Let the Dead Lie (17 page)

A
white DeSoto four-door with silver trim and white hubcaps was parked in the
shadow of the ocean liner moored at the Southampton Street pier. A muscular
black man in fresh blue overalls buttoned to the collar worked a cloth over the
car's wheel arch while a crew of Zulu stevedores loaded the ship's cargo hold
and chanted a work song. Sun-kissed passengers leaned over the railing and
enjoyed the sound of black Africa at work.

The man
acknowledged Emmanuel's approach with the wide smile offered by servants to
Europeans. Emmanuel did not disabuse him.

'Greetings/ the
man said and continued buffing the vehicle with long, even strokes the way a
stablehand might groom a horse.

'Nice car,'
Emmanuel said and pretended to study the silver chrome that ran along the vehicle's
side. Instead he studied the cleaner. His hands were smooth and his clean
fingernails were clipped short.

'Does the
baas
have a car
also?' the black man asked without looking up from his work. The weather,
automobiles
and
the coronation of the English queen were all safe things to talk about with
white men.

'No
car,' Emmanuel said and caught sight of the two-tone leather shoes peeking from
the bottom of the overalls. The soles were unworn and the laces new. They were
not an employer's throwaways. If this man turned out to be just a humble
domestic then Emmanuel would eat the shoes for dinner.

'I'd
like to talk to the Flying Dutchman,' he said.

That
got the car cleaner's attention. He glanced up. The wide smile contracted a
fraction but he managed to hold it in place by force of will. 'Hiya ...' He
made a sound of regret. 'I'm sorry,
ma baas,
but I do not know about this
man. Sorry,
ma baas.
Sorry.'

'You
can cut the
baas,
sorry
ma baas
routine. Take a good look at me. I'm not a policeman. I just want to find the
Flying Dutchman.'

The
man twisted the cloth around his finger then slowly examined Vincent Gerard's
borrowed suit. The silk tie, the imported-quality fabric, the hand-sewn buttons
. . .

'What
is it you want with the Dutchman?' he said, still cautious.

'I'll
tell him myself,' Emmanuel said. 'It's private business.'

'Private?'
The black man whistled. 'That's an expensive word in South Africa,
ma baas.
A man must pay and pay for these private things.'

'I've
got money,' Emmanuel said. Van Niekerk's bankroll was now 'stay out of jail'
money. Twenty-five hours and both he and the stack of notes might be signed
into police evidence.

'Who
told the
baas
about the Dutchman? I must give a name or he will not come.'

Mentioning
Jolly Marks this early in the negotiations might scare the Dutchman away Dead
children had that effect. Not giving a name would definitely send the Dutchman
packing. He pulled out Jolly's notebook and showed the mermaid sketch. 'Will
this do?'

The
man's dark brown eyes studied the picture, weighing up the potential risks and
rewards of taking on a new client. 'Wait here and I will see.' The black man
shoved the cleaning cloth into a pocket and disappeared behind a row of sheds
at the side of the two-storey passenger terminal. Emmanuel rested against the
DeSoto. The sun was still well above the horizon line.

'Union
Jack flags. Union Jack buttons . . .' An Indian street vendor carted a bucket
of coronation decorations along the pier. The sunshine was warm on Emmanuel's
skin but he could not enjoy it. Seeing the pale man hidden behind the newspaper
had brought back the big question: Why had he been released from police
custody? He had a feeling that the real reason for the forty-eight-hour deal
was more complex than van Niekerk had said.

A
black man in a dark green suit, white shirt and green tie stepped out from
behind the storage sheds and walked quickly along the planks of the wharf. Blue
overalls were folded neatly over his arm. Emmanuel squinted into the afternoon
light. The man opened the boot of the DeSoto, threw in the overalls and
retrieved a dark grey fedora with a green satin trim. Three minutes behind the
sheds and the servant in overalls had become a 'town Jack', street-wise and
sharp, who had never hoed a field or herded cows back to the
kraal
at
dusk.

'You?'
Emmanuel said. The wild-haired mermaid winked from an illustrated cardboard
square neatly stowed in the clean boot. Faint clip marks bit into the top edge
of the sign.

The
black man angled the brim of the fedora so his expression was unreadable.
'Don't I look Dutch,
ma baas?'

'Like
windmills and tulips,' Emmanuel said.

And
maybe that was the point of the name. Here was a black man whose ambition
ignored the colour barrier.

'Do
you want to go to the same place as your friend?' the man asked after he'd
locked the boot and wiped his own fingerprints off the chrome with a
handkerchief.

Emmanuel
drew a blank. What friend?

'The
one who came to me with the boy's picture. Do you want to go to the same place
that I took him?'

The
boy's picture . .. Jolly had given the sketch to someone else to use as an
introduction to the cagey Dutchman.

'Jâ.
The same place,' Emmanuel said.
'How much to take me?'

'Two
pounds for transport there and back. Cash upfront.'

That
was nearly a month's rent. A jail cell, on the other hand, was free. He crossed
the man's palm with two portraits of the king and wondered where the ride would
take him.

'What's
your proper name?' he said. 'I can't have someone called the Flying Dutchman
knowing my secrets.'

'It
is Exodus.' The man rustled the pound notes between his thumb and forefinger
before tucking them carefully into his breast pocket. He pulled the door open
and waved Emmanuel inside. 'That is my church-given name. We Basotho had to
leave our land and come to the city just like the people in the Bible.'

Maybe
that was true but Emmanuel doubted it. Multiple names gave multiple covers to
hide behind. It might take the police weeks to unravel the connection between
Exodus and the Flying Dutchman.

