Killer Country

by Mike Nicol

  ‘They’re both going to this party tonight? Christa and Pumla?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Treasure’s okay about that?’

  Oumou forked mozzarella and basil onto her bread. ‘Oui. Bien sûr. Treasure is okay about that.’

  ‘Know what?’ Mace said, taking down another mouthful of wine that tasted more like the toasting of the coffee beans than coffee now that he thought about it, ‘I still love your accent.’

  Oumou flushed, not in her cheeks, on her neck, the colour deepening to a rich brown. Brought to Mace’s mind the colour of her nipples.

  ‘Non,’ she said. ‘You cannot slip over this one with your words. I am serious, no? Before we have borrowed from Pylon that was okay. It was desperate. Now we are not desperate. We have money from the bank, we do not need to take money from Pylon.’

  ‘That’s the thing. We’re not taking any.’

  ‘You said it is five hundred thousand.’

  ‘It is. But he’s not giving it to us. Not as money. It’s shares. Shares in the scheme. That’s their value only we don’t have to pay for them now. When the development’s finished, they divide the profit, we get our share and give Pylon a hundred grand. Doesn’t cost us anything, technically.’ Mace forked up salad. ‘Closest to a free lunch you can get. Pylon thinks for that investment we might earn maybe a million.’

  ‘With his money.’

  ‘Sure it is. He’s doing us a favour.’

  ‘But if there are problems, the money could be lost.’

  ‘Problems. What sort of problems?’

  ‘Any kind. It is a risk, no? It is like gambling.’

  ‘Not really. Not with land. With land you can’t lose. The price always goes up.’ Mace tore a slice of bread and dipped a piece in the caprese, soaking up vinaigrette. ‘They’re angling to buy this stretch of land up the west coast.’ He chewed at the bread. ‘To build a golf estate on it.’ He swallowed and chased the mouthful with wine.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘A consortium. A group of people Pylon knows. Plus a friend of ours in Berlin, the man I’m going to collect, Rudi Klett, he’s the main backer. He’s the real money behind the scheme. Most of the land’s in what they call a letter of purpose. An agreement to sell at a certain price. When they’ve got everyone’s okay then they buy. Right now just one owner’s holding out for a higher price. Or wants to be in it. Or something, I don’t know. It’s Pylon’s thing. I don’t always listen when he’s talking about this deal. Anyhow, this afternoon Pylon’s going to make another offer, see what they say.’

  Mace filled his glass, held the bottle poised above Oumou’s. ‘Some more?’ She shook her head.

  ‘It would be better if we didn’t take Pylon’s money.’

  ‘Sure. But where do we get five hundred grand?’

  ‘From the bank.’

  ‘Even if they gave it, it’d cost too much. This way it doesn’t cost us anything.’

  She reached across the table and put her hand on his. ‘It’s not five hundred thousand, no. It’s a million, that is what Pylon is giving.’

  Mace thought about this. ‘If you look at it that way I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘Even from a good friend you cannot take so much money.’ She released his hand.

  Mace looked at her, holding her eyes. ‘We need something like this. Some security. Something we can invest.’

  ‘We have the house.’

  ‘Twenty per cent of the house. The rest belongs to the bank.’

  ‘But one day not.’

  The thing about her eyes, Mace felt, was looking into them, looking deeply into them, was like falling into the past. Then they weren’t Oumou’s eyes, they were the eyes of all the women who’d lived in the desert for thousands of years. All her forebears staring back at him. Brown pools of sadness. Eyes that Christa had too.

  ‘Why don’t we think about it? Till Monday when I’m back?’

  Oumou pushed the dish with the last of the caprese towards him, indicated for him to finish it. ‘Maybe if I talk to Treasure.’

  Mace couldn’t see Treasure buying this arrangement. Not with one in the oven and an orphan to go. He soaked up the remains of the sauce, wiping the bread round the dish. ‘Before you do that, think about it. We’ll talk more next week. When Rudi’s here.’ Mace finished his wine in a swallow. ‘I’ve got to rush. Back Monday night for supper.’

  They embraced, then he went out to say goodbye to the girls, Oumou watching him from the sliding door. Christa leapt up to hug her father like he was going for good. She heard Mace say, ‘No drugs, okay?’

