Payback - A Cape Town thriller (19 page)

Isabella ignored him, said, ‘Meet my one-time lover Mace Bishop.’

Francisco said into his phone, ‘I’ll call you’ - disconnected. Said to Mace, ‘You been to Ground Zero?’ Took him by the arm. ‘Come here. Get a look at Ground Zero.’

Mace put an eye to the telescope. There was not much to see of Ground Zero. Nothing moving down there at all. While he was looking Francisco explained about things that weren’t noticed until they were missed. Mace pretended he was with him on this theory.

When they were seated round his desk, Francisco said, ‘You hear about the suicide bomber this morning? Took out some Jews on a bus. You think these guys really reckon they’re gonna get laid by seventy-eight virgins?’

‘Sure,’ said Isabella.

‘I wanna know what Mace thinks,’ Francisco said.

Mace told him probably.

‘You think that’s the motivation?’

‘Probably.’

He glanced at Mace to see if he was taking the piss, then cut to the business at hand, said, ‘Mace, you think you can pull this one off for us?’

‘Probably,’ said Mace. Francisco chuckled, leant on the table to let Mace know the jokes were over.

‘What we’ve got here, Mace,’ he said, ‘is a delicate situation featuring a bunch of guns Isabella’s wanting to acquire. Where from’s where you come in. Given the logistics we’re tying up the nearest market, a dive by name of Luranda.’

‘Luanda,’ said Isabella.

Francisco raised his eyebrows. ‘Mace comes from Africa. He knows where it’s positioned.’ He focused on Mace again. ‘What we’re needing is the merchandise, someone to go there, oversee the transaction. Make things easier for you this is a no-money deal. Guys in Luranda print dollars to wipe their asses. So we told them no paper. Stones only. There’s a fellow lives there, John Webster, knows about stones. Diamond John’s what the Russians call him. Major merchant figure. Used to work for Debretts.’

‘De Beers,’ said Isabella.

‘Whatever,’ said Francisco. ‘The payment comes in, before you release, Diamond John checks we’re not being shoved a parcel of piss crystals.’

He sat back in his chair. There was a picture behind him, idyllic Italian scene, couple walking down a path about to step into his hair.

‘You reckon this is a peach?’

‘Probably,’ Mace said.

Outside on the sidewalk Isabella said, ‘You’ve got maybe a month, six weeks. Get back to me soonest.’

They took separate taxis. In the cab, Mace thought the thing about Isabella was their history, the lunacy of it: the jive. There’d always been that with her, a spark. On his phone he saw he had two SMSs.

The first from Christa. ‘Msng u.’ Made him smile, the thought of her asleep now. Probably in their bed, despite Oumou’s rules. The second from Oumou. ‘How you doing?’

He tapped a message back: ‘Good. Off now to call on four million bucks. All love.’

To Christa: ‘Hi dollface. Got you on my mind. Love Papa and Cupcake.’

Mace sat back looking at the bright streets, the dense traffic, thinking Isabella still tweaked a vibe in him, wondered how Pylon would enjoy some déjà vu. 

For starters Mace had mussels in a vinaigrette. Pylon the asparagus with a sesame dressing. Mo Siq a basket of three langoustines on a bed of couscous. Pylon chose the wine: the estate’s 2000 Semillon Reserve.

From their table they looked across the vineyards towards the mountain. The afternoon sun laying a heat shimmer over the trellises.

‘A good choice, Uitsig,’ said Mo, rolling the wine round his mouth. He put the glass down, peeled the shell off a prawn. ‘How’s your girl, Mace?’

Mace swallowed a mussel, the taste of the sea strong in his mouth. ‘Doing okay. She’s swimming is the main thing. Getting the exercise. We’re starting to notice improvements.’

‘She’s what now? Ten, eleven?’

‘Nine.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Mo glanced from Mace to Pylon, his face blank. ‘Not a good scene what was going on then.’

Mace chased the sea with a mouthful of wine. ‘She bought my house, you know, the one where it happened.’

‘Sheemina? I didn’t. That a fact?’

‘Ten months it’d been on the market she comes up with this offer that’s short of what I want but also I need to sell. Had to sell.’

‘One hard woman.’

‘Cash.’ Mace soaked up vinaigrette with a piece of ciabatta. ‘I find out she’s got a place in Clifton, on millionaire’s mile. A share in a wine estate. Industrial property. The sort of portfolio that’d make brokers drool.’

‘You sold to her though.’

‘I didn’t want to. The woman’s got something about her that’s disturbing. I would use the word evil.’

‘So would I.’ Mo forked up couscous.

‘She offered a bit more. The way she did it, it came across like she was doing us a favour.’

With his serviette Mo wiped beads of couscous from the corner of his mouth. ‘That clinched the deal?’

