by Mike Nicol
Mace said, ‘He wants me to put a man out here.’
‘No way.’ Justice Marius Visser shook his head. ‘No way in hell, my friend.’
‘The only other option is fences, lights, sensors, radio contact.’
‘I’m not going to live like that.’
‘I didn’t think so,’ said Mace.
The old man finished his glass, reached for the bottle. ‘Drink up.’
‘Uh uh,’ said Mace, placing a hand over his glass.
Marius Visser frowned, unscrewing the bottle’s cap. ‘No? A bloody moffie drinker!’ He refilled his own glass, raising it in a mock toast. ‘Telman give you his wheelchair story?’
‘We only spoke business.’
‘Ask him one day he’ll tell you. Tell you why he hates his pa.’
‘So much he followed the same profession? Got appointed to the bench?’
‘Out of spite, Mr Bishop. Getting back. Showing he was as good as me, even from a wheelchair.’
Mace took another mouthful of mampoer not sure where this was going or if he wanted to hear it.
‘Because his pa, me, I put him in that wheelchair.’
Here it comes, Mace thought, watching Marius Visser kill another shot glass of mampoer.
‘Coming back to the farm one day, late, driving into the sun, I rolled the car. Telman was a boy, ten years old. He goes flying. No safety belt so he goes flying. Snap, snap, his spine broken in two places. From that day he hated me.’
‘Shit happens.’
‘The shit wasn’t finished happening. Twelve years later my wife, Telman’s mother, kills herself. With tablets. Telman blames me.’
Mace took the rest of his mampoer. Said, ‘Maybe I should look around a bit.’
In the afternoon he and Christa took a walk down to the river to see a Bushman painting. But mostly for Mace to get away from Marius Visser. The man in his face about the death penalty, abortion, child rape, gun laws, hijackers, criminals’ rights, TV violence, bad language, some theory that blacks had a smaller brain without the hardwiring that allowed for a sense of forward planning.
‘You give a darkie a bonus, what does he do? Gives the job the finger, goes home and sits under a tree till the money’s gone. Like there’s no tomorrow, my friend.’
Mace’d wondered how he’d get through the rest of the day and evening until Salome suggested the rock art. Saying, ‘Whyn’t you and Christa take a walk there. Marius rests in the afternoon anyhow.’
She’d drawn them a map, Marius Visser going on about how it was difficult to find and badly faded.
‘Piss on it,’ he’d said.
Salome saying, ‘Language, Marius.’
‘Brings out the colour.’
‘That’s why it’s faded, all your family splashing it.’
And Marius Visser had stomped his Mossberg off to bed.
The path led Mace and Christa down a break in the krantz, the black rocks rising either side of them like an entrance to a primal world. Mace noticed the Dobermans had stayed back with Salome on the stoep, the Rotty following to the slope then stopping. Not that he wanted the dogs. He had the P8 in his backpack.
Where the path bottomed out it joined a sand track and they followed this into the apricot orchard, the fruit long harvested, the leaves turning brittle. A quiet among the trees, no birds, no insects. At the end of the orchard, a gate opened onto a path that cut through the riverine bush to a clearing above the river. More a pool than river flow, the surface scummed with algae. Where sun shafted through the wattle and willow, swirled clouds of mosquitoes silver in the light. A bad smell everywhere. As if beneath the undergrowth small dead animals lay rotting.
Mace got the feeling they were being watched, that prickle on his arms.
Christa said, ‘I don’t like it here, Papa.’ She took his hand.
They stood, listened to the quiet. No weavers chatter, no piping frogs. Mace with the hair up on the back of his neck, squinting into the foliage. Situations like this you had to go by your ears. As he and Pylon had in the gun-running days. Situations like this? Walking with his daughter on a farm … What was to fear? Unless you spooked yourself.
‘Come on,’ he said, heading across the clearing to where the path went on through the bush. ‘This’s the way the map says.’
‘We don’t have to,’ said Christa.
Mace looked over his shoulder. ‘Go back and tell them we couldn’t find it. Hey, are we going to do that?’
Christa smiled. ‘No.’
‘So then.’
They went on through the matted growth, Mace flailing with a stick at spider webs that snagged across the path. Big Golden Orbs running up the threads. Still the lines caught against their faces, sticky, binding.
