Strong Medicine (19 page)
Authors: Angela Meadon
My eyes registered the trees and the people and the dirt going past, but my mind was firmly fixed on Lindsey. I had more information about Makulu than I’d started the day with, but not by much. He was not going to be an easy man to find, and Lindsey was running out of time.
Makulu was a
muti
dealer. I knew that for sure now. Not the bushes and berries kind of
muti
that everyone wants you to think is the only kind. He dealt in the other kind. Human parts. My skin crawled and I shivered.
Had he started taking from Lindsey yet? I gagged at the thought. No, I had to believe he hadn’t. That she was still my perfect little girl.
A memory bubbled to the surface of my thoughts. Something I’d seen on an email five or six years ago. A little girl’s head on a plate. Her brown braids hanging into the blood that pooled around her severed neck. Pale brown sand beneath the bowl. Dark walls of the inside of a thatch hut behind. There had been other photos too, but I’d deleted the email after the first.
I knew these kinds of things happened. My mother had always warned me about taking sweeties from strangers who would kidnap me and chop me up for
muti
. But it was never supposed to actually happen to me. To my daughter. I pulled the car over to the side of the street without indicating. A man in a red Golf hooted at me as he roared past.
“Fuck you too, asshole!” I showed him my middle finger and glared at the back of his car until he was out of sight.
I closed my eyes and pressed my head back against the rigid plastic head rest. I needed a minute to catch my breath and clear my head.
Was Lindsey still alive? The ancestors had told me so, but I’d never put much weight in spiritual stuff before.
The dreams had been so real though. My chest tightened at the memory of shaking beads and swirling smoke. This wasn’t my history, or my tradition. But
sangoma’s
had been speaking to their ancestors for centuries. Surely there must be something to it. Not everything you know can be measured.
Yes, Lindsey was still alive and the sooner I found her, the less broken she would be.
Something tapped against the window next to my ear. The car swayed gently under the weight of it. I forced my eyes open and rolled my head over to see a policeman standing next to my car.
I smiled at him as I mumbled under my breath. “Fucking cops, always show up when you don’t need them.”
He mimed rolling down the window, so I grabbed the winder and cranked the window open. A frigid blast of wind cut through the opening.
“Hi, officer. I just needed to clear my head. Everything’s okay.”
“Are you Erin du Toit?” the cop asked. His dark eyes were cold, his face fixed in a scowl that emphasized his round cheeks.
“I wasn’t parking…” My response died on my lips as his words sunk in. How did he know who I was? And why was he looking for me? Had the cops found Lindsey? “I am. Have you found my daughter?”
“Get out of the car, keep calm.”
I was anything but calm. Why was he asking me to get out of my car? “Is something wrong? Have you found Lindsey?”
He reached one hand down to his hip, the fingers curling absent-mindedly around the grip of the pistol in its holster. The quiet
snick
of the press-stud opening loud enough to make me flinch.
“Okay, okay.” I put my hands up, reached slowly to the door handle and clicked it open. “I’m getting out.”
Fucking cops, always with the attitude, always trying to intimidate you. The last thing I needed now was to die on the side of the road in Alex. What chance would Lindsey have then?
“Could you at least tell me what this is about?” I asked.
“You’re under arrest for harassment and assault.” The cop put one hand on my shoulder, spun me around and mashed my wrists together. Before I could respond, I felt the harsh ratcheting of handcuffs snapping tight against the bones in my wrist.
He yanked on my arms, shoving me towards the orange-and-white van he’d parked behind my car. A bank of blue lights flashed on the roof of the driver’s cabin.
“What did I do?” Was this about Thabo? Fucking Nyala had me arrested.
I tried to crane my head around to see his face, but he yanked my arms viciously and shoved me up against the side of the van. I coughed as the impact forced the air out of my lungs and my head knocked against the fiberglass canopy.
“Jesus, why are you being so rough?” I asked. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Everyone is innocent when I put them in the back of the van,” he breathed into my ear as he spoke, “but they get in anyway.”
He lifted me and shoved me in through the open door on the back of the van. It smelled like vomit and piss.
“What the fuck?” I shouted at him as he slapped the lock shut on the outside of the van. He laughed, a deep rolling laugh that made his round face wobble. It would have been a pleasant laugh under different circumstances. He was still laughing as he walked to the front of the van, climbed in and started the engine.
“Hey! What about my car?”
He ignored me and I watched my Uno disappear in the swell of traffic as we drove off.
“Fucking fingerprint paint,” my cellmate squalled at me. Thinning hair stuck out from her scalp at crazy angles, rough as straw from umpteen visits to the basin with a bottle of peroxide. One of her front teeth was missing, a fact she didn’t seem to notice as she smiled at me and hitched her tank top over the leathery skin of her shoulder. “Takes ages to wash off.”
“Huh, it’s my first time.”
The woman laughed, exposing more raw gums in a half-dozen empty spaces between her teeth. “You’ll have plenty of time to get comfortable. Magistrate’s court is closed until Monday. We’ll be stuck in here all weekend.”
I couldn’t spend two days in jail. Not when Lindsey was out there somewhere, desperate for me to find her. I stood up and paced the length of the cell. It only took four steps to go from the door to the back wall. I turned and paced back.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” I asked.
The woman laughed again, more of a cackle this time. The noise rose to a high-pitched choke before she spluttered and coughed a wad of brown phlegm onto the bare concrete floor.
“If you’re loaded, you can pay someone to get you out.” The woman shrugged and replaced the strap of her tank top. It slid down over the wrinkled skin almost immediately.
