Death Dealing

by Ian Patrick

  He proceeded to tell the tale of his once-flourishing drugs business, and how Detective Jeremy Ryder had taken it apart, and how his entire business had then flourished again, and how it had declined again when he had been taken down by the big detective.

  Wakashe was a little crest-fallen. He had assumed there was a tin stuffed with cash. Here was Thabethe telling him that that tin was often stuffed with cash but at present it was empty. It was waiting to be filled up again. Thabethe claimed to know how to do this.

  No cash. Only the promise of cash. Thabethe read the disappointment on the man’s face. But for now he and Mgwazeni both felt that Wakashe was so indebted to them that he would probably do anything to maintain the friendship. So he could probably be trusted.

  14.05

  The Ryders were at the seaside. The beaches at uShaka and Vetches were dog-friendly, and the surf was perfect today, so there had been no discussion necessary. The Ryder boys were out on their surfboards while Fiona was knee-deep at the edge trying to stop Sugar-Bear swimming out to them to drag them back off their boards to safety. The dog was barking hysterically with every crashing wave.

  Ryder luxuriated on the sand, stretched out and enjoying the change from the cold wet week he had spent in England. He watched his wife trying to persuade Sugar-Bear that the boys were in no danger. He looked at Jonathan and Jason, both extraordinarily well-built, fit and good looking. In their mid-teens they were already attracting admiring glances from both men and women some years older than themselves. He watched as they caught the waves and surfed like seasoned experts.

  ‘I give up on that dog,’ she said as she flopped down next to him on the sand. ‘He’s determined to bring the boys in before they get attacked by a shark.’

  ‘I pity the poor shark if Sugar-Bear gets hold of him.’

  ‘Don’t the boys look good?’

  ‘Are you talking as a woman or as a mother?’

  ‘Both. Gorgeous guys. All three of my men.’

  ‘Miss me?’

  ‘Hmmmm. Sugar-Bear looked after me, though. And look. He’s watching us now. That dog doesn’t take his eyes off us.’

  ‘He’s not watching us. He’s watching the guy behind us,’ said Ryder.

  ‘What? Where?’

  ‘Don’t look. I’m watching him. I think he fancies a quick run in to grab a purse or a wallet. But he’s nervous. He knows Sugar-Bear’s got him in his sights. If he makes a move either Sugar-Bear will get him or I will.’

  ‘Poor guy if you get to him first.’

  ‘Think so?’

  She faked a yawn and an ostentatious stretch in order to sneak a quick glance at the man, thirty to forty paces behind them.

  ‘Yes. He’s a bit of a weed, isn’t he? If he tries it on and you catch him please don’t break any more bones. Addington Hospital is starting to complain about Detective Jeremy Ryder. The orthopaedic section has been over-worked this year, I hear, and they’ve just recently recovered because you’ve been abroad. But now that you’re back from England they’re expecting a new influx of patients.’

  The Border Collie seemed to have sensed their train of thought, had abandoned his vigilance over the Ryder boys, and was now walking back slowly toward their parents on the beach. But his focus was beyond them on the man who was now thirty metres higher up the beach. It was uncanny. The dog seemed to sense danger. He kept low, as if he was advancing on some sheep, and was emitting the strangest sound, something between a growl and a whine. The approach of the dog was enough for the man, who abandoned whatever thought he had entertained, and walked casually away, off the beach and onto the promenade area. Sugar-Bear made sure by advancing right up to the edge and watching as the man walked away.

  The Ryders were chuckling.

  ‘Good dog! Come here, Sugar-Bear.’

  The dog obeyed instantly and ran over to Fiona, to be rewarded with a tweak of the ears and a hug.

  ‘See? I had full protection while you were away. Nothing to fear when Sugar-Bear is near.’

