Killer Country (17 page)

This lightened his mood. Had him making a tuneless whistle up Orange along the back of the reservoir to Molteno, at the top into Glencoe coming slowly to his gate. Fifty metres off Mace pressed the remote, watched the gate roll back and stop halfway. There’d been little problems with the mechanism over the two years they’d had it. Like the chain rode off the ratchets, it could be a pain in the arse. He stopped and got out, left the car idling.

The two men came at him from the shadows, almost hesitant, the one whispering something, even sounded like his name. Mace turned at the movement, starting a pace towards them. The one held a knife, carrying it low against his thigh. The other an automatic. The one with the knife doing the whispering, telling him to lie down.

Mace said, ‘No, china, you got the wrong corpse.’

The gunman screamed at him, ‘Down, down, down’ – jamming the pistol in his ear. A quick movement, sharp and trained.

‘Make like he says, my bru,’ said the whisperer, not getting any closer. ‘No shit, no grit. Pellie’s dangerous.’

Mace smelt booze breath and the stench of sweat on the gunman, a big black with a web of veins in his eyewhites. One eye swollen.

‘Relax, guys, okay.’ He kept his eyes on the knife-wielder though, this one coloured, thin and jumpy. A twitch in his cheek.

‘Everyone’s loose, my bru. Except you.’

Mace schemed, a roll to the car door, come up with the H&K, he could take them.

Knowing if Oumou didn’t hear the alarm bleep for the garage door opening, she’d come out. The last thing he wanted. Only problem: the gap to the car was major, he wouldn’t make it fast enough. He took a pace forwards.

The big black hit him. A short punch with the gun, slamming it hard into Mace’s head. Mace going down on his knees, putting out a hand to stop from falling over. The big black following with a kick between the shoulder blades that sprawled Mace on the cobble paving.

The coloured jumped him then, landing on his back. ‘See, my bru, comply or die’ – pricking the knifepoint at Mace’s neck. At the cord of his artery. ‘Make nice and we’s away.’ The coloured laughed, running his free hand into Mace’s pockets coming up with a wallet of credit cards, a clip of notes. ‘There’s a good larney giving to the poor and needy.’ The coloured patting him down for a money belt, saying, ‘Where’s the cell, my bru? You talk, we walk.’ Saying to the black, ‘Check the car.’

Mace, tasted blood, his head pushed hard against the cobbles, watched the black lean into the Spider. Heard him mutter in Xhosa.

The coloured cut in: ‘Hey, English, my bru, talk a language.’

The black said, ‘Nokia 3410.’

The coloured shifted, kneeling on Mace, digging the knifepoint into Mace’s neck until the skin broke, blood beading at the cut. Mace tensed.

‘Larney, larney, larney. My bru that is a cheap phone. For a Mr Gentleman up here onna mountain, you behind the times. A small-change man.’

The coloured stood.

‘But we’s grateful for a contribution. My pellie and me. So we’s gonna say goodnight my larney but first we wanna see you  crawl like a motormac. Underneath the car, hey, my bru. Poke inna engine.’

Mace spat blood, said, ‘You’re dead, chinas. Both of you.’

The coloured snapped back. ‘Don’t tune me grief, my larney.’ And sliced quickly to open skin behind Mace’s ear.

Mace pushed up at the pain. The men kicking him down, kicking him while he slithered leopard-crawl under the Spider, the exhaust pipe burning across his back. When the kicks stopped, Mace heard the men laughing, heard them running off onto the mountain. For a moment he lay there, eyes closed, smelling hot oil and burnt flesh.

Mace, more troubled than angry, sat on the edge of the bath, showered, a towel wrapped round his waist, Oumou swabbing an antiseptic solution into his cuts and scratches.

‘It’s the Klett bullshit,’ he said. ‘Has to be. Got me freaked out. It’s scary.’ He paused. ‘It’s why I fell for the trick. I’m not thinking straight. I’m distracted. Two arsehole rubbishes pull a stunt like that and I fall for it. The story I warn everyone about. I don’t even consider this is what’s happening to me’ – flinching as Oumou smeared ointment on the burn across his back.

