by Deon Meyer
Three months, thought Griessel. The fuckers had been watching Carlos for three months.
Lombardi took an A4-size sheet of paper from his brown envelope and placed it on Joubert’s desk. It was a black-and-white portrait photograph of a clean-shaven man with dark curly hair. “This is César Sangrenegra. Also known as El Muerte. He is the second in command of the Guajira Cartel, one of the biggest Colombian drug-smuggling operations in South America. He is one of the three infamous Sangrenegra brothers, and we believe he arrived in Cape Town early this morning.”
“Carlos’s brother,” said Griessel.
“Yes, he is the brother of the late Carlos. And that’s part of the problem. But let me start at the beginning.” Lombardi took another photograph from the envelope. “This is Miguel Sangrenegra, a.k.a. La Rubia, or La Rubia de la Santa Marta. ‘Rubia’ means ‘blond,’ and as you can see, the man isn’t blond at all. He is the patriarch of the family, seventy-two years old, and has been retired since nineteen ninety-five. But it all started with him. In the nineteen-fifties Miguel was a coffee smuggler in the Caribbean and was perfectly positioned to graduate to marijuana in the sixties and seventies. He hails from the town of Santa Marta in the Guajira province of Colombia. Now, the Guajira is not the most fertile of the Colombian districts, but it has one strange advantage. Due to soil quality and chemistry, it produces a very popular variant of marijuana, called Santa Marta Gold. It is much sought-after in the US, and the street price is considerably higher than any other form of weed. In the Guajira, they refer to Santa Marta Gold as La Rubia. And that is what Miguel started smuggling, hence his nickname.”
Lombardi took a map out of the envelope and unfolded it on the desk.
“This is Colombia, and this area, on the Caribbean coast, is the Guajira. As you can see, what the province lacked in soil fertility, it made up for in geographic location. Just look at this length of coastline. If you wanted to smuggle marijuana to the US, you either sent a boat to the Guajira coast, or you sent a cargo plane. Miguel knew the farmers who grew the stuff in the mountains, and he knew the coast like the back of his hand. So he became a marimbero. A smuggler of marijuana. The Colombians refer to it as marimba. Anyway, he made a killing in the seventies. But then, in the late seventies and eighties, cocaine became the drug of preference internationally. And the balance of drug power, the money, and the focus of law enforcement moved to central Colombia. To people like Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel. Carlos Lehder, the Ochoa brothers, José Rodríguez-Gacha . . .
“Miguel did not like cocaine, and he didn’t have the natural contacts for it, so he stuck to marimba, made good money, but he never reached the dizzy heights of wealth and power like Escobar or Lehder. However, in the long run, this was to his great advantage. Because when we started hunting the big cartels, Miguel was quietly going about his business. And in the nineties, his family stepped into the vacuum after the removal of the big guns.”
Another photograph came out of the brown envelope.
“This is Miguel Sangrenegra’s eldest son, Javier. He is short and stocky, like his mother. And we think he has the old lady’s brains and ambition too. He was the one who put pressure on his father to expand the family business into cocaine. Miguel resisted, and Javier sidelined the old man. Not immediately, but slowly and quietly retired him in a way that meant everybody’s respect remained intact.
“Now let’s talk about Carlos.” Another photograph, this time of the youngest brother. Grainy black and white. In a sunny street in a South American town, a younger Carlos was getting out of a Land Rover Discovery.
Griessel checked his watch. He still had to pack. He wondered what the point of this story was.
“Carlos was the runt of the litter. The least intelligent of the brothers, bit of a playboy, with a taste for young girls. He managed to get a fourteen-year-old girl from the neighboring town of Barranquilla pregnant and Javier shipped him off to Cape Town to avoid trouble. He needed someone here he could trust. To oversee his operations. Because, by 2001, the Guajira Cartel, as they are now known, had gone truly international. And they had branched out into the whole spectrum of drugs.
