The Score

by HJ Golakai

  “Eh-heh. Now you have overflowing tears?” Scary looked down at him in a way that made Tristan want to moer her. “Go ahead and cry. Cry, but also pray. That your fuckin’ nanny cares about you enough to show up. Otherwise …” A smile took over her features and made him rethink wanting to lay a finger on her. Instead, he shrank to the size of a little boy, who’d watched scary movies when he shouldn’t’ve and cowered in the dark, a monster’s last meal.

  “She’s coming,” he warbled. “She said she’s coming, so she’ll be here.”

  She looked at her phone. “Let’s hope so,” she replied softly.

  Park and wait until it’s dark, the text said. A different, unrecognisable number.

  Vee obeyed, nosing her car into a vacant spot near the topmost end of the street, away from Main Road. Any nearer and she’d be advertising herself; with no way of knowing all the cards she was working with, safe was infinitely better than sorry. She was sure of one thing: Gaba held as uncertain a hand as she did. That knowledge – plus the furnace of outrage under her breastbone that churned every time she thought of Tristan’s sobs – was advantage enough. She grabbed her handbag and peeled away R2 000 from the sheaf of bills in the zip compartment, stuffing it in the breast pocket of her red plaid shirt.

  “Don’t believe in fear … don’t believe in faith … don’t believe in anything that you can’t breeeaaaak …” moaned Shirley Manson, lead vocalist of Garbage. The band with bite, headed by the edgy Scottish chick with mad hair. Vee turned the volume up a little. She massaged her forehead, trying to keep hold on her mind as it skittered around like an untethered creature to shortbread, another Scottish delight, and then to Rhonda Greenwood. Adrenaline munched through her fatigue and spat out the kernel, leaving a clear head and the glowing embers in her chest, eager to feed on something. She reached under the back seat and retrieved her pair of Adidas, flung off her heels and wriggled into them. From the toolbox in the boot, she extricated a sturdy plastic zipper case and checked inside – the remains of an old metal hanger, a thin-bladed pocket knife and portable bolt cutters. The ‘access pass’ she called it, the tools to break her into just about anywhere. No doubt she’d be needing it. As to what Uzo would be bringing to the table in the form of his boys, only time would tell. For Tristan’s sake, he better send some thugs who were well prepared to cover her ass if things got out of hand.

  “You stupid giiirl … stupid giiirl … all you had you wasted … all you had you wasted …” warned Shirley.

  Vee buried her face in her hands. “God,” she pleaded in whisper.

  Ten minutes snailed by.

  Fourteen.

  Seventeen.

  Her heart swelled into a live sun, thudding at the back of her throat.

  Eighteen.

  Her cell beeped; new text. Richie. The alarm system at the vet’s had been disarmed; he could hold it for about an hour and pass it off as a technical glitch if it was picked up, but not much longer.

  She got out of the car, slammed the door, did a satisfactory sweep of the street, and started to walk.

  The phone rang. Yet another strange number. Vee answered.

  “Uzo’s pipo,” a deep voice said. No preamble, straight to business.

  She quickened her pace. “Where you at?”

  “Ah-ah, you told us where to wait. Near …” there was muttering in the background, deep voices questioning each other in Igbo. “Come down into Main. You’ll see us,” the voice instructed finally.

  The mouth of the street was a mere sprint away but she forced herself to walk it. Never had she paid such minute attention to the surrounds of the vet’s office. She saw one security guard outside a gated complex across the street; he looked sleepy already. He was also an appreciable distance away – if an alarm blared on another property, there’d be a good bit of time while he debated if it was his problem before he reacted, if at all he did. She slowed going past the vet’s parking area, scouring it for weak spots, thanking heavens for a handful of lucky breaks. For one, it was an open lot bordered by a very low wall, no barbed wire, easily scaled. Two double-storeys shared the plot, and she had no clue what went on in the other in daylight hours, but right now it eyed her back, thankfully dark and dead. For another, Neilson didn’t run a 24-hour emergency and the practice was small – highly individualised care they called it – with staff that clocked out daily. Way less interference. But the kennels, though; someone would surely be around to man them. Or, wait … wasn’t an on-site pair of hands only required on weekends, when ailing feathery or furry patients stayed overnight? That’s why Tristan had been on her case to pick Monro up today, the kennels were closed during the week. She really ought to listen to the kid more often.