‘I tell people, the gate gets stuck someone’s jammed the track. All it takes is a stone. So sit tight. Drive off. Don’t get out the car. What do I do? I get out of the car and some useless piece of shit puts a gun in my ear. Eina.’ He pulled back.

Oumou squeezed his arm. ‘You must keep still.’

‘Being sliced’s not as sore.’

‘Of course because it is macho.’ She dabbed at the cut behind his ear. ‘This one is deeper. Maybe you need a doctor for a stitch?’

‘Not at this time of night. Pinch it closed. Tape it.’

‘This is macho.’

‘Hey,’ he turned and slid his hands round her, linking his fingers above the swell of her bum. ‘What’s with the lip?’ Opened  her wrap and caressed her belly with his cheeks, the rasp of stubble loud in his ear.

Oumou took his head in her hands. ‘Mon copain,’ she said, ‘so many times I have seen you dripping with your blood. Always it frightens me.’

Mace stood, pulled loose the fold of the wrap above Oumou’s breasts, and held her.

‘This is like it was in Malitia,’ she said. ‘Any time we could be dead. Even our home is not safe.’

Mace knew it, knew there were no words to reassure her differently. Knew he’d been suckered like a tourist. Mr Security made out a prick. He held Oumou to quiet a surge of anger and stepped out of the bath, walking her to the bed, the two of them falling in a tangle of limbs. 

In the night the wind came up. Dawn, the city woke to a cloth low on the mountain, grit in the air, an incessant howl across the houses and through the streets.

Mace took an early walk on the scrub slopes opposite his house, leaning into the wind that poured over Devil’s Peak, scoured the amphitheatre. Behind a rock not two hundred metres away he found his wallet, driving licence, credit cards scattered about. Small compensation.

He crouched there out of the wind, sheltered by the rock. Noticed then the bottle neck that’d been a white pipe. Stubbed out cigarette butts. A half-jack of brandy.

They’d sat there he realised and watched him. Watched him crawl out from under the car, remove the stone, drive into the  garage. Watched the gates roll closed, the garage door come down. Two men armed with guns and a knife watching his house from this rock.

Two men who’d crushed Mandrax tablets into a stash of dagga, lit the white pipe, passed it between them while Oumou was cleaning his cuts and bruises. Mace touched the tenderness on his cheek where he’d been hit. Grimaced at the pain.

All that time they’d sat here: finished the pipe, drunk a half of brandy, smoked cigarettes. Sitting here in the dark above the city like all was right with the world.

Two more thugs wild on the mountain. Like the mugger rolling tourists up on the plateau. Fourteen hits in two weeks. Someday vigilantes would do something about it. Hurl the bastard down Skeleton Gorge. Shoot him. Stash his body in an old mine shaft. Time was coming someone would start justice for the people.

He looked down at his house: he could see Christa swimming lengths, the movement of Oumou in the kitchen. Maybe the men had been here for days, watching. Mace clenched the wallet in his fist. It was all too easy: the trusting carelessness of people’s suburban lives.

He shifted his gaze to the city and out across the northern urban sprawl. In the hospital lay Rudi Klett shot in the head. Somewhere was the man who’d shot him. And somewhere, probably under a bridge or a flyover, were the two men with his cellphone and his small change. Luckily they’d missed the P8 Rudi Klett had thought would take care of all contenders.

Mace sighed. Sometimes it didn’t matter how careful you’d been, you hadn’t been careful enough.

He walked down the slope, entered the house through the garage. In the kitchen Oumou was talking on the landline mobile.

‘One moment, he is here,’ she said, covering the mouthpiece. To Mace she said, ‘He says he is a judge. Yesterday he phoned as well.’ 

Mace took the phone.

‘You’re a difficult man to get hold of,’ said Judge Telman Visser. ‘I have left voice messages and smses on your cellphone. I have left messages with your daughter and your wife and your colleague. I have expressed an urgency. But you haven’t phoned me back.’

