by Mike Nicol
Mace looked down on Dr Roberto finished with his fish and chips, warming his hands round a steaming mug. He had somewhere sorted when it came to take-aways.
Pylon joined his partner at the window, said, ‘You think we should get the place swept. Maybe they stashed a bomb while nailing the kittens?’
‘To be on the safe side, yes. Personally I doubt it though.’
‘You know that guy?’
‘Medical doctor. Doing reconnaissance for us.’
‘We’ve employed him?’
‘Him and that car-guard Cuito.’
Pylon rubbed a hand over his face so hard Mace could hear the beard rasp. ‘You shouldn’t have asked me first?’
‘Should’ve,’ he agreed, heading for the staircase. ‘Look at them as casuals. Casuals didn’t need a partner’s consent in our articles of association.’
‘Mace.’ How Pylon said the name was meant to stop Mace in his tracks. It did. He came up. ‘We don’t play matters that way. Never have that I can remember. And no need to change either.’ They stared at one another, twenty years of history in the contact. ‘If you’d asked me I’d have said do it, now I wonder what’s going on here? Now I think, hey, Mace didn’t tell me where he was for those two extra days in New York. Hey, seems Mace took a flight to Jozi three weeks back that I don’t know the reason for. Hey, Saturday afternoon Mace didn’t answer his cell, and Oumou didn’t know his whereabouts. All these things are not in my understanding of Mace. In my understanding of Mace he’s clinical. Efficient. Seems to be without feelings sometimes. Most times. But he doesn’t go behind my back. See where I’m going? Next thing we’ve got two aliens on the payroll.’
‘COD basis.’
‘Doesn’t matter. What matters is this other thing going on here. Underneath. This thing where Oumou phones me, asks if I’ve noticed something odd about Mace. Like what? Well, like he’s angry. More specifically he’s not playing with his daughter. Not playing with his wife either I would imagine. Without being told this, you understand. Just taking an informed guess.’
He let a silence fall. Mace let it lengthen. Eventually, said, ‘It’s nothing.’
‘I don’t think so. I think it’s something. You asked me to guess I’d say it was a woman.’
Mace snorted a laugh. ‘You’d be way off. Dead wrong.’
‘I don’t think so. I’d say you saw Isabella in New York.’
‘You can think what you like. I’m saying you’re wrong.’
Pylon kept up the glare, a small muscle working below his lower lip, as it did when he was irritated. ‘Alright. Okay, bru.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Now’s not the time. But we must talk. I need to know what’s happening.’
Downstairs father and son were cracking their third beer. Pylon and Mace declined the offer.
‘You figured out how you’re gonna keep Mattie safe?’ Ducky Donald put the bottle to his lips and sucked hard.
‘It’s not about keeping anyone safe,’ said Pylon. ‘It’s about whether we get to spot the guy with the bomb before it blows.’
‘Not good enough,’ said Ducky Donald. ‘You’re the hot shots, and that’s not hot.’
‘At short notice the best we can do is have Pylon and me here,’ Mace said. ‘We want to thank you for this opportunity, Donald.’
Ducky Donald smiled at the jibe. ‘Keeping you from better things?’
‘We have a business to run.’
‘Looking after old dames on surgical safaris! That is some business, Mace. That is milking the rich and famous. Where’s the fear margin, huh? Where’s the excitement? Good morning Mrs Vanderbilt. How’s the nip’n tuck healing? Ready to go watch the rhinos yet?’ He mimicked the two men picking subserviently among their facelift clients. Admittedly, Mace acknowledged, not an awe-inspiring prospect, but good business nonetheless: chaperone them in from New York, Los Angeles, wherever, babysit the op and recovery, take them game-viewing while the bruising disappears. ‘What’s with you guys?’ Ducky went up to Pylon, clasped a hand round his bicep and gripped. Pylon, not the smallest of men, clamped a hand over Ducky Donald’s and pulled him off. Ducky staggered back a pace. ‘You get a kick out of jacking off the larneys? Don’t worry Sandra we’ll watch your back. Keep the paparazzi away.’ He turned from Pylon to Mace. ‘That’s not a business. That’s trading on the paranoid. Hyping up the neurotic. Easy money, guys.’ He took another mouthful of beer. ‘What we’ve put on your plate is real stuff. The sorta thing you grooved on.’