“Carlos was doing okay. He kept out of trouble, managed his side of the business reasonably well with the help of a team very loyal to Javier — the four guys we have in custody. And then he got into the mess with the prostitute’s daughter. And now, as you know, Carlos is dead.
“Enter César Sangrenegra. El Muerte. The Death, they call him. If Javier is the brains of the cartel, César is its strong arm. He is a killer. Rumor has it that he has executed more than three hundred people in the last ten years. And we’re not talking about ordering the death of opponents. We’re talking about personally twisting the knife.”
The last photographs came out of the envelope. Lombardi spread them over the desk. Men with amputated genitals pushed into their mouths. The bodies of women with breasts removed.
“And this is the necktie method. See how the tongue is pulled through the slit throat. El Muerte is one sick puppy. He is big and strong and very, very fit. He is totally ruthless. Some say he is a sociopath. When his name is whispered in Guajira, people tremble.”
“So what’s he doing in Cape Town?” Matt Joubert asked.
“That’s why we’re here,” said Boef Beukes.
“You see, there is a simple code in the Guajira,” said Lombardi. “When someone takes from you — money, possessions or whatever — it is said that he walks with culebras on his back. It means ‘snakes.’ He walks with a snake on his back, a poisonous thing that can strike at any time, which keeps him looking over his shoulder in fear. The guajiro unconditionally believe in justicia. Justice. Revenge.”
“So what are you saying?” asked Griessel.
“I am saying that you, Inspector Griessel, will be held responsible for Carlos’s death. You, the spearman and the prostitute. You are all walking with culebras on your backs.”
The detective inspector with the snake on his back was going to be late. He packed his suitcase in too much of a hurry and when he reached the kitchen he grabbed the brandy bottle from the cupboard and put it in as well.
He tore a sheet of paper from his notebook and wrote a thankyou note to Charmaine Watson-Smith in an untidy scrawl. For a moment he thought that the only rhyme he knew began with, “There was a young man from Australia . . .” He couldn’t remember the rest, but it didn’t matter, as it wasn’t exactly relevant.
He put the clean dish down at her door and hurried to the entrance of the block of flats. As he walked he realized what was happening to Charmaine’s newspaper to make it disappear. He stopped in his tracks, turned and jogged back to her door and knocked. He picked up the dish.
It was a while before she opened.
“Why, Inspector . . .”
“Madam, I’m sorry, I have to catch a flight. I just wanted to say thank you. And I know what happens to your newspaper.”
“Oh?” she said and took the dish.
“Someone takes it when they are going out. They take it with them. In the morning.”
“My goodness . . .”
“I have to run. I will look into it when I get back.”
“Thank you, Inspector.”
“No, madam, thank you. That . . .” and for a moment he couldn’t think what the English word was. He wanted to say “sheep’s meat” although he knew it was incorrect. “. . . Lamb, that lamb was wonderful.” He jogged back to the front entrance and thought he had better hurry, because now he was late.
When the second brandy and Coke flooded through him like a heavenly heat wave, he leaned back in the seat of the plane and sighed deeply in pleasure. He was a fuck-up, a drunk, but that was that — he was born to drink, made for drink. That was what he did best, that was when he felt whole and right and one with the universe. Then the rhyme came back to him.
There was a young man from Australia
Who painted his arse like a dahlia.
The colors were b
right,
And the look was all right
But the smell was a hell of a failure.
He grinned and wondered how many others he could remember, now that his brain was working again. He could rattle them off in his jokester days. There was a young man from Brazil, who swallowed a dynamite pill . . . Perhaps he should compose one about himself. A detective inspector who drank. . . .
He took another swallow from the bloody small plastic airline cup with its two blocks of ice and thought, no,
There was a dumb cop from the Cape,
Who let a black spearman escape.
The stewardess approached from the front and he held his glass up and tapped an index finger on it. She nodded, but didn’t seem extremely friendly. Probably afraid he would get paralytically drunk on her plane. She with her hair combed back and little red mouth, she could relax; he might be a wife-beating, whore-fucking fuck-up of a policeman, but he could hold his drink, daddio. That was one thing he could do with great, well-oiled skill.
