Killer Country (22 page)

Mace listened through the song list: Don’t Let Me Go, I’ll Follow You Down, The Wound That Never Heals. Watched the road slipping under the bonnet of the Spider as they crossed the brown unfolding landscape, and thought about Rudi Klett. About the hit job in Berlin, about the shooter taking out the German not twenty hours later. A case of what goes round, comes round. Like some sort of justice. Some sort of moral universe. 

Some sort of bullshit story more likely, he reckoned, giving Emmylou Harris’s Snake Song a couple of repeats for the sake of her voice and the melancholy. If this was a hitman’s iPod then he was a shooter with a taste in music Mace appreciated.

The thing about Rudi Klett was about who’d known he was on the flight. Also about how they’d got to know. If it wasn’t one of Klett’s spook enemies, had to be something to do with Pylon’s golf estate scheme. Which meant the office was wired again. Because he and Pylon’d got casual about getting in the sweepers regularly. Which meant not a moment went by when someone wasn’t working out an angle to wire the office just on the off-chance.

You had to consider the connections though: a hitman taking out Lindiwe Chocho and a main player on Pylon’s syndicate, popping their German backer, then turning up on the road heading north. Somewhere behind them. And what to be done about it? Bloody nothing. Time was in the camps he and Pylon might’ve, would’ve reacted differently. Pulped the man’s hand to find out what was happening. But Pylon’d let this one slip, was sniffing at the dirt, not even talking about getting involved. Why? Because maybe it was too much effort. The way Mace felt too.

Mace felt Christa tapping him on the arm, unplugged an earphone from his ear.

She said, ‘What was it like being an orphan?’

He laughed. ‘You’ve been thinking about that all this time?’

‘Not all the time.’

‘You’re sweet.’ He reached over to caress her cheek with the backs of his fingers.

‘So, tell me.’

‘Lonely. Sometimes I wanted to hurt people. Sometimes I did.’

‘Like how?’

‘Like hitting them. When I was little. Once I tried to stab a priest.’

‘Papa!’

‘With a pencil. Not something I’m proud of.’ 

Christa said nothing. Mace could hear Johnny Cash singing in the earphone over his shoulder a story about shooting a man for no reason, just aiming at him from the cover of some rocks and squeezing off a shot. Taking him down. Going on the run, getting caught, now heading for the electric chair. Killer country music.

Christa said, ‘Papa, have you killed someone?’

Mace heard Johnny Cash say, ‘I hung my head, I hung my head.’ He took his eyes off the road, turned to his daughter. She wasn’t looking at him, didn’t turn to meet his glance, kept her gaze straight on.

‘I’ve had to,’ he said. ‘Ja, when we were fighting a war.’

She thought about this. ‘With a gun?’

‘Sure. With a gun.’

‘The one you’ve got?’

‘No, not with that one. I haven’t shot anyone with that.’ Not that he hadn’t wanted to. The two Yanks that had killed Isabella he could’ve shot with no blow-back. No hanging his head in shame.

‘Why, papa?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why did you have to?’

‘Because otherwise they would’ve shot me. Simple as that. Shot me and Pylon, actually. In a war it’s what happens, you shoot people. In this case it didn’t have to be but that’s how it turned out. If they’d played it straight it wouldn’t have happened. They would’ve paid, we would’ve given them what they wanted. We would all have gone away happy. But no. They got greedy. Wanted to keep their money. And they reckoned there’s just two of us, there’s five of them so what the hell they can take us down easily. So while I’m counting the money and not looking at what’s going on, one of the five thinks now’s the time to do it, and shoots at me. Bam. Bam. Twice. From I don’t know, maybe four, five metres away. Missed by a mile. Then there’s this moment’s silence, this silence where you can’t hear anything, absolutely nothing, no insects, no birds, complete quiet  before he lets the whole clip run. A bloody Czech Skorpion, but it must’ve been the first time he’d shot it because the bullets went every which way. Now the others start shooting. Pylon starts shooting. I’ve fallen on the ground and start shooting. For I don’t know how long, not long, thirty seconds, a minute, no more than that because we’re all out in the open, in this clearing in a forest, with nothing to hide behind, so it couldn’t have been for long but for whatever time it was, it was crazy shooting. Felt like an age but it couldn’t have been. These things always seem longer than they are. I don’t know. Say, thirty seconds. Anyhow when it stopped we were the lucky ones. Perhaps we shot better than them. I don’t know. It’s just when the shooting stopped, three of them are dead. The other two made it to their truck and drove off.’

