12 Yards Out

by Javi Reddy

  “Well, can I help you? Do you need to see someone inside? I can take you wherever you need to go.”

  “I’m here to see you.”

  He did not know how to respond. The silence between them seemed to stretch on. “I’m Linda.”

  “Okay, Linda. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s your father.”

  “What? What about him?”

  She began to cry and her sorrow forced her to the ground. Jay knelt down and placed his arm across her shoulders.

  “Please. I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

  Another voice from behind crept up on Jay like termites on a plaque of wood:

  “He’s dead.”

  Jay turned to face Vinny before marching over to him, fists locked, ready to end this, one way or the other.

  “Uh-uh. I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  Vinny heaved a long pistol right into Jay’s chest.

  “I’m tired of this bickering. You have your precious Staffords Cup, but it will come at a price. Trust me.”

  He pulled out his cell phone and dangled it in front of Jay. A video played out. Preega was in the back alley of some dodgy place and a gun was aimed at him. Jay recognised everything about the shooter—his build, the way he hunched his shoulders, his decent height and that jacket. James. The gun then went off, and the horror of seeing his father crash to the ground played out. Vinny put his phone away and cocked his gun.

  “Goodbye.”

  He put a bullet in Linda’s right temple. He had used a silencer. Her blood splashed onto Jay’s face and the shock left him unable to scream. His guts, instead, found a way to be heard. All the pastries that he had stuffed himself with earlier on, spewed out. Vinny grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. He took out a pair of handcuffs and locked Jay to one of the steel-bars that stood erect outside the school fencing.

  “Just hang about for a minute, whilst I take care of the mess I’ve made in front of your wonderfully maintained school.”

  He lifted the corpse and put it in the boot of his BMW, which was covered in black bin bags. He walked back towards Jay and took out another gun. It was a high-density spray gun. He sprayed the blood and brain matter down the drain that was a few metres away.

  “I love my toys.” He winked at Jay. “But not as much as you love your little princess.”

  He held out a thick strand of hair and whisked it towards Jay. Jay thrashed forward, doing everything he could to defy human strength and break through the steel trap which he found himself bound to. Vinny laughed as his wrist began to bleed.

  “Your father had the chance to give you an easy way out of all this, but it looks as though he’s ruined your life. Again. It’s simple, Jayendra. Get me your girlfriend’s pendant, and you’ll get her back.”

  Swinging around the corner was a police van with its blue lights flashing in the distant. The van moved towards them and broke hard just before Vinny’s BMW. A lady and a man jumped out and marched out in unison, their cold, hard looks piercing Vinny and Jay’s eyes. “Like you said. Goodbye,” Jay told Vinny bitterly. The lady came right up to Jay.

  “Jay Chetty. You’re being placed under police custody for testing positive for cocaine, in a screening carried out by the GSSB.”

  “What? Police custody? I’m only 17. He just murdered a woman. Look in his…”

  “Mr De Silva told us you’d say that. The side-effects of the cocaine you’ve been using include hallucinations. Please, don’t make this hard on yourself.”

  She undid the handcuff from the bar and then cuffed his hands together. The man threw Jay in the back of the van, going out of his way to avoid being gentle. He got in with Jay and the woman drove them away. Jay pleaded and pleaded. “Welcome to the real Rosebank, Mr Chetty.” The man took out his gun and knocked him on the back of the head with the butt. When Jay woke up, he was at home. With no father, no girlfriend and accusations hanging over him that threatened to ruin everything he had spent his life working for. And there was also the minor issue of him having forgotten how to play football.

  7 October 2013. 9:13 PM

  “So, that pretty much brings us up to when I first came to see you at your house.”

  “Correct,” Jay nodded solemnly towards James.

  Layla got involved as well: “Just after the final of the Staffords Cup, James came to see me. To tell me… you know what. Of course, I believed that he didn’t do any of it. I still believe that.”

  She placed her cool hand on his face.

  “Me too,” Jay walked around the lounge. “When I woke up at home, I found out that I’d been put in a diversion programme. I had gotten off lightly. I didn’t have to go to Juvenile Correction and I didn’t have to do any community service. I had to remain housebound for six months, with all those suits standing guard outside. After the house-arrest, I would have to make a court appearance and my fate would be properly decided.”

