by Roger Smith
On impulse she turned off the blacktop and bounced across the railroad track toward Rosetown, marveling that so many of South Africa’s ugliest slums had cruelly ironic names.
A naked toddler played in the mud at a communal faucet. A woman wearing shorts and a giant bra, her in hair in red rollers, stood in the doorway of a shack, staring at her.
What was Sue doing here?
She didn’t know, exactly, but even if she believed that her father had not killed that boy she felt she needed to make some apology. Offer some token of sympathy.
A kid of maybe ten, dressed only in ragged shorts, his dark skin patterned with dust, kicked a yellow ball in the dirt and she drew up next to him.
She spoke to him in Afrikaans, asking where she could find the family of Tshepang Moshweng.
“Gimme a twenny bucks and I take you there,” he said.
She delved into her purse and extracted a green ten rand note and held it out to him.
“I say twenny.”
“Ten. Take it or leave it.”
He took the note and climbed in beside her. He smelled of wood smoke and something danker.
The child pointed a finger into the sprawling muddle of shacks, cramped hovels thrown together from sheet metal, plastic and cardboard, and said, “Go there.”
They drove for a few minutes in silence, the rutted road narrowing, the fenders of the car almost scraping the shacks. Most of the doors were padlocked, the inhabitants away scrounging a living on the farms or in town.
Forcing its way between the hovels the Mazda snapped two strands of empty wash line, the torn wire scratching furrows in the windshield before it clattered against the roof like drumming fingers.
The boy pointed to a shack, its open doorway a gap-toothed mouth.
“She in there,” he said, cracked the car door and disappeared into the warren of shanties.
Sue sat unmoving until the pulverizing heat drove her from the Mazda. She stood up into the sun that seemed to press back down on her, placed a steadying hand on the hot roof of the car, and then walked toward the shack. A couple of plants emerged from the sand in the shade of the tin walls. They were in bloom: bright blue flowers, as out of place as if they were on the surface of the moon.
Squinting at the sun glaring off the silver metal, Sue approached the door, her sunblasted eyes blind to the interior.
She knocked on the wall of the shack, the metal molten to her knuckles.
Searching the murky interior she heard a cough and a shuffle and a form separated itself from the gloom and came to the door, the sun falling on a woman’s face made ancient by sorrow.
“Mrs. Moshweng?” Sue said in English.
The woman stared at her nervously.
In Rosetown white faces meant trouble, Sue guessed.
“Ja, missies,” the woman said.
Sue switched to Afrikaans. “My name is Sue Kruger.”
Mrs. Moshweng lifted a hand as if to ward her off and Sue realized the terror the name conjured.
“I have come only to say I’m sorry,” Sue said.
“Sorry?”
“Yes, I’m sorry about what happened to your son.”
The woman stared at her for a long while, then she backed into the shack, beckoning Sue to follow her into the single room.
A paraffin lamp burned in the windowless interior. A few sticks of furniture on the sand floor. Two skinny mattresses rolled up against the wall.
Mrs. Moshweng gestured for Sue to take the one broken-backed kitchen chair that stood in the dirt.
Sue sat.
The woman struck a match and ignited a primus stove, placing a pot of water on the flame. She opened a tin trunk and removed something wrapped in cloth. She opened the cloth and revealed a china cup and saucer. Royal Dolton, Sue recognized. Like an artifact from some distant civilization.
Mrs. Moshweng set the cup and saucer on the trunk and went about the business of brewing tea, saying nothing, staring at the pot of water, waiting for it to boil.
Sue looked around the room and marveled at how clean it was, and dust free. This woman must spend her day sweeping.
There were photographs of the dead boy on the walls.
Tshepang wearing soccer clothes, holding a ball, a makeshift pitch in the background.
Tshepang in designer sweats, smiling at the camera, posing like a rapper.
Tshepang leaning against a shiny red car, his arm around another boy, an older, stocky youth, the family resemblance unmistakable.
