Payback - A Cape Town thriller (3 page)

‘We could say no,’ said Pylon. ‘Call his bluff.’

Mace took the last concrete step into the piss-stink of the foyer. ‘We could, except Ducky isn’t. Bluffing. He’d put it out and that’d be bye bye Cape Town.’

‘Nice.’

‘Exactly. So much for old comrades. My thoughts: better to bite the bullet for two weeks, what happens afterwards is we come to an arrangement.’

‘We can do this?’

‘Egg-dancing. What we were so good at. The Pylon and Mace routine.’

Dar-es-Salaam, 1984: a house up the coast north of the city. Old colonial beach place: shuttered windows, covered veranda round three sides with French doors onto the bedrooms. A short walk off the veranda across the sand scrub onto the beach into a sea, tepid and salty.

A month they spent there, waiting, playing backgammon,
waiting
for the buyer to collect. No one around day after day after day. Occasionally a dhow sailing along the horizon. The light
pouring
down. Only fish and coconuts for food. Back in the house anti-personnel mines, assorted assault rifles, Canadian Sterlings, Mats, Madsens, a few Chinese 79s, sweating in the heat. Sufficient hardware to depose an African dictator. All of it packed neatly into rooms where once the colonials frolicked their white mischief.

Mace and Pylon were extended, their credit zippo because their middleman wanted bucks on the table. If the deal went bad they could ship the stuff elsewhere, over time. Over time was the problem. Each day increased the risk of bad guys lifting the
merchandise
without payment. The ordinance sweated. They sweated: at night the egg-dance. Until the deal went solid, and they carried payment away in three suitcases. He who sits it out sits it out. The first time they skimmed a commission.

Freetown, 1986. On the runway the weaponry being unpacked from a Hercules transport into three UN trucks destined for a warlord in the hills. When a better offer came in. Actually came steaming out of the cane fields in a Land Rover: three soldiers, one driving, two in the back toting Brazilian Urus, a man wearing a DJ in the passenger seat. DJ put down his offer in cash, US dollars, on the bonnet of the Land Rover. Mace counted it. Said to Pylon, ‘Let him have it.’ Happy to fly out on the Hercules toot sweet. Pylon unsure. They confabbed. Pylon arguing, the warlord was a source they’d supplied before. Someone who, if he stayed alive, would want guns again. Mace countered, with a call to their new arms contact Isabella they could make good in two days, three max. Both of them keeping an eye on DJ,
standing
apart, staring into the middle distance, patiently, while they weighed the pros and cons. Decided in the end to take the cash. DJ headed off, the trucks following. Hadn’t smiled once through the whole exchange.

In the air, Mace radioed the warlord that the consignment had been hijacked, they’d get back to him with new stock in two days. In two days the warlord was dead. Mace and Pylon egg-danced, diverted the new consignment whistled up by Isabella to Sierra Leone. The Mace and Pylon routine. A large wad wired to their Cayman account.

‘You guys!’ Isabella had said. ‘If it wasn’t for me you’d be dead. Or worse.’ More truth in it than Mace had ever wanted to admit, fancy footwork notwithstanding.

‘Stay flexible,’ he said to Pylon. ‘Especially where Ducky Donald’s concerned. Be cool. Don’t think too much about what he’s holding.’

‘We could move the account.’

‘We could. Best option for now is to play it his way.’

Pylon agreeing, wanting to know, ‘Are you going to come in at all today?’ - as Mace crossed Harrington into the car park, Cuito angling towards him, a grin breaking ear to ear.

‘Got to collect Oumou to see a house. Pick up Christa from school. Maybe later this afternoon. If not, Club Catastrophe four-fifteen. Could turn out to be somewhere you can take Treasure clubbing.’

‘That being high on Treasure’s list of to-dos.’

‘Chicks want these jives.’

‘This’s a mama with a daughter the same age as your’s we’re talking about.’

‘Still a chick.’

‘Treasure wasn’t a chick. Ever.’

They disconnected. Cuito stood grinning as Mace jiggled the Alfa’s keys from the pocket of his jacket.

‘Those people you come to see are the Muslims?’ he said.

Mace shifted down his sunglasses to squint at the Angolan over the frames.

‘They come here yesterday. Drive around. The fat one he goes up the stairs.’

Mace juggled his keys from hand to hand. ‘What makes you think I want to know that?’

Cuito laughed. ‘I have my eyes.’

‘You know the thin guy who’s got an office up there?’

Cuito nodded.

‘Tell you what, you see those people again, you call me.’

‘For how much?’ he said.

‘It’ll be worth it.’ Mace took out his wallet.

‘Also at the club?’

Mace laughed. ‘Cuito you know things.’

