The Other Four
Page 19
"I'm not a murderer!" I whispered, but my voice came out louder than I had intended.
The knocking continued.
"I read in the newspaper that you were wanted for murder. As soon as I let you in, I rang the Police because I feared for my life."
In other words, she wanted the twenty-five thousand pula reward.
I managed to control my voice and said, "You're not allowing them in here. I'm your nephew! You can't do this to me. I'm being set up. I'll tell you everything, the whole truth. What you've seen in the papers is nothing but lies."
I could see tears seeping through into her eyes. She didn’t say anything; she just glared at me, wideeyed.
"Please, believe me. My life is in danger. There are people looking for me out there. And these people will kill me. I ran away from them, that's why I'm here."
The knocking was getting more frantic, making both of us nervous.
"Why don't you tell that to the Police then?"
"They'll not believe me. Not until I find a way of exposing whoever it is that's after my life, whoever it is that's trying to set me up."
I put my hand against my eyes and cried. She walked towards the door. I let her, resigning myself to whatever was going to happen next.
The taxi dropped them off by the Chinese shop, as commanded by Mothusi. Too many shops around here, Dumani thought. He had never been here, but he was sure if he looked around properly he would find a shebeen nearby. He needed one badly. He needed cold booze. He salivated just at the thought of it.
"Hey Mothusi, is there a shebeen around here?" he asked.
Mothusi, who was leading, turned and said, "There are shebeens everywhere in this area man. There is one right across the road, to the left of the school."
"I need something there."
"What do you need?" asked Thabang rudely.
Dumani decided to ignore Thabang and said to Mothusi, "Take me there please. I'm really thirsty and when I am I can't think properly."
"Sure," Mothusi said and the two retraced their steps, leaving Thabang rooted to one spot, but not for long.
The shebeen was already packed and busy when they got there. They ordered a variety of moonshine Dumani had never tried before and went to sit at the corner of the yard where a dog had just finished relieving itself.
By the time they left the shebeen Dumani was lighter on his feet and more hopeful. He was annoyed that Thabang had refused to steal a car. Mothusi said he didn't know how to steal one and, besides, it was too risky. So they had to stick to Plan A. It wasn't going to be easy but it was worth a try.
Mothusi had only been to Blue City a few times in the past, but Boxer had given him perfect directions to the house they were looking for. It was a yellow house. The problem was, there were too many yellow houses around here. If he remembered well, Boxer had said the house was on a cul-de-sac, near the NO ENTRY sign.
"How far are we?" asked Thabang.
"We should be there shortly."
Something caught Mothusi's eyes. Cops. They
seemed to be right in front of the house they were looking for, just parked there, waiting. Mothusi wondered if he was being set up. Had Boxer betrayed him? He shouldn't trust anyone in these things. He shouldn't have told Boxer — or anyone for that matter — about the deal. All of a sudden he was scared. His bladder went loose and he was in a fight or flight mode. But flight was the only option.
"Guys, something is not right here," he said, turning around to face his drunk and dumb colleagues.
"What is it?" said Dumani.
He showed them the cops and explained.
Thabang was now sure he was being betrayed. Dumani and Mothusi were in it together. So was his bladder, it didn’t warn him of the imminent betrayal this time. In fact, it did. When he’d pissed himself earlier on, that must have been what it was. He should be more observant and suspicious next time.
He suspected Dumani and Mothusi must have told the cops Thabang was a criminal and brought him right to into their hands. That's why they were waiting: to arrest Thabang. Thabang wasn’t going to stand for it, so he suddenly took to his feet, without putting much thought into it. He just ran. He expected the cops to run after him — or even shoot him — but he didn't care. At least he'd die knowing he had tried to get away.
Then he heard footsteps behind him. His bladder let go. He could feel urine trickling down his legs. He wondered what more betrayal awaited him. This wasn’t good. His legs became rubbery and his lungs were failing him. He gave up and stumbled to the ground.
"I'm not alone in this. Those guys are also involved," he said, cowering, not sure what the cops were about to do to him.
At first Dumani was confused, then he got angry. He had been set up by a fool he had wrongly kidnapped before. He was thinking he was a fool to have trusted Mothusi enough to work with him. That call Mothusi took earlier on, that must be when he betrayed them by calling the cops and leading them right into their hands.
"What are they doing here?” Dumani said, pulling Mothusi by the lapels of his shirt.
"I don't know," Mothusi said.
"Did you call them?"
He wanted to punch Mothusi, but he couldn’t do it in front of the cops. He regretted not having finished him off the last time he had a chance.
"Why would I?"
"Did you set us up?"
"I swear I didn't."
"Then why are the cops here?"
"I don't know. This guy is a wanted fugitive. Maybe somebody saw him and called the cops."
Dumani was just about to say something when Thabang suddenly ran off. Both Dumani and Mothusi looked on in puzzlement.
Thinking that maybe Thabang had seen something he hadn't, Dumani took off, too. Mothusi followed. A siren followed shortly after. The two caught up with Thabang. The ugly bastard stumbled to the ground and said, "I'm not in this alone. Those guys are involved too."
