Zulu (18 page)

Khayelitsha had been controlled for years by the gang known as the Americans. Their leader, Mzala, was feared and respected. Mzala had been a thief as a child, a killer as a teenager, and had spent three years in prison before carving out a place for himself among the township
tsotsis
. They were his only family, as they were for so many others—a family which, at the first sign of weakness, wouldn't hesitate to kill him. The Americans ran drugs, prostitution, and gambling. They also owned the Marabi,
28
the most lucrative
shebeen
in the township, where Mzala and his personal bodyguards had established their HQ.

As three-quarters of the population was excluded from the labor market, this was where the parallel economy was concentrated. An essential part of popular culture, the
shebeens
had been created by women from the countryside, making use of their traditional brewing skills. The
shebeens
were tolerated in spite of the dubious characters who hung out in them and the armed gangs who used them to sell drugs and alcohol.

The Marabi was a dirty, crowded place where poor blacks got drunk, applying themselves to this activity with the zeal of people who had no other way out: brandy, gin, beer,
skokiaan
, hops,
hoenene
, Barberton, and even more powerful concoctions—the place sold everything, without authorization and without qualms. The
shebeen
queen who ran the establishment was named Dina, a massive, witch-like woman who kept order with her equally massive voice. Neuman found her behind the bar, with her huge cleavage in a pink dress, pestering an old drunk to drink up more quickly.

“Where's Mzala?” he asked.

Dina looked at his badge, and then at his not very friendly face. The half-stupefied drinkers on the straw mattresses fell silent. The township police had overpowered the two heavies who were meant to be guarding the entrance. Sanogo was following in the shadow of the big cop.

“Who's this?” she asked Sanogo. “We haven't—”

Neuman grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward across the bar counter. “Shut up.”

“Let go of me!”

“Listen to me or I'll break your arm.”

Unable to escape his grip, the
shebeen
queen was forced to lie flat on the wet counter.

“I want to talk to Mzala,” Neuman said in a toneless voice. “Just a friendly chat for the moment.”

“He isn't here!” she whined.

He put his mouth close to her ear with its big earrings. “Don't take me for any old nigger. Come on, hurry up.”

The pain was spreading into her shoulder. Dina nodded so much it made her body shake. Neuman let go of her, and she sprang back. She cursed as she massaged her wrist—the animal had almost dislocated her arm—smoothed her dress with which she had just mopped the counter, and kicked one of the guys slumped on the floor. Neuman was still looking at her, threateningly. She ran behind the metal partition.

The customers began whispering among themselves. Sanogo signaled to his men to keep them at bay.

Mzala was sleeping it off in one of the back rooms, in the company of a girl, high on
dagga
, who had just given him a passionless blow job and was now snoring on her bed. Dina's sudden entrance drew him out of his torpor. He threw out the leech who had sucked him off, and put on the clothes that were lying on the floor. The two
tsotsis
guarding the entrance to the private room escorted him beyond the partition that marked off their territory.

Sanogo was there, with his army. There was a guy with him, a big, muscular black standing at the beer pumps, watching Mzala as he came in. He had a shaved head and eyes like paving stones. His suit must have cost him about five thousand rand. No comparison with the other cops.

“What are you doing here, Sanogo?” Mzala said.

“This gentleman is the head of the Cape Town Crime Unit,” he replied, indicating Neuman. “He'd like to ask you a few questions.”

It was the first time Neuman had seen Mzala—an angular black with faded eyes, a T-shirt with the logo of a cheap brand of whisky, and long nails tapered to a point and as thick as horn.

“Oh, yes?”

Two blacks flanked Mzala. Neuman kicked the first one between the legs. He was stunned for a second, then a grimace of pain spread across his face. His associate made the mistake of moving—Neuman aimed at his supporting leg with his heel, and dislocated his knee. The man let out a cry of pain and fell back against the metal partition.

“I'm not in a very peaceable mood,” Neuman said, walking up to Mzala. “From now on I ask the questions, and you answer without making a fuss, O.K.?”

Mzala's sweat smelled rancid. He looked like the kind of man who'd happily stab you in the back. Dina kept by his side, like a pilot fish staying with a shark.

“You won't find anything here,” he replied, without a glance at his wounded men. “You'd do better to go back where you came from.”

“And you'd do better to change your tone. Today I'm only here to ask a few questions, tomorrow I may come back with the Casspirs.”

“What's the problem?” Mzala asked, in a softer voice.

“A new gang selling drugs on the coast,” Neuman said. “They killed one of my men.”