‘Many things, Mr Mace,’ he said, his fingers closing another ten into the palm of his hand.

Mikey, in the passenger seat of the white Toyota said, ‘In the Yellow Pages there’s a place called DAWG, that has cats. In Hout Bay.’

The coloured guy driving said, ‘DAWG, has cats?’

Mikey kept his finger on the advert. ‘Why not? It’s a pseudonym, Val. Like PAGAD.’

‘An acronym.’

‘A what?’

‘That’s what it is. DAWG stands for something. An acronym. Pseudonym’s something else. Like Madonna.’

‘Madonna with the pointy tits?’

‘She’s not doing that anymore.’

‘No? Shame, hey.’ He glanced at the advert. ‘Says it’s got kennels. People bring their pets they don’t want. Same as the SPCA.’

‘Sounds okay, long as it’s got cats. You heard Abdul. Cats. Has to be kittens.’

Val took the Constantia off-ramp, the signs pointing to Hout Bay over the Nek, a drive he liked taking on a Sunday afternoon with a new cherry. Drive around the peninsula: sea one side, mountain the other. A1 impressive. Romantic to any chickie. Under the oaks, up the hill all the larney mansions left and right down the narrow curvy road into Hout Bay. Only thing that spoilt it, Val reckoned, was the squatter camp, Imizamo whatnot, some tongue twister like that perched right there on the mountain at the entrance, a weeping pit of human stink, their raw shit washing down every time it rained. You could understand whiteys in the valley getting upset.

Mikey said, ‘Hout Bay’s buggered. They’ve got wild crime from the squatters. Story I heard about a black family come down from Jo’burg to cycle in the Argus, they book into this expensive guesthouse, full-on security, armed response, electric fences, anyhow the black daddy gets up to take a pee in the middle of the night there’s another black daddy on the landing who’s got a shopping list from the shacklands, this dude does him right there, pow, nine mil smack in the chest.’

‘Gives the city a bad image.’

‘No kidding, bru.’

Val picked up the signs for the kennels over the bridge, turned into side roads heading back up the valley along the river away from the sea, the plots getting bigger, the road going from tar to gravel. The sign on a gate said Domestic Animal Welfare Group. He parked the car on the verge. They walked up a path to a
ranch-style
house set under bluegums. Everything in shadow. The house in need of paint, a glass pane in the front door cracked. A note above the buzzer said ring for attendance.

They did. And again. Twice more before a woman appeared with a parakeet on her shoulder, small dogs yapping at her feet. Mikey noticed she wore sheepskin slippers that might’ve been chewed by a dog.

They both said ‘Hi ma’am’ - gave her full smiles.

What she saw was two clean and tidy young men, dressed in chinos and v-neck polo shirts with their sunglasses stuck in the v. She smelt a hint of aftershave.

Val said, ‘We’re from the Mitchell’s Plain Baptist Congregation, ma’am, I’m Val and this is Mikey and we’re arranging a party for orphaned children from a home that is run by our church.’

Mikey held out a letter with a printed masthead. ‘This is our address and charity number, ma’am, and if you’ll phone our pastor he’ll confirm our mission.’

She barely glanced at it. ‘Alright. So what’s it you want?’

‘Bless you,’ said Mikey.

Val said, ‘We were hoping, ma’am, that you’d have twelve kittens seeking good homes because it is our intention to give our orphan charges a pet to care for. Under our supervision at all times.’

‘In the name of the Lord,’ Mikey said, ‘our intention is to give our young charges something to love and to provide a home for neglected animals.’

‘Really?’ said the woman. The parakeet on her shoulder pecked at her hair and she flicked her head to stop the bird.

‘All we ask, ma’am, is that the kittens be donated as all our funds are for the running of the orphanage.’

‘That so?’ said the woman, looking from one to the other, stopping on Val’s face. ‘Alright. I’ve got kittens I can give you. On your word you’re going to care for them?’

‘So help me God,’ said Mikey.

‘We’re Christians,’ said Val.

They followed the woman through the dim house that smelt of cat pee out to the kennels at the back: rows of sad dogs, cats curled asleep in patches of sun, the kittens in a wooden Zozo hut with a high reek.

‘It’s two litters,’ said the woman. ‘I’ve got to feed them because their mothers won’t.’ She stared at the men. ‘You know how to feed kittens?’ They said no, and she showed them, telling them how much each kitten needed.

‘No problem,’ said Val. ‘The kids will love doing it.’

The woman fetched two cardboard boxes and divided the kittens between them.

‘In God’s name we thank you,’ said Mikey, taking one of the boxes.

The woman glanced at him like she couldn’t believe he’d said that. She indicated a path round the house they could take to get back to their car.

