Killer Country (27 page)

Obed Chocho stood in the sitting room of the Smits’ getaway cottage, the stoep doors open onto the path leading down to the beach. Low tide, beds of kelp lazy on the sea’s rise and fall.

Perched on a barstool behind him, Sheemina February looked at his head, shaven and glistening, and the roll of neck fat resting on his jacket collar. The tycoon surveying his domain. Yet all the drive out he’d been bitching about his dead wife. After these many weeks still going on about it. Get a life. Pull another chick, she wanted to tell him. Wasn’t as if they weren’t clamouring over him. Drawn by the smell of money.

‘Mighty fine,’ he said, ‘mighty fine’ – turning towards her.

‘Mighty fine what, Obed?’ She clicked her fingernails on a piece of driftwood the Smits had used as a countertop. Faint traces of blue paint embedded in the patina. Not so much driftwood as a length of ship’s planking, a nice touch that gave the room a beachy feel. 

‘It is taking too long,’ he said, ‘the paperwork.’

‘That’s bureaucracy.’ Sheemina February, brushed flecks of pollen off her dress. ‘There’s a process.’

‘I am ready. I have sub-contractors waiting. People with bulldozers and trucks. Every day they’re not working I am paying.’

‘I warned you to wait.’ She watched the bluster build in his face. Couldn’t resist irritating him.

‘You told me it would be fast. With your contacts.’ His face puffed up with anger. ‘You told me no problem. Ten days, two weeks we would be on site.’

‘It’s not ten days. It’s been five working days by my count.’

‘Five. Ten. Mighty fine. This doesn’t matter. I am wasting money. Tens of thousands.’

‘Obed,’ Sheemina February came off the stool. ‘What was my advice?’ She raised her eyebrows at him. ‘My advice was put the contractors on notice. On notice, not on contract. Wait until the tender’s signed, I advised you. Not so?’ She walked out the stoep door onto the path of crushed shells. Smelt the air thick with salt. Turned back to him. Obed Chocho standing above her on the steps. ‘But what do you do? You get as excited as a boy with a toy.’

Obed Chocho beat his fist against the step railing. ‘Mighty fine. To hell with you. Mighty fine. I will get another lawyer.’

‘If you want to. If that will make you feel better. Be my guest. But remember the paperwork, Obed. It’s a nightmare. The entanglements.’

‘Your nightmare. Because of you.’

She ran her tongue over her lips, moistened the plum lipstick. Smiled. ‘What were your words, Obed? Lawyer us up, I think was the rather hip phrase you used. Your brief, remember. I acted on your brief.’

Obed Chocho hissed out his breath.

‘Think about it.’ She climbed the steps until she stood opposite him, put a gloved hand on his arm. ‘In another five days, in a  week, the bulldozers will be here.’ She withdrew her hand. ‘In the meantime tell the contractors if they want the job, they must wait. At their cost. Believe me they’re hungry, they’re not likely to run. Also they’ll want to stick close to you. Get in on the action.’

She waited until Obed Chocho said, ‘Mighty fine’ – watching the pulse working behind his ear. Such a small neat ear.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘when’s the architect getting here?’ – even as she spoke, hearing the whine of a car in low gear. A big black Mercedes Benz. They watched it approaching.

‘Not the architect,’ said Sheemina February.

‘Buso,’ said Obed Chocho. ‘Get him off my property.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Sheemina February snapping a salute. She waited for the visitor at the kitchen door. Pylon taking his time, getting out of his car, admiring the view, walking towards her.

‘Mr Buso,’ she said, ‘this is unexpected. Come to have a last look at your distant dream.’

‘I heard you were out here,’ he said.

‘Oh?’

‘Chocho’s secretary.’

‘How discreet of her.’

‘So I thought I’d bring you the news.’

‘That’s kind.’ She stood squarely in the doorway. ‘What news?’

Pylon bent to pick up a porcupine quill. ‘Actually, not so much news, probably it’ll be old news to Comrade Obed but a supposition.’

‘Sounds intriguing.’ She moved aside to let him enter. ‘Go through.’

