Killer Country

by Mike Nicol

  Manga considered this. ‘Nah ways. Which of us is gonna stop a bullet for him? Not me, captain.’

  ‘And not me either.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I am saying this is the way his mind thinks.’

  ‘Isn’t gonna happen. Someone wants to shoot the shit outta Obed Chocho I’ll let them.’

  ‘Perhaps it will not be so easy when there are crossfire bullets,’ said Spitz. He got out of the car, the wind whipping the door from his grasp, smacking it into the next vehicle, scoring a blue scratch across the paintwork. Spitz jerked the door free and leaned in to retrieve a small overnight bag.

  ‘Ah shit,’ said Manga. ‘Those people come back and see damage, it’s obvious who did it.’ He fired the engine once Spitz slammed the door closed. As he pulled off Manga lowered his window. ‘Hey, captain. Have fun. Don’t shoot any nurses, we need them.’

  Spitz stared at him blank faced. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Over there,’ said Manga, pointing at an empty bay.

  ‘No stupid tricks,’ said Spitz, turning towards the hospital entrance. He carried the bag in his left hand, leaned into the wind that buffeted off the building. At the reception desk he asked for a Mr Schneider in intensive care, indicating the bag, telling the receptionist they were the man’s personal effects.

  ‘You can’t go into ICU,’ said the receptionist.

  ‘I understand,’ said Spitz. ‘I have been asked to leave these with the ward sister in charge.’

  ‘We’ll get them to her, sir.’

  ‘No, I must do it. At the request of the embassy.’ He dug in his jacket pocket, brought out a wallet as if to show some identity, lay this on the counter beneath his hand. ‘I will not be a moment.’

  People were queuing behind him, someone pushing at his elbow, saying, ‘Excuse me, please this is urgent, please’. The receptionist gave in, told Spitz, up in the lift to the second floor, then right down the corridor, left at the end. At the doors ring for a nurse.

  Spitz gave a nod, walked towards the bank of lifts, a man not in a hurry, the heels of his brogues clicking on the linoleum flooring. He waited with six others: two elderly people holding onto one another, a mother and child, a young woman carrying flowers, a man about his own age in a dressing gown with a bandage swathing his head.

  The lift doors opened, a group of people got out, visitors mostly except for a man on crutches. He greeted the man with the bandaged head, Spitz skirting round the two to enter the lift. He caught their exchange: the man with the bandage saying there was nowhere to smoke where the wind wasn’t howling.

  The doors closed. At the first floor the mother and child got out, standing in the foyer bewildered. The elderly woman said, ‘The clinic’s down the corridor, if you’re looking for it?’ ‘On the right,’ added her husband. The mother turned right, not acknowledging the advice. ‘How rude,’ said the elderly woman. The man with the bandage sniggered.

  At the second floor only Spitz stepped out, not hesitating, heading right as the receptionist had told him. He heard the lift doors close. A sign indicated the direction to the intensive care unit.

  The corridor was about fifty metres long: empty except for two aides pushing a gurney coming towards him. Spitz stood aside, nodding, as they passed, the woman on the gurney looked more dead than alive.

  He went to the corner, turned into a reception area. Spitz had hoped for a more cautious approach, an opportunity to check out the situation. He hesitated. The only people here were two men. Security written large all over them. They sat on chairs facing the ICU doors, the one playing games on his cellphone; the other plugged into an iPod, flipping through a magazine. Spitz took a seat opposite them, settling the bag on his lap.

  The man listening to the music took the iPod from his shirt pocket, switched it off. Spitz noticed a blue iPod like the one he’d lost. The man said, ‘You’ve got to ring the bell.’

  ‘It is fine,’ said Spitz. ‘They told me to wait here.’

  The security shrugged, went back to his music. Spitz heard the opening thrum of ‘When A Man Comes Around’, thought it had to be his iPod. Who was this guy?

  36

  Judge Telman Visser sat in his chambers staring out across the Company Gardens at parliament. Above the city, cloud poured over the face of the mountain. The noise of the wind rattled in the building. After thirty years in Cape Town, the wind still tore at his nerves. Had torn at his nerves all day.

  On the screen of his laptop an email from Sheemina February. A short, courteous one-liner thanking him for being so understanding in signing the parole release. An email timed an hour earlier at five fifteen.

