Gun Dealing (The Ryder Quartet Book 2) (26 page)

‘Spikes is OK. My friend is OK. You
can trust that one. But me you can trust, too. I don’t go to cops. You can
speak to me instead of Spikes. If you want.’

‘If you say so. But no, thanks. I
have to tell you that I don’t really trust other people. I’ve been let down too
many times.’

There was a pause. Thabethe thought
that the comment he had just made had some reference to the physical condition
he was in.

‘What happened?’

‘What?’

‘What happened? Your face. You in a
fight?’

Big Red would normally have been very
angry with anyone speaking to him like this. But there was something about
Thabethe that had begun to intrigue him.

‘Cops.’

‘How many?’

‘What?’

‘How many cops? You big man. How many
cops do that to you?’

Red was flattered. But with the
reminder of what had happened he also felt the anger returning.

‘Two cops. One of them got lucky. Big
guy. He hit me when I was distracted.’

‘Must be very big guy.’

‘What?’

‘That cop must be very big guy. If he
punched you. Must be big like you.’

‘Yes. Big guy. But he was lucky. I
could take him apart any day.’

‘Where is this happening?’

‘Westville.’

‘This cop. His name is Detective
Ryder?’

Red was shocked.

‘How the hell... how did you know...
who the hell have you been talking to…?’

‘I talk to nobody. But I know this
one cop. This cop he is the biggest cop I know. Except for one other black
detective at Durban North called Mashego. I want to kill this cop. This Ryder.
He is very bad for me...’

Red calmed down and began to see the
implications of this.

Within minutes they had shared some
experiences. Not all. Neither of them would ever do that. But they found
immediate affinity with each other in everything to do with Detective Jeremy
Ryder. Red pulled out a bottle of whisky. The drink flowed, as did the
conversation.

15.35.

The Ryders were smashed. They had
moved from beer to wine to whisky as the Sharks plunged deeper and deeper into
the abyss.

Sugar-Bear had given up, and was
cowering in the kitchen. He didn’t understand this
behaviour
at all. His owners had screamed and groaned and cursed and shouted in fury at
the television set, until they were completely and utterly exhausted.
Sugar-Bear had crept out of the room and curled up in his box in the kitchen.

The children had popped in a couple
of times and had left very quickly, despairing at the sight of their parents
behaving like out-of-control hooligans.

Finally the humiliation was over.
They had fast-forwarded through some of the more embarrassing moments in the
hope of finding some glimmer of performance from their team. There had been a
few signs of hope. Then unmitigated disaster.

They finally pulled themselves
together and decided to take Sugar-Bear for a walk. The dog forgave them,
immediately, and the three of them walked around the block.

16.10.

Big Red and Thabethe were well into
the bottle of whisky. They had swapped stories, had guffawed at each other’s
victories over the cops, and had entered a realm of bravado and recklessness
that neither of them would have entertained had they been sober.

‘I told you earlier, Skhura, that I
don’t trust other people. Because I’ve been let down too many times.’

‘Me too.’

‘But you, maybe, I can trust, hey?’

‘Me, Red, you can trust.’

‘Maybe we can do more business soon?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe you, then, should be the one I
am in contact with?’

‘You want my phone number?’

‘I was thinking that if I can trust
you then maybe you and I can be in contact.’

‘I give you my number. You give me
yours.’

They exchanged phone numbers,
clinked glasses, and downed yet another whisky.

11.45.

Nadine Salm was in Nyawula’s office
along with the Captain, Ryder and Pillay, Koekemoer and Dippenaar, and Mavis
Tshabalala. They had commenced with a discussion of Saturday’s funeral. Pillay
and Nyawula’s observations prompted an indication from all of them of their
intention to be present at the formal memorial ceremony, at a date still to be
confirmed in the coming fortnight. Mavis expressed her appreciation for the
sentiments all around.

Then the Captain brought them on to
the matter in hand. He started by telling them he had asked Nadine to come in
for an update on the various strands of her work for the unit.

‘As you all know, Nadine is
incredibly busy investigating a whole raft of cases for Brighton Beach,
Wentworth, Cato Manor, Umbilo, Point, Berea - you name it - not to mention a
few stations in the Phoenix Cluster, right Nadine?’

Nadine merely nodded and shrugged her
shoulders. Nyawula turned for a moment to Mavis.

‘I don’t know anyone quite as busy as
Nadine, Mavis. Are you sure you want to move one day into forensics?’

‘Me, I’m sure, Captain,’ replied
Mavis.

‘Actually, Captain,’ Nadine
intervened, ‘while you’re on that point, I wondered whether Mavis might like to
spend an hour or two with me this afternoon? Cato Manor have asked me to take a
closer look at a homicide that took place on their doorstep on Thursday. The
scene’s been scuffed over quite a bit since then, but I need to go out and have
a look. I’ve been promised the ballistics report by midday today, so I thought
that as soon as I have the ballistics I’d head out there at about three
o’clock. If Mavis wants to look over what appears to Cato Manor to be a fairly
straightforward hijacking scene, it might be interesting for her to check it
out with me.’

