Payback - A Cape Town thriller

by Mike Nicol

  ‘Best to keep the temperature down. Mightn’t even be a bomb we’re talking about.’

  ‘Then again…’

  Mace pressed Dr Roberto’s number into his cellphone. ‘Times like this I could handle a smoke.’

  ‘You and me both.’

  ‘So why’d we quit then?’

  ‘For our health.’ Pylon moved towards the dancers. ‘This thing blows in the next ten minutes we don’t have to worry about our health.’

  Mace could hear Dr Roberto on the phone, except not loud enough to hear him. ‘At the entrance,’ he yelled into the phone. ‘Now.’

  He went out through the stockroom. Locked the door behind him but not the grille. If a bomb exploded, getting back in needed to be as easy as possible. The service lane stank of drains. To the left the distant end ran into darkness, to the right people, noise, cars. Mostly the lane was empty, except for some garbage bins, a vagrant bedded down behind them. With a nudge from the toe of his boot Mace woke him, the guy reluctant to move on.

  ‘Jou ma se poes,’ he spat, swaying off down the lane towards the darkness, blanket over his head and shoulders, monk-like.

  Your mother too, Mace thought, half a building came down on you, you’d be well pleased.

  Where the lane entered Assurance Street, he hung back to get the scene: the Toyota hadn’t moved, both guys inside now. Ditto, the street hadn’t quietened. Cars still lined the kerbs bonnet to boot, kids still danced wherever, drank coolers from the bottle, smoked weed. The speakers broadcast the djs’ music, the screen showed the dancers in the club. Dr Roberto waited at the entrance.

  ‘Let’s go down a bit,’ Mace said, motioning towards the motormac’s shop. Sheemina February’s goon would’ve spotted him in the street, he didn’t need to know about the watchman. Out of their line of sight Mace said, ‘Anyone leave there yet, doc?’

  ‘Only two girls,’ he said.

  ‘White, coloured, black?’

  ‘We would call them mulatto.’

  ‘Some time ago?’

  ‘Maybe it is twenty, maybe it is thirty minutes.’

  ‘Which? Twenty or thirty?’

  Dr Roberto looked at the time on his cellphone. ‘Twenty, I would say most accurately.’

  Mace’s cellphone rang. Pylon.

  ‘Two twenty-somethings, female,’ he said. ‘Recognised being here a couple of nights back. Sentries stamped them both so they could get back in. A giggly pair. Stoked on e for sure, so say the knowledgeable.’

  ‘Confirmed,’ Mace told him.

  ‘Another thing,’ Pylon said, ‘Ducky Donald’s done a duck.’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘Not as far as Mattie knows or the sentries know either. Disappeared nonetheless.’

  Mace told him to hang on, to Dr Roberto said, ‘You notice a guy dressed in white with a black girlfriend leaving?’

  He shook his head.

  To Pylon, Mace said, ‘Didn’t leave through the front.’

  ‘Which means what?’

  ‘Probably shagging under a table.’

  Pylon snorted, ‘We have to call on this?’

  ‘Your sense?’

  ‘My plan’d be no announcement, bouncers hustle them from the front, I do the back we can get rid of half before the stampede comes. When it comes maybe it’s containable. Reckon fifteen minutes the situation’s averted.’

  ‘Get Matthew out first,’ Mace said, ‘into the back alley.’

  They disconnected. To Dr Roberto he said, ‘Chances are there’s a bomb in there.’ He got thoughtful. ‘We’re planning to empty the place. Watch the guys in the Toyota. The moment they leave, tell me.’

  Raised voices at the entrance to the club, people stumbling into the street, hurled out. Angry, confused, milling. Someone yelled, ‘Bomb!’ Someone started screaming. The djs kept up a different caterwaul. The screen showed the dancers but not what was unravelling at the edges.

  Mace’s thoughts were on the trigger device: timer or cellphone? To date, from what he’d read in the papers, they’d been timers. Didn’t mean this would be the same. If this was a situation.

  In the business of protection, Mace knew sometimes you had to show not only the gun but the intention to shoot.

  Before he could move off he said to Dr Roberto, ‘Forget the Toyota, I’ll sort it.’

  The thing with muscle boys, they did not lock their car doors. Their physical size gave them immunity, or so they thought.