  ‘I must say I was worried about you three while I was away,’ Ryder said. ‘Oxford University is running a particular theme on crime in South Africa. Posters, statistics, papers, photos, video clips. They seem to focus on crime in South Africa as a special case. I think the students start off under the impression that that section of their studies is all about crime fiction rather than crime, because of the cases they’re introduced to. Then they start looking at the statistics and reading up on documented cases and they begin to realise that it’s anything but fiction.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We’re careful. The boys too. They’re never extravagant. They dress down. No flashy stuff. They don’t attract the attention of criminals.’

  ‘Still. I worry. I don’t know what I’d do if…’

  She was surprised at Ryder’s genuine heartfelt concern, and reassured him again. Then added a loving embrace and kiss. Which started Sugar-Bear off again, barking at them.

  ‘See,’ said Ryder. ‘He doesn’t really like me. He’s jealous. Wants you to himself.’

  Ryder grabbed the dog, rolling with him in the sand before suddenly leaping up and sprinting into the water to join the boys, the dog in hot pursuit.

  She watched them all cavorting in the surf, and had the same thought as her husband. What could she possibly do if something awful ever happened to her family?

  14.15

  Wakashe had passed out, leaving Thabethe and Mgwazeni to mope around the modest home in search of something else to drink. They eventually found another four bottles of beer behind a stack of old newspapers in a corner of the kitchen. Spare bottles stowed in case of emergencies? Thabethe pulled the bottles out from their hiding place and in so doing dislodged the pile of paper, sending some of it cascading onto the floor at his feet. He cursed and bent down to restore the pile. As he picked up the last newspaper his eye caught a headline and he decided to retain it for closer reading. Mgwazeni found a bottle opener and pulled up two chairs while Thabethe spread the newspaper across the table.

  It was a fairly dated copy of the newspaper going all the way back to January 2015. His eye moved down the page to the item that had caught his attention. Following a long and close collaboration between the SAPS National Crime Intelligence Unit, the SAPS Organized Crime Unit and the United States Homeland Security, significant inroads are being made into drug trafficking from various countries in Africa to South Africa and via South Africa to various destinations around the world.

  The piece went on to describe a team of crime intelligence members working with organised crime detectives busting a deal involving uncut heroin. Four kilogrammes. Value one million rands. Thabethe was wondering why he was playing with stakes that were so small when there was this kind of money on offer. He read with interest about local drug-manufacturing laboratories, and with deep concentration about a couple of syndicates being taken down by the police, with the recovery of goods valued at more than fifty million rands.

  The article described how police were working with colleagues in law enforcement not only across the country but internationally. Maybe it was time to go global. Everyone else is, he thought. Maybe he could graduate from nyaope to straight heroin. He began to fantasise as he read about dealers and traffickers and couriers working in Pakistan, the Emirates, Seychelles, Tanzania and Mozambique, with South Africa used as a clearing house for the purpose of shipping drugs onward to other countries.

  Mgwazeni was dozing with his head on his arms, which were crossed on the table. Thabethe drank deeply from the bottle of beer, and thought about the one hundred thousand rands he had once kept in the tin near Nomivi’s Tavern. He wondered how he might replenish that tin, and turn that money into a million, to enable him to secure a footing in the heroin trade.

  By the time Wakashe woke up he had decided there was no option. He and Mgwazeni and Wakashe were escaped prisoners. One of them with bandaged hands. The hunt for them would have started already. They couldn’t lie low without resources. Their
only option was to access money from somewhere and multiply it by resuscitating the nyaope trade.

  Within minutes of Wakashe emerging from his slumber, they were on the move, looking for a taxi that could take them out to the area near Nomivi’s Tavern, where his connections in the street trade would still be strong. But first they had to go via a few cash dispensers and try out the pin numbers and bank cards so kindly provided by the two prison guards.

