by Mike Nicol
‘No,’ said Spitz. ‘We are too close.’
‘Hey, captain,’ said Manga, ‘what’s too close? We’re hidden. Five cars between us. They’re not gonna see two gents sitting here. They’ll come out, put their bags in the boot and drive off. Even if they see us it’s two gents sitting in a car.’
‘That is exactly right,’ said Spitz, striking up a menthol. ‘The man is security. He will check out things like that.’
Manga fired the ignition. ‘Your call, captain. Where to?’
Spitz pointed down the row. ‘At the bottom.’
Lying in his lap were two colour prints of Mace Bishop. Zoom detail and ink-jet prints that were not the best. But good enough. No chance of making the wrong hit. Unless he got in the way.
Manga did a three-point to get into a bay at the end of the row, the angle too steep to see the Spider. Said, ‘This suit you, captain?’
‘I like it.’
‘Can’t see bugger all.’
‘There is no need for you. I have to see,’ said Spitz.
They had two plans: Plan A and Plan B. Both plans based on the assumption that Mace Bishop would take his client into town.
‘Have to, captain,’ Manga had said. ‘Obviously. Get the cousin to his hotel. The hotel’s in town. Why’d they go out in the other direction?’
‘It is what I would do,’ Spitz had said. ‘I would have another arrangement.’
‘Wena, my cousin!’ Manga had raised his hands in exasperation. ‘You have a sad mind, captain. Sometimes you gotta trust people to act normally.’
Spitz didn’t believe that but decided this time the odds were in his favour. Any doubt, Sheemina February would’ve said something. The woman was a jackal, quick and sly. So he went with the scheme.
Plan A happened at the first traffic light leaving the airport: Manga would draw up alongside the Spider and Spitz in the back would put one into the target as they pulled away, Manga turning left while Mace Bishop and his dead client headed straight on towards town. Might even be a couple of minutes before the Bishop guy noticed anything was wrong. Strapped in, the hit wasn’t going to fall over in a hurry. The catch here was they caught the light on red.
Failing this Plan B kicked in where the road split to join the highway. The Spider would take the city ramp, Manga coming up on the inside lane, Spitz doing the job at the split. Simple ‘pop and peel’ in Manga’s jargon.
‘Now I check why you use the .22,’ he’d said to Spitz when Spitz outlined the tactic. ‘Causes no shit with the driver.’
Spitz’d looked at Manga as if he was a major moegoe not to have snapped on this before. A look that worked under Manga’s skin. But Manga said nothing.
Spitz held up the printouts of Mace Bishop.
‘Make sure you don’t hit the wrong one, hey, captain,’ said Manga. He kept a straight face, twisting sideways to see if this put a crack up tight-arse Spitz. It didn’t.
Spitz stubbed out his menthol. ‘I am going into the terminal.’ He opened the car door.
‘And I’m supposed to do what?’ Manga’s voice high-pitched. ‘Wait here?’
‘Yes,’ said Spitz. ‘You can chill, my brother’ – smiling to himself at Manga running his mouth about not being an on-tap chauffeur.
‘What you need is a peak cap,’ Spitz said, closing the door, heading off through the warm air to the arrivals hall. Wasn’t the best time for a job: the sun falling fast behind the mountain, the light fading. Another twenty minutes, half an hour he’d be shooting at a shadow. But he had other matters on his mind.
The matter on Spitz’s mind was his bank balance. Finding out if Sheemina February’s word was good. He believed it would be. Then again belief, Spitz knew, was about the world you hoped for, not the one you lived in.
Inside, the arrivals board told him the Lufthansa flight was down thirty-five minutes. Next ten minutes the passengers would start dribbling through.
He found an ATM, put in his bank card and entered his code. Pressed through to his current account: the balance up by ninety-five large. Meant she’d paid for Chocho’s wife. A smart move. He transferred the total to an interest account, and closed the menu, withdrawing his card. Then sauntered over to the crowd waiting at the barriers, thinking, no ways Obed Chocho’s wife hadn’t been part of the intended target. Maybe Obed Chocho wasn’t too happy but no ways she’d been collateral. What’d gone down was what the coloured chick had wanted to go down.