The
polished leather interior of the DeSoto smelled of fresh beeswax and the plush
carpets were springy underfoot. Two metal clips were glued above the passenger
window. That's how Jolly's sister, Susannah, had seen the mermaid. Her picture
was hung against the glass: a coded invitation to Durban's underworld.

Exodus
reversed out of the parking space and drove along Quayside Road towards town.
Rows of wide-fronted warehouses gave way to Art Deco apartment buildings and
balconied hotels with dress-circle rooms facing the Esplanade and Natal Bay.
Golden veins of sand threaded the water. A solitary grey heron fished the
shallows while men with buckets, spades and turned-up trousers mined the tidal
shoreline for worms. The Bluff headland, covered in wild green, protected the harbour
from the open sea.

'So...'
The Basotho man tilted the rear-view mirror to get a better view of the
passenger seat. 'Is the
baas
married? Got a girlfriend
maybe?'

Emmanuel
wasn't bothered by the scrutiny Vincent Gerard's high-class suit was better than
a clown disguise. The reflection in the mirror was a million miles from the
reality of his life.

'A
girlfriend,' he said. Memories of Lana Rose were still fresh while the wedding ring
indentation on his finger was now faint. Three years had not been a long enough
time for the weight of the gold band to leave a permanent mark.

Dark
fingers drummed against the steering wheel. 'And she is a good woman?'

'Sure.'
Two lies in a row and the ride was five minutes old. A man in this kind of job
couldn't expect the truth from his customers. 'Tell me,' Emmanuel said. 'Will
the right amount of money get me anything I want?'

A
fine suit and a fine car were two things normally out of reach of a black man.
Money made it all possible. And Jolly Marks was somehow hooked into this
operation. The cigarettes and sweets were not charity; they'd been earned.

Exodus
shook his head. 'There are those who work the docks who will help scratch any
itch. I am not one of those men. I do not do the young boys and the girls.
Also, the man who likes to draw blood from a woman with his fists, I cannot
help. These are my rules.'

That
criminals and thugs loved rules and chivalrous codes had always amused
Emmanuel. Firebomb a restaurant, murder a police informer, terrorise an entire
community: that was all right as long as no children or dogs or old ladies were
harmed. The rules were, in Emmanuel's experience, the laziest way a man had to
convince himself of his own worth. In any case, the rules were fiction. They
all came with a dozen out clauses.

'Story
around the docks is that you did business with that kid Jolly Marks,' he said
and waited for the car brakes to slam. A conversation about a dead European
child was dangerous territory for a man in Exodus's position.

"That
boy is good with the numbers, like a machine,' Exodus said with a smile. The
easy two-pound payment had put him in a good mood. It was more than most
non-whites made in a month. 'For him to keep track of five different hands in a
poker game, that is nothing.'

Exodus
used the present tense and Emmanuel realised why. He'd left town on Friday
morning and had only just returned. The Basotho man didn't know Jolly was dead.

'You
use him as a card counter?'

'For
card games at Europeans-only parties. Better money than working the docks.
Safer also.'

Durban,
the most English of all South African cities, appeared easygoing, but
influx-control gates at every major entry road kept most black people corralled
in the sprawling township of Cato Manor. It was not possible for a native man
to stumble upon the mathematical talents of a white child by accident.

'How
did you know Jolly was good with numbers?' Emmanuel asked.

'My
mother's sister. She is a cleaner at one of the houses on Point Road, the one
run by the fat Irishwoman who wears the men's clothing. You know it?'

'No.'

'The
boy's father brought him into the house to do card tricks for the cat women and
their customers. This is how my aunty knew about the numbers.'

It
was always behind closed doors that race groups mixed.

The
DeSoto slowed to a crawl along a deserted stretch of Edwin Swales Drive. A
drunk slept off a hard night in the doorway of a ship repair yard. Out here, it
was a dead quiet Sunday afternoon.

'I
took this boy Jolly to three parties only.' The black man glanced over his
shoulder, suspicious. 'How is it that the
baas
knows these things unless he is
a policeman?'

The
'baas, ma baas'
would come thick and fast while Exodus planned an escape strategy.

'I'm
not a policeman,' Emmanuel said.

'How
do you know this boy worked for me?'

'Give
me two pounds and I'll tell you,' Emmanuel said. If he didn't stem the panic,
Exodus might swing a U-turn back towards town.

'And
why must I do that?'

'Because
my sources are private and private is an expensive word in South Africa. A man
must pay and pay for these private things. Right?'

Exodus
laughed and said, 'I think that maybe you are not a policeman.'

'No,
but I am in a hurry. My girl wants me back in time for the coronation lights.'
A few more hours on this job and lying would come easier than breathing.

The
industrial buildings thinned and a mangrove swamp grew up, thick and tangled,
along the water's edge. A gang of juvenile boys with jutting elbows and scraped
knees sprinted across the road with home-made fishing rods over their shoulders.
The bridge spanning the Umhlatuzana Channel was a slender umbilical cord
connecting the Bluff to the more cosmopolitan confines of Durban town.

'Are
we crossing over the bridge? Or heading back to the passenger terminal?'
Emmanuel asked. "That's the two-pound question.'

The
DeSoto rumbled across the bridge. He had his answer. The road sloped upwards
towards the spine of the headland. Small houses occupied the cusp of land
overlooking swamplands and the harbour wharfs. European women gossiped over
low fences while men in overalls tinkered with car skeletons or burned off the
weekly rubbish in tin drums perforated with oxygen holes. The windblown petals
of a
kaffirboom
tree painted the dirt verge red.