Killer Country (7 page)

Spitz smoked a menthol every forty-five minutes, crushed out the butt in the ashtray, took a drink from his bottle of mineral water. The mineral water in a holder over the air-con vent kept nice and cool. Tindersticks crooning their deadly anthems in his ears had  chilled his anger at the long drive. The moment would come he could reclaim on this waste of his time.

He relaxed, let the empty scrub roll by, wondering at the ruined homesteads scattered on the plains, the stone blockhouses at river crossings. Mostly the only living movement was sheep.

For an hour he watched mountains come closer: turning from blue to brown. How people lived with this vastness he couldn’t imagine? By the look of them, the few they passed walking from nowhere to nowhere, the space had shrivelled them. Small and wrinkled people, had to be Bushmen he believed. Or their remnants.

Manga drank Coke, the empty cans rolling about in the well behind his seat. He wasn’t freaked about the driving, actually enjoyed the easy speed of the G-string. A Subaru would’ve been better, more fun, but this was okay, he was happy on the road.

He called a few friends, spent maybe an hour talking till the cellphone battery beeped its death throes. He plugged the phone into a recharger, turned his attention to the shimmering land.

He’d driven this distance about five or six times, the last northwards from a heist in Cape Town. Four of them in the car hyped on adrenaline, dagga, pills, and quarts of beer. A million in the boot. Their driving all over the road. Amazing they’d not brought out every cop along the way. Amazing they even got home without an accident.

He grinned to himself, stared down the long road. Once he thought about the old man in a dressing gown waving around the big rifle. Not scared at all. Had to be admired for not being scared at all. The sort of Afrikaner, Manga’d heard tell, inhabited the dry regions. Leftover types.

He drove on for half an hour drumming a refrain against the steering wheel, something from Boom Shaka, regretting every moment he’d forgotten his player. Eventually Manga tapped Spitz on the shoulder. ‘Captain. Hey captain, we can both listen to that.’

Spitz slipped back the headphones, said, ‘What is the matter?’

‘Your music.’ Manga pointed at the iPod lying in Spitz’s lap. ‘Plug it in, we can both hear it. Some kwaito, hey!’

‘My music is not kwaito.’

Manga grinned. ‘Come’n, man, stop kidding me, get the tunes.’

‘There is nothing on here.’

Manga glanced sideways. ‘No kwaito.’

‘No kwaito.’

He shook his head. ‘Everybody listens to kwaito.’

Spitz made to wire himself again. Manga reached out and stopped his arm.

‘Hey, hey. You move too fast. So tell me what’s the music. Lemme hear it.’

Spitz stared at him. ‘This is not your scene.’

‘What’s my scene? Captain you don’t know what’s my scene. Let’s have it. Open up. Gimme some names.’

Spitz reached for his mineral water, swallowed a mouthful. ‘You have heard of M Ward?’ He got a negative from Manga. ‘Steve Earle? Woven Hand? Jesse Sykes?’

‘Niks.’

‘Like I said to you, it is another scene.’

‘It’s music. Music’s music. Spin it DJ Trigger.’

Spitz tensed, waved his finger. ‘Not that name, okay? Not that name.’

Manga took both hands off the wheel, held them up in surrender. ‘No problem.’ Gripped the wheel again, the car arrow-straight on the road.

Spitz replaced the water bottle in the holder. ‘Understand me?’

‘Hey, captain, leave it. Move on.’

Spitz let kilometres go by, then moved on. Scanned his iPod, selected David Eugene Edwards with Sixteen Horsepower, got the leads plugged into the car’s sound system, bringing up the slow guitar thrum of ‘Hutterite Mile’ and Edwards’ ancient voice. Sat back, the swamp gospel filling him. 

A minute into it, Manga held up his thumb. ‘Okay, that’s sharp, captain.’

Spitz pursed his lips. Gave a quick nod.

Manga kept to it for two tracks. At the end of ‘Outlaw Song’ said, ‘Uh uh. Not my scene. Something else, captain.’ He made a fist, pumped his arm. ‘More vooma.’

‘I have no music with vooma,’ said Spitz. ‘I have badlands songs. Motel blues. Lamentations.’

He tried Johnny Cash singing about a guy getting hot for a thirteen year old. Next Jim Kalin’s tale of a girl caught on a high mountain. Her screams under the driving chords and banjo pluck.

Manga pulled the plug. ‘Stick with it, captain,’ he said. ‘I’m notthere. I’m nowhere in that country.’

Spitz smiled. He pointed at the landscape. ‘What country do you think this is?’

‘For Boers,’ said Manga. He ran his tongue over his teeth, let a couple of kays run past before he tried a new line. ‘Tonight, we get some chicks?’ giving Spitz a sideways glance, seeing the man’s unmoving profile. ‘In the township I know a place, they have virgin specials. Little girls. Tight.’

