Of Cops & Robbers (15 page)

From the deck of his mountainside house, Daro Attilane surveys his kingdom: below, the slow curve of the vlei as it slides towards the ocean, on the horizon the mountains of the Hottentots misted back against the sky. In between, the warren and the Cape Flats with their drug dens and their gangsters, the townships and the shacklands of desperate people.

Always when Daro looks at this view he sees what can’t be seen.

‘Paradise,’ says his wife Georgina, bringing out their coffees. ‘On mornings like this.’ Georgina in exec black for her exec job in the city, managerial placements. Georgina the headhunter.

Daro doesn’t want to mention what lies in the distant haze or point out the three crack houses below them. ‘Paradise,’ he says.

They sip their coffees, side by side.

‘Good surf?’

‘The best.’

From their deck they can’t see Surfers’ Corner but they can see the sweep of the beach beyond the vlei mouth, the swells like ribs in the ocean.

‘Did you mention to Fish about …’ Georgina taking it for granted Fish would be there. Wouldn’t actually be on a job. Slacker Fish surfing, not much in the way of a care in the world it seemed.

Daro told her he was in the investigation business. Specialised in finding people. Mostly for insurance companies. Sometimes men who’d run away from their wives. Wives who’d run away from their husbands.

But she saw him as a surfer. Thirty-something, no sense of responsibility. The sort of guy would hang out on a beach at three o’clock in the afternoon checking the surf. What Daro
found in him she couldn’t understand.

‘I did mention it.’ Daro with both hands wrapped round the mug for warmth. ‘He’s going to get hold of this woman he knows, she was a drug addict. She does talks to kids now. Seems she’s got a peg leg from shooting up. Which she takes off to show them.’

‘Nice. The kids’ll enjoy that.’

‘If it scares them out of drugs, I don’t care how she does it.’

‘Daro,’ says Georgina, ‘Steffie was experimenting, it’s what kids do. We all did. It’s part of growing up. Be thankful she did it here at home, not in some club.’

‘If she liked it she’ll do it again. Not dagga but pills, Ecstasy, coke, there’s a drug store out there they can pick from.’

‘Steffie’s not like that.’

‘I don’t think so either. I just don’t want her going down that road.’ Daro glances at his watch. ‘Dammit! I’m going to be late. I’ve got a client.’ He finishes his coffee.

‘This’s good. A prospective sale?’

‘Let’s hope so.’ He kisses her, feels her hand on his cheek.

He’s halfway down the stairs, she calls out, ‘Hey, Daro, did you say anything about that gangster? The one you think’s dealing.’

He stops, looks back at her.

‘You know, the one with the number name?’

‘Seven.’

‘Him. Did you say anything to Fish?’

‘I mentioned him, once.’

‘But not to do anything.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘If Fish goes messing around it’ll come back on the kids.’

‘Fish’s not going to do that.’ At least he doesn’t think so.

The surf’s still an option but Fish’s feeling flat after talking to his ma, decides maybe not. Time for a bit of action. Work her out of his system. He fidgets around under the driver’s seat of the Isuzu, pulls out the old Z88 he inherited.

Another police gun. Licence applied for. Could take years for the cops to clear the backlog of applications.

Now, standing at the open door of his bakkie like a TV hero, Fish sticks the pistol into his belt behind his back, flops his hoody over the bulge. Slams shut the vehicle door, tweets the remote. Sets off, unhurried, down damp Sidmouth over Atlantic into Killarney, goes right at Church. Three men on the corner – Congolese, Nigerians, Rwandans – talking, catch something in Fish’s face that moves them on. Fish smiles. Wants to say, Brothers, relax, I’m not the xenophobe, a whitey’s not going to hurt you.

At Seven’s house, takes the short path to the front door. Nothing’s changed in the cesspit. He pulls the string, hears the pipes clank. Hears shuffling in the corridor behind the door. A voice says something, nothing Fish recognises as speech.

‘Where’s Seven?’ he says.

Again the alien language.

‘Just get Seven.’

The shuffling goes away, returns.

The voice says, ‘Fok off.’

This time Fish understands the drift. Says, ‘Ah, no. Don’t cause grief so early. Give him this, okay.’

‘What’s it?’

‘Money.’

A bolt slides back. A lock turns.

Fish shakes his head, sometimes you don’t even have to try.
He opens the security grille, reaches behind his back for the gun.