There was no need for Mavis to reply.
Her face said it all, and she was so excited she couldn’t find the words. Which
produced laughs all around. Which led to the Mavis hands-covering-face routine
they all found so endearing.

‘That’s a deal, then, Mavis,’ said
Nadine. ‘Why don’t you ride with me when we finish up here? Then we can grab a
sandwich, pick up the ballistics report, and head out to Cato Manor.’

‘Thank you, Miss Nadine.’

‘Great. Settled. Thanks, Nadine.
Anyway, colleagues, Nadine asked specifically to see us this morning to try and
pull a few threads together on a few of our own recent cases. Tell us your
thoughts, Nadine.’

‘Well, Captain, as we all know,
Detective Pillay had an interesting few days just the
 
week before last, and I’ve been thinking
how those events then in turn impacted on the events of last week. I refer
specifically to two separate incidents on consecutive days two weeks ago,
involving two separate Desert Eagles. Navi, I suspect you won’t be in a hurry
to forget one of those Deagles because you took a graze from one of its bullets
in Overport.’

‘How could I forget? I still have the
bruises, and a chunk of flesh missing,’ Pillay said, rubbing her left upper arm
more in memory than in any discomfort.

‘But you should have seen the other
guy, Nadine,’ said Ryder.

Koekemoer and Dippenaar chuckled.

‘And that was the same weapon that
had already taken out Ed Trewhella,’ added Nyawula, putting a bit of a dampener
on the levity that was building. There was
sombre
acknowledgement from all of them as they remembered the terrible blow that had
been struck only a fortnight ago with the shooting dead of their popular
detective colleague. Nadine paused a moment and then continued.

‘On the day before you encountered
that guy, Navi, on the Tuesday, you took down another guy with a different
Deagle, in Montpelier Road. But you treated him comparatively lightly, I hear.
He ended up only in hospital rather than the morgue.’

‘It’ll take a while to forget that
one, too, Nadine. I still face IPID reports on both of those cases,’ she said,
looking at Nyawula, who responded accordingly.

‘Just ensuring our cops don’t get too
tough on poor
defenceless
criminals, Detective
Pillay. IPID has to go through the motions in those two cases, too. But please
don’t let it change your methods.’

‘Thank you, Captain. Anyway, both
those guys were part of the same gang that we took down during the course of
that week, Nadine, as you know, and they both had the same fancy Deagles. Mark
XIX, titanium gold, both of them. Pretty guns. Must have been purchased as a pair,
straight out of the box.’

‘Uh-uh,’ said Nadine.

‘What?’

‘Not a pair. Those two weapons were
part of a trio. All purchased together in one
 
attractive little package a few years
ago, and that trio of guns can now all be traced to an interesting history of
gambling, drug-dealing and homicides in and around Durban over the last few
years.’

‘Take us through it, Nadine.’

‘Thanks, Captain. I start with the
guy who purchased the attractive little package of three magnums. The same guy
who Navi took down in Overport. Antonio Vietri.’ 

‘Tony Vietri.’ said Ryder and Nyawula
in unison.

‘The same,’ said Nadine.

‘He bought all three of those guns as
one package?’ asked Nyawula.

‘That’s right. Remember, Captain, ten
days ago or more, you were kind enough to call me and say that you had been
speaking to your forensics friends in Silverton? You said that our work on
cracking the GSR and DNA on Vietri, which I had been able to do only once Navi
had given him to me on a slab, enabled the Silverton guys finally to track back
on Vietri’s other
misdemeanours
over the years.’

‘You’ll remember me telling you the
same story, Jeremy?’

Ryder nodded. He remembered the
Captain over a lengthy breakfast taking him through the history of Vietri’s
involvement in
organised
crime.

‘Until then Tony Vietri had been
pretty elusive,’ Nadine continued. ‘But once we could work back from the stuff
I found on his corpse there was a string of matches thrown up in IBIS and
elsewhere.’

‘As a result of which we could piece
together a whole history of Vietri’s involvement with the underworld, going
back years,’ added Nyawula.

‘But until the guy was dead and we
could take off him the GSR and the DNA and the prints, we couldn’t match any of
the stuff that had been sitting there on the databases, so thanks to Navi...’

‘Thanks, hey, Nadine,’ interjected
Pillay. ‘But just to confirm, guys, I didn’t kill the guy because I was
lus
for
his DNA
. The bastard was about to kill me...’

‘We know that, Navi. But it was only
because you took him down that Nadine could work her magic on his corpse, and
then the floodgates opened.’

‘Dead right, Captain,’ said Nadine.
‘If you’ll pardon the expression. But it wasn’t just the stuff we could then
put together on his past murders, assaults, rapes and robberies. Whenever I’ve
had a few moments in the last week or so, I’ve tracked a bit further to look at
some of the smaller stuff our interesting
Mr
Vietri
got up to, and that took me to the two Afrikaner guys he appears to have worked
with quite closely. So closely, in fact, that he gave them each a precious
little present about three years ago. He gave each one of them one of the three
Deagles from the fancy package he had bought, and he kept the third for
himself. But what I’ve been looking into is a little more interesting than just
matching up a trio of pretty Desert Eagles.’