‘No,’ said Spitz.

‘No! Captain, your mama’s so far away she doesn’t exist.’

‘I have no girlfriend.’

‘So what’s it, man? You don’t like girls?’

‘I like women.’

‘No problem. We get you a woman.’

‘Tonight a movie would be better.’

‘Hey, captain, captain. On the town. Okay, porno. Porno’s good.’

‘No, a movie. In a cinema. Big screen, Sensurround.’

‘Huh!’

‘In my collection I have three hundred DVDs.’ 

Manga shook his head. ‘Three hundred! What for? You’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it.’

‘Some movies I have seen ten times.’

Manga whistled.

‘Thelma and Louise, I have watched fifteen times.’

‘Why?’

‘To see them die. In the end they die like heroes.’ He raised his right hand, floating it on an upward trajectory.

‘Captain,’ said Manga. ‘You’re crazy moegoe.’

Two hours later, coming off the Karoo plateau into the vinelands of the Hex River Valley, Manga’s phone rang, the CLI reading: Sheemina February. He connected.

She said, ‘Everything going smoothly?’

‘Except we don’t know what everything is.’ He lodged the cellphone between chin and shoulder, needing both hands on the wheel for the curves down the pass. ‘Unless you tell us.’

‘I’m about to, Manga. Here are the wishes of Mr Obed Chocho.’

‘I’m listening,’ said Manga.

‘First, where are you?’

He told her.

‘Excellent. You’ve been driving hard.’ A tone in there that bristled Manga: a patronising bitch. She said, ‘That’s going to take you, what, another hour and a half?’

‘I expect,’ said Manga.

‘Good timing then. There’re rooms for you in the City Lodge, the one off the N2. You know the city?’

‘Enough.’

‘Not far from the Lodge’s a steakhouse. Have a shower, have a steak, relax. The job’s tonight at nine o’clock. Not earlier, not later. You with me, Manga?

‘Sure,’ he said, wondering who this bitch was Obed Chocho’d hired for his dirty work.

‘I’ll sms the address. It’s on a golf estate near Pollsmoor Prison. You probably know it, the prison.’

Manga let it go, not rising to the sarcasm.

Sheemina February pausing slightly then going on. ‘There’s two entrances, security at both. Electrified fence all round. The man you have to see is called Popo Dlamini. Tell Spitz no cock-ups.’ She disconnected.

Manga told Spitz the gist of it, including the bit about no cock-ups.

‘She said those words?’

‘Exactly.’

Spitz let it go without comment. ‘And that was her message? You know this Popo? You can recognise him?’

‘Nah, captain, never heard of him.’

Spitz broke a new pack of menthols. ‘So what am I supposed to do? Ask the brother for his ID first?’

‘Non,’ said Oumou. ‘This is not a good idea. Borrowing money.’

Mace, spruced from a swimming session at the gym, overnight bag packed for Berlin, selected a wine bottle from the rack, about to stick in the cork screw. ‘This’s a screw top!’

‘Oui.’ Oumou set out ciabatta and a dish of caprese on the table, the basil still pungent in the kitchen.

‘Supposed to be a cork.’

‘This is what the man gave me.’ She cut thick slices of bread. ‘I ask him for a good wine, this is his choice.’

Mace looked at the label. Diemersfontein pinotage. In a screw top? One minute it has to be a cork so the wine can breathe. Lying on its side in a cool place. Next it’s in a screw top like cheap wine, standing upright.

‘At Woolies?’

‘Oui. Of course.’

‘The man actually recommended it?’

Oumou put down the breadknife. ‘Non. He says if I want a bad wine, this is good. Tastes terrible of chocolate and coffee. The man hates it. He says they sell so much because everybody is a fool. No one can tell what is rubbish if he says it is nice.’

Mace said, ‘I just asked.’ He cracked the seal and unscrewed the cap. Sniffed the nose, couldn’t smell coffee or chocolate. He poured the wine thick and dark into their glasses. ‘Nice colour.’

‘The man said if you tip the glass it is like bull’s blood.’

‘Bloody wonderful.’

‘I am telling you his words.’

Mace took a swig, held it in his mouth as someone had told him you had to. He swallowed. ‘Guy’s right. First time I’ve ever tasted what somebody’s said. You listen to the experts they go on about pencil shavings, a hint of farmyard, you have no idea what that is when you drink it. This Woolies man I understand. I can taste coffee. Chocolate even.’ Mace refilled his glass. ‘What d’you think?’

Oumou sipped. ‘Yes, there is chocolate.’ She sat and spooned caprese onto her plate, tilting the dish to fill the spoon with dressing, drizzling this over her portion. ‘Come. You must eat before you go.’

‘We could sit outside,’ said Mace.

