Payback - A Cape Town thriller (5 page)

‘Softly, ma puce,’ said Oumou. ‘They are sore.’

‘Why?’ asked Christa.

‘Someone hurt them,’ Mace said.

The kitten opened its mouth, red as a wound, silent.

All the drive home down the peninsula, Christa didn’t say a word.

‘I’ll drop you,’ Mace said as they waited for the security guard to roll the gate back manually to let them in. For three days the
electronics
had been faulty. The man took his time, smiling at them, waving at Christa like there was no hurry in his day. Mace gritted his teeth but kept from saying anything.

‘You can’t have coffee?’ said Oumou.

Mace shook his head. ‘A meeting.’

‘With that man and his boy?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘This is not your work, to give them protection.’

‘It’s a favour. I owe him.’

Oumou didn’t reply, not looking at him either as they drove through the gate. Lavender Mews: neat white duplexes, BMs, SUVs, station wagons lining the pavements, toys left out on the front lawns, flowers bright in the flower beds. A street of identical townhouses, theirs in the middle of the row. A box between boxes, Mace thought of it. Spruce and clean and sanitised. Except their house had no flowers and the grass needed mowing. The sort of detail he didn’t see. The sort of home neither of them wanted.

‘I do not like that house,’ Oumou said, getting out. ‘I have a bad feeling.’

‘We’ll talk later,’ said Mace, popping the boot to pick up the box of kittens. ‘Just think about it. About what it could be.’

‘For me I do not have to think about it.’

Five minutes later Mace was thinking about it, about how the hell he was going to convince Oumou on this one. She wanted to move, he wanted to move, get out of the suburbs. This was the opportunity. Except she wasn’t seeing it. She wanted to build a concrete, glass and chrome number.

He pushed the thought away. More worrying, what had eaten at him all the way home, was the call to Oumou’s
cellphone
. He drove out of the neat streets into the Main Road heading for the Blue Route highway, the mountain chain hazy against the sky. Had to be Sheemina February. Why he couldn’t say. Just a feeling this was how she operated. Had to be she’d found out his name.

The on-ramp opened into three lanes and Mace pushed the Spider over the speed limit, flashing cars that didn’t move out of the fast lane. Had to be she had someone inside the cellphone service providers to get the number, not just his number but his wife’s. With the right contacts, anybody’s phone number was only ten minutes away. No reason Sheemina February didn’t have the right contacts. If one call had given him the number behind the call to Oumou, two calls could’ve got her to Oumou’s phone.

Up Wynberg Hill Mace thumbed through to Matthew’s
number
. He came on sounding like he’d pulled a bunch of dead kittens off a wall.

‘You been in touch with Sheemina February since our meeting?’ Mace said.

‘She-Sheemina?’ - Matthew’s voice rising through the syllables, surprised.

‘All I need is yes or no.’

‘N-no,’ he said.

Ducky Donald shouted in the background. ‘When’re you pitching, Mace? You’ve got obligations here.’

He told Matthew to tell his father thanks for the reminder, he’d be there shortly. But the traffic was slow down Edinburgh Drive through the Claremont S-bends and Newlands Forest. During the crawl Mace dialled the cellphone number used to call Oumou, found out it belonged to a woman who’d had her phone stolen the previous week.

‘Off my office desk,’ she said. ‘You can’t turn your back for a minute. Anywhere.’ She laughed. ‘Insurance paid out and I got an upgrade. That’s how things work these days.’

He said, ‘Sounds like a win-win situation’ - and they both laughed. Added a new dimension to Sheemina February though. Always assuming it was her. Which he did.

The traffic eased on Hospital Bend, Mace working the Spider across four lanes, the revs up into the sweep at the top, the city opening below and the mountain grey behind. This was the city he wanted. Forget the suburbs, the townships, the shacklands. Sheemina February, he said aloud, I’m going to get your number.

By the time Mace pulled the Spider into the curb outside the club, the motormac’s shop was closed, likewise the second-hand dealer. Only sign of life was a black guy settling to a meal of fish and chips in a doorway. He watched Mace walk over.

‘You work for Cuito?’

The man grinned. ‘My name is Dr Roberto from Luanda at your service. I am here all night.’ He wiped his hand on his
trousers
, holding it out. They shook.

‘A medical doctor or something else?’

‘General practitioner.’ Dr Roberto plopped a chip into his mouth. ‘Excuse me, I am very hungry.’ He followed the chip with a portion of fish. When he’d swallowed, said, ‘My training was in Cuba. But I am not here. I do not exist.’

