Killer Country (34 page)

Pylon, palms down, felt the heat over the coals, said, ‘This’s mighty fine.’

‘I reckon,’ said Mace, giving the nod to the Obed Chocho jibe. Took a plate of sausages and lamb chops from the table, stripped off the foil covering. Gave Pylon a dish of ribs in marinade.

They laid the meat on the grid.

‘Has to be Sheemina February, doesn’t it?’ Pylon licking sauce from his fingers. ‘Not bad. This one of Oumou’s specials?’

‘Deep desert recipe.’

‘Nice.’ He swigged the last of his beer. With tongs repositioned some of the ribs.

‘Your money’s on her?’ Mace picked up his beer.

‘Isn’t yours?’

‘Probably.’

‘Think of it.’ Pylon shifted square on to Mace. ‘The guys are dead two days, she’s head of Zimisela Explorations. Even gets airtime for the announcement. Has to say something.’

‘That she manipulated it? Even the judge’s death?’

‘Has to be.’

Mace finished his beer, put the empties on the table.

‘Treasure’ll freak at that,’ said Pylon. ‘You bin empties. Don’t leave them littering the place.’

‘Our domain,’ said Mace. He grinned, fiddled with his tongs at the coals, spreading the heat.

‘Myself,’ said Pylon, ‘I believe she knew their connection, Obed and the judge. Somehow she’d worked it out ‘n sidled up to Chocho.’

‘It’s possible. Knowing her.’

‘For sure. Comes over all sharp mover ‘n shaker to impress the darkie meanwhile she’s putting together the leads. Writing contracts to sew things up. Should something happen to Obed Chocho or the judge, heaven forbid.’

Fat sizzled from a split sausage. Mace moved it to the side.

‘Pork sausages, I don’t know.’

‘Don’t know what?’

‘If it’s best to prick them. You don’t prick they burst, you do you lose the juice.’

‘I prick,’ said Pylon. ‘One small hole is enough.’

Mace opened the cooler box, took out two bottles of beer. Uncapped them, handed one to Pylon.

‘Something I do reckon, the mining magazines came from her. Part of her grand plan.’

‘She did that she did everything else.’

‘I’m not arguing.’ Mace tipped back two swallows of beer. ‘Years ago, in the camp, we should’ve done ourselves a favour, had her shot.’

They moved a couple of paces away, out of the smoke. 

Pylon saying, ‘Always she’s stirring the shit. You can just see it: once the paperwork was done, stuff had to start happening otherwise what was the point?’ He reached down, extracted Cat2’s claws from his jeans. ‘Maybe didn’t happen the way she thought. But she got the result.’

Mace stuck a fork in the split sausage, lifted it off the grid. Clicked his fingers to call the cat, broke off small pieces and cooled them. Cat2 curled about his legs, giving her strangled whisper. He dropped the sausage bits on the patio.

“N there’s squat we can do.’

‘Unless we figure an angle.’

‘Pah!’ Mace turned the ribs to even the browning. ‘Fat chance.’

Crouched among a cluster of boulders, Spitz looked down on the house. He’d watched the black Merc arrive: Pylon, a pregnant woman, a girl get out. He could see Pylon and Mace now at a Weber cooking meat. The girl and Mace’s daughter on loungers beside the pool, reading. No sign of the pregnant woman and the woman Oumou.

He smoked a menthol, considering his options. Go away, come back later. Sit it out, watching them have their fun. His backside getting stiff and sore on the damp ground. This was not an option. Not where it stank of urine. Was littered with broken glass, tins, bottle necks, stompies. He ground out his cigarette among the butts.

On a day such as this. A Saturday. He thought of JB’s. The beautiful people coming in for eggs florentine, tall lattes. His people. His city. Not this place under the mountain. The mountain always over everything.

Spitz stood, eased the cramp out of his muscles. Decided waiting was what he did. Sometimes waiting was most of the job. You got on the job you didn’t leave it. That was the way he operated. He stretched. Except no point to waiting where bergies and derelicts wasted their lives. Her studio would be more comfortable.

Only he needed the Browning too. A situation like this there could be difficulties. The necessity of self-defence being one.

Pylon said, ‘Pumla tells me this joke last night. Something she heard at school and wants to know why’s it funny.’

‘I know why.’ Pumla indignant, not looking up from her book.

Christa saying, ‘We’re not stupid.’

Mace and Pylon laughed.

Mace said, ‘You better tell your mothers the meat’s cooked.’

