Nairobi Heat (24 page)

‘If all that you say is true, why did Chocbanc try to kill me and not you?’

‘Ishmael, you surprise me. Very simple. No you, no evidence to point at him or Foundation or I. No victor between him and I. No victor and it just me and Chocbanc making money. He want things return normal. He was old man, you know?’

I had to laugh at the pained look on his face. The stubbornness of old folk, his expression seemed to say, so stuck in their ways.

‘What about the first call to the police? Who made the call?’

He laughed. I knew the answer already.

‘Money talks, eh? The same person from Foundation who tell me plot, I pay him.’ He paused, studying me intently. ‘I think you have all answer now,’ he finally said. ‘I do good and answer four or so question. I think you leave now.’ He was suddenly very aware of himself – as if something had broken a spell and he had returned to the real world. ‘Okay, we conclude our business. Everyone happy, no?’

‘No, our business is not yet concluded,’ I replied as he stood up to show me out. ‘I do have one last thing to say …’

‘Of course, Detective, always one last thing, no?’

‘I promised Macy Jane Admanzah I would kill her murderer,’ I told him, ignoring his interruption.

He looked shaken for a second and then he burst out laughing. ‘Tomorrow morning I drink coffee in Paris, in overlay. Go home, Detective Ishmael. To kill me, you destroy yourself. Americans too selfish for that. Just go home. You lost, no?’

‘But I don’t fight fair, Joshua,’ I told him as I stood up to leave.

It was a long walk back and I used the time to try and figure out what to do next. Finally, as I neared home, it struck me: I hadn’t lost yet, I had one last play.

It was about four pm when I decided to drive into the KKK militia farm, aptly named Little Pentagon. This was Madison’s dirty secret – we regularly stormed black neighbourhoods looking for drugs and guns, but we never touched the KKK militia, even though everyone knew that half the drugs and guns in the state were sitting right there on their farm.

To get to the farm, I had to drive through desolate looking neighbourhoods, where poor whites stared at me with a mixture of hate and envy. Poverty, here like elsewhere, whether in Allied Drive or Mathare, was the original sin.

Arriving at the farm gate, I showed my badge at the gate guarded by two rednecks with swastikas tattooed on their arms and AK-47s slung over their shoulders. The whole thing was a little overdone, they were outlandish caricatures of themselves, but that didn’t make them any less dangerous.

My badge didn’t faze the rednecks. What they wanted to know, though they didn’t say it, was why a nigger cop was knocking on their door.

‘I have some important business with your boss,’ I said, opening the glove compartment and throwing in my badge, making sure that they could see my weapon was in there as well.

They called him on a walkie-talkie and then waved me through. I drove further into the farm. Nothing was grown here – in case it provided any kind of cover, I thought – and even the cabins had a temporary feel to them, like they were moved from time to time in order to confuse the enemy. Eventually, after getting myself lost a couple of times, I was directed to a cabin at the centre of the many others.

‘What can I do you for?’ James Wellstone asked when I opened the door. He was sitting in an armchair like some kind of a general, and looking at the maps of Dane County on the wall behind him. One would have thought he was in the middle of a major military operation.

‘I have some information that might be of use,’ I said, handing him a copy of the Never Again Foundation logbook.

He looked at it, whistling in surprise. ‘Jews and niggers follow the dollar,’ he muttered to himself. ‘No offence, man, you okay by me,’ he added, suddenly remembering I was there. ‘Why are you giving me this?’

I explained the whole situation, how Joshua had not only escaped with the murder of a white girl, but was going back to Africa a richer man. ‘Jim, I don’t care about your fucked-up KKK war games,’ I said to him pointing at the maps. ‘But here is an opportunity for justice. Justice for your people.’

‘And you, what do you get, Ishmael?’ he asked.

‘Justice …’

‘You are prepared to see a black man die for the murder of a white woman?’

I knew what he was driving at – I was a traitor to my race, no matter how I looked at it. But I had prepared for this. ‘Genocide, justice for his role in the genocide. He killed a lot of my African brothers and sisters,’ I said to him, knowing that the success of my mission depended on him believing me. ‘Sometimes in history enemies find themselves on the same side. And it’s not for one to judge the other … they act because it’s good for them. And afterwards they continue with their own battles. Let me ask you something, if black people had supported Hitler to defeat the British, Americans and communists wouldn’t both your people and my people be better off? We would have Africa and you would have Europe. Now everything is a mess. And why? Because both sides were too consumed with hatred to seize an opportunity …’

‘I hate traitors, Detective, no matter the race. But you are right, today we are oppressed by the same governments,’ Jim added.

It was then that I knew he would do it. He was striking a blow not just for his people, but showing cooperation was possible between two enemies for a larger goal. And more than that, he hated Joshua for being successful.

As Jim listened I explained how best to carry out the hit. Joshua was on a ten pm flight, so he would probably call a cab to pick him up at eight. All Jim had to do was steal a yellow cab. Joshua wouldn’t be expecting any trouble, except from me, and looking outside his window and seeing the yellow cab
would be enough. When he opened the door, Jim was to push him back inside and kill him.

‘No fancy stuff, no photographs or souvenirs to show your little redneck friends, just walk out and drive off,’ I said to him. I was being sarcastic, but he got my point.

