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

it did have a cement floor, an iron roof and jukebox. There was nothing to do except wait, so I asked for a Tusker and sat in a booth. O came in a few minutes later, sat at the counter farthest from the entrance and ordered a Tusker as well.
    After a little while people started trickling into the bar and the jukebox came to life, blaring
Lingala
song after
Lingala
song – the music all sounded the same, with an annoyingly high-pitched guitar solo at the end of each song. By midnight the place was almost packed. It was an odd mixture of people – different races and classes. The well-to-do folk – some white, some black – were drinking liquor while the rest of us sipped our Tuskers. Couples slipped in and out of the bathroom. Sometimes money changed hands – for drugs or sex, I assumed.
    Two hours later I was getting a little tipsy, and was at the point where I was thinking I should just join O at the counter and make a night of it – none of the people in the bar had looked in any way suspicious or sent a look of recognition my way. But just at that moment, a young couple started arguing loudly in Kiswahili by the jukebox, presumably over what to play. People looked on and laughed in amusement. Finally, the couple found a song, Bob Marley’s ‘Is This Love’, a staple from my college days, and before long they were dancing and kissing to whistles and cheers from the tipsy crowd. O made eye contact to ask what I thought of them. I shook my headand he turned back to his beer.
    Half an hour later, I was done with waiting, and decided to go to bathroom before joining O at the bar. Standing up, I finished what was left of my Tusker. I had long ago learned the hard way never to leave half of anything out in the open when working a case. Once, when I had just made detective, I was on a petty drugs case. Well, the fucker I was following slipped a heavy laxative in my coffee. Of course, I lost him and spent a whole day in the bathroom, burning ass and all. Finally, a uniform arrested him for drunk driving, but it had taken a long time to live it down.
    I was thinking about that and how this thankless job is not without its humorous moments as I peed, half smiling to myself when the door opened. It was the young man from the jukebox. He nodded drunkenly. I continued taking my piss. Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw a blur of movement. I turned, pissing all over the place – on him and the walls – as I barely managed to stop him burying a knife in my neck.
    When faced with a knife you will get injured, it’s just a question of where and how badly. The main thing is to protect your wrists and vital organs. Everything else is fair game. Luckily the man was quite a bit shorter than me, and after his initial attack I managed to grab him in a way that meant he could only jab the knife ineffectually into my shoulder.
    Unable to reach for my gun, I finally pushed the knife above us, stepped in and kneed him in the stomach. He doubled over, and holding his right hand up with my left I gave him an uppercut so that his head snapped backwards, then I brought his hand down behind his back so that he spun around. But even as the knife clattered to the floor I heardtwo gunshots above the music in the bar and the sound of screaming.
    Seconds later the woman the young man had been dancing with walked in with what looked like a .32 in her hand. She had shot O. I was now alone.
    I couldn’t let the young man go. I had to use him as a shield while reaching for my gun. She yelled something to him in Kiswahili and he ducked down, moving to the left. I felt a bullet whizz just past my right shoulder. Then he suddenly leapt away from me, stumbling into the urinal, leaving me exposed. I threw myself to the ground as I went for my gun, but I already knew it was too late.
    She’s got the drop on me, I thought as I saw her narrow her eyes as she took aim. And, worse, my dick is hanging out of my pants. There was just time for the image of the