Christa said nothing. Mace glanced at her but she was staring out at the scrub and flat-topped koppies rising in the distance. He caught his own shaded eyes in the rearview mirror, raised his eyebrows, wondering what it was his daughter made of his life.

‘You still want to shoot?’

She took her time about replying. Said, yes.

They stopped for a fast food lunch at a joint attached to a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. Parked the Spider in what small shade the building cast.

Christa frowned, hesitant. ‘We’re going to eat here?’ – looking around at some long-haul trucks, goats browsing among car wrecks in the veld, five ragged children sitting in the dust watching her.

‘Sure,’ said Mace. ‘Toasted cheese and tomato sarmies and a Coke float, more ice cream than Coke.’

She followed him inside to a table in the window, the children still watching her.

‘They’re looking at me,’ she said after they’d ordered.

Mace called the waitress back, asked her to send out three packets of deep-fry chips to the kids. The woman shrugged. ‘They eat better than me.’ 

Mace eyed her wide backside and thought not. He shielded his mouth with his hand, whispered to Christa, ‘They’re probably her kids.’

Christa looked at the group. The eldest, about her own age, got up, went round the back of the building and the others followed. They were barefoot, white scratches on their legs. Mace watched his daughter: the intensity of her gaze, her shoulders easing when the children were gone.

‘You can relax now,’ he said.

She held her nose. ‘We’re going to stink of cooking oil.’

Mace laughed. ‘The hazards of travel. Hey!’ – he pulled the iPod out of his pocket, unpopped his earphones. ‘Plug yourself in and listen to some serious music’ – searching through the playlist for Lilium’s ‘Lover’.

Christa listened all the way through, so loud he could hear the slide guitar. At the end she said, ‘He killed her, didn’t he? Up on the mountain.’

‘Sounds like it,’ said Mace. ‘But what about the music?’

‘It’s okay,’ said Christa. ‘For country.’

Mace leaned back mock-horrified. ‘Where’s your soul, girl?’

‘Papa,’ she said after the waitress had clattered down their toasted sandwiches, slopped their drinks, ‘when those soldiers shot at you, was that because of guns?’

Mace bit into a quarter of toast, chewed. ‘Why d’you ask?’

‘Pumla said you and Pylon sold guns.’

Mace nodded. Not exactly the sort of conversation he wanted to get into. ‘Uh huh. That’s what we did.’

‘Like gun-runners?’

‘Gun-runners.’ Mace laughed. ‘What d’you know about
gunrunners
?’

‘Lots.’

‘Tell me.’

‘That they’re not nice.’

‘I’m not nice?’

She spooned ice cream from the glass, not looking at him.

‘Okay. What else?’

‘This DVD. In life skills class they showed us this DVD of men selling rifles to children.’

‘Life skills?’

‘You know like I told you that woman with the one leg told us about drugs? That’s life skills. Last time a woman told us about gun-runners. She had this DVD where children shot people in villages. Shot women and little babies.’

‘She showed that to you? To your class?’

‘I cried,’ said Christa.

‘I didn’t do that,’ said Mace. ‘Okay. Pylon and I didn’t do that. We didn’t sell guns to children. Also it was a long time ago. Before you were born. What we did was sell guns to soldiers because they were fighting wars. Wars to free their people.’ He moved to sit next to her, put his arm around her. ‘We gave up selling guns, C. We protect people now.’

