Killer Country

by Mike Nicol

  Judge Visser smiled. ‘I do that,’ he said. ‘I like to be sure of the facts. But don’t worry, Mr Bishop, I don’t know how many traffic fines you have outstanding and I don’t know how much money you owe on your house. Although I do know it is very modern, very angular, at least from the street.’

  The judge had a small black bag in his lap, leather undoubtedly, the sort of handbag that had almost become a fashion accessory but never quite made it. The thought occurred to Mace that maybe Telman Visser was gay.

  ‘If you’re interested,’ the judge was saying, ‘mostly I got positive responses: family man, doesn’t drink to excess, doesn’t smoke, keen swimmer, good at his job. On the right side in the struggle, even trained in the guerrilla camps. I know you met your wife in Malitia. I know she is a ceramicist trained in Paris. I know you were gun-running in Malitia. Although I am not sure if arms trader is an advantage on a CV. To some people it might be off-putting. I am neutral. If there was a downside it was that you shoot too quickly. That you’re ruthless, even. I don’t know, is that a downside? Probably, in the eyes of the law these days. But I wouldn’t hold it against you. Oh yes, I know about your court case too. A nasty business.’

  Mace thought, enough of the crap, judge, let’s cut to the detail. Said, ‘That’s reassuring.’

  ‘And, a colleague tells me you have a weakness for unconventional methods. Like threatening to hang people. He found the incident amusing. Then again, once upon a time, he, and others I know, had a penchant for hanging people. Personally I am against capital punishment.’

  The judge manoeuvred his chair to face the photograph. ‘Have a look at this.’

  Mace did. It was a large composite made up of smaller squares: five down, five across. The foreground almost at the photographer’s feet, at the top a distant horizon. Each photograph linked to the adjacent pictures like pieces of a puzzle.

  ‘The photographer,’ said the judge, ‘is a man called David Goldblatt. You’ve heard of him?’

  Mace shook his head.

  ‘Excellent photographer. Done some extraordinary work. I have three of his photographs. Four counting this one.’ With his left hand, the judge wheeled closer to the photograph. ‘What’s important, from your point of view, is what’s happening in the middle.’

  Wasn’t much happening in the photograph as far as Mace was concerned. Nobody hanging around. No cars. No trace of a house. What it seemed to be was the slope of a hill, grass, rocks, clumps of bushes down to a road then the plain sliding off to the horizon. Looked like bushveld. Thorn trees. Good kudu country.

  The judge pulled back slightly. ‘Here, on this fence beside the road is the important detail.’

  Mace leaned forward. The fence was adorned with wreaths and crosses.

  ‘Those were placed there by farmers,’ said the judge, ‘as a protest at the farm killings. Perhaps you didn’t know that last year alone a hundred and fifty farmers and their wives, if the women were unlucky enough to be around when the killers came in, were murdered. For no reason. No one was robbed, except of guns, food, liquor. Always the women were raped. In many cases the people were shot execution-style. They kneel. They feel a gun at the back of their heads. End of story. They are the lucky ones. In most cases people are tortured. Husbands and wives. No one is arrested. No one is even suspected. The killers come out of the night and disappear back into the darkness. They may as well be ghosts. The farm labourers do not see anything, they do not even hear anything.’

  ‘I’ve read about it,’ said Mace.

  The judge backed his wheelchair away. He pointed at a bench. ‘Please sit down so that we can be eye to eye.’

  Mace obliged and the judge positioned himself a metre off. ‘That,’ he gestured at the photograph behind his back, ‘makes a powerful statement. More powerful than the farmer’s protest. We have become used to crosses beside the road. The country is littered with them. But that photograph speaks of the aloneness, the emptiness, the indifference of the landscape. That is about our history. All those farmers were white. The descendants of settlers. People who took away the land from the indigenous people. And now the land is reclaiming itself.’ He stared at Mace, a slight smile on his lips. ‘Am I being fanciful? I don’t think so.’

