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that—nine on tha minute, ya?”
    Dog coughed two times on his cig. The cough sounded like “nine,” “nine.”
    I nodded, “Yes, Boss Sa.” Tak! I thought.
    Wolf said, “Meejit, you understand—you’z get there at nine, ya?”
    I looked at him. His square face was tight. His lips were thin. He was stressed. He looked as if he was on white. “Ya,” I said. “Nine.”
    Tak! Tak! Tak! I ran from Wolf’s up to the main street. I thought it out. I decided to try and go to Boss Jonni early. If Boss Jonni was not there, I would just have to wait for him. If I needed to, I would call Deborah from a pay phone. If I finished the run early, how mad could Wolf be?

Chapter 8
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The Boss Jonni Run
    Quick matatu to Taifa Road. No brakes. No stopping. Fifteen minutes.
    Boss Jonni’s high-rise had private security, but I knew what to do. I hid in a construction hole outside the high-rise. When, a few minutes later, a car left the underground garage, I ran inside before the gates closed. The key to the stairway was in a box taped under Boss Jonni’s blue Porsche. The car was next to the stairway entrance; the security camera never saw me.
    Everything went smooth. I collected the key from under the Porsche in seconds. I opened the door to the stairway and started to climb the stairs. At Floor 11, I heard people laughing through the stairway door. They sounded white and drunk. I stopped to listen and saw three stains on the concrete steps that looked like three leaves that had fallen from a tree. The noise stopped, and I ran up to Floor 19. I was breathing fast. The Hareef Food Supplies bag was dark from my hand sweat.
    I stepped through the stairway door onto a blue-carpeted hallway. The carpet was cool under my feet, a still blue river. The airwas cold from the air-con. I walked down the blue river to 19B. I heard noise on the other side of the door, yelps and shouts. It sounded as if Boss Jonni was home! I knocked.
    A girl opened the door. “Jonni, there’s a meejit here,” she shouted.
    Yes! I was not too early. Boss Jonni was there.
    Boss Jonni shouted from inside, “Let him in quick. Shut da fookin’ door.”
    The girl was in her twenties, tall and beautiful. She had two gold palm-size triangles on her breasts. Nothing else. Her body was long and black. Her head hair was straightened, and it came off her head like a fan. She had bird-shaped eyes, long eyelashes, and wide, deep-red lips. There was white powder under her African nose. The hair on her groin curled. Gold Bikini stepped aside, and I went in.
    Boss Jonni lay stretched out on a brown leather sofa like a lazy lion on a safari poster. A red gown hung off his shoulders. Apart from that, he was naked. He was heavy, older than Wolf, and was not handsome. His face was round and his eyes were puffed up like the eyes of a fish. His mouth was tight and nasty. “Meejit, you have some-it for me?”
    There was a second hooker girl who knelt in front of him, with her mouth attached to his bhunna. Her head bobbed up and down. Most of what I saw of the head-bobber was her big arse. Between her arse and me was a low table with a glass top. In the center was a football-size mound of white. There were snake trails leading from it, and a flat-edged razor blade for chopping.
    I looked at Boss Jonni’s eyes—he was not in the apartment or on the planet.
    On my other sixteen Boss Jonni runs, he had met me at the door, taken the money, and given me the blocks of white. Theswap had taken seconds. This time was different. I had never seen him this gone. I held up the brown paper bag. “Boss Jonni, where’s I put tha monay, sa?”
    Boss Jonni shouted, “Ya stupid fook meejit. Leave it in the bedroom.” He waved over his shoulder—I guessed toward the bedroom. “Take eight blocks for Wolf an’ fook off.” Gold Bikini slid next to Boss Jonni on the sofa and folded