Killer Country

by Mike Nicol

  ‘No panic,’ said Pylon. ‘You want to hear this?’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ Mace stopped to let passengers wheel baggage trolleys over the pedestrian crossing then angled the car into a no-parking bay.

  ‘I sat down the road from Obed Chocho’s. I’ve been there about forty minutes, nothing going on and I’m thinking about how I did this just five days ago checking out Lindiwe and Popo Dlamini. I’m about to leave when the gates open and Obed drives out in his macho black Yengeni. The same one I followed when Lindiwe was driving it. Problem: follow or stay? Something says stay even as I switch on. So I switch off. Sit there watching Obed Chocho drive away. Not five minutes the gate opens again, here comes a nice new Audi with two gents. This time I think, follow them. So I do.’

  ‘Tell me inside,’ said Mace. ‘Our clients’ll be waiting for us.’

  He and Pylon got out, hurried into the terminal, Pylon saying, ‘I don’t even remember what they look like?’

  ‘Chic,’ said Pylon. ‘T-shirt and black linen jacket on him. Her: white linen blouse, jersey knotted round her neck. Lots of white hair on both.’

  They scanned the crowds.

  ‘Here’s the rest,’ said Pylon, ‘short and sweet. Where I followed them to was the Waterfront. The guy in the passenger seat with the short dreads was the guy who wandered into ICU the other day. No mistaking him.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Mace.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Pylon.

  ‘And the car?’

  ‘Hired. Yesterday in the name of Obed Chocho. One extra driver by name of Manga Khumalo. Strange thing: last Saturday night a courier signed himself out of the golf estate where Popo Dlamini lived as Manfred Khumalo. Coincidence, or what?’

  ‘Curious.’ Mace saw an arm waving in the thick of the crowd, the twin heads of white hair. ‘That’s them’ – he said, angling off towards the mid-fifties couple: tanned people, tall and slim, dressed exactly as he said they would be.

  42

  Spitz stood in front of the mirror gazing at his feet in the Bally moccasins. He moved his toes, watched the black leather ripple. Soft and silky. Cool shoes. Shoes to walk into JB’s on a Saturday morning as if you’re walking on air. Have the babes nudging one another. Tinkling their lattes, running their eyes full time in your direction.

  He walked a few paces, watching the movement in the mirror, the cuff of his jeans riding up slightly to expose the low cut of the shoes. Po-et-ry.

  Manga, sprawled in a chair, said, ‘Captain, just buy them. No more catwalk stuff.’

  ‘With shoes,’ said Spitz, ‘you have to be very careful. Even good shoes can sometimes be the wrong type.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For the job.’

  Manga snorted. ‘And these are the right type?’

  ‘Yes. They are light and they are quiet.’

  ‘For the job we’ve gotta do, you need this,’ said Manga, thrusting out his trainers. ‘The tough ones. Go anywhere, go anytime.’

  Spitz twirled on his left heel to come face to face with the shop attendant. ‘I will take them,’ he said.

  The attendant beamed at him. ‘If sir’ll sit, I’ll slip them off for sir.’

  ‘No, that is alright,’ said Spitz. ‘My other shoes you can put in the box. These shoes I will wear.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said the attendant. He turned to Manga. ‘We can’t interest sir in some proper shoes?’

  Manga shook his head.

  ‘That’s a pity sir,’ said the attendant, sweeping Spitz’s brogues off the floor. ‘Nice shoes, sir,’ he said to Spitz. ‘Sir has taste.’

  Manga glared at the attendant poncing off, head high. ‘Shit, captain,’ he said. ‘These coloureds are fulla shit.’

  Was still pissed off with the shop jockey when they drove out of the V&A following Spitz’s directions along the waterfront cutting back beside the golf course towards the traffic circle that spat them onto Somerset.

  ‘Now you can drive slowly,’ said Spitz. Manga noticed the scatterings of prossies on the corners. He groaned, ‘No, captain, no way, not these.’

  ‘Coloureds’ – Spitz grinned at him – ‘for me they give the best head.’ He tapped his two front teeth. ‘Those ones without these teeth to get in the way.’

  They cruised the length of the street once, u-turned at Glengariff coming back fast on the other side, Spitz making a selection, saying, ‘That is our girlfriend, that one with the red skirt. That is our baby. Go to her.’

  ‘You maybe,’ said Manga. ‘I don’t do coloured.’