Spitz saw the two men: the one pushing a luggage trolley; Mace Bishop as good as his pictures, not a smile to be seen, his eyes running a sweep through the people close up against the barrier. Also noticed how his jacket snagged at his hip and the butt there of a weapon. Had to have a contact to get that through the system.
The German was talking, relaxed, no problems in the world.
Spitz followed them out the building to the parking ticket paypoints. Cleared his own ticket right after Mace Bishop paid for his. The target saying something about dinner as the two men went off.
Spitz tracked them one row to the right. Saw them stop at the Spider, Mace Bishop doing a full three sixty scope and clocking him without concern. Spitz hurried on but not too fast to cause the Bishop guy any anxiety. Ahead he saw Manga slide off the bonnet of the G-string and stand at the driver’s door. The sort of movement any security was going to notice. He motioned him into the car.
Manga had the engine started when Spitz got in at the back. Spitz spitting.
‘Why are you sitting up on the car?’ he said. ‘That was not a clever thing. Why not use a sign saying what we do.’ Spitz set the Ruger on the seat and fished the silencer from his pocket: screwed the can to the barrel.
‘Be cool, captain,’ said Manga. ‘Keep the shakes out of your hands.’
Spitz ignored this. ‘He has got a gun, the security. If he fires back you might need the thirty-eight.’
‘I’ve got it,’ said Manga catching Spitz’s eye in the rearview mirror.
Spitz shifted over behind the driver’s seat, the gun lying easy against his thigh. He missed the airy croon of Jesse Sykes at a moment like this.
Manga edged the car forward, said, ‘Come on, cousin, let’s go, let’s roll.’ The Spider stayed parked. ‘Why’sn’t he moving?’
‘We must just wait with patience. In the parking bay.’
‘I can’t see him from there, captain. I gotta be forward to see him.’ Manga rolling the car back and forth like a kiddies ride at a fairground.
Spitz said, ‘You are getting an audience for us.’ A family group up the row, packing luggage into a SUV, staring at them.
‘No problem,’ said Manga, ‘we’re moving. Hot to trot, let’s shake.’
31
The worst part, Mace knew, was stepping into the hall, all the people facing you. Aunties and uncles and kids and grannies and lovers swirling about. The moment he’d choose would be then, in the chaos. Plop. The target goes down, people scream. In those ten seconds you’re walking away, crossing to the drop-and-kiss zone outside, driving off.
Typically with high-profile people he’d have Pylon in the crowd, maybe one other staffer hanging loose for safety’s sake.
With Rudi Klett he was relying on low profile. Wasn’t so much the risk of a hitman lurking among the aunties as the prosecutors angling up with a warrant of arrest. Snappy dressers was who he scanned the hall for as they walked into the exposure. No one stuck out but maybe it was a mistake not having backup anyhow.
He kept Rudi Klett moving, not hurrying, keeping it brisk through the families, the conference greeters, the tourist couriers and outside towards the parking ticket paypoints. Rudi Klett not letting up for a moment on Mace and Pylon joining him for dinner. Why didn’t they get Pylon on the cell right now?
‘In a moment,’ said Mace, ‘okay.’ Digging in his pocket for money. Aware of a man beside him feeding change into the machine.
Rudi Klett saying, ‘Oumou can come too. Why not? And Pylon’s wife. We can arrange babysitters fo
r Christa. I would like this, Mace. I would enjoy us having a good meal together. Something to make up for last night.’
The man behind them now so close Mace could smell his aftershave.
Rudi Klett saying, ‘This would save Oumou preparing a supper. My first night for a long time in your city, this would be a way to celebrate old times, Mace. Not so? If the hotel restaurant is not to your recommendation, then somewhere else. Wherever you choose.’
Mace slowed to keep himself between the man and Rudi Klett until the man brushed past and away. A man without any luggage, no overnight bag, no briefcase. But a man walking away which was how Mace wanted it.
He guided Rudi Klett towards the Spider.
‘No,’ said Rudi Klett, seeing the car. ‘I do not believe it. You have still got this car? So retro. For Mace Bishop, a ’69 Spider in the new century. I do not believe it. If you had said an Alfa I would have said, yes, why not that is a good car. The 147 especially. This would suit the Mace Bishop image. The image of what you do. Security. Protection. Confidence. Fast. Sleek. Discreet. But the old Spider. Like in The Graduate. No, Mace, this is too much.’