  And Christa say, ‘Ah, Dad, we don’t do that.’ And Pumla echoing her.

  Oumou thought, sometimes Mace got too edgy over Christa. Overprotective. Because he believed he’d failed her once and couldn’t live with that. Even now she was walking again, he couldn’t let it go. Smsing her after school to know where she was. And Christa was good about it, understanding, maybe even pleased he did it, but Oumou worried that one day the attention might be too much. Push her away from him.

  She smiled at Mace approaching her. Held out her hand to take his.

  ‘Those girls,’ he said, ‘they frighten me. Well, not them but the world we live in.’

  16

  ‘This job,’ said Spitz, ‘it is a cock-up. I do not work on cock-ups.’

  Manga said, ‘The tunnel or the mountain?’

  Spitz looked at the mountains closed about them. ‘How long is the tunnel?’

  ‘Twelve kays.’

  ‘That is a long way to be inside the mountain. It is better to take the passage over the mountain.’

  ‘Captain, there’s no time. You wanna check out this place first, we’ve gotta take the tunnel.’

  ‘In Switzerland a car catches fire in a tunnel and then everybody dies. This accident happens all the time.’

  Spitz toggled Manga’s cellphone to open the sms again: 25 Gary Player Close. He said, ‘A golf estate has got two hundred houses, maybe more that are close together. They have security. This is not a place where we can drive into. Not a place we can wander about in the dark trying to find number twenty-five.’

  They went into the tunnel, Spitz focused on the car ahead. On the red taillights that brightened and dimmed as the driver toed the brake when there was no need.

  ‘Why is this man driving like this, doing that braking?’

  Manga shrugged. ‘He’s nervous. Probably doesn’t like tunnels. Relax, captain, fifteen, twenty minutes we’re outta here.’

  The tunnel stank of petrol fumes. The blue swirl of exhaust so dense in the headlights it reflected the beams. Manga switched the air conditioning to interior. Didn’t stop the stench of fumes. He forced a cough. ‘Worse than cigarette smoke.’

  Spitz sat rigid, the tinny sound of guitars leaking from the headphones in his lap. What he didn’t like was the casualness. No attention to detail. An address in a golf estate wasn’t a help at all. When a job got changed there was always shit to pay.

  He said, ‘Tell this woman February we want a map.’

  ‘You tell her,’ said Manga. ‘I’m driving.’

  Spitz dug his cellphone from his pocket, pressed keys to unlock the pad but got no signal. ‘If you catch fire how are you supposed to phone?’

  Manga pointed at an emergency phone set on the tunnel wall. ‘They got them all along here, every hundred metres.’

  Spitz snorted.

  They drove in silence for the remaining distance coming out of the tunnel onto a double-lane highway that curved across a bridge, the valley far below.

  ‘Where is this place? This golf estate?’ said Spitz.

  ‘Down the peninsula.’ Manga waved at the mountains ranged against the horizon. ‘Where the mountains curve. In that corner. I know this place. We don’t need a map.’

  Spitz keyed in Sheemina February’s number. She answered on the third ring, saying his name.

  ‘Ja, this is Spitz,’ he said. ‘I require some more
details about this job tonight.’

  ‘There isn’t anything more you need.’

  ‘For me I think there is.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘In a golf estate there are maybe two hundred houses. With no directions, no map, we must find one. You want us to drive up to security to ask them for directions?’

  ‘Exactly. You’re expected.’

  ‘This is a joke.’

  ‘Popo’s told security he’s expecting a delivery. Nine o’clock.’

  Spitz let this sink in, wondering if he’d heard correctly. ‘I do not understand. Come again.’

  ‘Nine o’clock, Spitz.’ She spoke slowly enunciating each word. ‘Popo is expecting a delivery. The security know this. They will let you in. Tell you where to find his house. How much more simple do you want it?’

  Spitz laughed. ‘No more simple than that.’

  ‘Excellent. Nothing has to be complicated in this world, Spitz. Just takes a little planning. A little attention to detail. I do attention to detail. You do the service delivery.’

  Spitz thought here was a woman he could work with. ‘In a moment you were going to tell me this arrangement?’

  ‘If you asked.’ He could hear Sheemina February clinking ice in a glass. ‘If you had some other way I wouldn’t have interfered.’