“Why you in here then?” she asked as she wiped a string of spit and mucus from her chin with the back of her hand.
“I…I’m not really sure.” I didn’t want to tell her that I’d been arrested for assault. I hadn’t really done anything too bad. Guys got hit in the balls all the time, right?
“Good.” She winked at me. “Make sure everyone thinks you’re innocent and you’ll have a better chance with the magistrate. Deny everything.”
“That doesn’t work for you though, does it Justine?”
My head snapped up when I heard the familiar voice. It was Detective Brits in all his unkempt glory. Jeans that were a few sizes too tight and a jacket with patches over the elbows which he’d probably sewn on himself.
“Adriaan.” Justine smiled her gap-toothed grin at him. “My favorite detective. Got a smoke?”
He took a crumpled pack of Camels out of his pocket and tossed a cigarette to her. “Don’t tell anyone where you got that.”
“I wouldn’t dream of ratting you out, Adriaan.”
“Good, now I need to speak to your cell mate here.”
She smiled and walked over to the furthest corner from the sliding cell door.
“What do you want?” Brits might look all conciliatory now, but he’d spent two weeks fucking with me. No way was he legit.
“You’ve gotten yourself into some serious shit here.” Brits tapped a smoke out of the pack and pressed it between his pale lips. “All because you couldn’t back off.”
“Fuck you, they’ve got my daughter.” I stood and walked over to the bars. “I will not back off.”
“Look, I know what you’re going through here.” Brits lit the cigarette with a bright pink lighter.
“How could you know?”
“They took my son.” Muscles bulged on his jaw.
I felt my mouth drop open, bitter cigarette smoke curled over my tongue. “But… then how come?”
“We’ve told you before Erin, these guys are powerful.”
I looked closely at his face for the first time. Dark circles hung under his eyes, creases in his brow, stubble on his jaw. I’d mistaken it for laziness, but it was rage and helplessness that painted his face in heavy strokes.
“But you’re a cop. There must be something you can do?”
“Huh.” A single, humorless laugh. “I’ve spent the last sixteen years trying. The bastard is still out there.”
“You know who it is?” I asked.
Brits leaned in close to the bars and spoke in a whisper so soft I could hardly hear him. “His name is Bongani Zulu. Makulu. The big boss.”
“Why don’t you take him out?”
“He’s got half the police force scared.” Brits tapped a pillar of ash onto the floor, sucked deeply on the cigarette. The cherry glowed bright red for a long moment. “You don’t understand how superstitious these people are. They believe he can curse them. They won’t act against him.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I know.” He locked gazes with me. His pupils were wide, too wide. “But I don’t think you should suffer for this. More than you already have. If you promise me that you won’t keep trying to find him, I can get you out of here. But you have to promise.”
Bongani Zulu. Bongani Zulu. Bongani Zulu.
“I promise.” The words were sour as they slithered over my tongue and between my lips. Two tiny words that stood for defeat. I’d sworn I’d never give up looking for Lindsey, but there was nothing I could do from inside a jail cell.
“Okay.” Brits watched me for a moment, his eyes searching mine. “Your file has just been lost. You’re free to go. Your car’s in the lot out back. Keep out of the shit. You too, Justine.”
My cellmate perked up, a broad smile splitting the withered flesh around her mouth. “You’re my favorite cop. Did I ever tell you that?”
“Every time you’re in here,” Brits said. He unlocked the cell, slid the heavy door out of the way and stood back. I took the car keys he held out as I passed.
“I don’t want to see you back here.” Brits said. The words were meant for both of us. We’d both disappoint him sooner or later.
#
“You need a ride?” I asked Justine.
“Nah, I stay close. Thanks though.” Justine raised one hand over her head and walked into the night, her legs wobbling under the weight of her alcohol-soaked body.
I walked around the building to where my car was parked in a small lot behind the police station. There were slots in the brick wall, like something through which you’d shoot an arrow if you lived in the Middle Ages. A group of homeless men huddled under tarps on the sidewalk, their belongings heaped against the wall. The slots in the brickwork allowed me glimpses into their shelters, their lives. How bad would life have to be to land up living on the pavement? I’d never had money. My family was poor, seven of us sharing a two-bedroom apartment in a shitty part of town, but we’d always had a roof over our heads. Even if it had been the same one since I was a kid.
“I wish I could help them.” Detective Brits stepped out of the shadows next to my car. “But there are only so many good deeds to go around.”
“Ja, life is
kak
.” I jingled my keys in my hand, twisting them until the car key fell between my fingers. It was a trick I’d seen on TV, maybe on
Oprah
. You could punch real hard with the key like that. Leave a nice big hole in an oke’s face. “Thanks, though.”
Brits stepped in between me and my car door. He darted his gaze around the empty parking lot, a cigarette burned low between his fingers. My shoulders tensed and I got ready to raise the key and smash it into his nose.
“I’m not kidding,” he said. “I can’t help you like this again. You could get yourself killed.”
An ambulance raced past on the street outside, sirens blaring, red lights pulsating across Brits’s face. It made him look crazy, demon-possessed. Perhaps he was. I was starting to feel my own mind unwind.
“You could help me,” I said. “You know who they are, how they work. We could work together and take them down.”
Brits laughed, a brittle sound that cracked through the cold air. “You really are stubborn. It’s too late. There’s nothing you can do. Lindsey is probably already dead, and if you find a body you’ll wish you hadn’t.”