  Mace looped unnoticed wide of the crowd, came up behind the twosome cosy in the front seats watching the commotion. The screen now showing the efforts of Pylon and the bouncers clearing the decks. The back door popped open at his grip, he slid in jamming the nine mil against the white guy’s shaven head.

  ‘Boys,’ he said, ‘don’t even consider that I won’t. Hands on the wheel, driver. Howzit, Mikey.’

  They didn’t look round. The coloured guy had the driver’s seat, clutched the steering wheel with meaty paws, a row of gold rings visible.

  ‘Good fellas.’ Mace shifted more comfortably onto the seat. ‘Who’s your friend, Mikey?’

  ‘Get stuffed,’ said Mikey.

  Mace tutted. Racked the slide on the automatic.

  ‘Val,’ said the coloured guy. ‘I’m Val.’

  ‘Now, Mikey and Val, here’s the question: do we have a bomb inside there?’

  Mikey said, ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

  Val said, ‘What difference it’s gonna make?’

  Mace came back, ‘Yes I would, and good question.’ For the hell of it, whacked Mikey’s head, the gun sight drawing blood. Mikey howled, tried to grab backwards. Mace caught his arm, yanked down. He yodelled. Pain shot through Mace’s wound. Val was poised to make a break. ‘Don’t,’ Mace shouted, smacked the bald head again. It bled so easily. Calm returned.

  ‘Once more: is there a bomb?’

  ‘Fuck you,’ they said in unison.

  Mace brought the gun down. Asked generally, ‘Either of you ever been shot before?’

  In response got, ‘Go fuck yourself.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  He shot Mikey through the seat through the shoulder. The exit sprayed a red mist on the windscreen, the bullet bored into the dash. Mikey screamed. Val kept his hands fastened where Mace could see them. Outside no one heard above the howling dervish.

  ‘You wanna know,’ said Val, ‘I’ll tell you. There’s a bomb.’

  ‘Timer or cellphone?’

  ‘Timer.’

  ‘For when?’

  He turned his head to give Mace his profile, to show his smirk. ‘Any time now,’ he said.

  13

  The building blew before Mace had run ten paces, before he’d got Pylon on the phone.

  In the first milliseconds a shock wave popped a blackened, laminated plate glass window, taking down people standing beside it on the pavement. Similarly flattened those arguing with the bouncers at the entrance.

  Then came the sound, the blast, something that put Mace’s pulse rate up every time, no matter how many times he’d heard it. Followed by the fall of debris, followed by a moment’s silence, followed by screaming. Followed by small fires where combustible material had caught alight. Followed by the acrid smell of the explosive chemical and the whiff of burning.

  In the immediate panic Mace connected with Pylon; he saw Dr Roberto rush into the building; he heard the Toyota screech away; a woman walked towards him with her face melted, her hair on fire. Later he would remember carrying people out of the dust and smoke. He would remember leaving someone to die to help someone who wouldn’t. He would remember hearing the distant sirens getting closer. There was blood, there was bone, there were body parts, raw flesh. Some faces were rigid with shock, some cried, some would not stop screaming.

  Eventually there was a second explosion.

  14

  Afterwards, hours afterwards, in Assurance Street, Mace stood with Pylon, Matthew and Ducky Donald who’d reappeared. He and Pylon were wre
cked, fire-blackened, cut, bruised, blood-splattered. Neither Hartnell had extended himself.

  Firemen trained a hose on the smoking building. The ambulances were gone, the paramedics putting the last bandages on the lucky. Those who needed to thank Dr Roberto wouldn’t think to look for him as a car-guard.

  Either end of the street, cop cars still closed off entry, emergency lights flashing. The road was cleared of vehicles, except two near the club’s entrance smashed with rubble. Club Catastrophe had no roof, was gutted. Crime tape cordoned off the scene.

  The first blast left four dead: a man, three women. Five criticals. Forty, fifty needed treatment. The second brought the first floor down, set the place on fire. Just so happened the paras had got everyone out by then. Mace suspected probably a cellphone trigger on the second but he kept that quiet. Suspected, too, someone in the vicinity chose the moment.

  Ducky Donald said, ‘I was wrong then.’

  ‘Seems like it,’ Mace said. Noticing the prick was out of his whites into a grubby tracksuit, his dolly-bird nowhere to be seen. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Gone home,’ Ducky said. ‘This is Mattie’s thing. Doesn’t want the old fart around.’