  The judge stroked his clasp-bag. ‘I had a privileged childhood on that farm. Running wild with our dogs across my own huge playground. Such days in my own worlds. The magical worlds we make as boys, not so, Mr Bishop? For children there is no better place than a farm. An adventure wonderland.’ He paused to look at the photograph. ‘My father and his wife live on the farm,’ he said. ‘My father’s elderly. In his eighties. She’s slightly younger. My grandparents are buried there, and my great-grandparents. There are older graves which are probably my forebears. My father believes that if it was good enough for the previous generation to die on the farm then it is good enough for him. My grandparents died naturally. I am afraid that my father will die at the end of a gun. Some black men will get into the house one night…’ He let the sentence hang but his stare stayed on Mace’s face, searching in his eyes for sympathy.

  Mace sat forward, clasping his hands between his knees. Was going to ask about the judge’s mother, then thought, no, don’t get involved. ‘We don’t do that sort of security, judge. Not our line of business.’

  ‘I know. I know,’ the judge waved his hand as if at a fly. ‘I know what you do. Big names. Top business people. Celebrities. Minor royalty. Surgical safaris. I know this. The people fly in, you babysit them, off they go again. The wild city doesn’t get in their face.’ He smiled, somewhat snidely Mace thought. ‘It’s not a big strain on you.’

  ‘The long and short of it.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to babysit. What I’m asking for is professional advice. You go out there, assess the situation, tell me what sort of security devices must go in. Maybe recommend a guard from your staff. I don’t know. We can work out a separate contract. Something.’

  The judge stopped, his face serious. Mace thought, hey, the man’s worried.

  ‘All I’m requesting is an opinion. Your recommendations. No commitment beyond that.’

  Mace sat up, stretched the muscles in his back. Why not do it? What was it going to take? Three, four days tops including travelling time. Get out into the wide open spaces. Had to be better than overnighting in Berlin. Had to be better than overnighting anywhere. He could take Christa. Father and daughter time. Said, ‘Okay, I can do that. I’m not sure about contracting a guard from my staff, that’s a different story. But I’ll check out the place for you.’

  Judge Telman Visser exhaled a sigh of relief. ‘I’m obliged. Thank you. You take a great weight off my mind, Mr Bishop. A considerable burden. I will be able to rest easy. You’ve knitted up what Shakespeare called the “ravelled sleave of care”. Do you know the quote?’

  Mace shrugged, not giving away that he did or didn’t.

  ‘Macbeth. Probably my favourite Shakespeare. And a great film version by Polanski I can recommend.’

  He stretched out his hand. Mace shook it: firm, strong, may even have been a hint of Masonic pressure and rub that he’d not noticed the first time. If it had been there the first time.

  ‘Now. When can you do this? The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Can’t help you there,’ said Mace. ‘Probably not until late next week. The weekend.’

  ‘I see.’ The judge frowned. ‘That’s pushing it. I’d hoped for sooner.’

  ‘I’m in Berlin tomorrow, judge. Back Monday night. Tuesday, Wednesday, I’m duty bound. Wednesday night back to Berlin. Friday I’m home again. Friday’s the earliest I could go. And what’re we talking, a five, six hour drive? That’s not fun after a long flight.’

  ‘Charter flight could get you within an hour’s drive.’

  ‘If you’re picking up the tab.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What if I want to take my daughter with me? Get her out onto a farm. Something she’s no
t experienced, that adventure wonderland.’

  ‘I’ve heard about your daughter,’ said the judge. ‘A horrible experience for you.’

  ‘She’s over it.’

  Judge Visser unzipped his clasp bag. ‘I’m not sure this would be the best occasion to have her with you.’ He brought out a business card. ‘Maybe some other time I can arrange for you to stay at one of the hunting lodges. We hire them out. You could take your wife and daughter for a week. Be our guests.’ He offered the card to Mace. ‘Do you have a card?’

  ‘Sure.’ Mace took one from his wallet.

  ‘I’ll get back to you on Tuesday,’ said the judge. ‘With the arrangements.’

  Mace stood.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Bishop.’ The judge raised his hand. ‘I appreciate this.’

  As Mace turned to leave, he noticed the judge swing his chair back to face the photograph.

  12

  Obed Chocho, lying on his bed, the screen of the television paused on Tony Soprano’s scheming face, thought about what his wife had told him. What Popo Dlamini had told her. That the money backing the other consortium on the land deal was German. Which he did not like. He wondered what Tony would do in this sort of situation.

  Except Tony wouldn’t be in this sort of situation. Wouldn’t be in jail. Wouldn’t have his wife screwing her arse off. Opening her legs to a prick like Dlamini. Carmela wouldn’t do that. Wouldn’t dream of doing that.

