Payback - A Cape Town thriller (8 page)

‘Your sense?’

‘My plan’d be no announcement, bouncers hustle them from the front, I do the back we can get rid of half before the stampede comes. When it comes maybe it’s containable. Reckon fifteen minutes the situation’s averted.’

‘Get Matthew out first,’ Mace said, ‘into the back alley.’

They disconnected. To Dr Roberto he said, ‘Chances are there’s a bomb in there.’ He got thoughtful. ‘We’re planning to empty the place. Watch the guys in the Toyota. The moment they leave, tell me.’

Raised voices at the entrance to the club, people stumbling into the street, hurled out. Angry, confused, milling. Someone yelled, ‘Bomb!’ Someone started screaming. The djs kept up a different caterwaul. The screen showed the dancers but not what was unravelling at the edges.

Mace’s thoughts were on the trigger device: timer or cellphone? To date, from what he’d read in the papers, they’d been timers. Didn’t mean this would be the same. If this was a situation.

In the business of protection, Mace knew sometimes you had to show not only the gun but the intention to shoot.

Before he could move off he said to Dr Roberto, ‘Forget the Toyota, I’ll sort it.’

The thing with muscle boys, they did not lock their car doors. Their physical size gave them immunity, or so they thought.

Mace looped unnoticed wide of the crowd, came up behind the twosome cosy in the front seats watching the commotion. The screen now showing the efforts of Pylon and the bouncers clearing the decks. The back door popped open at his grip, he slid in jamming the nine mil against the white guy’s shaven head.

‘Boys,’ he said, ‘don’t even consider that I won’t. Hands on the wheel, driver. Howzit, Mikey.’

They didn’t look round. The coloured guy had the driver’s seat, clutched the steering wheel with meaty paws, a row of gold rings visible.

‘Good fellas.’ Mace shifted more comfortably onto the seat. ‘Who’s your friend, Mikey?’

‘Get stuffed,’ said Mikey.

Mace tutted. Racked the slide on the automatic.

‘Val,’ said the coloured guy. ‘I’m Val.’

‘Now, Mikey and Val, here’s the question: do we have a bomb inside there?’

Mikey said, ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

Val said, ‘What difference it’s gonna make?’

Mace came back, ‘Yes I would, and good question.’ For the hell of it, whacked Mikey’s head, the gun sight drawing blood. Mikey howled, tried to grab backwards. Mace caught his arm, yanked down. He yodelled. Pain shot through Mace’s wound. Val was poised to make a break. ‘Don’t,’ Mace shouted, smacked the bald head again. It bled so easily. Calm returned.

‘Once more: is there a bomb?’

‘Fuck you,’ they said in unison.

Mace brought the gun down. Asked generally, ‘Either of you ever been shot before?’

In response got, ‘Go fuck yourself.’

‘Piss off.’

He shot Mikey through the seat through the shoulder. The exit sprayed a red mist on the windscreen, the bullet bored into the dash. Mikey screamed. Val kept his hands fastened where Mace could see them. Outside no one heard above the howling dervish.

‘You wanna know,’ said Val, ‘I’ll tell you. There’s a bomb.’

‘Timer or cellphone?’

‘Timer.’

‘For when?’

He turned his head to give Mace his profile, to show his smirk. ‘Any time now,’ he said.

The building blew before Mace had run ten paces, before he’d got Pylon on the phone.

In the first milliseconds a shock wave popped a blackened, laminated plate glass window, taking down people standing beside it on the pavement. Similarly flattened those arguing with the bouncers at the entrance.

Then came the sound, the blast, something that put Mace’s pulse rate up every time, no matter how many times he’d heard it. Followed by the fall of debris, followed by a moment’s silence, followed by screaming. Followed by small fires where combustible material had caught alight. Followed by the acrid smell of the explosive chemical and the whiff of burning.