"What the hell are you talking about?" said Dumani.
The ugly bastard turned and said, "Oh, it's you. I thought it was the cops."
Dumani didn't understand what the fool was talking about.
Thabang said, "They’re coming."
"Who?"
Thabang stood up, ready to run, and said, "The cops."
Dumani looked. The cops were coming, three of them, carrying batons.
"Shit!' said Mothusi.
Dumani looked at Mothusi and decided right then that if they were lucky enough to get away with this one, he was going to ditch Mothusi for good. Ditching him as in kill him.
"Their car is still here but there seems to be no one inside," my aunt said to me. I still couldn't believe she had lied and told the cops that I wasn't here. When she had walked to the door, I was sure she was letting them in. I'd stood in the kitchen and could hear her lying to them, saying I wasn't here. She said to them that they had the wrong house, and that she didn't know what they were talking about. She’d denied calling them. I'd listened on as they insisted, saying I was dangerous and they suspected I was in the house and she was under siege. I'd known what was going to happen next, so I'd walked out through the backdoor and hid. I could hear them looking around in the house. I'd been sure this was the end. If they'd come out the back, they'd seen me. But they didn't. They left. But now why was their car still here?
"I'll have to find a way of getting out of here if they're going be sticking around here."
"They'll see you."
"No, they won't. The house next door is empty. I could…"
I caught myself. I'd just remembered something. The old man from next door.
Could he have talked to the Police and told them he saw somebody fitting my description walking into this very house, which could be why they were still hanging around? My fear shot to the roof.
We were sitting in the sitting room, TV now off. My aunt seemed preoccupied. I wondered if she was feeling bad about having betrayed me.
"Just stay here. They'll go. But do me a favour once they've
left. Don't come back here. I don't want trouble."
I looked at her and said nothing. I understood how she must have been feeling.
She stared at the blank TV, deep in thought.
I heard talking outside. I looked at her. She looked back at me and stood up, walked to the front window, drew the curtains apart and peered.
"They're leading three guys to their car."
I took the risk and went to take a peek too, hiding behind her as I did. Fear quickly intermingled with a feeling of confusion and I became sure that I was being betrayed more than I'd thought. How did those three guys know I was here? I looked at my aunt and made a decision. I had to get out of here. Now.
They took them to separate rooms and interrogated them. Mothusi was interrogated by a cop named Modise and another one called Kitso.
"Why did you run away?" asked Modise.
"We didn't run away. We were jogging," said Mothusi.
"You were not jogging. You were walking until you saw us, then you turned and ran. Tell us the truth. We have very good ways of extracting the truth from anyone who tries to lie."
"I'm telling you the truth. We were..."
"What happened to your foot?"
"Nothing."
"You walk with a limp."
"Oh, I got injured by a cow."
"A cow? There are no cows here."
"I come from Tsebeyatonki."
Modise's eyes suddenly lit up.
"Tsebeyatonki, huh? Are you the guy in the newspapers?"
"No, but I know about him. The killer, you mean?"
"Yes."
Mothusi was tempted to tell the cops that he was the man who had that witnessed the murder. But then he thought they may want to know what he was doing in town. That would involve a lot of lying, and he’d get caught.
At the same time, if the cops got to the witness before he did and he ended up being caught, they'd want the person who'd witnessed the murder on the witness stand and, the way things were, that person was Mothusi. The cops would remember him, which would cause trouble. He had only one choice.
"I witnessed the murder," Mothusi said.
The cops looked at him like he'd just confessed that he was a murderer, which worried him because he feared they could tell that he was a murderer. He was trying hard to stop himself from shaking. Fear was tearing him apart.
"Tell us the whole truth."
Mothusi sighed and told them everything. Well, everything except one thing: the truth.
"What were you doing if you were not running away then?" asked the cop called Dumani.
They had asked Thabang why he and his two pals were running away and he had told them they were not running away.
Thabang said, "We were playing."
The two cops laughed.
"How old are you?" the cop named Christopher asked.
"I'm 45."
The cops laughed some more. Thabang didn't understand what was so funny. They had caught him, but so what? Just to laugh at him?
They had him pinned against the corner of the room. He was sweating because he didn't like to be interrogated. In fact, he hated questions of any kind. That's why he’d always avoided answering them in class. Now he had more questions to answer than he could afford.
The room stank and he knew why: it was his stale urine. His trousers were still wet, although with a little bit of improvement.
"Look here, don't lie to us. I'll ask one more time. One more time. If you don't tell us the truth, we will use very efficient ways of extracting the truth from you. Why did you run away when you saw us?" The cop named Kago said sternly.
Thabang looked at Kago blankly. See, he had never been in trouble with the law before. He had stolen cars alright, but none of the cops had ever been able to find him out. All they knew was that cars were disappearing, but to where, they'd never had the privilege to find out.
"I'm not lying. We couldn't even see you until you came up to us. Why did you arrest us anyway?"
"You're criminals, aren’t you? There has been a spate of crimes around the area where we found you and we highly suspect you may have been involved."
