Payback - A Cape Town thriller

by Mike Nicol

  But Mace didn’t need lighting to notice the rose stuck under the windscreen wiper, the flower still a bud. He pulled it free, shouted across to Allan, ‘Someone leave a rose for you too?’

  Allan slammed shut his boot. ‘Not a chance.’

  Mace called out the same question to Tyrone. Got another negative.

  The bud’s colour was deep plum. The attached courtesy card said International Flowers.

  When Mace got home, Christa had her mother’s box of jewellery spread over the sitting-room floor. A treasure chest in one sense. In another, an ongoing dispute between father and daughter.

  The pieces were silver, fine-patterned filigree work. Bangles. Amulets. Necklaces. Earrings. Silver and coral chokers. Filigreed pendants. Ropes of glass and amber beads. Work from the Tuareg, the Maghreb, the Berbers. For Oumou the pieces had talismanic powers, they were not simply pretty. They were also her past.

  Something of this past drew Christa to the jewellery. At birth she was given a customary set of beads. At two years old a cast silver bracelet. At the age of eighteen, the age she became a woman, she would receive another with a moon pattern symbolising life.

  ‘Papa,’ she said, as Mace bent to kiss her, ‘can I have my ears pierced?’

  A question that came up from time to time to an answer that never varied. ‘No problem, when you’re eighteen.’

  ‘Please.’

  She held up a pair of earrings, from each dangled four red beads attached to fine silver chains. In the centre of the earrings were stylised doves, the carriers of good news. They were beautiful. Oumou had promised them to her some time back.

  ‘No. You’re too young.’

  Suddenly she was not far off tears. ‘Maman wasn’t too young.’

  Mace glanced at Oumou. She lifted a hand to stroke her daughter’s hair. To her this was no big deal. It was a cultural thing. Where she came from kids had their ears pierced before they could talk.

  Mace didn’t see it that way.

  ‘Where your Maman lived that was okay.’

  Christa sobbed. ‘Pumla’s got them.’

  ‘It’s alright for Pumla too.’

  Christa looked at her father, her eyes tearing. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s okay for people like Pumla and Treasure.’

  Which made no sense to her.

  ‘Please, Papa.’

  Tears spilled onto her cheeks.

  ‘Enough.’ Mace crouched before her. ‘I’ve told you, when you’re older.’

  She sniffed. ‘Why Papa?’

  ‘Because that’s my rule.’

  Oumou said, ‘She is my daughter too, no?’

  Mace held up an admonishing finger. ‘We’ve been through this. My rules. You agreed. My rules.’

  ‘Bof! They are stupid.’

  Oumou glared at him. To Christa said, ‘Go to your room, ma puce.’ They stood listening to their daughter run up the stairs, crying hard.

  ‘You are stupid, Mace. Stupid. You do not know what is the right thing to do. Always you must say no to her for a small thing. You do not think that maybe I would like to have her wear these earrings.’

  ‘She is not going to have her ears pierced.’

  Quietly Oumou said, ‘This is what I am going to do for her.’

  ‘No.’ Mace grasped her arm.

  ‘Yes. Oui, oui, oui. Yes.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  She locked her free hand onto his wrist, pushed him away.

  ‘Non. You must forget it, Mace. This is my custom. This is what I want.’ She moved around him towards the door. ‘She is a little girl. When she has the nightmares you are the big daddy to protect her. When she wants to do something that makes me happy, you say no. Why is this? What is this here in Mace Bishop’ - she poked at his chest - ‘in the heart of Mace Bishop that cannot do this little thing for his daughter? Can you tell me? Why you must be so hard?’

  Mace kept blank.

  ‘No.’ Oumou sighed. ‘There is no answer, no?’

  She opened the door.

  ‘Sometimes you must think of our family. There are your ways. There are my ways. For Christa we have to give her some of both. This is not a big thing to do.’

  Mace didn’t waver the hard stare, held his hands rigid at his sides.

  ‘Maybe you must have some therapy.’ Oumou shook her head, went upstairs to comfort their daughter.

  In the kitchen, Mace sat down to supper by himself. Ate forkfuls mechanically, chewing the food without relish or taste, the anger dry in his mouth. Oumou’s questioning of what was in his heart getting to him: that he’d failed his daughter? Over earrings. That he’d failed Oumou? Over earrings. That he wasn’t big enough for them both. He gave them the best, what’d he get back? Some crap that he wasn’t on the nail. Not attentive enough. That he was small-minded.