In the immediate panic Mace connected with Pylon; he saw Dr Roberto rush into the building; he heard the Toyota screech away; a woman walked towards him with her face melted, her hair on fire. Later he would remember carrying people out of the dust and smoke. He would remember leaving someone to die to help someone who wouldn’t. He would remember hearing the distant sirens getting closer. There was blood, there was bone, there were body parts, raw flesh. Some faces were rigid with shock, some cried, some would not stop screaming.

Eventually there was a second explosion.

Afterwards, hours afterwards, in Assurance Street, Mace stood with Pylon, Matthew and Ducky Donald who’d reappeared. He and Pylon were wrecked, fire-blackened, cut, bruised, blood-splattered. Neither Hartnell had extended himself.

Firemen trained a hose on the smoking building. The
ambulances
were gone, the paramedics putting the last bandages on the lucky. Those who needed to thank Dr Roberto wouldn’t think to look for him as a car-guard.

Either end of the street, cop cars still closed off entry, emergency lights flashing. The road was cleared of vehicles, except two near the club’s entrance smashed with rubble. Club Catastrophe had no roof, was gutted. Crime tape cordoned off the scene.

The first blast left four dead: a man, three women. Five criticals. Forty, fifty needed treatment. The second brought the first floor down, set the place on fire. Just so happened the paras had got everyone out by then. Mace suspected probably a cellphone trigger on the second but he kept that quiet. Suspected, too, someone in the vicinity chose the moment.

Ducky Donald said, ‘I was wrong then.’

‘Seems like it,’ Mace said. Noticing the prick was out of his whites into a grubby tracksuit, his dolly-bird nowhere to be seen. ‘Where were you?’

‘Gone home,’ Ducky said. ‘This is Mattie’s thing. Doesn’t want the old fart around.’

‘You didn’t say goodbye,’ said Pylon.

Ducky Donald lit a cigarette from the butt of the one he was finishing. ‘Didn’t know you cared.’

‘Should have listened to us,’ Mace said. ‘There wouldn’t be kids dead now.’

‘Protection’s what I wanted,’ said Ducky, ‘not advice. I want advice I’ve got a lawyer.’

Mace and Pylon let that drift. At what had been the club entrance, Captain Gonsalves appeared with the fire chief, both in oil skins, the captain clutching a black bin-liner.

Pylon said, ‘Insurers won’t be happy.’

‘That’s their problem,’ said Ducky. ‘We’ll start the remake soon as the cops are finished their business.’

‘Taking out the blown-off bits, you mean.’

Matthew jerked round at Mace, said, ‘Christ!’ without a stutter; Ducky Donald let out a ring of smoke. ‘Not nice, Mace. Uncalled for. Even for a mean shit like you.’

It brought Mace into his face. ‘Four dead. Some others maybe soon to be. Some legless. Armless. Kids we’re talking.
Twenty-somethings
. People who’re going to wake screaming in the night reliving it. Afraid to walk in the street. Scared to drink coffee at a pavement café. Maybe lose their jobs, spend their days in pain. Because you and Mattie boy have a point to make with PAGAD. You think they care? They don’t care. In their heads you’re the ones flicked on the timer.’

Pylon pulled his partner away, Ducky Donald shouting, ‘What about your body count, you righteous saint? Not just here. All over the bloody continent. How about a figure on that? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of more like it. You shitheap.’

Gonsalves came up. ‘Mr Bishop,’ he said, ‘I owe an apology.’ He handed the black bag to the fire chief, spat a gob of yellow muck on the pavement. ‘How about a cigarette?’ he said to Matthew. Matthew knocked the bottom of his pack, extended it. ‘Obliged.’ Gonsalves selected one delicately, started stripping off the paper, balling the tobacco in the palm of his hand.

A squat man made squatter by the oilskins, grey moustache that needed trimming, wild, random eyebrows.

‘I’ve given up,’ he said, flicking the cigarette paper into the gutter. ‘Used to smoke fifty a day. Now I just chew them.’ He glanced from Matthew to Ducky Donald. ‘Would these be the owners?’

Mace nodded.