  Spitz laughed. ‘My friend is racist.’

  ‘Hola, captain, it’s about preferences. The way I see it. Me, I prefer young. I told you.’

  ‘She is young. Eighteen years old. No more than that.’

  ‘I like younger. And no coloured.’

  ‘This is Cape Town. Everyone is coloured.’ He pointed out the window at sky, mountain, sea. ‘Tomorrow we are gone. Maybe we should go up the mountain afterwards?’

  ‘I don’t do mountains,’ said Manga. ‘Even flat ones.’

  ‘Because of you I cannot go up the mountain? Is that what you are saying?’

  ‘Do your thing, captain. But if you wanna go up the mountain you go alone.’

  ‘I ask you please. At this moment we must enjoy the city.’ Spitz waved at the girl in the short red skirt. ‘Stop the car.’ He lowered the window as they pulled alongside. ‘Hello, baby,’ he said, ‘how about we can have some fun?’ To Spitz the girl looked the image of Sheemina February. Only younger.

  The prossie strutted, half turning away, giving them the lower curve of a cheek hanging out the red dress. ‘What you want, gents?’ Manga whistled, changing his tune. ‘Come for a ride, my cherry.’

  ‘With you gents, not a chance.’

  ‘Come’n,’ said Manga, ‘we’re good.’

  Spitz held up two pink fifties.

  The girl-woman snorted. ‘Nah, sweetie gents, what d’you want for that little.’

  ‘Gates of heaven,’ said Manga, leaning across Spitz to waggle his tongue at the prossie.

  Spitz got out, opened the back door. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Cherildeen, sweetie.’ She changed hips, the dress riding higher on her bum. Still half turned away from Spitz and Manga, looking back at them over her shoulder: wet red lips. ‘You put another pinkie to it I’ll mos blow yous both.’ She grinned at them, gap toothed. ‘Seventy-five, drive alive. Come again twenty ten.’

  ‘You like football?’ said Manga.

  Cherildeen stuck her tongue into her cheek. ‘Anything with balls, hey sweetie gents.’ She brushed past Spitz to get into the car, feeling at his crotch. ‘I like you, sweetie big boy.’ He eased himself in next to her.

  Manga, eyes riveted to the rearview mirror, said, ‘What d’you think I am, captain? A Spitz special chauffeur?’

  ‘Your turn’ll come, sweetie,’ said Cherildeen, already working to undo Spitz’s belt and flies. She got him loose and gasped. ‘Oh what a pallie. You wanna wait until you’ve got a sea view or you want me to mos do it now.’ She slid down to give him a lick. Like she would an ice cream.

  ‘Now,’ said Manga. ‘This isn’t a tourist trip.’

  ‘My friend is from Jozi,’ said Spitz, putting his hands in the frizz of the prostitute’s hair. ‘You can give him the sea view.’

  She did Spitz on the drive to the car park at Mouille Point lighthouse. He got a sea view, even a sight of Robben Island before she sucked him off. Swallowing. She came up, dabbing her mouth with a tissue, her lipstick smeared. While Spitz zipped, she unclicked a purse, reapplied a glossy red.

  ‘A girl’s gotta look girlie, hey sweetie,’ she said, taking the three fifties.

  Spitz nodded, got out of the car.

  While she blew Manga, Spitz leaned on the railing watching two surfers riding a small break off the rocks. He smoked a menthol. Enjoyed the sun on his back. The salty air. The squabbling seagulls. Reckoned maybe this day was enjoy
able. When Manga was finished they could take another beer and white sausage at the Paulaner. See a movie. Tomorrow ride off, Saturday do the job. Sunday lunchtime he could walk into JB’s to flash the moccasins. Putting it all together: for a week’s work a good return and interesting scenery. He crushed out the menthol as Manga started shouting. Turned to see Manga dragging the prossie from the car. Manga’s belt undone, his jeans unzipped; the prossie flailing at him, getting free and hobbling off on her high heels. Spitz watched. Manga chased her, landed a few kicks, danced round her like an ostrich, holding his jeans up with one hand, trying to swipe at her with the other. The prossie jumped a children’s roundabout did a complete circle with Manga galloping alongside calling her bitch, poes, whore, umqwayizi, moffie, his jeans slipped down on his bum, flashing his black arse at a nearby granny. The prossie said something Spitz couldn’t hear. Manga stopped, hiked his jeans. The prossie leapt off the roundabout, gave him the finger, wide grin on her dial. She got a bitch, poes, whore from Manga. Spitz saw the granny get in on the act, yelling at Manga he wasn’t in a kaffir township now. Manga told the granny to suck her tit. He zipped up, tucking his shirt in as he walked back to Spitz. Manga spitting, saying, ‘Shit, captain, shit, man she’s not a prossie. That’s a guy. With a cock and balls squeezed between her legs.’