‘You’re trespassing,’ said Obed Chocho as Pylon came into the sitting room. ‘I can have you for that.’

‘Visiting,’ said Pylon. ‘Briefly.’

‘For what?’

‘To tell you this: we know it’s you.’

‘Know what, Mr Buso?’ Sheemina February standing beside  her client, rubbed a gloved thumb over the smooth elegance of her right hand. ‘What mystery is this?’

‘Not much mystery,’ said Pylon. He pointed the quill at Obed Chocho. ‘Just no hard facts.’

‘Facts?’

‘Facts to put Comrade Obed behind the shooting at Judge Visser’s last Friday. Probably also the Visser farm killing. The Smits hijack. Popo Dlamini. Your wife, comrade. My German business partner. Eight deaths.’

‘Pah,’ Obed Chocho, threw up his hands. ‘Bullshit.’

‘Careful, Mr Buso, you’re on the edge of libel.’

Pylon offered the quill to Obed Chocho. ‘Here. This is yours. I found it outside. On your property.’

‘Leave,’ said Obed Chocho, taking the quill and snapping it. ‘Get out. Go.’

‘I’m going,’ said Pylon. ‘But know this: we’ll get you.’

Obed Chocho laughed. ‘Oh, mighty fine. Mighty fine. Piss off, arsehole.’

‘I think you should go,’ said Sheemina February, stepping between the two men, ushering Pylon to the kitchen door. When he was halfway to his car she called out, ‘Remember me to Mr Bishop. Tell him I still think of him. Often.’

She watched Pylon reverse the big Merc and drive off. Heard Obed Chocho come up behind her. Without turning to face him, said, ‘What happened to Judge Visser?’

‘How should I know?’ said Obed Chocho.

‘Frightening the judge, that wouldn’t be smart, Obed. You heard the man. He’s put it together. He just can’t join the dots.’

‘Hey,’ the word coming out shrill. ‘I’m in the dark, okay. The first I’ve heard of it.’

‘Oh yes.’ Sheemina February searched his eyes: saw puzzlement lurking there.

‘Tell me again,’ said Mace to Judge Telman Visser. The two of them in the dining room at the judge’s house. Mace making him run through the seating positions when the first bullet was fired.

The judge powered his wheelchair to the table, pointed at the sideboard. ‘My guest was standing there, opening the wine.’

‘Your guest?’

‘A friend of mine.’

‘Someone important? Another judge? A politician? A mover and shaker?’

‘It’s not relevant.’

‘It could be.’

‘A friend, Mr Bishop. Simply that, a friend.’

Mace shrugged. ‘The curtains were closed?’

‘No.’

‘You ever close them?’

‘No. What for? I’m a long way from the street. Nor am I paranoid, Mr Bishop. I don’t imagine thieves lurking in my shrubs at night.’

Mace, at the window, looked over the garden. A trimmed lawn surrounded by rose beds, most of the roses sad and blown. Not the sort of shrubbery you’d want to go wandering through in the dark.

‘They found casings,’ said the judge. ‘The police. On the lawn. .38s I think they said.’

‘Amazing,’ said Mace. ‘Amazing that that’s the best the shooter could do.’ He crossed to the wall where the bullet had embedded itself, gazed at the hole above the picture rail. ‘Guy wasn’t even trying.’

‘The second shot was closer.’

Mace studied the damage between the Kentridges. ‘Not really. And the third’s wider than the first. Some hitman. He’s standing out there. He can see you plainly. He puts three bullets way right.’ 

‘I can’t be so casual about it, Mr Bishop.’

‘Suppose not.’

‘I need protection. Private protection. People I can trust.’

Mace nodded, moved to stand in front of the Goldblatt photograph of farm murders. ‘So you brought it home.’

‘After what happened it seemed even more appropriate. It’s a reminder of the state of our country.’

‘Despite the bad blood. Between you and your father.’

‘Despite it. In recent times he’d been trying to reconcile. In his own way. I wasn’t convinced but I hadn’t resisted.’

‘I heard,’ said Mace, flopping onto a couch, ‘that you got the farm.’