“I don't have any reason to take on the police. We have our little arrangements, like everywhere else. Ask the chief here,” he said, indicating Sanogo. “The Americans are perfectly happy dealing
dagga
. Everything above board. Shit, I even pay my license for this place!”

That was rare indeed.

“Who's your competition?”

“The Nigerian Mafia,” he said. “Sons of bitches, brother, real sons of bitches.” He grinned scornfully in the direction of Dina's cleavage.

“Where can we find these sons of bitches?”

“Two in a common grave,” Mzala replied, “another under lime. The others must have taken off. Anyway, we haven't seen them around here for a while. And I'd be surprised if those cocksuckers ever came back!”

The people around them chuckled. Neuman turned to Sanogo, who nodded—he didn't interfere too much when there was a showdown between gangs, just let them get on with it. Neuman showed Mzala the digital photographs of the killers on the beach. “Have you ever seen these men?”

Mzala's already inexpressive face became even more of a mask. “No. Just as well, they're not very pretty to look at.”

His sarcasm fell flat.

“Curious,” Neuman said ironically. “Because I saw one of these guys near the gym site about ten days ago. That's bang in the middle of your territory.”

Mzala shrugged. “We can't be everywhere.”

“They're dealing a new
tik
-based drug.”

“I don't know anything about that. But if it's true, I'll find out soon enough.”

“The Nigerian Mafia controls
tik
,” Neuman went on.

“Maybe, but not here. I told you we haven't seen them for months, those sons of—”

“Bitches, yes, I know. What about the tattoos?”

“A scorpion, right?”

“You know your animals.”

“All those TV shows, they stick in the mind.”

“Like a bullet in the head. Well?”

Mzala's teeth were partly rotted, a tribute to youthful malnutrition, his arms covered in scars.

“I can't tell you anything,” he grunted. “Never seen these guys. But if I see them around, you can be sure I'll kick their asses.”

“They were beating up this boy,” Neuman insisted, showing him the school photograph of Simon Mceli.

Mzala gave a twisted smile. “He doesn't look too bad.”

“You know him?”

“No. I'm not interested in kids.”

Mzala had had a younger brother, even more of a thief than him, who'd died stupidly, messing around with his gun.

“Stan Ramphele. Name mean anything to you? Or his brother Sonny, who was a dealer on Muizenberg beach?”

Mzala shook his head, as if Neuman was on the wrong track. “We deal
dagga
, and we defend our territory. These brothers and what they get up to on the coast has nothing to do with us.”

Neuman was a whole head taller than Mzala. “That's strange,” he breathed. “The guys I'm looking for are just the kind of ugly guys you go for.”

A slight wind of panic blew through the
shebeen
. Sanogo shifted uneasily next to the pillar, the other officers tightened their hold on the grips of their guns, on the alert. They weren't at home here.

“We don't know anything about it,” Mzala assured him. “Here we take things easy. No powder. Our customers can't afford it, and it brings nothing but trouble.” He spat on the floor. “That's the truth, brother—easy.”

But his yellow eyes were saying the opposite. Neuman hesitated. Either this guy was telling the truth, or they would have to haul him in to the police station for further interrogation, knowing that the rest of the gang had probably already surrounded the
shebeen
and were waiting, guns at the ready, to see how things developed. The ranks seemed to have closed around them. There were only nine of them, poorly armed—there was no way they were going to get out of here without a ruckus.

“We should go,” Sanogo breathed behind him.

There was a growing murmur from the customers packed into the
shebeen
. Some were starting to eye the open windows. A scramble, and the whole thing would turn into a riot.

“I hope for your sake that you've told me the truth,” Neuman said by way of farewell.

“So do I,” Mzala replied.

But his words didn't mean anything.

 

 *

 

Dust whirled across the construction site. Neuman walked amid the rubble. The workers had gone home, there were only the kids attracted by the police cars and the noise of the wind in the skeleton of the gymnasium. A few empty cans lay here and there on the ground, some litter, pieces of scrap iron. Neuman recognized the concrete pipe down which Simon had escaped a few days earlier. A water pipe, according to the plans he had managed to get hold of.

Sanogo and his men stood in the shade, watching. Neuman crouched and put his head into the opening of the pipe. It was barely wide enough to get his shoulders in. The beam of his torch danced for a moment over the walls of concrete, before vanishing into the darkness. Contorting himself a good deal, Neuman squeezed inside the pipe.

