Read Online Nairobi Heat by Mukoma Wa Ngugi - Free Book Online

question left his mouth, but when it came it took me by surprise. ‘Ishmael, where is your white whale? You have a white whale, don’t you?’ he asked in his half-African, half-British accent.
    ‘I was named after my great, great-grandfather, Ishmael Fofona,’ I replied coldly. ‘I know who I am.’
    ‘This Ishmael Fofona … He must have been an African prince. You carry yourself rather well,’ he said, seemingly genuinely unaware of the condescension in his words.
    ‘And the white whale, it was Ahab not Ishmael …’I began, but then paused, realising that there was no point in antagonising the old man. We needed him more than he needed us. ‘But, yes, I do have my own white whale …’ I finished lamely.
    ‘To kill or be killed by,’ Lord Thompson said pointedly, looking at O. ‘The devil will get us all in the end. Is that not so, O?’
    ‘Just tell us why you called,’ O said, putting a hard edge into his voice.
    ‘Me and O here, we go way back,’ Lord Thompson continued, ignoring O’s question. ‘Have you not told him? Come on now, Detective Odhiambo, that is not the way to treat your brother.’ The amused contempt in the word brother was unmistakable.
    O was silent.
    ‘Ah, my dear brother …’ Lord Thompson said, turning to me. ‘So, he did not tell you, did he?’ He paused as if gathering himself. ‘Twice I have been acquitted,’ he finally continued. ‘One was self-defence. The other was purely accidental. I have the great fortune of African justice working in my favour, and O does not like it. Isn’t that so, O?’ he asked, still looking at me.
    I turned to look at O, expecting some response, but he didn’t say anything – he simply smiled, like he knew something Lord Thompson did not.
    ‘O here thought I shot them like dogs,’ the old man continued. ‘But I was in front of a white judge and he acquitted me. That may not seem like much to you, but whites in this country hate me. Look around you. Whatever I am, I am African. My DNA is from my white parents, myskin is white, but my soul is African. I would never kill one of us,’ he said with conviction.
    O just kept smiling to himself.
    ‘Enough of this,’ Lord Thompson said, perhaps sensing that O wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of an argument. ‘Ishmael, I will give you what you came for. Go to the Timbuktu Bar in Eastleigh. There you will find another guide. What you seek is in Africa. One dot connects the next. And as my people say: Only the traveller knows the road.’ Having finished his speech he rang a little bell and the doors opened.
    As I followed O out of Lord Thompson’s room I wondered at the way I felt. I couldn’t remember anyone eliciting so much anger and hatred from me in one meeting before. I wanted to hit him so bad, break a bone or two and force him to see the world he had created around him for what it really was – a lie. Perhaps it wasn’t all about him? Perhaps it was about my relationship to white folk back in the US, but whatever it was it was powerful. And to claim that he was African? What the fuck was that all about? I was beginning to hate actively, I realised as O and I retrieved our weapons from the mercenaries, and I didn’t like it. Facts and truth get lost in hate.
    Making our way back to Eastleigh in the Land Rover, we talked about our next move and Lord Thompson’s motives. This much we knew: the old man had more information than he had given us. But we also knew that we were finally on to something. There was nothing more we could do except play along until he had revealed his hand. We had to be cautious. Mistakes, hesitations, miscalculations – no more of that, we had to be at our best.
    We got to Timbuktu Bar around eight pm. I entered first. The place was empty save for the bartender and a butcher in a bloody apron – probably fresh from slaughtering what would soon become the evening’s
nyama choma
. It wasn’t an upscale place, but unlike The Hilton Hotel bar