They put the kittens in the boot and Val took the coast road to town under the Twelve Apostles. Cranked up some R&B on the sound system. Even so, they could hear the kittens screeching.

‘I hate cats,’ said Mikey. ‘Dogs too.’

‘How about her bird,’ said Val. ‘It’d shat all down her jersey. Jesus Christ, some people.’

‘Weird. Fully.’ Mikey’s cellphone rang: Abdul Abdul.

‘I’ve got Sheemina on the other line,’ Abdul said. ‘I want to tell her a nice story.’

‘We’re passing through Camps Bay,’ said Mikey. ‘Lotsa babes on the beach. Moms with their kiddies under the palms.’

‘Don’t give me shit,’ said Abdul. ‘You wanna be a tour guide, I can arrange it. Give you a special interest in paraplegics.’

Mikey made a gesture of throwing the phone out the window. Said, ‘Give us half an hour we’ll be done. Mikey’s Decorators at your service.’

He heard Abdul sigh, say, ‘You stuff-up, I phone the SPCA.’

Mikey disconnected. ‘What’s his case?’.

Val shrugged, wondering how nice it would be in a Clifton apartment, view of the sea, view of the mountains. A place like Sheemina February had. Among the rich larneys.

Oumou took one look at the house and said, ‘Non.’ Continued in French, What was he thinking? Had he taken complete leave of his senses? Went into English so there could be no possibility of Mace misunderstanding the message. ‘This is a ruin. We cannot live in a broken house. We have a daughter.’ She gestured at the wild overgrown garden. ‘There will be horrible insects. A little girl cannot play in a place with horrible insects. Non, non, non. The house is not in the question. We have to build a new house.’

‘Whokai. Whoa, whoa, whoa, love. Don’t chew his head off.’

Oumou shifted her glare from her husband to Dave
Cruikshank
, the estate agent.

‘Love,’ he said, lighting a cigarette, ‘this is wonderland. Beatrix Potter, hey?’ He blew a stream of smoke out the side of his mouth. ‘Call in a garden service, they’ll sort it out no time at all. The kiddy’ll think it’s magic.’

‘It is a ruin,’ said Oumou.

‘So knock it down, love.’ Dave flicked ash into the riotous vegetation. ‘What I’m showing you and Mace here is a bargain. This sort of property doesn’t come on the market every day. This sort of property’s scarcer than hens’ teeth.’ He gave a display of his teeth. ‘You want to build a new house, love, then that’s what you do. Get your Mace to speak to his pals in the building trade. Six months’ time you open the door onto shiny travertine marble.’ He grinned again: his upper dentures not quite straight, and put a hand on Oumou’s arm. She drew back. ‘Don’t look at what you see, love. Look at the potential.’ Dave put the key in the front door. ‘Stand back a bit, \ is not a pleasant smell.’

Before he sold property, Dave sold cars. He sold Mace the Spider, a good deal and a sound buy. After an engine overhaul, a
wonderful
car. As he put it, ‘The 1970 Alfa’s class, Mace. The least you can do is give it an overhaul.’

Mace now believed it was time to give their lifestyle an overhaul. Get out of the security complex in the suburbs and into the city. If you were going to live in Cape Town, you lived in the City Bowl. The peninsula suburbs were too House and Garden, the seaboard out of his price bracket, both sides, the Atlantic and False Bay. He wanted some of the city’s life: the sirens, the lights, the wail of the muezzin’s call to prayer, the cotton days of fog. And to be below the mountain, to feel its heat. What he liked about the city was the whacking great mountain in its middle. Anywhere you looked, the mountain loomed. He’d heard Dave was in property. He called him. Dave said, ‘Funny you should ring now, there’s this place just come on our books, Mace, come’n take a look see.’

Oumou said, ‘Non. Dave is a crook. What he sells there is always a story.’

Mace said, ‘Let’s see what he’s got.’

Oumou came back, ‘I know what you are going to do. You are going to buy this house. Because it is a bargain.’

Her mind was set on concrete, glass and chrome. This desert woman, who’d lived in a mud house most of her life, wanted
concrete
, glass and chrome. Mace couldn’t understand it.

Before he opened the door, Dave said, ‘Like I say, love, you could knock it down. But why would you do that when you got walls and a floor here already. You get me?’

‘We are coming to the city for the view,’ said Oumou.

They turned to look at the view hidden behind a hedge so thick and wild not even a bird could nest in it.

‘Trim the forestry, love,’ said Dave. ‘You’ll get all the view you want.’

He opened the door. The house exhaled must, dust, rot, and death.