  He was about to disconnect. ‘Oh Spitz, one more thing. Go in the main gate and out one of the others. I would, if I were you.’

  17

  The city below stood bright as bones in the afternoon sunshine, some shadows starting across the tower blocks, the sea taking on a deeper blue. Had to be paradise on a windless day. Better to be grilling fillets of yellowtail on the gas Weber, Mace thought, than taking a flight to Berlin.

  Bloody Rudi Klett so jumped up these days wanted men in black with him all the time. Then again two exploded cars, three attempted kidnappings, some 9mm rounds smacking into the wall behind your head probably enough to convince you protection was needed.

  Mace went down Molteno slowly, his foot tapping lightly on the brakes. He’d have preferred the hardtop off but wasn’t going to leave the Spider in the airport parking lot like an open invitation, help yourself.

  Strange thing was no matter how many times he did this drive to the airport, and he did it once a month, sometimes more, he got onto De Waal under Devil’s Peak and into the turns, the Spider’s engine a low basso accelerating, and he’d catch a thrill like flying into Malitia on an arms deal, a crate of guns in the transport’s belly. Same excitement. That moment when anything can happen.

  Not that he missed the gun-running, not the actual transactions, but the times around them in strange and foreign places had fed his restlessness. Like waking to the muezzin’s call in Sana’a as if God had torn back the sky, demanding vengeance. The calls answered mosque to mosque across the city. A city where men strapped up with guns before putting a foot in the street. A good city to do business in. The memory brought a smile.

  Mace pushed up the speed coming over the curve behind the hospital touching one twenty down the straight, into the S-bend that funnelled him onto the highway. Gave the Spider more juice drifting right behind a minibus taxi and flashed his headlights. The taxi stayed solid. Mace flicked the lights again, tempted to hoot.

  Except his cellphone rang: Pylon, loud on the hands-free, launching straight in with ‘These are two bastards, the Smits.’

  Mace changed lanes to get past the taxi on the left. Glared a black look at the call-man squeezed against the sliding door. The man grinned, gave him the finger. Up yours too, Mace said.

  ‘Hey what?’ said Pylon.

  ‘Taxi,’ said Mace, as if that explained all, which it did. ‘How so they’re bastards?’

  ‘We’re talking twenty, thirty somethings. Young smart people: the wife’s a lawyer, the husband’s a fund manager. Saab cabriolet that she drove. The place they want to meet is Den Anker for a Belgian beer. You know how much Belgian beer costs? Three blackies per three fifty mil. They both have two, and I’m paying. I say to her I didn’t know many women into beer. She tells me no, she’s not. Only Belgian. A brew called Leffe blond. Very nice, I have to say.’

  ‘How’d you know it was a cabriolet?’

  ‘I followed them afterwards.’

  Mace laughed. ‘Part of your new PI routine?’

  ‘Just getting the information.’

  ‘So where to?’

  ‘Clifton apartment, below Victoria. Very zhoozsh. Has to be a couple of million. Maybe kiddies, but sharp rich kiddies. Not only playing with daddies’ money I would say. Probably quite a lot of their own too, which is why they’re holding out.’

  ‘Still holding out?’

  ‘I had to bring them in. Yes, they’ll sell but what they want is shares. Okay, we don’t have to pay out initially, that’s good, except the cake just got smaller.’

  ‘And if the other bidder sweetens the deal?’

  ‘Obed Chocho?’

  ‘Him, yeah.’

  ‘What if? Not what if, he’s going to. Same deal I’d say with frills. The difference is, at the end they’re in with a crook.’

  ‘They don’t know that, unless they read the news. Don’t know you’re not a crook either.’

  ‘I told them I wasn’t.’

  ‘Oh smart move.’

  Pylon laughed. ‘I’m holding one more card. Rudi Klett. They talk to Rudi and he’ll bring them over. Obed Chocho’s got a sweet tongue, but you’ve got Rudi whispering in your ear the world changes. Everything you see has the colour of money. Because it is money. Euros, dollars, sterling. With Chocho everything’s on paper.’

  ‘Government letterhead some of it.’

  ‘This is true. But you’re streetwise that’s not going to fool you.’