  She came to the end of the street and rounded the corner onto the highway. She squinted left and right. Dark outlines, both clearly male, tall and burly, stepped from behind a row of parked cars and moved towards her in the gloom. Vee ran towards them.

  “Hey,” she breathed.

  “John,” the lead male, tallest, darkest and burliest, replied. “Peter,” he slapped the back of his hand over the chest of his sidekick, leaner and far less imposing, possessed of a shifty hunger in his eyes that instantly put Vee’s hackles up. “Paul,” his palm came down on the Mazda’s windscreen. The man behind the wheel, whom she hadn’t noticed, kept staring straight ahead, twitching not so much as an eyelash.

  Really? That’s the best they could come up with? “What are your real names?” she asked. They stared back in stoic silence. She cleared her throat. “Fine. I think –”

  “Ahh. You, you are nice eh. Bossman didn’t tell us.” Not-John eyed her up and down with what he obviously thought was a playerifically jaunty half-smile. “I didn’t know there were fine-fine girls from Liberia.”

  Vee sucked her teeth and put on her fiercest face. It didn’t seem to have much effect. Not-John widened his leer; Not-Peter picked at his fingernails with one eye aimed at her chest, feigning boredom. The driver deepened his hunch to better rest his chin on his wrists, draped over the steering wheel. These jokers would run amuck if they suspected she couldn’t keep a tight rein on them.

  “Hey!” she shouted. The Nots stopped their muttering exchange. The driver slowly sat up behind the wheel. “Focus. Here’s what I need y’all to do.” Minutes later, three pairs of more alert eyes were trained on her.

  “Is that all?” Not-Peter rumbled. In the half-light, it was hard to tell if he was sneering or sporting the rabid grin of a man who found it amusing he’d be summoned onto a dark street for so little.

  Vee drew herself up to her full height. She was taller, could even take him on, but it was probably common sense not to tango with this one. “Yes. Nothing more, nothing less.” She leaned in through the passenger window and said to the driver, “You won’t be parking here. Drive around this block and keep doing it until you see me, or one of us, come out. If you hear an alarm go off, drive to the side road straightaway and wait two, three minutes. If you don’t see any of us, leave.” Main Road traversing Claremont and Kenilworth was a tricky stretch; never know when a cop car or armed security van could drive by. Thank God they weren’t in Mowbray, which was a major police van infestation site what with a station so close by. She slapped the windscreen twice and the driver fired the engine and backed out immediately.

  She typed a quick text and pressed send. Without a word to the other two, she trotted back up the street, clutching the zip bag to her chest.

  The scary chick’s phone vibrated and she jumped a little in her chair. She fumbled for it, almost dropping it. Tristan noticed how badly her hands were shaking before she blocked his view with a shoulder. It looked like she was reading a text.

  “Let’s go.” She leapt to her feet.

  “Wha–” Tristan tried one-handed to hang on to the chair. She twisted his wrist so far back that he anticipated a painful snap any second. A scream took shape in the back of his throat and would have wrenched free had she not grabbed his fa
ce, forcing the heel of her hand into his mouth and prising his jaws apart until his fight subsided. She wrapped the other arm around his torso and dragged him, sobbing, towards the staircase.

  Vee climbed the wall, threw herself over it, and sprinted in a crouch to the side of the building, throwing a quick look behind to make sure her tag team did the same as soundlessly. If there was a night guard bothering to scout the premises, they could take him no problem, but she didn’t want that. She’d hoped there would be more time to actively find him, if he existed, and sweeten him up with the cash, if he could be sweetened. Now the clock was against them, against Tristan.

  She threw signals, pointing at each of them and then in different directions, then drawing a circle with her index. The two meatheads looked at each other, then back at her. She cursed quietly and inched back to them. “Like we talked about. You go one way, you go the other. Both of y’all keep a look out. Do not come in unless it’s do or die. One way or the other we’re coming out.”

