Karima Waweru, Tim Tutts' chief assistant and partner, slumped in an armchair, said in a voice heavy with sleep:
"Boss. Why don't we go out on the street and see if we can bump into a fine crime? A beer drinking competition has been organized in the Karibu bar, and you know this always ends up with punches being thrown, and later the razor edged pangas appear...."
Tutts lifted his head from the biography of Dashiell Hammett. He confessed a fervent admiration for the ex-detective of the Pinkerton Agency in which life was submerged, and answered nonchalantly:
"Shut up, Waweru. Can't you see I'm reading? And another thing, don't call me boss, you know I don't like it".
Waweru appeared not to hear the comment and tried to insist, stifling a yawn:
"It is just that I hate inaction, chief. I'm going to get rusty without any movement; and, how can you read when it is so hot? I ask me myself, how can you read full stop? Such a boring activity! You know that our ancestors were men of action and..."must say, in all truth, that in a country like Kenya, much blood has flowed over the theft of cattle or women. It would not be the first time that Tutts and his colleagues have had to put up with banal missions, a juicy murder case would from time to time fall into their hands, but those were glorious moments. In Africa when blood appears, there are smiles on some faces.
Only the faint sound of Curly's typewriter, the Somalian secretary, gave anything of animation to the summer siesta that had befallen Timothy Tutts & Team, Detectives, private investigators of Nairobi. "A common passion (justice), a mystic (truth), a collective mind (deduction)" was the extravagant, and fortunately long forgotten slogan which some advertising wizard had dreamed up for them.