Out on the open ground below the krantz, they stopped to rub the webs from their skin.
‘How’re we getting back?’ said Christa.
‘They way we’ve come.’
She looked off at the bush, her face tight.
Mace said, ‘There’s nothing there.’
‘It’s so dark materials.’
‘What?’
‘You know. Poisoned.’
He didn’t know but felt no need to pursue it. Christa’s world, Mace reckoned, was often filled with weird stuff. All that reading when she’d been flat on her back facing a life paralysed.
They walked on, the path faint and disappearing, running out on a slippage of hard shale. The Vissers had mentioned this. Mace scanned the krantz for any breaks and gaps.
‘Bit of a climb,’ he said, pointing at what seemed a cave. They scrambled up and between the rocks, emerging onto a ledge, behind it the overhang hardly big enough for two to crouch under. They waddled towards the back on their haunches and found the drawing: a thin red figure with horns. In his hand a stick. Appeared to be issuing from a fissure in the rock the way the Bushman had depicted him. Not a big figure, the span of Mace’s hand from finger tip to thumb tip. You didn’t know it was there, you’d miss it.
Mace said, ‘Hardly a picture’ – wondering how the Visser males had ever got enough angle to piss on it. He shimmied off to the ledge, found a place to sit with his feet dangling.
Below, the land folded out towards the horizon: a hot stillness settled on it. He recalled one of the killer country groups on the iPod singing about the loom of the land. All the menace packed into the word.
‘Hey, C,’ he called turning to his daughter, ‘check this view.’
‘Coming,’ she said.
When she hadn’t ten minutes later, he said, ‘Leave it now.’
She joined him and they sat on the krantz that was without birdsong or birds, gazed over the cut of the river and the long savannah flats beyond.
‘He’s still here,’ said Christa eventually.
‘Who’s this?’
‘The man with the horns.’
‘Yeah?’ said Mace.
‘Down there,’ said Christa. ‘At the pool, he was watching us.’
46
Spitz and Manga spent the day beside the motel pool on plastic loungers under thatched umbrellas. Both of them keeping out of the sun, slathering on upper UV-factor sunblock.
‘Too much sun, captain, you go black like a Mozambican you’re in deep shit,’ was Manga’s advice. ‘Nobody wants to be shiny black. Or you’re dead, captain. Dead as a Somali trader in a township.’
Manga went off twice for burgers and Cokes from the Wimpy, bringing Spitz back a chef’s special salad instead of a double cheese and chips the second time.
Spitz spent the hours with an old Halliwell’s he found in the reception’s courtesy bookshelf, putting together a roster of movies for when he got home. Chill out for a week with his collection. For starters: Dog Day Afternoon, Blade Runner, Blood Simple, Panic.
Towards four he told Manga he planned to take a rest, Manga saying, ‘Captain, seven we’re gonna eat at the Wimpy. Eight wheels are rolling.’
Spitz shrugged. ‘It is your schedule.’
‘Ms February’s,’ said Manga. ‘According to the lady’s sms.’ He held up his cellphone.
‘She left you a message?’
‘All the details.’
Spitz slipped on his moccasins, walked off towards his room, thinking, Why must she have the contact with Manga?
Manga called out. ‘Hey, captain, not those moegoe shoes on your feet tonight. You want some proper shoes ask me.’ Spitz walking away from Manga’s laughter, feeling his phone vibrating in his pocket. Sheemina February.
‘I have the message from Manga,’ he said.
‘Good. But that’s not why I’m phoning, Spitz.’ He could hear the sound of the sea, waves breaking, behind her voice.
‘Where are you standing?’ he said.
She laughed. ‘Doesn’t matter, Mr Triggerman. What matters is this: that man in the photograph I gave you will be at the farm. He is not part of the contract. If he gets hurt that is fine, but he must not die. You understand me.’
Spitz unlocked his room door, went in out of the glare. ‘Who is this man you protect?’
‘Never mind. Oblige me, alright. I have my reasons.’
‘To me they are very strange.’
‘Humour me, Spitz. It will be worth your while.’
He tried the earlier question. ‘Where are you standing?’