  Not many attorneys were this polite. Not any attorneys in his experience.

  He’d heard more tales of her reputation during the day, intriguing anecdotes.

  What she was doing with Obed Chocho was the question. Or rather, perhaps, what Obed Chocho was doing with her.

  But her email was only a distraction. Not having heard from Mace Bishop weighed most with Judge Telman Visser. Settling Bishop’s trip to the farm for the weekend ate at his nerves more than the wind. He tapped his cellphone against the arm of his wheelchair. To phone the man would be wrong. Tactically wrong. Obsessive even. It might decide Bishop that he was dealing with a neurotic and that might cool him. The last thing Judge Visser wanted was tracking down another security consultant this late. Too much hassle. Bishop had been recommended, Bishop was the man.

  ‘Do you have the balls, Telman,’ he asked himself aloud. ‘To wait fifteen, sixteen hours.’

  Waiting was what lawyers were trained for. He could wait but it would not be easy. He needed amusement. He flicked through his cellphone contacts to the name of his personal trainer.

  ‘I know this is late,’ he said when the young man answered, ‘but could you fit me in at, say, seven. For a quick session.’

  The young man said sure but the judge heard the reluctance in his voice. He needed sweetening.

  ‘I’d appreciate it. And, oh, how about supper afterwards? On me.’

  That changed the tone of the young man’s response.

  At least it will keep my mind on other things, thought the judge. And might even be pleasurable. With a thin smile Judge Telman Visser deleted Sheemina February’s email, closed the laptop. A pretty face was what he needed most at the moment.

  Wednesday

  37

  Pylon hung up on his fingerprint contact, said to Mace, ‘No match.’ He dangled the iPod by the headphone wires. ‘Apart from mine, one other set of prints.’

  ‘We could do a door to door.’

  ‘We could.’

  ‘But what’s in it?’

  ‘Nothing really. Somebody may get a lost iPod back.’

  ‘Exactly. And if somebody’s lost it they’ve probably bought another one already. Claimed on insurance.’

  ‘So why bother?’

  ‘Other hand, the cops might’ve picked up the fingerprints inside.’

  ‘Except they’ve closed the case.’

  ‘And even if there was a match all you can say is the killer liked some heartbreak music.’ Mace got up from the couch and stretched. ‘I should’ve done a beach swim, if it wasn’t for the wind. Now I need coffee.’

  ‘Tami can make it.’

  Mace turned at the doorway. ‘She’s not here to get us coffees.’

  ‘I made for her yesterday.’

  ‘Big deal.’

  The two men stared at one another, Pylon conceding defeat. ‘Mlungu liberal bullshit. This sort of attitude’s destroying our culture.’ He came round his desk still swinging the iPod, his mind moved on to the Popo Dlamini case. ‘You can imagine being a cop. Facing all these sort of dead ends.’

  ‘Give it to that PI with the long hair. Let him figure it out.’

  ‘Mullet Mendes?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Mullet’s too smoked up.’

  They went downstairs and into the kitchen. Mace took coffee from th
e cupboard, unscrewed the Bialetti, knocking the grounds into a rubbish bin. He filled the base with water, tamped down the French roast in the filter basket, screwing the parts together again.

  Pylon put his nose in the air like a dog, sniffing. ‘What’s that smell? Save me Jesus! It’s bloody cigarette smoke.’ He shouted down the passage. ‘Tami!’

  Mace fired the gas hob, set down the coffee pot. ‘Leave it.’

  ‘Hey?’ said Pylon. ‘We told her, this’s a non-smoking environment.’

  ‘She’s trying to quit.’

  ‘Not hard enough.’ He yelled her name again. Tami answered from the courtyard. Pylon leapt at the backdoor. ‘You’re supposed to’ve stopped.’

  Tami crushed the butt under foot, bent down to pick it up. ‘I’m trying, okay.’ She headed for the door. Pylon stepped hurriedly back.

  ‘Well try harder.’

  ‘I’ve got one father I don’t need two,’ she hurled back over her shoulder.

  ‘You hear that,’ said Pylon. ‘She doesn’t think I’ve got Pumla. I don’t need another daughter.’

  ‘Take her a cup of coffee,’ said Mace, digging his new cellphone out of his pocket, putting a stop to its sharp ring tone.

  ‘More liberal bullshit.’

