The Triangle

by Huss, JA

  “David’s dead,” I finish for him. “Boo fucking hoo. Got what he deserved. And you’re gonna get yours too.”

  “Do you really think you’re in a position to threaten me?” He’s got this maniacal, amused look on his face. Like this is all good fun.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I do. Because I know who stole your shit. Your shit,” I say again, just to be clear. “Not mine. And if you want out of this fucked-up mess you find yourself in, and don’t want to end up with your brains splatted all over the wall of this loft, then you’re gonna shut the fuck up and let me handle this.”

  “Who?” Jack asks. He’s standing right next to me now, gun at his side instead of pointing at my face. Nice, Jack. Good to know you’re not really gonna shoot me after all these years.

  I think.

  “Alec van den Berg.”

  “Who?” both these assholes say at the same time.

  “South African diamond smuggler. Old acquaintance of mine. And I know where he is.”

  Which is a lie. I have no clue. But I know where he’ll be.

  Here. Very soon. Because Christine is back with me and there’s no way in hell he’s not gonna show up to try to steal her back.

  CHAPTER EIGHT - ALEC

  YESTERDAY

  Somewhere over the Atlantic, I remember that I have yet to ask the laaitie his name.

  “Ou! Laaitie!”

  Everyone turns to look. The laaitie’s head snaps up. He happens to be sitting up front in a seat with its back to the cockpit, facing the rear of the plane, so we make eye contact through an open doorway straight away. I crook my index finger to summon him over.

  His eyes dart around to the other okes on the Bombardier Global 8000 for just a moment, as if to question if anyone has an idea of what being called up to speak with the boss might mean for him.

  “Not just now, man. Now now,” I tell him as gently as I can, so as not to give him the idea that he’s in any kind of trouble. It doesn’t seem to convince him, but I try. Finally, he pushes himself up out of his recliner and makes his way back to where I’m trying to look like I’m lounging casually on the sofa, even though I don’t feel terribly casual or much like being in repose. But appearances are, as ever, important.

  He’s a good-looking kid. High cheekbones and dark skin. He’s tall, and even though he’s still got the gangly limbs of youth about him, he carries himself with the sure-footed gait of a much older man.

  I let him stand in front of me, waiting, as I lift a tumbler of Van Ryn’s to my lips. I take a moment to consider the golden-brown liquid inside, then close my eyes, take a sip, and allow the spill of brandy to caress my tongue and wash its warmth along my throat, causing me to forget for a moment that I’m still hours from being able to see Christine with my own eyes. From being able to make sure for certain that she’s all right.

  It took ten fokken calls to get Danny to answer the goddamn phone. Everybody on the plane has a secure line and a restricted number. It’s no surprise that he would never pick up a call from a blocked line. Finally, after witnessing my growing aggravation, someone exclaimed, “I think Gerry has an unsecured mobile.”

  Poor Gerry looked as if he’d been betrayed and then stared up at me with a lowered head as would the cliché puppy who just had a wee on the carpet. He shook his chin back and forth tightly once or twice until it became clear to him that in this rare instance it was an asset, rather than a liability, that he has an open line to the great big world outside.

  I can’t blame him for initially resisting. Normally he would be right to panic a bit. Under usual circumstances, having such a thing would be grounds for immediate termination and dismissal. And at ten thousand meters, being dismissed from the organization would probably smart a mite upon hitting the ground. But fortunately for Gerry, I was so distracted at the time that I didn’t even bother to question what the fok he’s doing with a phone he bought at Cellucity or wherever, just grabbed it and started dialing Fortnight’s number. I assume that nine separate rings from an unknown caller, seeing the number twenty-seven country code appear on his screen, gave him a fair indication that his attention was needed urgently.

  What the fuck are you doing calling me?

  Until I heard his voice, I didn’t realize how long it had been since we’d spoken. He sounded different. The same. But different.

  Christine, I said.

