Mombasa Road Retravelled Page 5

  Chapter 5

  It's Monday evening and I'm riding from a meeting with Luxmi in Guarav's house to a beery rendezvous with Kiwi John in Annie Oakley's, the bar which is the successor in spirit they tell me, though not necessarily in sheer kitsch delight, to the old Buffalo Bill's Bar I used to drink in twenty years back with its replica wagons brimming with riotous hookers, its horseshoe bar and County Jail, and its memories of Jameela, my brother Steve and my dear old mate, the conman Musembe, all now long gone.

  My spirits have picked up considerably, however, since the maudlin end to last night under the skies of Magadi and my face feels flush and alive again with all the headwind and sun that pounded us all the way back to Kiwi John's house this afternoon.

  There's revolution in the air too, for I'm about to spend my first evening away from Little Stevie since? since God knows! - sometime soon after he was born, I guess. Little Stevie looked relaxed when I left, but I'm hoping like hell he doesn't let himself down with any serious weirdness - he was so desperate to make the right impression with Almas he hung around in the kitchen to try and talk to her for a full five minutes just after we arrived back from Magadi, before rushing off to the computer to check on all the missing European football scores.

  I've forgotten just how dark these Nairobi roads get at night and I'm grateful for the couple of taxis and the small posse of loafers, whose presence betrays the entrance to the sacra sacrorum.

  I remember this end of Milimani Road vaguely from before: banana trees, eucalyptus and jacaranda screen collections of mid-market and short-tenure apartments and I jolt back the throttle sharply to arrive with a snarl in the car park right outside the bar.

  Inside here there's a secondary gathering of taxi drivers, malingerers and ne'er-do-goods, all languishing just in front of the entrance. These are businessmen who don't carry cards, pay no tax and carry no licences; their services are often recherch? and prices highly flexible. So at least from the outside there's little difference between this place and the Buffalo Bill's of old.

  No Musembe loitering here, however, and don't I miss him! Poor old Musemebe, eh? His teeth would already have been glinting at me from a distance in the dark, shining out like shipwreckers' lanterns in the curling fog, his beat-up face beaming its come-and-get-it grin to every roving freighter putting into Nairobi port for liquor, bawdy wenches and tales of far-off, hidden treasure.

  But Musembe or not, I can feel other furtive eyes on my back as I pull a thick, heavy chain from my shoulders and immobilize the Africa Twin's front wheel. And while I saunter past the silent stares of these serious gentlemen, a deep, jazzed-up Rasta voice calls out:

  'Nice bike, maaaan! Verrrrrry nice!'

  I glance towards the voice and wink. He's a young, well-built guy, about my sort of a size, maybe a little taller. No dreadlocks or beard on this Rasta, though; he's a fresh-faced, fine-featured young lad with clean jeans and t-shirt and the obligatory reversed baseball cap. He makes to high-five me, but to slap his palm in return would signify my obeisance to this fine young fief's droit du seigneur; so instead, I wink one more time, pat him on the shoulder and pass on by while his palm clutches air.

  Stepping inside, I see that Annie Oakley's has gone for the sports bar theme. The big screen TV all set to show the Monday night mid-table Premiership clash that is too evenly balanced to attract any of our investment money is definitely not Buffalo Bill's. Sure, there are plenty of unaccompanied women all around, but even the good-time girls here seem to have toned down their antics.

  Not once is my route to the bar ambushed by a 'Nairobi handshake' - my balls still recall with dread the vice-like squeeze that used to tighten painfully around the scrotum until you were forced to acknowledge the voluminous chest and lipsticky face attached to the other end of the hand. No, all very tame here, just a couple of demure 'Good evenings!' which I brush past effortlessly with a nod and a half-smile.

  From the counter, I spy Kiwi John sitting alone in a corner table, facing away from the screen. I gesture a beer bottle and he gives me a thumbs-up. The barman is busy, though, so I take time to look around.

  Well, maybe on second glance there are similarities to the old Buffalo Bill's clientele after all, perhaps a few more male African faces here, and these are all sharp-suited and on the prowl; a couple of solo Asians look like they've slipped the missus for the night, while the groups of whites range from loud overlanders to suits and slackened ties. They are mainly drinking in twos or threes, but a couple of high-interest tables are surrounded by large conglomerations of gum-chewing girls.