‘I prefer it,’ said Mace. ‘It’s different.’
‘There is no joking about that.’
Mace opened the boot, let Rudi Klett heft in his own luggage. Security didn’t extend to valet service.
‘But this is the hard top,’ said Rudi Klett, drumming his fingers on the car’s roof. ‘For an evening such as this we should have the top down. Enjoy the warm air. The smell.’
‘The petrol fumes, you mean.’
‘No, Cape Town has a smell. It’s own smell, like wet bushes.’
‘You can smell that?’
‘I remember it from before. On the mountain.’ He pointed behind Mace at the peninsula mountain chain dark now against the sky. A faint light etching its outline. ‘Look at the mountain so beautiful. Magnificent. Not like Berlin. In Berlin everything is old and heavy and grey. Do you feel it like that?’
‘This time, especially,’ said Mace. His cellphone beeped an sms. Another message from Judge Telman Visser. Mace ignored it, wondering what Rudi Klett would say if he knew the judge was a phone call away.
The men got into the car and Rudi Klett wound down his window.
‘Who else still has a window winder in their car? I don’t know anyone with a car this old.’
‘It’s a talking point.’
Mace pulled the P8 from his belt, clipped it in a holder he’d had fitted on the door. Easy to reach for, easy to bring up the gun in any hijacker’s face. Shoot his nose off before he even sensed a change of play.
In this city you needed it. No point in driving around with a gun if it was stuck in the glove box or the boot. He knew people who kept their weapon in the boot. People who lost both car and gun to the hijacker. Mace would say to them: ‘When you bought the gun you must’ve considered shooting someone? Being in a situation where you had to kill?’ They’d look at him with their mouths open, horrified.
‘I like it,’ said Rudi Klett. ‘Very comforting.’
Mace brought out his cellphone, thumbed through to Pylon. ‘What time you want to make dinner?’
Rudi Klett checked his watch. ‘Say eight-thirty.’
Mace nodded, Pylon answering in a tone even more pissed off than Mace had been earlier. Rattling through a list of the day’s wrongs from the cop clampdown on Lindiwe’s murder to the Smits pulling out in favour of Obed Chocho. Ending with Treasure being on his case about when was he coming home for supper. Sometimes, he said, he could understand why men ran away from their pregnant wives.
Mace let it wash over him, even the murder bit. ‘Rudi’s paying for dinner. Eight-thirty. onewaterfront. And Treasure’s invited.’
Pylon groaned. ‘This’s going to please her. I can hear it: what’s she going to wear? Where do we get a babysitter? Why’s it always at the last minute.’
‘Shit happens,’ said Mace. ‘Get one of the guys to sit. Best babysitters in the city.’
‘They’re employed for the celebs,’ said Pylon. ‘Not to mind our kids.’
‘Part of the job description.’
Rudi Klett said loudly, grinning, ‘This is your financial backer offering dinner, Mr Buso. Please not to mess him around.’
‘Tell Klett he picks his moments,’ said Pylon.
‘He says you’re going to land him in the crap,’ Mace said to Rudi Klett.
‘Occupational hazard.’
‘Alright,’ said Pylon. ‘We’ll be there.’
Mace disconnected. ‘One more. To Oumou.’
She answered, light and whisky in her voice. ‘You are going to say we have a dinner date with Rudi,’ she said before Mace had said anything.
‘I am.’
‘Good. Because I have made no supper.’
‘And Christa?’
‘Is with Pumla. They have one of your security there to babysit.’
‘That’s not what Pylon told me.’
‘Pylon does not know everything.’
Mace laughed. ‘You and Treasure have a bet on this?’
‘Of course. I know Herr Rudi Klett remember.’
Mace said she was the most wonderful woman in the world.
She said she knew that too. She also said there was a judge looking for him. Judge Telman Visser. Who’d phoned not ten minutes earlier.
When he disconnected Rudi Klett said, ‘Oumou has it organised?’
