her to ask Kamau to let her visit his work place…”

“Impressive. Tell me about it…”

***

Half an hour later, Samuel walked back towards Boss’ house, making a stop a few buildings before. If he did not know what Cecilia was, he would have been as convinced as everyone else seemed to be convinced about her being a mama mboga, but he would have wondered why a mama mboga was in the city so early to sell vegetables. Everybody knew, or should know, that home time was the peak. People did not buy vegetables on the way to the office, they bought them on the way home.  

Cecelia sat on the pavement, protected from the wetness of the night before by a sack. In front of her on another sack were onions, tomatoes and garlic. Cecilia herself was dressed in a heavy coat and a leso around her small waistline.  He could see her jeans and sneakers on her. It may have been a cold morning but Samuel knew the heavy coat was there not to protect her from the cold, but to hide her gun. On her head was a woollen hat.

He dropped some of his paraphernalia when he got to her, mumbled a sorry and went down to collect them. “Hey there. Reporting for duty…”

Cecilia did not turn to look at Samuel and if someone had looked at her closely, they would have seen her mouth moving in answer. “Let’s kick some ass, shall we?”

“I like you.” He mumbled back. “Kerubo will come to buy some vegetables later…”

“Tell her to hurry. Stock is running out fast…”

He chuckled and moved on.

He could not be sure but there was something about the parking boys, the same ones who had offered him a hot mandazi earlier, still in the same position, holding on to their glue bottles but not sniffing it. They were looking at something across the streets, and their heads were huddled together.

Samuel followed their eye line but there were too many people milling around. It should not have bothered him especially because the parking boys, and many others, co-owned the street with him. They were part of the landmark. But his heightened instinct made him stop. Perhaps, like him, they had noticed something on the streets.

A few feet from them, Samuel sat on the pavement, leaned against the wall and pretended to nod off.

“…mfwate peke yako sisi tutabaki hapa.” Follow him as we remain here and keep watch. One of them said. Samuel opened his eyes and inch and watched the one parking boy cross the street in a hurry.

“…another one will ….”

“…something is going…”

“I heard they want to kill…”

The more he listened to the disjointed conversation, the more frustrated he got. The more he listened to them though, the more convinced he was that he should have paid attention to them a long time ago – they knew much more than he would ever know.

“He’s coming back…”

Samuel shifted and adjusted his ears. If he could catch what the returnee had to say, he would know if he was wasting his time here or not.

“You see that one …the tall one wearing a long coat…”

“Half the people have long coats.” The bigger of them protested.

“The one with the longest…” Samuel opened his eyes and looked across the street. He located the one they were talking about before they did. He nearly gasped because it was one of the men he had spotted two weeks ago. “They met just up the road, spoke for a few minutes then…”

“Is Boss in?”

Samuel nearly screamed. He had heard enough. Resisting the temptation to run off, he stood up slowly and walked away and stopped by Cecelia. He bent down to scratch his ankle. “You need to move your market closer to the building. There is activity. Kerubo will give you details…”