Fear. Destruction. Blood. Death.
The history Mace didn’t need to replay. He circled the room wondering if Matthew’s bouncers were good at the pat down, said, ‘You got it Ducky. Our business doesn’t run to club security.’
‘Does now.’ There came across his face the self-satisfied smirk that used to rile Mace. Still did. ‘So work out a strategy.’
Mace was about to tell him the strategy was wait-and-see, when Matthew’s cellphone rang. He mouthed at them Sh-Sheemina February, put the instrument to his ear.
‘I wa-wasn’t gonna ph-phone you,’ he said, and listened.
‘I’ve no n-need to see-ee you.’
He listened to more of her story.
‘It’s a f-free country,’ he said. ‘L-like you told us’ - pressed the disconnect. ‘Sh-she’s outside. Com-ing in.’
‘She’d better not,’ said Ducky. ‘This’s private property.’
Matthew didn’t respond.
Sheemina February was alone, sans briefcase, sans headscarf. A striking woman with a presence, to Mace’s way of thinking. Took guts to walk in there. She ignored the men, ran her gaze over the black walls and the gothic images. If she saw the blood stains she gave no sign.
Said, ‘Pathetic, Matthew. Childish.’
‘You some kind of connoisseur?’ said Ducky Donald, bristling into the beam of a spotlight.
She didn’t rise to him. Said straight to Matthew, ‘What’ve you decided?’
He put a hand up against the wall to lean, nonchalant. ‘I-I already sa-said.’
‘Your final word?’ When Matthew said nothing, Sheemina February turned to Mace. ‘Mr Advisor, this is what you’ve advised him?’
‘You know my name,’ Mace said, ‘use it.’
She kept her eyes on him. ‘I know more than that.’ Slowly did a circuit of the wall art, stopping when her back was to him. ‘I know you. I know Christa. Adorable child, Mr Bishop. Friendly. Not afraid to talk to strangers.’
A shot of red crossed Mace’s eyes. The world went dark. Pylon checked him with a hand to his forearm. ‘Don’t.’ He whispered it, but she heard.
‘Don’t.’ She faced them. The blue eyes giving up nothing. ‘The comrades: Mace and Pylon. The ice men. Stone killers to some. The people’s heroes to others. Struggle veterans, arms smugglers for the glorious guerrillas of our movement. Nowadays VIP assistance. This is not your scene. Stick with the wrinklies, guys. Best to keep the pension scheme.’
‘You touch her … You touch my wife …’ Mace shook free of Pylon’s grip.
‘I don’t touch anybody, Mr Bishop. What I do is represent people against drug dealing. If you want to, some time I’ll show you good people who saw their kids become prostitutes, gangsters, criminals. Kids that were like Christa. What did the police do to help these people? Nothing. Because somewhere there’s police in the supply line. What do the politicians do? Nothing. Because the druglords are building schools. From where I stand they’re building a market-place. In here, this is a market-place.’
Mace took a step towards her, she held her ground. ‘How’d you get my name? How’d you get my wife’s phone number?’
‘I recognised you, Mr Bishop. As simple as that. There was a time we were on the same side. In the same camp, so to speak.’
‘Doesn’t answer my question.’
‘Come, come. Use your imagination.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘We’re in power now, we probably share contacts.’ She brushed past him heading for the door. ‘Gentlemen,’ sh
e said, held up her gloved hand, ‘I’m sorry you’ve taken a hardline attitude, I’d hoped for your cooperation.’
‘Hardline!’ Ducky Donald almost choked on his beer. But Sheemina February was gone.
‘Jesus,’ said Pylon, ‘I remember her. She got ten years for treason. Round about the late eighties. Almost died under torture, was the story I heard.’
‘Pity she didn’t.’ Ducky Donald launched across the room to slam the club door shut. ‘She’s trouble. Major trouble.’
‘You still going to open?’ Mace asked.
‘Nose of ten the doors swing wide,’ said Ducky. ‘What you say, Mattie?’
Matthew nodded, not the happiest club owner in town.
9
Outside it was dusk, but warm, a berg wind blowing.
Pylon said, ‘What’s with the February woman getting onto Oumou?’