‘Against my instincts.’

‘What you have to ask,’ said Mo, ‘is why she did it? With Sheemina there’s always some other reason. Something behind the obvious that it’s a good place to buy at a good price. Something else.’

‘I asked that question,’ said Mace. ‘I ask it still. Damn freaky situation.’

For the main course Mace had grilled tuna steak; Pylon ostrich medallions; Mo the lobster. Pylon ordered a Steenberg Catharina.

Said to Mo, ‘You rather have a white with that?’

Mo said, ‘I’m good for the red.’

While they ate Mo talked mostly, recounting this story of marlin fishing off the Seychelles with a director of Deutsche Aerospace. How two hours into one morning and twenty nautical into the sea the Kraut says, no, let’s give this a miss, hop the Lear jet and have dinner at a restaurant he knows in Alexandria. Ten hours later it’s nine-thirty local time, they’re being shown to a table, there’s a bottle of champagne waiting in ice. Mo laughed. Went a long way to persuading him that Deutsche Aerospace were serious people. Mace and Pylon chuckled with him. People at the nearby table looking over with smiles on their faces.

German tourists, Mace reckoned, maybe they’d caught the reference.

The three men skipped on the desserts, went straight to double espressos and cognacs.

‘If you like we can serve them on the stoep,’ said the waitress. ‘There’re comfortable chairs there.’

Pylon brought out three cigars. ‘Can we smoke?’

‘Sure.’ The waitress smiled. ‘No problem.’

The only other people on the stoep were two Chinese
businessmen
and a family group of five, loud after their wine and meal. It suited Mace. Nothing they said would be overheard. He and Mo settled into cane easy-chairs, Pylon pulled up a wingback.

Mo held the cigar to his nose. Sniffed along its length. A Montecristo No 1. ‘As good as anything the Krauts ever offered,’ he said.

So, he believed, was the KWV brandy.

Mace and Pylon waited for him to make a move. Mo was in no hurry, talking about a short deal with a company called Industriepark Spreewald Lubben that netted twelve million on surplus ammo the cabinet steering committee had stamped for destruction.

‘What they’re then doing, the Krauts,’ he explained, ‘is selling it on to the States. Guys there can’t get enough of our surplus for practicing and hunting. Mostly 5.56mm and 7.62mm. We got maybe a billion rounds supposed to be destroyed or dismantled. Which is a waste when you consider there’re people willing to pay for it.’ He drew on the Montecristo, blew the smoke out in a plume.

Pylon said, ‘Makes you wonder what the boers were thinking, producing all those rounds. Like they were heading for a major war.’

‘Silly buggers,’ said Mo. ‘On the other hand what we’ve got here is what we call unofficially The Opportunity. Not something the minister wants to hear about, but then not something he’s inclined to stop either supposing he has heard about it. Which he must’ve. Income is income.’ He flicked off a stub of ash, glanced from Pylon to Mace. ‘Welcome to The Opportunity. We’re happy to do business with you.’

‘Again,’ Mace said.

Mo chuckled. ‘I suppose you could say again, in a manner of speaking. I suppose should you look at it in a certain light the cause is the same: the upliftment of the people. Fair trade. Guns ‘n ammo for houses.’ He pulled out the shopping list Pylon had hand-delivered earlier in the week. ‘I can get these,’ he said, tapping it with the damp end of his cigar, ‘any time you want, as the man said.’

Mace took the last of his espresso. ‘In about four, five weeks?’

Mo nodded. ‘What’s the deal we’re talking?’

‘A deposit upfront in rands. The balance on delivery. Here you’ve got a choice: diamonds or dollars.’

Mo grinned. ‘Interesting.’

‘Excepting we’re not talking about delivery from you to us,’ put in Pylon.

‘No? There’s another sort of delivery?’

‘Us to them.’

Mo raised his eyebrows.

‘We need a bit of slack here,’ said Mace.

‘No more than a few days,’ said Pylon. ‘Cape Town to Luanda’s what? Two, two ‘n a bit days’ sailing. That’s the sort of slack Mace’s suggesting.’

To Mace, Mo didn’t look happy. There was a tightening at his eyes, a thinning of his lips as if the espresso was too bitter. Mo chased it with cognac.

‘You’re the agents?’

‘We are. Much as Pylon fears flying.’

Pylon grimaced and shrugged.

‘You understand what I’m doing here?’ Mo shifted his gaze between them. ‘You understand I’ve gotta get this stuff selected from a warehouse at the depot, loaded into a truck or probably two given the quantities we’re looking at, then these trucks signed onto the road for an eight hundred kilometre journey, that’s twelve hours on the highway when anything can happen from a
Christ-knows
-how accident to maybe having to get through bloody cops doing roadblocks in the hopes they’ll pick up some poor bastard shifting bales of dagga, to an inside-job hijack. You understand that’s a long time in the smoke.’