  ‘To hell with it,’ he said aloud, shoving back the chair as he stood. ‘I’m in this too.’

  He dumped the rest of the food into the rubbish bin and slammed out of the house on his way to the opening of Club Catastrophe mark two. He knew he should have gone upstairs to say goodbye. He could imagine mother and daughter curled asleep on the bed. He shouldn’t have gone out feeling pissed off. But he did because he was.

  20

  Mikey and Val took the pistols Abdul Abdul handed over: two nine mils, eight loads each.

  ‘I thought he wasn’t gonna be there?’ said Val.

  ‘Would be a pleasure if he was,’ said Mikey.

  ‘He won’t be, Val,’ said Abdul, ‘but you gotta watch the woman. I’ve found out she’s the sort can get outta hand.’

  ‘That so?’ said Mikey, grinning, tucking the gun into his belt.

  ‘Mikey,’ said Abdul, ‘don’t work my case. I don’t want shit. No shit. Wave it around all you want to but no shit.’ He gave him a bottle of tablets. ‘Make her eat one of these would be a good idea.’

  ‘Like how?’ said Mikey.

  Abdul Abdul tapped him on the head with the knuckles of his right hand. ‘Sometimes, my friend, I think you have shit for brains.’ Mikey ducked away. ‘How should I know how? You open her mouth, you put it on her tongue, you close her mouth, you wait till she swallows. How about that?’

  ‘She’ll spit it out.’

  ‘So you gotta do it again. That a problem?’

  Mikey shrugged. ‘She’s gonna get hurt.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So you said no shit.’

  ‘I said no shit with shooting. Stand on her, I don’t care. Just no shit with shooting.’

  ‘Lay on her would be better,’ said Mikey. He jiggled his crotch.

  Abdul Abdul glanced at him, showed his pointy teeth. ‘Don’t fuck around, bru. Do the job, hey?’

  ‘I’ve seen her,’ said Mikey. ‘You see her you wanna screw her. Dude owes me anyhow.’

  Abdul flicked a flame on his lighter, set fire to a spliff. He took three totes letting the exhale out slowly, passed it on to Val. Val sucked at the zol, drawing the smoke into his lungs. He took another hit, gave it to Mikey. Mikey snagged off the head of ash into an abalone shell ashtray. Took his pulls.

  ‘What about a button?’ he said. ‘To set the scene.’

  Abdul took the joint. ‘You shoulda been a coloured. Fucked-up whitey like you. Think of something else than poes for a moment.’

  Mikey giggled. Wiggled his fingers for the spliff. ‘There’s something else?’

  They smoked the joint to the roach and Abdul crushed it in the shell. ‘Short ‘n sweet,’ he said. ‘You go in, you put down the woman, you get the kid. You come out, we’re away like a sleigh.’

  They took the white Toyota: Abdul driving, Val up front, Mikey lolling across the back seat. ‘Mannenberg’ blowing through the speakers on a tape that was only this tune recorded over and over. Abdul playing second piano on the steering wheel.

  The rain fell solid over the dark streets of Athlone, everyone tucked away in their little houses watching TV. Abdul drove slowly from stop street to stop stree
t out of the suburb. As they passed a corner café Mikey said he needed a Coke. Abdul stopped, kept the engine running while Mikey bought the cans. Some smarts in the doorway of the café, standing there smoking, eyed the two men in the car. One said to Mikey he had buttons for sale. Mikey said, yeah sure, made from rat poison.

  ‘Nee, my bru, it’s proper,’ said the smart, laughing all the same.

  ‘Bloody Pretty Boys,’ said Abdul, once Mikey was in the car, ‘they’s next. ‘Strues! All the drugs they sell.’

  Mikey handed cans to Val and Abdul, felt under the seat for a half-jack of whisky he’d hidden there. Abdul smelt the liquor straight off.

  ‘None of that shit,’ he said, watching Mikey in the rear-view mirror.

  Mikey ignored him, swallowed a mouthful anyhow.

  ‘I’m telling you,’ said Abdul. ‘None of that shit.’

  ‘Don’t tune me,’ said Mikey. ‘It’s not my religion.’

  ‘You with PAGAD you don’t drink.’

  Mikey raised the bottle for a second time. ‘Sure, don’t smoke boom neither.’ He screwed on the cap.

  ‘Throw it out,’ said Abdul, his voice high-pitched against the engine noise.

