Mixed Blood

by Roger Smith

  She climbed the stairs, and as she got up to the landing she saw her neighbor Whitey Brand come walking out of her apartment with her TV, casual as you please.

  “Hey, what the fuck!” Carmen ran up the last few stairs.

  Whitey just looked at her and walked on, taking the TV into his place.

  When Carmen got to her apartment, she saw the door was standing open. It was splintered like it had been kicked in. Then she saw Whitey’s brother Shane bending over some dead guys in her living room—guys she didn’t know—ripping off their money and cell phones.

  Carmen decided she was experiencing a particularly bad tik crash, that she honest-to-god was starting to lose her mind. She shut her eyes. When she opened them, she saw Shane pushing past her, his hands full. The dead men were still there, bleeding on her floor. And the sirens were slicing through her head like a butcher’s saw through bone.

  She turned and walked away. There was nothing in that place that she needed anymore.

  Disaster Zondi stood and looked down at the charred remains of Rudi Barnard. The smell of burned human flesh reached his nose, a smell both awful and haunting. The clothes had burned into the skin. The hair was gone. The shoes had melted onto the feet. The tire had burned away completely; all that eft were the three steel rings from its inner core circling what had been Barnard’s neck and chest.

  It had been years, decades, since Zondi had seen a necklacing. The first time had been at the funeral of a youth activist in Soweto in the mideighties when he’d been sixteen or seventeen. The comrades had attacked a young woman accused of being a police informer. Zondi remembered being drawn into the fervor, chanting freedom songs and dancing the toyi-toyi as the woman was stoned and hacked. A boy younger than Zondi had shoved a broken bottle up the woman’s vagina. Then she was encircled by a tire and burned to death.

  The necklacing, far from being gruesome and terrifying, had been heady, exciting. Had left him filled with an enormous sense of power, his own and that of the untold number of kids who were going to bring the enemy down.

  Zondi, a youth of his time, had swapped the Book of Common Prayer of his mission school childhood for the altogether more appealing manifesto of Leon Trotsky. Who was he to experience pangs of distaste, never mind guilt, if they executed their enemies in this way? After all, the mother of the nation, Winnie Mandela—Nelson’s very own wife—had stood before them and applauded their actions, saying they would liberate the country with their boxes of matches and tires.

  Zondi had participated, at a distance, in a number of other necklacings. He had long since closed the book on those memories and the thorny questions they sometimes begged. Now, like a lot of men washed up in the twenty-first century without an easy moral compass, he was defined more by what he didn’t believe in than what he did.

  But this, he had to concede, had a certain poetry to it.

  He overheard two young colored uniforms talking on the other side of the crime scene tape.

  “Shit way to die.”

  “Ja. I won’t be able to eat Kentucky for a week.”

  They laughed and started talking about South Africa playing Australia in a rugby test match that weekend.

  Zondi took a last look at Barnard, successfully fought the urge to toyi-toyi in his Roberto Cavalli suit and Brunori loafers, and walked over to the cops.

  “He was running away from something, apparently?”

  The cops gave him the usual once-over, just a degree away from insolence, before the taller man answered. “Ja, he was in those flats up there. People say he jumped out the window.”

  “Drive me up there, please, Constable.”

  Zondi was already walking across to the cop van, getting into the passenger seat. The tall cop exchanged a glance with his colleague, then got in beside Zondi and started the van. They bumped down the sand road, coming to a stop outside the ghetto block branded by the thug life graffiti.

  Zondi climbed out, looked up at the shattered window. A bloody blanket lay in the dirt directly below. Zondi saw a lace curtain twitch in the apartment above the one with the broken window, and he glimpsed a leathery old face before it disappeared.

  Zondi followed the cop up the narrow stairs. His nose wrinkled at the smell of piss. The door to the apartment withthe broken window stood ajar. Zondi gave it a push with the toe of his loafer, and it swung open until it stopped against the body of a man. The constable had his service pistol in his hand and followed Zondi into the apartment.