‘But you’re government,’ said Pylon.

‘Quasi,’ said Mo. ‘Those armaments do not exist. The
paperwork
they’re written against’s going through a shredder when the trucks return to base. This is about The Opportunity. Anyone mentions The Opportunity to me, I’m going to look blankly at them. Which is why when you tell me that even on delivery to the docks I must wait five more days for a ship that probably should be scrap iron to wallow three thousand nautical miles up a coast of wild seas, I’m not happy.’ He put down his snifter, eyed Pylon then Mace. ‘Even knowing you’re the receiving agents.’

‘There’s the deposit,’ Mace said.

‘It’s not that,’ said Mo. ‘It’s my experience that the crucial time is between despatch and receipt of payment. Best scenario’s when the two are one and the same. Spread those two moments and you’re looking at things going wrong. “Exposure” is the term a risk assessor would use.’

‘Acknowledged,’ said Mace. ‘The two of us more so than you. Exposed that is.’

‘It’s how it is on this one,’ said Pylon. ‘Which is not to say it’s how we want it.’

The men went quiet: Mo focusing on a group inspecting early season berries three or four rows back into the vineyard; Pylon contemplating the end of his cigar; Mace swirling his cognac, putting odds on Mo that he wouldn’t pull out, there being too sweet a slice in the deal for his own account. He noticed the Chinese had gone, replaced by a man and a woman holding hands.

Mo said, ‘Who’s the party?’

Mace considered, should he, shouldn’t he reveal the backers? Decided what the hell. ‘New York concern. Not big players.’

Mo squinted at him. ‘You’ve worked with them before?’

‘All through the war.’

‘I’ve met them at all?’

Mace caught Pylon’s eye, a curiosity there about what he’d say. He said, ‘Yeah, actually. You met in Dar es Salaam. Probably late 1986. Woman called Isabella Medicis.’

Mo shook his head. ‘Means nothing.’

‘Might’ve once been CIA,’ Pylon chipped in.

‘No longer,’ said Mace quickly to ease the concern on Mo’s face.

‘Once, always,’ said Mo. ‘What’s this about?’

‘Keeping it simple,’ said Mace. ‘And spreading the assets. No money, no paper trail. Nothing for Revenue Services to get bitter and twisted about.’

Mo took his time with this. In fact all the time it took the happy family to usher themselves off the stoep. Into the quiet he said softly, ‘Okay. I’m doing this because it’s you guys. No other reason. Anybody else I’d say you were working the ends.’

‘We are,’ said Pylon. ‘But then so’s everybody else on this deal.’

‘Doesn’t make me rest easier.’

The waitress appeared with a bottle of cognac. ‘Another, sir?’ she said to Pylon. He got the nod from Mo and Mace.

‘Seems like it.’

She smiled and poured them healthy shots. ‘More coffee?’

‘Just the bill,’ said Pylon.

When she’d moved off to serve the loving couple, the three men raised their glasses in a toast.

Mo said, ‘To The Opportunity.’

Pylon said, ‘And old times.’

Mace said, ‘I’ll go with both of those.’

He phoned Isabella from the vineyard. Mo had left in his M5, Pylon following in their Merc, headed for an afternoon off with his family. Summer was hectic, you took the free hours whenever you could get them. Mace planned to do the same. Spend some time with Christa in the swimming pool floating over the buildings below, let Oumou get on with making stock for her pottery exhibition in the new year.

Isabella answered on the fourth ring. ‘I was wondering when I’d hear from you.’

‘Now’s your lucky day,’ said Mace. He leant against the Spider, parked in the shade of an oak tree, imagining Isabella among her masks and wooden figures. After Christmas he’d be back there, they could do a celebratory dinner.

‘And so?’

‘We’re on,’ said Mace. ‘The full bag.’

Isabella laughed. ‘The same old Mace. Still able to pull the moves.’

Mace grinned at the compliment, watched the hand-holding couple walk across to their car. She half-waved, he nodded. ‘
Payment
caused a moment’s concern.’

‘But you smoothed it over.’

‘Of course.’ Mace could hear a kettle coming to the boil, the ring of cup against saucer. Isabella and Oumou, the only two women in the world wouldn’t drink from mugs. ‘He remembered you. And the connection.’

‘I doubt that. On both counts. But thanks for the flattery.’ The kettle whistled and came off the boil. ‘I’ll sort the logistics, no
reason
for you to chase around.’

‘It would be,’ said Mace, ‘a chase around.’ He opened the car door, settled into the driver’s seat. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

‘Can’t wait,’ she said, and Mace caught the laughter in her voice as she disconnected. The laughter that riled him. Roused him too.