Poisoned Steak

The Rosettenville kid is back . . . in trouble with the law and a drug dealer

- Tom Serengeti

THE silver Merc S-Class pulled over outside the shopping centre’s parking lot and the driver signalled to me. I gathered the charger cables draped around my neck and ran awkwardly across the road. It wasn’t often a driver looked at you, let alone made anything other than a snide remark.

Even before I got to the Merc I was flipping through the cables to find the right plug for the model. I held one up. “I have just the right one for you, sir.”

The driver was a paunchy guy whose big belly almost got in the way of the steering wheel. His round, fleshy face was creased with something resembling a scrunched-up smile and he wiggled thick fingers at me. “Not today. You can help me with something else,” he said.

I loathed letting a potential customer slip away.

“An important man like you should never be cut offfrom the world of news and business. This one . . .” and I thrust a cable closer to his face, “will support three ports at one time.”

The big guy ignored the charger plug. “I’ve seen you before. You’re not like the others. You are clean and you look intelligent. Just the sort of man I’m looking for to do a small job for me.”

That knocked me back a bit. For the first time I gave him a long, hard look. He could have been a tycoon or a politician. That well-cut summer suit, the crispwhite shirt with the speckled blood-red tie, the razor-cut and shaped greying hair, all spelled money. There were two large rings on the fingers he wiggled at me. I had to change tack.

“Yebo, baba,” I said. “To work for a man like you would only be a pleasure.”

“I’ll give you the details tomorrow. Meet me here before midday. Here, take this . . .” He peeled a blue R100 note from a fat wallet. “That’s to show you Sam Odingwa keeps his word.”