Judge Telman Visser shut his eyes, brought his hands together, rested his chin on his fingertips. He stayed like that for what Mace thought must’ve been a full minute. Then opened his eyes, blinked, dropped his hands into his lap.

‘It seems you’ve heard the story.’

‘I did. From the lawyer…’

‘… Pretorius.’

‘Pretorius.’

‘A busybody.’

‘Told me you had the farm on the market.’

‘I have.’

Mace waited but the judge said nothing more.

‘I went out there,’ said Mace. ‘For no reason. Curiosity I suppose…’

‘Morbid. But I can understand it.’

‘… Bumped into two geologists on a government survey. You’ve heard about that?’ Mace watching the judge slump like he was overcome by weariness.

‘No. Nor do I want to, Mr Bishop. I want to get rid of the land. It means nothing to me. Pretorius would’ve told you it’d been in my mother’s family for generations but I am finished with that. Those are ties I no longer want.’

‘Fair enough.’ Mace stretched out his legs, linked his fingers  behind his head. ‘What’s going on here, judge? Who’s shooting at you? Wouldn’t be a man called Obed Chocho by any chance?’

‘Chocho?’ The judge frowned. ‘The man…’

‘You put away for fraud.’ Mace unhooked his fingers and kneaded the tension from his neck.

‘He’s out, I know. Six weeks ago on parole.’ Judge Telman Visser paused. ‘You believe… No. What on earth for?’

‘It could be,’ said Mace, ‘that he arranged the hit on your father. Or we could be talking something completely different. We could be talking the arms commission you head. Important people unhappy at your inquiries. People getting people to tell you to back off.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘Does the name Rudi Klett mean anything?’

‘The arms trader?’

‘The same.’

‘We have subpoenaed him.’

‘How very proper. And?’

‘The Germans are considering it. But Mr Klett is a hard man to find.’

Mace stood. ‘Because he’s dead.’

‘You know this for certain?’

‘Pretty much. He was killed here. In this city. Hadn’t been here an hour before they got him. Question is: who are they?’

‘I don’t know any of this. It hasn’t been reported.’

‘Under the radar, judge. Lots happens in the static. Most of the time, who really knows what’s potting.’

The judge eyed Mace. ‘How do you know?’

‘A birdie.’ Mace winked in imitation of a small-town lawyer, and stood. ‘For the moment let’s leave it at that.’

The judge propelled his wheelchair towards the door. ‘What about my security?’

‘I’ll arrange it,’ said Mace. ‘Trust me.’ 

The radio news reported two tourists mugged on the mountain. Not far from the cable station. The two from an early batch of sightseers making the best of a perfect day. The mugger must have gone up at dawn, said the reporter, also making the best of a perfect day.

The couple he attacked was Swedish. Threatened them with a long-bladed knife. Took their cameras, their cellphones, watches, jewellery, their cash, their passports.

‘This happened so fast,’ said the man in a soundbite. ‘After we had given him some things, he snatched at my wife’s bag with all our documents.’

‘I am grateful we were not killed or hurt,’ said the woman.

Mace thought, an hour max he could be on top of the mountain, up Nursery Ravine, head towards Maclear’s Beacon. Meet the bastard on his way down.

He drove away from the judge’s house along a street quiet, shaded, the mansions of the wealthy either side. Over-arching plane trees canopied the road, their leaves yellowing. Through gaps in the trees the mountain’s high buttresses stood visible, a grey edge against the blue. A good day to be up there. He had the P8. Why not? The next client pick-up was in the afternoon. Plenty of time. Mace turned in at Kirstenbosch Gardens.

His cellphone rang. Pylon said, ‘We’re going to find that hitman. Now. Today. Go pack a bag.’

‘You’ve forgotten something.’

‘What?’

‘Our clients. The ones flying in to make babies.’

‘Tami can sort it.’

‘Tami looks like muscle to you?’

‘Tami breaks bricks. She showed me. We send someone with her, the clients won’t know the difference.’

Mace looked up at the mountain. Thought of the mugger making his way down. ‘What’s the rush?’