‘Burnt, you mean,’ said Christa. ‘I can smell it.’

‘It’s juicy,’ said Mace. ‘Pink and tender.’

‘Yuk,’ said Pumla.

‘Black and crisp, probably,’ said Christa.

The girls heading indoors.

‘The joke?’ said Mace.

‘Right.’ Pylon stacked sausages onto the plate. ‘The traffic cops’ve mounted a safety check one night on a highway. Pulling over all the cars. A sort of Arrive Alive thing.

‘So this traffic cop walks up to a smart Jetta. Black car, tinted windows, new model. He can see two young guys in the front seats. The window comes down, zzzzs. The young guys are both buckled up.

‘The cop’s impressed. “Hey, guys,” he says, “you’re the lucky ones tonight.” Tells them Arrive Alive’s running this surprise reward, they’ve won five thousand bucks for wearing seatbelts. He’s got this envelope bulging with big notes in his hand, gives it to Sipho, the driver.

‘“Yo, wow,” goes Sipho. “That’s so cool, I’ve never won anything before. This’s magic.”

‘“So what’re you gonna spend it on?” says the traffic cop, all friendly, doing good PR for the department.

‘“I’m gonna buy a driving licence,” says Sipho. “Be legal.”

‘“No, china, china, china,” says Hendrik, in the passenger seat, “what’re you saying chommie?” He leans across to speak to the traffic cop. “Don’t listen to him, sir officer, he always tries to be funny when he’s drunk.”

‘The traffic cop’s getting a squinty look on his face.

‘Sipho’s saying, “I’m not drunk. Strues, officer, you can test me.” Running his words together.

‘This wakes Ravi who’s been sleeping on the back seat. He pops up, sees the cop and groans, “Oh shit, I told you guys. You gotta keep off the highways in a hot car. There’s always roadblocks.”

‘The traffic cop shines his torch in the back, checks out Ravi, sees bloodstains on the headrest from the hijacking.

‘Before he can do anything there’s knocking from the boot and a voice calls out, “Please tell me, buti, are we over the border yet?”

‘Now the cop’s got this frown on his dial. “My brother,” he says to Sipho, “seems we’ve got a little problem here.”

‘Sipho says, “I can explain.”

‘“For sure,” says the traffic cop. He puts out his hand, palm up. “This is a good explanation.”

‘Sipho says, “How much?” starts counting the notes into the cop’s hand. When he gets to five thou, the cop says, “Is that all?”’

Pylon waited.

Mace said, ‘Ja, okay.’

‘State of the nation,’ said Pylon. ‘Geddit?’

‘Sure.’

Pylon covered the dish of sausages with foil. ‘What’s with you and Pumla you can’t see the joke?’

Spitz followed a path away from the boulders that looped through a stand of Port Jacksons down to the street where he’d left his car. A well trodden path. Surprising thing was not meeting anyone. This time of day, he supposed, the scavengers were out scavenging. 

The street was empty, too. Except he could hear voices from behind the garden walls. People laughing. Settling down to lunch. The shrieks of children playing. The walls high and electrified, tall trees hiding the houses. It was better this way.

He slipped into the Golf, sat looking down on the city: the green block of the park. Wondered why he’d never taken a walk through it. What he’d liked about Europe’s cities were the parks. The people in them: sitting on benches, reading, talking. On the grass white girls, so white you could see through their skin to the veins, faces up to the sun like they were worshipping.

All this time in the city he’d never been in the park. Not been up the mountain either. But he had no urge for that. Or to a beach. Not his scene either.

He ate a salami roll bought at a German deli, drank off a bottle of sparkling water. Smoked a menthol.

From under the seat took out the pistol, from the glove compartment, the silencer. Screwed it to the nose. Checked the clip was fully loaded, buried the gun in a deep pocket. The problem with a can it made the barrel so long, awkward to conceal in a windbreaker.

He brought out the razor, opened it, ran his thumb lightly along the blade. Sharp enough to shave with. As men had, maybe a century ago, looking at the pearl inlay. Wondered where Sheemina February had bought it. And why? Why it was important to her for this job. A woman with strange ideas, even offering him an interesting prospect. Something to look into. He folded the blade into the handle, slipped the razor into his pants pocket. Thinking about it Sheemina February was everywhere. The things she knew.