  But I'm looking for characters, and for characters, these first impressions just don't impress: Where are the likes of Big Dan, out-hulking everyone by at least a head? Or that fabulous old Asian gentleman, The Flycatcher, bedevilled by a dyspnoea that made his probing tongue flicker like a Komodo dragon as he chatted his way from wagon to wagon in endless circumambulations, revelling in the ribbing the girls gave him and their raucous shouts of 'Daddee!'?

  'You're getting me back into bad habits,' Kiwi John smiles, as I hand him a cold beer and we chink bottles.

  'It's a first for me too? and possibly a last,' I add sceptically, looking once again around the bar. 'Can't see too much here to tempt me back again in hurry.'

  We haven't had the chance to chat properly yet since Little Stevie and I returned from Magadi, so now Kiwi John wants to find out all about our trip to the other side of the great soda lake and the launch of Football Kenya. He's excited too, and can't wait to hear all about the next game we'll be investing money in together.

  'I fancy a sniff at one of the Champions League group games on Wednesday night,' I tell him. 'There's quite a big price on Real Madrid to win away at Shakhtar Donetsk. The market often overreacts to Eastern Europe. Betfair thinks it's Mordor anywhere east of Vienna, so you can often back quality like Real Madrid against central European dross at long enough prices to build in plenty of insurance bets against the draw and even the most likely home win outcomes.'

  Kiwi John nods eagerly as if the Real win must by now be a mere formality, then asks:

  'I bet you and Little Stevie must have been mobbed back at Daudi's school this morning?'

  'No, not a bit of it, mate. At least no more than we were on Sunday. I don't think the fire will really spread till the first few kids have actually been to Luxmi and got crisp paper shillings in their hands.'

  Which doesn't get a reaction from my old friend, and soon I discover why, for turning in the direction of his stern gaze behind me, I see that we've been joined by two girls, standing expectantly by our table. One is quite pretty: skinny body with highlighted hair done up in a ponytail about the length of Kiwi John's, a white top cut low enough to reveal a disappointingly scrawny chest and a clean pair of jeans; the other is short, squat and in-our-faces a little too forcefully, holding out a limp hand in which she expects a palm tickle.

  'Sasa?' she asks.

  'Sorry we're talking business ladies,' I shake my head firmly, gently touching both outstretched palms that are tended my way.

  They'll be lucky to get more than a grunt from Kiwi John, and as for me, I can't see this forty-something fossil being tempted so quickly into the sack as I was with Nancy on my first night in Kenya all those years ago. Ah, Nancy! The girl who introduced herself to me at my dead brother Steve's funeral as his 'one night girl' and who in turn became a 'one-night-girl' I'll never forget either back in my room at the Milimani Hotel. And that was before I met Jameela and before all the madness really began.

  The girls bow to our lack of interest without any of the determined haggling or bartering I remember of old and move away with a take-it-or-leave-it that's phlegmatically resigned to all leave and no take.

  I glance over at Kiwi John in a second of self-analysis: Is it them or us? Now that's a sobering thought! Maybe neither Kiwi John nor I are considered a catch decent enough to squabble over any more. So I'm partially reassured when the squat girl turns to echo behind, 'Maybe
later?' as her swaying buttocks gyrate bar-wards.

  'Maybe not,' I sigh, taking a long pull of beer, then remember something important:

  'Hey I forgot to tell you, mate: Luxmi's made contact with Dismas, or his secretary at least.'

  'Oh yea? Does the Big Man care to remember you, Brian?'

  'We'll know soon enough,' I smile. 'The Minister for Tourism is down at the coast for the next fortnight, apparently, chairing a working party to boost visitor numbers in Mombasa and Malindi. His secretary said she'd pass my mobile number on, so we'll see.'

  I can read Kiwi John's face again. Another intrusion:

  'Hello, mate, what the hell do you want?' he growls with a snarl that would deter any but the saintliest and most determined of empty charity box shakers.

  I turn again and see that our latest visitor is none other than the Rasta man who accosted me at the entrance. But not even Kiwi John's fuck-off face has put this guy off. On the contrary, our Rasta boy here is grinning so wide he'll have to hire floor space in someone else's face to accommodate it all.

