Killer Country

by Mike Nicol

  33

  Rudi Klett, his window down, his arm leaning on the door, was shouting above the tyre noise, ‘I came in that time, Christa was a little one, must have been when, what year, 1996?’

  ‘She was five.’ Mace checked the rearview: the Focus behind them, headlights on dim, the BMW on the inside lane, sitting squat in the blind spot of his wing mirror.

  ‘Louder.’

  Mace thinking this was crazy, having to shout at one another. He held up a hand, showed Rudi Klett five fingers barely visible in the gloom. ‘Five years old. Maybe we should wind up the windows, switch the aircon on?’

  Rudi Klett shook his head, not put off at having to shout. ‘Wait one minute.’ Taking deep breaths. ‘Still the same smell.’

  Mace thought, you’ve got to be kidding.

  ‘In ’96, there was a wonderful feeling with everyone. So much excitement and promise of building houses so that no one lived in a shack anymore.’

  ‘Didn’t happen as you’ll soon see,’ said Mace.

  ‘Some of the big boys saying, no what did they want with a navy and jet fighters? Who was going to invade South Africa? So I have to tell them this is an uncertain world of course you must have an insurance policy. You don’t know what is going to happen. The wise man has cover. A good thing the Old Man listens to what I’m saying. The message is passed on and even the critics change their tune. Everybody sees the light. Hallelujah.’

  Mace pointed ahead at the on-ramp to the highway. ‘We go up on that curve and you’ll see squatter land. Some of them double storey. Double-storey tin shacks!’

  ‘Ah so.’ Rudi Klett turned his head at the sound of a car coming up on the left.

  Mace bellowing, ‘I’ve been in some of them. You get inside and its Home and Décor, what the magazines are calling township chic. Unbelievable.’ He sensed the BM taking the off-ramp east, caught a flash of its headlights in the wing mirror. ‘Only problem is fires.’ He pointed again at the squatter shacks below. ‘There’s a fire in that lot, the fire fighters haven’t got a chance of getting the engines there. Every time a candle blows over, there’s a fire. People burn. Not the sort of death you’d want.’

  Coming off the approach, Mace lined up the Spider to merge between two long-haul juggernauts, the noise deafening, the traffic on the highway fast and free. He clocked in at one twenty, tiny between the rigs, the chrome radiator of the Mack behind on his bumper. Not a situation Mace relished. In his right wing he watched minibus taxis belting up and go booming past, and squeezed more juice from the Spider, throwing it right to overtake the front truck, the needle climbing to one thirty, thirty-five, the Spider beginning to feel light on the road. Mace kept it steady in the drum and tear of the road roar, lights flicking at him from behind, the Spider hauling past the horse and trailer. Then he was ahead, the noise receding.

  ‘Wind up your window,’ he shouted, winding up his own. ‘It’s crazy out there.’ When Rudi Klett made no move, Mace glanced at him to see Rudi Klett leaning away, his head slumped forward. ‘Hey, Rudi.’ He tugged at him. ‘What’s the matter. Wind up your window.’ The body of Rudi Klett flopped towards him, only checked by the safety belt.

  Mace saw the blood then. Not much, a small red stain above the pocket of Rudi Klett’s golf shirt.

  ‘Rudi. Jesus Christ. Rudi talk to me. Stay with me.’ Mace groped for Rudi Klett’s wrist and found a pulse still fluttering there. He pushed the Spider back up to one thirty, thinking he could make the nearest hospital in maybe ten minutes or stop and check out the wound? Deciding on the hospital, telling Rudi Klett to hang in that he’d get to medics in no time flat. Then phoned Pylon.

  ‘How’m I supposed to understand this woman?’ was Pylon’s opening.

  Mace said, ‘Klett’s been shot.’

  A beat, then: ‘What?’ Then: ‘Dead?’

  ‘There’s a pulse,’ said Mace.

  ‘Where’re you?’

  ‘Coming up to the cooling towers. Heading for Groote Schuur.’

  ‘What’s it?’ Pylon said.

  ‘Head shot. Left side. Don’t know where exactly or how bad. Not much blood though.’

  He heard Pylon blow out breath. ‘I’ll phone it in. Just get there. Fast.’

