Nairobi Heat

by Mukoma Wa Ngugi

  Nairobi Heat

  © 2010 Mukoma Wa Ngugi

  First Melville House printing: August 2011

  Melville House Publishing

  145 Plymouth Street

  Brooklyn, NY 11201

  www.mhpbooks.com

  eISBN: 978-1-61219-007-5

  v3.1

  To Meja Mwangi and David Mailu for blurring the margins

  Acknowledgements

  Without much discussion and constant critique a novel such as this would be all the poorer. So, thanks to Kristin Waller, Keenan Schofield, Megan Frantz and my wife Maureen Burke for their candid, useful and some might say merciless responses. Also thanks to Sophie Hoult at David Godwin Associates and Penguin South Africa for investing time, energy and resources in the project. And, finally, thanks to James Woodhouse for making the editing process not only painless but more importantly creative.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgement

  A Beautiful Blonde Is Dead

  Where Dreams Come to Die

  Lord Thompson

  I Would Rather Drink Muddy Waters

  How Much Is A Guilty Conscience Worth?

  The Road to Hell and Revelations

  Smokescreens and Other Crimes

  Let the Dead Bury the Dead

  The African Connection

  About the Author

  Other Books by This Author

  A BEAUTIFUL BLONDE IS DEAD

  A beautiful young blonde was dead, and the suspect, my suspect, was an African male. I was travelling to Africa in search of his past. What I found there would either condemn or save him. As you can imagine my business was urgent.

  How many times had I thought of Africa? Not many, I’m afraid. Yes, I knew of Africa. After all it was the land of my ancestors; a place I vaguely longed for without really wanting to belong to it. I might as well say it here: coming from the US there was a part of me that had come to believe it was a land of wars, hunger, disease and dirt even as my black skin pulled me towards it. So how many times had I thought of Africa? Not many, not in a real way.

  The funny thing though was now that I was actually in a plane on my way to Africa I found myself surrounded by whiteness – the passengers, the crew and the pilots. It was early May, and I gathered from the conversations around me that my fellow passengers were business people, tourists and hunters from Texas. The usual, I supposed.

  I looked outside, watching the full moon hover in the sky beyond the tip of the aeroplane wing, childishly imagining it to be catching a free ride. We travelled for a while like that, the moon surfing on the wing, until the pilot warned us, in that proper British accent that we have come to associate with efficiency, to prepare for landing.

  The moon leapt back into the sky as we pierced the clouds and below I saw what looked like an island of lights engulfed by perfect darkness. Then we landed and everyone clapped. I was tired and a little tipsy from the complimentary Budweisers the crew had offered me, and so it was that, a little bit drunk, I took my first steps in Africa.

  At customs I flashed my passport and my badge. The clerk didn’t even give my gun permit a second look, just shook his head and said, ‘You Americans, you really love your guns, eh?’ as he waved me through.

  I didn’t have any luggage other than what I had carried off the plane and so soon enough I found myself outside the airport in what felt like a market – a wall of people shouting and heckling, selling newspapers, phone cards, even boiled eggs. Blackness suddenly surrounded me, and coming from plane full of whites I felt relief and panic at the same time – it was as if I was in camouflage, but it was very poor camouflage because at six foot three and two hundred and twenty pounds I towered over everybody. People here were short and spare, and I felt full of useless excess – as if I had extra body parts. But it wasn’t the people that stopped me in my tracks, it was the heat. The heat made New Orleans on a hot summer day feel like spring. Humid, thick and salty to taste, that was Nairobi heat.

  A taxi driver dressed in dirty white slacks made a grab at my hand luggage. ‘Mzungu, mzungu, good rate for tourist,’ he yelled, but I held on to my case.

  I didn’t know much Kiswahili but I knew from the guide book I had started reading on the plane that he was calling me a white man. It was a strange irony that I, an African American, a black American, was being called a white man in Africa, but I didn’t make much of it, I just laughed and gently pushed him away. I should have told him I wasn’t here to see lions and giraffes, I concluded as I waded through the crowd warding off all sorts of attempts to get me into this or that cab until I heard a deep voice calling me: ‘Ishmael!’