‘Nasty situation here,’ he said, ‘two bombs like that. New scene for PAGAD.’ He popped a pellet of tobacco into his mouth, gave it a quick hard chew. ‘Splendid.’ Then greeted the Hartnells. ‘Seems they don’t like you much, PAGAD. Makes it easy for your claims though.’

‘Sure,’ said Ducky Donald.

‘Structural damage’s severe.’

‘We’re covered, captain,’ said Ducky Donald.

‘Didn’t think you wouldn’t be. Everyone is these days.’

‘Sign of the times.’

Gonsalves chewed on that. ‘Truly. Not among my favourite people, insurers, though.’ He took a step closer to Ducky Donald. ‘What I’ve been looking forward to is retiring. Now they tell me on my pension payout, I’m not gonna doze in a sunny spot, walk the dog, settle the evening in with a single malt. Not even a blend. They tell me prepare for nightwatch work. I’ve got maybe nine years left before I’m sitting in the marble foyers. Not a cheerful prospect, hearing the lifts go up and down all night.’

Ducky Donald took a step back from the captain’s bad breath.

‘Nother thing.’ Gonsalves leant forward. ‘Two months ago this broker comes to see me. He says he’s got a product for a person in my situation. A product, hey. Not a policy anymore. A product. Like hair shampoo. Long story short, he wants a medical. I do a medical. The assessors say I smoke too much. I’m AA so there’s been no alcohol over my lips in twenty-one years. Which they like a lot. Keep it up, captain, they say. But the smoking’s too much. If you want this product, you’ve got to stop smoking. I stop smoking.
Wonderful
, captain, keep it up, captain, they say. My broker says, here’s your product. What he means is here’s the bill. Monthly instalments at a cost of half my take-home pay. You’re joking, I say to him. How’m I supposed to manage this. I’ve got to eat. My wife’s got to eat. I can’t afford this. It’s because of your age, he says, that’s why it’s so high. I say to him there has to be another way. Another kind of product. He says to me there’s no other kind. He says my only chance of staying out of the marble foyers is to pay the instalments. So I start paying the instalments. But it’s hard Mr Hartnell. I’ve got no thoughts that are not thoughts about that premium. You with me here?’

Ducky Donald gave no sign he was but lit up a smoke right in the captain’s face.

Captain Gonsalves said, ‘Let me show you something’ - got the bag from the fire chief. ‘Take a look what we got here.’ He held it open. Matthew stirred to take a peek too.

‘Ah shit.’ Ducky Donald staggered back. ‘Ah Jesus Christ.’

Matthew said, ‘Ca-ca-ca…’

‘Probably a young lady,’ said Gonsalves. ‘A forearm that slender. Also the watch’s a clue. Man’s gonna have something much chunkier. Still gotta locate her hand I reckon.’ He closed the bin-liner, handed it back to the fire chief. ‘Probably she didn’t have life cover. Who does that young?’

Captain Gonsalves nodded at each one of them, said to Matthew, ‘How about tomorrow’ - checked his watch - ‘how about later this morning, say, ten, you rock up ‘n tell me about PAGAD?’

‘We’ll be there,’ said Ducky Donald.

Gonsalves shifted the tobacco ball about his mouth. ‘Which’ve you runs the club?’

Ducky Donald pointed at Matthew. ‘He does.’

‘Then you get to talk to the insurers, Mr Hartnell. Or sleep late. It’s your life. Man I wanna see is the young gent here.’

The captain walked away; Ducky Donald kept his trap shut until the cop was well off.

‘What’s his case? What the hell was all that about?’

‘Smoke screens,’ said Pylon.

‘Ca-ca-ca-Christ!’ said Matthew.

 ‘What was his case?’ Pylon said. ‘The good Captain Gonsalves?’

‘Not a clue.’

Mace put two coffees on the glass-topped table, clearing space among the stacks of safari brochures and large-format photographic books of wild Africa. His pistol was also there with a box of cleaning equipment. Pylon lay stretched out on one of two leather couches: kudu skin, his fingers tracing the tears and scars of the animal’s life in the thornveld.

