by Malla Nunn
“Check him,” the boss man said. “See what he’s got.”
“He’s skint.” The smaller man fingered the interior of the Sergeant’s wallet, collected lint and an expired bus ticket. Labrant had removed all personal ID. Emmanuel wished he’d thought to do the same.
“You,” another of the gang came from behind and poked Emmanuel’s shoulder. “I’ll have your wallet and that watch, my friend.”
Emmanuel unbuckled the watch and handed it over. He removed the money from his wallet and gave that over before letting the wallet fall safe to the ground. Davida’s fingers clutched the tail of his jacket, squeezing the material tight. The three enforcers gathered around the leader with the spoils.
“Check the whores,” the big one said. “They’ll have cash shoved all places.”
Two of the men moved eagerly to the task, pushing hands down blouses and up the prostitute’s skirts. The young black girl sobbed, her body bent almost double. Her boyfriend calmed her with “hush, hush” sounds which went unheard.
“Is that it?” The boss surveyed the booty. “This is chicken shit. There’s got to be more. Check the bar and that fat bitch on the floor.”
The smallest of the men rattled the box on the trestle table and spilled the change inside it. He moved to Fatty and plunged a hand down her cleavage, pulled out a few damp notes, and returned to the collection point. Five years off the pension with a sock full of retirement funds, Labrant kept quiet. Not one cent would he give to these vultures.
“Fuck it …” the big man’s mouth made a hard line beneath the stocking mask. “This won’t do. We didn’t come all the way out here for a couple of quid.”
“There’s enough,” the small man soothed. “Enough to buy something small. Let’s go. We got what we came for.”
“Not me.” The boss man surveyed the dance hall patrons, kneeling like supplicants before a king. “I want something special.”
“No, man. Please, not this again. You’ve already got one.”
“She’s not working out.” Gun hanging loose by his side the leader weaved through the crowd surveying the women. He paused to grip the chin of an Indian prostitute and examined her teeth like a punter checking the stock before a race. “I need a new one.”
Emmanuel eased back and grasped the edge of the chair leg, pulled it closer. Fatty Mapela clawed the floor and inched closer to the bar. The gang leader crouched by the young black girl and wiped away her tears.
“Maybe,” he said after a long pause to consider. “Possibly.”
He continued on a sideways path and stopped in front of Davida. She turned away, kept a tight hold on Emmanuel’s jacket. The boss man ran a finger down the smooth skin of her neck and across the curve of her shoulder.
“You know the rule. No crossing over.” The small second in command tried again to reason. “Break the rule and he’ll make you bleed for it. Forget it. Let’s go.”
“Fuck the rules. I want this one.” He tangled fingers through Davida’s hair and smiled when she winced with pain. “She smells of roses. This one is worth saving.”
“Emmanuel …” Davida whispered when the big man pulled her up by the roots of her hair. She stumbled. Breath caught in her throat, came out in a low moan. Emmanuel let her go. He had to. He gripped the chair, got a solid hold. Fatty stopped, drew in a deep breath and crawled on. If Labrant joined in, there might be a chance they could put down these thugs.
The big man turned, dragging Davida like a toy. Emmanuel swung the chair low and hard, connected with the back of the boss man’s knees. Wood splintered. The leader pitched forward and hit the ground. Fatty’s working girls scattered, ran to the corners of the room. Labrant swung a fist, landed a hit into the soft part of the small man’s stomach. Couples squeezed under tables and scrambled to dark places.
Emmanuel pulled Davida free and brought a heel down onto the gang leader’s broad wrist. Fingers twitched, loosening their hold on the pistol, a Browning Hi Power with a polished wood grip. He kicked it free. The black girl screamed. Fatty crawled on all fours, searching for the firearm in the low light. Labrant swung circles, punching the air, hoping to connect.
“Go.” Emmanuel pushed Davida to the side of the jukebox. He flipped the big man onto his back. The stocking mask had ripped, showing a bright blue eye and the curve of a dark brow. There was something in the colour, a familiarity there that Emmanuel could not place.
“Look out.” Davida’s voice rang sharp with fear.