  Mace disconnected, felt again for Rudi Klett’s pulse and pressed down his fingers to find a faint throb. ‘Rudi,’ he shouted. ‘Rudi, can you hear me?’ Getting no response, keeping his eyes on the traffic thickening now with flows coming in from Bridgetown and Athlone. He rode the needle higher, seeing the temperature climb too with the speed. All he needed now was the radiator to blow.

  Mace eased the accelerator back to one twenty over the Black River rise, planning to make his break left across the lanes at the last moment. His cell rang: Pylon. Mace keyed on the hands-free, said, ‘I’m in the corner towards the Parkway bridge. What’s that two minutes if I run the lights?’

  ‘Run the lights,’ said Pylon. ‘They’re waiting. Klett still with us?’

  ‘Hanging in I hope.’

  ‘Talking?’

  ‘Not a chance. Can’t hear his breathing, shallow pulse. I’m going over the bridge. Jesus, the bastards won’t let me across.’ Mace flicking his lights, leaning on his hooter.

  Under the noise he heard Pylon say, ‘I told them he’s a German VIP caught a stray bullet down the N2. Nobody’s fazed. Medics say it happens all the time.’

  ‘Keep with me,’ said Mace, taking a gap between two cars onto the hard shoulder to pass inside a surfer’s rust-bucket kombi and onto the off-ramp.

  Pylon saying, ‘I’m staying right here.’

  ‘Light’s red,’ said Mace and came up right of the cars stopped at the intersection, swinging right again into the traffic. Caused a bewildered moment and a cacophony, hooters and brakes and one bang of a collision. ‘I’m through,’ he said.

  ‘Sounds bad,’ said Pylon.

  ‘Running the next red,’ said Mace, this time with a clear passage down the wrong side of the street. He pushed the Spider against maximum revs through the next light, braking hard at the hospital entrance. ‘Here now.’

  ‘With you in ten,’ said Pylon.

  Mace chased an ambulance to Casualty, squealing in behind it. Even before he was switched off, medics had the passenger door open, were unstrapping Rudi Klett and dragging him out on to a gurney.

  Mace and Pylon sat in a reception room down from the operating theatres. The prognosis on Rudi Klett not sunny. His condition critical, a bullet stuck behind his ear.

  Mace phoned Oumou.

  ‘I’m alright,’ he told her, comforted by the anxiety in her voice. ‘Just a bit hyper.’

  She told him he needed coffee. With sugar. Lots of sugar.

  ‘Here?’ He laughed. ‘You don’t get coffee here. They call it that but it’s not.’ Again he assured her that he was fine.

  ‘I am not hearing this in your voice,’ she said. ‘I can hear something different.’

  He didn’t respond.

  ‘Mace,’ Oumou said. ‘Cheri, are you with Pylon?’

  ‘Sure. He’s here,’ said Mace, feeling suddenly fatigued. Thinking the Rudi Klett jaunt had been bad news all round. Thinking this was exactly the sort of reason to get out of guarding. Who needed this in his life?

  ‘Then what is the matter?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mace. ‘I don’t know what happened. One minute we’re talking the next he’s shot. I can’t understand it. No one knew he was coming.’

  ‘This is shock,’ said Oumou.

  Mace snorted. ‘Klett’s not the first person been shot next to me. This’s not shock, Oumou, this is worry. That I buggered up a simple job.’

  ‘No. That is wrong. This is bad luck.’

  ‘I don’t know. A stray bullet’s pushing bad luck.’

  ‘It is possible. From a person shooting out of the squatter shacks.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. The doctors believe it.’

  ‘You are tired, no?’ She paused.

  Mace did
n’t deny it.

  ‘Why don’t you leave it to Pylon? Come home. I will fetch Christa from Treasure’s.’

  ‘There’s stuff we’ve got to sort out. Security arrangements.’

  ‘This is what he can do.’

  ‘I’ll see,’ said Mace. ‘I’ll call you later.’

  ‘In an hour. Or we will fetch you.’

  Mace smiled, disconnecting. He liked the idea she was concerned. His phone rang: Judge Telman Visser’s name on the screen. Mace clicked him to voicemail.

  At a dispensing machine in the corridor he bought two cans of Coke and lifted five sachets of sugar from a holder on a tray with teabags and a jar of instant coffee. He tore the ends off the sachets one at a time, poured the contents into his mouth, crunching the granules. Washed the last one down with a mouthful of Coke. The other can he took to Pylon in the reception room.

  Pylon, finished talking to a doctor, said, ‘He reckons it’s dicey.’