The door squeaks open, Fish shoulders it hard. He’s in. The scrawny gangbanger sprawled in the passageway, snarling at him, toothless. Not a pretty sight this early.

The house is a fridge, stinks of dead rats under the floorboards too. And something else, drains, toilet blowback. Fish gags. Says, ‘Jeez, you need Marvellous Maids.’

Toothless squirms away, eyes on the Z88.

Fish bends down, puts the barrel into the dental gap. ‘Which room?’

These old houses, the front door opens into a long passage with rooms off either side. A sitting room, kitchen, bathroom at the end.

Toothless points vaguely into the depths.

Fish straightens, studies the drool-glisten on the barrel. Bends again, uses the guy’s T-shirt to wipe off the spit. ‘Now look at you, you’ve pissed yourself. Must learn to hold your fluids, bru. Didn’t mommy teach you?’

Fish finds Seven in the third bedroom, sprawled on a bed, a girl in the crook of his arm, her head on his chest. A schoolgirl. Probably not sixteen. Probably should be at school.

‘Ah, Seven,’ says Fish, ‘not kosher, bru, not kosher.’

The girl screams at the sight of the pistol in Fish’s hand.

‘Who’re you?’ says Seven, hand scrabbling under the bed for hardware.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ says Fish. ‘Best leave the weaponry, hey. You don’t want a hole in your arm.’

Seven pushes the girl off the bed. She’s naked, runs shrieking past Fish. Seven glares, mouth open to show his teeth. He’s got perfect teeth, ruby studs in the front two.

‘Nice teeth,’ says Fish. ‘Falsies.’

‘Still bite,’ says Seven. ‘Love bites. What’s your case, whitey?’

‘And look at you’ – Fish pointing at his chest – ‘nice tats. A main man in the Twenty-Six gang. A main gang, hey. When’re you going to change your name?’

Seven frowning.

‘Call yourself Two or Six. Two’s good. Completely “toe”.’ Fish waving his hand across his face. ‘The Afrikaans “toe”. As in stupid.’

‘Fok jy, ’ says Seven.

The two men doing the stare, not breaking it. Seven’s eyes reminding Fish of a tuna’s: flat black. His face all bone and hollow cheeks. Men in the prison gangs no longer humans, in Fish’s reckoning.

‘Ja?’ says Seven. ‘Wha’ju wan, Mr No Name whitey?’

‘Nothing much,’ says Fish, stepping close to the bed, so close he can smell sour sheets. ‘Thing’s like this, I’ve got this picture here of you’ – he flips a folded copy of the printout at Seven. ‘Check it out.’

Seven unfolds the page. Looks at the picture. Says, ‘Not me.’

‘Don’t give me that shit,’ says Fish. ‘It’s you. I know it’s you. Guy taking this picture is Colins, the cellphone he used was mine. You’re up there, at the fort, to collect two rhino horns. Two rhino horns you stole.’

Seven laughs, his teeth moving sideways. ‘You’s looney, whitey. What you been smoking?’

‘Where’s Colins?’

‘Dunno Colins.’

‘You kill him?’

Seven gives him the hard black eyes. ‘I’ve seen yous. At the beach. Surfing with Daro the sparrow. Daro’s forum. Daro’s gonna have his wings clipped. You gotta watch out, Mr No Name. Yous don wanna be on the list as well.’

‘What list?’

‘Daro’s on a list.’

‘Whose list?’

‘Big business.’

Fish racks the pistol. ‘Where’s Colins? Where’re the horns?’

‘Strues, whitey.’ Seven makes a gun of his right hand, puts it to his forehead. ‘One time. I tell you, ek sê. Daro’s gotta watch
out. That’s what happens on the forum.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘’S not bullshit, Mr No Name. Cross my heart.’ Seven drawing the sign over the rising sun tattooed on his chest: six sun rays. Below it the number Twenty-Six either side a gun, his badge of membership in the Numbers gang, the gang that really ran the prison system.

‘Big business, what they calls organised crime. The manne think you’s a problem’ – he snaps his fingers – ‘you’s dead.’

‘Crap.’

‘Don’t believe me, nothing I can do. What the larneys say, time will tell. You’ll see. Seven’s got connections, all the way. All. The. Way. Into big business, government.’ Seven cackling. ‘Pellie-pellie with the high-ups.’