  'I can't believe it! I just can't believe it, bwana!' he chuckles. 'You are Mr Brian, isn't it?' but he doesn't wait for confirmation, just stretches over to shake my hand, and I notice the young man's Rasta accent has also washed away in the ecstasy of discovery. And this time I do slap the slender outstretched hand he offers and present my own in return, ready to listen to some Musembe-style bullshit. The king is dead, long live the king!

  'I knew I recognised the face!' he continues. 'So I went to take a good look at your piki. And it is? the same one!'

  'Hope you kept your hands off the bloody bike,' Kiwi John interrupts, but his caustic comment is simply ignored.

  Now it's my turn to shake my head.

  'You might have seen the bike before, mate, but I'm sure we've never met.'

  Then, in greater alarm, I add:

  'But wait a minute, how the devil do you know my name?'

  Neither my growling suspicion nor Kiwi John's trenchant gruffness can deter this young man. Not at all. For in the face of our combined scepticism our dreadlockless Rasta here just keeps chuckling to himself and mumbling 'Ajabu kabisa!' over and over again, then starts explaining the situation in Kikuyu to another young man who appears behind and in turn murmurs a crescendo of 'Ah, Ah, AAHH's' as his friend explains whatever the fuss is all about, and then this newcomer too insists on shaking both of our hands like Kiwi John and I are film stars.

  Evidently up there with the best of conmen, this pair have now completely bemused us with their joviality, feigned or real, and in the confusion of the moment, even Kiwi John is caught out and reciprocates their geniality with a handshake either side of the table.

  At last there's some explanation:

  'OK, Mr Brian, I will tell you now how I know you. It was a long time ago, back when I was a young boy. The first time I remember it well. You were with Detective Baragoi outside the Highlands Boarding and Lodging downtown. I was begging in the street outside and I asked you for a shilling. You stopped and patted my head. Then instead of just a coin, you gave me a ten shilling note! And then to all my mkora friends on the street around me, you gave also ten shillings each. And you kickboxed Ochieng's legs together just like Jean-Claude Van Damme and sent him crashing to his backside when he tried to pick your pocket.'

  For a second, nothing. Then suddenly and dramatically? Yes! This does all register! And now it's my turn to feel an almost ineffable elation:

  'Oh? My? God! I do remember! You can't be? The same kid? The one outside the bar when I was with Baragoi! Bloody hell! Impossible! And you followed me and Peter Baragoi into the bar and I was amazed to find out you actually knew each other. Wait a minute, Peter Baragoi used you to run errands for us, didn't he? This is un-bloody-believable! John, meet the man of a boy I once briefly knew!'

  Now that the unheard of has suddenly become humdrum and banal, even Kiwi John relents and his legendary reserve crumbles like the soda-crust of Lake Magadi into salt-marsh shallows of bonhommmie, which he celebrates with a broad grin and a renewed hand shake with each of these newcomers.

  'My name's Henry, Henry Longech,' the ex-streetboy adds, now feverishly re-shaking my hand all over again. 'But everyone calls me 'Vidole' - 'Fingers' you say in English!'

  'Fingers?' I ask.

  Henry nods, smiling more slyly this time:

  'That's right, Mr Brian, Fingers! When you met me all those years ago, I was just a streetboy mkora. Now I am a street-man! Quick fingers and quick mind, that's what you need on the street, bwana!'

  I'm laughing out loud now as I shake Fingers by his slippery digits all over again:

  'That makes two of us then, Fingers. I fleece people for a living too just like you! The only difference with me is that we agree the terms on how it's going to be done and at what price before I take their money! But to hell with all that, what are you guys drinking?'

  They're on whatever they can scrounge, and as I'm buying it's Tuskers. I guess these guys can make a beer appear a lot quicker than I can, so instead of wasting time and energy, I send Fingers' mate, Kevin, to the counter with the money.

  Kevin is pudgy, tall, thick-set and lighter-skinned than Fingers, with cloudy eyes that probe furtively around the bar. In the old days I would have assumed that Kevin might well do a runner with a five-hundred shilling note, but this is New Kenya and he hasn't, so the four of us are soon all chinking bottles back round the table like old mates.

