CHAPTER 4
Wednesday, the day of the reap. The five of us involved in the reap were picked up from different locations within the Central Business District by a Toyota Probox, which was the vehicle for the job.
We were on our way to the bank when I cast a glance at Chacha and noticed he appeared cold but composed.
It would be an understatement to say I envied his composure at a time when my bladder was almost bursting with nervousness.
We stopped outside the bank, and in we marched. Muingoo shot the police officer’s wrist after he attempted to raise his weapon.
The other officer, having seen what had befallen his comrade, decided to cooperate by dropping his weapon and lying flat on his stomach.
Inside, Omosh and Muingoo were at their best as they ordered everyone to lie down on their stomachs and not dare raise their heads.
Everyone cooperated. With a sign code that we had practised the previous day, Omosh signalled me to empty all the money in the cashiers’ lockers.
Soon I was done, and Omosh commandeered a man who looked like a manager to open one of the safes, and before I knew it, I was emptying more bundles of crisp notes into the bag.
Exactly 120 seconds later, we drove off in our vehicle. Everything had gone according to plan. About a kilometer away, we alighted, split into two groups, and boarded two taxis.
One group of three boarded one taxi, while Omosh and Mobaya boarded a different taxi. It happened that inside the getaway vehicle, we had divided the loot into two bags.
The idea, as I learned later, was to spread the risk as much as possible.
In the evening, we met at a hideout in downtown Nairobi, where we divided the loot.
I got a cool KSh 10 million, just as Chacha and the rest did. Omosh remained with KSh 15 million, money that included a sum for “shutting the mouths of Pharisees,” who included senior police officers and a few bank cashiers.
From the way the older gang members handled him, it was evident that they held him in high esteem.
That very evening, Chacha and I boarded a taxi to Maralal in Samburu County. We left the loot with Chacha’s cousin, who lived in a posh house in Lavingtone, a leafy suburb in the north of Nairobi.
We promised to part with KSh 250,000 each to compensate for his kindness upon our return from Maralal.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Needless to say, the robbery headlined all the local dailies with the usual fanfare that characterises Kenya’s mainstream media.
We sat pensively in a hotel as we read the report that detailed that all the CCTV cameras had stopped working three days before the robbery.
What’s more, the report said that police suspected an inside job and promised to pursue the suspects, who were “said to be on the run.”
I ordered another bottle of beer for Chacha and a bowl of bone soup for myself as I pondered how I was going to spend the money.
Everything was falling into place, I reasoned.
We called Chacha’s cousin and asked him to MPESA us KSh 200,000, which we would square with him upon our return to the city.
He sent the money through Chacha’s friend, who resided in the town and also operated a mobile money transfer outlet.
We spent the next week “wiping dust off our feet” with drinks and a few local girls for company.
There is something about a man with money, or one with the assurance of some millions stashed somewhere under his name.
Money provides the requisite courage and a certain level of assurance that things will work out well.
The other thing is that it gives a man the courage to revive old dreams that previously appeared impossible.
That was the case for yours truly. Money seemed to give wings to my imagination.
The dream of having Shillah by my side was realer than ever. As I sat in a lounge, the good times we shared together kept coming back to me in a manner so impassioned that I was forced to ask the DJ to crank up the volume in a bid to drown out the thoughts about this girl, who had colonised an important part of my heart.
“I want to go back to Nairobi today,” I remember telling Chacha that evening.
“You have made up your mind, and I know there is nothing I can do to stop you,” said Chacha.
We were in Nairobi the following day at exactly 1800 hrs.
Chacha wanted to see an old flame in town, a high school girlfriend, and it was clear he was itching to spend a few thousand shillings on the girl.
We parted ways along Tom Mboya Avenue as I went to look for lodging to spend the night.
In my room, all I could picture was my life with Shillah. I could picture her in a red evening dress, looking sharp and sexy.
I imagined us at a cocktail party, with everyone complimenting us on what a lovely couple we were.
I also imagined myself driving up to her parents’ house with a posse of gas-guzzling vehicles to pay her dowry.
The bloggers would find a gold mine in such a story, which would sell across entertainment blogs with clickbait headlines to lure readers.
I smiled as I cobbled up a clickbait headline in my mind.
What’s more, the headline and the prose would be marinated further with a small bribe to the editors.
From a distance, everything appeared to be fine, and my lack of funds had been the biggest impediment to spending a lifetime with Shillah.
Sleep was on the verge of overtaking me when I heard my phone ring. It was Chacha calling.
