Gun Dealing (The Ryder Quartet Book 2) (30 page)

Thabethe.
Nyaope
. The guy was never too far from his
whoonga
, by all accounts. And the week before last Ryder and his
team had bust open an intended
nyaope
deal
centred
on Wilson’s Wharf. The Yacht Club. That
big redheaded guy on steroids. The guy they called Red Rooster. Big Red. The
guy with the yacht. Muscle-bound thug. He and Pillay had taken down a big
operation there, put the guy in hospital, and from there he had been sent to
prison. Or had he?

The thought struck Ryder like a blow
between the eyes. He cursed loudly to himself and pulled over, skidding to a
halt with the drivers of the cars behind him smacking their horns in
irritation. He flicked open the iPhone and placed a call to Cronje.

‘Piet? Jeremy.’

‘What’s up, Jeremy?’

‘Piet I want you to do something for
me, please. Quick, if you can.’

‘Sure, Jeremy. Hit me.’

‘Remember that big bastard with red
hair from two weeks back?’

‘The guy with the yacht. And the
fractured skull, once he met you?’

‘The same, Piet. I want you to find
out, please, what happened to him. Where is he? Is he out of hospital? Is he in
custody? Quick as you can, please Piet.’

‘OK, Jeremy. I’ll call you back.’

*

Ryder cursed as Cronje gave him the
news. He hung up, but not before asking the sergeant to get Pillay to call him
as soon as possible, and then jammed his foot down onto the accelerator.

Big Red’s lawyer had sprung him. Out
on bail. The bastard was out and about. Why hadn’t Ryder been told? Surely the
Westville cops would have tracked the matter and let him know?

He didn’t have time to work through
the scenario, let alone contact some Westville official to ask why, and then
have them wheedle out of it on the grounds of under-staffing, resource
deficiencies, you name it.

His phone rang. Pillay.

‘Navi, we’ve got a problem.’

‘What is it, Jeremy?’

‘Remember Big Red?’

‘The guy with the yacht?’

‘And the endless supply of
whoonga
.’

‘Red Rooster. Don’t tell me. Did he
die in hospital?’

‘If only. No, Navi. The bastard’s out
of hospital. But not in jail. His lawyer got him out on bail.’

‘Shit.’

‘Exactly. Navi, I’m on my way out to
his place in Westville, to see whether I can see any activity there. Westville
confiscated all the
nyaope
we bust
him for, but I thought that if he had so much packaged together when we bust
him at home, he must have access to more. I need you to go and check out
Wilson’s Wharf. They confiscated his yacht after the bust, but none of us
thought to check whether he had another boat down there. But be careful. Look
but don’t intervene.’

‘I’m on my way, Jeremy.’

‘Call me if you get anything. Same
for me if I find anything at his place.’

Ryder stepped on the gas as he rang
off and within minutes he arrived at the house in Westville where he and Navi
had bust Big Red’s intended
nyaope
deal the week before last.

He pulled the car up around the
corner, at virtually the same place from where he and Pillay had staked the
place out before they took down the big man and his accomplice. He had no
paperwork in place, so he had to be careful.
 
If he had managed to get the guy out on
bail, Big Red’s lawyer might be the type to argue police harassment.

Ryder prepared himself for a long
wait.

09.55.
  

Pillay was on watch at Wilson’s
Wharf. On a whim, she had quickly asked both Nyawula and Cronje if she could
take Mavis with her. There was no intended action, she had explained. Simply a
stake-out, and it might be good for Mavis. Both Nyawula and Cronje had thought
it a good idea. Mavis had been ecstatic.

The two of them now sat in Pillay’s
car, unobtrusive, eyes scanning the area in front of the Royal Yacht Club as
they talked.

Pillay’s phone rang. Ryder.

‘Hi Jeremy. I’m sitting looking at
the Yacht Club. Nothing doing so far. Mavis is with me, by the way. The Captain
thought it would be a good idea.’