  ‘For your sake I hope so,’ said Mace, taking the slip road onto the airport approach.

  ‘Just bring me Rudi Klett,’ said Pylon.

  Mace parked under shade-cloth opposite the international departure and arrivals halls. Checked in, got stamped through customs, bought a can of Coke, took a seat near the boarding gate. A Coke float would’ve been good but too complicated for the waitress. Especially take-away.

  He thought some more about Pylon’s offer, believed he would take him up, keep the arrangement secret from Oumou and Treasure. No point in stressing them. ’Cos if it stressed Oumou it would stress Treasure. Yet what a difference it would make. Not only a tidy sum down the line but an out. Goodbye Complete Security. Goodbye guarding the neurotics. Nothing wrong with that. And if Pylon offered, he offered because he wanted to. Wanted out too. Would be almost an insult not accepting.

  Half an hour later in the boarding queue, Mace’s phone rang: the name Rudi Klett on the screen. Mace stepped out of the queue to get some privacy.

  ‘We are going to breakfast tomorrow,’ said Rudi. ‘I will meet you at your hotel.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Mace. ‘Were am I staying?’

  ‘Kempinski. I remember this is your favourite. For you and Isabella.’ Rudi Klett gave a laugh.

  ‘She’s dead,’ said Mace. ‘Didn’t you know?’

  The silence answered the question. ‘No. This is very abrupt.’

  ‘Shot by her husband. Here in Cape Town actually about three years ago.’

  ‘She was married to a South African?’

  ‘Long story,’ said Mace. ‘But no, an American.’

  ‘I will change the hotel.’

  ‘No need. If I stop going to all the places I went with Isabella, I’m going to have to stay home.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Rudi Klett. ‘We will remember her with champagne. And how is the beautiful Oumou?’

  ‘Beautiful.’

  ‘And my Christa?’

  ‘Fully recovered.’

  ‘Good, good. You know, my daughter is gone. We do not talk anymore, not even a card for my birthday. She thinks I am a merchant of death. A Mephistopheles buying the souls of African presidents. Do you think I am taking your president to hel
l?’ He laughed. The hard wicked laugh Mace remembered. The sort of laugh Mephistopheles would make at the hour of collection. ‘We will talk tomorrow, ja. Catch up.’ And the laugh again. Still loud in Mace’s head when he rejoined the queue.

  18

  At nine, Manga stopped at the security boom to the golf estate. Main entrance. He told the guard he had a package for Popo Dlamini. The guard checked a clipboard, handed it to Manga to fill in his details. Manga wrote his name as Manfred Khumalo, gave his company as One Time Delivery, mixed up the numbers of the car’s registration plate. The guard told him first right, second left, go down counting to the fifth house on the right. Bottom of the close. Manga said thanks, was about to say something else but stopped himself. Gave back the clipboard.

  He pulled off slowly, leaving his window down.

  ‘You almost made a mistake,’ said Spitz.

  ‘What?’

  ‘By calling the man captain.’

  ‘But I didn’t.’

  ‘It was very close.’

  ‘Close doesn’t matter. Saying it matters.’

  The streets were lit, but the streetlights too dim to reveal anything about the car. At a few of the houses people sat out to enjoy the evening. Their voices and laughter carrying to the two men.

  ‘You fancy living on a golf estate, captain? With all the larneys.’ Manga took the first right, the indicator flashing and clicking in the dashboard. Loud, insistent.

  ‘No,’ said Spitz.

  ‘A cousin I know does. Cousin like me. Ordinary guy. Has this flashy house, upstairs, downstairs, three bathrooms.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Spitz.

  ‘Estate’s called Blue Hills, in Midrand. You ever heard of it?’ He glanced at Spitz. In the darkness couldn’t say if he responded. ‘He tells people he won the Lotto, and they believe him, strues. I won a million rand, he tells people. Maybe so. Maybe he got in there before everything cost two million rand. What I can’t add up is I know how much I get, I know how much he gets, and my house is in Soweto.’

  ‘Maybe he did win the Lotto.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe it’s something else, captain. You know, like a retainer. Cousin’s maybe an impimpi. Hotline to the fathers. I get that feeling sometimes on a job that the cops’re waiting.’ Manga leaned forward. ‘Passing first left.’