Killer Country (19 page)

Beside the pool at Obed Chocho’s house, Spitz and Manga stretched out on loungers. Jammed in a bucket of ice were a clutch of beers, Black Labels mostly but also Amstels. Spitz smoking menthols; Manga rolling a short stop of dagga.

They were sheltered from the wind by a wall of dressed stone with a gurgling fountain feature built into it, the water issuing from a seraph’s mouth. Obed Chocho had a liking for statuary. Concrete small-sized imitations of the Greek classics scattered about the garden: the Venus, the victory, some maidens and the discus thrower.

Spitz and Manga had been there since lunch, their empty plates cleared away a few hours back by a young woman who’d flitted about the place all morning with a vacuum cleaner and a dust rag. Manga had come on to the girl, trailing after her, suggesting one or two alternatives that made her giggle until Obed Chocho told him to lay off before he got his dick amputated. The girl was a niece from some dusty village: not for plucking.

After lunch Obed Chocho had gone out telling Spitz and Manga to stay put. They could drink all the beer they wanted but they didn’t leave the property. And Manga to keep his body parts to himself. Anyone came round, they should dissuade them from calling back.

‘What about my money?’ Spitz had said.

‘You’ll get it,’ said Obed Chocho, slamming out the front door.

This hadn’t amused Spitz. Nor was he amused by being told what to do. And not having his tunes greatly riled him. Maybe sprawled in the lounger with a long menthol between his fingers, his eyes behind shades, he looked cool but he wasn’t. In his gut churned a bile that he could’ve spat all over Obed Chocho as easy as piss on him.

‘Luck, my brother, mighty fine luck,’ had been Obed Chocho’s reaction to the news of Rudi Klett’s death.

At which Spitz shot back. ‘A bullet fired into his head when he is in a moving car and I am in a moving car is not because of luck.’

At which Obed Chocho scowled but made no retort.

Replaying this, Spitz watched Manga light the joint and take a deep pull, holding in the smoke. Gradually he let it trickle out. ‘Yo, bru.’ He offered the joint to Spitz. ‘Chill, captain?’

Spitz shook his head.

Manga shrugged, went through the process again. He tapped a head of ash onto the paving, squinted at Spitz.

‘Yesterday,’ he said, ‘at the hospital, you didn’t have the gun, did you?’

Spitz smiled. ‘No, I am not crazy.’

Manga laughed. ‘You’re a cool dude, captain.’

‘There was nothing cool,’ said Spitz. ‘We were talking about the short odds. It was logical.’

What wasn’t logical and what Spitz decided not to tell Manga was that he’d recognised as his the iPod feeding tunes into the ears of the security guard outside the intensive care unit. That made no sense. But then Spitz also knew that very little made any sense when it came to the cops and crime scene investigations.

In the evening, Spitz drove a green VW following Manga in the car they’d had for almost a week, heading for the airport to dump it. When they got there Manga entered the covered parking, found a space near where they’d waited two days earlier. He felt leaving the G-string in the same bay was a nice touch. Funny, actually. He locked the car, tossed the keys onto the roof of a covered walkway.

Spitz circled once, picked him up at the drop-and-go outside departures. They changed places: Manga driving, Spitz in the passenger seat.

Manga had to tell Spitz where he’d left the car. ‘For a joke,’ he said.

‘Where is the joke,’ said Spitz, ‘if only you know about it?’

‘So do you?’ said Manga.

‘No. For me that’s not funny,’ said Spitz.

After the airport they drove to the V&A for a weissbier. It was dark now, and too windy to sit outside. While Manga ordered, Spitz walked onto the swingbridge, waiting until he was alone before dropping the Ruger into the canal. Then he phoned Sheemina February.

‘We are having a drink on the town,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you would like to join us.’

‘I don’t think so, Spitz,’ she said. ‘Let’s keep it professional. That’s how I prefer it. How’s the car?’

‘Mighty fine,’ said Spitz, pleased to hear Sheemina February laugh at his choice of words.

‘And the gun?’

‘I would say perfect for the job.’ Spitz paused. ‘Please. Come and have a drink. We could have a good time.’

‘I’ve heard that from a lot of men. The good times never rolled though.’

‘They will when you are with me.’

‘Keep your head clear, Spitz. You don’t want to mess up.’

‘There is no chance.’

Sheemina February gave her short throaty laugh again. ‘Goodbye, Spitz, maybe we’ll call on you again one day’ – and she disconnected, and when Spitz dialled straight back he got her voicemail. He turned towards the beer hall, cursing. A couple approaching across the bridge moved closer together. Spitz caught the movement, snorted his derision. 

Sheemina February held the phone in her gloved hand and smiled. Amused to be hit on by a hitman. Not her type but sweet in his way. Women would fall for him, she could imagine. Charmed by  the formal English and the strange Germanic accent. A nice guy. At heart.

She stared at her reflection in the plate glass window, the black void of the sea beyond. No lights on the water. No passing ships. With the wind, no night fishermen dangling hooks in the kelp holes.