Pylon said, ‘I’ve got forty-eight hours. Treasure and Pumla are away. She won’t even know I’ve gone.’

Mace hesitated.

‘Look,’ Pylon cutting in, ‘you’re the one all fired up to find Mr Short Dreads. Now’s the moment.’

‘What’s stung you?’ said Mace.

‘Obed Chocho. And an old friend, Sheemina February. Told you she was in this.’

‘She’s lawyering him?’

‘By all accounts. Probably shafting him too.’

Mace stopped in the shade of a tree. Killed the engine. The mention of Sheemina February didn’t thrill him. The woman shadowing his life, marking anniversaries with a single plum rosebud. The anniversaries of Christa’s kidnapping. The anniversaries he killed Mikey Rheeder. A single plum rosebud stuck in the Spider’s windscreen wiper. Sometimes when the car was parked outside the gym. Once outside the office. Twice in random places: a city street bay, in a shopping mall parking garage. These two meant she’d been following him. That was the spooky bit, that she was watching. He’d told no one, not even Pylon.

The second time gone to her office. Braced her in reception in front of the receptionist. Held out the flower.

‘You’re sick. Perverted. No more, okay.’

She’d taken it with her gloved hand. ‘How sweet. Thank you, Mr Bishop.’

Mace had stepped towards her, wanting to smash her face. ‘You’re sick. A bloody psycho. Don’t do it again.’

‘Or what, Mr Bishop? You’ll pulverise my other hand.’

Mace had got out fast before he hit her. What she wanted, to get him on assault.

When the rosebuds persisted he decided, ignore them. Give  her no satisfaction. But they riled him nonetheless. He anticipated them. Got worked up and edgy around the dates. The day was coming, he knew. The day of reckoning.

He swung his legs out of the car, sat sideways in the seat. Priorities. The short dreads man was priority numero uno. Mountain muggers would have to wait.

‘All right. How’re we going to find him in two days?’

‘Start with the dead,’ said Pylon. ‘The sidekick. Manga whatever.’

‘Khumalo.’

‘Him. I’ve got a family address.’

Pylon drove the hire car out of Johannesburg airport saying, ‘Oh shit’ at the signboards and the highways stacked above him, the windscreen wipers no help against the rain.

Mace said, ‘Go straight’ – the map book open on his lap.

‘Once,’ said Pylon, ‘I knew this place like home.’

‘Once,’ said Mace, ‘it was home’ – tracing the blue line of the highway towards and round the city, shooting off towards Soweto.

‘Now it’s totally alien. Even the people.’ Pylon slammed the gear down to third, shifting right into the fast lane, the car’s engine screaming. ‘A Toyota’s not a Merc,’ he said, behind them a Beemer flashed its lights, coming up fast. ‘Will you check this brother behind waving us out of the way. Driving like a maniac in the wet.’

Pylon drifted left into the middle lane and the Beemer came past in a waft of spray. Two brothers up front smoking cigars gave Pylon and Mace the hard stare.

‘Gangsters,’ said Pylon. ‘That’s what they look like even when they’re businessmen. Suits, shades, shaven heads. Who’s to know the difference?’

‘Keep straight,’ said Mace, the city centre mushrooming between the hills, the tall buildings ghosting in the rain. The  sight of them always something that thrilled Mace. Pity it’d gone to shit.

‘Pity it’s gone to shit,’ he said.

‘Refugees,’ said Pylon. ‘You let refugees in everything gets buggered up.’

‘S’not only refugees,’ said Mace.

‘Mostly,’ said Pylon. ‘Zimbos. Yorubas. Congos. Angolas. Any place you can think of that’s shot to hell. They’re in there, slumming it.’

‘Fair number of others, too.’

‘Zulus,’ said Pylon. ‘Mostly.’

At Gillooly’s interchange Pylon said, ‘Okay now I’m remembering’ – taking the hill and over, sorting out the spaghetti tangle to take them past the city centre that wasn’t the city centre anymore. A stack of empty buildings you could see right through. Others draped in washing. Barrow sellers under tarpaulins, women with smoking braziers cooking mielie cobs on the streets.