Mace said, ‘Just like the old days.’

Pylon looked over. ‘I don’t get off on the blood and guts anymore.’

‘You think I do?’

‘Don’t you?’

Mace thought about it. ‘Doesn’t bother me.’

‘That’s my point. Not only the shit going down, but the rev. It scares me. And I think back to the violence we stoked, and I think that was our life and it didn’t freak us.’

‘So?’

‘So maybe we should be seeing shrinks.’

‘Nah. What for? We saw worse than tonight, it wasn’t a problem.’

‘No.’ Pylon swung his legs onto the floor. ‘Look at you Mace. Look at us. We don’t feel stuff. We got something missing from us.’

‘You think so?’

‘I do. I look at you and I think so. I get scared sometimes you’re so cool. Scared for both of us.’

Mace sat down opposite Pylon on the other couch, started taking the gun apart.

‘Maybe you’re right. Except you look at what’s out there and how’re we supposed to do it otherwise? Protect people. You get a type like Ducky Donald sets his own bombs.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Think about it. The second bomb was a Ducky Donald special.’

Mace sipped his coffee, reckoned French roast never tasted so good.

Pylon leant back incredulous. ‘You’re telling me Ducky Donald triggered number two from a cellphone.’ He stared at the dark liquid in his cup. ‘The forensics will pick it up.’

‘Assuming the forensics get that far. So many bombs going off those guys haven’t got the capacity.’

Pylon swallowed a scalding mouthful, wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘Or Ducky’s in with PAGAD.’

‘There’ve been stranger partnerships.’ Mace sniffed at the gun: the sweet smell of cordite in the barrel. There was a memory there from not so many years ago. Nothing troubling. He scratched for a lint rope in the box, drew it through the barrel.

Pylon watched every move he made. ‘Very domestic, isn’t this?’

‘Had to use it earlier,’ Mace said. ‘Shot one of the sidekicks in the shoulder.’

Pylon got animated. ‘That’s what I was talking about. Earlier. You shoot a guy it’s like no big deal.’

‘It wasn’t.’

‘Exactly why you need a shrink.’

‘No ways. What for?’

‘Save me Jesus.’ Pylon rolled his eyes, took more coffee.

Mace said, ‘I’d bet on Ducky working alone. Must’ve made a look-a-like. Probably got all the specs over a few beers with one of his cop mates. Only bit of different technology was the
cellphone
. The forensics ever examine it, they’ll scheme PAGAD’s getting clever.’

Outside in Dunkley Square a car engine revved, tyres squealed. Two gear changes then the shriek of brakes. Again the tyre squeal before the night went quiet. Mace and Pylon glanced at one another, raised eyebrows.

Their office was on the square, in the Victorian terrace row given to small legal practices, architectural partnerships, graphic designers, and Complete Security’s discreet operation. They liked the sense of professionals going about their business. Across the way, Maria’s restaurant did good Greek meals; the coffee shops good coffee. Their clients liked it. They’d take them into the Company’s Gardens for the noonday gun: watch the pigeons fly up at the boom. The clients were impressed. They’d gaze at the art gallery, the synagogue, the copper dome of the observatory, the mountain behind, and sigh. ‘Oh Mr Bishop this has been life transforming. What a romantic city.’ They’d had fat sucked from their thighs, wrinkles ironed from their faces, their boobs elevated, both males and females. They’d lounged at swimming pools watching lions at waterholes. For what Complete Security did, Dunkley Square was the best location in the city.

Pylon stood up. ‘The guy you shot would need a hospital?’

‘Sure. Someone to plug the hole.’

‘Who’s legally required to report all gunshot wounds.’

‘In a perfect world.’ Mace reassembled the parts. ‘Most likely if a report’s filled in at all it’ll be attempted hijacking. Happens all the time.’

He jacked the clip into the butt, put the gun on the table. He’d shot three people with that gun. One was fatal. It had to be.

Pylon finished his coffee, went through to fix another one. From the kitchen he called out, ‘Want to tell me about Isabella?’

