Killer Country (18 page)

Obed Chocho smacked the newspaper with the flat of his hand. Held it in Spitz’s face. Spitz giving the full eye to Sheemina February. The woman as stunning as her voice. Sheemina February staring back at him unfazed.

‘He is not dead.’

Spitz took the newspaper and read the report about Wolfgang Schneider’s critical condition.

‘He is going to be dead in a short while.’

‘He is,’ said Obed Chocho. ‘Because you’re going back to make sure.’

‘It would be better to wait.’

‘Wait!’ Obed Chocho looked from Sheemina February to Manga and back to Spitz. Sheemina February might’ve smiled, that slight derisive twitch of her lips. Manga seemed to be sucking a lemon by the sour purse of his lips. Spitz, though, Spitz wasn’t troubled, dropping the newspaper onto a chair as if there was no big deal about this stuff-up. As if he wasn’t talking to the husband of the woman he’d shot. Obed Chocho burst out again. ‘Wait? What d’you mean, wait?’

Spitz took a step back from Obed Chocho’s spit range. ‘Later today, otherwise tomorrow, he will die.’

‘Oh, mighty fine, my brother. You can lie here drinking my beer while you wait. Take a break. Maybe go for a swim. Ask the servants to bring out a plate of chicken nuggets for lunch. Mighty fine. Enjoy yourself, mighty fine.’

Spitz wondered why he’d let himself be dragged into this. With a type like Obed Chocho. Someone as unhinged as this man. Sweating even when there was no heat to sweat in. When the wind was blowing crazily.

‘This afternoon,’ said Obed Chocho, ‘if he is still alive I want him dead.’ 

‘That will be difficult,’ said Spitz, catching Manga’s worried frown as he said it, and Sheemina February’s dancing eyes. ‘It is against my methods.’

‘Hey, my brother!’ said Obed Chocho. ‘Do I hear you correctly? It is against your methods. To pull a trigger, that is your methods? So, mighty fine, that is what you will do.’

‘No.’ Spitz shook his head. ‘Not in a hospital. There are too many dangers.’

‘You’re afraid?’

‘Of course.’

‘The great Spitz-the-Trigger is afraid?’

‘Let me explain. In that situation if I am caught, you are caught,’ said Spitz. ‘The first thing I will tell the police is Obed Chocho has ordered the job.’

Obed Chocho barked a laugh. ‘Mighty fine. Your word over mine, my brother?’

‘I have some evidence.’

‘What evidence?’

‘I have telephone calls recorded.’

‘That wasn’t a good idea, Spitz,’ said Sheemina February.

Spitz focused on her. ‘There is always an insurance policy. You will have one too I am sure.’

Manga shifted his weight from foot to foot and Spitz noticed the movement but kept his eyes on Sheemina February. He felt she was still playing with him. Enjoying the game if the amusement on her face meant anything.

‘Alright,’ said Spitz. ‘At four o’clock I will phone the hospital. If the man is not dead we will take some action.’

‘It better happen,’ said Obed Chocho. ‘Otherwise no payment, my brother.’

‘And for Saturday?’ said Manga, his voice sounding like a little boy’s.

‘One thing at a time,’ said Sheemina February. 

At five o’clock Spitz and Manga drove into the hospital parking lot. Manga found a bay two rows back from the entrance with the view across the Flats to the mountains of False Bay. Salt hazing the distance. He lowered the chair back a few notches, and switched on the radio to some larney-voiced sports jockey gabbing about cricket. Manga hated cricket.

‘All yours, captain,’ he said. ‘Work your magic.’

‘What you have to understand,’ said Spitz, not moving, ‘is why we are staying at his house.’

‘Why’s that?’ Manga turned off the know-all on the radio.

‘Because he is worried he will be killed. He is afraid his wife’s family will send someone to shoot him. We are there as his bodyguards.’

Manga considered this. ‘Nah ways. Which of us is gonna stop a bullet for him? Not me, captain.’

‘And not me either.’

‘So?’