"Me involved in crime? You've the wrong guy."
"Hopefully your fingerprints won't prove you wrong."
They took Thabang to a little room where they extracted his fingerprints against his will.
"Why did you arrest us?" said Dumani. He had refused to sit at first, but now he was sitting only because one of the cops slapped him across the cheek when he refused to. Now that he was sobering up he was thinking it was stupid of him to have refused to sit down in the first place.
"You tell us," said the cop named Tebogo. He had a smirk on his face that Dumani wished he could wipe out with a fist.
"I don't know why, that's why I'm asking. We were out there having fun, chasing each other around, and you guys got jealous and brought us in, I suppose."
"Why were you chasing each other around?" "We'd been joking and Thabang said..." "Who is Thabang?"
"The ugly guy. He made a joke about my large
ears and I chased him playfully. Whoever you were looking for, you got the wrong guys." "So you went all the way there just to chase each other?"
"No."
"Where do you live?"
Silence.
"You don't know where you live, huh?"
"I live in Hebron."
The cop whistled and said, "That's far from where we found you. Do you know anyone who lives in Blue City?"
"Not really."
"So how did you end up chasing each other there?"
"We were walking to the stadium."
The cops laughed again.
"You're a liar, you know that? What’s happening at the stadium?"
"We wanted to see it. We haven't been there since the renovations took place."
"But the stadium is this way," Sidney said, pointing.
Dumani had no answer to that. He knew he was screwed. He knew he'd been betrayed and the cops were just asking the wrong questions just to see how stupid he was.
"We will need your fingerprints, just in case."
Before he could say anything to that they hauled him to a little room where he met Thabang. All Dumani was thinking about were all the crimes he'd committed. Would the cops find out through his fingerprints? Now he understood why Thabang had a tendency to pee on himself because he, too, had just peed on himself. He had fear of cops. This had nothing to do with the fact that he was a criminal, no. He had always had a fear of them, even long before he became a criminal. At one point he considered joining the police college, drove up there in a stolen car one afternoon, looked around and saw too many cops. That’s when he changed his mind and drove off. But he wanted their uniform though. Once he had that, he could try something else. He could find a decent guy, not a fat cow like Thabang, and set up a roadblock in the middle of nowhere and hijack cars and rob drivers and their passengers, wearing police uniforms.
I
was just about to sneak out through the backdoor when my aunt came up to me and said, "They've left."
Relief descended upon me.
"I'm leaving."
"Where to?"
"It's none of your business. I think you're
involved." She started to sob and I let her. I was having difficulty controlling my anger. It kept on building up, making my body, but especially my hands, shake. I wanted to strangle her. I was sure she was involved.
When she was done sobbing, she seemed to be about to say something but I didn't wait to hear it. I hated her right then and wanted to be as far away from her as I could. She had betrayed me. She’d called both the cops and the three rogues who were after my life and would do anything to see me die. But thankfully they got arrested before they could get to me and I wasn't going to give them the chance even if they got released. I had to find Vusa, which reminded me: I turned around and walked back to my aunt’s house and knocked on the door.
She opened. She was crying. But I ha
d no sympathy for her. To me she was a witch who'd betrayed me. The old man from next door was now standing by the fence, staring at us. I ignored him.
"Where does Vusa live?"
She didn't answer. Instead she renewed her sobs. "Look, you're my aunt and all. But right now I
don't trust you. I don’t trust anyone. And I give you one choice. You either tell me where Vusa lives or else I report anonymously to the cops that you confessed to killing Vusa’s wife."
She stared at me through teary eyes, sniffling. I'd have felt sorry for her under normal circumstances, but right now I couldn't feel a thing.
"I promise I'll not hurt him. I just need to find some answers," I said, hoping she didn't note the desperation in my voice.
"In Hillside."
"Where exactly?"
"Near the garage, just by Choppies."
That was about ten minutes from Modiri's house,
where I stayed. This meant Vusa must have seen me and told the rogues where I was, which proved even more that Vusa was the person after my life. So, I really had to find him.
I stormed out and hailed a taxi. I told the taxi driver to pass by the ATM machine so I could withdraw some money and he grudgingly agreed.
Thabang tumbled out a few minutes after Dumani had had his fingerprints taken, pulling up his stinky pants as he did so. The booze was gone from Dumani’s system.
Mothusi came out just as Dumani was about to ask Thabang how the interrogation went. They shared their experiences. They’d all been released pending “further investigations.” The cops had said they’d check their fingerprints against the database. They had made it clear to all three that they were sure they would find “something” in the database.
The three agreed that once they were done with their project, it would be easy for them to disappear off the face of the earth and the cops would never find them. Plus, Dumani felt that once he became rich, he will establish some serious connections.
When you’ve serious connections, you can make all your fingerprints and names to disappear altogether from the Police’s system.
“Where to?” said Thabang. His trouser was unzipped and he still smelt. Seriously smelt. A skunk’s smell could very well be perfume compared to the smell that was assailing Dumani’s nose right now.