‘Sure is, Navi. Good for her, and if
your arm is still giving you any trouble, Mavis will come in handy if Red
Rooster tries to mess with you.’

‘I’d love him to try.’

‘I was thinking, Navi.’

‘Always a good thing to do on a
stakeout, Jeremy. I’m putting this call on speaker so Mavis can also
participate. Is that OK?’

‘Yes, of course. Hi Mavis.’

‘Hello Detective Jeremy.’

‘I was thinking, Navi. I was thinking
about the phone-calls you and I discussed. Between phone number one and phone
number two. You can explain to Mavis later. But for the moment, I’ve been
thinking about the latest call from phone number two, which we know is Mkhize,
to phone number one. Who could be anyone, but who we think is most likely our
friend Thabethe. Koos van Rensburg told me that Mkhize called phone number one
which was at some place in Cato Manor at 13.00 on Thursday and again at some
place in Wilson’s Wharf at 14.00 on Sunday. It’s the Sunday call I’m interested
in. Now what do you think of when you think of Wilson’s Wharf on the one hand
and Thabethe on the other?’

‘
Nyaope
,
Jeremy. No question. One Red Rooster, big dealer in Nyaope, and one Skhura
Thabethe, little dealer in
nyaope
.’

‘So why was Mkhize calling Thabethe
somewhere in Wilson’s Wharf on Sunday at 14.00?’

‘Maybe Big Red is back in the dealing
business, Jeremy, and maybe he’s picking up old clients. Like Thabethe.’

‘Maybe, Navi.... but I was
thinking...’

‘Sorry, Jeremy, sorry to interrupt,
but Mavis is saying something. What, Mavis, you want to talk to Jeremy?’

‘Yes, please, Navi. I’m thinking...’

‘Put her on, Navi. Oh, yes. You’re on
speaker. OK, so go ahead, Mavis. What is it?’

Mavis was very tentative. She felt
acutely embarrassed at having interrupted the two detectives. But at the same
time she was enormously excited.

‘Detective Jeremy, you were saying
just now about the phone calls… the phone call from the one man to phone number
one...’

‘Yes, Mavis? What about it? The guy
called the phone when it was at Wilson’s Wharf, where you and Navi are sitting
now...’

‘No,
Mr
Jeremy. I’m not thinking about the Sunday phone call. You said there was
one
 
other phone call on Thursday to
Cato Manor.’

‘Yes, that’s right, Mavis.’

‘It was at what time,
Mr
Jeremy? You said one o’clock?’

‘Yes, Mavis, that’s right. A call was
made to phone number one in Cato Manor at 13.00 on Thursday.’

‘It is exactly the same time,
Mr
Jeremy. The same time as that hijacking in Cato Manor.
Where that man who was being hijacked was killing the hijacker with six
bullets. The bullets that killed the hijacker man they came from the SIG gun.
The same SIG gun that was used in KwaDukuza to kill Sinethemba and the other
constables.’

11.00.

If Pillay and Mavis had hung on for
another hour, instead of tearing off back to the station, they would have seen
their quarry walk right past the windscreen of their vehicle. Thabethe parked a
mere three or four bays from where Pillay’s car had been. He got out, looked
around quickly, and then made his way immediately to the luxury yacht moored at
the end of the quay.

As he mounted to the deck, Thabethe
marvelled
again at the luxurious fittings. On Sunday Big
Red had proudly boasted that he could accommodate eight people in four en-suite
cabins. He had shown Thabethe the jacuzzi in the Master Cabin and boasted about
the refined
 
elegance of the
twenty-three
metre
vessel, fitted out with
entertainment systems that were state of the art. The galley had every modern
convenience and the big man talked about the elegant dining that he could serve
his guests.

He talked with some bitterness about
the previous vessel he had had, impounded by the cops just over ten days ago,
but sniggered at the fact that at the time of the bust this vessel had been
moored a mere fifty paces from the other one and had escaped the attention of
the cops.
 
