The Top Prisoner of C-Max

by Wessel Ebersohn

  That the boss was free was the best news they had had for a long time. Willie Seremane, who had led the raid that freed Dlomo and was the only local in the gang, had organised a few robberies. They had got away each time, but the scores had been small. Lately they had been reduced to stealing old cars for the scrap industry and holding up roadside hawkers and corner cafés. The take was always pathetic. One of them had gone crazy and tried, at the point of a gun, to keep a few hundred he should have shared. Seremane had to kill him to ensure that no one else tried such foolishness.

  It was Dlomo who had always spotted where the big scores lay and knew how to go after them. His method was simple. He had put together big teams and armed them with the vestigial remains of the liberation struggle, AK-47s from Umkhonto and R4s from the apartheid defence force. The occasional RPG rocket launcher or limpet mine filled out their arsenal. They struck cash-in-transit vehicles and banks in such force that the guards never had a chance. And Dlomo had a sense of where money lay. They had never raided an empty cash-in-transit truck, or a supermarket or a bank where the tills were empty. With Dlomo the take was either good or superb.

  What Elia Dlomo had to say was a shock to the members of what was left of his gang. They had risked their lives to free him because they expected that, after they did, things would again be like the old days. But he had told them that this was not possible, at least not for a while.

  To make himself understood to this disparate group, Dlomo spoke English. ‘When this is finished, we’ll go back and do jobs again. I just gotta get this done.’ He was not sure that he was telling them the truth, but it was the best he could offer them.

  By midday he had left his dispirited gang members and had taken a taxi to Johannesburg Station with enough time for the daily train to Cape Town. His thinking was that you were bottled up in a flight, while a train gave you places to hide and escape routes. It was better than a flight, even better than the roads.

  Only Seremane accompanied him to the station. Dlomo was wearing a black suit with a clerical collar Seremane had found for him. The gang members had collected a few thousand for him, enough to travel where he needed to go and to come back. It was not a lot, but it was everything they had.

  After buying the ticket, Dlomo and his main lieutenant found a part of the platform where they would not be overheard. ‘Chief, I don’t understand this,’ Seremane said gently. ‘Why you got to go do this thing first?’

  ‘This coloured, Hall, made parole day before yesterday. Maybe he’s going already. Maybe he’s in the Cape already.’

  ‘But we not inside. We don’t have to think about that now.’

  ‘Willie, you remember the money we made in the old days?’

  ‘Yes, Chief, a course.’

  ‘We going to have money again.’

  ‘Yes, Chief.’ He looked down at his feet while he said it. They would not be making good money if the chief did not come back.

  ‘More money than before.’

  ‘Yes, Chief.’

  ‘But we not going to die at home in our bed.’

  Seremane was silent. What was his chief talking about now?

  ‘We got a home?’

  ‘The flat?’ It was less than a statement of fact.

  ‘We got no home. We all going to die with a police bullet. Otherwise we going to die inside. We all know this thing.’

  Again it was impossible to answer. Seremane had never heard him speak this way. They all knew it, but no one ever spoke about it. He raised a hand in a vague gesture that may have indicated the desire to speak, but the thought faded, the hand was lowered and he said nothing.

  ‘We know this thing. But first we going to live good again. We going to do big jobs again. But when we go back inside, then I want every bastard to know who’s boss. I want Enslin Kruger to know who’s boss.’

  Seremane and the others were all members of the Twenty-Six Gang. He understood the need to deal with such matters. Eventually he spoke. ‘You going to kill him, this Hall?’

  ‘If I see him, but where will I find him?’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘The woman.’

  ‘This woman from the prison. They say she likes us.’

  He shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘She smiles, she walks. But she’s from them, not from us. I got to kill her before Hall gets there.’

  ‘We want you must come back, Chief.’

  ‘I’m coming back – I have that woman’s hair in my pocket when I come back or I come back in a box.’

  Klerksdorp Station – 1 283 kilometres from the Freedom Foundation

  The Cape train slowed for Klerksdorp. Elia Dlomo sat on the lower bunk in his compartment. It was late afternoon. He felt comfortable in the clerical suit. It fitted perfectly. The Bible on the seat beside him completed the picture.