  ‘You didn’t say goodbye,’ said Pylon.

  Ducky Donald lit a cigarette from the butt of the one he was finishing. ‘Didn’t know you cared.’

  ‘Should have listened to us,’ Mace said. ‘There wouldn’t be kids dead now.’

  ‘Protection’s what I wanted,’ said Ducky, ‘not advice. I want advice I’ve got a lawyer.’

  Mace and Pylon let that drift. At what had been the club entrance, Captain Gonsalves appeared with the fire chief, both in oil skins, the captain clutching a black bin-liner.

  Pylon said, ‘Insurers won’t be happy.’

  ‘That’s their problem,’ said Ducky. ‘We’ll start the remake soon as the cops are finished their business.’

  ‘Taking out the blown-off bits, you mean.’

  Matthew jerked round at Mace, said, ‘Christ!’ without a stutter; Ducky Donald let out a ring of smoke. ‘Not nice, Mace. Uncalled for. Even for a mean shit like you.’

  It brought Mace into his face. ‘Four dead. Some others maybe soon to be. Some legless. Armless. Kids we’re talking. Twenty-somethings. People who’re going to wake screaming in the night reliving it. Afraid to walk in the street. Scared to drink coffee at a pavement café. Maybe lose their jobs, spend their days in pain. Because you and Mattie boy have a point to make with PAGAD. You think they care? They don’t care. In their heads you’re the ones flicked on the timer.’

  Pylon pulled his partner away, Ducky Donald shouting, ‘What about your body count, you righteous saint? Not just here. All over the bloody continent. How about a figure on that? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of more like it. You shitheap.’

  Gonsalves came up. ‘Mr Bishop,’ he said, ‘I owe an apology.’ He handed the black bag to the fire chief, spat a gob of yellow muck on the pavement. ‘How about a cigarette?’ he said to Matthew. Matthew knocked the bottom of his pack, extended it. ‘Obliged.’ Gonsalves selected one delicately, started stripping off the paper, balling the tobacco in the palm of his hand.

  A squat man made squatter by the oilskins, grey moustache that needed trimming, wild, random eyebrows.

  ‘I’ve given up,’ he said, flicking the cigarette paper into the gutter. ‘Used to smoke fifty a day. Now I just chew them.’ He glanced from Matthew to Ducky Donald. ‘Would these be the owners?’

  Mace nodded.

  ‘Nasty situation here,’ he said, ‘two bombs like that. New scene for PAGAD.’ He popped a pellet of tobacco into his mouth, gave it a quick hard chew. ‘Splendid.’ Then greeted the Hartnells. ‘Seems they don’t like you much, PAGAD. Makes it easy for your claims though.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Ducky Donald.

  ‘Structural damage’s severe.’

  ‘We’re covered, captain,’ said Ducky Donald.

  ‘Didn’t think you wouldn’t be. Everyone is these days.’

  ‘Sign of the times.’

  Gonsalves chewed on that. ‘Truly. Not among my favourite people, insurers, though.’ He took a step closer to Ducky Donald. ‘What I’ve been looking forward to is retiring. Now they tell me on my pension payout, I’m not gonna doze in a sunny spot, walk the dog, settle the evening in with a single malt. Not even a blend. They tell me prepare for nightwatch work. I’ve got maybe nine years left before I’m sitting in the marble foyers. Not a cheerful prospect, hearing the lifts go up and down all night.’

  Ducky Donald took a step back from the captain’s bad breath.

  ‘Nother thing.’ Gonsalves leant forward. ‘Two months ago this broker comes to see me. He says he’s got a product for a person in my situation. A product, hey. Not a policy anymore. A product. Like hair shampoo. Long story short, he wants a medical. I do a medical. The assessors say I smoke too much. I’m AA so there’s been no alcohol over my lips in twenty-one years. Which they like a lot. Keep it up, captain, they say. But the smoking’s too much. If you want this product, you’ve got to stop smoking. I stop smoking. Wonderful, captain, keep it up, captain, they say. My broker says, here’s your product. What he means is here’s the bill. Monthly instalments at a cost of half my take-home pay. You’re joking, I say to him. How’m I supposed to manage this. I’ve got to eat. My wife’s got to eat. I can’t afford this. It’s because of your age, he says, that’s why it’s so high. I say to him there has to be another way. Another kind of product. He says to me there’s no other kind. He says my only chance of staying out of the marble foyers is to pay the instalments. So I start paying the instalments. But it’s hard Mr Hartnell. I’ve got no thoughts that are not thoughts about that premium. You with me here?’