A punch drove into the side of Emmanuel’s face. He smelled blood, tasted it in his mouth. The room tilted. The floor slammed hard to his cheek. Pain exploded against his skull and the colours from the jukebox blurred to streaks of blinding white. The world dimmed, began to fade.
“Get the fuck up, soldier!” the Sergeant Major screamed, cutting through the pain. “Get up and fight. You will not let them touch Davida or Fatty or any other person in this room. Fight, you slum pussy. Did I not teach you how?!”
Emmanuel heard another voice calling from a far off place and tried to get up. Shapes blurred and lost their form. Muscles locked and quivered. Gravity pinned him to the floor.
“Let me in and I will make you strong,” the Sergeant Major said. “Give me control, boyo. Together we will sort this mess out. Let me in, lad. Let me in …”
The Sergeant Major’s presence filled Emmanuel’s head and fed fresh oxygen to his aching lungs. There was no divide. No him and me, no inside or outside. The Scottish Sergeant Major and the Sophiatown-born detective become one. Emmanuel spat blood and got to his feet.
“Kill the fuckers,” the Sergeant Major said.
The bandit who’d knocked him flat moved in, ducking and weaving, looking for a clear shot. Emmanuel drove two punches into the man’s stomach that lifted him off the ground. He kept working, opening a cut on the cheek and then another over the right eye. A pounding right hook rocked the man back, sent the spit flying. Emmanuel kicked the bandit’s legs and the man crumbled like ash. He crossed to the leader who’d dragged Davida by the hair. Blood roared through his veins. Fear vanished. Pain faded. He hit the big man with his fists, once and then again and again till he lost count. The skin on his knuckles split. He was empty of emotions and heard only the satisfying wham of flesh yielding.
“Jesus Christ. Stop.” Labrant pulled him away. “We need the bastard alive to answer questions. Like who the fuck he thinks he is, breaking into my place.”
Emmanuel’s heart beat like a hammer. The world expanded and came back into focus. Fatty held the smaller man in a choke hold, her platinum hair stained red, the silver material of her cocktail dress darkened by blood. She pushed the hostage to the floor, next to the boss man, and kicked a stiletto into his back. Emmanuel stepped aside, elated. He craved a drink, a smoke and a roll in the back room. Davida crawled out from the edge of the jukebox and slipped her hand into his.
Labrant crouched in front of the boss man and the second in command. He ripped the stocking from the smaller man, exposing a pixie face with red cheeks and a short, sharp nose.
“Who the hell are you? One of the Christmas elves?”
The elf grit his baby white teeth and said nothing. Labrant grasped the tattered ends of the boss man’s stocking mask, ready to rip. A girl screamed, the sound high and shrill in the tin room. Emmanuel swung around, cursed under his breath. He’d lost track of the numbers. Four men. Only three accounted for. The fourth member of the gang held a knife to the teenaged girl’s throat, the silver blade gleaming deadly against her dark skin.
“Let them go.” Flattened features and dark eyes stared out from behind the stocking mask. “Let them go or I will cut the little one. I swear it.”
The voice shook, the hand holding the blade shook worse. Scared men were prone to sudden, violent moves. Emmanuel swung Davida behind him and raised opened palms.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “There’s no need to hurt her. We can talk. Let her go and we’ll sort this business out.”
“No ways. You just beat the shit out of Lenny and Crow. I ain’t coming close.” Beads of blood appeared on the blade. “Now let them go.”
“Please …” the white teenager who’d paid entry for the young black girl cried out. “Please don’t. I’m begging you, mister.”
“It’s all right,” Emmanuel said. Begging would not help. The kidnapper’s desperation was visible through the tight stocking mesh. “We’re going to stay calm. Work things out.”
“There’s nothing to work out, man. Let them go or I’ll cut her. So help me God, I will.”
Labrant grabbed a fistful of the elf’s hair and tugged till the jugular veins showed blue beneath the pale skin. Fatty brought the boss man’s revolver out from the sash of her dress, levelled the point to the crown of his head.
“You hold one card,” Labrant said in a rough voice. “And we hold three. So calm down and we will sort this out just like my friend suggested.”
