Wake Up Dead: A Thriller (Cape Town Thrillers)

by Roger Smith

  Good.

  He set the bag down on the kitchen table, shifting a few dishes out of the way. Had another slug of brandy and untied the bag and shook the arm onto the table. Doc reckoned that the arm had belonged to a black man in his twenties. Well enough muscled, with all the fingers intact.

  He was as incurious about who the man had been as he was about what had caused his death. He never questioned the cops who worked at the police morgue when they arrived with body parts. Just checked the merchandise and paid them. Judging from the tooth marks at the point of amputation, one of the cops had used a wood saw to take the arm off postmortem.

  Doc opened a kitchen cabinet and lifted out a handheld circular saw. He plugged it in next to the kettle and flicked the power on, letting the blade spin and howl for a second before he killed it and regarded the arm.

  He was about to harvest what he could from the limb, for use as muti. Traditional medicine. Despite Cape Town’s Western veneer—cell phones, satellite TV, superhighways—it was still Africa, where people believed that good luck was limited, and you had to steal the luck of another. The most powerful way to do that was to use medicine made from their body parts.

  Doc thought about his clients, the sangomas—witch doctors—in the shack settlements sprawling alongside the airport road. What would make him maximum profit?

  He could saw off the fingers and thumb and sell them individually—would have done it if the hand hadn’t been in such good condition. No, he decided, he would sever the hand just above the wrist. Sell it as a complete item.

  He’d known a darky butcher once, over in Guguletu across the freeway, who had kept a human hand in his freezer along with his sides of meat. Each morning before dawn, he’d open his store and enter the freezer to enact the same ritual: walk among the hanging carcasses and slap them with the hand. Swore it called the spirits and helped him attract customers.

  Fucken darkies.

  Still, he shouldn’t bitch. It made him a decent living.

  So he’d detach the hand; then he’d saw what was left of the arm into a couple of pieces. Let the meat thaw and debone it. Package and wrap the flesh to be sold separately. Sell off the pieces of bone as singles.

  A nice score.

  Doc was about to get to work when he heard banging on his front door. He set down the saw and left the kitchen, closing the door behind him. Went to the drapes and peeped. Recognized two of Manson’s crew, supporting a third man who slumped between them.

  Shit.

  Doc opened the door, and the gangbangers sloped in out of the gloom. They let the unconscious man slide to the floor. Doc could see fluid seeping from his nose. The skinny one, Boogie, gave Doc that look. The one that said: Do something. And fucken do it now.

  “What’s up with him?” Doc nudged the man with his scuffed shoe.

  Boogie shrugged. “We find him like so.”

  Doc groaned as he lowered himself to the floor. He lifted each of the man’s eyelids, saw the unequal pupil size. Turned the head, revealing blood clotted in the short, fuzzy hair. Somebody had beaten the 26 unconscious with a couple of well-aimed blows.

  “He’s probably got a fractured skull.”

  “Can you wake him up?” Boogie asked.

  “Depends. It’s going to take some time.”

  “We don’t got no time. Somebody shoot Manson’s kid dead. This one know who did it.”

  Doc sighed, rubbed his eyes. Paradise Park was looking at another gang war.

  “Leave him with me. Come back in a half hour.”

  “We just want the fucker to tell a name. Okay?”

  Doc nodded, locked the door after the men left. He stood staring down at the man on the floor. It didn’t take a witch doctor to work out what name would emerge from that mouth if he regained consciousness.

  Billy Afrika.

  BOOGIE WAS AMBITIOUS. So when they got into the green Honda Civic outside Doc’s house, he decided to show some initiative.

  “Make a turn by Shorty Andrews’s place,” he said.

  The driver, Arafat, was slow, but not that slow. “What you scheming now, Boogie?”

  “Who you think killed Bianca?” When Arafat shrugged, Boogie said, “Nobody but the 28s is going to hit the tik house, brother.”

  Arafat stared at him. “Maybe we should wait …”

  “Tell your mother to wait. Drive.”

  Arafat sighed, knew from experience that arguing with Boogie was a waste of time. He could break the little fucker like a chicken bone, but Boogie was a dialogue merchant, made his head spin with his endless yakking.