Mrs. Moshweng poured boiling water into the cup and added a tea bag, squatting as she allowed the bag to steep, staring as the water changed color.
Sue heard the rumble of a big engine, coming on fast, and the squeal of dusty disc brakes as a car stopped outside, the idling engine setting the tea cup rattling on the trunk. A door slammed and a figure blocked the light in the doorway, eyeballing Sue who rose to her feet.
“Who the fuck are you?” A young man, the brother, the one in the picture, said in Afrikaans.
“I’m Sue Kruger.”
“His daughter?” The man said, stepping in close to her.
“Yes.”
“And you come here?”
“I just came to say I’m sorry. About your brother.”
“Sorry?”
“Yes.”
“Can we eat this sorry?”
“Look, I just—”
“Can we fuckin eat this sorry?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Then fok off.” Standing so close that she felt a rain of spittle on her face.
Sue nodded and walked out, blinded by the sun.
The car from the photograph, a red Honda Civic, chopped low with all the goodies—spoiler, louvers and mud flaps—stood beside the Mazda.
When Sue got behind the wheel of the rust-blistered wreck the shredded upholstery burned her legs and the wheel was hot to her touch. She turned the key and the car coughed like a dog but didn’t start.
The brother stood in the doorway, watching her.
Sue tried again and then the engine caught with a series of grunts and clatters and she reversed the Mazda until she had room to turn it and somehow found her way through the maze of shacks, fighting the wheel as a sudden gale ramped the low shanties, their walls and roofs banging like a steel band, and shook the car it on its springs.
The wind died as swiftly as it had started and she drove through the dust, heading toward the railroad track, a silver zipper drawing together the flat, red sand.
TEN
“You’ve fucked up, Colonel. Big time,” Shanelle Filander, the Western Cape premier, said, slinging a photograph across her desk at Joe Louw who had not been invited to sit.
He caught the glossy print as it was about to fall to the floor and flipped it to see the dead features of Mercia Booysen.
Louw had been preparing himself for something like this, but did he succeed in keeping his guilt from shining like a beacon from his broad face?
“And who is this, Madam Premier?” Louw said, dragging his eyes from the photograph to Shanelle Filander.
“Come on, Colonel, don’t fuck with me.”
When he said nothing she shook her head, a few twists of frizzy hair escaping her bun and standing away from her head like a manifestation of her anger.
She sighed and sat back and took a while to light a smoke, the toasty smell reaching him and setting his nerves even more on edge.
“Okay,” she said, exhaling, “let’s do it your way. Her name’s Mercia Booysen. She worked in the kitchen at Genadendal. You interviewed her yesterday.”
He forced himself to look at the photograph again, as if trying to breathe life into the dead face.
“Ja, I remember her now. What happened to her?”
Filander scratched at her head and freed more barbs of hair. “You’re really going to fuckin insult me like this?”
“I’m not with you, Madam Premier.”
She closed her eyes and exhaled, then f
ixed him with a very cold gaze and he saw exactly why she occupied this chair. “What did she tell you?”
Louw shrugged his tense shoulders. “Nothing. She was at Genadendal that night but left before the murder. She had nothing for me.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s just some coincidence that she winds up dead the same night she spoke to you? Dead in a so-called taxi shooting? Along with seven other poor innocent bastards?”
“I can’t comment on that.”
She shook her head again and stubbed her cigarette dead with an act of sudden violence.
“Okay, I’ll tell you something I know about. I know these people, Jesus Christ I am these people. They still trust you Afrikaners more than the blacks, even now, years later. She caught you in private, didn’t she? Told you what she’d seen?”
He shook his head. “She told me nothing.”
“Christ, I can fuckin hear her, whispering to you in some corridor or in the garden: ‘Meneer, meneer.’” Filander was that girl from the ghetto for a second, her impersonation of the dead woman pitch-perfect.
“No,” he said.
“No?”
“That never happened.”
