Nairobi Heat by Mukoma Wa Ngugi Read Free Book Online Page A

York,’ he’d said with a shrug. Then it had seemed odd, that not even curiosity would get him onto that train, but now, somehow, I understood. If you have everything you need where you are, why go somewhere else? That was how I felt about being in Africa. Until the dead white girl had shown up on Joshua’s doorstep, I had never had a reason to come toAfrica. And so I hadn’t.
    A little pickup truck with
Daily Nation
written all over it slowed down briefly and a man in the back threw a plastic covered bundle in the general direction of the door to the kiosk. It landed in a puddle of filth. The owner cursed, came out with a knife and opened it up. I watched him idly arranging the newspapers on his makeshift stand, adding cigarettes and Wrigley’s gum to the display. But just when I was about to go back to my tea and thoughts, the headline caught my eye:
The Case of the Dead White Girl: American Detective in Kenya
.
    Immediately, I went to pick up the newspaper, but the man asked for money first. I rummaged through my wallet but I had spent the last of my Kenyan shillings on the chai and chapatti and smallest bill I could find was a ten. I gave it to him, wondering whether he would accept it. He held it up in the air, looked at it for a few seconds. ‘American money … very good,’ he finally said approvingly and pushed the newspaper into my hand.
    My anxiety grew as I began to read the lead story. It was all there: how the girl had been found, how she had no identity, her photograph (the headshot of her lifeless body in full colour), my name, everything except my photograph. But even that was surely only a matter of time. This was going to change things, and for the worse I suspected. I needed to talk with the Chief.
    I gulped down my tea and made to leave, but the kiosk owner grabbed my arm and pressed into my hand a small plastic bag full of chapattis, bread and sodas. He waved the ten dollar bill and pointed to the bag. I had bought the stuff. I smiled, touched, and shook my head, thrusting the plasticbag back into his hands. I didn’t have time to argue. I had to get back to O’s.
    ‘Look, man, this is the break we have been waiting for,’ O said, beside himself with excitement. Unlike in the United States most Kenyans read the paper, and if they don’t, they listen to the radio, so O figured that something was bound to come up.
    I had tried calling the Chief but I couldn’t get through – I didn’t have enough airtime. O suggested that I text the Chief and ask him to call me back. I was sceptical, but it worked fine because a few minutes later the phone rang.
    ‘Chief, I’m staring at the local paper, where are my two weeks?’ I asked, stressing each word.
    ‘Too much pressure … Everyone wanted to know where we are with the case. We have nothing here, and I had to throw them something. What the hell could I do? I told them you had left for Africa, that we were onto something big …’ He paused and I knew that he was waiting for me to tell him we had something.
    ‘Chief, I only just got here …’ I started.
    ‘Listen, you’ve got one week,’ the Chief said, interrupting me. ‘You’d better have something in a week, otherwise we’re dead in the water … Don’t let us down, Ishmael.’
    I started to protest, but he had already hung up.
    I went back to the kitchen to find O making breakfast – the exact same breakfast as the day before. ‘I perfect one meal a year, so for a year that is all I cook, no deviations, no nothing, the same exact thing each time until I get it right,’ he saidwhen he saw the look on my face. ‘I have been working on this masterpiece since January …’
    I laughed at the idea – it made sense. ‘What do we do now?’ I asked as I poured myself some coffee.
    O produced a joint from behind his ear. ‘We smoke, then we eat a
motherfucking
omelette,’ he said, trying to sound like he was from the hood.
    ‘You have a way with words, my friend, you know