‘The girls are at the pool. Leave them to talk.’

‘They’re both going to this party tonight? Christa and Pumla?’

‘Of course.’

‘Treasure’s okay about that?’

Oumou forked mozzarella and basil onto her bread. ‘Oui. Bien sûr. Treasure is okay about that.’

‘Know what?’ Mace said, taking down another mouthful of wine that tasted more like the toasting of the coffee beans than coffee now that he thought about it, ‘I still love your accent.’ 

Oumou flushed, not in her cheeks, on her neck, the colour deepening to a rich brown. Brought to Mace’s mind the colour of her nipples.

‘Non,’ she said. ‘You cannot slip over this one with your words. I am serious, no? Before we have borrowed from Pylon that was okay. It was desperate. Now we are not desperate. We have money from the bank, we do not need to take money from Pylon.’

‘That’s the thing. We’re not taking any.’

‘You said it is five hundred thousand.’

‘It is. But he’s not giving it to us. Not as money. It’s shares. Shares in the scheme. That’s their value only we don’t have to pay for them now. When the development’s finished, they divide the profit, we get our share and give Pylon a hundred grand. Doesn’t cost us anything, technically.’ Mace forked up salad. ‘Closest to a free lunch you can get. Pylon thinks for that investment we might earn maybe a million.’

‘With his money.’

‘Sure it is. He’s doing us a favour.’

‘But if there are problems, the money could be lost.’

‘Problems. What sort of problems?’

‘Any kind. It is a risk, no? It is like gambling.’

‘Not really. Not with land. With land you can’t lose. The price always goes up.’ Mace tore a slice of bread and dipped a piece in the caprese, soaking up vinaigrette. ‘They’re angling to buy this stretch of land up the west coast.’ He chewed at the bread. ‘To build a golf estate on it.’ He swallowed and chased the mouthful with wine.

‘Who is this?’

‘A consortium. A group of people Pylon knows. Plus a friend of ours in Berlin, the man I’m going to collect, Rudi Klett, he’s the main backer. He’s the real money behind the scheme. Most of the land’s in what they call a letter of purpose. An agreement to sell at a certain price. When they’ve got everyone’s okay then they  buy. Right now just one owner’s holding out for a higher price. Or wants to be in it. Or something, I don’t know. It’s Pylon’s thing. I don’t always listen when he’s talking about this deal. Anyhow, this afternoon Pylon’s going to make another offer, see what they say.’

Mace filled his glass, held the bottle poised above Oumou’s. ‘Some more?’ She shook her head.

‘It would be better if we didn’t take Pylon’s money.’

‘Sure. But where do we get five hundred grand?’

‘From the bank.’

‘Even if they gave it, it’d cost too much. This way it doesn’t cost us anything.’

She reached across the table and put her hand on his. ‘It’s not five hundred thousand, no. It’s a million, that is what Pylon is giving.’

Mace thought about this. ‘If you look at it that way I suppose you’re right.’

‘Even from a good friend you cannot take so much money.’ She released his hand.

Mace looked at her, holding her eyes. ‘We need something like this. Some security. Something we can invest.’

‘We have the house.’

‘Twenty per cent of the house. The rest belongs to the bank.’

‘But one day not.’

The thing about her eyes, Mace felt, was looking into them, looking deeply into them, was like falling into the past. Then they weren’t Oumou’s eyes, they were the eyes of all the women who’d lived in the desert for thousands of years. All her forebears staring back at him. Brown pools of sadness. Eyes that Christa had too.

‘Why don’t we think about it? Till Monday when I’m back?’

Oumou pushed the dish with the last of the caprese towards him, indicated for him to finish it. ‘Maybe if I talk to Treasure.’

Mace couldn’t see Treasure buying this arrangement. Not with one in the oven and an orphan to go. He soaked up the remains of the sauce, wiping the bread round the dish. ‘Before you do that, think about it. We’ll talk more next week. When Rudi’s here.’ Mace finished his wine in a swallow. ‘I’ve got to rush. Back Monday night for supper.’

They embraced, then he went out to say goodbye to the girls, Oumou watching him from the sliding door. Christa leapt up to hug her father like he was going for good. She heard Mace say, ‘No drugs, okay?’

And Christa say, ‘Ah, Dad, we don’t do that.’ And Pumla echoing her.

Oumou thought, sometimes Mace got too edgy over Christa. Overprotective. Because he believed he’d failed her once and couldn’t live with that. Even now she was walking again, he couldn’t let it go. Smsing her after school to know where she was. And Christa was good about it, understanding, maybe even pleased he did it, but Oumou worried that one day the attention might be too much. Push her away from him.

She smiled at Mace approaching her. Held out her hand to take his.

‘Those girls,’ he said, ‘they frighten me. Well, not them but the world we live in.’