  'So, Fingers,' I laugh, 'after a hard day's graft on the street, this is where you and your mates hang out, is it, at Annie Oakley's? You remind me of my old mate, Musembe, from Buffalo Bill's.'

  Fingers almost chokes on his beer then guffaws:

  'Musembe!'

  He and Kevin laugh long and loud, then slap each other's hands.

  Now it's my turn to choke:

  'You mean, you knew Musembe too, Fingers?'

  Fingers and Kevin look at each other like I've just asked them if it rains in the rainy season.

  'Of course! Everyone from our business knew Musembe!'

  'Knew?' Confirmation of past tense is a disappointment but more than expected. 'Personally?'

  'Yea. Musembe, he was like my uncle when I was mtoto.'

  'So whatever did happen to the drug-pinched, old bastard?' I ask rheumily.

  Fingers and Kevin chuckle and look at each:

  'Who knows, Mr Brian? Better you ask me the way to Kisosoro! Musembe just went away one day and never came back. We can't say what happened to him.'

  'How long ago was that?'

  Fingers glances at Kevin and they both seem to be calculating:

  'It was just before I went to jail for the first time, yaani, more than ten years ago.'

  'Ten years! And no one's ever heard anything since?'

  They shake their heads, then Fingers adds:

  'Musembe was a sick man, you know that Mr Brian. Maybe too much drink, maybe too many drugs, maybe too much slim, who knows?'

  'Slim?'

  'Aids.'

  'Oh,' I nod. 'Poor old Musembe!'

  Shit, how I miss the obsequious, devious old bastard! Time to propose a toast:

  'Well, here's to the best conman in all Africa! Also turned out to be the best detective when I let him loose on the investigation into my poor brother Steve's murder. Wherever you are, Musembe, I bet you're somewhere near the Almighty's back pocket, helping yourself to a stray five-hundred dollar bill every time he buys a round.'

  We all drink to that and even Kiwi John looks merry. Fingers asks me a lot of questions about all the old stories that played out during my last visit to Kenya, but he and Kevin already seem to know everything there is to know; maybe they just want to have all the details confirmed by one of the principal dramatis personae.

  In turn I quiz Fingers about his own day-to-day existence and it's soon obvious that Fingers is the real deal. Musembe's charm lay in the fact that he was a piss-take of self; even Musembe knew deep down that
he couldn't successfully con a kid out of a corn cob - had Musembe survived long enough to become president of a bank he would have had reservations about paying himself the colossal bonuses those mega-thieves treat themselves to.

  In further contrast to Musembe, Fingers doesn't talk it up. He's alert and astute even after a couple of beers and looking across the table with a quizzical gaze fixed on my unusually genial mate across the table. Yea, it's impressive that Fingers has passed the litmus test of Kiwi John's approval so soon; it took Musembe years to achieve that. And now that the beers are flowing freely, my taciturn ex-biking mate is positively effusive and the four of us are soon hitting it off like an anarchists' blind date, talking louder and louder each in turn, in an effort to bag the next sentence before the other bloke corners it.

  It's Kiwi John who brings up the subject of Football Kenya:

  'Hey Brian, you've got to sign this pair up into FC Kenya - they're fully deserving good causes!'

  I agree and tell Fingers and Kevin all about Football Kenya, about Little Stevie's rankings, all the insurance manoeuvres we do and what I'm offering to the dispossessed youth of Kenya. And these guys are sharp! No need for all the incessant questions I got from the school kids in Magadi, no failure to see that being enrolled in Football Kenya is as good as landing a UN job with the six-figure, tax-free dollar salary and the hardship allowance for having to slum it in a six-bedroom, five-acre estate in Nairobi's plushest suburbs. Oh yes, Fingers and Kevin are immediately clamouring to be enrolled, and we enthusiastically make a date to watch what will be their first Football Kenya game in here on Wednesday night.

  I'm on my feet again now and this time proposing a toast to Fingers:

  'Hey John, Musembe may be long dead and gone to the Greatest Conman of All in the Sky, but we've sure as hell found the new Musembe! The King is dead, long live the King!'

  We laugh some more at this and crash all our bottles together centre table. With all the football talk and the beers flowing in rounds which I'm exclusively bankrolling, the four of us are rowdy now, but from old habits I manage to keep one eye roving round the bar.