‘It felt like I was being shot again,’ she said.

Mace clenched his jaw, an old anger twisting in his stomach. He tightened his hug, drawing Christa to him.

They sat for a time looking out at the children playing with a soccer ball, kicking it between themselves and to the truck drivers. Occasionally cars pulled into the petrol station but mostly the petrol jockey sat smoking in the sun, a ghetto blaster at his feet tuned to a hip-hop station. Mostly no one stopped here, mostly the big horse and trailers came blaring through non-stop with three long toots on the horn. Somewhere, at the back, among the thorn acacias and the kapok bush, Mace knew would be a group of small brick-and-tin houses. Dogs lying at the doors. Women inside cooking. Litter, bottles, metal scrap scattered about. He’d seen it everywhere. Variations of it. It made him jumpy.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, standing. ‘Let’s hit the road.’

‘Doesn’t mean I don’t want to learn to shoot,’ said Christa.

Manga and Spitz sat down at the table while the waitress removed the glasses and plates.

Spitz watched the man and his daughter get into the red Alfa Spider and pull off. He recognised the man, the car too. More specifically he noticed the blue iPod the guy’d been attaching to his earphones.

Manga said, ‘They don’t do burgers.’ He flicked at the menu with his fingers. ‘Yo, captain, what sort of place doesn’t do burgers? Cheese. Cheese ‘n tomato. Bacon and peanut butter. Toasted or plain. But no burgers. They’ve got chips. I can smell chips. The place stinks of fry oil.’

Spitz remembered what Sheemina February had said, ‘I’ve got pictures of the man who’s not the target. The one with him is. No collateral, okay?’ The same man wiring into a blue iPod. Like the one he’d lost. Like the one the security had at the hospital. The security in the big Merc.

Manga was saying, ‘Anywhere you go in the country whites want toasted cheese and tomato. If it’s not a burger place, it’s cheese and tomato. What’s with them they always wanted cheese and tomato when they drove across the country?’

Spitz said, ‘Do you recognise that car?’ – pointing at the Spider accelerating onto the road.

‘It’s an Alfa,’ said Manga, squinting against the light. ‘Hey, captain, like the one at the airport.’

‘I think so,’ said Spitz. ‘And the driver has a blue iPod. The same as mine was.’

‘Coincidence,’ said Manga. ‘Has to be more’n one red sports car. Certainly there’s plenty of blue iPods.’ He turned back to the menu. ‘They’ve got beer.’ Grinned at the waitress, ‘Hey, mama, bacon and peanut butter, toasted. Brown bread, for health. A Black Label. What you say, captain?’

Spitz didn’t say anything. What Spitz didn’t like was coincidence.

Nor did Mace. The white BMW had passed them an hour back going fast and reckless not even slowing to check for oncoming cars as they overtook on a blind rise. Mace had leaned on the hooter in anger and the driver’d given him the finger. Otherwise he wouldn’t have paid attention. But a white BM with two black brothers caused him to check the registration plate against Pylon’s sms. Same car. And as he and Christa pulled into the motel at sunset, the Willard Grant Conspiracy loud on the sound system, there it was too, parked outside the row of rooms. Coincidence. But Mace didn’t like it. He almost drove off to find somewhere else to spend the night. Except why? They were bloody booked in. He phoned Pylon.

‘They’re here,’ he said. ‘Merino Inn Motel. You can tell the cops.’

‘What a pleasure,’ Pylon said. Then: ‘Hey, Mace, it’s a helluva coincidence, don’t you think?’

‘Helluva.’ Mace disconnected and stared at his daughter coming out of the bathroom looking more like eighteen than thirteen. ‘We’re only going to eat at the local steak house,’ he said.

She pulled a face.

‘Please,’ said Sheemina February, pushing the contracts across the table to Obed Chocho with her gloved hand. ‘I need you to sign them now.’