“I’m in a downtown club, and I’ve noticed a pattern. There seem to be three guys keeping an eye on me. I have watched them from the corners of my eyes, and I’m suspicious,” said Chacha.
He added that he was in the washroom and had a hunch that the guys were Pharisees, meaning cops.
I was momentarily at a loss before I remembered a piece of advice from Omosh: to call him whenever we suspected that something was amiss.
The following morning, Chacha laughed as he narrated how Omosh’s unannounced presence had neutralised the Pharisees.
Omosh added that the Pharisees were the ‘hungry type’ easily shutting their mouths after receiving a few notes.
There were funny tidbits in the story, like when Chacha said the urine had, out of fear, “refused to come out” at the urinal.
Humour aside, it became apparent to me that someone knew something and that I had all the reasons to be careful about the joints that I frequented.
A throbbing headache that I had since leaving Maralal persisted to a level where I felt I needed to seek medical attention.
I suspected that I had caught influenza during the few times I had been rained on as I hopped from one entertainment joint to another.
1430 hours found me at one of the leading hospitals in the city. I took my number, awaiting my turn to see the nurse, who would afterwards direct me to the doctor after the preliminary examination of blood pressure and weight and a few questions regarding how I was feeling.
The line to see the nurse was moving at a snail’s pace.
I could feel that my patience was being strained, and that’s how I found myself admiring the beautiful receptionist.
Twice, our eyes locked, but I looked away.
A minute or two must have passed before I heard a commotion outside the hospital’s entrance, not far from where we sat.
I removed the left earphone so I could clearly see what was happening.
I craned my neck, and that’s when I caught sight of an Asian man of above average height squeezing the neck of a guard at the entrance.
I felt blood rush through my body, and I found myself standing face-to-face with the Asian guy.
“Why are you doing this to a fellow human being?” I posed.
“What do you want to do?” said the Asian.
Following that, I delivered a rounder’s kick to the man’s genitals. He let out a cry that alerted the whole hospital.
Another kick to his chest and head left the man reeling on the floor in pain.
The guards were taken aback, possibly because they had never seen an African confront a misbehaving white person with such zeal.
I heard someone in the crowd remark that I was so daring. Did I not worry that the man would attack me with a kichina? (Kung Fu).
But what startled me was how the Asian man quickly regained his sobriety and sat quietly, not far from where I sat.
For the first time, I felt pity for him.
But I remembered how some Asian men were famous for mistreating locals in Export Processing Zones (EPZ) and at construction sites, and my pity dissipated.
A few minutes passed before I was called into the nurse’s room. She was the curvaceous, well-endowed kind that would drive any man’s loins into chaos.
The worst part was when she bent over to pick up something that had fallen on the floor, exposing her succulent thighs.
I sighed in frustration, completely out of breath. But the nurse was not in the mood for jokes.
She motioned for me to stand on the weighing machine so she could take my weight, my lusting eyes notwithstanding.
She took my blood pressure and asked me a few questions before showing me outside. She wanted to attend to another patient.
I had barely sat down when my name was called out and I was instructed to go through door 1 to see the doctor.
The doctor was a lovely lady, her figure accentuated by her figure-hugging uniform.
She sent me for tests, including a detailed examination of my blood, which she said was important to determining what was wrong with me.
But I noted that a beautiful smile plied her lips throughout her conversation.
“And you have a very masculine frame,” she said in obvious flattery.
I smiled as she handed me a sheet of paper with tests to be conducted.
The smile melted my heart.
“You are so gorgeous,” I said meaningfully, almost out of breath.
When I returned an hour later, she told me tests showed I had neutropenia, among other “small” issues.
She further told me the neutropenia was likely due to the bad flu that was spreading in the city.
That said, she told me that she would give me some antibiotics.
She further told me that dawa could come in handy in alleviating the flu-like symptoms.
That one word alone—dawa—gave me ideas.
She asked if I had ever heard of dawa, and I told her that I had, but I did not know how to prepare the concoction.
She laughed, and the next thing I knew, we had exchanged numbers with the promise of her coming over to my place to make the concoction said to harbour medicinal value.
Dr. Stella left the following morning with a promise to see me soon.
She hailed me as a beast with the most masculine touch she had ever encountered.
My mind returned to its default settings, which were to look for Shillah.
This short story is protected by copyright. Any unauthorized reproduction or distribution, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited and may result in legal action.
This includes posting the story online, whether in its original form or in a modified version.
If you wish to share this story with others, please do so by sharing the link to the original publication or by obtaining permission from the author.
Thank you for respecting the author’s intellectual property rights.
NEXT>>>: THE CUL-DE-SAC: CHAPTER 5
