Twisted Times: Son of Man (Twisted Times Trilogy Book 1) (12 page)

I woke up feeling a little fuzzy around eight o’clock Sunday morning. I felt a heavy yoke around my neck and a persistent hangover looming over me. I had slept a dreamless sleep after a night of carousing at the Carnivore trying to forget the events of the previous night. Even though I tried not to have any feelings I felt that we were going overboard. We had killed four innocent people just because we were paid to. I had objected to killing the kids but Urbanas had said that we couldn’t leave any trail behind that might lead the police to us. The kids could ID us. He said that they were just but collateral damage.

Collateral damage?

The man of the family had been forced to watch everything – his wife being raped; his daughter defiled before his very eyes, his son calling unto him as he died; his family’s demise, and then the ultimate pain; his own death.  I must say that I was beginning to have the feelings that I was all along trying to suppress. The kids were innocent, even their parents. I did not see why we should be the tools of settling other people’s scores.
Tomb Raider
role was better off.

My phone was ringing and it snapped me to the present. I already knew who it was – Terry. As usual she was calling to tell me that she would be picking me up to go to church together. “Well, just come siz, I would be waiting for ya’.”

At around nine o’clock she was at my doorstep. Good news is that with the money I was earning from crime I upped my status. I rented a house around Ngara, a short distance from the campus which was near the Kenya National Museums.

Terry was not in her usual church gowns but she wore a rayon dress. The kilt of the dress reached her mid calves. On her feet, were white brogues and matching anklets. Her long tar black hair was pulled into a do-it-yourself ponytail.

“You look wonderful, Terry.”

“Thanks. I rarely get such.”

She was graduating in two months’ time and I felt that I would dearly miss her,
my sister.
I had to continue being the mask I was just for her sake, so we went to church.

Quite to my astonishment I did not sleep over the sermon. It was not because I was listening to it but it’s because there was a girl seating next to me who mesmerized me with her beauty. All the while I watched her, wanting to reach for her heart. Jeez, did I just say that, I wanted to reach for her heart? Yeah, that’s what I wanted. She had a sexy way of pursing her lips in the faintest hint of smile as though she knew what was roiling in my mind.

She was slender, dark complexioned, adorable, and looked like some kind of a black angel, more of a jailbait. She had a I’m-a-serious-gal-keep-off demeanour on her visage, something I found more charming than just fascinating. When she talked while responding to the customary rote phrases of an RC Mass celebration or while singing, she exposed a set of snow white teeth that glittered like the proverbial gold. Her skin was as soft as though she used Botox. She was not good-looking but sensuous, and only two buds of nipples were exceptionally visible on her bust.
I’d like to one day explore whether she actually has tits.
Her hair was shiny black, combed straight back. Her lips thin, endearing and ecru tanned. She was dressed in taut hipster pants showing her whole geography as though it was saying don’t-I-look-pretty-boy? Although I am not good at hypotheses, I guessed her age to be mid-teens, most probably sixteen – she had that baby face countenance.

I must say hi after the mass.

I did not hesitate to say hi to her after the Mass. Terry found us in an ear-to-ear conversation. I was taken aback to find that they already knew each other – she was a fervent RC and she used to attend Terry’s prayer meetings without fail. That was good of her. After all who didn’t know and was a friend of Terry, the WOSWA chairperson? She resided at the Nashville University’s Lower Westlands hostels and as we parted I did not fail to express my desire to see her again.

“Pretty sure you will. I am free on Fridays and weekends unless I have a project or practical.” She was a medical student, first year. “I hope we shall meet again, you are so particular
.”

She already likes me. Girls like me.

“Hell, I want to see ya’ again, sooner than soon.” She gave me her phone number. What a good start… A naughty thought of blowing a kiss to her crept into my mind but I decided against it. I did not know how Terry would take it.

“And …Excuse me. What is your name?” I turned slowly.

“Oh! Sorry. Call me anything but, if you don’t want to piss me off, don’t call me son of man.”

“Son of man?” confusion registered on her pretty face.

“Yes, they call me that because I once called myself that, but I no longer. Have a nice day, Susan.”

“What’s with you and the skirts? We are all attracted to you on first sight.” It was Terry.