  Turning to find the voice I came face to face with one of the blackest men I had ever seen. I mean, I’m black but this brother was so black he looked blue. Standing around six foot, he was, like everyone else, on the spare side, but unlike everyone else he was, despite the heat, dressed smartly in a heavy brown leather jacket, black corduroys and tough looking leather safari boots.

  ‘Ishmael, I presume,’ my Kenyan counterpart from the Criminal Investigation Department said, bowing slightly before breaking into laughter. ‘Stanley to Livingstone … The explorers … They say they discovered us, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, beginning to see the humour – one black American and one African playing explorer.

  ‘My name is David, David Odhiambo,’ he continued, reaching out to shake my hand. ‘My friends and enemies call me O.’

  As I shook O’s hand I realised that I could not sense him. Usually people trigger something in me – some sort of emotion: fear, attraction, warmth – but not O. He was just vaguely familiar. In fact, the only thing my senses did tell me was that underneath what was unmistakably Brut cologne there was a sharp undercurrent of marijuana, which explained his red eyes.

  ‘Come, let’s get out of this madness … Are you parked?’ he asked as he reached for my rucksack.

  I looked at him, puzzled.

  He opened up his jacket to reveal one of those old .45s – something made long before either of us had been born.

  ‘If you mean packing, then yes, I am,’ I said, pulling my jacket open slightly so that he could see my Glock 17 – light, easy to use but deadly nonetheless.

  ‘Good, otherwise I would have had to find you one of these bad babies,’ he said and laughed again. I couldn’t tell whether he was trying to sound American or not.

  ‘Is there some place around here that we can go for a beer and talk?’ I asked.

  ‘Now you’re talking my language, I know just the place for you,’ O said as we made our way out to the parking lot and got into a beaten-up Land Rover.

  We drove for a while without talking. I was tired and excited at the same time, but out of the million little curiosities that clouded my mind I could think of nothing to ask, so I listened to O as he hummed a Kenny Rogers song – ‘The Gambler’ – which he interrupted every now and then with curses as we dipped in and out of the potholes that littered the road.

  Soon up ahead I could see the city. ‘Nairobi?’ I asked, just to make conversation.

  ‘Nairobbery,’ O answered with a laugh. ‘That is what we call it … but no worries, as long as we are in this,’ he patted the dashboard, ‘criminals will know not to mess with us.’

  For a while I could still see the large island of city lights in front of me. Then, suddenly, O veered off the main road and onto a dirt track and the city disappeared from view. We travelled on, headlights tunnelling through the darkness, the beams glancing off long dry grass, short thicket bushes and wild sisal plants. We drove past a pineapple plantation and then turned into a short, dirty street that ran between tw
o rows of poorly built wooden houses. Finally, just past a shaky wooden billboard with the words You are now leaving Pineapple town splashed across it we almost ran into a dilapidated bar that proclaimed itself to be The Hilton Hotel.

  ‘Tomorrow, I will take you to the real Hilton,’ O said as we climbed out of the Land Rover and made our way towards the wooden structure, ‘but here you get a taste of the real Africa.’

  Inside, the bar was lit by kerosene lamps that gave it a smell that was a cross between gasoline and burning cloth. In the dull light they provided I could see that the walls were covered with fading magazine posters for all sorts of things – Marlboro, Camel Lights, Exxon, McDonald’s. The lamps also illuminated the patrons, and I quickly realised that The Hilton was full of the living dead – some men passed out on the counter, others so drunk that they were muttering to themselves without making a sound.

  O and I found a table that didn’t have a drunk on it, and the bartender – a young woman dressed in a rainbow-coloured wrap – came to take our order.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ O asked.

  I nodded and watched as O ordered some beer and two kilos of roast meat. There are two things that Kenyan men treasure beyond life itself, I was to learn: their Tusker beer and roast meat, nyama choma. Tusker moto – hot Tusker – and nyama choma is the fastest way to get information, say thank you, make and close a deal, express friendship or make peace.

  ‘Ishmael, welcome to Africa,’ O said as soon as our beers arrived. He raised his Tusker for a toast, sipped and leaned back in his chair. ‘So, tell me, what can I do you for?’