‘Explain, Nadine.’

‘Well, Captain, I’ve been doing a bit
of research.’

‘Really, Nadine? How unusual for
you.’

‘Thank you, Detective Ryder. Always
charming. What I mean, Captain, is that Jeremy said something interesting to me
on the phone last week after the attack on his dinner party, and I’ve been
doing some thinking about what he said to me then. Remember, Jeremy, you said
that your charming friend Themba, who despite being a cop murderer was a visitor
at your dinner parties at home and as a consequence ended up in hospital with
broken arms, told you and Navi something really interesting from his hospital
bed. Something about an incident involving
 
Sergeant Dlamini from Folweni. An incident that took place in Umlazi two
years ago.’

‘What Nadine is referring to,
Captain, is that the perp I put in Addington Hospital after gatecrashing my
party told me and Navi when we interrogated him on Friday that Sergeant Dlamini
saw off some gangster a couple of years ago in Umlazi and in the process took
his weapon off him. Dlamini, it seems, then broke a couple of Folweni police
rules and instead of turning in the gangster’s weapon on that occasion he
decided to keep it in his home as the spoils of war.’

‘The same Desert Eagle that our
Addington patient then took possession of and used to shoot Dlamini,’ said
Pillay, ‘and which he then ended up leaving on the floor at Jeremy’s dinner
party the following night.’

‘Just so, Navi. So it was that bit of
information, Captain, that got me going through various files,’ said Nadine. I
mentioned to you on the phone the day after the Ryder dinner party that we had
kept an open file on two Umlazi homicides from two years ago.’

‘Yep, so you said.’

‘Well, as I said to you then, and following
on what Navi has just said now, we linked the Deagle to the old Umlazi cases,
the Dlamini murder, and the fracas at the Ryder home. But there’s one further
thing, that we’ve only been able to put together in the last day or two.’

All of the detectives were hanging
onto her next words.

‘Deagles one, two and three were
purchased by Vietri in one package. All of them
gas-operated, with polygonal rifling. Six-inch barrels.
With Picatinny rails. All of them coming together off the same production line,
almost as if they had been stamped with consecutive badges, and all of them
titanium gold Desert Eagle Mark XIXs. Navi took Deagle number one off the guy
called Dirk in Montpelier Road. She then took down Tony Vietri in Overport, who
was carrying Deagle number two.’

‘Which
had also killed Ed,’ added Koekemoer.

‘And
two years ago Deagle number three was taken by Sergeant Dlamini off a guy in
Umlazi,’ continued Nadine. ‘A guy who must have been the third member of the
Vietri gang.’

‘A
guy called Freckles,’ interjected Dippenaar.

They
all turned in surprise to look at Dippenaar, who then clarified.

‘You
remember, Koeks, when we were talking to Dlamini on Tuesday, a few hours before
he was attacked? He was telling us about the three white guys - the three guys
that everyone used to talk about, the three guys with fancy guns in Umlazi two
years ago.’

‘
Yissus, ou broer!
That’s right. Dipps is
right, Captain. Dlamini told us all about that, and he talked about
that
Afrikaner white boy they all called Freckles
.
’

‘Koeks
and I remembered, Captain,’ said Dippenaar. ‘Once Dlamini told us that, w
e then remembered this young
Afrikaner kid who used to deal a lot there by Umlazi in the
whoonga
trade.’

‘Remember, Dipps, Dlamini talked
especially about that Freckles
oke
and the other two white guys. But he said that Freckles was the one always
there in Umlazi and also just across the river, always selling
nyaope
and always gambling ...’

‘Always showing his gun to everyone,
according to Dlamini,’ said Dippenaar.

‘Dlamini told us he ran old Freckles
out of Umlazi and they never saw him again down there,’ said Koekemoer.

‘So, Nadine,’ said Ryder, ‘according
to my friend Themba in hospital, when Dlamini ran Freckles out of town,
Freckles lost his weapon and Dlamini kept it for himself. Are we saying that
the third Deagle is the one that Vietri had given to Freckles, that Dlamini
then got from Freckles, and that Themba then took off Dlamini?’

‘And that Jeremy, at his own dinner
party, then took off Themba,’ added Nyawula.

‘Just so,’ said Nadine.

There was some fist-punching and
exclamations of approval and high-fives between the two parts of KoeksnDips,
while Ryder and Pillay paused, staring at each other as they both
recognised
at the same moment a further piece of the
puzzle.

‘But here’s another thing,’ Pillay
intruded into the levity, speaking for both her and Ryder.

They all turned to look at her for
the next piece of information.

‘Jeremy and I are now thinking about
the guy who got the bicycle spoke shoved up into his lungs, down the road from
Nomivi’s Tavern two weeks ago.’

‘They called him
Freckle-face
,’ added Ryder.

Pillay explained to the others. The
young Afrikaner known as Freckles by some and as Jannie by others had been well
known for supplying
nyaope
not only
in Umlazi, but also in the area of Nomivi’s Tavern. Until he was skewered with
a bicycle spoke. By someone who was known to be his
nyaope
supplier.