Emmanuel couldn’t imagine a worse situation than a loaded gun in Fatty Mapela’s hand and a knife in a terrified man’s grasp. Labrant remained calm, willing to negotiate. He threw a quick look in Emmanuel’s direction, gave him the authority to break the stand-off.
“We’ll exchange Lenny, Crow and the one on the floor for the girl,” Emmanuel said. “Three for one in your favour. That’s fair.”
“And we keep the cash,” Labrant added.
“I … I don’t know.” A wet patch appeared on the stocking mask right were the kidnapper’s mouth must be. He was licking his lips, nervously weighing up the deal.
“Surely your friends are worth one black girl and a few pounds? Do the sums. It’s cheaper than burying all three of them.”
“Maybe.” He looked to the leader, kneeling with the barrel of a revolver pressed to his skull. “Should I, Lenny?”
“Do it.” The reply came out terse and short. “And stop using names.”
The boss man and the petite second in command might be professionals but the rest of the troops were amateurs; all the more reason to talk through the steps of the exchange slowly.
“We’ll swap at the door,” Emmanuel said. “That’s fine with you?”
“Ja. That’s all right.” The captive girl sobbed and her tears splashed onto the kidnapper’s fingers. The hand holding the knife gripped the handle tighter.
“Slowly. No need to rush. Walk to the door. We’ll bring our hostages across. Go.” The jittery robber crab-walked to the entrance, the stocking mask moist with sweat. Fatty tapped the gun barrel to the leader’s head. “You. Up. To the door.”
Labrant grabbed the elf by the scruff of the neck and dragged him bodily to the smashed entrance. Emmanuel crossed to the man pooled on the floor. He threw the remainder of the whisky and water onto the man’s face and brought him to.
“You’re leaving,” he said. “You and your friends.”
The room stilled. People held their breath in anticipation of a sudden twitch of a finger against a gun trigger or the jerk of a blade against neck tendons. Emmanuel pushed the bloodied man to the exchange point and picked up his watch from the loot table on the way.
“You have two minutes to clear the yards,” he said when the girl hostage staggered to her boyfriend and the four bandits retreated into the corridor. “Then we are coming after you.”
Fatty released the safety on the boss man’s gun and said, “One minute.”
The men turned and ran. Emmanuel gave them a thirty-second start. Fatty and Labrant followed him down the corridor and out into the yards. A lone security light cut through the darkness. A vast tangle of tracks and sheds spread out in the moonlight.
“Aggh …” Labrant made a disgusted sound and pointed to the body of the Afrikaner railway worker sprawled in the dirt. The flecks of fine coal dust suspended in the air of the yard had speckled the red hole that leaked blood on the bib of his overalls. “We should have shot them in the corridor, made an end to it.”
“Gunning down four white men in front of two dozen witnesses would be the end for us as well.” Emmanuel checked for a pulse and got nothing. The wound was fatal, the Afrikaner killed with a neat thrust of a knife. “There’s no way to clean up that kind of mess and hope to keep it quiet.”
Labrant grunted agreement and said, “Let’s get this one out of the way before the guests see. They’ll connect us with this for sure and put us in the frame for it.”
Emmanuel agreed. Better to be cautious than sitting in a police station writing up a false statement. Fatty tucked the revolver into the sash of her dress again and grabbed a limb. Labrant took the other arm and Emmanuel the legs. They lifted the dead man’s weight and shuffled to the corner of the shed. The space between the shed and the next building made a snug, black, temporary casket. Perfect. They laid the body down and walked around to the front.
Emmanuel stopped, crouched and wiped blood from his shoes with a handkerchief. Shadows flickered in the entrance. He looked up. Davida stood in the dimness, fingers pressed hard to her mouth to stifle a cry. She’d seen them dump the body. He was certain.
“Come, little girl.” Fatty’s voice carried a sharp edge. “This is no place for a child. Let us leave the men to their business.”
Davida retreated in silence, her upper arm held in Fatty’s grip. Emmanuel paused and worked again at the shoe leather. Only warm water and soap would remove the stain, he realised. No amount of scrubbing would clean Davida’s mind of the things she’d witnessed. The Afrikaner’s slack body, the strange dance they’d performed while carrying the bleeding corpse to the passage and the peeled orange in the dirt; all were burned deep into her memory. Time would chip away at the images, soften their edges but she’d never forget. He knew. He’d tried.