  On the upper bunk a young computer technician on his way home for his annual leave was snoring softly. He had tried briefly to engage the reverend in conversation, but Dlomo had the Bible open on his lap and seemed to be studying the text. What conversation the technician had managed to coax out of him had been brief. Sleep seemed a better option.

  The concrete platform rolled smoothly past as the train entered the station. From his window Dlomo saw two uniformed policemen and a few passengers with their luggage at the far end.

  He rose and made his way to the observation deck at the end of the coach. As he reached it, the train jerked hard once, then came to a dead stop. From the deck he had a clear view of the two policemen. They were walking away from him towards the driver’s cabin. While he watched they reached the driver, who had opened his door and was looking out.

  One of the policemen was saying something, but the distance was too great for Dlomo to pick up the words. ‘How are you, Reverend?’ a voice asked in Zulu. A friendly conductor who had clipped his ticket earlier had arrived on the deck behind him.

  ‘I’m well, my son,’ Dlomo said. ‘I slept. I often sleep on a train.’

  ‘Most fall asleep very quickly on the train.’

  ‘It’s the rocking.’ He nodded towards the policemen. ‘What the officers want?’

  ‘They get on sometimes. Sometimes they look for a criminal, sometimes they check luggage.’

  ‘Why do they check luggage?’

  ‘Dagga. Mostly they check for dagga.’

  ‘They looking for dagga today?’

  ‘I don’t know, Reverend.’ He started in the direction of the next coach. ‘I must go and talk to them. If they need to get into compartments, I have to be with them.’

  ‘They tell you what they want, then you tell me?’ Dlomo was immediately sorry he had asked. It may not be the sort of thing innocent men asked.

  The conductor looked surprised, but Dlomo could discern no trace of suspicion in his answer. ‘Yes, Reverend, if you’re not asleep. But the police won’t bother you. They’re looking for criminals.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m going to sleep now.’

  ‘I’ll knock softly on your door.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Dlomo said, then, remembering his role, added, ‘my son.’

  He returned to the compartment. From under the seat took out his travelling bag, little more than a satchel. Inside it the nine-millimetre Makarov was wrapped in a face towel. It had been smuggled onto Johannesburg Station by Seremane and handed to him through the window once he was already seated. He checked the Makarov to ensure that it was loaded, then slipped it under a pillow on the side away from the door. The computer technician was still asleep.

  The train stayed in the station longer than the fifteen minutes allowed for the stoppage. The scheduled departure time had passed before Dlomo heard footsteps from the far end of the coach and the opening and closing of compartment doors. Occasionally the sounds of speaking reached him, the clearer voices of the policemen and the conductor and the blurred and muffled sounds of passengers who were in their compartments.

  Their passage down the coach was slow and apparently meth
odical. A door rattled and voices were heard, then another door and more voices. There was still time to get out of the compartment and move in the other direction, perhaps slip away on the station. If he could time his move for when they were in a compartment, they may not even realise he had left.

  And there was always the Makarov.

  Another door rattled. The voices were close now, probably in the next compartment. It was too late to run. He felt under the pillow for the Makarov. It felt solid and reliable in his right hand. The coolness of the metal had already warmed to his body temperature. He had used Makarovs often and they had never let him down. It had been the pistol of choice in the liberation army and now the black market was flooded with them.

  With his left hand, he moved the Bible onto his lap, positioning it so that it would shield his right hand where it disappeared under the pillow. The Bible fell open at the story of Samson. In the reading light his eyes picked out the words, ‘Why does the God of Israel sleep?’ I don’t know, he thought, but Elia Dlomo is wide awake.

  He heard the adjoining door close. A moment later the conductor’s key turned in the lock of his door and it slid open. One of the policemen, a young man who was wearing the stripes of a sergeant took a step into the compartment. He looked surprised at the minister of religion reading his Bible. ‘I’m sorry, Father,’ he said in English. The conductor and the other policeman crowded into the doorway.