She’d said to him, ‘Getting in is easy. The house below has a path up the side. All overgrown. When you’re on it nobody can see you. Maybe once it was a public path to the mountain, now not even bergies know it’s there. On the street there’s a gate, more like a door. It’s not locked. Just walk in, climb the steps, push through the hedge plants when you reach the house. There you are.’

‘How do you know about this pathway?’ he’d asked.

She’d taken off her shades, stared at him with her ice-blue eyes. ‘Because I do, Spitz. Because these are the sorts of things I know.’

Spitz fired the engine, drove slowly down to the street with the door onto the mountain. He positioned the Golf for an easy exit. Left the driver’s side unlocked.

The garden door had swollen in the rain but gave at his tugging. He stepped through, pulled it closed, paused. The afternoon did not pause with him. No hush to the insects and the birds. No dogs suddenly barking. Spitz started up the steps. The path was cool and shaded, smelt of damp. Of rotting vegetation.

He stopped twice on the climb to keep his breathing easy, his pulse down. Still the autumn heat dampened his armpits. When he came level with the top house he forced a way through the shrubbery into an arbour covered by vines, and waited. A short terrace separated him from the sliding door that Sheemina February said was the entrance to the studio. On the terrace he’d be visible to anyone glancing out of a window above.

Spitz moved quickly across the terrace. Inserted the key, turned once, twice. Gently eased back the door.

They ate in the shade beside the pool. Mace at one end of the table, Pylon the other. Oumou and Treasure side by side opposite Christa and Pumla. On the table dishes of meat, salad, putu pap with a tomato and onion sauce. Chunks torn off Oumou’s homebaked French loaves.

TREASURE: They should cut off his balls.

Helped herself to salad.

PUMLA: Ma!

TREASURE: I can use words like that. You can’t. What I don’t understand is why a bunch of men don’t track him down. 

PYLON: Exactly what Mace wanted to do.

OUMOU: Non!

MACE: Sometimes the cops can’t do it. Not enough manpower. This maniac runs around on the mountain doing what he wants to. How many’s he raped? One, that sixteen-year-old. Two that tourist. The young mother. He’s going to do it again.

OUMOU: This is breaking the law. To be a vigilante.

MACE: Sure but what good’s the law? It’s not working. If it doesn’t protect.

Cat2 leapt onto the table. Christa gently lifted her off.

CHRISTA: We’ve got a democracy.

MACE: A sort of democracy.

TREASURE: What’s democracy got us, sisi? Unemployment. Still no houses. AIDS. Orphans.

CHRISTA: In history we learnt it’s better than we had.

TREASURE: Some people wouldn’t know the difference.

Oumou glanced at Mace.

OUMOU: You are not going to do this?

Mace licked his fingers, wiped them on a paper serviette.

MACE: I went up there. If I’d come across the guy I don’t know what I’d have done.

CHRISTA: I told you Maman.

MACE: Told you Maman, what?

CHRISTA: You make us worried.

OUMOU: Because sometimes you do strange things…

PYLON: No kidding.

He grinned at Oumou. Ignoring the knife Treasure pointed at him.

OUMOU: Sometimes you think you have the only way.

TREASURE: I wouldn’t say anything, Mr Buso.

PUMLA: Ma!

OUMOU: Non. Enough. Enough. No more mountain maniac. We can enjoy this lunchtime.

Pylon finished his beer, patted his stomach.

PYLON: It’s hell in Africa.

MACE: I’ve got to tell you something. Something I didn’t know until last night.

He put his hand on Oumou’s arm.

OUMOU: What? What’s this?’

She looked at him.

OUMOU: Non, ma puce, please.

CHRISTA: Tell them, Papa. Maman, it’s the best news.

Mace stood to top up Oumou’s and Treasure’s wine glasses.

MACE: We need to toast her.

He fetched two beers from the cooler box, flipped off the caps. Handed one to Pylon.

CHRISTA: And us?

Mace looked at Treasure, got the nod from her.

MACE: A small one.

He splashed wine in their glasses.

MACE: Last night, Oumou showed me this email she got. From the Master Potters Association. She’s won their platinum award.

Treasure, Pylon, the two girls all over Oumou with congrats.

MACE: I haven’t finished. There’s a whole story with it. Stuff you wouldn’t believe they say about her.

PYLON: So where is it?

MACE: Coming up.

OUMOU: It is a small thing.

Pylon and Treasure protested.

PUMLA: Please, Oumou. We want to read it.

MACE: I’ll get the email.

Oumou caught at his clothing to stop him.