‘It’s not good,’ said Dave, ‘like I said.’ He took two torches out of his jacket pocket, handed one to Oumou. ‘Like I say, what we’ve got here, love, is about dreams. Forget the present. This is the future.’

Oumou gave the torch to Mace so she could tighten the
bandanna
tied over her hair. Mace watched her, saw a faint smudge of clay beside her right ear where she’d hooked back a stray strand. Her dungarees, too, were stained with clay. Her canvas shoes smudged and clotted like she’d been treading in mud.

‘Today is my pottery class,’ she’d said to protest the time Mace set.

Dave had said, ‘Move fast, my son, I’m fighting off the pack.’

‘Forty-five minutes,’ Mace had said to Oumou. ‘I’ll fetch you.’

‘What we’ve got here,’ Dave had said, ‘is your deceased estate. Owner went into a home twenty years ago. Died last week. One son in Canada. Who wants shot of the hassle. What I’m telling you is any price is good.’

‘And your commission?’

‘Fixed as of the asking price, my son. You get below the marker, you owe me.’

Mace could hear him sucking at his dentures. ‘Deal?’

He looked over Oumou’s shoulder into the stench and darkness of the house. Ripped wallpaper, old newspapers, shit everywhere, much of it human.

‘Mind the planks, love,’ said Dave, ‘bit dicey some of them.’

They followed him in, Mace in front, Oumou behind, her hand latched onto his belt. Dave opened a door off the passage into a sitting room, streaks and spots of light filtering through holes in the corrugated-iron sheeting at the windows.

‘Think sun,’ he said. ‘Think big couches, thick carpets, sun, sun, sun. Sun all over this room. Your kiddy lying there in front of the winter fire doing her homework.’ Dave rubbed his hand over the fireplace tiles. A dull green showed through the grime. ‘Genuine, my son. Old Victorian. That’s what you’re buying here. History. Vintage Cape Town. Gracious living. What you say, love? You getting the picture here? Seeing how things could be in the not too distant?’

Mace moved the torch beam over the walls, smoke blackened, the skirtings charred. In all the rooms the same smoke markings, filth everywhere. Bottles, broken glass, tins, faeces, lumps of food dried to a powder, spider webs snagging against their faces. Behind him Oumou sneezed, cursed in French.

Dave said, ‘I was into property, I’d snatch this myself.’

‘Where is the problem?’ said Oumou.

Dave patted his trouser pocket. ‘None of the ready, love. Dave Cruikshank’s right extended.’

He shuffled them back into the entrance hall. A staircase disappeared into the dimness of the upper storey.

‘Bit rickety,’ he said, kicking at the lower stairs. ‘Take my word for it, great views.’ He bent to open a door to a cupboard beneath the staircase. ‘But take a decko here. Down there’s your original mud-floor cellar. History bloke we contacted at the uni said probably belonged to an earlier house. He reckoned might’ve been a
farmhouse
up this part of the mountain once. How’s that? You get that racked up, you can lay your Cape reds down there ‘n become a connoisseur.’

‘You going to show us?’

Oumou’s cellphone rang, and she headed for the warmth of the sunlight to answer it.

‘Right now, it’s best you take my word for it.’ Dave closed the cupboard door. ‘Spiders mostly. The history bloke said he wasn’t going in there till there’d been fumigators. Not the sort of chap to excavate the pyramids. But then me neither. You convinced?’

Mace nodded, half-listening out for Oumou.

Dave dusted off his hands. ‘Your wife a born Frenchie, my son? Looks like that model. The shaven-headed bird. Iman.’

‘Malian. Place called Malitia. One of those mud towns.’

‘Always wondered what happens when it rains. Those towns must just wash away.’

‘Mostly it doesn’t. Rain.’

‘That right? Not a drop?

Oumou came towards them holding out her phone. ‘This woman says she is calling for you.’

Mace took the phone and answered but the connection was gone. The call register gave no number.

Behind him Dave said to Oumou. ‘What you think, love? You see yourself and the kiddy living here? Your old man mowing the lawn?’

Before she could answer, Mace, riding on an instinct this might be Sheemina February, said, ‘Did the caller give you her name?’

Oumou shook her head.

‘She knew your name?’

‘Oui.’

‘She say anything else?’

‘Non. She says Mrs Bishop can I speak to your husband.’

Dave locked the front door, came to stand up close. ‘Children, I’m not putting pressure, far from it, thing is, you’re running ahead of the pack but the dogs are closing. Quick decision is of the essence. Next twenty-four hours this place is going to be in new hands. If those were your hands I’d be happy.’

Mace’s cellphone rang: Matthew Hartnell. ‘You-you-you’ve got to c-come here,’ he said. ‘To the club. N-now.’