  Carmela wouldn’t take a man into Tony’s bedroom and fuck him stupid on Tony’s bed. She had respect. She wasn’t going to let some young flash paw at her flesh. Stick his dick in her. Suck her tits.

  Tony could trust Carmela. Obed didn’t trust Lindiwe. Turned out he was right not to.

  Obed Chocho groaned. ‘Mighty fine. Mighty fine.’ Hit his hand against the iron railing of the bed head until it hurt. Didn’t stop the image of Lindiwe, shiny with sweat, moaning and grinding beneath Popo Dlamini, thrusting her breasts up for his lips to slide around her long nipples. Didn’t stop the twitch in Obed Chocho’s groin but shot him off the bed.

  Almost made him get Lindiwe back on the phone. Tell her again: I’m not joking. It’s over. I catch you anywhere near him, you better watch out.

  When she’d phoned he’d let her get to the point of anxiety without saying a thing. Hearing her become nervous over his silence. Blurting out the shit from Dlamini about the German backer with long long euros. The sort of bucks that would get to the greedy mlungu Smits holding out for the big lotto win. White shit dealing white shit, muscling in to take his land. Going to cut a deal with the other consortium that would sweep him off the table. Like he was dirt. To be spat on. Ignored. Oh no. Mighty fine, oh no.

  Only his wife crying, saying, ‘That’s what he told me. ‘True’s God, help me, that’s what he said.’ Only Lindiwe’s snivelling snapped him back to her.

  ‘I hear one more time you’ve seen him, hear me, one more time, then mighty fine, he is dead. No more smses how you want to hump each other.’ He heard her gasp. ‘You talk to him. You phone him. You send him any message I’m going to know. You got that mighty fine?’

  She whimpered.

  He shouted, ‘You got that mighty fine?’

  Her reply so soft through the sobbing he had to get her to say it again. ‘Yes, Obed.’

  ‘Hear me, Lindiwe,’ he said, ‘listen hard. I know what’s going on. I know mighty fine. You are over with him. You are finished. No more. I sit here, I get your smses “Oh baby, come duze tonight”, you think I like that. My wife screwing this arsehole. Over now, okay. Finish and klaar.’

  He waited. Lindiwe going you are my darling, you are my sweetheart, I love you, I never loved him, until Obed said, ‘Mighty fine, enough. Tomorrow you pick me up in the afternoon, this is forgotten. Like it didn’t happen. We are together. No one laughing behind me about who Obed Chocho’s wife is jumping. Obed Chocho the convict moegoe. No more bullshit like that, alright?’

  He got her promise. Let her sobbing continue until it became sniffling. Said, ‘Tomorrow you get here two o’clock. No African time shit. Two pee em. Now, let me speak to Sheemina.’

  Sheemina February said in his ear, ‘The German’s name is Rudolf Klett. He is a businessman based in Berlin. At the moment that’s all I know.’

  ‘Find out more,’ said Obed Chocho.

  ‘Oh yes sir, right away sir,’ said Sheemina February. ‘Anythingelse, sir?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’ He disconnected, his palms sweating at her sarcasm. Might be the best bloody lawyer in town but two things about Sheemina February put him on edge: one was her tongue. The other thing, she was a bushie. You couldn’t trust a coloured.

  Calmed down, the image gone of Lindiwe’s hips banging against Popo Dlamini, Obed Chocho stretched out again on the bed. Stared at Tony Soprano’s scheming face. A German? These guys bringing in a German backer. He snorted. Well, to hell with them. They didn’t know what sort of fight this was. That’s how Tony would handle it. Change the game. Obed aimed the remote, pressed play.

  13

  Top down, Mace drove slowly along Somerset Road wondering about Judge Telman Visser, his sense of the dramatic. For heaven’s sake, like a photograph was going to impress someone. A strip of highway with some wreaths on it. And for that he’d pay over a hundred thousand bucks. The judge had more money than sense.

  But he had sense too, doing his homework. Checking up on the sort of people he hired. Probably the judge did know the Bishop household’s bank account. Judges had contacts; they could get things done. Find out stuff.

  Not that knowing how much was in his bank account was a big deal, Mace reckoned. It wouldn’t tell you anything more than how often Mace Bishop was in overdraft. And he wasn’t bothered about the judge knowing that. Because that became an explanation for the mean and lean attitude when payment was due.