Mace’s cellphone rang. He fished it from a pocket, saw the name of the small-town lawyer on the screen and connected. Said to Pylon, ‘Go off at Bara hospital.’

‘Mr Bishop,’ said Johan Pretorius, flannelling straight into a how’s the weather, hope you had a nice trip home routine, Mace waiting for him to come out of it. The lawyer not pausing for an answer, saying, ‘I have news’ – and shutting up.

Mace said, ‘That right?’

‘You won’t believe it. Most people here don’t.’

‘Try me.’

‘A finished deal and nobody even got a whiff of it. Magtig, man. I have my ear to the ground in this town. This whole district not much happens that I don’t hear about pretty damn smart. Sometimes even before it’s happened. But this. This was tjoepstil. Not a whisper anywhere. And just a few days ago we were talking about it.’

‘What?’ said Mace.

‘Judge Telman Visser,’ said Pretorius. ‘Today I heard his farm has been sold.’

‘That right?’

‘Not an hour ago, I heard it. But they tell me it was done yesterday. Signed and sealed.’

‘Really.’ Mace thinking, why’d Visser not told him. Actually lied to him. Said, ‘Who’s the buyer?’

‘Miners. Zimisela Explorations. Not the first time it’s happened in the district. Won’t be the last.’

‘Interesting,’ said Mace – gesturing at Pylon to take the offramp, the road signage barely visible in the wiper swish. ‘Thanks.’

‘Makes the judge a rich man. I thought you might like to know.’

‘Why was that?’ said Mace. ‘Why’d you think that?’

The lawyer gave a burst of laughter. Mace had to hold the phone away from his ear. ‘No reason especially. Just spreading the good news. So what d’you think, Mr Bishop?’

‘Got nothing to do with me,’ said Mace.

‘I would’ve thought…’ The lawyer left it hanging. Said, ‘Ja, well,’ into the silence, wished Mace a happy day further.

Mace clipped the phone closed said, ‘How about this: the judge sold out to a mining company. Yesterday. Tells me this morning he’s in the market.’ Mace musing, tapping his phone against the map book. ‘Remember we got those mining magazines?’

‘The freebies.’

‘Them exactly. Strange, d’you think? Coincidence?’

‘Probably.’

Mace opened his phone again, trying for Tami at the office.

The call went to the answering machine. Mace checked the time. Not half past four yet. ‘Tami’s bunked off.’

‘Fetching clients,’ said Pylon. ‘The fertility couple’ – giving a long toot at an iron and scrap merchant swinging his cart into the  traffic. ‘Save me Jesus, doesn’t he understand about cars skidding in the wet.’ The horse coming to a stop at the hooting. Pylon slapped down the gears to get round the animal. ‘Why d’you want her?’

‘Check out the magazines.’

‘In case what?’

‘In case anything?’

Pylon pointed at a building surrounded by security fences, a car pound visible behind it, said, ‘There’s the cop shop, can’t be far we have to make a left into Sibasa.’

Second robot after a school they turned left, found their way to a house fronting a park. Neat place: face brick, metal windows, corrugated iron roof. Face-brick street wall and a metal gate. A white van in the drive. The drizzle persisted.

Pylon said, ‘Ever known anywhere greyer in the rain than Soweto? Even worse than Berlin. Enough to make you slit your throat.’

They went up a concrete path to the front door. Someone was a pot gardener: pots of flowers everywhere, drooping.

The woman who opened the door said yes she was Manga’s mother. Said she’d said everything she had to say to the police. Didn’t invite them in out of the rain.

Pylon said, ‘We’re not cops.’

Mrs Khumalo said, ‘You look like them.’

‘What we want to know,’ said Mace, ‘was who Manga was with when he died.’

‘I told the police,’ said Mrs Khumalo. ‘I don’t know. I told the police Manga brought shame on us. For years he has broken our hearts.’

Mace could see behind her a framed picture of the Virgin Mary, candles burning either side of it.

Pylon said, ‘What about girlfriends?’

‘At the funeral there were lots of girls. All crying for Manga. All strangers to me.’

‘Can we come in?’ said Mace, water beginning to drip off his hair. ‘Just for a moment.’

