Avalon Perpetual

• WEED RUN

  Posted: April 7, 2009, 4:17 am by Deviant Miscreant

  “That’s it then?”
  “Yep.”
  Kevin slammed the rear door on the slate grey Prado shut. He jumped in the driver’s seat and the heavily laden car slowly rolled down the gently sloping murram track towards the old wooden gate that led back to the farmhouse. In his rear-view mirror, he could see Sam, the old farmhand, struggling to close the doors of the large barn he had just left. Kevin turned up the music and headed for an overgrown, disused track that the farmhand had told him would take him directly to the main road, avoiding any of that inane chatter that the farm owner’s wife would probably engage him in if she saw him again. As he turned into the main road, he noticed a blue Nissan saloon parked in the Napier grass along the road’s verge. It looked like the driver had ran off the road, probably after one too many, Kevin thought. He paid it no mind and drove on. He had less than an hour to get to Nairobi.
  
  The Prado was riding low, courtesy of the near ton of premium marijuana in it. Kevin hit the main road and pushed the needle up to 120kph. In the glove compartment was a list of police road block locations and the numbers to call if the officers he encountered got too inquisitive and wanted to search the car. The road was smooth and the traffic at this hour of the morning was suitably sparse. The road was still slightly wet from the previous night’s rain and the early sun glared off it like stainless steel. Kevin squinted and wished he hadn’t sat on his sunglasses in the pub last night. He also wished he hadn’t drunk so much. Sitting behind the wheel, straining at the road ahead made him realise how tired he really was. He had developed a backache as well, from loading the Prado with sacks of reefer, and now the pain was slowly creeping up his spine and he knew his head would be pounding in about half an hour. He pushed the pedal harder and the heavy Toyota fishtailed ever so slightly as it picked up speed, hurtling across the startlingly green countryside on the black snake of road. The sunlight sparkled on dewdrops hanging from young maize shoots, making them glimmer like little diamonds. It was beautiful.
  
  ******
  
  Kevin was proud of himself. After wasting his time trying small time hustle, selling stolen phones, electronics and the odd car, he had finally hit the big leagues. He had been telephoned by a man early the previous day and told to follow the list of instructions that would be sent to his phone. He was to do exactly what he was told and he would get a hundred thousand bob for his trouble. He had immediately dismissed the man, calling him both an idiot and a joker, but there was a certain persuasion in the caller’s tone that made him actually consider the job. He had shaken his head and dismissed the notion. Then the guy called again and told him he’d pay ten thousand shillings in good faith money up front and then transferred the money into Kevin’s cell phone. The slightly rusty cogs in Kevin’s head started turning, one slow click at a time.
  
  The car was on the third level of a shopping mall’s high rise parking in Westlands and the keys would be found behind inside a cistern in a particular stall of the Gents on the same floor. In the car would be more instructions. Kevin got the shopping mall in the middle of the afternoon. It was raining heavily, but the sun’s occasional peep from behind the grey curtain promised a scorching repartee some time later. True to his word, Kevin’s caller had left a detailed map of the area he was supposed to drive to. The map clearly depicted the location of a tea farm somewhere in Limuru, in Nairobi’s outskirts and a phone number to call once he got there. Kevin sat back in the driver’s seat and exhaled heavily after he’d read the material twice. He got out of the car and looked around. Through the large glass windows he could see it had stopped raining. He took off his heavy jacket and tossed it in the car. He locked the doors and took the stairs to the ground floor.
  