‘Like Cuito.’

The two men laughed. ‘Like Cuito. It is very sad.’

Mace pulled out a fifty, handed it to him. ‘I never visited Luanda. From the photographs I’ve seen it looked like a beautiful city once.’

Dr Roberto sighed. ‘For me it was always broken. All my life there has been the war.’ He went back to his fish and chips.

‘You let me know if there’s anything I should know.’ Mace turned towards the club. ‘Any time of the night.’

‘I have your phone number Mr Mace. Cuito has informed me what you want.’

Inside Club Catastrophe, Pylon, Ducky Donald, and Matthew stood in the dance zone drinking from bottles of beer. Not a trace of the kittens but some smear marks of blood on the walls. Pylon held up his hand in greeting. Ducky Donald smirked as Mace
registered
the blood.

‘Mattie’s idea,’ he said. ‘In memoriam.’

‘You’re opening tonight then?’ Mace took the beer Matthew uncapped.

‘Why not? What’s to stop us?’

Mace caught Pylon’s eye. ‘Maybe you can explain it to him. Slowly.’

Pylon stepped back to rest his elbows against the bar counter. ‘I already have. Didn’t change the way the world spins.’

Ducky Donald put his arm round his son’s shoulders. ‘Accept it guys. This’s the modern age. The ravers wanna rave. You can’t let them down. We’re opening. Hasn’t even been a bomb scare yet.’

Mace took a mouthful of beer, the taste in his mouth gave it the taste of iron. ‘Okay. You’re set on this, we have no option.’

‘That’s how it is, my brother.’

Mace shook his head. ‘You’re wrong, Donald. You’re wrong in forcing this.’ He and Pylon headed off to take a look round the premises.

‘Not the sort of words would’ve been spoken by the gung ho Bishop I used to know,’ he called after them.

Out of earshot Pylon said, ‘We haven’t got the guys for this. We’re stretched.’

Mace didn’t respond.

‘Putting a blanket down’s going to cost us big time.’

‘You’ve got another suggestion?’

Pylon grimaced. ‘I’d known it would be like this, I’d have told Ducky Donald where to put his AKs.’

Behind the dance floor they found a chill room and toilets with skylights onto a service lane. What passed as burglar bars weren’t going to stop a pipe bomb being lobbed in. Weren’t going to stop anybody getting in if they wanted to. Nor was a backdoor onto the room Matthew used to store his booze stocks. Might have a security grille but a tyre iron would’ve sorted that in less than thirty seconds, Mace reckoned. Also, with all the walls painted black, any packages left lying around were going to disappear into the shadows. Because shadows were everywhere. Somebody managed to sneak a four-, five-pound parcel around the pat search they could put it down in a corner, walk right out, nobody’d know anything until the boom. Above the club was empty office space, above that an attic. The floors between were wooden boards, some creaking like it wasn’t a good idea to stand on them. In a broom cupboard Pylon found a trapdoor; you opened that you could see how Ducky Donald was thinning on top. Pylon slid it back into place, dusted his hands.

‘Nice of Ducky. At the time, choice between this and the Arab gun runner, I’d have taken the Arab.’

Mace looked down on Dr Roberto finished with his fish and chips, warming his hands round a steaming mug. He had somewhere sorted when it came to take-aways.

Pylon joined his partner at the window, said, ‘You think we should get the place swept. Maybe they stashed a bomb while nailing the kittens?’

‘To be on the safe side, yes. Personally I doubt it though.’

‘You know that guy?’

‘Medical doctor. Doing reconnaissance for us.’

‘We’ve employed him?’

‘Him and that car-guard Cuito.’

Pylon rubbed a hand over his face so hard Mace could hear the beard rasp. ‘You shouldn’t have asked me first?’

‘Should’ve,’ he agreed, heading for the staircase. ‘Look at them as casuals. Casuals didn’t need a partner’s consent in our articles of association.’

‘Mace.’ How Pylon said the name was meant to stop Mace in his tracks. It did. He came up. ‘We don’t play matters that way. Never have that I can remember. And no need to change either.’ They stared at one another, twenty years of history in the contact. ‘If you’d asked me I’d have said do it, now I wonder what’s going on here? Now I think, hey, Mace didn’t tell me where he was for those two extra days in New York. Hey, seems Mace took a flight to Jozi three weeks back that I don’t know the reason for. Hey, Saturday afternoon Mace didn’t answer his cell, and Oumou didn’t know his whereabouts. All these things are not in my understanding of Mace. In my understanding of Mace he’s clinical. Efficient. Seems to be without feelings sometimes. Most times. But he doesn’t go behind my back. See where I’m going? Next thing we’ve got two aliens on the payroll.’

