Payback - A Cape Town thriller (33 page)

The men with the AKs shouted in Portuguese. Pylon yelling back they should shut up or Mr Webster would take another bullet. The men highly agitated, dancing about like the ground was hot.

Behind them Mace could see the truck stopped other side of the Mercs, its engine running, the driver watching the stand-off. Mace shook Webster. ‘Talk to your buddies. Let them hear you.’

Webster groaned, his head flopping forward, Mace thinking, Christ, the frigger’s dead meat, and tightened his grip to keep Webster from dropping. Wasn’t any way Webster would be talking to his buddies.

Shouted at Pylon, ‘He’s bloody dead.’

 Pylon gesticulating at the two men with the nine mil in one hand, Webster’s dud thirty-eight in the other, telling them they would die beyond the count of three if they didn’t get their arses in the truck and vanish, catching the movement of Mace tossing Webster’s body aside and behind him Dr Kiambu. The politician appearing with an R34 assault rifle in his hands like this was nothing new.

Pylon yelling at him to stay back.

Mace going, ‘What the fuck?’

The attackers with the AKs hesitating at the appearance of the short man in the jacket and tie. In that hesitation losing the moment as Kiambu sprayed half a clip into them, their bodies jiggling at the impacts, spinning to fall face down.

Mace felt shells bouncing off him, his head booming with the automatic fire, thinking, with some men you just couldn’t tell. They looked the talking type, the last sort you’d expect to know about guns, let alone killing. Then when it came down to the nail they pulled a stunt. You had to give it to him.

Kiambu handed the rifle to Pylon. ‘A dangerous weapon, I think. Perhaps it is of more use to you.’ He pointed at the truck. ‘That transport would be useful, I believe.’

The driver saw this scenario too, in his haste to reverse at the sight of Pylon running towards him stalled the engine.

Pylon came up with a grin, said in pidgin, ‘Don’t cause any shit.’ The man shook his head, climbed out of the cab and stood peeing his pants. ‘Ah, save me Jesus.’ Pylon rolled his eyes to the heavens. ‘There’s no need for that.’ The driver was a short way off tears too. Pylon prodded him in the ribs with the rifle barrel, pushed him backwards. ‘Go. Deixar. Piss off’ - indicating the road into the warehouses. The man looked at him. ‘Ciao! Goodbye,’ said Pylon, ‘go’- and the man took off, running, glancing back, about a hundred metres away bringing up a pistol from somewhere in his trousers. He fired twice on the run, his aim high. Pylon watched him, thinking, why bro, why’re you doing that? Wondering, should he take down the brother? Decided, no, what was the point?

‘In politics,’ said Dr Kiambu ‘there are always enemies. Some of these will want to kill you. Myself I believe in the case of dictators this is a good thing. The killing. This is what should happen in Zimbabwe, yes? Many years ago they should have shot Mugabe.’

He lined up a range of single malts on the counter top:
Glenmorangie
. Speyburn. Ben Nevis. Laphroaig.

Laphroaig, the only one Mace recognised.

‘You would agree, about Mugabe? Such a good leader in the beginning. But he gets money, he gets power, a new young wife, what is to stop a man when he has these things?’ Kiambu held up between his thumb and index finger an AK47 round. ‘This. This is the friend of the ordinary citizen. You would agree? When the man becomes a monster then pow, finished, the saint kills the dragon.’ He stood the bullet next to a photograph of a woman and two teenage girls. ‘Who was that saint?’

‘Saint George,’ said Pylon.

‘I should not forget.’ Kiambu set a row of four glasses before Mace and four in front of Pylon. ‘It is important you try each one to choose what you want to drink. Myself I drink Ben Nevis.’ He poured a tot for Mace and Pylon, a triple for himself. ‘For me it is the vanilla and orange. Por favor, please, taste it.’

They did. Mace thinking if there was vanilla and orange in there it was hidden. Good smooth Scotch, though. You could settle in with this for a winter’s night. Not quite the drink in thirty degrees and high humidity. A beer would’ve been better, but the doctor was on a victory roll.

Kiambu picked up the Glenmorangie. ‘This is my second choice. My colleagues will not drink anything else. But some of them are bush monkeys so this is no recommendation. Try for yourself. Also you will taste the vanilla.’ He poured. ‘Bom.’

Pylon said, ‘That’s it, doctor. That’s the one.’

Kiambu smiled. ‘You would have friends in our cabinet.’

Mace couldn’t tell the difference. Why bother, it was hellish good anyhow.