  Arafat cranked the Honda—low rumble of the V6—and they slid off into Dark City.

  SHORTY ANDREWS LOVED Céline Dion. When he was hanging with his 28 crew, they listened to gangsta, maybe a bit of R&B if they were chilling and smoking Mandrax. But when he was in his car, it was Céline all the way.

  Shorty sat in the Beemer, parked in the driveway of his house, watching the last light fading from the sky, singing along with Céline. Effortlessly reaching those impossibly high notes as “The Power of Love” built to its climax. When the song ended he felt uplifted, as always.

  Then he thought about Billy Afrika walking around Paradise Park with a Glock in his hand. That worried him. Things had been nice and quiet for a while, the uneasy truce between him and the Americans still holding. He didn’t want nothing to fuck that up.

  The quieter life suited Shorty, now that he was getting older. Killing, raping, that was all young man’s stuff. He had a family. Responsibilities. He jabbed the CD player with a banana-sized finger and shuttled forward to another ballad to restore his good mood. He joined Céline in “Because You Loved Me,” his voice as sweet and pure as a choirboy’s.

  He was waiting for his wife, who was in the house dressing the younger kid, Keegan. His other boy, the older one—his favorite—clambered into the rear seat and sat fiddling with a toy gun. A Christmas present. A .38 Smith and Wesson. Looked all too fucken real.

  They were going across to Canal Walk Mall to eat, catch the latest Eddie Murphy, and maybe buy clothes for the kids.

  Shorty stopped singing. Impatient now. “Whitford, go see where your mommy is.”

  The boy opened the car door, and the dome light kicked in. Right then Shorty heard the sound he knew so well: small-arms fire at close range. The rear window of the Beemer starred, and Shorty threw himself out of the car, 9mm Taurus already in his hand, firing at the Honda that was taking off down the road.

  He hit the driver, and the car slowed and stopped. Two wheels up on the sidewalk opposite, under a yellow sodium light. His guys were coming out of the house, Osama and Teeth, blasting away at the Civic.

  Shorty got to the car and saw the driver was dead. Boogie, that skinny little fuck, gut-shot but still alive in the passenger seat. Shorty finished him, sending his tik-fried brain onto the side window, slowly leaking down like a lava lamp.

  Shorty stood up, catching his breath.

  Teeth was beside him. “Boss.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Boss.” Teeth said again, and Shorty saw where he was looking.

  Whitford was walking toward them, bandy and already chunky, his toy pistol stretched out in front of him—the two-handed grip—firing at the car.

  Just like his daddy.

  Shorty saw his wife standing in the doorway of their house, impassive. He walked over to the boy, gently turned him, eased him back across the road. “You go to your mommy, okay?’

  The boy was reluctant, looking over his shoulder at the wrecked car and the blood.

  Shorty knew he’d have to watch this one. Send him to a school in the suburbs. Make sure he became a fucken accountant or something.

  Shorty turned to Teeth. “Get all the manpower. Now.”

  Teeth nodded, and he was reaching for his cell, speed-dialing. Calling the soldiers to the war. Céline still pumped from Shorty’s car, telling him that good-bye was the saddest word.

  ROBBIE SAT CROU
CHED before Roxy, tongue protruding from his mouth, as he concentrated on releasing the knot that secured the cord wrapped around her ankles. She’d had to keep talking to him, keep encouraging him as his fingers slipped, and tears flowed and tremors rocked his small body.

  It was dark in the hut by the time he had worked the knot loose. Which was a blessing, the Technicolor horror of the dead cop now a muted monochrome.

  Her ankles were free. Roxy shook her legs, trying to restore the circulation.

  “You’re a brave boy, Robbie.”

  He nodded, sniffing.

  Now that her legs were untied, there was an outside chance she could work her handcuffed arms around her legs and bring them to the front of her body. She lay on her back and pulled her arms down toward her butt, her shoulders screaming on the edge of dislocation as she forced her hands past her thighs.

  She lifted her left leg into the air, straight as a dancer, kept the right leg bent, and pulled the knee toward her chin. Her shoulder muscles were tearing, but she just managed to get the cuffs past her right foot. Then she could lower her left leg and slip her wrists past it. Her hands were in front of her.