18.
It was the big one who did the stabbing. The pissant who grabbed the girl didn’t have the guts,” Labrant said. “I reckon Vickers knew them, let them in to rob the place.”
“That was his name?” Emmanuel pocketed the bloody handkerchief, which would now have to be thrown away or burned.
“Ja.” Labrant blew out a loud breath. “Should never have trusted him. I saw him beat his dog once.”
“It’s finished,” Emmanuel said. The time for analysis had already passed. “We have to move. The thieves won’t come back after the beating they’ve taken but they might call the police or get the immorality squad down here.”
“Right.” The Sergeant glanced to the black spot where the body lay. “I’ll take care of Vickers, find him a resting place in the Orange Free State.”
“We could leave him and call the body into the police tomorrow morning.” That presented the least illegal option. “He might have family.”
“Lucky for us, Vickers had no family and no friends: just a job and a boss who’ll report him missing when he fails to show up for three shifts in a row,” Labrant said. “A miserable death for a miserable man. I’d shed a tear but I’ll be too busy digging up a bush grave on my brother-in-law’s …”
“Don’t say any more,” Emmanuel interrupted. “I don’t want to know. Let’s clear the place, first. Get everyone out.”
They re-entered the corridor of shed twenty-five. Patrons streamed out as if they were running from a burning building; their valuables clutched in their hands, faces drawn with fear, elbows shoving to clear a path.
“Calm down, people!” Labrant shouted. “The thieves are gone. Move to your cars and leave in an orderly fashion.”
The crowd gave no sign of having heard. In less than five minutes the room and the corridor were empty. The teenage hostage and her white sweetheart were the last out, their arms wrapped around each other.
Dust motes swirled in the light of the hurricane lamps, stirred up by the rush of departing couples. Fatty’s working girls bunched together, smoking and chattering in high-pitched voices. Sergeant Labrant would eventually escort them back to the southern edge of town where they lived together in an isolated house screened from the road by tall slash pines. Davida stood by herself, de
ep in thought or in shock.
Labrant stripped three tablecloths and rolled them into a ball. “Ready, Cooper?”
Emmanuel walked out to help remove the body.
*
Half an hour later the jukebox had been wrestled onto the back of Fatty’s pick-up truck and the prostitutes packed into the rear of the police van. Vickers Steyn, rolled in tablecloths, occupied the space farthest from the door. A road patrol would see the girls, not the body. Emmanuel said his goodbyes and returned to the shed to collect Davida. At the very least, he’d spared her the sight of Fatty’s girls joking with each other in the presence of a corpse.
“God above,” the Sergeant Major said upon entering the emptied tin building. “This is, without a doubt, the worst first date in the history of mankind.”
“Agreed,” Emmanuel replied. What was he thinking? Taking Davida to an illegal dance in a railway yard. His intentions had been good: get her out of the house so she could dance with him while their baby slept safely at home. His decision to expose her to the underbelly of South African life spoke of desperation, of having no more to offer her than snatched moments of normality in abnormal situations. She deserved more than that.
A single hurricane lamp lit the darkened room. Davida stared into the yellow flame, breathing in and out with deliberation.
“Come,” Emmanuel said. “Let’s go.”
Davida continued to stare; the fire cast a spell that blocked the smell of blood mixed with perfume and the echoes of the black girl’s sobs. Emmanuel had witnessed this internal retreat several times during the war. He had lost good men, fine soldiers to shellshock. A mind under pressure sometimes built walls too thick to breach.
“We have to go.” He laid his fingers on Davida’s arm. “It’s not safe to stay here.” She punched him in the chest, hard. Emmanuel staggered back, absorbed the pain. A high blow caught him square in the mouth, drawing blood from an earlier cut. He grabbed her wrist, instinctively blocking another blow. She fought on. Emmanuel reined her in; let half the hits connect. They slammed into the corrugated iron wall. He turned and pinned her against to the metal sheeting, exerting control. She kicked and twisted until her breath came in short, exhausted gasps.