  14.45

  There were six men, ranging in age from twenty to twenty-five years. They were drinking beer and sniffing glue on the dried veld-brown, almost khaki-coloured grass under a tree in Albert Park, Durban’s inner-city magnet for homeless people. They were not especially distinguishable from the many other groups of homeless people in the park. Some were there to find help with their own drug problems, or to seek advice on finding employment or shelter. Others were there because they had nowhere else to go, and they had heard that this was where they might meet people like themselves. Others were beneficiaries of the Qalakabusha one-stop intervention centre and forum, helping homeless people to make a fresh start. This initiative by the eThekwini municipality, following action requested by the mayor, had enjoyed some success but there were many people, mainly men, who spurned the offers of assistance and merely saw the initiative instead as a way of securing the means for a quick fix.

  Such was also the motivation of the six young men. For them, the price of a whoonga straw was considerably cheaper here than it was anywhere else, so Whoonga Park was where they convened on most days. Their own straws had been depleted, and now they were on beer and glue. They were drinking in vast quantities. Their loud guffaws and bravura shouts at each other and their friendly but violent jostling prompted others nearby to move further away. There was something menacing in their behaviour, and those seated within twenty paces chose discretion and moved on.

  The park was surrounded by a collection of medium to high-rise buildings and the casual observer might have seen little more than the signs of urban decay. Crime had destroyed property value over the years, and this had been accompanied by exploitative letting practices and encroaching homelessness, petty crime, and vagrancy. A closer look might have revealed to such an observer a much more positive view of diversity and heterogeneity where local inhabitants negotiated areas of difference and commonality and in some instances established positive new relationships. There was a rich mix of languages, cultures and ethnicities in the park. But there was also an underlying sense of danger, as many considered the possibility that a misplaced word or a misunderstood gesture might lead to confrontation.

  Some of the surrounding properties were under legal administration following the original owners’ failure to maintain the buildings in some cases, or having fallen behind with levies in other cases. Other buildings were professionally managed and maintained, generating considerable profits for the owners. There were still some flashy cars to be seen in the area, not all of them owned by drug dealers.

  The six men displayed braggadocio and machismo with a vocabulary rooted in violence. Each man tried to out-perform his companions with boasts about personal prowess. In the way that is all too common in such groups, the anecdotes commenced with achievements in the sports arena and moved almost seamlessly from football to memorable street-fights and physical brawls and from there to sexual conquests. The latter subject, built upon experiences both real and fantasised, traversed descriptions of extraordinary depravity as the currency of the discussion was measured increasingly in terms of how violently some woman had been treated by the speaker. Lascivious laughter peppered the responses to phrases such as I’m telling you, she was asking for it and it was her first time with a real man and I showed her what fun was really like.

  They conversed in isiZulu interspersed with occasional slang and corruptions of English and Afrikaans. One of the men had a matchstick between his lips. He moved it around with some expertise, never using his fingers. His tongue and lips worked together to move the small sliver of balsa wood from one side of his mouth to the other. His companions were fascinated as they watched the object dance from between his teeth to the tip of his tongue and then across his lips as he spoke. They knew him only as Loku, short for Lokuvungula, a nickname used for him because his father had responded to his childhood habit with the matchstick by calling him ‘toothpick’, and the name in isiZulu had been retained ever since.

  ‘Enough shit, comrades. We need some money. Where we going to find some money? Tell me. We can’t get more whoonga until we get money.’

  They spoke animatedly over one another. Each of them had suggestions about how to get the next fix. One thought that a raid on the Indian shop in Umbilo would yield the richest rewards. If the owner of the shop resisted, he suggested, then it would be time to retaliate and beat up amaNdiya, the local Indian merchants. His companions cackled loudly and broke out into half-remembered lyrics from the well-known song that had scandalised members of the public with its perceived racist anti-Indian sentiments.

  Loku cut through the hilarity with a commanding voice, the matchstick anchored between two teeth as he spoke.

  ‘OK, comrades. Enough. You all sing like shit. My head is sore. No more singing, comrades. Let’s go and visit the Indian in Umbilo. Let’s grab some amaNdiya rands.’