There was a strong smell of piss. He could barely move his elbows, but after a while he managed to start crawling forward, with the torch between his teeth. The pipe seemed to run on into darkness. Whenever he raised his head, it would scrape the concrete. The farther he went along the pipe, the cooler it got. Neuman crawled for another ten yards or so, then stopped. The smell of urine had gone, but there was another smell now, strong and unpleasant—the smell of decomposition.

Simon was there, in the beam of his torch, rolled up in a dirty blanket that was falling to pieces. It took Neuman a while to recognize him. His face was livid, necrotized. Beneath the blanket, his stomach was partly eaten away by animals. Neuman directed the beam at the objects beside him. One of them was Josephina's handbag. There was also a bottle of water, some burned-out candles, an empty cookie packet, and a photograph, spared by the rats and the damp, which the child was clutching in his hand. A photograph of his mother.

 

 

 

M
zala's nickname was the Cat—they said he liked to play with his victims before he left them for dead. Mzala knew that his position as gang leader wouldn't last forever, and that fear was his best ally. With Gulethu and the rest of the gang at large, his money was no use. Cat or not, the others were going to lynch him.

Fortunately, they had managed to track down the old
umqolan
who was trying to cure that cretin Gulethu. A hut in the squatter camp, or rather a heap of planks with skins of long-dead animals nailed to the door. Mzala had gone in person to give the old madwoman a grilling and, as was usual with him, the process had been long and slow. Even his cronies, who weren't exactly the compassionate type, had to turn away their eyes. Weeping, the
umqolan
had told him what she knew: Gulethu had come two days earlier to her filthy hut, clearly in a hurry, had taken the money she had stashed for him, and had left again in the Toyota, with the handful of men who were with him. That had been at seven in the evening, on the day of the slaughter on Muizenberg beach. The Americans had been watching the approaches to the squatter camps well before the sun went down. Unless Gulethu and his gang had escaped on foot, they were still in the area—the Toyota hadn't been found, either intact or burned out. Mzala had tortured the
umqolan
to find out where the fugitives were hiding, and eventually she had passed out. She wouldn't open her eyes again. Not in the same state, anyway. It still gave him the shudders—the old witch.

The Americans had gone all over the squatter camp with their pockets full of rands, which had loosened a few tongues. They had found the Toyota hidden under a tarp behind a backyard shack. A paint job, new hubcaps—they had started to disguise the four-by-four in preparation for their escape. Gulethu and his henchmen were hiding nearby in a hole in the ground, covered by a jute sack.

“So tell me, Saddam Hussein,” Mzala said, mocking the ashen-faced figure hanging from the beam in the shed, “what were you waiting for? A sign from the spirits that it was time for you and those other three cretins to try your luck in your repainted car? Tut-tut.”

What a loser.

Gulethu's guts were on fire. The Cat had celebrated their reunion in his fashion, but Terreblanche wanted him in one piece. The man had just arrived, the sleeves of his khaki shirt rolled up over his biceps. He had two of his henchmen with him, white through and through—he couldn't stand them.

“Is that him?” Terreblanche asked.

“Yes.”

Gulethu's feet weren't touching the ground. He had been hanging there for two hours, twisting and grimacing. A coarse-featured, almost ape-like Zulu, with a jutting chin, a low forehead, a brow ridge like a congenital idiot's, and those dirty yellow eyes, quivering feverishly.

Terreblanche slapped the palm of his hand with his riding crop.

“Right, now,” he said, “you're going to tell me everything, from the beginning. Do you understand me, ape-face?”

Gulethu was still writhing at the end of his chain. Mzala had stuffed red pepper up his rectum, which was gradually burning his insides. Terreblanche did not have to use his riding crop—Gulethu told him everything he knew. His high-pitched voice didn't match his story, which was quite incredible. Terreblanche listened stoically to the crap the Zulu was coming out with—this was the kind of specimen his youngest son wanted to save, a
kaffir
with a face like a chimpanzee, a pervert and a psychopath. He put his hand in his pocket and took out two sachets that had been found on Gulethu.

“What's this?”

There was a greenish powder inside the plastic.

“Plants,” Gulethu said with a grimace. “Mixed plants. The
umqolan
gave it to me.”

“What were you planning to do with it?”

“Perform a ritual. The
intelezi
. To cure me.”

A Zulu pre-battle ritual. Terreblanche brooded beneath the overheated sheet metal of the shed. Mzala had just informed him that a cop from the city had come to the Marabi that morning, and not just any cop, but Neuman, the head of the Crime Unit. Ali Neuman. Terreblanche had known his father, Luyinda, a political agitator, who had been beaten to death. His wife and son had changed enclaves and names—Neuman, “new man” a combination of Afrikaans and English. He was also looking for the gang.