City of Saints & Thieves(68)

We start to jog. I can see the piki-piki in the distance, but they’re quickly disbanding, either taking on riders or going to seek shelter. I curse under my breath.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a hard-core street kid or something? Can’t take a little rain?” Michael asks. His tone is light, but I can hear the worry underneath.

“The guy in the blue shirt and his buddy in the hat?” I ask.

“Yeah, how did you—?”

“Stop looking. They’ll know we’re on to them.”

“Pickpockets maybe?”

We pick up our pace, and I’m holding out hope for the last motorcycle, which is idling and ready, but then a plump woman bustles over and scoots on sidesaddle. The piki-piki driver buzzes off.

“Same guys you saw in the market?” I ask. The rain is starting in earnest now. Tap, tap on my skull.

“Yeah.”

“Then probably not pickpockets. They would have got you there.”

“Me? Why me?”

“You’re obviously the one with cash.” Before he can protest, I add, “Next street corner, turn fast to the right and follow me. Don’t speed up until then. Act normal. Don’t look back,” I add as he starts to turn his head. “Okay, one, two, three, now.”

We pop sideways, sliding a little on the mud, and Michael follows my lead when I take off in a sprint. I swerve around a corner, and we’re suddenly in a maze of tin-shack homes. The sky opens. The rain comes too hard to hear footsteps, but I’m pretty sure I hear a shout behind us.

I duck between two shacks and send a flock of wet chickens scattering. An old man protests toothlessly from a doorway. I’m totally drenched now, and little rivers of mud are starting to fill the pathways. I glance behind and can’t see anyone, but hear another yell. Michael is right at my heels. We dodge between wet laundry flapping on lines, leap over a pushcart, wrench a turn, and come suddenly to a dead end.

“Here!” Michael says, and webs his hands for me to step into and launch over the rickety wall.

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine! Go!”

He pushes me up and over the fence and I land on the other side, splattering mud. I can hear him scrambling behind me. At the same time I hear someone yell, “There he is!”

Michael drops down beside me with a hiss. It looks like he’s sliced his hand, but there’s no time to check; we take off. We slide around a corner and Michael goes down, holding his hand to his chest. I catch a flash of dripping red as I grab him up by the elbow and we keep on, trying to listen for the splash of running feet behind us. Then without warning the shacks end and we’re at the edge of a half-finished apartment block, something that looks like it was way too ambitious for this place. Someone obviously didn’t anticipate the rainy season making this area a swamp, and water fills the bottom floor. Algae and duckweed and floating trash clump in the gaping spaces where doors would be. Michael starts down the path that leads back into the shacks, but I grab him—“This way!”—and we slip into the water, moving toward the abandoned building’s door.

We slosh through, and in the half-light I see there’s a man already inside the building, perched on a rickety-looking platform raised on concrete blocks, up out of the water. He stands, skinny, jaundice-eyed, ready to shoo us out. On the platform I see the minimal trappings of a squatter.

“Get your wallet,” I whisper at Michael.

“What?”

“Do it!”

Michael retrieves it, and the man watches hungrily as I yank out a handful of bills. “You didn’t see us,” I tell him, waving the money toward his nose. I make sure he’s paying attention, wad the cash in my hand, and pull Michael along with me, through the swamp and down a hallway, toward other rooms that I hope to God have an exit. We slosh through water up to our knees and turn a corner into a room with a stairwell.

I nod at it, and Michael follows me. We can hear more shouting now, and I can only hope the other guys won’t offer the squatter man cash too. We slide up the moss-slicked stairs and into a room with a window that looks back out the way we came. We crouch on either side of it, the spray of rain catching us, and it’s only then that I realize how crazily my heart is pounding.

“Who are they?” Michael mouths, breathing hard.

I shake my head and risk a peek out the window. I quickly pull back. “They’re right outside,” I breathe.

Michael sneaks a glance too, while I scan the room for something, anything, to use as a weapon, but the best we’ve got is an old beer bottle.

The men are stopped at the edge of the water, arguing over whether to keep going down the path or look in the building. I hear one of them whistle and shout, “Mzee! You seen a couple of kids? They stole my phone!”

I hold my breath and squeeze my eyes shut, hoping.

Below I hear a splash, which must be the old man climbing down from his perch and coming to the doorway. “They go that way,” he yells, and I pray his gnarled finger is pointing toward the path. “Girl and boy? You catch them! Beat them for me too!”

I hear feet running, wait a second, then take another quick look. The guys are sprinting away from us, down the path through the rain.

“Sweet Jesus.” I collapse against the wall. Michael does the same, and we just sit there for a few seconds, catching our breath.