And heard her sigh. ‘Sometimes you can be very irritating.’ The line disconnected.
Spitz shrugged at his reflection in the motel room mirror. If the man was no problem he would stay alive. Although nothing could be guaranteed.
By eight they were driving into the night, Spitz wanting to know the destination when Manga turned the BM onto a secondary road, nothing but blackness up ahead.
‘Forty-two kays down the drag,’ said Manga, clicking the odometer to zero. ‘Make it half an hour. Ten minutes for the job. Forty, forty-five minutes we are back on the road, captain, straight arrow for Jozi.’ Manga thumped the steering wheel. ‘Tomorrow you can see a movie at the Zone.’
‘I have not thought about it.’
‘Shit, captain, why don’t I believe you?’
The thing Spitz had thought about was finishing with Manga. No more captain. No more burger-breath.
At forty kays Manga slowed down said, ‘Grab a flashlight, captain. On the right you’re looking for a car wreck, then two white stones at a gate.’
They found the car wreck and the gate, turned onto the farm track, taking the rough slowly.
‘There will be dogs?’ said Spitz.
‘Probably,’ said Manga. ‘For you to shoot.’
‘With this weapon?’ Spitz held up the Ruger 10-shot with the can screwed on that’d been lying in his lap since they’d left town. ‘In the darkness? How will I do that?’
‘That’s your problem,’ said Manga. ‘You use that small shit for people, it can work on dogs.’
‘People are standing still,’ said Spitz. ‘I don’t shoot animals.’
‘I dunno, captain. You’ve got another idea?’
Spitz shook his head. ‘This job it is a cock-up. From the blood in the car to now it is a cock-up.’
When they rounded the koppie and saw the lights of the farm house in the distance Manga stopped, lined up the Beemer for a hasty exit. He cut the engine, leaving the keys in the ignition. They sat listening: no dog bark, only the screech of crickets.
‘Let’s go,’ said Manga, sliding a nine mil into his belt.
Spitz sat tight. ‘I work alone.’
‘Not on this one. Mama’s orders.’
Spitz didn’t budge. ‘They know my conditions.’
‘Captain,’ said Manga, opening his door, ‘this is the way it’s gonna be, okay. You go in. You do the job. I stay outside taking a smoke. It’s the same as you’re working alone, except I’m not waiting in the car.’
‘This is a cock-up,’ said Spitz.
Manga got out of the car, leant back in. ‘You’ve said. So how about we cut the crap ‘n do the job.’
Spitz held himself, a pulse starting in his neck. Watched Manga standing at the front of the car, staring back, grinning. And got the feeling he’d had before that Manga was running another agenda. Maybe Sheemina February too. ‘Goodbye, Spitz, nice talking to you.’ Some strange set-up he couldn’t see. Spitz thought about the money, opened the car door. He took out his gloves, put them on.
‘You lead, captain,’ said Manga. ‘You’re the triggerman in the fancy shoes.’
Spitz didn’t rise to it. Brushed past Manga, so the guy stumbled back a pace, off balance.
They walked one behind the other down the long track, Spitz in his lace-up brogues, stepping carefully over the shale and broken ground. A dikkop started up at their approach, flew off calling and the two men stopped, listened until long after the bird was quiet, Spitz scanning the shadows for any dogs. They went on, able now to see the outline of the house against the trees. Ten paces farther Spitz stopped again, crouched, lowering onto his right knee. Manga bumping against him, bent down.
‘What’s it?’ Looking ahead, saying ‘Wena’ at the sight of the Rottweiler coming on.
Saying, ‘Shoot, captain, shoot.’
Spitz steadied himself, raised the pistol in both hands, waited until the dog was two metres out to put the sharp lead of the rimfire into the animal’s chest. Which dropped it.
Manga exhaled a whoosh. ‘Man, captain, you take your time.’
The Dobermans hit Manga from behind, taking him down beneath them with a grunt, their jaws working at his neck, a low growl in their throats, tearing at clothing and skin to get a choke hold.
Manga gasping, ‘Help me, captain. Help me’ – kicking out at the dogs.
Spitz waited until the dogs were still, Manga pinned beneath them. ‘Do not move,’ he said, stepping towards the nearest, from a metre putting a round in the animal’s head, swivelling left to knock off dog two. Such close ups, the slugs raced round the tiny skulls, finding no way out.