  Leaning against the counter at the bar I notice two sullen whites giving us the evil eye. One of the mzungus is sitting on bar stool staring straight back at me, loud red shirt hanging outside blue jeans, slicked-back blond hair cascading into a pony tail the same length as Kiwi John's. He's got a trim moustache and is roughly my age minus five years or so. The other mzungu is standing, back turned towards us but pivoting now and then in our direction, no doubt in response to his mate's comments. This guy is short, no taller than Kiwi John, but squat and corpulent, with dark hair that must be prematurely balding, judging by the youth in his pudgy cheeks. The African with them is very tall, fat and well built, also balding with a scrawny grey goatee that can't connect and is all isolated chunks of bleached coral that never quite make an atoll. The African guy is on the pull and repeatedly calls over groups of girls, who stand around for a giggle and a palm-tickle but don't stay.

  Fingers and Kevin have their backs to this trio, so they aren't aware of what I'm looking at; Kiwi John must be so caught up in the shock of such unwonted sociability that he's also unusually unresponsive.

  For a fleeting few seconds I lock eyes with the blond guy in the red shirt and there's a surge of something long-lost deep inside my veins; a smidgeon of all the old impulses stirs somewhere dark and dormant.

  I nudge Fingers and point out the three men with the tip of my beer bottle:

  'Who are those three bastards at the counter, Fingers?'

  He and Kevin turn around then recoil:

  'Motherfucker! That's one bad motherfucker, Mr Brian!' Fingers hisses. 'The tall African man is the Head of CID, Chief Superintendent Wilson Wamunyu. The CID Head Office is just nearby here.'

  'Just as well I asked first then,' I grunt, 'before I smash one into the face of his mate in the red shirt sitting on the bar stool. Do you know anything about those two mzungus with the CID man, Fingers?'

  He doesn't, so he has a brief, hushed conversation with Kevin in Kikuyu.

  At length they both shrug their shoulders:

  'We don't know exactly, Mr Brian, but they are somehow working with Wamunyu. Embassy staff, we think. British or American. We've seen them here with that pig CID man many times before.'

  'Feels like I've never left, mate,' I say to Kiwi John. 'The place never runs out of arseholes.'

  But Kiwi John is not really listening; he's looking straight past me to the door. After a few seconds his boot prods my foot and he whistles to himself long and low.

  'Shit, Brian! I think you'd better look away now, mate! Looks like Jameela Two has just walked in!'

  Another Jameela? That's impossible! But then, Oh? My ?God! He's right! There she is standing just beside me, looking around the bar for? for me? Get a grip, mate! I pinch myself hard.

  But I can't stop staring. Suddenly I've been catapulted back to a previous life and in the back of my head I can hear those words the other guy used in Mombasa Road to describe what it was like when my brother Steve first set eyes on Jameela in Buffalo Bill's Bar, way before I ever came to Kenya:

  'Jameela had been wearing full-length Somali robes of white, flecked here and there with golden sequins and girdled at the waist by a black cord. Her facial beauty was quite simply unparalleled - she was the girl you found yourself next to when you woke up with a start on lonely nights and the genie of your dreams had given you one wish for anything in the whole wide world. The chocolate skin of her hands, neck, and face was offset by golden bracelets, necklace and earrings. And in the corner of a nostril sat a golden stud shaped into the continent of Africa, which, in its mighty entirety, he felt, must have been her unquestioning slave.'

  This New Jameela turns around in front of our table several times, apparently not finding what she's looking for, then takes a seat at a small table close enough to ours for me to devour every detail of her anatomy with clandestine stupefaction.

  There's no golden stud of Africa in this Jameela's nostril, and her face is a little softer too; Jameela's facial contours were so rigidly close to textbook perfection they gave her a back-off austerity. This New Jameela's hair is long, straight and dark, just like the prototype, and her skin is the same velvety light-brown hue too. She's dressed like a businesswoman with a full-length black skirt that hugs the body closely enough to suggest a long, slender leg but is modest enough to hang well below the knee. Her white chemise is buttoned high, sadly well above the line of cleavage. The dark jacket she wears on top is brightened by the dull glint of gold necklace and earrings.