The figure in the glass stood still. A silhouette, slim. Relaxed in a man’s shirt worn loose over jeans. Barefoot on a white flokati. For five minutes she didn’t move. Emptied her mind until it was dark and quiet. From speakers embedded in the ceiling, Yo Yo Ma played the tangos of Piazzolla so softly they might have been in her head.

The music brought her back. She turned abruptly into the room, strode across to the kitchen counter. Pulled the wine from the ice bucket, refilled her glass. With a serviette, wiped lipstick from the glass’s rim: a plum smear on the white linen. She raised the glass and drank, left a fresh imprint of her lower lip.

Sheemina February sat down on a couch, swung up her legs, stretched along its length. So much better the Bantry Bay apartment to her town house. A place to be truly at home: her lair on the cliff. Hers and hers alone. Never had she invited anyone into it. Never would she.

She reached for the envelope on the coffee table, drew out a document: a list of phone calls to and from the cellphone of Mace Bishop. Judge Telman Visser such splendid bait. Possibly it would be worth getting their transcripts. For the record. How wonderful that Mace Bishop was slowly being reeled back into her life. That already she had been his guardian angel.

‘You don’t know what you owe me, Mr Bishop,’ she said aloud.

There were other lists. Lists of conversations held at Complete Security. Conversations between Mace Bishop and Pylon Buso. Summaries of each conversation gave her enough to know what was on the minds of the two men. A couple of summaries she highlighted. She’d need the transcripts. 

She set the lists aside, shook a batch of colour photographs from the envelope.

Mace Bishop in his little red Noddy car, top down in Somerset Road. A wide grin on his face. Enjoying himself. Sheemina February couldn’t resist the grin, had to smile.

Another of the security man leaving the gallery where he’d met Judge Telman Visser. The judge’s car in the background, the number plate clearly visible. The photograph caught Mace stepping onto the pavement: energetic, brisk, a hand adjusting his sunglasses. What she liked were his sandals. Robust. Hi-tech trail sandals. Very outdoor.

The last pictures had been taken earlier that morning. Grainy but clear enough. Mace standing with his back to the photographer facing the blurred city. The gleam of the swimming pool in the foreground.

Another of Mace at the edge of the pool in his Speedo. His swimmer’s physique. Strong arms, broad shoulders, the torso still narrowing to the waist but thicker than in the photograph she carried. The one she’d taken herself at the gym pool some years back.

The problem with this photograph was his approaching wife.

Sheemina February got up, searched through a drawer for scissors, snipped the woman out of the frame. She crumpled the discard into a wastebin.

From the table took a box file of photographs and returned to the couch. She riffled through them, found others of Mace in a Speedo. Mace three years younger. A trimmer figure but weathering well.

Among them a picture of Mace Bishop chained to a bolt in the wall took her fancy. Mace lying on a foam mattress, manacled at the ankle. The security man comatose, imprisoned in a cellar at her mercy. Until the careless Mikey Rheeder screwed it up.

This time would be different, she reckoned. 

She lingered over the photographs of Mace. Good-looking guy. Vicious as a viper. But the type she went for. Like her late ex. Mo Siq. Especially when she had good reason and she had good reason.

‘I can’t wait to meet again,’ she said to his image. Rubbed her thumb over his face, leaving a smear. ‘On my terms. In my territory.’ Again the pain spiking her chest. She massaged below her breasts. The ache fading.

Sheemina February put away the box file of photographs, stuck the list of transcripts into her briefcase. Yo Yo Ma came to an end, she changed him for the real thing, the accordion player. Wound up the sound, poured the remains of the wine into her glass. She stretched out again on the couch. Wondered how well Mace Bishop tangoed. Pictured an empty hall, the two of them dancing.

Mace swam, a slow crawl, his body working, his mind void. Swimming on automatic, the way he liked it. Time out of himself when no thoughts intruded. Not the present, not the past. Just the body Mace Bishop alone in the sea, the sea a green haze about him, bubbles streaming off his hands with every stroke, his eyes tracking across the sand floor. Swimming through dappled light.

When he’d gone in he’d thought to do this more often, a sea swim. Not many around. Some early walkers on the beach but the sea to himself. Unlike the pool with people training, others clustered about the edges. Here he was alone. Alone in himself and in the water.

He swam the bay between the mountains: Clovelly to Fish  Hoek. Measured, easy. Breathed in below the arch of his left arm, let out his lungs in a pop and boil. In, out, the rhythm settled for a long haul. Going like this he could swim all day. His last thought before his mind became reptile, instinctive.

An hour later Mace took a call on the beach, drying himself, pumped up that he’d gone the distance, even though the knife wounds smarted from the salt. He had the lungs, he had the muscle, he could do the Robben Island swim. Show Christa that her pa was still an iron man.

‘Judge,’ he said, ‘this is early.’

Judge Telman Visser said something inaudible, then: ‘I need an answer, Mr Bishop, and I need it early.’

Mace stared at the quiet sea, perfect after the days of wind, only a breeze feathering the surface. He wished he were back there swimming through the liquid light, not listening to the griping of Judge Visser. ‘Fair enough,’ he said, moving away from a gaggle of morning bathers towards the water’s edge.