‘What I have difficulty with understanding,’ said Kiambu, uncapping the Speyburn, ‘is that there are people that want to kill me. Why I do not know. I mean why I have this difficulty with understanding it. All my life people have been shooting at me to kill me. This is what happens in war. But then the war stops but the people do not want to stop shooting at me.’ He poured a shot into their glasses. ‘This one you will notice is more sweeter. Like honey. Also very very good, but not for my palate.’

Mace could taste the sweetness, decided this suited him better than any of the others although he sipped the Laphroaig out of politeness.

‘Please, gentlemen. Let me guess which one you prefer. Mr Buso I have no doubt is a Glenmorangie man. Yes?’ Pylon nodded. ‘Mr Bishop I would say is Speyburn.’

Mace grinned. ‘How’d you guess?’

‘It was simple. With the first two, there was a little tightening in your lips. Same with the Laphroaig. With the Speyburn,
nothing
. Am I right?’

‘Spot on.’

‘Then.’ Kiambu gave them triples of their choice.

Mace said, ‘Some ice perhaps?’

‘Ah, Mr Bishop…’ He shook his head. ‘You are not a whisky drinker. Ice will stop the flavours from coming out.’

Mace shrugged.

‘But you are a guest and this I will honour.’ He took a tray of ice blocks from the bar fridge. ‘Please, help yourself.’

While Mace did, Kiambu brought out Montecristos in cellophane wrappers.

‘I suppose what it is difficult for me to understand after this afternoon is my friend John Webster. For ten years we have done business, I would even say he was a friend. We are both soccer fans. He has slept here in my house. He has invited me to his fine house in Scotland. Together we have visited the distilleries. We have had these lovely times, he and myself.’

While the doctor spoke, Mace broke the wrapper, slipped out the cigar and slid it back and forth beneath his nose.

‘This afternoon at our lunch he asked why did I not come again this summer to catch trout in his streams? I said, yes, why not? I was pleased. I was happy about this possibility. But he was going to kill me. He could sit here and look at me and know I would be dead tonight. Pah! What sort of man is this, I ask you?’

Dr Kiambu contemplated his cigar, cut the end off, passed the snippers to Pylon.

‘I find this behaviour beyond my belief.’ He shook his head. ‘What has he to gain? The guns. The diamonds. My ransom. What is this worth? A droplet. Over the years there would be much more. I was a good contact for him. Here in the country, but outside too. John Webster did not know everybody.’

Kiambu clicked up a flame on a heavy gold lighter, sucked until the cigar burned. He blew out a stream of smoke. Waited while Pylon and Mace went through the ritual. ‘Shall we sit?’

The chairs were leather, deep, would not have been out of place in the foyer of a five-star hotel.

‘Sometimes I believe we know so little of what it is that is going on. We walk into someone else’s agenda and things happen that appear to be completely without meaning. For that someone it is all naturally logical, this game they are playing. For us it can be strange, it can be dangerous. It can be deadly.’ He sipped at his whisky. ‘Myself I would not have thought this of my friend John Webster.’

He drew on the cigar, sending the smoke up at the chandelier.

‘And you two gentlemen. Strangers until this afternoon. I could say strangers even now because what do I know about how you have lived? But you have saved my life.’

A silence settled. Mace smoked, then rolled the scotch around his mouth. He considered contacting Isabella. Wondered what she’d known of John Webster?

Dr Kiambu broke into his thoughts. ‘Bom. Please, gentlemen. Perhaps we should call this the end of the night?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Sim, yes. It is after ten o’clock. If you do not mind I will drive you to the hotel.’

Mace took the rest of his whisky in a single swallow. Felt the weight of the diamonds against his hip. Hell, after the peri-peri crab, the French Chablis, the scotch, he could understand the man’s need to sleep.

In his hotel room Mace spilled the stones from their pouch onto his bed, divided the heap in half.

Said, ‘That’s your lot. Just in case.’

‘Just in case what?’

‘Kiambu sends heavies round to get them back.’

‘He won’t.’

‘You can be so sure?’

Pylon said, ‘I think you’re being paranoid,’ - funnelling his share back into the pouch.

‘Not a bad thing to be in this country it would seem,’ said Mace. ‘A nightcap?’

Pylon considered, shook his head. ‘Nah, I won’t. Enough excitement.’