  I'm still running through the inventory of Jameela attributes in my mind as this new one is served and soon I watch the waiter return with an abstemious soda. She lights a cigarette and exhales nervously, briefly catching my eyes, but there's no flicker of connection there; instead, she looks straight through me, then behind me and away. In that split-second, face-to-face glimpse I see that this Jameela probably doesn't have the Somali blood of the original; Arabic perhaps with a trace of coastal Swahili.

  I've dropped out of the conversation at our table since New Jameela walked in, but Kevin and Fingers are still swapping stories with Kiwi John, who I know will be carefully checking my reactions. I lean across the table and prod Fingers in the ribs, pointing surreptitiously at the apparition.

  'Fingers, mate, you've got to help. Who the hell is she?'

  Our very own private detective glances her way then shrugs.

  'Never seen her before, Mr Brian, but I'll go and find out for you, if you like.'

  I catch his wrist before he rises and pull Fingers back.

  'No don't go for me, mate. That would look shit. If you don't know her, I'll have to find out myself.'

  So with that I get wearily to my feet - always best to go yourself before one of your mates cocks it up for you. But New Jameela doesn't catch my eye even as I move in on her table; hardly a promising start.

  'May I?'
I ask, pointing to one of the three spare chairs.

  'I'm waiting for someone,' she tells me curtly. Our eyes finally meet and hers tell me my intrusion is unwelcome.

  'So am I,' I reply. 'But she's long dead and so I guess I'll have to wait till I join her somewhere far, far from here.'

  'I'm sorry,' she says, for the first time sounding something less than glacial. 'What was her name?'

  'Jameela.'

  Her dark eyes lock on to mine:

  'Jameela? That means 'Beautiful' in my language.'

  'I know. She was. Very. Only you can come remotely close.'

  Her proud eyes narrow at this and she exhales cigarette smoke across the table.

  'You were married to this lady?' she side-steps, masking her reaction.

  'No, she was killed before it came to that.'

  'And? Jameela? she was a Muslim, yes? So you are Muslim too?'

  'She was, I'm not.'

  'But?'

  I know what's coming so I cut in, shaking my head:

  'No, I've no time for religions, I'm afraid. Any of them. You know, the word 'religion' means 'what ties you down'; and, me, I don't ever want to be tied down. No way. I'm nomadic, a wanderer from the northern plains. I don't see boundaries, I cross fences and ignore ownership claims. The seasons change, I move to where the grass grows. That's what I'm all about. So now, I guess, it's my turn now for a question: like what's your name?'

  Her eyes have narrowed and she leans aggressively across the table now.

  'Yasmiin,' she almost spits. 'And I love my religion, Mr?'

  'Brian.'

  'Whatever. But you will have to leave soon. I am expecting someone.'

  And she looks around the bar.

  But I've learned over the years to take that one with a pinch of salt; Yasmiin won't be rid of me that easily. Probably it's the religious jibes that have upset her. No doubt she takes me for an ignorant, western kaffir that must be saved or destroyed. But I'm not going to tell this haughty young woman that I speak Arabic and have lived in the Yemen. Not yet, anyway. So I change my tack:

  'You're from the coast aren't you, Yasmiin?'

  She is surprised at that and taken off guard she almost smiles:

  'Yes, from Mombasa. How did you know?'

  'Oh, it's not my first time in Kenya,' I sigh knowingly.

  Yasmiin looks askance again as a raucous group of girls follows a large African man to the exit and I glance sideways too. It's the Chief Superintendent Wilson Wamunyu whom Fingers pointed out earlier.

  At close quarters, I see the Chief Super has gone for the gold-chain gangster bling, with serpentine slabs of the yellow stuff coiled around his neck and crawling up both arms from the wrists. He snaps at one of the women and I note that even his English is gangster-rap American.

  'Come on, Jackie!' he postures at the doorway, brandishing car keys. 'You're with the boss man tonight, gal!'

  The lucky lady claps her hands in joy and clip-clops after the CID man to the door, heavy buttocks sagging sideways in such a wide arc they threaten to destabilize her high-heel steps. Behind Jackie, the group of friends howls and whoops in a mixture of admiration and damn-goes-my-chance disappointment.