‘Speak to his sister,’ said Mrs Khumalo, giving them a telephone number. Slowly closing the door.

‘Great start,’ said Mace in the car. ‘Such a friendly mother for a Catholic.’

‘Wouldn’t you be,’ said Pylon, ‘your son made a living heisting security vans?’

‘I’d excommunicate him.’

‘She probably did.’

Pylon dialled the number. ‘Miss Khumalo,’ he said, ‘Your mother gave me your number, it’s to do with your brother.’

She told him she’d told the cops everything. When he told her he wasn’t the cops she said what was his problem? Pylon said, insurance. Manga had his life insured for six figures. She was his beneficiary. Miss Khumalo said her name was Cindy, gave an address in Melville.

Pylon fired the car.

Mace said, ‘That pressed her buttons.’

‘Money does that,’ said Pylon.

‘The reality won’t please her.’

Pylon grinned. ‘For sure.’

He gunned it out of Soweto – ‘Not a place to be with the sun going down’ – took the ring road to Ontdekkers, shuffled through the robots along the ridge towards the Brixton Tower. They found Cindy Khumalo in a renovated house in one of the avenues: high wall fronting a street of shedding jacarandas, intercom at the street door. She buzzed them into a damp courtyard, the garden plants dripping.

Cindy stood at the door all smiles. An expensive stunner dressed down in pink tracksuit. Her feet bare, her toenails green. Mace thought, someone else had green toenails. What was it with women and green toenails? 

She invited them in, sat them down in a sitting room that was all angles. New low-back couches with chrome legs, matching chairs in red. Hi-tech reading lamps bent over the chairs like servants. Chrome and glass coffee table, splatter of magazines on it. And an ashtray: glass inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

She offered them single malt whisky, a choice of three: Dalmore, Arran, Whyte & Mackay – twelve-year-olds. Or beer. They both said beer.

Cindy Khumalo brought Stella Artois in the right glasses for all three of them. Said she was a beer girl at the start of an evening. Fetched a pack of cigarettes, held them towards her guests.

Mace and Pylon shook their heads.

‘I have to,’ she said, bringing up a flame from a thin roller bar lighter.

‘A Sarome?’ said Mace.

She gave him the eye. Blew a plume from the corner of her mouth. ‘An ex-smoker and a connoisseur.’ Handed him the lighter.

‘Nice,’ said Mace, rubbing his thumb over the rounded corners. Appreciating the featherweight. Handed it back to her.

She didn’t look at all like her brother to his way of thinking. Except for something in the smile. A charm. The same sort of smile Manga had used stepping into the Vissers’ house waving the thirty-eight around.

Pylon was saying, ‘Like I said, you are your brother’s beneficiary. Except that when a crime’s involved the policy is void.’

‘So you wanna cut a deal?’ said Cindy. That smile.

Brought out a smile on all those who received it, Pylon and Mace hardly immune. Mace had to admire her cool. Must drive men wild.

Pylon coughed. ‘We could do that.’

‘Ten per cent.’ She took a mouthful of beer, followed it with a draw on the cigarette.

‘We’d have to go a bit higher,’ said Pylon.

‘Because of the police.’ She studied the end of her cigarette, letting the smoke trickle from her nostrils. ‘Fifteen tops.’

Pylon and Mace looked at one another. Mace giving the shrug.

‘We could stick at that,’ said Pylon. ‘Assuming…’

‘I can give you the man with him.’

‘Yes. To straighten the paperwork.’

Cindy took another pull at the cigarette, shallow, hardly holding the smoke, crushed out the remainder.

Said, ‘You’re good, but not good enough. So, guys, what’s this about, really?’

Mace looked at Pylon. Pylon held his hands up, nodded.

‘It’s personal,’ said Mace.

She studied him, a gaze Mace was hard-put to hold. Not a blink, a black depth to her eyes, dense as coal. ‘Alright,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you what I gave the cops. Seeing as they weren’t interested. It’s someone called Spitz. Hangs at Melrose Arch. Check out JB’s first. That’s all I know. All Manga told me.’