‘I am saying this is the way his mind thinks.’

‘Isn’t gonna happen. Someone wants to shoot the shit outta Obed Chocho I’ll let them.’

‘Perhaps it will not be so easy when there are crossfire bullets,’ said Spitz. He got out of the car, the wind whipping the door from his grasp, smacking it into the next vehicle, scoring a blue scratch across the paintwork. Spitz jerked the door free and leaned in to retrieve a small overnight bag.

‘Ah shit,’ said Manga. ‘Those people come back and see damage, it’s obvious who did it.’ He fired the engine once Spitz slammed the door closed. As he pulled off Manga lowered his window. ‘Hey, captain. Have fun. Don’t shoot any nurses, we need them.’

Spitz stared at him blank faced. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Over there,’ said Manga, pointing at an empty bay.

‘No stupid tricks,’ said Spitz, turning towards the hospital entrance. He carried the bag in his left hand, leaned into the wind  that buffeted off the building. At the reception desk he asked for a Mr Schneider in intensive care, indicating the bag, telling the receptionist they were the man’s personal effects.

‘You can’t go into ICU,’ said the receptionist.

‘I understand,’ said Spitz. ‘I have been asked to leave these with the ward sister in charge.’

‘We’ll get them to her, sir.’

‘No, I must do it. At the request of the embassy.’ He dug in his jacket pocket, brought out a wallet as if to show some identity, lay this on the counter beneath his hand. ‘I will not be a moment.’

People were queuing behind him, someone pushing at his elbow, saying, ‘Excuse me, please this is urgent, please’. The receptionist gave in, told Spitz, up in the lift to the second floor, then right down the corridor, left at the end. At the doors ring for a nurse.

Spitz gave a nod, walked towards the bank of lifts, a man not in a hurry, the heels of his brogues clicking on the linoleum flooring. He waited with six others: two elderly people holding onto one another, a mother and child, a young woman carrying flowers, a man about his own age in a dressing gown with a bandage swathing his head.

The lift doors opened, a group of people got out, visitors mostly except for a man on crutches. He greeted the man with the bandaged head, Spitz skirting round the two to enter the lift. He caught their exchange: the man with the bandage saying there was nowhere to smoke where the wind wasn’t howling.

The doors closed. At the first floor the mother and child got out, standing in the foyer bewildered. The elderly woman said, ‘The clinic’s down the corridor, if you’re looking for it?’ ‘On the right,’ added her husband. The mother turned right, not acknowledging the advice. ‘How rude,’ said the elderly woman. The man with the bandage sniggered.

At the second floor only Spitz stepped out, not hesitating,  heading right as the receptionist had told him. He heard the lift doors close. A sign indicated the direction to the intensive care unit.

The corridor was about fifty metres long: empty except for two aides pushing a gurney coming towards him. Spitz stood aside, nodding, as they passed, the woman on the gurney looked more dead than alive.

He went to the corner, turned into a reception area. Spitz had hoped for a more cautious approach, an opportunity to check out the situation. He hesitated. The only people here were two men. Security written large all over them. They sat on chairs facing the ICU doors, the one playing games on his cellphone; the other plugged into an iPod, flipping through a magazine. Spitz took a seat opposite them, settling the bag on his lap.

The man listening to the music took the iPod from his shirt pocket, switched it off. Spitz noticed a blue iPod like the one he’d lost. The man said, ‘You’ve got to ring the bell.’

‘It is fine,’ said Spitz. ‘They told me to wait here.’

The security shrugged, went back to his music. Spitz heard the opening thrum of ‘When A Man Comes Around’, thought it had to be his iPod. Who was this guy? 

Judge Telman Visser sat in his chambers staring out across the Company Gardens at parliament. Above the city, cloud poured over the face of the mountain. The noise of the wind rattled in the building. After thirty years in Cape Town, the wind still tore at his nerves. Had torn at his nerves all day.

On the screen of his laptop an email from Sheemina February. A short, courteous one-liner thanking him for being so understanding in signing the parole release. An email timed an hour earlier at five fifteen.  

