Gun Dealing (The Ryder Quartet Book 2) (4 page)

He was almost passing out, but still
endeavoured
with some passion to get across to his two
companions the meaning of the slurred arithmetic that was spewing from his
whisky-fumed mouth as directed by his
whoonga
-infected
brain. He punctuated the numbers with fingers raised in the air as if to
command the attention of a vast audience. Mavuso protested.

‘No, no.
Hayibo!
You maybe did three bullets but we two, both of us, we did
two bullets each,
nè
, Macks?’

‘Is true, Mavuso, and then we two
also hit her with our other guns,
nè?
We two we shot her two times. Then we drilled her two times.
Laduma!
Two times and then two times
more, me and Mavuso, I’m telling you. With big guns.’

Thabethe watched them make the
accompanying lewd rape moves and gestures as they laughed drunkenly and
stumbled all over the place. He thought they were all so far gone he could
easily run forward, snatch all three weapons and make his escape. But again he
decided against it, as the fat man continued.

‘OK. OK. But for her man, her
boyfriend, that one, he is for me only. You two can be there with me but me, it
is me who will pull the trigger on that
skelm
.
That one will be Lucky no more.’

‘That sergeant guy, Themba? He works
there at Folweni Police Station?’

‘Yes, Mavuso, my
bra
. Her boyfriend, that one, that Lucky, that
skabenga
Lucky Dlamini, he works with the
boere
, that sergeant, he is living there down the road, down
Umbumbulu, there next to the M35, there between Umlazi Y and Umlazi Z, on
Isithupha Street. Isithupha Close. Tomorrow we get him. He got a Desert Hawk.
No, a Desert Eagle. Eagle Mark XIX, I’m telling you. Private. Not his police
gun. His own gun. No
licence
for that one gun. He
takes it from that Afrikaner boy two years ago. The Freckles one. The Afrikaner
boy was running, that time, with his
whoonga
,
and Lucky he shot him and missed and
ibhunu
he shits himself and he drops his own gun and he is running,
struesbob
.’

They all laughed hysterically.

‘
Dubula
ibhunu
,’ said Macks.

‘
Hamba
kahle,
Afrikaner boy!’ Mavuso threw in.

Thabethe was surprised. He too
remembered the incident. It was often spoken about in Umlazi, with some mirth.
Not only that. He himself used to supply
nyaope
to the very same young Afrikaner they called Freckles. And that was by no means
his only connection to the Afrikaner.

‘One big Desert Eagle Mark XIX, I’m
telling you,’ continued Themba, rupturing Thabethe’s train of thought. ‘The
Afrikaner boy he drops the gun and runs for his life, and that Lucky, that
Dlamini, he picks it up and he keeps it there by his house. Me, I want that
one. I want that Desert Eagle. Mark XIX. Like in the movie. I want that one. Is
mine
.’

‘To go from her place, comrade, from
Nkabise,
 
to his place, to this
sergeant Dlamini, we must take the Umbumbulu road, nè?’

‘Is right, comrade Macks, and we must
cross the Mbokodweni River, you know, and you know there where you turn right
for the Philani Mall, you don’t turn right, you turn left instead and you go
down Amehlo. Then we make a right and we go into Isithupha Close and then go right
down, straight down, there to the end, and then I shoot him dead, and I take
his Desert Eagle. Mark XIX. I’m telling you. Is mine!’

Further unrestrained laughter.
Thabethe continued listening further to what they had to say, for what seemed
like an interminable time as they talked, and laughed, and drank and had more
nyaope
. Until finally they left, just
before midnight. They got up, unsteadily, and two of them picked up their
weapons and tucked them into their belts in the small of their backs. And the
third one, Themba, the one who so badly wanted the Desert Eagle, far more drunk
than the other two, had to be half-carried by his companions.

He was the one who left his weapon
behind.