  Dlomo nodded. He was holding the Makarov frmly, but not so tightly that an unplanned shot could be fired.

  ‘If you don’t mind I must look at the face of this man.’

  ‘Please go ahead.’

  The policeman had to step on Dlomo’s bunk, balancing himself on the balls of his feet, to get a look at the sleeping technician’s face. He stepped down, shaking his head. ‘Thank you, Father. We think there’s a criminal on this train, but we won’t bother you again.’

  ‘Good luck, my son,’ Dlomo said.

  ‘If he’s here, we’ll get him,’ the officer said.

  The two policemen left, but the conductor stayed. ‘There was a bank robbery in Potchefstroom.’ He whispered in Zulu. ‘The officers think one of them is on the train.’

  Dlomo looked at the conductor’s excited face. ‘I’m sure the officers are going to catch him.’

  ‘I think so. I want to see it.’ He was turning to go when the Bible slid and the conductor saw Dlomo’s wrist where it disappeared under the pillow. The gun was still hidden. Dlomo answered a question before it could be asked. ‘It’s this hand. The blood doesn’t flow well there.’

  The conductor looked horrified. ‘There’s a heater. I’ll put it on for you.’

  He started forward, but would have had to pass next to the pillow and the Makarov to reach the heater. Dlomo raised a strong left arm to block his path. ‘Thank you. I like it this way.’

  ‘Are you sure, Father?’

  ‘Yes, but you must go. Our brothers in the police need you.’

  ‘All right, but if you want it, I’ll put it on for you.’

  ‘Thank you, my son.’

  After he had left, Dlomo wrapped the Makarov in the hand towel again and returned it to the satchel. A bank robbery, he thought. That was luck. It would give the police something else to think about.

  Elia Dlomo was an exceptionally determined man. The years of suffering as a child would have broken most boys, but they had built an unshakable will for conquest in him. It was this characteristic, more than any other, that had made him a powerful gang leader and that now drove him to find Beloved Childe. But he was not entirely single-minded. Before he had been freed by his gang, while the possibility of his challenging Oliver Hall was no more than that, he had realised that a trip to Cape Town would take him past Warrenton and Jenny Pregnalato, and also the child she had been carrying when he last saw her.

  The train would pass in sight of her cottage. It had been a burden to him that he had not been able to do anything to help support her in the years he had been in prison and now he would be so close.

  But this sort of thinking is foolishness, he told himself. I’ll see her when this is over. There’ll be time then.

  TWENTY-NINE

  C-MAX was quiet, unnaturally quiet for early evening. The night shift was starting to drift in, but Yudel and Director Nkabinde were both staying late. Dongwana’s attempt to smuggle in firearms was reason enough to be concerned. And Yudel could feel the unrest in the air. It came at him in wave upon wave wherever he was, but seemed to grow as he neared D-Section, where Enslin Kruger was held.

  He had come close to recommending a lock-down of the entire prison when Dongwana had been arrested. But a lock-down was a serious matter and Yudel knew that it often increased tensions instead of relieving them. He knew that Director Nkabinde felt the same way and so this measure had only been used twice since Nkabinde had assumed control.

  Dongwana was not in C-Max. Crimes, even those inside the prison, were the business of the police. He had been taken away a few hours after he had been stopped at the front gate and was now in Local, the awaiting-trial prison a few hundred metres away within the same perimeter.

  Yudel and Nkabinde had been discussing Elia Dlomo’s escape and if he had given any indication that an escape was being planned. ‘From a security point of view,’ the director was saying when the phone rang, ‘the issue is – how did he communicate with his colleagues outside?’

  The operator had tracked Yudel down to tell him that General Jordaan of the police was on the line. Freek began without formalities. ‘Yudel, I think this bastard Hall just passed through Warrenton. He left his calling card.’

  ‘Warrenton? On his way to the Cape?’

  ‘It looks that way. A woman and her child were killed in the location. It was on this morning’s report. I just spoke to Warrenton. The killer used a knife.’