‘COD basis.’

‘Doesn’t matter. What matters is this other thing going on here. Underneath. This thing where Oumou phones me, asks if I’ve noticed something odd about Mace. Like what? Well, like he’s angry. More specifically he’s not playing with his daughter. Not playing with his wife either I would imagine. Without being told this, you understand. Just taking an informed guess.’

He let a silence fall. Mace let it lengthen. Eventually, said, ‘It’s nothing.’

‘I don’t think so. I think it’s something. You asked me to guess I’d say it was a woman.’

Mace snorted a laugh. ‘You’d be way off. Dead wrong.’

‘I don’t think so. I’d say you saw Isabella in New York.’

‘You can think what you like. I’m saying you’re wrong.’

Pylon kept up the glare, a small muscle working below his lower lip, as it did when he was irritated. ‘Alright. Okay, bru.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Now’s not the time. But we must talk. I need to know what’s happening.’

Downstairs father and son were cracking their third beer. Pylon and Mace declined the offer.

‘You figured out how you’re gonna keep Mattie safe?’ Ducky Donald put the bottle to his lips and sucked hard.

‘It’s not about keeping anyone safe,’ said Pylon. ‘It’s about whether we get to spot the guy with the bomb before it blows.’

‘Not good enough,’ said Ducky Donald. ‘You’re the hot shots, and that’s not hot.’

‘At short notice the best we can do is have Pylon and me here,’ Mace said. ‘We want to thank you for this opportunity, Donald.’

Ducky Donald smiled at the jibe. ‘Keeping you from better things?’

‘We have a business to run.’

‘Looking after old dames on surgical safaris! That is some business, Mace. That is milking the rich and famous. Where’s the fear margin, huh? Where’s the excitement? Good morning Mrs Vanderbilt. How’s the nip’n tuck healing? Ready to go watch the rhinos yet?’ He mimicked the two men picking subserviently among their
facelift
clients. Admittedly, Mace acknowledged, not an awe-inspiring prospect, but good business nonetheless: chaperone them in from New York, Los Angeles, wherever, babysit the op and recovery, take them game-viewing while the bruising disappears. ‘What’s with you guys?’ Ducky went up to Pylon, clasped a hand round his bicep and gripped. Pylon, not the smallest of men, clamped a hand over Ducky Donald’s and pulled him off. Ducky staggered back a pace. ‘You get a kick out of jacking off the larneys? Don’t worry Sandra we’ll watch your back. Keep the paparazzi away.’ He turned from Pylon to Mace. ‘That’s not a business. That’s trading on the paranoid.
Hyping
up the neurotic. Easy money, guys.’ He took another mouthful of beer. ‘What we’ve put on your plate is real stuff. The sorta thing you grooved on.’

Fear. Destruction. Blood. Death.

The history Mace didn’t need to replay. He circled the room wondering if Matthew’s bouncers were good at the pat down, said, ‘You got it Ducky. Our business doesn’t run to club security.’

‘Does now.’ There came across his face the self-satisfied smirk that used to rile Mace. Still did. ‘So work out a strategy.’

Mace was about to tell him the strategy was wait-and-see, when Matthew’s cellphone rang. He mouthed at them Sh-Sheemina February, put the instrument to his ear.

‘I wa-wasn’t gonna ph-phone you,’ he said, and listened.

‘I’ve no n-need to see-ee you.’

He listened to more of her story.

‘It’s a f-free country,’ he said. ‘L-like you told us’ - pressed the disconnect. ‘Sh-she’s outside. Com-ing in.’

‘She’d better not,’ said Ducky. ‘This’s private property.’

Matthew didn’t respond.

Sheemina February was alone, sans briefcase, sans headscarf. A striking woman with a presence, to Mace’s way of thinking. Took guts to walk in there. She ignored the men, ran her gaze over the black walls and the gothic images. If she saw the blood stains she gave no sign.

Said, ‘Pathetic, Matthew. Childish.’

‘You some kind of connoisseur?’ said Ducky Donald, bristling into the beam of a spotlight.

She didn’t rise to him. Said straight to Matthew, ‘What’ve you decided?’

He put a hand up against the wall to lean, nonchalant. ‘I-I already sa-said.’

‘Your final word?’ When Matthew said nothing, Sheemina February turned to Mace. ‘Mr Advisor, this is what you’ve advised him?’

‘You know my name,’ Mace said, ‘use it.’