He thought he was white,
And that’s not all right.
But what the fuck rhymed with “Cape” and “Escape”? All he could think of was “rape.” Maybe he should start over; here came the stewardess with his next drink.
On his back’s not a snake, but an ape.
“Sir, are you all right?” asked the woman at Budget Rent-a-Car with a slight frown and he said: “As right as rain,” and he signed flamboyantly next to every fucking cross she made on the document. She gave him the keys and he walked out into the windy evening in Port Elizabeth. He thought he ought to turn on his bloody cell phone, but, first, find the car. Then again, why turn on the phone? He was relieved of his responsibilities, wasn’t he?
They had given him a Nissan Almera, that’s what it said on the tag on the keys. He couldn’t find the fucking car. Suitcase in hand he walked down the rows of cars. The whole lot were white, almost. He couldn’t recall what an Almera looked like. He used to have a Sentra, a demonstration model he had bought at Schus in Bellville for a helluva bargain, never had any shit with that car. Jissis, it was a lifetime ago. Here was the fucking Almera, right here under his nose. He pressed the button on the key and the car said “beep” and the lights flashed. He unlocked the boot and put his suitcase away. Maybe turn on the phone, they might have caught the guy by now.
He had to lean against the car. He had to admit he was a bit tipsy.
YOU HAVE THREE MESSAGES. PLEASE CALL 121.
He pressed the tabs. A woman’s voice. “You have three new voice messages. First message . . .”
“Benny, it’s Anna. Where are you? Carla isn’t home yet. We don’t know where she is. If you are sober, phone me.”
What time had Anna phoned? It was sometime in the afternoon that he had switched the phone off. Why did she sound so panicky?
“This is Tim Ngubane. The time is now twenty forty-nine. Just wanted to let you know Christine van Rooyen is missing, Benny. Witness Protection called me. She walked out on them, apparently. They kept her in a house in Boston, and she’s just gone. Will keep you posted. Bye.”
She walked out on them? Now why would she do that? He pressed seven to delete the message.
“Benny, it’s Anna. I talked to Matt Joubert. He says you have gone to PE. Call me, please. Carla is still not home. We have phoned everyone. I am very worried. Call me when you get this message. Please!”
There was despair in Anna’s voice that penetrated through his alcoholic haze, that made him realize this was trouble. He pressed nine and cut the connection. He leaned against the Almera. He couldn’t phone her, because he was drunk.
Where was Carla? Jissis, he had to get some coffee or something, he had to sober up fast. He got in the car. The driver’s seat was shifted right up to the steering wheel, he had to feel around for the lever underneath before he could get in. At last he got the car going.
Not so very drunk, he just had to concentrate. He pulled away, must get to the hotel. Drink some coffee. And walk, keep walking until the haze lifted, then he could phone Anna; she mustn’t hear he had been drinking. She would know. Seventeen fucking years’ experience — she would catch him out at the speed of white light. He should never have had those drinks. He had even packed the bottle. He was ready to start drinking full bore again and now Carla was missing and a suspicion began to grow in him and he didn’t want to think of it.
The cell phone rang.
He checked. It wasn’t Anna.
Who was phoning him at eleven at night?
He would have to pull over. He wasn’t sober enough to drive and talk.
“Griessel.”
“Is that Detective Inspector Benny Griessel?” The “g” was spoken softly and in a vaguely familiar accent.
“Yes.”
“Okay. Detective Inspector Griessel, you will have to listen very carefully now, because this is very important. Are you listening very carefully?”
“Who is this?”
“I will ask again: are you listening very carefully?”
“Yes.”
“I understand you are hunting the killer of Carlos Sangrenegra. This is so?”
“Yes.” His heart was racing.
“Okay. This is good. Because you must bring him to me. You understand?”
“Who are you?”