‘I will send someone to take care of this,’ he said, but I knew it would be him. He wouldn’t be able to pass up an opportunity like this. This was a chance for real action and it would turn him into a legend.

‘It ends tonight,’ I told him as I took the logbook from his desk.

He reached out and we shook hands.

I went to the station and left in a sleek black Mercedes-Benz 300 that we used for undercover surveillance. I drove to Maple Bluff and parked on the street two houses down from Joshua’s place, blending in with other expensive cars. It was close to eight pm and I knew that Joshua would have already called a cab. I called the main offices, pretending to be him, and cancelled his request, saying that a friend had offered me a ride. The dispatcher called me an idiot but she did as I asked.

A few minutes later I saw Jim and one of the KKK goons drive by in a yellow cab. They pulled up a little way along the street and Jim got out and walked up the path to Joshua’s house. As I had predicted, I saw Joshua peer through a window to verify it was the cab he had ordered. A few seconds later Joshua opened the door and Jim pushed him back into the house.

I drove the Mercedes past the cab. It looked like I was
simply looking for a place to turn around and the guy in the cab didn’t make much of it. Why would he? I rolled down my window and slowed down when I came by him a second time. He was about to roll down his window when he recognised me and went for his gun. I shot him twice through his window.

Unscrewing the silencer I climbed out of the car and walked up the path to Joshua’s house. I saw a flash and then a minute or so later Jim was closing the door behind him, tucking his gun into the small of his back. He saw me and stopped, trying to figure out what was going on. Then he started to smile nervously.

‘Your gun, Jim, don’t put it away,’ I advised him as I raised mine.

He realised that if he went for his gun I was going to shoot him, so he raised his hands and went down on his knees on the porch. He might as well have taken his chances because I wasn’t going to let him live. I shot him twice in the chest – the gunshots resounding loudly in the quiet neighbourhood. They would call the cops. I wanted them to.

I stepped over Jim’s body and reached for the door handle, but as my hand met the cool metal I felt something tear into my shoulder, the force of it flinging me against the closed door. I whirled around to see Jim struggling to take aim again, but he was too weak to move fast enough. I shot him three times before he somehow managed to roll off the porch.

The bullet had lodged in my shoulder. I was just plain lucky, and in spite of the blood flowing furiously down my back I knew I would live. Opening the door, I staggered into the house. Joshua lay on the floor, still conscious but bleeding heavily. He had a bullet wound in his stomach, but most of
the blood was from his femoral artery. Jim had wounded him, and then the bastard had cut his thigh open so that he could bleed to death. I couldn’t have planned it better.

‘You kill me … you become monster,’ he gasped. ‘Call ambulance, I leave country … never come back.’

‘It’s too late, Joshua,’ I said to him, looking down at him as his life literally flew out of him.

‘Then make me die,’ he implored as he took a deep breath, trying to hold on to life.

I pulled up a stool, making sure his blood would not flow to where I was and sat down. ‘Tell me, Joshua Hakizimana, how does it feel to know that in a few minutes you will be dead?’ I asked him.

I finally understood O. Only what you do when you meet the Joshuas of this earth matters. Everything else – what you could have done, what some prosecutor or attorney says – is details.

Joshua tried to say something, but he was almost gone and I could see the panic in his eyes. He took a few deep breaths and tried to speak again but to no avail. Finally, he tried to write something with his blood, but there was too much on the floor and he only succeeded in swirling it around. He managed a small smile, half dangerous, half humorous, only his eyes had already lost their light. Then he lost consciousness and died.

As I stood up I almost slipped and fell. I looked down to find that the blood flowing from my shoulder had made a thin stream to Joshua’s large pool of blood. I suppose that when I had thought that he was trying to write something he had in fact been mixing up our blood, trying to say that we had become one.

I walked outside. A small crowd was already forming. Someone had called in the shooting and I could hear sirens getting closer and closer. Soon the place was swarming with cops and I was surprised by how much I didn’t feel like one of them. The Chief arrived and I explained what had happened: I had dropped in earlier in the day to see Joshua and he had told me that he was leaving the country. I had promised to give him a ride and was surprised to find a cab outside when I came to pick him up. Recognising the driver I had asked him to get out of the cab, but he had raised his weapon. I had had no choice. On the porch I had shot Jim as he was going for his gun. By the time I had made it to Joshua he was dead.

‘Tell me something, Ishmael,’ the Chief said in exasperation. ‘Why did you need the Benz? You planned this whole thing didn’t you?’

‘Chief, I wanted to get him to the airport in style, him being a big shot and all,’ I replied.

The Chief knew that I knew that it didn’t matter what story I told. The KKK leader had killed Joshua, the vindicated hero, and I had shot him. Racial politics made it such that no one would ask questions. Rich white folk and rednecks do not get along. They never have. Over the years I had learned that Maple Bluff whites were as scared of white trash as they were of black gang-bangers. The death of Jim would be of no consequence, although the irony was that Jim had killed Joshua believing he was protecting a race that had long given up on his kind.

The Chief suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the rest of the men. ‘Ishmael, can I ask you something?’

‘Sure, Chief,’ I said, slightly alarmed.

‘How was it?’

‘How was what, Chief?’ I knew what he was asking, but I wasn’t going to give it to him easy. I had nearly died over there.