“You’re a shitty liar, Colonel.”
Louw remained impassive, saying nothing, but he felt an overwhelming desire to unburden himself, to tell her the truth, until he flashed on Bungu talking about Leon in the hotel room that morning and he kept his mouth shut.
“It was smart making it look like the taxi wars, I grant you that,” Filander said. “Problem is, things have been quiet for a while. The rival factions in Paradise Park seem to have settled their differences, so this comes out of the blue . . .”
“It’s always volatile, Madam Premier. I know from experience.”
“Ja, I’m sure you do.” Filander tapped a manicured finger on her desk top. “I see the hand of Steve Bungu in this.” She caught something in his face. “Ja, I know Steve from waaaay back. We used to be on the same team, remember, back in the struggle days? Steve was always there to do the dirty work, to do whatever it took. Bombs and guns and fuck knows what. It was all okay. It was all permissible. Jesus, it was the revolution, we were fighting a war, a just war. But Steve never stopped, did he?”
“I’ve met Bungu. He’s with the office of the president, but I can’t comment on what you’re saying.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
She swiveled in her chair, her eyes on the rows of tall buildings and the strip of deep blue ocean beyond them. When she turned back to him her face had hardened and she looked older than her years.
“I know how he got to you. Steve Bungu.”
Louw stared at her, bracing himself for what she was about to say about his son.
But she surprised him by speaking about another Leon, his son’s namesake.
“Your father’s Colonel Leon Louw, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Oubaas.” Old boss. “You know we called him that, back in the day?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you join the security police? Work with you dad?”
“It wasn’t my thing.”
“Oh? You didn’t have a taste for torture?” He said nothing. “Your father was a real bastard.”
Louw could have said, “He still is,” but he stayed silent.
“Your dad had me in his lair in Culemborg a couple of times. It wasn’t nice, I can tell you.” She toyed with a pen, lost for a few moments in the past. “But I was one of the lucky ones. Steve Bungu’s wife wasn’t.” She saw his surprise. “Oh, yes, your daddy and his boys worked on Steve and Nandi. Steve came back broken and seriously damaged. Nandi didn’t come back at all.”
“I know nothing about this.”
Filander held his eye and then she nodded. “The first honest words you’ve spoken since you stepped into this room.” She gestured toward the chair facing her. “Sit, Joe.” He hesitated. “Sit, man.” He sat. “You know Oubaas had four underlings, who worshipped him?”
Louw went back thirty, forty years, to barbecues in the backyard of his parents’ house in Durbanville, seeing those men with their blunt haircuts and their mustaches and their paunches, seeing how they hero-worshipped his father, who had them fetching him beers and timing him when he threw the steaks on the fire, shitting on them if they let him go one second longer than a minute.
A bully, his father.
Always a bully.
Filander was smiling. “Happy memories? Kodak moments?”
Louw shook his head. “No.”
“Ja, the sins of the fuckin father.”
“What do you mean? I was never like him.”
“No, I’ll give you that. You weren’t.” She rested her chin in her cupped hand. “You know what happened to those four guys?”
He shrugged. ‘Not really. Dead, I think.”
“Ja, dead. Steve made sure of that.”
“What are you saying?”
“Steve Bungu got his revenge, Joe. Took his time about it. But he got it. Killed them all. Well, all except your dad.” She smiled. “Why’s that?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know for sure. I can only guess. Maybe he wanted Oubaas to suffer more. Who knows with Steve? He’s a twisted fucker. What I can tell you is that he would’ve had his eye on you all these years. You and your family.” Louw waited, again, for his son’s name to be spoken. But it wasn’t. “I think you’re part of Steve Bungu’s project. And what he’s getting you to do isn’t just about the president’s mess, it about dark old shit from long ago and far away.” She gave him an almost friendly smile. “So, anything you want to tell me, Joe?”
“No, Madam Premier, nothing.”