“Just like a moth to light?”

“You’ve got some charm, Ken. You should be checked. Maybe you have gone to Ukambani for
kamuti.
I can’t believe you are on to each other already yet you barely…”

“Know each other?” I finished for her.

“Yes.”

I changed the subject. “That phone you gave me is fabulous. Thank you.”

“Now who’s avoiding something here?” I said nothing.

“You know
siz,
I gonna miss you so much when you leave. You are fantastic, Terry. There’re very few like you.”

“It’s like you specialize I dodging things in life.”

“I don’t want to talk about nothing. I just don’t know what to say.”

“Me too. Let’s go have lunch.”

Sure.

I had not seen Kate for three months. She had changed her phone number and whenever I went to KCA I did not find her. And no, I did not want to make up with her. I wanted to know why she had to do so; abort
my
kid that is. In my world, she was a murderer, murderess. How could she kill an innocent unborn kid? I had already judged and convicted her – she was a murderer. Killer!

I found her already at my house in Ngara Estate waiting for me that evening after the outing with Terry. It had been a nice day with Terry, as usual. The sight of Kate made me feel under the weather.

The hug was perfunctory, restless, edgy and jittery. She had lost some weight, lots of it. What the hell’s happening to her, I thought.

“What a pleasant surprise, Kate,” no one could fail to pick the strum of contempt in what I had just said. “I have been trying to reach you.”

“I lost my phone. I changed the number when I got another phone last week.”

Liar!

“And you lost your Zimmerman house too? I have been looking for you but you were nowhere to be found. I’m I missing something here?”

“I did not come here to quarrel with you. I just came by to say hi… it has been a long time, Ken.”

“Of course it has been. Why the hell did you do it, Kate? You just got innocent blood on your hands.”

“Are you livid with me? Of course you are. I have got better things to do than to wrangle with you. Tell me I was wrong in my coming here.”

Of course you are, you murderer.

“You are not, Kate. Since you left time has been measured in bitter chapters, Kate. Would you like to come in?”

The all-out-of-the-place house offered a comfy milieu for a man with no life like me. That was one of the reasons I did not want to stay at the university though I could not have gotten a hostel there. I was to arrange for my accommodation. That was better since they had given me the scholarship.

Kate’s glamour was still there; the beauty and charm. I wanted to do many things to her, things done by those in love like humans do; but she had told me better never again see each other, touch each other, ogle at each other – I knew better than that. And why the hell was she here?

But she was a mind reader of sorts.

“Ken, I know you are wondering why I am here,” she said when we were inside. I prayed she had not been thrown out by her new man and was planning to come back. The thought of it brought memories of our last meeting. “I am here for one thing Ken, you.”

Oh God, no.

“I have not been honest with you, Ken. I want you to forgive me.”

“For aborting
our
baby? I loved you, Kate, because of who you are. You were always anti pro-choice; you walked in the streets carrying banners saying no to pro-choice. What happened to that?”

“I know you can’t understand, and you won’t understand. The odds are different, though. We’re both to blame here. You’d ask me why let myself get pregnant. You’d blame me for everything. But why did you just enjoy the goodies without protection? For God’s sake the government donates condoms if you can’t afford...”

“Don’t you dare feed me that crap. Why didn’t you carry them with you?”

“Do you think it was my responsibility?”

I did not answer that. I could not.

“We’re all sinners. You too are a murderer, Ken.”

It’s true I was, but I didn’t tell her to abort, or does she know?

“What do you mean? I did not know when you were…”

“Shh! I saw you. I saw you get into that car. It’s all over the news now. They’ve found the bodies. What are you going say about that? I am damn sure it was you.”

I was seen? She’s lying. I was careful.

“I don’t know what you are talking about. Are you trying to blackmail me?”

“Here’s the story, lover. My boyfriend resides in Lavington. They were our neighbours. I was at the balcony of our house. There could be your look-alikes, but not to me. I can’t even mistake your finger nails with somebody else’s. I can even tell your silhouette from a thousand others.”

“You are not saying that you think I killed those people. I was…”

“Ken, I love you, I mean I once loved you and always shall; only that we couldn’t be together. You were the first man I have ever loved. I did not want to leave you for another man. But have you ever heard that love is a devil and he’s coming for you?