  Historically, I’d be pithy or smug or insufferably charming with him, as is my custom, but I couldn’t risk the possibility that he’d hang up straight off. Or that he might, in any way, misinterpret the call as anything other than what it was: the best possible option I had to ensure that the only thing on the planet more important to me than diamonds was safe.

  Christine what? he asked, the anxiety in the asking both appropriate and shared.

  The rest of the call goes like this:

  There’s been an accident.

  A great deal more silence than I might have expected lingers on the line. I certainly expected some, but it goes on for a length of time that seems almost designed to encourage me to speak again first.

  I don’t.

  Finally, he says, Say more.

  I don’t have a great deal more. Christine and I were engaged in an affair—I don’t choose those words by accident—and something appears to have gone awry—

  Fuck have you done?

  And right now, my china, I don’t know who I can fokken trust. Except you.

  I’m not your fuckin’ china. And what the hell makes you think for a second that I’ll do anything for you?

  Not a thing in the world, bru. But I do expect you’ll do what’s right for Christine.

  Again, silence.

  I continue, Or—

  What happened?

  I’m not precise on that. I’m not there—

  Where are you?

  —but from what I can glean, she took a bit of a knock on the head that required some attention.

  Fuck does that mean?

  Honestly, it’s probably the most straightforward thing I’ve ever said, bru. It means what it means.

  I used to know precisely how to get Danny to do things. I knew his triggers. What would work, what wouldn’t, how to best manipulate him into giving what I needed.

  The man on the other side of this call is not the Danny I used to know.

  I’m not entirely sure how to proceed, and I don’t have the luxury of figuring it out, so I opt for something resembling the truth. I proceed to fill him in on all the information that Lars provided me.

  Then, Are you in town? I ask.

  Yeah. I’m in town.

  I need you to go to her and make sure everything’s hundreds.

  Again, another lengthy silence.

  Eventually, How the fuck am I supposed to trust anything you’re saying?

  No clue, boet. I wouldn’t trust me. But, simply, either I’ve turnt up, after all this time, to telephone you with an elaborate plot designed to somehow cock you up—which, if we stop to consider it, is the stupidest fokken thing I ever heard—or else I’m telling the truth and really, really have no better option.

  I don’t get short of breath very often. Usually the opposite. Like the Hulk thing. I breathe deeply into myself and then myself grows and expands and becomes bigger than life. I never even practiced that or had to learn it. I think I inherited it.

  But waiting for Danny to say, Where is she? I find myself not breathing at all.

  Where is she? he finally, finally asks.

  I close my eyes and breathe again, giving him all of the particulars on where she should be. ‘Should,’ because even though Lars is Lars and even though Lex and Reggie weren’t chosen to watch out for her because they won a contest—it’s because they’ve proved themselves loyal—somebody threw Christine off the roof of a fokken building. And that means that someone is either trying to kill her, trying to weaken me, or both.

  And in any of those scenarios, I need someone with her who would be willing to lay down th
eir life for her without pause. And there are only two people in the world whose CVs suggest that to be true. One of them is on the phone with me right now. The other, I’d like to believe, is me.

  But, in all truth… If asked to pick a sure bet between us, I’m not certain I wouldn’t still go with Danny. That’s a hard thing to admit. So I don’t dwell on it for very long.

  Are you coming here? Danny asks.

  Don’t know, man. I guess that might depend on what you find when you arrive .

  Of course I’m fokken coming there. I’m halfway there right now. But I decide that Danny doesn’t need to know everything. I mean, I already know he doesn’t know everything. Because if he did, we wouldn’t be in this situation. But irrespective of anything else, he doesn’t need to know that I’m on my way, because my old bru, Danny Fortnight, has never been the kind of oke who’s big on ‘reunions’ or ‘nostalgia.’ Not too keen on ‘surprises’ either, but some things can’t be helped.

  Ring me back on this line when you’ve seen what’s what, yeah? I say.