  Three dead men. All with that unmistakable look of gangsters. Two of them shot, one probably by a shotgun. The third man, who had at some point in his career had his fingers amputated, lay with his throat cut. Zondi could see bone.

  Zondi and the cop walked through to the bedroom. He looked down at the fourth body, an emaciated man in his sixties, wearing only briefs. The dead man’s brains were all over the statuette of the Virgin Mary that lay on the floor beside the bed. Zondi saw a child’s pajama top, covered in blood and brain matter, lying beside the dead man. He noticed the American label: Big Kmart.

  Zondi turned to the cop. “Constable, there’s an old woman in the flat above. One of those types who spends her whole day watching at the window. Ask her who lives here and who she saw coming in and out of here today. And ask her about a kid. A boy. A white boy. You got that?”

  The cop nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  He left Zondi to wander around the apartment. Zondi opened a chipped closet in the bedroom and saw a few items of women’s clothing. A brush, clogged with dark hair, lay on a dresser beneath a broken mirror. The stinking bathroom didn’t tell him much. A few cheap cosmetics and a box of sanitary pads.

  Zondi went back into the living room. From the way the bodies lay, the gunshot victims had been met with fire as they entered the apartment. And then the amputee’s throat had been slit.

  At some point during all the action, Barnard had thrown himself out the window.

  The constable was back. “She say a woman lives here. Early twenties, maybe. Carmen something, doesn’t know her last name. The old guy is her uncle. An alkie, she say. She saw three guys come in here; one was white. Then another three. Coloreds. Gangsters, she say.”

  Zondi nodded. “These three.”

  “She say she saw the woman, Carmen, leave before any of these guys come in. She had a boy with her. He was white with blond hair.”

  Zondi reached for his phone and called Bellville South HQ. He spoke to a sergeant on duty, wanted an APB put out on this boy.

  “Sir,” the sergeant said. “The boy. He’s sitting right here.”

  Burn drove through the sprawling ghetto without any sense of direction, just trying to get as much distance as possible between himself and the dead bodies. The wind had come up again, and it drew a gauze of dust across the Flats. The dust hid Table Mountain, the only landmark he could navigate by. He’d given the watchman the .38, and the crowd had taken the Mossberg. He was alone and unarmed in one of the most violent places on the planet.

  Burn stopped at an intersection. A taxi drew up beside him, and the passengers stared down at him. He pulled away and almost collided with a beat-up pickup truck. The men inside swore at him. Burn barely noticed.

  Maybe he had fled the ghetto block too soon? Maybe there was somebody there who could tell him where Matt was? He could offer money. He still had a million in local currency in the trunk of the car.

  Jesus, he told himself, you go back to that place, even if you could find your way back, and you’ll be arrested or murdered. And you’re the only person who has some vague idea of what happened to your son.

  Burn passed a group of youths, who shouted something. One of them threw a beer can, which bounced off the rear window of the Ford. Without the watchman he had no idea of how the hell to get out of this place.

  Burn was lost.

  CHAPTER 32

  When Zondi heard the kid talking American, he didn’t doubt for a second that this was the son of the man who’d called himself Hi
ll. He had to be. Just too many coincidences.

  The child was sitting on the counter in the charge office, wearing a soiled T-shirt and pajama bottoms. They matched the pj top Zondi had seen in the apartment. The child’s hair was matted on one side with something that looked like blood. He was saying, through tears and snot, that he wanted his mommy.

  In that unmistakable accent.

  A prim-looking woman with tight hair and tighter features stood next to the boy in the charge office. She looked as if she couldn’t wait to unload him and get the hell out of there. The constable on duty was taking her statement with painful slowness.

  “How did this child get here?” asked Zondi.

  The woman looked him up and down, immediately suspicious of this dark stranger. He allowed her a glimpse of his ID before repeating his question.

  “My name is Belinda Titus. I’m a social worker. A girl, a former case of mine, brought him in. She refused to say where she had found him.”