“I am the man who has your daughter, Detective Inspector. I have her here with me. Now, you must listen very, very carefully. I have people who work with you. I know everything. I know if you do a stupid thing, you understand? When you do a stupid thing, I will cut off a finger of Carla, you understand? If you tell other police I have your daughter, I will cut her, you understand?”
“Yes.” He forced out the words with great effort; thoughts were scrabbling through his brain.
“Okay. I will call you. Every day. In the morning and in the afternoon, I will call you, for three days. You must find this man who kill Carlos, and you must bring him to me.”
“I don’t know where you are . . .” Panic overflowed into his voice, he couldn’t stop it.
“You are scared. That is good. But you must be calm. When I call you and you tell me you have this man, I will tell you where to go, you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Three days. You have three days to get this man. Then I will kill her. Okay, now I have to do something, because I know people. Tomorrow, you think you are more clever than this phone man. So I have to do something to let you remember tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Carla is here with me. We take her clothes. Your daughter has a good body. I like her tits. Now, I will put this knife in her tit. It will hurt, and it will bleed. But I want you to listen. This is the thing I want you to remember. This sound.”
PART THREE
Thobela
41.
I will leave you to it,” said Sangrenegra and walked away from him.
Thobela said his name. “Carlos.” The lone word echoed around the interior of the large room. The Colombian turned.
Thobela swiftly and deftly drew the assegai by the shaft out of the white swimming-pool pipe. “I am here about the girl,” he said.
“No,” said Carlos.
He said nothing, just stepped closer to where the man stood beside the pool.
“She lie,” said Carlos walking backwards.
He adjusted his grip on the assegai.
“Please,” said Carlos. “I did not touch the girl.” He raised empty hands in front of him. Terror distorted his face. “Please. She lie. The whore, she lie.”
Fury washed over him. At the man’s cowardice, his denial, everything he represented. He moved fast, raised the assegai high.
“The police . . .” said Carlos, and the long blade descended.
Christine saw the minister’s eyes were red-rimmed and tired, but she knew she still held his attention.
She rose from her chair and leaned over the desk. When she stood like that, slightly bent over, arms stretched
out to the cardboard carton, her breasts were prominent. She was aware of it, but also that it didn’t matter anymore. She pulled the box to her side of the desk and folded the flaps open.
“I have to explain this now,” she said and reached into the carton. She took out two newspaper clippings. She unfolded one. She glanced briefly at the photograph and article on it, specifically at the young girl emerging from a helicopter with a man. She put the clipping down on the desk and smoothed it with her hand.
“This is my fault,” she said, and rotated the article so that the minister could see better. She tapped a fingertip on the photo. “Her name is Carla Griessel,” said Christine.
While the minister looked she reached for the second clipping.
He came out of Sangrenegra’s front door and in the corner of his eye he spotted a movement. Opposite, in the big house, behind a window. The discomfort of Carlos’s reaction, the Colombian’s choice of words and the overwhelming feeling of being watched unfolded in his belly.
Something wasn’t right.
Five objects lay on the desk in an uneven row. The two newspaper clippings were on the far right. Then the brown and white dog, a stuffed toy with big, soft eyes and a little red tongue hanging out of the smiling mouth. Next the small white plastic container with medicinal contents. And last on the left, a large syringe.
Christine shifted the box to the left again. It was not yet empty.
“The next morning, after Carlos had seen Sonia for the first time, I phoned Vanessa.”
He braked with screeching tires next to his pickup, grabbed the white pipe holding his assegai and leapt out.
Slowly, his head told him. Slowly. Do the right thing.
He unlocked his pickup, tilted the backrest forward and put the pipe behind it. He unzipped his sports bag, looking for an item of clothing. He took out a blue and white T-shirt. He had bought it at the motorbike training center at Amersfoort. One each for himself and Pakamile. He walked back to the swimming-pool van.
A siren approached, he wasn’t sure from which side, not sure how close. Adrenaline made his heart jump.
