3 Delivery

"You're here early," Josim said when he saw Lee. It was barely 6 am. The sun's morning rays were breaking through the horizon, yet Lee was already ready to move. It was his arrival that had gotten Josim out of bed.

"I am here as instructed," Lee simply stated. No need to exchange pleasantries. Josim eyed him for some time before he invited Lee in.

"Here, take this. You will take this to this address, you know where that is, don't you?" Josim said as he handed Lee a backpack and a piece of paper.

Lee checked out the address scribbled on a piece of paper, he knew the place, or the locality it was in. Finding it would not be that hard.

Interestingly, Josim had handed him a backpack. As a computer science student, his laptop bag was basically glued to his back He would never leave it behind. This presented the problem since Josim's bag was considerably bigger than his.

"You can leave that trash you have on your back," Josim laughed when he saw Lee's confusion. Lee made up his mind to just carry both since he would be giving up the bigger bag. Of course, all this was very eye-catching, seeing someone with 2 backpacks. He would carry the other as an add-on.

"I'm off," Lee said as he went, no further need for sticking around.

Something else caught Lee's attention. There was a considerably bad smell coming from the bag, albeit herbal. He could only think of one thing that had that, and he was not particularly excited by the prospect of what he was carrying.

Nevertheless, this was a one-time thing. After this, he was done with these people. I suppose some part of him believed that but for the most part, Lee knew he was going down a rabbit hole, and the destination was far from Alice's wonderland.

The matatu took too long to fill up. There weren't that many people going to the city this time of day. While it might have been early for Josim, Lee knew the best people to travel with were traders rushing to resupply their stock from the urban areas.

These ones almost always traveled early morning, which was what he had intended to. The sleepy-head would have gone mad had he knocked that early, but he had relented. Next time, he would bang before the sun showed any signs of coming up.

The one good thing about the matatu was that it was express, which meant that it had one destination: Nairobi, Tea room to be exact.

Three hours brought him in the bustling city. He still had not gotten immune to the stack difference of the slow country life and the extremely fast-paced city.

Downtown Nairobi is where all the out of town travelers land. It is extremely crowded. One particular street, River Road, is famous for having all manner of sleazy business deals and opportunities happening, and simultaneously infamous for the nefarious activities that go on in there. Not to mention, it doubles up as the red light district past twilight.

This was Lee's least favorite part of the city's central business district. Most times, he would bolt out there heading uptown, to where the main campus of the University of Nairobi was.

This time though, he had to make his way through it heading to a particular hardware shop along River road. The only way he knew of it was because of the large sign and that it was on the route as one entered the city, hence very conspicuous.

Lee fumbled around until he found the right entrance. The entire place looked dingy and reeked of smells Lee would not want to imagine the source. Even as he went up the plight of stairs, he couldn't bring himself to touch the stair rails.

The gloomy atmosphere made even the brilliant day look dark and cold. Not for the umpteenth time, Lee was left wondering what he was doing here. He had the mind to turn back, go find some other way of dealing with the problem his father left him. However, he girded himself and moved forward.

The place he was going to happened to be some shop or store. Maybe even a warehouse or wholesalers, Lee was not sure. There were a lot of Africans but the owner was a very loud and sour Indian man who seemed to be in his late sixties, could be more.

It did not take long before Lee got the confirmation that he was indeed not in the right place. Yes, he had gotten the directions right, but this was not a place for him.

"You are the one that old fool sent?" The Indian began, when he finally stopped yelling at the warehouse hands. After sizing Lee up, he had one conclusion, another green face trying to act all tough.

Lee gave him the contents of the backpack, before turning around to leave. Just as he was turning, he discovered three of the warehouse hands were behind him. looking them up close, their intensely muscled arms and mean faces caused him a minor fright.

Lee had no idea what they wanted, but he knew one thing, he could not show these people any fear. he turned back and looked at the boss, who was smiling at him sardonically.

"What is in the bag?" The Indian asked.

"How would I know, I just delivered it?"

"You sure you did not sneak in a little peak?" As he was saying this, the Indian was sniffing the bag. It did stink, but Lee had chosen to ignore the smell. Whatever was in there was something he did not want to see.

The Indian opened the bag, not mindful of Lee being present. In there was a sealed bag. Whoever had done the sealing was not very smart since the bag still smelled.

However, once the paper was unsealed, Lee was glad he did some sealing. There was no way he could have contained the stink that came from it.

When all the contents were poured on the table, Lee was not very sure what he was looking at, but he had a pretty good idea of what it was. he was cursing himself for being involved with these kinds of people.

"What do you think that is?" The Indian challenged.

"I d-don't know ..." For the first time, Lee faltered. All this while, he had managed to convince himself that he could walk away from all this clean, but there was nothing clean about this.

As sure as day, he was looking at no less than 5 kilograms of weed. A very tense Lee felt his blood curdle just from the sight. Talk about contraband.

5kgs may not seem like much, but given how light this stuff is, 5kgs fitted the back perfectly.

"See this kid, this is weed, cannabis, Maryjane, marijuana, ndom, so many names for this small thing," The Indian was speaking proudly. He then reached into his desk and pulled out an A4 size envelope full of something.

"Take this to your employer," he said, before dismissing Lee. As he walked out, cold sweat was trickling down his brows. It had been an intense couple of minutes.

Every act the Indian had done seemed calculated, as though it was a test. Lee was not sure if he had passed or failed his test, and what that meant. For a moment there he was sure he was dead, yet here he was, walking away.

Unknown to him, as the Indian watched him go, he was on his phone:

"Is it done?" The voice on the phone asked.

"No, I have decided against it. I like the kid, and I am sure our mutual friend would like him too."

"It's not your place to decide what I do in my business!" The man in the other line retorted!"

"Listen here Original," Even the Indian would have rolled his eyes at the name, but he had to work with the man, "From now on I deal with the kid. If I see your lazy idiot son again, I will do to him what we were to do with this kid! You hear?"

He needed to remind this buffoon where his place was. Actually, he did not, but he enjoyed doing so, but he could not be smart.

"Be smart, if shit goes wrong, you are better off distancing yourself. Using your son will only lead to more troubles for you. Using some unknown is much better." What he did not say was this. It was better to work with someone who did not seem as though he would crap his pants at the slightest hint of trouble.

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