  ‘Hello, judge,’ said Mace. ‘You’re wanting to know if I’ve made a decision yet but I haven’t.’

  Mace listened to the judge going on about how critical it was becoming. How he, Mace, had been highly recommended and it was too late to seek an alternative at this stage. That he now felt he was being let down.

  ‘I told you, judge, up front, I had other priorities,’ said Mace.

  The judge sighed, apologised for his outburst. It was his concern getting the better of him.

  Mace said, ‘Look, I’ll make a decision this morning. Let you know this afternoon. If it’s not me it’ll be one of our guys.’ He thumbed him off. ‘The judge’s not a happy camper.’

  ‘Only the great Mace Bishop will do.’

  ‘Something like that.’ The coffee came to the boil. Mace switched off the gas, letting the brew settle before he poured it into three espresso cups, Pylon shaking his head.

  ‘Women just walk over you.’

  ‘Why not?’ He gave a cup to Pylon. ‘Take it to her.’

  ‘Me? No ways.’

  ‘Take it,’ said Mace, heading upstairs with their cups.

  When Pylon came up he said, ‘I wouldn’t want to be her father.’ He held up an A4 sheet with the message REMEMBER TO COLLECT CLIENTS AT THE AIRPORT TOMORROW AT 12 NOON printed on it in eighteen point.

  ‘She’s kicking a drug,’ said Mace. ‘You weren’t much fun doing it either.’ He took a swig of coffee, pointed at the message. ‘But she’s efficient. I might’ve forgotten that. Left the clients stranded.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have.’

  ‘Good for you. Now why don’t you phone the hospital. Get an update.’

  ‘I did,’ said Pylon. ‘This morning from home. Stable but critical.’

  ‘So what do you think: do I tell the judge yes or no?’

  ‘Go,’ said Pylon. ‘What’s the issue?’

  ‘Rudi Klett.’

  ‘How? We’ve got a roster going. It’s okay.’

  ‘Unless he gets plugged again.’

  ‘Isn’t going to happen,’ said Pylon, blowing over the surface of his coffee before he sipped it. ‘Yesterday, though, this snappy dresser wanders in. I think, oh yes, here we go. He’s carrying a small bag, you know, for toiletries, change of underwear, that sort of bag. He sits down so I tell him he has to ring for the sister, he says no he was told to wait. So he waits with the bag on his lap. Keeps looking at his watch but then he’s been told to wait so he’s anxious. I assume whoever he’s waiting for has been in surgery and is being brought up to ICU. Twenty minutes later, he clicks his tongue, mumbles something, walks off. I assume to track down what’s happening. We never see him again, and I was there for another hour, hour and a half.’

  ‘An assessor?’

  ‘In retrospect, could be. I told the guys anybody drifts in like that, they get them out.’

  ‘I’m going to phone,’ said Mace, keying the hospital number into the pad of a desk phone. He got through to ICU. They asked who he was and when he’d told them they told him Wolfgang Schneider was dead. ‘For Chrissakes,’ said Mace. ‘When?’

  About an hour earlier. A haemorrhage in his brain.

  ‘And no one’s phoned us?’

  They were getting round to it he was told. Trying to find the man’s next-of-kin.

  ‘We’re the contacts,’ said Mace. ‘You’re supposed to phone us.’

  ‘Save me Jesus,’ said Pylon when Mace hung up. ‘Wonderful hospital service we’ve got.’

  ‘Don’t know what I feel about his dying,’ said Mace. ‘He was a bastard. A likeable bastard but still a bastard. Especially what he put me through on Sunday.’

  ‘It’s sad,’ said Pylon. ‘We go back.’

  ‘Sure, there were times.’

  ‘Then he gets popped sitting next to you.’

  ‘Thanks for that.’

  They sat in silence finishing their coffees. Eventually Mace said, ‘I suppose I should tell the judge I’ll take up his offer.’

  38

  Beside the pool at Obed Chocho’s house, Spitz and Manga stretched out on loungers. Jammed in a bucket of ice were a clutch of beers, Black Labels mostly but also Amstels. Spitz smoking menthols; Manga rolling a short stop of dagga.

  They were sheltered from the wind by a wall of dressed stone with a gurgling fountain feature built into it, the water issuing from a seraph’s mouth. Obed Chocho had a liking for statuary. Concrete small-sized imitations of the Greek classics scattered about the garden: the Venus, the victory, some maidens and the discus thrower.