  She lay on the wooden floor for a few seconds, catching her breath. Her shoulders throbbing.

  Roxy stood and found a three-legged wooden stool lying on its side next to the dead cop. She swung the stool at the window and smashed the glass. The flies massing on the outside of the pane lifted off in an angry chorus, before entering the room in thick formation. Roxy grabbed the reeking blanket that lay on the skinny mattress and used it to cover the shards of glass that spiked up from the window frame.

  “Where you going?” Robbie asked. Panicked.

  “To get help.”

  “Don’t leave me here. Please, missus.”

  Roxy grabbed him in her cuffed hands and lifted him through the window, grunted at his unexpected heft. She dropped him onto the sand below.

  Then she dragged the stool under the window, hitched up her dress, and sent one leg through the broken window and straddled the frame. She gripped the wood above her head as best she could, handicapped by the cuffs, trying to lift the weight off her leg, but she felt the glass pierce the blanket and slice into her thigh.

  She bit back the pain and brought the other leg up, then pushed herself out of the window, landing hard on the sand.

  Roxy got to her feet, feeling the blood flowing down her leg.

  “I wanna come wiff,” Robbie said.

  She had no time to untie his ankles.

  “Please, Robbie, be a big boy and stay here. I’ll be back soon.”

  She ran off toward the street, her cuffed hands held in front of her, the sand still hot on the soles of her bare feet.

  The small houses, huddled in the pools of orange streetlight, were quiet. A snatch of laughter and a thump of percussion reached her. Then silence. Lights burned in a house to her left, and she headed that way.

  Then she saw two men walking toward her. They were minstrels, like the ones she’d seen by the ocean when she’d gone running with Billy Afrika. Dressed in the gaudy festival outfits: satin trousers and tailcoats festooned with stars and stripes, more stars dancing on the brims of their top hats. She almost laughed. A pair of Uncle Sams. Sent to rescue her.

  She ran to the men. “Help me. Please.”

  The one nearest to her put out gloved hands to steady her, caught hold of her shoulders directly under the streetlight.

  And as Roxy looked up at his face covered with red, white, and blue stripes, she saw that the makeup didn’t quite conceal the black teardrops that dripped from his eyes.

  chapter 35

  BILLY CROSSED MAIN ROAD, DRIVING INTO WHITE CITY, FIGHTING the wheel and the stick shift. His left arm was in a sling fashioned from a dirty T-shirt. It stank of Doc: booze-sweat and tallow from corner-store fries. And something stale that Billy didn’t want to identify. But at least the alcoholic had dug the bullet from Billy’s shoulder and stitched him up, sweating from the effort that it took to force his shaking hands to obey him.

  Billy never drank—couldn’t afford to be out of control—but he’d sipped at the brandy bottle, feeling its warmth burn deep into his gut. Dug his teeth into the handkerchief and welcomed the pain. Billy had learned about pain young. Learned that it was pointless to try and wish it away. Better to stare it down.

  Say you were ready. Tell it to do its fucken worst.

  And having a slug dug out by a drunk was a minor annoyance compared to the months of agony after Piper had made him into barbecue boy. That was hell.

  Billy found his way to Barbara’s street. Nobody had followed him, but he stopped a block from the house, parked the car between the widely spaced streetlights. He stuck the Glock into his belt and left the Hyundai, carrying the bag of money. No way he was going to leave it in the trunk and let it disappear when some tik head decided to boost the car.

  It was fully dark now, a killer moon swelling over the grim houses and ghetto blocks, and Paradise Park was starting to make good its Friday-night promise. A car screamed by on the next street, hip hop and testosterone-rich laughter washing over to where Billy walked. He heard the moan of a siren in the distance. And gunshots, coming from Dark City side, enough for a twenty-one-gun salute.

  The first notes of the symphony that was to come.

  The streetlight outside Barbara’s house flickered and buzzed like a dying moth. Sent flashes of orange into the dusty night, then shrank back into darkness. Billy stood awhile, taking in the snapshots of the house the strobing light allowed him. A lamp burned behind the drapes in the bedroom nearest to the street. Barbara’s room. A TV set pulsed blue in the sitting room.