Fish lets him subside, taps at his foot with the pistol.

‘You listening?’

Seven staring at him with those tuna eyes.

‘Nod.’

Seven nods.

‘Where’s Colins?’

‘Don’t know Colins.’

‘Where’re the horns?’

‘What horns, whitey?’

‘How far you want to push me, Seven?’ Fish moves the muzzle up Seven’s leg, over the tattoos to his shoulder. Asks the
questions
again. Gets repeat answers. ‘One more time, okay, then I’m coming back with cops, forum, all the friends you don’t want to see.’ Fish puts the Z88’s stubnose next to Seven’s arm, pulls the trigger. Big, big explosion. Cordite, burnt skin, the bullet ripping through the mattress, smacking into the floor. Seven clutching his arm, rolling off the far side of the bed, howling. Swearing at Fish that he’s gonna get him. Eat his heart alive.

Fish walks out, passes Toothless standing in the doorway, drool hanging from his lips.

‘Why?’ Dr Gold wants to know of the Commander and Blondie. The question so softly asked Blondie’s not sure he heard it.

The Commander shrugs. ‘Orders.’

‘Not my orders.’ Dr Gold wheezing.

‘Yours aren’t the only orders we get,’ says the Commander.

‘Tell me again what happened.’

The Commander tells him about the planned bombing, Rictus Grin’s decision to knife the target.

‘That was unprofessional.’

Neither the Commander nor Blondie respond.

‘She was my contact.’ Dr Gold pausing to catch his breath. ‘She was a clever woman. Very thoughtful. She knew we had to talk, her people and ours. That we couldn’t go on with the war on the border, the war in the townships.’ He gazes at them with rheumy eyes, looks away, stares out the window at the lake. The water grey, cold green tinges on the mirror surface. A ferry in the distance approaching. ‘You don’t know where your orders came from?’

The Commander shakes his head.

‘These days I cannot trust anyone. Not on my side, not on theirs.’

Dr Gold wears pyjamas, is dressed in a towelling gown, his feet in slippers. He leans on the window sill for support.

Softly he says, ‘It is beautiful among the mountains, don’t you think? You can see why the Swiss feel secure. They believe they are protected by all this high rock.’ He pauses, his breath ragged. ‘When you can’t see far your world is smaller, you are content. A chocolate-box world.’ He wipes at his mouth. Turns back to confront them.

The Commander and Blondie have flown in from Cape Town
on Dr Gold’s orders.

‘I want you to tell me what happened,’ he shouted at the Commander on the phone a week back. ‘In person. I want you to tell me who ordered this. You’ll come here and tell me. And bring Blondie.’

It is ten days after the Paris hit. They watch Dr Gold, a
thinner
Dr Gold than the last time they saw him, a sick Dr Gold shuffle from the window to a chair, panting, wheezing. He takes shallow breaths, his mouth open. ‘Who gave you the order? I want a name.’

‘Not possible,’ says the Commander. ‘You know that.’

‘You are my men.’

‘We’re Security Branch.’

‘You are killing me,’ he says. ‘You and them, the blacks. Poisoning me. You both want me dead.’

Blondie glances at the Commander: what’s he talking about?

The Commander steps closer to the sick man. ‘Nobody wants you dead.’

‘You all do.’

‘What d’you mean by you all? You mean us? You mean we want you dead?’

Dr Gold shakes his head, gasping his breath back. ‘My friends,’ he says. ‘I mean my old friends in the cabinet. My brothers. The generals. They are the ones poisoning me. They have the poison, you know. They have tried it out.’ He looks from the Commander to Blondie. ‘In Angola, there on the border with the terrorists, they tried it out. When they caught the blacks they put the dust on them. In a few days they were dead.’ He tries to snap his fingers, the dry skin rasping. His fingers as soft as lizards. ‘You get weak. And then you die. Like I am weak.’ He points at a glass of water beside his bed. ‘Water. Please.’

The Commander hands him the glass.

‘They put it in my clothes. Them and the blacks. They want me dead because I know what they are doing, the cabinet
ministers
and the generals, they are selling out. Making deals with
the blacks. And for this they want my money. They need my money. They want me to die.’

Blondie’s not into this. He’s desperate for a cigarette. Can’t leave the hospital soon enough. The man’s really sick, you can smell him. Whiffs of his breath that stink of wet dog. Worse, the man’s meshuga. Paranoid. Whatever’s happened to him, cancer, stroke, hell knows what, Blondie’s not happy about hanging around a dying man.