“Steve is the most wonderful man I’ve ever met. I could not reject him, avoid him. He was
soooo
niiice!” She paused, and then continued. “I was afraid, Ken. My father would not have accepted me, taken me with my pregnancy. He is paying my school fees and I want to make him happy. I had to do that. I had no money. Dad was mad when he knew that I had used my trust fund. I came up with a cock and bull story, and though he could see right through my eyes that I was lying through my teeth, he let go of the matter, but not without a severe warning and admonition. I never mentioned you, Ken; I covered your ass because of what could happen. Our families have been friends for long, or did you want me to be the one who aided your running away from your home? Well, dad forgave me, but he is not a man who forgets. I couldn’t go back to him pregnant and expect him to take care of
your
bastard, plus he now monitors my account. I couldn’t access more than it could raise a red flag without him knowing. Steve believed my story and gave me the money.”

That was quite a story. Did I believe it, yes? She couldn’t come to me because I had nothing to offer.

“And you moved in with him?”

“I love him, Ken. I want to
marry
him.”

Yeah, and that love part – coming from someone who less than a minute before had said she loved me, and she still. Is there any other definition of love?  She did not say anything straight away.

“I see… and he’s agreed to marry a murderer?” I said rather sardonically.

“Ken, I told him the truth he needed to know, that I was pregnant but I couldn’t carry it to term. It was an ectopic pregnancy, and the baby had to be aborted. He understood, stood by me that time. Everybody finds themselves in catch-22 situations from time to time; it is the decisions that we make that define who we are. Stop looking at me with those judgemental eyes. I had no other choice. It was not an easy decision, Ken.”

I said nothing, my eyes on her.

“I thought you should know the truth. Dad believes in me. I don’t want to break his heart. Plus, I know my father. I won’t be welcome under his roof if I made another blaring mistake. That’s the last thing I want in this life – to be ostracized by my own family. God knows I love them, and I need them.”

There was a moment of awkward silence before she said, “I love you, Ken. That’s why I listened to you and decided to help you. The paths of our lives date so long ago. Remember those days we used to study together even late at night and Mom never said anything? I wanted to do all the craziness a young girl could think of with you, but I didn’t. I controlled myself that much. However, when the time came I gave myself to you. It’s now over two years, but actually it’s almost a score of years since our childhood days. All that time I had not thought of any other man until recently when I was forced by circumstances. Can’t you see I did that for you? I can’t stand accused in the court of my father because of you; and to make matters worse, be your lawyer.”

“I see everything, Kate. What I don’t believe is whether you are sure you saw me yesterday at
your
place?”

“Why should I lie to you? You think I cooked this up? What for? What do I stand to gain? I am sure it was you. I have told nobody else about this if that’s what you are afraid of. I wanted to tell you. Please, Ken, I beg you, just stop what you are up to. Very soon the truth is going to come out. Do you have an idea of how they treat them behind the bars?”

“Kate please, I am not into what you are thinking.”

“I am not thinking, Ken. I know. You can have the most impeccable alibi, but this one you can’t pull out of it unscathed. I saw you. Just stop it.”

A big yellow plate was sinking down in the western horizon. Its yellow glow was giving the earth in this part of Nairobi an eerie luminescence. Very soon it was going to be night for the diurnal creatures to rest, for lovers to make love and others babies; and for the nocturnal creatures it’d be time to toil and moil, make a living, hunt and kill, and get to work.

I saw Kate off and as the tail lights of the
matatu
disappeared round the corner, the ricocheting and reverberations of what she had just told me a moment ago banged in my head. She loved me; she had done that out of her love for me.

Very soon the truth is going to come out.

Somebody had witnessed the whole thing.

Somebody was a witness.

Somebody had seen me.

Somebody knew of me.

Somebody knew me.

Somebody knew what I was.

Nobody ought to know who I was, what I was.

I loved Kate, but she ought not to know that much.

Please Ken; I beg you, stop what you are up to…

I had to stop.

It had to stop.

I had a decision to make.

Witnesses can be eliminated.

Witnesses can’t be allowed.

It was either Kate or me.