Spitz helped Manga to his feet. Manga panting, bleeding from teeth punctures, his T-shirt bloody and torn.
‘Sshh,’ said Spitz, watching the house, the door opened, a woman stood there. She whistled for the dogs, called their names. Said something back into the house and closed the door.
Manga reached for the pistol in his belt. ‘Any more dogs I don’t care.’
‘I do not think so,’ said Spitz. ‘They would have barked for her.’
Manga fingered his wounds, yelping at the pain. Some of them bleeding. He held his shirt against them to stop the blood. ‘Captain,’ he said, ‘captain, you coulda shot me.’
Spitz gave a German shrug. ‘With your gun, yes, maybe that is likely. With this the chance is doubtful.’
‘But possible.’
‘Sure. Perhaps it can happen.’
‘Captain,’ said Manga, ‘your problem is you don’t care.’
They crept closer to the house, approaching from the front until they could hear through an open window the voice of a man talking, a woman interrupting him, saying ‘Marius, please that’s enough. Leave it.’ Another voice cut in too low to hear what was said.
Spitz scoped the surroundings, saw the red Alfa Spider parked near the shed. He touched Manga’s arm, pointed at the car.
Manga grinned. ‘The larney with the lovely daughter.’
47
Justice Marius Visser was saying, ‘Bring back hanging, simple as that. For murder. For rape. For paedophiles. Maybe even for aggravated assault. Ja, even. The more you’ve got it onna books the better. Sending out the right signals. We mean business, chommies. You get outta control we’re gonna kill you.’
Marius Visser taking another half a shot of his apricot mampoer, a good number under the belt already. He leaned across the table towards Mace.
‘Hanging doesn’t stop anyone except who you hang. But that’s what you want. Stops him, the bastard. Makes him think about what he’s done.’
‘Marius, the girl.’
Justice Marius Visser lo
oked at Christa across the table, Christa looking back at him Zen-faced. He waved his hand at his wife. ‘She’s big enough.’
Salome glanced at Mace but he kept his eyes down, focused on mopping up gravy from his plate with a slice of bread.
‘I went to every one.’ The justice hammering the table with his fist the way he’d brought down the gavel at a sentencing. ‘For the bastards to see me. Not one I had second thoughts about. Even the whites. They’re hanging there by their necks I thought good riddance.’
‘Marius, please, that’s enough. Leave it.’
Mace saying, ‘We’ve had a hectic day. And got a long drive tomorrow.’ Pushing back his chair. ‘What you say, C?’
‘There’s pudding, man,’ said Marius Visser. ‘Siddown.’ Thumping the table again as the front door banged open.
Mace saw a black guy with a silenced .22 enter. Neat short dreads hairstyle, impassive face. The gun on Marius Visser. Behind the gunman a brother he recognised, the lounger at the BMW. Standing in the doorway with a nine, held up at shoulder height. Grinning like this was major fun.
He heard Salome gasp.
Heard Marius Visser yell, ‘Kaffertjies’, the shooter taking him out with a head shot, even as the justice lunged for his Mossberg. The shooter swivelling left to Salome putting a single load in her forehead. The Ruger coming on, aimed at Mace.
Heard the hitman say, ‘No problems. Stay standing still.’
Mr Nine Mil stepping in, blood on his T-shirt. ‘Heita, peoples. Sorry to disturb.’ The man bleeding from neck wounds.
The hitman saying, ‘Tie them up.’
Mr Nine Mil bringing his pistol onto Christa. ‘You crazy, captain. There’s a little chickie here can to save us from HIV. Hey, sweetheart?’ Mace watching the man come up to Christa, pull her face into his crotch, the muzzle of his gun laid against her temple. Christa rigid with fright. Drops of blood falling into her hair.
‘Leave her.’ Mace rising, his chair crashing back behind him.’
The gun in Mr Nine Mil’s hand coming up and firing. The first round whacking into the wall. Mace taking the second in the arm. The third and fourth smashing into the heads of mounted buck. The fifth smacking into his chest. Mace staggered, turning from the gunman. The sixth, a ricochet, caught him in the back. Mace went down.