  ‘They get the bullet?’

  ‘Yeah. No sweat the doc said.’ Pylon pulled the ring on the can. ‘Found it lying there right behind his ear. That wasn’t the hard part.’ He sipped at the Coke. ‘The hard part’s stabilising him. The doc says a lot of brain damage.’

  Mace nodded. ‘The bullet ran around? Went in the top and down.’

  ‘Probably a light calibre.’

  ‘I’d say, if it’s a hit.’

  They sat down on plastic chairs opposite the theatre door.

  ‘But it doesn’t have to be. Something coming over from the township would’ve gone in like that. Bounced around his skull.’

  Mace finished his Coke. ‘A tired bullet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘No reason why not. Any other time I’d say probably. Except the man in there is Rudi Klett.’

  ‘Problemo,’ said Pylon.

  They sat in silence until Pylon said he’d arranged for security. Two of their best guys. And went quiet again until Mace said, ‘Klett was weird in Berlin’ and told Pylon of the business with Herr Dr Konrad Schultz.

  ‘Like I’m standing there thinking what am I doing here with you? He’s going in to plug the Herr Dr from the start. So why am I along for this? He tells me so I can see the sort of commissions being paid traders these days. What’s that about? We’re out of that shit.’

  Pylon said, ‘Klett’s a dealer.’

  ‘No kidding. He’s got some government commission on his arse. He’s got the big politicos anxious that he’s got stuff on them. Top government, he tells me. The last place on earth he wants to be is here. People are out for him. He’s travelling under a different name. So what’s he here for, I want to know? Not to put his signature on some small-change land deal.’

  ‘Hundred million’s not small change.’

  ‘The sort of figures Klett talks, it’s small change, believe me. Klett’s into something else. Someone else knew he was going to be here. What flight. Who he was with. All the little details.’

  ‘Scary.’

  ‘Damn right.’

  Mace got their empty cans and walked across the room to dump them in a bin. What he wanted was to go home, take a shower, lie down on the cool sheets of his bed and get Oumou to massage the hard knots in his shoulders. What he didn’t want was to be sitting in the bright fluorescent light waiting to hear if Rudi Klett was dead yet.

  Pylon said, ‘Best to get a story to the paper.’

  ‘Saying what?’

  ‘Tourist survives stray bullet.’

  ‘Assuming he does?’

  ‘Either way, doesn’t matter. It was a hit, someone’s going to rock up asking about the tourist. The man wants his payment, he has to have Rudi Klett dead.’ Pylon toyed with his cellphone.

  ‘You do it,’ said Mace. ‘I’m going home.’

  ‘There’s other stuff,’ Pylon said.

  ‘Like what stuff?’

  ‘Like Popo Dlamini. Lindiwe Chocho.’

  Mace rubbed his hand over his face. ‘Tomorrow, okay. I’ve got to crash.’

  Pylon put a hand on Mace’s shoulder. ‘And some good news.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as your case with the American couple is off. According to the captain.’

  ‘What?’ Mace stared at his partner. ‘For real?’

  ‘Yeah, for real. Both of them dead. She trying to escape. He in a prison gang thing.’

  Mace let out a long whoosh of breath. ‘Wonder of wonders. There’s a relief.’ Gave Pylon a wide grin. ‘You could’ve let me know earlier.’

  ‘I meant to. Except stuff kept happening.’

  Mace came out of the hospital into the warm darkness carrying the stench of antiseptic on his clothes. The smell embedded in his nostrils. Wasn’t for Rudi, he’d sing.

  He opened his car door, thinking, shit, he hadn’t locked it. Felt down the side for the clip where he’d attached the P8, his fingers sliding lightly over the metal. Out loud he thanked the gods. He checked the boot: the bags untouched. Had to be some kind of miracle.

  Getting in behind the wheel, Mace noticed a smear of blood across the passenger seat: a faint glisten from the arc light in the parking lot.

  ‘Bloody Rudi Klett.’ Everywhere he went, afterwards there was blood.

  The end of the world as we know it. Mace shook his head as if to dislodge the lyrics still on their endless loop through his mind.

  The Spider fired at the turn and Mace drove up the dark street beside the hospital taking the slip road onto the highway. This hour of a Monday night the traffic into the city moving light and fast. On the bend he lined up for the De Waal Drive split, tapping a devil’s tattoo on the steering wheel.