‘She has.’ Mace put the key into the ignition and the engine fired on the turn. ‘In the desert she would do things and I’d wonder why. And then four, five days later something would happen that she’d anticipated. Uncanny stuff. Like Oumou’s in this different world. Past, present and future all mixed up.’
‘Very useful.’
‘No kidding.’
Mace reversed the Spider out of the parking bay and headed for the exit. At the bottom of the row he noticed a black car nose forward. By the time they reached the exit booms the black car filled his rearview mirror: a new-model BMW with the lights on dim, only a driver in it. And not the man he’d marked at the ticket paypoint.
Mace inserted his ticket to open the booms, drove through.
32
Manga let the Spider turn into the exit lane before he left the parking bay, driving past the family at their SUV, everyone of them giving him and Spitz the once-over.
Spitz said, ‘Wave to our club of fans.’
‘Don’t sweat it, captain,’ said Manga, turning into the exit lane, slowing for a Ford Focus to nose between them and the Spider, fifty, sixty metres ahead.
‘That is okay for you is it? They see two black men in a BMW with one driving, the other in the back, they will think this is very strange?’
‘They’re whiteys. Whiteys think everything we do is strange. Probably think you’re a cabinet minister.’
‘Without any security forces? With no vehicles to back up?’
‘Or new elite.’
‘I can ask the same questions. White people are not stupid.’
‘Most are.’
‘Then you are stupid. When white people see two black men in a BM car, they think there is trouble.’
‘’Cos they’re paranoid.’
Spitz had to laugh, the sound coming out like a bark. He pulled on his gloves.
‘What’ja need those for, captain?’ Manga shaking his head, frowning.
‘They are how I do the job,’ said Spitz.
The Spider turned towards the exit booms, and Manga nudged up close behind the Focus to move it along, muttering, ‘Come on, guys. Let’s roll it. Let’s tap the pedal.’
The four exits were occupied, no chance of getting out at the same time as the Spider. Manga went in behind it.
‘Why are you doing this?’ said Spitz. ‘He can see you in the mirror.’
‘So what?’
‘He is watching you. The man is not a fool. Later he will think about we two. He will remember the black men in the car. The one behind
the other. He will give the police details.’
‘What details?’ The Spider eased off and Manga rolled forward, inserted his ticket into the receiver. The boom went down behind the Spider and up immediately. ‘In this light. A black face wearing shades. You’re not even gonna see me. And maybe you didn’t notice, anyhow, gotta be about a million of those faces in this city. Captain, you’re stressing.’
Which riled Spitz but he kept it down.
The Focus was ahead of them again, driving slowly. At the intersection the traffic lights on red, the Spider in the fast lane, a car in front of it. The Focus went right behind the Spider.
‘Heita,’ said Manga, coming up slowly on the Spider’s left, giving Spitz a clear shot. Less than two metres. ‘Plan A, one time.’
Spitz shifted to the centre of the seat, readied the Ruger. When they pulled opposite, he’d sight and squeeze.
The lights changed and the car ahead of the Spider fish-tailed off burning rubber. The Spider accelerating behind it, the opportunity quickly lost to pop and peel.
‘Bloody bushies,’ said Manga. ‘A coloured gets a car he thinks he’s Michael Schumacher.’ He went through the gears keeping with the game, before them now a clear kilometre of two-lane feeder road to the highway on-ramps. Plan B with no complications.
Spitz said nothing, watching the Spider pull ahead in the fast lane, Manga holding steady a car’s length behind and to the left, the Focus parallel to the right, a kid in the back of the Focus levelling a bright orange gun at him. The gun held sideways like the kid had seen hoods do it on CSI.
Spitz raised his left hand in surrender, the Ruger lightly in his right. The kid shot him once and ducked down.
Manga caught the movement of Spitz’s hand. ‘What’s happening, captain?’
‘There is a boy in the Focus playing that he is shooting me,’ said Spitz.
Manga snorted. ‘Kids see too much shit on TV. Okay, you ready for this?’
‘If there was sun it would be better.’
Spitz pushed the window-down button, felt the car picking up speed, pulling ahead of the Focus, his line of sight coming onto the back of the Spider, riding to the open passenger window, the passenger turning to look at him.