  Ducky Donald gave no sign he was but lit up a smoke right in the captain’s face.

  Captain Gonsalves said, ‘Let me show you something’ - got the bag from the fire chief. ‘Take a look what we got here.’ He held it open. Matthew stirred to take a peek too.

  ‘Ah shit.’ Ducky Donald staggered back. ‘Ah Jesus Christ.’

  Matthew said, ‘Ca-ca-ca…’

  ‘Probably a young lady,’ said Gonsalves. ‘A forearm that slender. Also the watch’s a clue. Man’s gonna have something much chunkier. Still gotta locate her hand I reckon.’ He closed the bin-liner, handed it back to the fire chief. ‘Probably she didn’t have life cover. Who does that young?’

  Captain Gonsalves nodded at each one of them, said to Matthew, ‘How about tomorrow’ - checked his watch - ‘how about later this morning, say, ten, you rock up ‘n tell me about PAGAD?’

  ‘We’ll be there,’ said Ducky Donald.

  Gonsalves shifted the tobacco ball about his mouth. ‘Which’ve you runs the club?’

  Ducky Donald pointed at Matthew. ‘He does.’

  ‘Then you get to talk to the insurers, Mr Hartnell. Or sleep late. It’s your life. Man I wanna see is the young gent here.’

  The captain walked away; Ducky Donald kept his trap shut until the cop was well off.

  ‘What’s his case? What the hell was all that about?’

  ‘Smoke screens,’ said Pylon.

  ‘Ca-ca-ca-Christ!’ said Matthew.

  15

  ‘What was his case?’ Pylon said. ‘The good Captain Gonsalves?’

  ‘Not a clue.’

  Mace put two coffees on the glass-topped table, clearing space among the stacks of safari brochures and large-format photographic books of wild Africa. His pistol was also there with a box of cleaning equipment. Pylon lay stretched out on one of two leather couches: kudu skin, his fingers tracing the tears and scars of the animal’s life in the thornveld.

  Mace said, ‘Just like the old days.’

  Pylon looked over. ‘I don’t get off on the blood and guts anymore.’

  ‘You think I do?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  Mace thought about it. ‘Doesn’t bother me.’

  ‘That’s my point. Not only th
e shit going down, but the rev. It scares me. And I think back to the violence we stoked, and I think that was our life and it didn’t freak us.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So maybe we should be seeing shrinks.’

  ‘Nah. What for? We saw worse than tonight, it wasn’t a problem.’

  ‘No.’ Pylon swung his legs onto the floor. ‘Look at you Mace. Look at us. We don’t feel stuff. We got something missing from us.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I do. I look at you and I think so. I get scared sometimes you’re so cool. Scared for both of us.’

  Mace sat down opposite Pylon on the other couch, started taking the gun apart.

  ‘Maybe you’re right. Except you look at what’s out there and how’re we supposed to do it otherwise? Protect people. You get a type like Ducky Donald sets his own bombs.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘Think about it. The second bomb was a Ducky Donald special.’

  Mace sipped his coffee, reckoned French roast never tasted so good.

  Pylon leant back incredulous. ‘You’re telling me Ducky Donald triggered number two from a cellphone.’ He stared at the dark liquid in his cup. ‘The forensics will pick it up.’

  ‘Assuming the forensics get that far. So many bombs going off those guys haven’t got the capacity.’

  Pylon swallowed a scalding mouthful, wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘Or Ducky’s in with PAGAD.’

  ‘There’ve been stranger partnerships.’ Mace sniffed at the gun: the sweet smell of cordite in the barrel. There was a memory there from not so many years ago. Nothing troubling. He scratched for a lint rope in the box, drew it through the barrel.

  Pylon watched every move he made. ‘Very domestic, isn’t this?’

  ‘Had to use it earlier,’ Mace said. ‘Shot one of the sidekicks in the shoulder.’

  Pylon got animated. ‘That’s what I was talking about. Earlier. You shoot a guy it’s like no big deal.’

  ‘It wasn’t.’

  ‘Exactly why you need a shrink.’