Alone, Mace uncapped a beer from the minibar and sat on the edge of the bed, suddenly exhausted. The sort of exhaustion that wasn’t tiredness but anger at John Webster. At why couldn’t he have let the deal happen without the duplicity? At why the goddamned hell he had to be a greedy bastard? Always there was someone out to score. Never content to take a cut, wanting it all. And when that happened the world turned nasty. He shuddered, recalling the click of the misfire. That could’ve been Pylon gone. For a heap of stones. Mace rolled the diamonds beneath his palm, thinking, he’d not thought about Pylon being killed before, or himself for that matter. A prospect that’d been a real possibility with each deal they’d floated in the old days. There were times they both could have taken a bullet. But he’d not stopped to think about it then. Not for an instant. Certainly not gone maudlin. He grabbed a handful of the stones, let them drop from his fist one by one. Pretty enough. Although in a heap of gravel you’d have to be a prospector to find them all. Blood diamonds. Three deaths written against their record in one afternoon, and how many before?

He sighed, said aloud, ‘You’re getting past it, Mace. These are an old man’s thoughts’ - and flicked the unlock on his cellphone. He thumbed to the call register.

A missed call from Francisco. At international rates not worth a call back.

A missed call from Mo Siq. Ditto. Let alone that Mo wouldn’t appreciate being woken at what would be going one a.m.

A missed call from Captain Gonsalves. Nothing there, Mace reckoned that couldn’t be dealt with back home. Probably to tell him they’d arrested the woman.

Nothing from Isabella which puzzled and disappointed him. Usually she’d have rung back. Especially given the urgency of his messages.

In the inbox a message from Oumou: ‘Let me know you’re okay.’ He replied straight off: ‘Everything fine. See you tomorrow afternoon.’

And one from Isabella. ‘After standby for two hours now on the New York flight. Had to go urgently. Paulo will contact you. Talk to you soonest. Love you babe.’

Love you babe!

In all this time she’d never said anything like that, let alone written it. Getting soft with the years. He smiled. Sentimentality got even the hard cases. He keyed in a message: ‘Webster pulled a move. His last one. Trust the diamonds are what they’re supposed to be.’ The moment she switched her phone on and that came through, she’d be dialling him. With a bit of luck he wouldn’t be in the air.

Mace finished the beer and stretched out on the bed. He closed his eyes, fell asleep in his clothes, the light on.

His phone woke him at seven-thirty. He came up groggy, for a moment unsure where he was. Light and heat flooded the room. Mace groped for the phone vibrating across the bedside table, in the movement caught the reek of sweat from his clothes and grimaced. Saw the cluster of diamonds he’d heaped into an ashtray, the empty beer bottle. Gonsalves’ name on the screen.

‘Captain,’ he said, his voice croaky, his mouth dry and sour. He swung his legs off the bed and sat upright. Again the sweaty release of his body odour.

‘I left a message,’ said Gonsalves. ‘I expect you’d have got to it one day.’

‘It’s seven-thirty. You woke me.’

‘Eight-thirty.’ Gonsalves paused. ‘Monday morning. Everybody’s on the job, hangover or not. You got a hangover, Mr Bishop?’

Mace wiped his hand over his face, his skin bristly, sticky with perspiration. ‘I’m in Luanda,’ he said. ‘But don’t let it bother you.’

‘I won’t. Luanda, hey. Nice place before the war. I had family there. Even spent a Christmas with them, 1969 or ’70, long before the shit started. From what I hear it’s buggered now.’

‘Totally.’

‘Ja, well, what can you say?’

Mace said nothing.

Gonsalves said, ‘The reason I phoned is we have two bodies found on the Atlantis dunes. No ID. One male. One female. Male’s about two metres tall, eighty-five kilos, thin sandy hair going grey, mid-fifties probably.’

Mace thought, why’re you telling me? Started to say, ‘What’s this got …’ but Gonsalves talked him down.

‘Give me a minute, okay? Just listen. Female about one eight, say weighing sixty, sixty-five kilos, hair dark, styled in what they call a bob, I would guess about ten years younger. Male’s dressed okay but nothing special. Female’s more classy. Expensive-looking clothes. Male shot in the chest. Female shot in the head between the eyes. Female dead about fifteen hours before the male.’

Mace said, ‘Shot in the head?’

Gonsalves said, ‘Ah, the man’s not so babalaas. My thoughts too, Mr Bishop. Where’d I seen this type of shooting before? I asked myself.’

‘You’ve got the chick?’

‘Negative, no. She’s gone. Vanished without trace. What we got at the Llandudno place was sweet fanny. Everybody done a runner.’ He paused and Mace heard paper tearing. ‘Why I’m ringing you specifically is because near the twosome in the dunes we found a cellphone. Only local number in it is yours. This one I’m phoning. Could be clients of yours? What I’m gonna do is phone you, see if you recognise the name.’