  I told him my story.

  A young blonde woman found murdered on the doorstep of a black man – an African. Of course it was going to be the story of the year.

  If I was to give advice to black criminals, I would tell them this: do not commit crimes against white people because the state will not rest until you are caught. I mean, if a crime is not solved within the first forty-eight hours it has all but officially gone cold. But a black-on-white crime does not go cold. A beautiful blonde girl is dead and a week later I’m chasing after ghosts in Africa. Had it been a black victim I certainly wouldn’t have been racking up overtime in Nairobi.

  The call came at two in the morning. I jumped out of bed, surprised only by the address – 2010 Spaight Avenue, Maple Bluff – and five minutes later, dressed in black pants, a white dress shirt and a smart black jacket, I was on the road. I combed my hair on my way there – siren blaring, doing ninety miles an hour. You don’t show up in Maple Bluff looking as if you have just woken up.

  By the time I got to the scene the paramedics and cops from the Maple Bluff Police Department had already arrived. The residents of this little tax haven even had their own police and fire departments. No detectives though, and that’s why I’d been called in, most probably on loan. My department makes thousands – and, if lucky, I get paid overtime.

  The uniforms were just standing around, watching as the paramedics – who had just given up trying to revive the girl – returned their equipment to the ambulance. Neighbours, extremely white and dressed in those expensive shiny pyjamas, were looking on too. I asked them to go back into their homes – we would be knocking on their doors soon enough.

  The girl was lying on the stairs; her long blonde hair strewn around her, the bright porch light beaming down as if she was on a theatre stage. She looked to be somewhere between eighteen and twenty. Her white shirt had been ripped open – by the paramedics, I later learned – exposing a full, braless chest. She was wearing a short pleated skirt, like a cheerleader’s, knee-length white socks and white tennis shoes.

  The first thought that came to mind was how beautiful she was – the red polish on her nails was flawless; her hair, though messy from the paramedics trying to shock her back to life, was still a glittery blonde; her eyes were closed and her face calm. She didn’t even look lifeless, and I expected her to get up at any moment for the final curtain call.

  Stepping back, I asked the uniforms where the owner of the house was and they pointed inside. I would have expected him or her to be tripping all over the place, trying to help, or be hovering at the door, beside themselves with worry, but whoever owned the house obviously felt differently.

  Walking around the girl, I stepped up onto the porch from the side. Home Is Where The Heart Is I read as I wiped my shoes on the mat and knocked on the door. There was no answer, but the door wasn’t locked and so I let myself in.

  Inside, the hallway was lit only by the flashing lights of the ambulances and police cars standing outside. All my instincts told me to draw my gun, so I did, steadying my flashlight in my left hand as I walked down a long passageway and into the sitting room.

  ‘I tell them girl is dead,’ a deep voice said in the dark.

  I whirled around, pointing the flashlight in the direction of the voice.

  ‘Why they mistreat her body?’

  There was a man sitting in a leather lovers’ seat, absently twirling an empty wine glass by its stem, and as I watched he reached over and turned on a table lamp by his side. In the sudden brightness I saw that he was immaculately dressed – a black-and-white pinstriped suit and a thin red tie, expensive brown patent leather shoes without socks.

  ‘You found her?’ I asked him, but it was more of a statement.

  ‘Yes, I find her like that. I was out with friends for cocktails … Sammy’s Lounge.’

  As I put my gun away the man stood up – he was black, very tall, much taller than me, and so thin that his head seemed to be growing from his shoulders. He stretched out a bony hand that seemed to grow from the suit and grasped mine firmly.

  ‘Their names?’

  He gave me four names – I could look them up at the university, he said. They would vouch for him. He was very composed, no bulging carotid, shifty eyes or sweaty palms. None of the telltales that we are trained to look for.

  ‘And what time did you leave Sammy’s Lounge?’

  ‘About twelve thirty. I walk. I like walk … to wash whiskey out of my blood. Half an hour. Maybe more, maybe less, I get here. I call nine one one when I find her.’

  ‘Did you use your cellphone?’

  He handed it over to me. He had called the police at one thirty-three am. I pointed it out to him but he just shrugged.