  Inspector Mwiki was a patient man. After a string of strange unsolvable cases, a hunch he had been following involving an auto parts theft ring was about to pay off. He and his partner, a sergeant named Paul, had been tracking a young man named Kevin who he believed was an integral part of it. He had followed him from the city centre to Westlands where the young man had walked into a shopping mall. Inspector Mwiki followed Kevin into a lift while Sgt. Paul took the stairs. They both got off the lift on the fourth floor. The Inspector lingered at a sporting goods store window, pretending to study a pair of trainers as he observed Kevin walk towards the toilets. After three minutes, Kevin walked back into view and headed for the parking lot exit. Mwiki trailed him and observed him entering a slate grey Toyota Prado parked in a far corner of the dimly lit lot. He radioed the sergeant and they met up at the fourth floor’s elevator bank.
  “He’s gotten into a grey Prado. Tinted windows. If he leaves in the car, follow him. If he leaves on foot, follow him. I want to know everywhere this boy goes in the next twenty four hours. Alright?”
  The sergeant nodded. Inspector Mwiki took the lift to the ground floor. He had some work to finish up at the station.
  
  ******
  
  Kevin was almost dozing as he drove towards the farm in Limuru. It was five in the morning and the short uncomfortable nap he had had in the back seat of the car had not absolved his brain of the debilitating effects of alcohol. It was cold, misty and dark in the highlands and he was beginning to wonder whether it was worth it. He got to the tea farm at ten minutes past six after making a few wrong turns.
  There were tea farms all over the place, man!
  His phone call had been answered by an overly friendly woman who sounded like she might have been high on something. She and a wizened old man had met him at the farm’s main gate. The woman kept up an incessant conversation about the price of living in Nairobi nowadays, the corruption in the government and the price of milk as Kevin found himself being ushered into the house for breakfast. They entered the grand old colonial farmhouse where a simple but profound breakfast was laid out on the kitchen table. The lady kept looking at him; nodding and smiling a motherly smile that made Kevin increasingly uncomfortable. She reminded him of his mother, the last person he would have wanted to see him in this scenario. He sipped morosely on a cup of tea and tried not to think about it. In the bright kitchen lights, he noticed the lady and the wizened old man had a strange blue gleam in their eyes.
  
  Down the road from the farmhouse, Inspector Mwiki and Sgt. Paul sat in their unmarked car, waiting to see if the Prado would re-emerge from the farm. They were surprised to see the car seemingly pop out of the bushes across the road from them and drive off. Mwiki gave it three minutes and sped after it.
  
  Kevin was driving too fast and he knew it. He slowed down for a curve and noticed a blue car in his side mirror. So the drunken guy had woken up and was rushing home, eh? The guy was in a hurry too, as he was closing the gap between them pretty fast. The moisture on the road was evaporating in the bright morning sun. Slender tendrils of steam rose up from the surface and were instantly obliterated by the Prado’s heavy passage. The blue Nissan came closer still.
  
  “Get alongside behind him, Paul,” said Mwiki, putting away his cell phone. “I have informed the OCS from Kikuyu Police Station and he’s setting up a roadblock about five km from here. If this idiot doesn’t stop, he’ll run straight into them.” The good Inspector was beside himself in glee. He had looked up the number plates on the Prado and found that the tags did not exist in the KRA database which meant the car was most probably stolen. Tying in Kevin with this stolen car and the car parts theft ring would absolve him in his superior’s eyes. At least for the time being.
  
  Kevin watched as the Nissan came closer and pulled out to overtake. In his side mirror he could see the front passenger window rolling down and as the car pulled up next to his, a man, leaning out of the open window started shouting at him.
  “Police! Stop the car!”
  Kevin panicked and almost left the road. The man pulled out a revolver and repeated the command. Kevin buried the accelerator and the Prado shot down the slight gradient they were on. Mwiki aimed for the rear left tyre on the fast disappearing SUV and fired. He missed. He drew back inside the car and yelled at the sergeant to catch up. Kevin fumbled for his phone. The car was fishtailing all over the road and he narrowly missed smashing into a slow moving tractor put-putting its way somewhere. He had been given three numbers to call. He dialled the first one but it did not go through. He tried the second one. It rang three times before a very sleepy voice answered, “Hello?”
  “The cops are after me!” Kevin shouted. He was driving with one hand, trying to keep the heavy car on the tarmac.
  “Who is this?” the voice had become annoyed. “What cops?”
  “I got this number from – a guy. He told me to call you if the cops become…curious. They’re on my tail!”
  “I don’t know what you are talking…”
  Kevin hung up on him. He really shouldn’t have taken this job. It was stupid, short sighted and inane –
  A loud crash came from the rear of the Prado. Glass! They were shooting at him! Kevin was suddenly glad for the presence of the large sacks of marijuana. Without them, he would probably be dead by now. It was only a matter of time before they shot out his tyres and then he’d be done for sure.
  “Get next to him!” Mwiki shouted. He was in the process of reloading his revolver, a clumsy operation with the car careening all over the place. He dropped three bullets on the floor, swore loudly and decided to go with the three he had already in the gun. Sgt. Paul shifted down and slammed the go pedal. They drew up on the Prado’s right side and Mwiki aimed carefully for the rear right tyre.
  