  If it was a hit, it’d been a long time coming. If it was a hit, some seriously strange links must’ve played out behind the scenes. The sort of linkages that worried Mace. Meant they’d have to jack up security, for sure. Sweep their offices. Their homes. Check out the staff profiles. Heavy stuff that made him sigh.

  He kept the Spider to the speed limit, drifting easily through the curves, the city bright below him, the mountain dark above.

  If Rudi Klett stayed alive and the morning news touched the hitman where it hurt most, all kinds of shit could unravel in the coming days. Nothing Pylon couldn’t handle. Alone. Mace smiled at the thought of Pylon taking this news.

  Because why? Because after the crap Rudi Klett had dealt him, Mace believed he deserved chill time. Like a few days on a farm. So he’d tell the judge he’d drive up on Friday. And would be taking Christa. Whatever the judge’s problem was of having Christa along, the judge would have to lump it. For Chrissakes he was doing him a favour.

  Roads opening up. Long scrub vistas. Huge skies. The idea of doing some serious Karoo travelling was appealing. Top down through the small towns. It would be a gas. And Christa with him.

  This lightened his mood. Had him making a tuneless whistle up Orange along the back of the reservoir to Molteno, at the top into Glencoe coming slowly to his gate. Fifty metres off Mace pressed the remote, watched the gate roll back and stop halfway. There’d been little problems with the mechanism over the two years they’d had it. Like the chain rode off the ratchets, it could be a pain in the arse. He stopped and got out, left the car idling.

  The two men came at him from the shadows, almost hesitant, the one whispering something, even sounded like his name. Mace turned at the movement, starting a pace towards them. The one held a knife, carrying it low against his thigh. The other an automatic. The one with the knife doing the whispering, telling him to lie down.

  Mace said, ‘No, china, you got the wrong corpse.’

  The gunman screamed at him, ‘Down, down, down’ – jamming the pistol in his ear. A quick movement, sharp and trained.

  ‘Make like he says, my bru,’ said the whisperer, not getting any closer. ‘No shit, no grit. Pellie’s dangerous.’

  Mace smelt booze breath and the stench of sweat on the gunman, a big black with a web of veins in his eyewhites. One eye swollen.

 
; ‘Relax, guys, okay.’ He kept his eyes on the knife-wielder though, this one coloured, thin and jumpy. A twitch in his cheek.

  ‘Everyone’s loose, my bru. Except you.’

  Mace schemed, a roll to the car door, come up with the H&K, he could take them.

  Knowing if Oumou didn’t hear the alarm bleep for the garage door opening, she’d come out. The last thing he wanted. Only problem: the gap to the car was major, he wouldn’t make it fast enough. He took a pace forwards.

  The big black hit him. A short punch with the gun, slamming it hard into Mace’s head. Mace going down on his knees, putting out a hand to stop from falling over. The big black following with a kick between the shoulder blades that sprawled Mace on the cobble paving.

  The coloured jumped him then, landing on his back. ‘See, my bru, comply or die’ – pricking the knifepoint at Mace’s neck. At the cord of his artery. ‘Make nice and we’s away.’ The coloured laughed, running his free hand into Mace’s pockets coming up with a wallet of credit cards, a clip of notes. ‘There’s a good larney giving to the poor and needy.’ The coloured patting him down for a money belt, saying, ‘Where’s the cell, my bru? You talk, we walk.’ Saying to the black, ‘Check the car.’

  Mace, tasted blood, his head pushed hard against the cobbles, watched the black lean into the Spider. Heard him mutter in Xhosa.

  The coloured cut in: ‘Hey, English, my bru, talk a language.’

  The black said, ‘Nokia 3410.’

  The coloured shifted, kneeling on Mace, digging the knifepoint into Mace’s neck until the skin broke, blood beading at the cut. Mace tensed.

  ‘Larney, larney, larney. My bru that is a cheap phone. For a Mr Gentleman up here onna mountain, you behind the times. A small-change man.’

  The coloured stood.

  ‘But we’s grateful for a contribution. My pellie and me. So we’s gonna say goodnight my larney but first we wanna see you crawl like a motormac. Underneath the car, hey, my bru. Poke inna engine.’

  Mace spat blood, said, ‘You’re dead, chinas. Both of you.’

  The coloured snapped back. ‘Don’t tune me grief, my larney.’ And sliced quickly to open skin behind Mace’s ear.