  A woman in Warrenton? Beloved would not be in Warrenton. ‘The woman, do you know her name?’

  ‘An Italian name, Prentalano, I think.’

  Jesus. Yudel had risen when he took the phone from Nkabinde. Now he sat down. A game was being played that he did not yet understand. ‘Pregnalato,’ Yudel said.

  ‘Yes, that’s it. How do you know?’

  ‘She’s Elia Dlomo’s woman.’

  ‘The one who escaped?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then it was probably him, not Hall.’

  ‘No, it was Hall,’ Yudel said.

  Freek paused a moment to digest Yudel’s certainty. ‘There’s something else. A big truck, a heavy rig, was found burnt out a few k’s outside Warren-ton. The driver was still inside.’

  ‘That’s also Hall.’

  ‘You’re sure about this?’

  ‘I know Hall and I know Dlomo. And that’s Hall.’

  ‘One last thing—’

  Christ, what more can there be? Yudel wondered.

  ‘A man was seen jumping a freight train on the way to the Cape this morning, just outside the Warrenton township. Our men in Beaufort West have been alerted. They’ll be waiting for him.’

  ‘They’ve got to be careful, Freek, very careful.’

  ‘Don’t tell us our business, Yudel.’

  Yudel reflected briefly that he was hearing that sort of thing a lot lately. Brigadier Sibiya had pretty much told him to mind his own business just before Hall violated his parole. ‘I’m just saying—’

  ‘Yudel.’ Freek said his name in the manner of a man whose patience was being tested. ‘Our boys in Beaufort West understand what they’re dealing with.’

  Nkabinde had been following Yudel’s end of the conversation. When Yudel hung up he turned to the director. ‘Hall’s been busy in Warrenton.’

  ‘Where the fuck is Warrenton?’

  The Cape line between Klerksdorp and Warrenton

  For an hour after leaving Klerksdorp, Elia Dlomo had spent little time in his compartment. As the afternoon deepened into twilight, he had walked the train corridors or stood at a window, watch
ing the veld rush by.

  It was not just the possibility of discovery by the authorities that bothered Dlomo. They did not seem to be looking for him. Not this far from Johannesburg, he told himself. The train was not scheduled to stop at Warrenton. He barely admitted it to himself, but the thought that he might never see Jenny again, after being so close, was always present.

  Twice other passengers had tried to draw him into conversation. The first was a young white man who asked him what church he served. To avoid talking to him he had answered in Zulu, pretending that he could not understand English. The other was an older black woman who had overheard the exchange and spoke to him in that language.

  ‘He was asking of what church you are,’ she told him.

  ‘Thank you, my sister,’ he said, turning his face away from her.

  ‘What church is it? I will tell him.’

  Christ, Dlomo thought, and what church are you? If I pick your denomination you may want to discuss it. ‘Catholic,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll tell him, Father. I’m a Lutheran myself, but I feel we are all brothers and sisters in Christ.’

  ‘Thank you again, my sister.’ This time he walked purposefully away from her, sat down in the dining car, took out the Bible from his satchel and pretended to read. Immediately he realised his mistake. It was an English Bible. He put it away and retreated to his compartment.

  He passed the woman again in the corridor and, judging by the look on her face, she felt offended by his rudeness. That was all right, as long as she stayed away from him. What the hell do priests talk about anyway? he wondered. Not sex or liquor. Maybe money. Today everyone talked about money.

  He thought about Hall. The bastard may be in front of me. He may be there already. He may already have done the job on this Beloved woman.

  No, don’t think like that, he told himself. Go there and do the job and come back. Don’t think about anything else.

  The train ran easily across the flat country before Warrenton. Dlomo leant forward in his seat, scanning the veld for the first sign of the town. The train seemed to slow, then hold the slower speed. Perhaps they slowed for built-up areas. Five minutes later, he saw the first line of lights from the cottages. Outside one of them by the light of a street lamp he saw a boy with a tog bag slung over one shoulder and surrounded by older people who all seemed to be talking. A grey-haired woman had an arm around him.