  BAM!
  
  Kevin felt the rear end of the SUV slew sickeningly to the right. He braked hard and spun the wheel furiously to the right, completely obliterating the right side of the police car. Both vehicles left the road and plunged headlong into a field of Napier grass. The Prado’s heavily laden rear end ploughed and stuck in the thick mud, bringing it to a shuddering halt. The Nissan slammed into a tree. Steam and coolant hissed from the crushed radiator in the ominous silence that followed.
  
  Kevin struggled to unbuckle the seatbelt but the clasp held fast. He always carried a Swiss Army knife with him and he used the blade to cut the belt. He opened the door and stumbled out onto the soft damp ground. He couldn’t see the police car, not that he was looking. He half ran, half stumbled deeper into the chest high grass, fumbling for his phone and dialling the third number he had been given. The other end rang.
  “What has happened?” A familiarly crisp and clear voice asked immediately.
  “It’s fucked! Shit, the cops! They shot me. The car’s beat to shit! You have to get me out of here!”
  “Calm down, Kevin. Where are you? Where are the cops?”
  “I don’t fucking know, man! They crashed, maybe they’re dead.” Kevin almost ran into a rotted wooden fence surrounding a grassy sloping paddock. The grass was emerald green and there was a cow grazing at the far end. He could see rooftops peeking just beyond the slope. This was someone’s farm. He paused at the fence.
  “And the weed?”
  “Fuck you and your weed man! Get me out of here!”
  Kevin hung up the phone and reached for the fence with both hands to hoist himself over. His shoulder was suddenly grabbed from behind and he was flung hard to the ground. Inspector Mwiki stood over him, pointing a muddy revolver at his chest. The Inspector’s left humerus was broken and the effort it took him to breathe told him he had messed up a few ribs too. He stood unsteadily, scrunching up his left side, his gun hand wavering slightly as he pointed it at Kevin’s sternum.
  “Foolish boy,” Mwiki said slowly, wincing. “Unaenda wapi? Who is this you are calling to save you? I should shoot you here and now.”
  Kevin said nothing. He just stared wide-eyed at the gun.
  “Who are you calling?” Mwiki screamed. The effort brought little brilliant blue stars of pain in his field of vision. Kevin said nothing.
  Mwiki thumbed the safety on the revolver. “I will ask you one more time, who did you…”
  The grey Land Rover burst through the stalks of Napier grass like a submarine breaching the surface of a calm sea. Mwiki yelled, stumbled and fell down. Kevin pissed his pants. The driver’s door opened and a man came out.
  “He was calling me, Inspector.”
  Mwiki stared at the man, his eyes round and large and threatening to bulge right out of his head. It was him. Him!
  “Y-y-you?” he asked incredulously. His breathing had become laboured. He was gasping for air.
  “We finally meet, Inspector. I understand I have caused you quite some trouble, haven’t I? ” Land Rover Man smiled. Mwiki stared and stared. His lips moved but no sound came out. He was trying to raise his gun hand but he couldn’t. He was tired and he wanted to sleep. So bloody tired.
  “No, Inspector,” said the man from the grey Land Rover gently as he squatted beside Mwiki. “Not yet.”
  Inspector Mwiki closed his eyes. His vision turned grey then black.

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

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The end of the fish cakes