  Spitz and Manga had been there since lunch, their empty plates cleared away a few hours back by a young woman who’d flitted about the place all morning with a vacuum cleaner and a dust rag. Manga had come on to the girl, trailing after her, suggesting one or two alternatives that made her giggle until Obed Chocho told him to lay off before he got his dick amputated. The girl was a niece from some dusty village: not for plucking.

  After lunch Obed Chocho had gone out telling Spitz and Manga to stay put. They could drink all the beer they wanted but they didn’t leave the property. And Manga to keep his body parts to himself. Anyone came round, they should dissuade them from calling back.

  ‘What about my money?’ Spitz had said.

  ‘You’ll get it,’ said Obed Chocho, slamming out the front door.

  This hadn’t amused Spitz. Nor was he amused by being told what to do. And not having his tunes greatly riled him. Maybe sprawled in the lounger with a long menthol between his fingers, his eyes behind shades, he looked cool but he wasn’t. In his gut churned a bile that he could’ve spat all over Obed Chocho as easy as piss on him.

  ‘Luck, my brother, mighty fine luck,’ had been Obed Chocho’s reaction to the news of Rudi Klett’s death.

  At which Spitz shot back. ‘A bullet fired into his head when he is in a moving car and I am in a moving car is not because of luck.’

  At which Obed Chocho scowled but made no retort.

  Replaying this, Spitz watched Manga light the joint and take a deep pull, holding in the smoke. Gradually he let it trickle out. ‘Yo, bru.’ He offered the joint to Spitz. ‘Chill, captain?’

  Spitz shook his head.

  Manga shrugged, went through the process again. He tapped a head of ash onto the paving, squinted at Spitz.

  ‘Yesterday,’ he said, ‘at the hospital, you didn’t have the gun, did you?’

  Spitz smiled. ‘No, I am not crazy.’

  Manga laughed. ‘You’re a cool dude, captain.’

  ‘There was nothing cool,’ said Spitz. ‘We were talking about the short odds. It was logical.’

  What wasn’t logical and what Spitz decided not to tell Manga was that he’d recognised as his the iPod feed
ing tunes into the ears of the security guard outside the intensive care unit. That made no sense. But then Spitz also knew that very little made any sense when it came to the cops and crime scene investigations.

  In the evening, Spitz drove a green VW following Manga in the car they’d had for almost a week, heading for the airport to dump it. When they got there Manga entered the covered parking, found a space near where they’d waited two days earlier. He felt leaving the G-string in the same bay was a nice touch. Funny, actually. He locked the car, tossed the keys onto the roof of a covered walkway.

  Spitz circled once, picked him up at the drop-and-go outside departures. They changed places: Manga driving, Spitz in the passenger seat.

  Manga had to tell Spitz where he’d left the car. ‘For a joke,’ he said.

  ‘Where is the joke,’ said Spitz, ‘if only you know about it?’

  ‘So do you?’ said Manga.

  ‘No. For me that’s not funny,’ said Spitz.

  After the airport they drove to the V&A for a weissbier. It was dark now, and too windy to sit outside. While Manga ordered, Spitz walked onto the swingbridge, waiting until he was alone before dropping the Ruger into the canal. Then he phoned Sheemina February.

  ‘We are having a drink on the town,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you would like to join us.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Spitz,’ she said. ‘Let’s keep it professional. That’s how I prefer it. How’s the car?’

  ‘Mighty fine,’ said Spitz, pleased to hear Sheemina February laugh at his choice of words.

  ‘And the gun?’

  ‘I would say perfect for the job.’ Spitz paused. ‘Please. Come and have a drink. We could have a good time.’

  ‘I’ve heard that from a lot of men. The good times never rolled though.’

  ‘They will when you are with me.’

  ‘Keep your head clear, Spitz. You don’t want to mess up.’

  ‘There is no chance.’

  Sheemina February gave her short throaty laugh again. ‘Goodbye, Spitz, maybe we’ll call on you again one day’ – and she disconnected, and when Spitz dialled straight back he got her voicemail. He turned towards the beer hall, cursing. A couple approaching across the bridge moved closer together. Spitz caught the movement, snorted his derision.