  “Name of Carmen?”

  “Yes. Carmen Fortune.”

  Zondi had no patience with children, but he manufactured a smile as he turned to the boy. “What’s your name, son?”

  “He says his name is Matt,” said the woman.

  Zondi’s smile frosted over when he turned it on her. “Thank you, but let me handle this.”

  Zondi took the pen and a piece of paper from the desk cop’s hands and slid them to the boy. These American kids were precocious, so he went with a challenge. “Bet you can’t write your name.”

  The kid looked at him through the tears, wiped a grubby hand across his nose. “I can, too.”

  “Do you like ice cream?” The kid nodded. “Okay, you write me your name and I’ll buy you an ice cream. Deal?”

  The kid weighed the offer; then he took the pen and concentrated, tongue jutting from his lip, while he applied himself to the paper. His penmanship only a little worse than the desk cop’s.

  Zondi looked at the paper. “Matt Burn?” The kid nodded.

  Zondi reached into his jacket pocket and took out the same mug shot printout he had shown the American. He held it up for the kid to see. “Matt. Who is this?”

  “That’s my mommy,” the kid said, and started to wail again.

  Zondi scooped him up off the counter. His suit would need to be cleaned after this. The child stank, and already he had deposited a smear of snot on Zondi’s shoulder.

  “I’ll take this from here,” he told the woman.

  “This child needs medical attention,” she said, anxious that her guest role in this little drama not end without the proper climax.

  “I’ll take him to hospital, don’t worry.”

  Zondi walked the kid out to his car, set him in the rear, and tried his best to secure him with the seat belts. He retrieved his laptop from the trunk and went online. It took him less than two minutes to find out that Jack and Susan Burn were fugitives from justice.

  He didn’t know where Jack was, but he had a good idea where he could find Susan.

  But first he had to find an ice cream.

  Susan Burn lay in the recovery room, feeding her baby. A painkiller dripped into the catheter in her spine. She removed Lucy from her breast and lay with her cradled in the crook of her arm. Susan felt blank. Empty. Devoid of volition. Waiting for something to happen.

  She became aware of voices outside the recovery room. The nurse’s voice, insistent, agitated, and then a man’s voice, emphatic. The door opened, and the nurse came in.

  “Susan, I’m sorry, but there’s a policeman here. And he insists on seeing you.”

  Susan sat up. The waiting was over. “Okay, bring him in, please.”

  A tall black man in a dark suit came in. He carried Matt. She saw that her son was filthy, his light hair crusted with dried blood. When Matt saw his mother, he reached for her and started crying. Susan was beyond surprise. She held out her arms for her son.

  The man gently placed Matt on the bed beside Susan. She hugged her son, staring at the man over Matt’s shoulder. The man turned to the nurse. “Leave us alone, please.”

  “She’s just had a procedure. This is highly irregular.”

  “I won’t be staying long.”

  The nurse left, reluctantly.

  The man showed Susan his ID. “My name is Special Investigator Zondi. Ministry of Safety and Security.” She nodded. “Is your name Susan Burn?”

  She felt relieved. It was over. Finally. “Yes. Have you come to arrest me?”

  “No. That’s out of my jurisdiction. I came across your son, and I wanted to return him to you. Get a positive ID on him.”

  “What happened to him?”

  The man was standing. “I’m going to leave you now. I’ll ask the nurse to take a look at your son and clean him up.”

  “Where’s my husband?”

  “I have no idea, Mrs. Burn.”

  Susan was staring at him. “That’s it? You’re just going to leave?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Wait. Please tell me what happened. Where you found Matt.”

  He looked at her. “I don’t know exactly what happened. My guess, and I could be wrong, you understand, is that your son was kidnapped. And your husband tried to get him back, but the boy was released out on the Cape Flats.”

  Susan was processing this, through the fog of the painkiller. “Matt was kidnapped?”

  “Yes. I believe so.”