Not many attorneys were this polite. Not any attorneys in his experience.

He’d heard more tales of her reputation during the day, intriguing anecdotes.

What she was doing with Obed Chocho was the question. Or rather, perhaps, what Obed Chocho was doing with her.

But her email was only a distraction. Not having heard from Mace Bishop weighed most with Judge Telman Visser. Settling Bishop’s trip to the farm for the weekend ate at his nerves more than the wind. He tapped his cellphone against the arm of his wheelchair. To phone the man would be wrong. Tactically wrong. Obsessive even. It might decide Bishop that he was dealing with a neurotic and that might cool him. The last thing Judge Visser wanted was tracking down another security consultant this late. Too much hassle. Bishop had been recommended, Bishop was the man.

‘Do you have the balls, Telman,’ he asked himself aloud. ‘To wait fifteen, sixteen hours.’

Waiting was what lawyers were trained for. He could wait but it would not be easy. He needed amusement. He flicked through his cellphone contacts to the name of his personal trainer.

‘I know this is late,’ he said when the young man answered, ‘but could you fit me in at, say, seven. For a quick session.’

The young man said sure but the judge heard the reluctance in his voice. He needed sweetening.

‘I’d appreciate it. And, oh, how about supper afterwards? On me.’

That changed the tone of the young man’s response.

At least it will keep my mind on other things, thought the judge. And might even be pleasurable. With a thin smile Judge Telman Visser deleted Sheemina February’s email, closed the laptop. A pretty face was what he needed most at the moment. 

Pylon hung up on his fingerprint contact, said to Mace, ‘No match.’ He dangled the iPod by the headphone wires. ‘Apart from mine, one other set of prints.’

‘We could do a door to door.’

‘We could.’

‘But what’s in it?’

‘Nothing really. Somebody may get a lost iPod back.’

‘Exactly. And if somebody’s lost it they’ve probably bought another one already. Claimed on insurance.’

‘So why bother?’

‘Other hand, the cops might’ve picked up the fingerprints inside.’

‘Except they’ve closed the case.’

‘And even if there was a match all you can say is the killer liked some heartbreak music.’ Mace got up from the couch and stretched. ‘I should’ve done a beach swim, if it wasn’t for the wind. Now I need coffee.’

‘Tami can make it.’

Mace turned at the doorway. ‘She’s not here to get us coffees.’

‘I made for her yesterday.’

‘Big deal.’

The two men stared at one another, Pylon conceding defeat. ‘Mlungu liberal bullshit. This sort of attitude’s destroying our culture.’ He came round his desk still swinging the iPod, his mind moved on to the Popo Dlamini case. ‘You can imagine being a cop. Facing all these sort of dead ends.’

‘Give it to that PI with the long hair. Let him figure it out.’

‘Mullet Mendes?’

‘Why not?’

‘Mullet’s too smoked up.’

They went downstairs and into the kitchen. Mace took coffee from the cupboard, unscrewed the Bialetti, knocking the grounds into a rubbish bin. He filled the base with water, tamped down the French roast in the filter basket, screwing the parts together again.

Pylon put his nose in the air like a dog, sniffing. ‘What’s that smell? Save me Jesus! It’s bloody cigarette smoke.’ He shouted down the passage. ‘Tami!’

Mace fired the gas hob, set down the coffee pot. ‘Leave it.’

‘Hey?’ said Pylon. ‘We told her, this’s a non-smoking environment.’

‘She’s trying to quit.’

‘Not hard enough.’ He yelled her name again. Tami answered from the courtyard. Pylon leapt at the backdoor. ‘You’re supposed to’ve stopped.’

Tami crushed the butt under foot, bent down to pick it up. ‘I’m trying, okay.’ She headed for the door. Pylon stepped hurriedly back.

‘Well try harder.’

‘I’ve got one father I don’t need two,’ she hurled back over her shoulder.