  Go fuck yourself.

  And then he hung up.

  “Mr. van den Berg?”

  The voice of the laaitie stirs me out of my brief stupor. I assume it was brief. I don’t know how long I had my eyes closed. I think I might be quite a bit more knackered than I realized. The last several hours have been taxing.

  Looking at him standing there, he appears nervous but eager. I continue to like him.

  “Uphuma kuphi?” I say.

  “Sir?”

  “Where are you from?” I repeat, slowly.

  “Oh, yes, sir. Sorry. I just… You speak Zulu?”

  I nod slowly and take another sip from my tumbler. “Why does that surprise you?”

  “I don’t—I heard what you said to them at the warehouse. To the Americans.”

  “I would imagine. I was yelling.”

  He looks at me for a moment, confused, then I finally smile. Which gives him permission to smile. He shifts his feet. Makes a small face. I smile again.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Solomon, sir.”

  “Solomon what?”

  “Bophela, sir.”

  I nod. “How long have you been with me?” I ask.

  “Um, about three weeks, sir.”

  “Yeah? How is it? As a job?”

  “It’s very, very good, sir.”

  “Izit?” I regard him for a long moment. “What were you doing before?”

  “Not… not much, sir. Just trying to… you know.” He looks away.

  The feel of the tumbler in my hand is comforting for some reason. I’m not sure why.

  “Do you have a family?”

  His eyes dart back to mine. He lowers his head, gives a tiny shake, and although I could well have predicted his response, a wave of emotion that I wasn’t expecting pours through me. I down the remainder of my brandy in one gulp, stand, and say…

  “Well, you do now, bru.” I clap him on the shoulder. “Like how you handled yourself out there today. Good man.”

  “Thank you, sir. You too, sir.” He cringes, worrying he’s been insulting, I reckon. It’s clear that he wants to feel proud but is still unsure if that’s OK. Yet another thing I like about the lad. Then he says, “Is there anything I can do for you, sir? Anything I can get you?”

  “No, bru. I’m all right.” I begin to head toward the back when his voice stops me.

  “Oh… Mr. van den Berg?” I turn. “May I ask where we are going, sir?”

  I laugh inwardly, then catch a tiny grin and nod at him.

  “Get some rest, man,” I say as I again make my way toward my bedroom.

  Just as I’m about to close the door and see if I can try to sleep at all, which I most assuredly won’t, I turn back to him once last time. “Solomon Bophela…”

  He hasn’t moved. He faces me.

  “Ninety-five years ago, my black great-grandfather married my white great-grandmother in a secret ceremony on the outskirts of Jo’burg. They had my grandmother, she married an Afrikaner called van den Berg, they had my father, my father amassed a fortune, met my mother, had me, I have continued my father’s business, and as of the last time I checked, I was—off the public record—the forty-fourth wealthiest person on the earth.”

  He looks at me, waiting for more.

  After a second, I nod and say, “I wouldn’t be here today if, ninety-five years ago, that Zulu oke and that yarpie woman hadn’t come together. And the fokken courage it took for my great-grandparents to do what they did, especially then, is beyond reason, my boet. I mean, can you even imagine how much they had to love each other to take that kind of risk?”

  His face remains blank.

  I sniff in a tiny laugh and say…

  “I hope someday you can.”

  And then I close the door to my suite so that I can lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling for another eight hours.

  CHAPTER NINE - DANNY

  The year after Christine left me was weird. It was just fuckin’ weird. We’d been partners for so long I didn’t know what do with myself after she walked out. I kept waiting for her in not so logical ways.

  Like… I remember wanting to go out to dinner. Not fast food. I’m not talking about the drive-through. I’m talking about sitting in a restaurant and eating something nice. A steak with a fat, baked potato. Candles on the table. Hell, a tablecloth too. And good craft beer. I wanted it so bad, but for weeks, in my head, I kept thinking… When Christine comes back. Then I can go out to eat. Because eating out was something we always did together. It felt impossible to eat out if she wasn’t there.