‘My cellphone was stolen,’ said Mace. ‘I was mugged.’

‘Hardly a good advert. Were you hurt?’

‘Cuts and bruises.’

‘I’m sorry.’ The judge paused. ‘The thing is this, Mr Bishop. I need to confirm your visit to the farm.’

‘I’ll have to get back to you on that,’ said Mace.

‘You will be able to go?’

‘I’m not sure.’

The judge hesitated. ‘I see. I thought it was arranged…’

‘Ninety-five per cent.’

‘And now?’

‘Maybe sixty per cent.’ Mace grinned at a frowning Oumou, enjoying stringing out the judge.

‘Mr Bishop, please, it needs to be this weekend for a number of reasons. I can’t postpone it. It has become even more urgent.’

‘Judge,’ said Mace. ‘I’ll get back to you. This afternoon.’

‘Please, Mr Bishop,’ said the judge. ‘I’m counting on you.’

Mace wondered what the reasons were. What since Saturday had ratcheted the trip up a notch? But he had other things on his mind: Rudi Klett being primary.

After the judge had rung off, Mace phoned the hospital. No change in Rudi Klett’s condition: critical but stable. He got hold of Pylon next, his partner already driving into Dunkley Square.

‘We’ve got to talk,’ said Pylon.

‘Later,’ said Mace. ‘I need an hour’s swim.’

‘Uh uh. No, Mace. We must talk first. This is major stuff. Like there’s something going on.’

Mace walked onto the patio outside the kitchen, watched his  daughter climb out of the pool, lithe, supple, snatching off her swimming cap, shaking free her hair. When’d she changed from the child who’d been chubbier?

‘Give me half an hour,’ he said to Pylon, turned back to Oumou in the kitchen. ‘Last night,’ he said, ‘after we’d spoken, you went to Treasure to fetch Christa didn’t you?’

‘Oui.’ Oumou bit the end off a croissant. ‘It took half an hour that was all.’ She poured Mace coffee, held out a plate of croissants. ‘By quarter past eight we were at home.’

‘It’s dark now by quarter past eight,’ said Mace. ‘They could’ve got you.’

‘Who is this?’ Oumou swallowed, licked the butteriness off her fingers.

Mace looked at her. ‘The men who got me. They could’ve got you and Christa.’

Oumou gave a Gallic shrug. ‘This is true.’

‘Last night you weren’t so relaxed.’

‘What can we do? Tell me? What is another way? From Malitia we run to Cape Town for the safety?’ She came over to Mace, took his hand. ‘There is nowhere to run now. This is how people live in the world. In many of the places in the world. We can live here with it.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mace. He looked over at Christa drying herself on the edge of the pool. Unconcerned about the whip of the wind.

Oumou let go of his hand. ‘All that we can do is to be careful.’

Famous last words, thought Mace. Said, ‘Sometimes it doesn’t help.’

He dropped Christa off at school, Christa wanting to know all the way there about the bruise on his cheek, the plaster keeping closed the slice on his neck. At first Mace joked about walking into doors, shaving nicks, even slipping on a cake of soap in the shower. 

Christa said, ‘Yeah, right’ – scratching about in her bag, not paying him that much attention.

‘You don’t believe me?’

She shook her head, her hair swirling.

‘The truth?’

‘Papa,’ she said, ‘your truth’ll be another story. I know.’

‘I was mugged.’

Christa stopped the bag search. Turned to her father. ‘In Berlin?’

Mace loved the look of concern. The frown, the clear worry in her eyes. He opted for more of the truth. ‘At our front gate, last night, by two men.’

She gasped. ‘With a knife?’

‘And a gun. But it’s okay, alright, C. Just a random thing because I should’ve known. When the gate doesn’t slide you know there’s a problem. I should’ve realised there was a problem. I wasn’t thinking. So, a wake-up call for all of us.’ He reached over and squeezed her arm. ‘No panic.’