‘Nothing to tell,’ Mace said. ‘I haven’t seen her.’

Not since Paris 1991. The Hotel Meurice. Where the Nazis had put up for their stay in the city. Mace running a double agenda, part of it a payback few days for Isabella, wining and dining her in the gilded restaurant. The two of them rampant in the bedroom suite. Isabella saying, luxury hotels were built for sex. Testing the theory sprawled on her stomach on the sheets in the late afternoon when room service wheeled in a trolley with ice bucket, Moët, and two crystal flutes. The waiter not blinking at the sight of Isabella naked. Going about his job of opening the champagne with a flourish, pouring half-glasses that rose in bubbly heads.

‘À votre santé, madame, monsieur.’

‘See what I mean?’ said Isabella, as the door clicked closed. ‘French style. Unfazed.’

‘To good times,’ said Mace, the crystal ringing at their toast. An amazing few days, even if they were the last time he’d been with her.

‘I haven’t seen her,’ Mace said again to Pylon.

Pylon looked dubious. ‘So tell me anyhow.’

Mace swallowed coffee, said, ‘I have prostate cancer.’

Pylon said nothing, cooked up the pot, brought it through to offer him more.

‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘It’s not a death sentence.’ Mace held out his mug; Pylon filled it. ‘Just didn’t expect it at forty-two.’

‘You’re having treatment?’

‘Of course.’

‘And the prognosis is?’

‘It was discovered early. There’re no complications, no need for operations, I’ll be a survivor by Christmas.’

‘Bru,’ he said. ‘Bru, bru, bru.’

‘It’s okay,’ Mace said, ‘my head’s getting round it. Funny thing is Ducky Donald’s been a great help. Gave me something else to think about.’

‘And the knocked elbow that bleeds more like a knife cut?’

‘A mugging. Street kids in the Point car park.’

A beat, then Pylon laughed. His infectious, deep belly laugh. Mace had to join him.

Oumou was awake when Mace got home. Sitting up in bed,
pensive
, expectant. Four-thirty, according to the radio clock on the pedestal. He’d phoned her about the bombs, the bloody mess and the death toll. Her eyes said everything he needed.

Mace bent over to kiss her. Their lips met and hers stuck hard. He gave back the pressure, felt her tongue slipping between his teeth as her arm came around to pull him to her and he went despite the pain shooting in the stab wound. But Oumou caught his flinch, broke the kiss.

‘You are hurting?’

‘A scrape.’ His lips found hers again. Again she pulled back.

‘Let me see.’

‘It’s nothing,’ he said, sliding against her.

‘That is not nothing,’ she said. ‘Oh Mace.’

The concern in her voice was balm. ‘Say it again,’ he said, burrowing in her long beautiful neck.

‘No. Stop.’ And she was out of bed, bending over to examine his arm, her breasts ripe fruit. ‘You need a doctor.’

He pulled her naked body down, sliding beneath her.

‘Non. Non.’ She swore in French. ‘Let me go.’ Again she was up, and heading for the bathroom. ‘First we must clean that wound.’

‘Tomorrow,’ he said, undressing, intent on what they’d started. His arm throbbed just to undo the belt buckle. When Oumou came back, he was naked, she was swaddled in a white towel. Stunning against her ebony skin.

Gently she unwrapped the bandage, blood had leaked through and dried, the wound was weeping, the gauze embedded in the rawness.

‘Merde,’ she whispered. ‘What is this?’

He told her. While she cleaned his arm with antiseptic solution and rebound it with bandages they’d last used in the desert, he told her how streetkids had taken him blind.

‘Me!’ he said. ‘Of all people.’

‘Oui. Now tell me about the other thing. The thing that is troubling you.’

Mace looked at her. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘Is it Isabella?’

He shook his head, no, and explained about his prostate tumour.

‘You should have told me straight away,’ she said, hurt welling in her eyes.

‘I couldn’t.’ He caught at her hand, pulled her down beside him on the bed. ‘This shouldn’t have happened to me.’