Mace shrugged. ‘Intimidation. Christ knows. Maybe she thinks I hold some sway with the Hartnells.’ He paused. ‘You said she got done?’
‘The way I recall it, she and two sisters planned a car bomb, going to take out the president on his way to parliament. Something like that. Got them high profile attention in the papers. Mostly because of their pretty faces. And ten years for conspiracy. Come the political amnesty, they walked. Probably did no more than a couple of years.’
Mace rocked on the curb edge, irked by a detail he couldn’t get to. ‘There’s more,’ he said. ‘Only I don’t know what. She’s familiar.’
‘She’s scary.’
‘No kidding. Her personally and what’s behind her. The crazies. One thing, Sheemina February’s not going to be hands on. She’s done that.’ Mace sighed. ‘Once it was so easy, hey. Us and them. Now us is them. Sometimes worse I think.’
‘Ah, come on.’
‘No, true as. Look at this shit Ducky Donald’s pulling.’
‘He said something more?’
‘Doesn’t have to does he?’
Pylon clucked his tongue, stared off at the end of the street before he said, ‘Time to talk? About you.’
The last thing Mace wanted. ‘Uh uh.’ He shook his head. ‘Tomorrow.’
Pylon looked dubious.
‘Tomorrow, okay.’
‘I’m not kidding, Mace.’ He flicked the automatic lock on the Merc, one of their luxury client cars. ‘And this lot?’ - jerking a thumb at the club. ‘They’re going to blow it?’
‘Probably. Probably tonight I’d guess.’
Pylon slid into the car. ‘That’s just so exciting.’ The side window came down. ‘Another thing I remember about that Sheemina February, in jail she sharpened a hairbrush, stuck it into a warder’s stomach.’
‘Dangerous lady.’
‘We should try the police. That Captain Gonsalves, maybe he’d be interested.’
‘Doubt it. Like the man said, no bomb threat. What’s to be worrying about? Gonsalves’ll tell me to piss off.’
‘Try him.’
‘You try him.’
‘He’s white. There’s your commonality.’
They agreed to meet at ten.
Three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday Mace swam with two others in the pool at the Point Health Centre. Tyrone impressed him as a suit, probably in management; Allan favoured chinos and polo shirts. He figured him for a marketing type. They didn’t talk much except to greet and maybe comment on the obvious: weather, news, sport. Their rule was swimming started at six-thirty. Five minutes grace if someone was late but they didn’t wait longer than this.
Tyrone and Allan were younger than Mace, Tyrone the stronger swimmer, Allan more in the iron-man league. They had a routine. For the first half-hour Mace set the pace in deference to the ten, fifteen years he pulled on them, then Allan took over for a quartile, and Tyrone hauled them through the final sector, powering it on until Mace’s arms screamed and he wasn’t sure if his lungs were big enough for the air he needed. At the end he was gasping, clutching the side of the pool with almost no strength left to get out at the steps. This wasn’t normal. But then, he reckoned, nothing was normal anymore.
His hours in the water were time out: a reptile locked on the blue ahead and the black line along the bottom. A crocodile. No past, no future, no thoughts. Only action, only the movement of his arms and his legs, the turn of his head to draw air. The efficiency of his body propelled smoothly through the water, noiseless, churning bubbles, intent only on motion. Mace the reliable, he thought of himself. Who got things done.
After the session the men dressed more or less in silence. Maybe some comments on if they could’ve done a better time, no suggestion yet that Mace was slowing them down. On the way out he stopped for a fruit juice at the health bar, Tyrone and Allan giving it a rain check.
It was dark when Mace left the centre, the Spider parked to the side of the parking ground near a hedge. No overhead lights, no perimeter lights at all. A number of cars still in the lot, but not a soul else around. He threaded his way through, thoughts of Sheemina February and the bomb she’d have her minions set off uppermost in his mind. Also that she’d recognised him. That he should’ve recognised her.
The kids, a pack of boys, were about him like they’d been conjured from another dimension, hissing, whispering, tugging at his sport’s bag and clothing, feral, stinking of booze and meths and glue. He didn’t sense them, glimpse them, hear them. They had him cold. In the Spider’s boot was a forty-five, but a forty-five in the Spider’s boot was about as much help as a prayer, Mace thought, taking in the situation.