  Issue was, the real issue was, time this bullshit came to an end. This client soft-soaping. He thought about that: soft-soaping. Pictured Judge Visser in a bubble bath, himself an attendant with a loofah on a stick about to scrub the judge’s back. Not a pretty picture. But what guarding came down to, you looked at it that way.

  Time to quit the scene as he’d told Pylon. Get out of security, sell the business. Sorting other people’s crap wasn’t doing it anymore. Had been okay for a time. Even fun, even lucrative. But enough. The more he thought about it, the more Pylon’s west coast scheme became an out. Pylon got that to work they’d be steaming. No more Judge Vissers. No more surgical safaris. No more neurotic celebs. Could even make the future look a bright place, you took it in that light.

  Mace stopped at the traffic robots on Buitengracht. A hot March sun on his shoulders, hotter than normal without the south-easter pumping across the city.

  A Big Issue vendor thrust a magazine at him. ‘Hey, boss my larney, sweet ‘n sporty.’ Dropped the mag into Mace’s lap.

  ‘I’ve bought one of those,’ said Mace, handing it back.

  ‘Ten bucks,’ said the vendor. ‘Present for a friend.’

  ‘I already did that.’

  ‘Present for another friend.’ The vendor gave him a two-jerk nod of the head. ‘Howsit with a smoke?’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Mace, irritated now that he couldn’t wait at the traffic light, gaze up at the mountain, be okay about the day undisturbed. ‘Give me a break, hey, china.’

  The vendor pulled a sour face. Mace watched him in the rearview mirror getting nowhere with other drivers. Someone finally giving him a cigarette. As the lights changed, Mace’s cellphone rang. Pylon.

  ‘You coming in?’ Pylon wanted to know.

  ‘Wasn’t that the arrangement?’

  ‘I’m just asking.’

  ‘Man, what’s with the rattiness.’ Mace laughed. ‘Treasure on your case?’

  ‘Ah, just get here.’ Pylon disconnected.

  Sometimes Mace wondered who was pregnant: Pylon or Treasure.

  He cut down Wale past the cathedral and the Slave Lodge, the streets eas
y except for coach loads of tourists grouping to wander through the Company’s Gardens. Japanese strolling about like they weren’t taking pictures from the middle of a street. He gave one man a toot and smiled at the apologies. Yeah, yeah, have a nice day, pal.

  Up a deserted Plein Street back of parliament, the government quarter so quiet, Mace thought, you’d think there wasn’t one. Come to that, wasn’t much busier during a weekday either, even with parliament sitting. He turned into Dunkley Square and parked opposite their offices, a Victorian in the middle of a terrace.

  Almost midday, no one about. The late-night cafés still shut, windows of the houses and apartments curtained. Some tables outside Maria’s: the only customer, Pylon, at the only table under an umbrella.

  ‘Today some sort of holiday I forgot?’ said Mace, flopping into a chair opposite his partner. ‘The town’s still asleep.’

  ‘On a day like this at the beach,’ said Pylon. ‘Or in the shopping malls. What’s anybody want to be in town for?’

  Mace ordered a Coke float, stressing lots of ice cream in the Coke.

  Pylon snorted. ‘That’s a kiddy drink. You want a milkshake have a Dom Pedro. At least it’s whisky.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Mace, tapping his car keys on the table. ‘Look at me. I’m not your wife, savvy? This is your friend and business partner sitting here. Treasure’s riding you, I don’t want to know. Pregnant woman aren’t a joy.’

  ‘No kidding.’ Pylon called back the waiter and ordered himself a Dom Pedro with whisky not Kahlua. Looked across at Mace and shook his head. ‘That’s the part I don’t get: why this isn’t a happy thing? Why she’s not sweetness and light?

  ‘We’re in the Palms okay having breakfast. She likes the Palms. It’s off the street, inside, all the expensive home shops packed together. She can go feel the bed linen, stare at all that black wood shit from Bali, hey I don’t know, choose bathroom tiles, get people to show her a million colours of paint. For Treasure this is heaven. Pumla and me, we go along with it. I go along with it on account of Treasure’s a bit edgy over where I’ve been all morning. But that’s alright, I talked her through it.