  They separated and she ducked around the corner to the service entrance door, where she’d seen supplies being offloaded a few times. No way of telling where that door opened up to. Horrible luck if it was into another locked room impossible to get out of, even worse luck if there was a deadbolt or heavy-chain-and-padlock combo sealing it from the inside. Praying the vets relied completely on the might of their security company, she took the bag from under her arm and selected the blade. She examined the entrance doors. A double do-up, push in from the outside. If she knew oft-used thoroughfares, and again if her luck held, there would be small bolts on the top and bottom that weren’t clicked in place. Too much hassle for workmen to undo every single time. The lock was a simple one, knife superfluous to the cause. She tossed it back in and grabbed the length of hanger. It took less than a minute of zealous jimmying for the lock to click open. She dumped the tools by the door; one sniff of anything resembling a weapon would turn Gaba feral. She held her breath and pushed, hard but careful. Squeaking, one side swung inwards. She slipped in and closed it.

  A tower of heavy-looking boxes stood against the other side, blocking it. Covering the floor and countertops were more boxes, Styrofoam sample containers, bottles and jars with labels she couldn’t read, and the outline of what resembled a huge glass-front sample refrigerator, still unwrapped. A supply room. She threaded through the lot to the door, waiting for the wail of an alarm, exhaling when none came. Almost a half hour frittered away, her watch said. Wherever Richie was, whatever button he had his finger on or hole in the dam said finger was plugging, he’d better make sure he kept it there.

  Vee worked her magic on the other lock and stepped out into a corridor. Dark, deserted, as eerie as it was bereft. A row of green plastic chairs hugged close to the walls, seating overflow from the main waiting area. She had a strong feeling between her shoulder blades where her inklings and odd sensations sometimes arose: when she came through the door Tristan would be sitting there in one of those chairs, eyes wide and hopeful, waiting. Just him, not the bitch too. She stared at the chairs a beat longer and dismissed the notion. Her eyes were drawn to the stairs – they wouldn’t be down here waiting on her, something told her. She took a step, then rethought. Monro. She patrolled, whistling softly, until she heard his characteristic snuffling and rustling and followed the sound. She pushed open the door into what looked like a vet’s exam room, to find him leaping and straining at the leash. He nearly barked at the sight of her.

  “Sssssshh, baby.” She joyfully buried her face in fur, undoing the complex cluster of knots that tethered him to the leg of the table. One down, one to go.

  She took the stairs with a mounting sense of dread, climbing the first flight with the idea that she was charging into something she didn’t know how to handle, or might not come out of. Her adrenaline seemed to have crested and was at an ebb, bravado deserting her. She scanned the corridor at the top of the next flight, then inched up to a door and peeped through the top glass panel. Of course; surgery and recovery and more exam rooms for critical care. Tristan could be up here somewhere, tied to a table like an animal up for sacrifice. Doped up or even completely passed out, Gaba’s evil-genius grin glinting as she brandished a scalpel over his barely breathing body. Vee closed her eyes. Stop it.

  She took another step and felt a nudge to the back of her hand. Monro pushed his snout into her palm and padded away from her, coming to a halt on the landing at the top of the stairs. Only then did she notice there was another flight going up another level, cordoned off from general access by a rusting security gate that stood ajar, its handlebar pulled out of the notch. The roof. The husky barely waited for her reaction before nudging through the gate and bounding up. As always, watching him hunt, or pretend to hunt prey, she marvelled that such a large animal could move so stealthily, blend in so effortlessly. She tiptoed after him. The staircase ended in a wide landing, bare except for more dusty, empty boxes and broken, rusted office furniture. Monro sat on his haunches in front of the door. Dull orange light filtered through its upper glass panel and shone in Vee’s face. The release bar of the door’s handle was down in the open position, and someone had dragged the battered remains of a swivel chair in the door frame to hold it open.