  ‘Your accent … Where are you from?’ I asked.

  ‘My friend, everyone has accent … mine just mean I speak two languages, French and Kinyarwanda. I am from Rwanda … and Kenya. My name is Joshua Hakizimana. And yours, Detective?’

  ‘You can call me Ishmael … born and bred here in Madison, Wisconsin,’ I replied, feeling very much like the village idiot in the face of his class and poise.

  ‘Very, very sorry to hear that,’ he said with a short laugh and pointed to a chair for me to sit. ‘I teach at university. I am teacher of Genocide and also Testimony. You know what happen in …?’

  ‘Was she one of your students?’ I interrupted. I didn’t need a history lesson

  ‘No, never seen her. Not type that take my class.’ He sounded dismissive.

  ‘What type is that?’

  ‘Bohemians and Peace Corps types … What you Americans call trust fund babies, no?’ He broke into a short laugh.

  Except for his unsettling calmness there was nothing to arouse suspicion. Whatever clues there were would be with the girl. Only an autopsy would tell us about her last hours. After that we would have to interview the neighbours, trawl the local bars for someone who might remember her, go through the last six or so years of university enrolments and missing persons files and hope we got a lucky break.

  I asked Joshua if I could look around and he agreed. I left him and wandered off by myself, switching on the lights as I went. The place was huge but it was the bedroom that interested me. Perhaps this whole mess was just a lover’s quarrel gone too far – sometimes things are that simple. She was a student of his and wanted to break it off. Or he wanted to break it off and she
had threatened to expose him to the university authorities.

  I finally found it. There was only a huge bed, immaculately made up, and a nightstand with nothing on it except a lamp. I opened the closet and found rows and rows of suits, each ready with a black shirt and matching shoes beneath it. In the adjoining bathroom there was a single toothbrush on the sink next to a tube of organic toothpaste. The medicine cabinet was empty. It didn’t look like I was going to find anything useful, so I went back downstairs to find him sitting in the same position, with his wine glass now half full.

  I pointed to his shoes and asked about the socks.

  ‘Sometimes I forget myself. Absent-minded professor, no?’ he said with mock sadness as he stood up to walk me to the door.

  ‘How did you know the girl was dead?’ I asked as I gave him my card.

  ‘Detective, where I come from death is a companion, like lover or good friend. Always there,’ he said as I stepped outside.

  ‘We found this over there,’ one of the MBPD cops said to me, pointing to the fence as I made my way off the porch. It was a needle, half full of what I knew to be heroin.

  I looked closely at the girl’s arms and easily found the single needle mark, slightly bloody. On the face of it, it looked like an overdose or a suicide but not a murder. This was Maple Bluff after all – a cat up the tree, stolen stop signs, an occasional drunk and unruly grandmother visiting from up-country perhaps, but not murder.

  There was nothing more for me to do that night, so I went home to write up my report. Thank God for technology – I could do it all online with a cold beer and slice of pizza. Back in the day, I would’ve been up to my neck in paperwork.

  But as I was typing little details began to bother me. The walls of the house, for example, had been empty – no paintings, no photographs. It had been like being in one huge hotel room, impersonal yet inhabited. How could he live in that house without leaving a trace of himself? But that wasn’t a crime, I told myself. And perhaps the house wasn’t home for him; perhaps somewhere in Africa was a house full of photos of a smiling wife, kids and a little dog called Simba that only ate crocodile meat. But even if that was the case, how could a college professor afford a home in Maple Bluff? The taxes themselves were enough to feed and clothe a family of six. Something didn’t add up – a beautiful blonde girl dead on the doorstep of an African professor. A suicide or an accidental overdose on a stranger’s front porch? No, it was too random to be random. And I’ve seen some fucked up shit. Like this guy who killed a man as he fetched his morning Wisconsin State Journal and left a note on him: A STRANGER KILLS A STRANGER. ONCE. YOU WILL NEVER CATCH ME. SIGNED, RANDOM. With today’s forensics as long as the victim has even the slightest connection to the killer, sooner or later we get the fucker. But the Random Killer case was different – the victim and the killer were strangers connected only by a theory we barely understood.