“Listen, Colonel, let me give you a word of advice. Call a press conference. Say that you can’t carry on with this investigation and walk away. Go back to your beach and catch your snoek and grow old in peace. I’m still giving you that chance. But I’m warning you, if you stick around, I’ll take you down with the rest of them. This is my city, Colonel. I will not allow this shit on my turf. You understand?”
“I understand.”
“Then get the fuck out of my office.”
ELEVEN
Leon Louw, sitting behind the wheel of his Ford pickup that was parked in the scant shade of a thorn tree on a gravel road a few miles from Witsand, heated a glass meth pipe over a lighter flame until the contents bubbled like fat. He gripped the pipe in his fist and took it to his mouth, his cheeks falling hollow as he sucked, his eyes shut tight. He kept the tik in his lungs until he was seized by a coughing spasm and smoke and snot exploded from mouth and nose.
Leon bent double, forehead touching the wheel of the pickup, fighting for breath. He sat up, eyes and nose streaming, a string of drool dangling from his lip, and flailed at his face with the back of his hand.
“Jesus fuck.”
He popped the glove box and grabbed a container of wipes, dabbing at his mouth and slowing his breathing. Then he fired up the pipe again and took a few more hits, and, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the meth worked its sweet magic and he sat back, eyes closed, and felt the rush speeding up his spinal column and exploding in his brain, setting his heart hammering and making his cock hard.
It was one of those moments when of course you believed in God because you were fuckin God. You were fuckin omnipotent, you were all that was and is and would be rolled into one fuckin ball of fuck-you energy and you were living life in the fuckin way it was meant to be lived, taking what you wanted, taking all you wanted, but still wanting more—more tik, more booze, more cunt.
More.
More.
More.
It was only when he saw his iPhone lying on the seat winking at him that he realized his ears weren’t ringing. Leon was so blissed out that he wanted to ignore the call, but he read the name of the caller and stabbed a finger at the screen, lifting the instrument to his ear.
“Frans, my man.”
“Kruger’s daughter was here.”
Leon sat up straight. “Where?”
“My mother’s house.”
“Jesus.”
“Ja.”
“What she want?”
“Come to say sorry, she says.”
“Sorry?”
“Ja, sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“Sorry Tshepang is dead.”
“Why?” Leon said.
“Why what?”
“Why is she sorry?”
“Jesus, man, I don’t ask her.”
“Fuck. Where’s she now?”
“I dunno. I tell her to fok off.”
“How long ago?”
“Ten minutes, maybe.”
Leon killed the call and fired the engine of the truck, feeling a magical connection, all things falling perfectly into place.
Did he have a plan?
No.
Fuck plans.
He just needed to be here now, in the fuckin moment, and things would work out just the way they should.
He bumped back onto asphalt road and headed toward Nêrens, stabbing at his iPod, getting some Eminem pumping, Marshall telling the world he wasn’t afraid.
“Me neither, bro. Me neither,” Leon said, slapping the wheel in time to the music.
He took a quick look at himself in the rearview and liked what he saw. He’d rubbed a little gel into his short hair and had a bit of a boy band thing going. When he was ranging outside Witsand, going to the ghettoes or the places far from where Kruger and his cronies hung out, he discarded his khakis and wore the clothes he bought on the trips he made down to Cape Town every few months, supposedly to stock up on computer gear.
Today he was dressed in Diesel jeans, Vans and a Quicksilver T-shirt. He wore Moscot sunglasses with yellow lenses and had a flesh-colored Band-Aid on the webbing between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, covering the swastika. A glimpse of that old skin ink could blow his cover, and he knew it was the kind of thing that Sue Kruger would notice.
After his awkward session with the general Leon had been at his house, about to hit a pipe, when Rudi, the fucktard gatekeeper, had called him on the walkie-talkie to tell him Kruger’s daughter had been at the gate. Leon had sped down in his truck but she was gone and he’d seen no sign of her on the road into town so he’d pulled over to hit the pipe he’d been hanging for so badly.