  They’d come out of Athlone, joined the freeway at the cooling towers. Abdul ran the speed to one twenty, moving right to the fast lane, a BM swerving round them, the driver giving a long blast of hooter.

  ‘Do it. Throw it out.’ Shouting.

  ‘Don’t be bloody mad.’ Mikey shouting back. ‘This’s a bloody highway for shitsakes.’

  ‘Now. Get it out.’ Abdul tight against the centre barrier, cars locked side back and front of them: lights and spray and rain harder against the windscreen than the wipers could manage. Over the Black River bridge into the corners, the cars in formation like this was a motorcade. Abdul pushed the pedal against the floor edging on the car in front, flicking his lights. Val sat stiff: one hand gripped on the armrest.

  ‘Yo,’ yelled Mikey, ‘watch your bloody driving.’

  The car in front not moving from the lane.

  ‘Throw it out. Now, now. Do it.’ Abdul with both hands fastened to the steering wheel, tailgating into Hospital Bend, knocking down the gear to send the revs screaming. ‘Now, now.’ The Toyota losing speed on the incline, cars hooting past in anger. Abdul swung left across four lanes to the hard shoulder, skidding the car to a halt.

  He half-turned in his seat to lash at Mikey, screaming, ‘I wanna hear it smash, pissface, now.’

  Mikey slid down the window, hurled the half-jack into the grass. No telling if it broke or not.

  Abdul Abdul popped the tab on his can of Coke and drank heavily. Wiped the back of his hand across his mouth at the finish. ‘Don’t cause shit with me, whitey. You gonna come to grief.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Mikey. ‘Okay, let’s do the job.’

  They drove on along De Waal with Mannenberg still playing, the city lights in the bowl below sometimes curtained by the fall of the rain. No one spoke, Abdul too uptight even to drum the tune.

  It took Abdul a couple of passes to locate the street in the steep suburb and they cruised up and down before finding the house. He parked thirty metres back from the driveway gate.

  ‘And now?’ said Mikey.

  ‘We wait,’ said Abdul, easing down the volume on the tape.

  ‘No one’s gonna notice us?’

  ‘You see anybody?’ said Abdul - the three looking out at the dark sodden street, the houses back behind their walls, the trees hiding lighted windows. The city buildings hardly visible below. ‘Isn’t anyone gonna be out in this street. Not even walking his dog.’

  They smoked cigarettes, except Mikey, Abdul telling him to shut up complaining, and they smoked a joint, Mikey pleased to tote on that. For near two hours they waited in the loop of Mannenberg. Saw Mace Bishop drive in, saw him drive out in his Alfa Spider.

  21

  First thing Mace noticed it was a lot quieter in Assurance Street than the last time Club Catastrophe threw an opening party. No outside speakers. No outside video display. Fewer cars in the street. No suspicious Toyotas with musclemen. A short queue of patrons at the entrance, by invitation only. No one dancing on the pavements. No Dr Roberto either.

  The back service lane clear of rubbish bins, vagrants, lurkers. The windows onto it secured prison style, bars sunk in the concrete sills. The only smell, the damp fishiness of the city. The only sound his heels on the concrete as he walked back into the light.

  At the main door Ducky Donald and Matthew did the meet and greet.

  ‘You wanna dance with a celeb, you wanna dance with a politician?’ shouted Ducky, trying to put a champagne flute in Mace’s hand.

  ‘I don’t want to dance,’ Mace said, stepping through the magic hoop to set it flashing.

  The bouncers acted discreet, one whispering to him, ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  ‘He’s a cowboy,’ Ducky told the doorman, ‘doesn’t go anywhere without packing’ - pulled Mace into a clumsy hug, sloshing the bubbly. Drunk. Stoned. Both probably, Mace thought. No sign of any black bimbo.

  ‘Your buddy’s here. Power Pylon.’

  Over his shoulder Mace saw Pylon watching from the shadows.

  ‘How about this, Mace?’ - Ducky Donald gestured expansively at the crowd - ‘doesn’t get hipper than this anywhere in the city as we speak. Miss Calendar Month puts a bomb in here she’d have judges and high-ups jumping on her afterwards.’ He slurped at his drink, holding it by the stem with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. Mace reckoned either he’d sorted something after Sheemina February’s phone call or he was too gone to remember. ‘Wanna meet a judge?’

  ‘Later. We’re going to enjoy ourselves, we need to take a look around.’