He was particularly proud
of his two fifteen hundred horse-power Caterpillar C30 diesel engines with a
cruising speed of twenty-five knots and a maximum speed of ten knots above
that.
 
The range was supposed to be
five hundred nautical miles, he told Thabethe, but he had frequently gone
beyond that, he boasted.

None of this had meant much to
Thabethe until the big man started talking about his ideas for the potential in
the
nyaop
e trade and his plans for
ranging from Durban to Maputo and beyond. At this point Thabethe had become
particularly focused. Maybe this was his way out of KwaZulu-Natal, where he was
now a wanted man and which he had to escape in order to survive.

For now, Big Red wanted to build on
the relationship the two of them had established. As a sign of good faith, he
had even told Thabethe on Sunday that on Tuesday morning he would give Thabethe
the next pack of
nyaope
- at the same
special price - and that Thabethe could pay him for it when he returned again
on Tuesday afternoon for their planned second meeting. The morning meeting
would be a quick one for Thabethe simply to collect the
whoonga
and the afternoon meeting would be a much longer one, where
the two of them would sketch out plans for a much bigger operation, and during
which they would also discuss specific plans for what to do about that
Detective Jeremy Ryder.

Had Pillay and Mavis Tshabalala
remained for another hour, they would have seen the two men come back out onto
the deck after just a few minutes, and would have witnessed the big man crunch
the hand of the smaller man. Crunched to such an extent that the Rooster had to
apologise
for his strength, prompting Thabethe then
to introduce the big man to a complicated ‘township handshake’, as he described
it, that produced laughter from both of them as Big Red failed to master it.

After the rare moment of levity for
both of them, Thabethe walked down the stairs and across to his car. He carried
the pack of
nyaope
thinking that he
was starting to move up in the world. Here was a businessman who had handed him
fifty thousand rands worth of the stuff, and done so completely on trust. He
would return in the afternoon with the fifty thousand rands in cash. The
whoonga
would soon be turned into three
times that amount, with the help of his partner. He and Mkhize had worked on
Thabethe’s first-ever deal with a business partner. One that had turned fifty
thousand rands rapidly into one hundred and fifty thousand rands. Together they
owned one hundred thousand rands in cash, now resting safely underground in a
tin in a spot known only to the two of them, with Mkhize holding the remaining fifty
thousand rands for the payment to the big man this afternoon. Working with a
partner had its advantages. Business was booming and the future looked good.

Big Red watched him go, and started
thinking that he and Thabethe could do big things together up and down the
coast.

But
what weird eyes the guy has
,
thought the Rooster.

12.15.

The whole office was buzzing with
praise for Mavis. Ryder and Pillay had unpacked the news for the benefit of all
of them. Mavis beamed as she was praised by the Captain, KoeksnDips, and
Cronje.

Ryder could have kicked himself when
he had
realised
, he told Pillay.

‘Not only when I
realised
I had missed the connection between the SIG and the call to phone number one in
Cato Manor. But also when I
realised
that I had
forgot to share with you Nadine’s news on the ballistics from Cato Manor. What
a prick!’

‘Not a problem at all, Jeremy. All of
us were taken by surprise.’

‘Except Mavis.’

‘Except Mavis. Maybe we all need to
spend more time with Nadine Salm, hey, Mavis?’

‘Yes, Detective Navi,’ Mavis smiled.

Then they all got down very quickly
to planning the next steps. Ryder was now working on the assumption that
Thabethe had found both the cell-phone and the SIG Sauer belonging to Themba.
And if this proved to be correct, then Thabethe had pumped six bullets into the
would-be hijacker.

Mavis then interrupted to add another
observation. One that brought the entire office to a moment of stasis.

‘Detective Jeremy. Nadine Salm was
saying that she is going to check the database for fingerprints and DNA to see
who is the man eating the Kentucky Fried Chicken at Cato Manor. She was saying
it will take a long time. But if she was checking those things not against the
database but against the file only of Skhura Thabethe, then maybe it would go
quicker.’