‘And so?’ The judge staccato, demanding.

‘As it happens, matters have changed. I can do your farm this weekend.’

‘I’m pleased to hear that. Good. Only thing, Mr Bishop, it’s not my farm. As I told you, it’s my father’s.’

‘Yours to inherit?’

The judge said ‘ummm’, and Mace wondered at that.

‘Plan is,’ said Mace, ‘I’m driving up tomorrow with my daughter. Be there Saturday morning. Overnight Saturday, leaving Sunday.’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Judge Visser. ‘Your daughter being there. After the threats we’ve had, it’s too dangerous. Farm attacks are random.’

‘It’ll be fine, judge.’ Mace glanced up at the mountainside, at people moving about on their decks: a woman going through tai chi positions full frontal to the hard sun.

‘You’re putting her at risk. I know what happened to her, that kidnapping, I’m surprised at your attitude.’

‘No risk,’ said Mace. ‘Someone’s going to attack, they’re not going to do it when there’s visitors around.’

The judge didn’t answer, said eventually, ‘She’s your daughter, Mr Bishop. You know best.’

‘I do,’ said Mace, picking up on the criticism, still watching the methodical tai chi woman. Was she naked? ‘What happened to Christa before was thanks to someone in your profession. A lawyer. One Sheemina February. You ever come across her?’

‘I’ve heard of her,’ said Judge Visser.

‘A bitch,’ said Mace. ‘A manipulator.’

‘I know the type.’

Mace left off his fascination with the tai chi woman, started back towards his towel and clothes. ‘She was into retribution. Personal stuff. This is a simple job. Having my daughter along for the ride’s no big deal.’

‘I’ve had my say, Mr Bishop.’ Mace heard the judge sigh. ‘You must do what you think best.’

With that he told Mace he’d fax directions and a map, and the telephone number on the farm.

Mace hung up wondering why Judge Visser had such an anti on his taking Christa. More tricky was going to be convincing Oumou to let their daughter take a day off school. He scanned the mountain homes for the tai chi woman, saw her standing motionless on one leg leaning forward, reckoned she had to be naked. The idea of it arousing.

At home he played Oumou down the line, the two of them in her studio. Told her about the farm and the client and how he planned to drive there, make a long weekend of it. How it’d been decades since he’d been in the Karoo, and although it wasn’t desert as she knew it, wasn’t sand and dunes, it was almost desert, long plains of stone and shale and scrub and koppies. The sort of landscape you couldn’t imagine until you saw it. How he’d love for her to get a sense of it. And Christa. It being part of her country, after all, a place she wouldn’t be able to imagine by looking at the mountains of the peninsula, the forests and the vineyards. It would blow her mind. Be important for her to see it. So many kids grew up with no idea of what their country looked like. For example, Pumla. What did she know of where Pylon and Treasure were born? Of her own roots.

‘You should ask Christa, oui,’ said Oumou.

‘And you?’ said Mace. ‘I want you to see it.’ He unsheathed the short sword hanging in its scabbard on the wall. A dull metal blade. A leather handle with a red patina, inlaid beads, a brass decorative knob. A smooth cool feel in your hand. The blade well balanced.

‘Non,’ said Oumou, ‘it is impossible. I have too much to make.’

Which Mace knew. He tested the blade against the palm of his hand. The sort of blade that could do a lot of damage. Probably in its time had done a lot of damage.

‘In ten days is the exhibition. How can I have a holiday?’

Which Mace had supposed might be the case. He slid the sword back into the leather scabbard. An old sword. One of Oumou’s treasures.

‘That is why you should take Christa.’

‘And have her miss a day of school?’

‘Bah! What is one day for her. It would be good for her. For you both.’

‘And you?’

‘I can have a chance to do a lot of work in quiet and peace.’

Mace came up behind her, slipped his hands under the bib of her dungarees to clasp her breasts, Oumou not for a moment taking her hands off the clay moulding on the wheel.

‘You don’t mind?’ he said, teasing her nipples, the image of the naked tai chi woman flashing behind his eyes.

‘Non. Of course not. For you and Christa all you do together is swim. How can you talk to her? You are together but you cannot say important things, no? Now you can sit in the car for a long time and talk about everything.’

‘Scary,’ said Mace, sliding a hand down into her crotch.

‘Not so scary.’ Oumou slowed the wheel. ‘But, oui, there is a lot for you to know about Christa. And that she wants to know about her papa.’

Mace frowned, suddenly unsure if he’d engineered the trip with his daughter or if he’d fallen into some long-planned scheme of Oumou’s.

‘Why don’t you ask Christa?’ said Oumou. ‘Make it her day.’ She reached up and drew Mace down to her, leaving a smear of clay on his cheek. ‘You will have a good time.’ She pulled his hand out of her lap. ‘You want to do this now?’

‘Why not?’ said Mace.

‘Here?’

‘Why not?’ said Mace.

Later, as he drove down Molteno into the breathless city, he wondered if sometimes Oumou didn’t know more about what was going on than he did. Even in his own mind.