Thabethe waited for them to stumble
their way through the bush. They disappeared into the distance. There was
complete silence for a while. Then the normal nocturnal sounds returned. The
insects started up. The night came back. Thabethe’s eyes reflected the watching
moon. The frogs croaked.

Thabethe walked over to the rock and
picked up the remaining gun.
 
It was
a SIG Sauer 9mm
 
SP2022. Fairly new.
Worth at least ten thousand rands, he estimated. Fifteen round magazine. No
bullets. Empty. But that would be no problem. He remembered his good friend
Spikes telling him just last week that he could provide bullets.
Bullets? I got. Plenty. You know Spikes. I
can get for you.

Time to visit Spikes Mkhize, he
thought. Tomorrow, maybe. Or the next day. But for now, in case the three men
came back looking for their weapon, time to go. Thabethe turned to work his way
through the bush in the opposite direction to that which the men had taken.
Then he paused as he stood on something.

Another bonus. The drunk man’s
cell-phone. In the sand where the man had spent most of the last few hours, a
simple but functional early-generation Nokia. He tucked the gun into his belt
in the small of his back, and quickly checked the instrument. Battery healthy.
No password. He was in. He smiled as he saw that he had open access to recent
calls and messages.

The dim blue light of the Nokia
reflected off his face. The frogs stopped. Silence returned. Thabethe looked
back at the path the men had taken, and set off the other way. The frogs
started up again.

He moved quickly down to the
shoreline and walked southward, limping slightly.

He walked through the night until day
broke, moving off the beach whenever it was impassable, and then back again. He
eventually came back to the main road. There he sat, in the morning sun, down
in the gully where he could not be seen from the road, resting his injured leg.
He contemplated and closed his eyes, but did not sleep.

Then he eventually decided to risk it
and hailed a taxi.

Now he was heading south again, back
to Durban. Coming up to midday on a Monday morning. With the heat clawing at
his throat. Street-vendors and hawkers from across porous borders all in
full-throated bargaining mode. Local competitors bristling. Xenophobia in the
air. With the police all around.
 

12.10.

They were all crammed into Cronje’s
office. Mavis Tshabalala was inconsolable. Pillay was trying to comfort her. Her
left arm was around the intern’s shoulders as comfortingly as she could manage,
given the fact that the nurses had allowed her to remove the sling and had
changed the dressing on her wound, but it was still sensitive. Koekemoer and
Dippenaar were devastated at the news about Sinethemba. They had teased the
deceased student constable mercilessly, but they had had deep affection for
her. Ryder was whispering to Cronje, questioning him about the report he had
received, picking up as many details as he could.

The Captain entered from the inner
office and there was an instant hush.

‘Thanks for coming together so
quickly, guys. I’m assuming you’ve heard bits and pieces about what happened
last night on the R74. I won’t get into the details right now. Suffice to say
that Sinethemba and three constable friends of hers from Folweni and Isipingo
were ambushed and murdered at 6.00 pm yesterday. A passing motorist also took a
bullet and died at the scene. Three male suspects. Two teenage sisters as
witnesses to the whole event, but at a distance, across the road.’

He paused. Everyone was shattered.
Four cops dead. Ryder was computing the information. Four vics, all cops. Fifth
vic, a passing motorist. Two witnesses. Three perps. Nyawula continued.

‘This is a bad day, colleagues. Very
bad. Saying goodbye to Ed Trewhella this afternoon is tough enough. On top of
that I know that each of you - every one of you - has an incredible workload
right now. But the Commissioner has asked us to take this case over from
KwaDukuza because they just can’t themselves take it on at present, and you’re
also aware of the trouble that still besets the unit that
would
have taken this on previously. So it’s down to us, and it’s
also not just about Sinethemba. We’ll find our own private way of remembering
her, and celebrating what she stood for. A fantastic woman. The finest kind of
person.’

None of this helped Mavis. She buried
her head into Pillay’s bosom and sobbed quietly, while Nyawula continued.

‘We all have to get over to the
cemetery, soon, for Ed’s funeral. But after that we need to get going on this
case. Four cops dead. This is now our priority case.’