  And then one day… I dunno. Maybe six months later. I was driving by Caseon’s Steakhouse and I just stopped. Went inside. And ate. By myself. Just like that.

  And just like that I was someone else.

  Someone who didn’t have a girl named Christine by his side.

  For the first time in as long as I could remember, I was just Danny.

  I had a little bit of money that day. Ran into an acquaintance who owed me about ten grand for a job I did, but never got paid for because the dude went to jail. It’s funny how money is so relative. When you’re fat with cash you don’t think about it but when you have none, that’s all you think about.

  And the day before that I had none. Like, I was fuckin’ broke. I didn’t even have an apartment. I was crashing at Brasil’s warehouse. I did a few jobs for him back when we first met. Stole a few cars. So he was letting me sleep in a back room. And when I was driving home from dinner I saw this bike in a driveway with a for sale sign on it. I pulled in, talked to the guy who owned it, handed that guy almost all my cash, and then called up Brasil’s towing company and took it home to the warehouse.

  There were tools there and cars were already something I knew a lot about. Plus, I’d done two semesters in a body shop at a vo-tech school back when I was still in the foster system, so I knew a little bit about how to fix a fucked-up fender. And Brasil had a guy who could do a nice paint job.

  I sold that bike for double the money three weeks later and bought myself two more. Fixed those up, made an even slicker profit, and one year after Christine left I was this guy.

  Fortnight’s Custom Choppers.

  Whenever Alec disappeared I didn’t have this existential crisis. I never thought about that motherfucker when we weren’t together. Barely remembered he was part of the team.

  But Christine was there to keep me in check. Christine filled up all the empty spaces Alec left behind and yeah, even back then I knew a day of reckoning would come eventually, but I was busy. When he was gone, I was glad he was gone.

  But the way shit ended… that still sits bad with me.

  The feelings I have for him now are nothing at all like the forgettable bad taste he left behind when the whole operation fell apart.

  The feelings I have for him now are real.

  Men are just like that, I guess. When we’re ragey teenagers all pumped up wi
th new testosterone our anger is tempered by ignorance. Twenty-eight is different. At twenty-eight those hormones have pretty much evened out, the body has filled itself in, you know who you are, what you’re capable of, and that anger is dangerous.

  What I feel for Alec right now isn’t some desire for revenge. It’s not even jealousy that he had Christine for God knows how long and I never knew about it.

  It’s rage. It’s hate. It’s that gut-wrenching feeling of betrayal that makes you sick because you didn’t even know you were betrayed until the whole shit-show was over.

  He’s got all the money. But that’s not why I hate him. I’ve got all the money now too.

  He’s got the looks, and the suits, and the fuckin’ houses and the cars. But that’s not why I hate him either. If I wanted suits and summer houses, I could make it rain.

  He’s got Christine. Not physically, of course. But he’s weaseled his way back into her life. She did this job for him. She got hurt because of him. She has some misplaced sense of loyalty, or nostalgia, or whatever.

  He got a hold of a stick and poked her until all the pretty spilled out. He only ever wanted to ruin her. Turn her into what he thought she should be.

  And that’s not something I’ll ever let him do again. Never again.

  So do I feel guilty for setting the asshole up and handing him over to Brasil so Christine and I can skip town and start a new life? The life we were meant to have?

  Fuck. No.

  There’s a moment when I’m climbing the stairs up to my apartment in the garage when I feel like I made a mistake. That leaving Christine alone was a mistake. That when I pull open the door and step inside she’s gonna be gone. No trace left behind just like last time.

  But she’s there. Sitting on my couch, wearing my t-shirt, dark hair still damp, legs all tucked up underneath her the way she always liked to sit because her small body doesn’t quite fit on the furniture the way a large man’s does.