‘You hear that,’ said Pylon. ‘She doesn’t think I’ve got Pumla. I don’t need another daughter.’

‘Take her a cup of coffee,’ said Mace, digging his new cellphone out of his pocket, putting a stop to its sharp ring tone.

‘More liberal bullshit.’

‘Hello, judge,’ said Mace. ‘You’re wanting to know if I’ve made a decision yet but I haven’t.’

Mace listened to the judge going on about how critical it was becoming. How he, Mace, had been highly recommended and it was too late to seek an alternative at this stage. That he now felt he was being let down.

‘I told you, judge, up front, I had other priorities,’ said Mace. 

The judge sighed, apologised for his outburst. It was his concern getting the better of him.

Mace said, ‘Look, I’ll make a decision this morning. Let you know this afternoon. If it’s not me it’ll be one of our guys.’ He thumbed him off. ‘The judge’s not a happy camper.’

‘Only the great Mace Bishop will do.’

‘Something like that.’ The coffee came to the boil. Mace switched off the gas, letting the brew settle before he poured it into three espresso cups, Pylon shaking his head.

‘Women just walk over you.’

‘Why not?’ He gave a cup to Pylon. ‘Take it to her.’

‘Me? No ways.’

‘Take it,’ said Mace, heading upstairs with their cups.

When Pylon came up he said, ‘I wouldn’t want to be her father.’ He held up an A4 sheet with the message REMEMBER TO COLLECT CLIENTS AT THE AIRPORT TOMORROW AT 12 NOON printed on it in eighteen point.

‘She’s kicking a drug,’ said Mace. ‘You weren’t much fun doing it either.’ He took a swig of coffee, pointed at the message. ‘But she’s efficient. I might’ve forgotten that. Left the clients stranded.’

‘I wouldn’t have.’

‘Good for you. Now why don’t you phone the hospital. Get an update.’

‘I did,’ said Pylon. ‘This morning from home. Stable but critical.’

‘So what do you think: do I tell the judge yes or no?’

‘Go,’ said Pylon. ‘What’s the issue?’

‘Rudi Klett.’

‘How? We’ve got a roster going. It’s okay.’

‘Unless he gets plugged again.’

‘Isn’t going to happen,’ said Pylon, blowing over the surface of his coffee before he sipped it. ‘Yesterday, though, this snappy dresser wanders in. I think, oh yes, here we go. He’s carrying a  small bag, you know, for toiletries, change of underwear, that sort of bag. He sits down so I tell him he has to ring for the sister, he says no he was told to wait. So he waits with the bag on his lap. Keeps looking at his watch but then he’s been told to wait so he’s anxious. I assume whoever he’s waiting for has been in surgery and is being brought up to ICU. Twenty minutes later, he clicks his tongue, mumbles something, walks off. I assume to track down what’s happening. We never see him again, and I was there for another hour, hour and a half.’

‘An assessor?’

‘In retrospect, could be. I told the guys anybody drifts in like that, they get them out.’

‘I’m going to phone,’ said Mace, keying the hospital number into the pad of a desk phone. He got through to ICU. They asked who he was and when he’d told them they told him Wolfgang Schneider was dead. ‘For Chrissakes,’ said Mace. ‘When?’

About an hour earlier. A haemorrhage in his brain.

‘And no one’s phoned us?’

They were getting round to it he was told. Trying to find the man’s next-of-kin.

‘We’re the contacts,’ said Mace. ‘You’re supposed to phone us.’

‘Save me Jesus,’ said Pylon when Mace hung up. ‘Wonderful hospital service we’ve got.’

‘Don’t know what I feel about his dying,’ said Mace. ‘He was a bastard. A likeable bastard but still a bastard. Especially what he put me through on Sunday.’

‘It’s sad,’ said Pylon. ‘We go back.’

‘Sure, there were times.’

‘Then he gets popped sitting next to you.’

‘Thanks for that.’

They sat in silence finishing their coffees. Eventually Mace said, ‘I suppose I should tell the judge I’ll take up his offer.’