Nods all around, in agreement.

‘I’ll get across to the Ngobeni
family this evening. I want to do that personally. I want them to know how much
Sinethemba meant to us. I might call a couple of you tonight. I know you’ve got
some heavy-duty cases on your plates at the moment, but I’m hoping that you,
Jeremy, and Navi, can get out to the KwaDukuza scene tomorrow morning. I’ve
been on the line to a couple of people and we can have forensics meet you at
the scene around 10.30, if that’s good for the two of you. They couldn’t do
much last night so they were back this morning, and they tell me they’ll also
need to go back again tomorrow.’

Both Ryder and Pillay nodded. Nyawula
then turned his attention to Koekemoer and Dippenaar.

‘
KoeksnDips
,
I know you both have separate investigations on your plates tomorrow morning,
but I’m hoping the two of you can find time and get out to Folweni to follow up
on Constable Xana. She seemed to be the main focus of attention for these
thugs. See what you can find at Folweni, will you?’

‘Sure thing, Captain.’ Dippenaar
spoke for both of them, Koekemoer nodding in agreement.

‘There’s something else I need to
add, people. You’ll recall the events when detectives from KwaDukuza assisted
by Hawks, ORS Durban
Harbour
and Kranskop all worked
together on the big bust at Kranskop?’

There were nods all around.

‘The key to what happened up there
was one single unlicensed 9mm pistol taken off a suspect, that led to them
busting more than twenty people linked to a single house. The team took hold of
a cache of AK47s, LM4s and the rest of it including bullet-proof vests, and
there were links from there to lots of loose threads. Threads connected to taxi
violence all over the region. The week before that, the Ulundi PO team, working
with K9 and Crime Intelligence, bust another illegal arms group at Dongothule
and Matsheketshe. Around the same time Pietermaritzburg Public Order working
with Msinga Crime Prevention grabbed fifteen unlicensed firearms and arrested
nine suspects for illegal firearms. They then followed up with raids in the
area and pulled in a whole load of other illegal weapons, and I’m talking about
just a couple of weeks. It’s a war out there, team, and every illegal firearm
is a clue to bigger stuff.’

Ryder couldn’t help connecting what
Nyawula was saying back to a report he’d read just a fortnight before the
Kranskop bust. More than nine thousand firearms destroyed on the day in
question by the SAPS, with the same report noting that in the last four years
more than a hundred thousand firearms and more than a million rounds of
ammunition were destroyed. How were they to stop this endless stream of illegal
weapons? As if reading Ryder’s thoughts, Nyawula continued.

‘The point being that ballistics and
fingerprints related to just one weapon can lead us to much bigger things. So
forensics and ballistics are crucial here. No single firearm in this game is
unconnected. There will always be links to other firearms. Let’s find the
links, guys.’

There were
sombre
grunts and nods from all of them as Nyawula wrapped up by returning to the
business in hand.

‘Thanks, everyone. Here’s the
preliminary report for you to look over. Autopsy and ballistics will come in
due course, but have a look at the outline here. It’s not pleasant stuff.’

He dropped the file on Cronje’s desk.

‘See you all at the cemetery at 2.30.
Then, tomorrow, let’s gather at 7.45 before you all go your separate ways, for
a brief catch-up on what else comes into the office today.’

They all made affirmative noises as
Nyawula returned to the inner office. Then they all crowded around the desk to
have a look at the report.

12.25.

The three men had spent most of the
morning in a state of only partial consciousness. The effort of half-carrying,
half-dragging their partner through the bushes, throwing him into the car, and
then repeating the exercise in reverse order in KwaMashu Section M, which is
where Themba lived alone,
 
prompted
his two friends to make themselves at home by the time they got him there, and
fall asleep together on the single bed in the filthy one-room shack. They had
laid him out on the floor next to the bed, reckoning that he was in no state to
choose between the thin mattress and the floor anyway.