  Spitz stared at Manga. Stared at the prossie Cherildeen in her short skirt hurrying away in the distance, forced a laugh.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘with coloureds you cannot tell.’

  43

  ‘This is so cool.’ Christa in jeans and T-shirt stuck her arms in the air as Mace accelerated the Spider onto the N1. No doubting that. Top down into tangy air, eight-thirty in the morning, all the good citizens going about their jobs: on the left loaders working the harbour’s container yard, to the right a slow crawl of commuters on the incoming lanes. Behind them the bright mountain, ahead blue sky forever. It didn’t get better.

  Mace had to smile, actually felt like laughing. He leaned across, squeezed his daughter’s knee. She swatted his hand. For a moment they looked at one another grinning.

  To hell with it all, Mace reckoned, for three days he was out of it. On the road, baby.

  He pushed more juice into the Spider taking her to one twenty down the Woodstock straights, out, out past factory land, under flyovers, out past the office parks, the malls, the ranch-house suburbs and over the Panorama hill out out heading for the mountains.

  ‘Tunnel or over the top?’ he shouted on the long glide across the valley towards the pass.

  ‘Over the top,’ Christa yelled back, her hair blown wild, so young-miss behind her sunglasses.

  Mace took the mountain pass, no other cars behind or ahead. He roared the engine on the straights, geared down for the corners working the car like this was fun. At the top he pulled over onto a view point at a gravel clearing.

  ‘I’ve got to pee, I’ve got to pee,’ said Christa. hopping out of the car.

  ‘Take your pick,’ said Mace, ‘behind any rock you like.’

  Christa, legs clamped, bending against the urge, looked dubious. ‘What if there’s snakes and scorpions?’

  Mace laughed at the sight of her. ‘Take a chance.’

  ‘Ahh, Papa, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Next to the car,’ said Mace. ‘No one’s going to see you.’ He threw his arms wide. ‘There’s no one to see you.’

  He caught the movement of her pulling down her jeans, crouching, heard the hiss of her release. It made him want to pee. He found a bush a short way off that half hid him from the road.

  He heard Christa call out: ‘It’s so easy for you.’ And shouted back, ‘Well, you wanted to be a girl.’

  Before they left the view point, they stood together not talking, gazing into the valley and at the distant mountain, flat as an ironing board. The quiet held them: only sunbird twitter among the proteas until a baboon barked. They looked up, saw the troop coming down the slopes towards them. Some big buggers in the lead.

  Mace said, ‘Time to go.’ Christa racing him to the car.

  The pass down was still in shadow mostly, the mountains rising high and green either side and up against the summit, grey crags and shale.

  Where the pass bottomed out they swept into the long curves beside a river, the road gently cambered and wide, the Spider humming. Came out of the mountains, crossed the Worcester floodplains into the Hex River Valley with the sun beginning to scorch. Along the roadside stood vendors, women and young men, holding up boxes of grapes, shouting at the sports car as Mace and Christa bore down and on. Sometimes Christa waved, sometimes she looked back at their poverty, her hand half raised.

  At the end of the valley the pass took them onto the escarpment, the long plains of scrub and the silence of heat. Mace pulled into a picnic spot, cut the engine. For some minutes they sat getting used to being still, their ears popping from the road noise.

  ‘It’s so quiet,’ said Christa, ‘except for the flies’ – swatting at their irritation.

  ‘It’s what I remember,’ said Mace, ‘just the whine of insects.’

  He brought out two Cokes from a cooler pack. They leant against the Spider’s bonnet, sipping, staring at blue hills in the distance.

  Obed Chocho, dangling a car key and remote, said to Spitz and Manga at breakfast on the patio, ‘This is yours.’

  Manga said, ‘And the VW, captain?’

  ‘I’ll have those keys.’

  Manga dug the keys for the hire car from his pocket, tossed them onto the table.