  ‘Security’s on it,’ said Ducky. ‘This is party time.’

  DJ Shrapnel, the renamed duo from the club’s first incarnation, started a countdown, the ravers joining, ‘Ten, nine …’

  Ducky Donald bellowed into Mace’s ear, ‘Relax buddy.’

  Before he could reply the djs yelled, ‘You ready?’ Got the immediate response. ‘Go, go, go, go.’ One hundred and forty-eight beats per minute bounced off the walls.

  Mace grabbed Pylon by the arm, heading through the good-time mass for the chill room and the toilets at the back. Layout-wise the new building wasn’t much different to the old. More convenient access from the bar to the stockroom, otherwise unchanged. Upstairs a different set-up. Executive offices on the first floor no doubt for Ducky and Matthew. Apart from a white leather four-seater couch in one room, a pot plant with big cut-out leaves, no other furniture. Expensive light fittings with dimmer switches on the walls. Adjoined to the bigger office a full-suite bathroom in black slate: Jacuzzi, shower behind a glass door, blue uplighters embedded in the tiles.

  Very chichi.

  Back in the office Mace and Pylon took seats either end of the couch, sat listening to the sound of DJ Shrapnel thumping beneath their feet.

  Mace said, ‘You ever think we fought with the angels for this? For kids to pop Ecstacy, jump around all night.’

  ‘Was for a revolution.’

  ‘Was for flash greed. Rolex. Banana Republic. Merc Mls.’

  ‘Same thing.’

  ‘As what?’

  ‘A revolution. You have a revolution someone’s going to make money, someone’s going to spend it on the high-roller life. They did then. They’re doing it still.’

  ‘Bloody politicians.’

  ‘Not forgetting we made bucks. Shaving it off the pile.’

  ‘As a fee. Legitimate commission. Danger pay. Because after what we’d done who gave a flying monkeys for Pylon and Mace otherwise? No one. What’d they say, give us the guns. Give us the money. Viva the struggle, viva. Bugger that.’

  ‘We did. Viva the Cayman viva.’

  They both laughed, stretching out on the couches, the beat coming up in waves through the floor.

  Mace mused. ‘Only trouble’s getting it out. It sits there and we
can’t touch it.’

  ‘Stay patient,’ said Pylon. ‘Time will come, we can use it. Bring it in under the radar, no questions from the bank, no Revenue types calling round. Just need the right situation.’

  ‘Might never happen,’ said Mace.

  ‘It’ll happen.’ Pylon got up to take a closer look at the pot plant, asked Mace how much he spent on plants?

  Mace told him he didn’t know. Not much.

  Pylon said, ‘Few days ago I come home Treasure’s bought plants. She says, we’ve gotta do a garden. I tell her this is a waste of money. Plants grow. You don’t buy them. She wants to know if I’ve heard of nurseries? Also she’s got bags of compost that need to be dug in she tells me. Now I’m the garden boy. A whole war I fought not to be a garden boy. In the township she didn’t care we didn’t have a garden. Now we must have a garden.’ Pylon rolled his shoulders in agitation. ‘I told her you never had a garden.’

  ‘Now we have. A lawn to mow too. Even use a Weedeater on the edges.’

  ‘Which got pointed out to me.’

  From below came shrieks and laughter, piercing even above the pounding beat: the party rising to the boil.

  ‘First thing I had to do was dig up the bed near the back door. Little Pumla starts to help me, what does she uncover, the bones of a cat. Not rotted away properly, still stuck with fur and putrid.’

  ‘Cat1.’

  Pylon stopped. ‘Cat1?’

  ‘That’s where we buried it. One of the kittens that were hammered to the club’s walls. The other one’s buried in our new garden.’

  ‘The bourgeoisie bury cats in their gardens?’

  ‘Probably small dogs too. It’s traditional.’

  ‘But I can’t kill a sheep on my patio for the ancestors?’

  ‘Treasure wants you do to that?’

  ‘Treasure’s got no ancestors.’

  ‘Unlike you?’

  The music changed pitch, getting more hectic. The crowd loved it.

  ‘Up until we got duplexed, yes. Now I hear them calling.’ Pylon leant forward, tapped Mace on the knee. ‘Another thing, it’s expensive. You consider what we had. A big house, double garage, even spent less money. And now? I burp downstairs Treasure shouts at me from upstairs to say pardon. Also I’m renting. Used to be I owned the place we lived in. Where’s the advantage?’