‘They can wait. Come, what is the hurry?’ He left the paperwork lying in the middle of the table just beyond his reach, stretching over to pour more Cap Classique into her flute. The bottle was two thirds down. ‘Celebrations first.’ He filled his own glass. ‘Empowerment.’

Sheemina February raised her glass. Again he leant across to clink the toast.

‘Empowerment.’

‘Salud, Obed,’ she said, feeling the bubbles burst against her upper lip as she sipped.

It was their second toast. He’d come in loud, swaggering down the corridor to the boardroom. Following her, booze and cigarette smoke oozing from him, brandishing the bottle of méthode champagnoise. Any partners working late stayed behind closed doors.

In the boardroom, Sheemina February took long-stem flutes from a cabinet. ‘Signing contracts does not need champagne.’

‘These do.’ Obed Chocho pulled the cork with a violent twist, the fizz exploding over the glasses. He snorted a laugh. ‘Mighty fine, mighty fine.’

The first toast: standing opposite one another.

‘To success.’ Obed Chocho, making to clink her glass, but she drew back.

‘Perhaps we should be cautious. Not tempt the gods.’

‘To success.’

And she had shrugged. Their glasses touched. She’d sipped cautiously at the wine. He took the bubbly in a swallow.

‘Here are the contracts,’ she’d said, moving to the far side of the boardroom table, taking the papers from a manila folder. Sitting.

He’d drunk off another glass before he sat.

‘You must drink. Honour our venture.’

She’d taken a swallow, pushed the contracts into the middle of the table. He’d filled their glasses, proposed the second toast. The contracts lay between them.

‘Empowerment.’

He was watching her, grinning, leaning back in his chair. 

She held out a pen. ‘The contracts, Obed.’

‘Why do you wear that glove? Take it off. Show me what you’re hiding.’

‘No.’

He reached for the pen and caught her hand, her good hand. ‘Show me. We are business partners. We have no secrets.’ He tightened his grip.

‘Let go.’

‘Show me.’

‘I said, let go.’ She wrenched her hand free.

‘Do not play with me.’

‘You’ve been drinking, Obed. You are in violation of your parole on that count. On another you are breaking the hours of restriction.’

‘To sign the contracts.’

‘We agreed you’d be here at three o’clock this afternoon. I have been waiting since then. For five hours.’

‘I had business.’

‘Nothing more important than these papers.’

‘Business.’

‘Drinking with your friends.’ She picked up the pen and held it out again. ‘Stop wasting my time. Sign and I’ll drive you home.’

He took the pen. ‘Because of you my wife is dead.’

‘What!’ She came forward, her hands on the table pushing the papers at him, a bemused smile on her lips. ‘Oh come on. Get real.’

Obed Chocho wagged the pen like an admonishing finger. ‘Because of you.’

‘No, Obed, not because of me. Because of you. Because you wanted Popo Dlamini killed. Phone Spitz. Phone Manga. Make the arrangements. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that.’

‘I did not say kill her.’

‘Nor did I. But you knew if she was with him, she’d die. You knew that. You didn’t try to stop her.’

‘I did.’

‘Well it didn’t work.’

Obed Chocho drank off the rest of his glass, and refilled it. ‘You are a hard bitch.’

‘I am your lawyer, Obed. I am looking after your interests.’

‘Oh mighty fine. And whose name is this?’ He pointed at her name on the contracts. ‘The name of my business partner. The lady with the gloved hand.’

‘Sign, Obed.’

He laughed at her, imitating her voice. ‘Sign, Obed. So that I can be rich.’

‘So that everything is legal.’

She flipped the contracts through to their final pages. Obed Chocho scrawled his signature.

‘Drive me home,’ he said. ‘Work for your money.’

‘I intend to,’ said Sheemina February, filing the papers back into the manila folder. She held out her gloved hand, her fingers rigid. ‘The pen, Mr Chocho. If you don’t mind.’