  Obed Chocho let them lie. From the breakfast tray took a bowl of muesli, heaping on yoghurt. ‘This’s another G-string. Especially for you. More vooma. Nice white colour. Nobody sees a white car.’

  ‘There must be no blood in it,’ said Spitz.

  Obed Chocho stared at him. ‘It’s clean.’

  ‘It was hijacked.’ Spitz peeled an apple, keeping the skin curling unbroken.

  ‘Go’n have a look.’

  ‘It’s okay, captain,’ said Manga.

  Still standing, Obed Chocho spooned muesli into his mouth and said without swallowing, ‘No, go’n have a look.’

  Spitz quartered the apple, and halved the quarters. Speared a slice with his knife and ate it. ‘Blood is not a good sign.’

  ‘My brother.’ Obed Chocho pulled out a plastic chair and sat opposite Spitz. ‘My brother listen to me. You find blood in it, mighty fine, I’ll lick it clean.’ He kept his eyes on Spitz but Spitz didn’t meet them. ‘There’s no problem here. You do the job. Drive home to Jozi, lose the car.’ He took another mouthful of muesli, glanced across at Manga. ‘When’re you going?’

  Manga juggled the key and remote. ‘After breakfast.’

  ‘Mighty fine,’ said Obed Chocho, ‘that’s now.’

  ‘I am not finished,’ said Spitz. On his plate seven slices of apple. He took one on the knife, raised it to his mouth. Bit into the crisp flesh. ‘For this drive we have all day.’

  Obed Chocho pointed his spoon at Spitz’s shoes. ‘You been shopping. Expensive.’

  Spitz bit into another piece of apple. Didn’t answer, gazed off into the garden at the concrete statuary, bright in the early sun. He felt Obed Chocho tapping him on the knee with his spoon.

  ‘I can hurt you Mr Spitz-the-Trigger,’ he was saying. Tapping his spoon with each word. ‘Pour shit on your reputation. One-time big-time bugger-up. Single word, Mr Triggerman, and no more work. Forever. You hear me, my brother. You are mighty fine in deep shit with one word from my lips. No more work. No more money. No more fine and dandy shoes. Finish.’ Obed Chocho made a gun with his right hand and shot himself in the temple. ‘Kapow. You give me any shit with this job and that’s the story. One word and mighty fine Spitz is the living dead. Like a zombie. Take my meaning?’

  Spitz placed his knife on the plate next to the six remaining slices of apple. He stood, his chair scrapping on the patio tiles. ‘That would not be a good idea, Mr Chocho,’ he said, bowing slightly in the Germ
an manner, walking off indoors.

  ‘Don’t threaten me, my brother,’ Obed Chocho shouted after him. ‘I can hurt you mighty fine. I can make you disappear outta this world.’ To Manga he said, ‘Go, comrade. Take him away. Quickly. Any more sight of that brother and I will kill him.’

  Mace couldn’t see the link. One minute they were talking about the wool stuck on the barbed wire fence, the next Christa was asking about his parents, her grandparents.

  ‘I don’t have any,’ he said. ‘So you don’t have any either. On my side. Not on your ma’s side either, actually. They’re both dead.’ Trying to make light of it.

  ‘I know about them,’ she said. ‘But what about yours?’

  ‘I’m not kidding. I don’t have any.’

  She laughed. ‘You’ve got to have.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to have somewhere but I don’t know where they’d be. Or who they are.’

  She went thoughtful. ‘No. Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘You don’t want to know?’

  ‘Once. But that was long ago. Then I stopped thinking about it.’

  ‘So who looked after you?’

  ‘An orphanage.’

  She grimaced.

  ‘In Johannesburg. St Thomas’s Orphanage for Boys. Horrible place. Smelt of toe jam.’

  Christa picked at another tuft of wool snagged on the fence, rubbed it between her fingers. ‘That’s weird,’ she said, offering him the wool.

  He took it, feeling the oily fleece under his thumb, strands coming away. ‘It wasn’t nice.’

  ‘And you didn’t know your mom at all?’

  ‘The story is she threw me away. Someone found me in a rubbish bin.’ Mace saw Christa’s eyes water. ‘I’m joking. That’s what they used to tell me but it probably wasn’t like that at all.’

  ‘It happens in stories.’

  ‘Not all stories.’

  They walked back to the car and Mace put up the hood.