  They jeered and joked and slapped one another on the back and gradually drifted away, to the relief of the nearby homeless people.

  15.05

  Wakashe and Mgwazeni were both impressed. Wakashe had only half-believed the story about Thabethe’s reputation on the street. Mgwazeni had had no doubt at all. His three months in prison with Thabethe had taught him one thing about the man. He never lied. He did what he said he was going to do, and he could be trusted. But Thabethe expected the same in return. Mgwazeni knew that anyone who crossed Skhura Thabethe or lied to him would be treading a dangerous path.

  Wakashe marvelled at the number of people on the streets, especially teenagers, who greeted Thabethe in a manner that communicated both enormous respect and trepidation. The greetings were polite, respectful, and careful. Each stranger was keen to ask Thabethe when he had been released from prison, but not one of them posed the question. The last they had heard was that the fearsome Skhura had been taken down by police on the south coast some three months ago. But here he was, apparently free and back on the streets.

  Each greeting was accompanied by some discussion about who was supplying and where the biggest deals were taking place. Thabethe dropped the key words indicating that he was back in business and that the stuff he supplied was still superior to that of other suppliers.

  In between these encounters and greetings, the three men moved from one bank to the next. Thabethe assumed that the credit cards and debit cards he had retrieved from the prison guards would enable only one withdrawal each, and he would have to guess that the daily withdrawal limit would be one thousand rands in each case. He might push his luck and retain the cards for a second day of withdrawals, on the assumption that the victims and their families might not have the wit to cancel all bank cards. Relatives of people who could lodge their pin numbers in the same place as their bank cards were probably not the sharpest tools in the shed.

  Thabethe was careful to get his companions to stand back, out of camera view, and to disguise his own face as he made each withdrawal. His two companions saw the stack of cash growing with each stop at an ATM outside a range of different banks and supermarkets. The two friends were breathless with excitement. They were going to stick with Thabethe. Here was a man who would change their lives. They walked swiftly away from the latest cash dispenser, Thabethe carrying the money in a brown paper bag.

  As they walked away in search of another taxi Thabethe was thinking to himself that it was time to trade and to turn his few thousand rands into a million.

  16.35

  Loku and his five companions ducked into an alleyway off Moore Road in Glenwood. Although the re-naming of the streets in recent years
now sign-posted it as Che Guevara Road, through force of habit the men continued to refer to it as Moore Road. They avoided the street corner, and chose an area in the middle of the alleyway behind a row of residential-property garages and workshops to stop and open the bag containing the proceeds of their heist.

  The working women of the streets were already open for business on the main corners, and flashy cars were patrolling the area, the male drivers trying to avoid the attention of prying eyes while searching for the thrill of seeing an under-dressed woman, or in some cases searching for something more experiential than mere voyeurism. Loku and his gang felt safer in the alleyways. If any cops came looking from one end, they would have at least one route to escape. The cops would probably in any case be more interested in grabbing the rich men in cars. Some of those guys, Loku said, would pay big bribes to cops to avoid having their names in the newspapers as a consequence of being caught with a prostitute in their car.

  The men crowded around the bag they had used for the proceeds stolen from the Indian merchant in Umbilo Road. They laughed loudly and jeered at the stupidity of the shopkeeper. He had provided no resistance at all when the men had stormed into the shop. The man’s wife and daughter had cowered in the corner while, held at knifepoint, he had opened the cash register and the men had swept its entire contents into the bag that Loku now held in his grasp, and they had run away from the shop. The whole operation had taken less than a minute. As they all now counted the amount of cash they had got away with, there were ecstatic laughs and exclamations. They had thought that the robbery might have yielded far inferior returns. There were excited reactions from all of them as they counted the amount and shared it out equally.

  ‘OK guys,’ said Loku, ‘let’s go.’

  ‘What’s wrong, bra?’ one of his companions asked. ‘You looking not so happy?’