Mace pulled up at the school but Christa made no move to get out of the car. ‘I want to learn to shoot a gun,’ she said.

‘That’s what it’s come to,’ Mace said to Pylon ten minutes later, sitting opposite him at the long table in what they half-jokingly called their boardroom. He’d set the context, described his mugging. ‘She wants a gun. My daughter wants to shoot. Shooting means killing.’

‘She wouldn’t’ve thought about that.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

‘A kid says that after what you’ve told her, she hasn’t thought about it. She hasn’t had a chance to think about it. She’s just saying it. Pumla says things like that all the time. One day she saw my gun, the first thing she said was “Cool, can I shoot it?” Treasure goes ballistic. What’m I doing bringing guns into the house. Letting Pumla see it. Whadda, whadda, whadda. This is my job, I say. I have to carry a gun. Nothing new here but Treasure plays the gun-free card. Fewer guns, less crime. I don’t go near that argument. Pumla’s listening to all this. A couple of hours later she comes to me, she wants to see the gun. I show it to her on the promise she doesn’t tell her mother. Afterwards, that’s it, the gun doesn’t come up again. I’m talking about probably a year ago when this happened. What I’m saying is kids don’t think. Stuff happens in the moment and then it’s gone.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mace. ‘It’s more like they store it away.’

Pylon slid a copy of the morning paper across the table to Mace, folded back to the page three story on Rudi Klett, named as Wolfgang Schneider. Not a long story but enough to let the shooter know that his job needed finishing.

‘It’s going to cause some trouble somewhere,’ said Pylon.

‘They might sit it out.’

‘I don’t think so. What I think,’ said Pylon, ‘is that Obed Chocho’s riding this. I’ve been putting the pieces together.’

Mace gazed out the window at the small yard behind the house, Tami, sheltering from the wind in a corner taking a smoke break. ‘I thought Tami didn’t smoke.’

‘She doesn’t,’ said Pylon, leaning back to look. When he saw her smoking he opened the window. ‘That’ll kill you.’

‘I’m giving up,’ Tami said.

‘By smoking?’

‘My last day. Okay?’

Pylon closed the window. ‘I better get Treasure onto her.’ He turned back to Mace. ‘Look.’ Then started at the Popo/Lindiwe affair: how Popo must’ve told Obed Chocho about Rudi Klett causing Obed Chocho to order up a hit on the German to secure the development contract also do some government people a favour then thinking why stop at that when he could also get Popo out of his life, and, by accident or design it didn’t matter which, took out Lindiwe too. Which would have repercussions  with Lindiwe’s family who wouldn’t read it as anything other than a jealous husband’s revenge and want compensation. But Obed Chocho was a man of resources and would handle that too. It all stood to reason. Why else, said Pylon, had the Smits defected to the Chocho camp? Why had the police closed the file on the Popo/Lindiwe killing? Why was a .22 gun used in both hits if it wasn’t by the same shooter? That calibre not generally what your street-hired gunmen favoured.

‘Doesn’t explain,’ said Mace, ‘how a hitman would’ve known who Rudi Klett was?’

‘Maybe he didn’t have to,’ said Pylon. ‘Maybe all he had to know was what you looked like.’

‘Assuming all along that you knew where I’d gone to in the world. And who was coming back with me.’

‘Assuming,’ said Pylon. ‘That’s the missing bit.’ He stood and went to the window. Tami was no longer in the back yard. ‘I heard too Obed Chocho’s out on compassionate parole. He’s laughing. His bid’ll go through the process faster than the pages can be stamped.’

Mace thought, so much for that million-buck nest egg.

‘What stinks is I can’t see how to touch him.’

‘Get his cellphone records.’

‘I thought about that.’

‘And?’

‘It’s happening.’

‘Watch Rudi Klett.’

‘I’m going to do that,’ said Pylon. ‘Right now. Coming?’

Mace shook his head. ‘I’ve got things to do. Get a new cellphone. Go swimming.’