  The CID man's exit is quickly followed, albeit far more furtively, by the short, podgy specimen of the two whites from the Gang of Three. His assignation has evidently been quietly pre-arranged out of the public eye, so Short Arse is followed by a pretty young girl who dwarfs her conquest, with long, slender legs, which climb as far as Short Arse's chest-height before disappearing inside a tight miniskirt and a stretch top that reveals bra-less, pert and still-unsuckled nipples.

  But I've been looking the wrong way. For from the other flank the intruder springs his attack.

  'Yasmiin! Sorry I kept you waiting so long. You look swell, honey. Real swell.'

  Devastation sits down next to my girl without asking for permission, hers or mine. Of course, it's the last of the Unholy Triumvirate, my mate in the red-shirt with the long, blond pony tail. He talks Brooklyn New York, but the resemblance to Mickey Rourke is exclusively in the nasal voice.

  Finally Red Shirt looks my way and asks 'Who's this?' with the same enthusiasm Saddam Hussein might have asked an aide of a rebel Kurdish village, remembering he had a large stock of nerve agent sitting close to best before date on his shelves.

  'He's leaving, Vic,' Yasmiin replies curtly, fidgeting with her tonic water as if it were mouthing insults at her.

  Vic enjoys his moment and our eyes finally meet.

  'So long, then, pal!' he waves. 'She wants you to go take a hike.'

  Twenty years ago I'd have ripped Vic by the throat from his seat and dragged him to the car park, but this is a stunning defeat delivered with such a knockout punch and the older man in me has simply no answer. Absolutely none. This is winning the Champions League Final on a long-odds shot like Porto or Werder Bremen only to discover that Betfair voided the bet in the group stages. This is pain. Sheer pain.

  'See you another day then,' I say to Yasmiin in Arabic, and at least that gets me a bewildered stare as I rise to leave. But it's a pathetic reply - only a consolation goal deep into injury time. Make that serious injury time.

  'Suddenly feeling old and tired, mate,' I tell Kiwi John back at our table.

  Kiwi John is yawning and ready to go too but not before Fingers and Kevin have insisted that I bring Little Stevie to meet them in their home in the slums of Kibera tomorrow afternoon, for Fingers is very keen to enroll a large legion of his fellow damned into our Football Kenya club.

  Mawkishly dejected by my stunning defeat with Yasmiin at the hands of Vic, I agree without particular enthusiasm and take directions, but it's soon clear I'll never find Fingers' lair by myself.

  'OK, Mr Brian. Can you meet me at the Yaya Centre at midday? You can leave your piki there and we can walk.

  I shake on that then ask in a low voice for a reciprocal favour.

  'Fingers, I want you to find out all there is to know about that blond, pony-tailed Yank called Vic sitting with my girl over there.'

  Fingers looks over and fixes Vic and Yasmiin a mean stare. They're not sitting close to each other, nor does Yasmiin seem much less formal with her American friend than she was with me, so I conclude they're not lovers. Not yet at least.

  'Sure thing, Mr Brian.'

  'Can you find out his surname, where he lives, how long he's known her? And anything you can about the girl, Yasmiin.'

  'I will find this out for you and tell you when we meet tomorrow, Mr Brian. But the girl? We never seen her here before. Not a Nairobi girl, that's for sure. It can take time.'

  'No, she's from the coast.'

  Fingers nods thoughtfully:

  'Ok, I'll text my Swahili friends: Mombasa, Malindi, Kilifi, Lamu, all no problem. We are fully networked, Mr Brian.'

  'Sounds good,' I grin.

  'Oh yes, all of Kenya covered,' Fingers smiles. 'I'll find out about this coastal bibi for you, Mr Brian. Don't you worry.'

  'Musembe would have been asking for a down payment by now,' I smile, getting to my feet.

  But Fingers holds up his hands:

  'No need for money, Mr Brian, we'll all be football millionaires soon enough!'

  'Don't get him all excited again over this girl,' Kiwi John jibes, patting Fingers and Kevin on the shoulder and glancing across at Yasmiin and her American friend, where the conversation doesn't exactly seem to be free flowing. 'It's taken him twenty years to get over the last one. Come on, Brian, let's find out how the kids have been getting on.'