  Nothing moved in the house.

  Billy went through the rusted gate and walked up to the front door. He was about to knock when he saw that the security gate was unlocked, and the door was open a crack. He set the bag of money down and reached for the Glock. Used his foot to edge the door open, swept the sitting room with the gun barrel. Empty.

  A half-eaten plate of chicken and rice, seething with black flies, sat in front of the TV. An animated action figure was stuck in a violent loop on the screen—blood spraying from its decapitated head. Grindhouse graphics with thrash metal on the soundtrack.

  Billy nudged the bag inside with his foot and elbowed the door closed. Stood in the sitting room. Sniffed. A smell came to him, fighting the rendered fats and spices on the greasy plate. It was a stink he knew too well. The stink of death.

  Looked down at the worn carpet, saw a spoor of footmarks leading from the closed bedroom toward the front door. Tracks that on a wet winter’s day might have been mud. But it hadn’t rained on the Flats in months. Whoever had walked out of the room had tracked blood.

  Billy walked toward the bedroom, stood by the closed door, steeling himself. He pushed the door open. It stopped against the body of the boy, legs in jeans and feet in Nikes. He could see Barbara’s face as she lay on the floor. She seemed to be staring up at him. Her mouth was closed, yet her tongue protruded. It took him a moment to understand: her throat had been slit and her tongue yanked out through the gash in her neck, hanging long enough to lick her clavicle.

  He shoved hard against the door, shifted the dead boy, and saw the girl on her back on the bed, her white robe sodden with blood, her thighs spread and sticky.

  Manson, he thought for a crazy moment. Manson has been here already and taken these lives in payment for his dead daughter.

  Then Billy saw the Okapi knife lying on the vanity table beside the hair dryer and the brush. Blade open and wet. Left there deliberately. Posed like a still life. Saw the graffiti on the wall. The red hand pointing like a gun. The scribbled words. And lastly, a bloody valentine, a crudely rendered heart framing two names: Disco and Piper.

  The room rocked beneath his feet, and Billy had to grab on to the door to stop himself from falling.

  He felt a long-ago blade pierce his flesh before the flames took him.

  Saw C
lyde sinking to his knees, trying to contain his guts with his fingers.

  Saw Piper smiling.

  Billy Afrika knew in that instant what he was dealing with. And who.

  Piper was out. Out to renew his wedding vows in blood, ready to take his bride back to Pollsmoor. What had been staged here would ensure that. There was no way Billy could allow it. Allow prison to keep Piper safe and alive again. This time he wouldn’t hesitate.

  He stepped over Barbara, hearing the soles of his church shoes suck on blood thick as pudding. Reached for the knife, folded the blade back into the handle, and pocketed it.

  Then he moved fast.

  Through the kitchen to a small garage, an oil stain on the cement floor where Clyde Adams had once parked his car. The neat shelves still held paint, tools, and the jerrican of gasoline Clyde had used to power his lawnmower. A joke between them: Where was the lawn to mow, out here on the sand of the Flats? Like a bald man asking for a haircut, Billy had said, mocking his friend.

  He grabbed the jerrican with his good hand and shook it. Still full.

  He left with the can, pocketed a box of matches from the kitchen on his way through, and went back into the bedroom. Closed his eyes for a moment and tried to find a prayer. Couldn’t. So he forced himself to do the dead the honor of looking at them as he soaked their bodies in gasoline.

  Then he swung the jerrican at the walls, splashing the graffiti. Finally, he took Doc’s handkerchief from his pocket, still moist from his own sweat and saliva, and emptied the last of the gasoline onto it. He stepped back through the bedroom door and lit the handkerchief, seeing it flame blue and orange as he threw it into the room.

  Closed the door on the explosion of heat he remembered too well.

  Billy took the drug money and left the house. He stood a moment beneath the strobing street lamp, watched the flames already climbing the bedroom drapes. He felt his hand on the knife in his pocket. He’d promised the dying Clyde that he’d take care of his family. He’d failed. Now he made one more promise: he’d use this knife on Piper.