He hears the Commander saying, ‘No one’s trying to kill you.’

Dr Gold laughing. A husky dry laugh. ‘I thought I would be safe here, in the mountains of Switzerland. But even here they come with their poison in the night.’ He stops, stares at the lake.

Blondie nods his head towards the door. The Commander lets the silence play out. Blondie taps his watch.

‘Doc,’ says the Commander, ‘we’ve got to leave.’

Dr Gold flips a hand. ‘Go.’ He looks up at Blondie. ‘Not you.’

The Commander raises his eyebrows, smiles, heads for the door of the private ward, mouthing, ‘All yours, boykie.’

‘What’s it?’ says Blondie when they’re alone.

Dr Gold beckons him closer. Blondie crouches next to the sick man’s chair.

‘Run,’ says Dr Gold.

Blondie trying not to smell the stench of the word.

‘What d’you mean run, Doc? I don’t understand.’

‘Before they kill you. Run.’

Blondie stands. ‘Okay, Doc. Thanks, I’ll do that.’ He backs away. ‘Get better, hey.’

‘I mean it,’ says Dr Gold. ‘Run.’

Outside the Commander and Blondie sit in their hire car, smoking, watching the scene. Day patients. People come to see the sick and dying. Doctors and nurses laughing. Behind the hospital a slope of houses, behind them pine trees. Back, high above it all some mountain rising into cloud.

‘What’d he say?’ the Commander wants to know.

‘Told me to run.’

‘Yeah. From who? To where?’

‘He just said, run, before they kill me.’

‘The man’s gone cuckoo.’

They smoke down their cigarettes, crush the butts.

‘You think the doc’s right about the Swiss?’

‘About the Swiss what?’

‘Feeling protected by the mountains.’

‘They sat out the Nazi war, didn’t they? In their mountains.’

‘I hadn’t thought about it that way. Or about what far horizons do, if the doc’s right.’

‘Why d’you think the bushmen hotnots smoke so much dagga? You’ve got all that space in your head, you’re going to see humans with animal bodies.’

‘I suppose,’ says Blondie, lights up. ‘You reckon he’s right about being poisoned?’

The Commander shrugs. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time a politician’s been dispatched, as we well know. But nah. I think he’s sick. Paranoid. Something’s eating his brain.’ He stops, nudges Blondie. ‘Looky there. My oh my. See who’s here.’ Pointing at a black man, hurrying into the hospital.

‘Who’s that?’

‘Jacob Mkezi. The man the doc wanted taken out. Remember?’

‘The mountain job? Those union guys in the car?’

‘The very one. Jacob Mkezi was supposed to be with them.’

Blondie blows blue exhale against the windscreen. ‘I never understood that. Why he wanted him killed.’

‘Betrayal. That’s why. He basically educates the guy, gives him a job, then Jacob lights out for the struggle. Becomes an MK commander. This pisses off the good doc. Obvious.’ The Commander opens the passenger door. ‘That’s how I see it. Would piss you off, don’t you think?’

He’s out of the car, heading for the hospital entrance. Blondie shouting after him, ‘What’re you doing?’

The Commander half-turns. ‘Stay there. Be right back. Just need to check this out.’

Blondie’s got no mind to go after him. The whole trip’s been a waste of time. But it’s on the doc’s tab so what the hell. Couple of days in Switzerland’s alright. Only thing bugging Blondie is the doc’s suggestion, run before they kill you. What’s that
supposed
to mean? Who’s the they for starters? Paranoid old coot. Completely delusional. Thinking he’s being poisoned by his own people and the terrs as well. Chrissakes. But it’s still worrying.

There’s the Commander coming out of the hospital, shaking his head. He gets in the car, laughing.

‘How about this. Jacob’s pulled up in a chair, chatting with the doc, knees to knees. No hard feelings there I’d say. The way they’re sitting they could be the best of friends, like an advert for racial harmony.’ He holds up a small Kodak. ‘I’ve even got a piccie.’

‘You got that? Did they see you?’

‘Come on! What d’you think I am?’

‘Just asking.’

‘Makes you wonder what all that business was about,
wanting
him killed. From killing to making up in a couple of years. A funny story, hey?’