  “And Jack, my husband, tried to handle this on his own?”

  “It seems that way, yes.”

  “My son could have been killed?”

  He nodded. “Yes. It was a dangerous situation.”

  Susan felt Matt crying, his body racked by sobs. Then she felt an enormous and all-consuming anger, like a fire raging inside her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

  “Zondi.”

  “Mr. Zondi, I want you to help me, please. Help me to put an end to this.”

  Zondi stared at her. Then he nodded.

  Burn had found the distant Table Mountain through the smoke, and that led him to the freeway. He was on his way back into Cape Town. He had made up his mind; he was going to Sea Point police station to report the kidnapping of his son. He knew this almost certainly meant that the truth about who he was would emerge, but he didn’t care. He had to find Matt. If it wasn’t already too late.

  As he came around Hospital Bend, the sprawl of city and harbor below him, his phone rang. When he saw Susan on caller ID, his impulse was to ignore the call. How could he face his wife now? But he answered.

  “Susan. How are you?”

  “Jack, I’m fine. We’re fine.”

  “So it’s done?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she’s okay? The baby?”

  “She’s perfect.”

  “I’m glad, Susan.”

  She interrupted him. “Jack, Matt’s here.”

  He thought he was hallucinating. “What did you say?”

  “I said Matt’s here. A policeman found him out on the Cape Flats.”

  “My God, Susan, I’m so sorry …”

  “Shhhhhh, Jack. Don’t say any more. Just come here. Come here now.”

  “Okay.” He felt a heady rush of relief. His son was safe. His infant daughter was alive. His wife wanted him to come to their side.

  “Jack, you’re coming here? To us?”

  “Yes.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Carmen Fortune sat for a long while at the taxi stand, watching the minibuses hurtling in and out, the distinctive cries of “Caaaaape Teeeeeuuuuunnn” as the sliding-door operators urged her to board. She ignored them.

  It was still light, only just gone seven, and the sun hammered the Cape Flats.

  On impulse she stood and walked a block, until she came to the street where she had grown up. Protea Street. She hesitated, almost turned on her heel, before she gathered the courage to approach the house of her
nightmarish childhood. A small, scruffy place surrounded by a sagging wire fence, no different from hundreds around it.

  Carmen hadn’t been inside, or spoken to her parents, since her mother had thrown her out six years ago. Before she could stop herself, Carmen opened the front gate and walked up the short pathway and banged on the door.

  The door opened a crack and she saw her mother’s face. She fought the urge to run.

  Her mother glared at her, shocked. “What do you want here?”

  “I want to see him.”

  “You’re not welcome here. Go back to the street where you belong.”

  Her mother was closing the door. Carmen pushed the door open, forcing her mother backward. Then she was walking down the corridor toward the main bedroom, her mother’s hands clutching at her back.

  Carmen swung and faced her. “Is it true that he gonna die?”

  Her mother wilted. “Ja. He don’t have long.”

  “Then I have the right to say good-bye.”

  Her mother said nothing, but she slumped in defeat. Carmen went into the bedroom without knocking.

  A skeleton with gray skin and sunken eyes lay under a sheet on the bed. It took her a moment to connect this emaciated thing with the sweating, grunting weight that had pressed down onto her small body night after night.

  It was the voice that did it.

  “Carmen. You’ve come.” The voice was weaker, but it was still the one that had poured filth into her ears as he raped her. This was her father, okay.

  She walked up to hionntood over him, staring down.

  He tried to smile, revealing gums set into a mouth like a sinkhole. “Carmie, the good Lord has answered my prayers.”

  “Ja? Has he?”

  “I prayed that you would come to say good-bye to me before I go.”

  Her father’s eyes were filled with self-pity and fear. He was not going easily to his final destination.

  A clawlike hand was groping for hers. She slapped the hand away and pressed her face close to his. “Drop this God bullshit, you bastard. You think raping your own child for years, making her pregnant twice, and throwing her out of your house is something God is going to forgive?”