  “Okay. I don’t know what’s going to happen here,” she whispered, speaking quickly as she knelt down, unnerved by how badly her voice shook. “I truly have no clue. But Tristan is out there, and we have to get him. That’s all.” Whimpering, Monro rubbed his muzzle over her cheek and turned his face away. “I’m serious. No Cujo shit, Monro. No-one dies tonight. You don’t come until I call you or we’re in trouble. You got me? Stay.” He stared resolutely ahead, right through her, right through the door almost, like he had a bloodlust solely for who lay on the other side, his lake-blue irises glinting spookily.

  Shaking her head, Vee scraped the chair on its side to hold the door open wider and stepped through.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The roof was a sprawl of poured concrete with a shallow sunken pit of stone and gravel in the middle, rimmed with a waist-high brick wall. At a couple of points the wall was spliced by rust-flecked metal railing; Vee didn’t imagine they led down a fire escape or another exit of the sort. Anyone trying to leave would be going down the way they’d come up. Or the hard way – a drop. Old equipment that no-one could be bothered to move out of the elements dotted the left corner of the gravel spread.

  There wasn’t much to see. Even if there had been, her eyes were captive to the scene up ahead.

  “Tristan,” she murmured, relief choking her.

  He looked like hell, but he was intact. His complexion was an odd combination of ashen splattered with beet-rouge. His hair shot out in a riot of directions, and even from a distance she noticed streaks of dirt and whitewash paint on his face, arms and bright green T-shirt. He’d fought as he was dragged up those stairs and through the doors for sure. Pride swelled in Vee’s chest. She could tell he was mining his deepest reserves to be brave, not to cry, and she threw him a soft, encouraging look. His face crumpled and he made a sound between a sob and wheeze, tenting his T-shirt at the neckline and dropping his head down into it. Gaba stood behind him with one arm draped across his chest in a casual chokehold, her stance almost relaxed if not for the skittish eyes. In her other hand she gripped a knife with a chillingly sharp, thin blade. The knife hand was dead steady; she knew how to use it.

  “You finally made it.” Gaba’s face danced a strange spectacle in the soft light, one second a grey mask afloat in darkness, the next a shadow comprised of deeper hollows. “Give me your phone.”

  Vee didn’t protest. She pinched the Nokia out of her side pocket and tossed it. It landed amongst the gravel. Gaba transferred the chokehold to a vice around Tristan’s wrist and hauled him along as she walked. She pulled them both down to a crouch, picked up one of the larger stones and smashed and smashed until the Nokia’s cries of defeat were of brittle plastic and powdered glass. Vee felt a stab of pain, watc
hing her beloved phone deteriorate. Maybe Chlöe was right, maybe she did have a habit of hanging on to things. At least she was fastidious about backing up her data, especially the contacts list.

  “What are you doing?” Vee said softly. “How – how … Can’t you see …? Are you nuts?” You can’t call her that, remember. ‘Nuts’ isn’t a proper classification for mental problems, intoned the Chlöe-voice-over software in her mind, as clear and lifelike as if she were right at her elbow. Vee shook her head to clear it. “What’s this meant to accomplish?”

  Gaba’s hips swayed as she advanced, knife out, other arm stretched out behind her as far as it could go, clutching the front of Tristan’s T-shirt. She wrung it into a knot in her fist, Tristan struggling in her grip. With an annoyed grunt, she snapped her arm down to her side and he stumbled and fell, knees of his jeans dragging over cement as he thrashed and shrieked. She kept coming. Fabric ripped.

  “Stop!” Vee yelled. Miraculously, Gaba complied. Tristan stayed down, keening.

  “You assume I still care about accomplishing anything.” Gaba turned to profile and stared into the night, serene. A few dreads had fallen free of her ponytail and dangled over her cheek. A breeze ruffled them, moving them back and forth against her skin in a caress, like a part of her was consoling her. “They left me nothing. Nothing do I have left, you understand?” She turned back. “Fuck-all.”

  “Then what you expect me to do here? You can’t self-destruct without audience? You want me to go grab my laptop,” Vee jerked her thumb to the street, “and sit up here to crank out your story, and run it tomorrow in my personal newspaper? Or organise you a press conference?”