They were a pack of fifteen or more, swirling among the cars, on the hunt. One jumped at his back, smaller boys either side, two bigger rat-faces blocked the gap. Crouched there, grinning.
He dropped the bag as a diversion, and the kids fell on it like jackals ripping bones from a carcass. He had house and car keys in his left hand, slid out the metal shafts to protrude from his fist. Before the kids could pinion this arm he slashed a backhander at the nearest rat-face, opening his cheek. Turned on the boy behind, knocked him down, put a boot to his head. It was the only advantage he got before they packed him. Yet he worked in two more jabs with his fist, from the screams believing the keys had punctured skin.
The boys clawed for his eyes, trying to drag him down. He tasted blood, felt its stickiness on his hands. His blood, their blood. Their blood thick with HIV, most of them rentboys for the rough-trade punters. The thought of mixing blood gave him comeback strength to shuck those racking at his chest and the momentum to crash back against a car, those behind him going down. The other rat-face was dancing foot to foot, feinting with a knife. He came in low meaning to spill Mace’s guts. Fast for a glue head, except Mace knocked his arm, the blade snagging on Mace’s belt-buckle, slid upwards through his shirt, finding skin. He felt it as heat. The boy skipped away, darted back to stick him. Again Mace feinted, the blade opening a cut along his arm.
From the centre came shouts. A shot. Rat-face hesitated but the pack scattered. Then he made off.
A guy ran up. ‘You alright?’
Mace looked at the blood dripping off his fingers.
‘Best thing would be to give them a chopper ride out to sea,’ said his saviour. ‘Drop them in the deep.’
10
Mace got cleaned up at the centre. The cut on his stomach needed only ointment and a plaster patch. The forearm slash was deeper. Merited a stitch or two, thought the first-aid guy. Definitely an anti-tetanus. On the HIV score he didn’t think there was too serious a risk.
‘Lucky,’ he said. In his experience he’d seen incidents where the corpse had his hands full keeping his guts from sliding about in the dirt while his valuables were stolen.
‘Who’s a corpse?’ Mace said.
The first-aid guy gave him a baleful glance. ‘It’s how the kids think of their victims. Even before the knife’s gone in.’
All the way home Mace kept thinking, corpse. Dead man walking. Goner. Cadaver. What also plagued him was how he’d walked into it. Not eve
n noticed the kids until it was too late. In the line of business that sort of negligence was scary. Enough to get you killed in the old days. Enough to get you killed in the present days too. It happened when your mind was elsewhere.
Going up Eastern Boulevard out of the city, he pressed in Captain Gonsalves’s direct line. The phone went to five rings before the captain answered: ‘What?’
Mace told him what. Whenever he paused he could hear the captain chewing.
‘So?’ said Gonsalves when Mace had finished.
‘So d’you want to get there before or afterwards?’ Mace said.
Gonsalves laughed. ‘This’s a come down, Mr Bishop?’ The chewing got louder. ‘Last time I looked you were security, right? Protecting the stars. I got the catch-line there? Those facelift gals’re your speciality. Not so? You and that Buso fella playing wanker boys to the stars and celebs. Hey, Mr Bishop stick with it. The club scene’s fulla shit. Your scenario’s right, tonight you’re gonna get blown up.’
‘Which doesn’t concern you?’
‘You’re a big boy, Mace Bishop. You’ve been around.’ Chew, chew. Gonsalves laughed again and the connection went dead.
Mace took Hospital Bend in the fast lane, down the straight and up towards the Mill, tight against the centre barrier. Gonsalves he’d bump into from time to time. In security you did. There were people who said he was a good cop, kept his nose in real crime through the dark years. Nowadays the guy was staring his pension in the face, probably not a joyful prospect. Five years down the line, Mace reckoned, he could be knocking on their door pleading for a babysit.
At the entrance to the security complex, the nightwatch rolled back the gate. A new man, did it with more speed than the day guard. Mace pulled up behind Oumou’s estate. Even before he’d parked, Christa came running out. A kitten had died. She’d named them Cat1, Cat2, and Cat3. Cat1 was dead.
‘Probably Cat3 is also going to be dead,’ she said, nodding, her mouth purposeful.