  James thought about the nature of life. It swayed back and forth, every so often. From the downright stupendous to the extremely treacherous. Up and down, to and fro. Nothing was constant. Not joy. Not pain. There was an overworked pendulum that tilted everyone from the good and the bad. The light and the darkness. If that was the running theme of life, then this was the ultimate swing of the pendulum. After the beauty and magnificence of the greatest day in his life, it had been followed by the worst. Jay lost everything, from having everything. Jay walked back towards them.

  “He just shot that woman. Without thinking twice. I still relive it sometimes in my head. Her warm blood all over me. It won’t go away.”

  Layla held Jay’s hand as James continued:

  “It’s okay, sweetie. She’s in a better place now. A place away from Vinny De Silva,” she said. James strained his eyes.

  “That birthmark of Linda’s was peculiar.”

  “How so?” Layla asked.

  “It sounds so familiar the way Jay described it, if I think about it now. It was almost shaped like…”

  “Like a heart?” Jay burst out.

  “Yes, that’s exactly it!”

  James woke up and walked over to the walls to view some of Layla’s photos as he pondered. Layla walked over and her hand gently landed on the back of his neck.

  “What’s wrong, darling?”

  He turned to her.

  “I’ve seen that birthmark before.”

  “Where?”

  “With you.”

  Layla did not comprehend.

  “My first night at the Parlour. I’ve met Linda before. I just didn’t know it was her.”

  “The prostitute! The lady in the red dress, who you thought you saw leaving with Vinny that night?”

  James nodded before turning to Jay to include him in the conversation.

  “She was part of the setup at the Tab. She was part of Vinny’s ‘plan’, whatever that was. She knew everything. Perhaps too much, in the end. We need to find out why she came running to you outside the school. But more importantly, why Vinny had to kill her.”

  7 October 2013. The photograph

  Preega was back and he brought with him more water and fruit for Amritha. She was up and about, which meant she was slowly getting the strength that she needed to follow Preega out of the hellhole.

  “So, are you ever going to tell me how you came back from the dead?”

  It was Preega’s turn to sit on the dusty surface. He locked his hands together and placed them under his chin as he stared deep into space. He explained everything to Amritha about the night he visited Vinny at the Tab in Melville. Then, he talked about having a gun pointed at him in the alley.

  “It was right there, as I waited for its wicked bullet to pierce my chest and end a life that I had lost control of. They say your life flashes before your eyes just before death. With me, all I saw was regret and I wished I had another chance. As the bullet crashed towards me, I got that chance.”

  “How? Vinny told me that they killed you. They saw
it with their own eyes.”

  “They saw what they wanted to see. But they don’t know that you saved me.”

  “Me? What in the world are you talking about?”

  “This.”

  He placed his hands behind his neck and fiddled a bit. He undid a chain and gave it to Amritha. “This is yours. Well, what’s left of it.”

  The antler pendant had been broken off and only half of it, from the base up, hung around the chain. It was worth millions, but in the end, no real price could be added to its value. It had brought this man back to save her.

  “I had taken the chain from Jay’s room as I didn’t want it in the house. I had heard that Vinny would do anything to get it, and I could not put my son’s life in danger. I kept it with me, and when I went to negotiate with Vinny that night in the betting room, I was going to give it to him to end this. But then, he showed me Jay’s ‘fixed’ drug sample and that changed everything. The pendant was the only thing that gave me a slight advantage over him. I thought that he’d be stifled as long as he didn’t have it. I underestimated him. I didn’t realise how motivated and manic he was. Having the pendant was not a trump card. It was a target on my family’s back.”

  “I’m sorry. If I’d known what it would have caused, I would never have…”

  "Nonsense. This is not your fault. Never ever think that. Anyway, as I was saying, after they shot me, I lay on the ground. I realised that the pendant had not deflected the shot, but merely stopped it from penetrating deeply. I had a fighting shot but not much time to use it. I dragged myself to a nearby hospital and fell outside the front entrance.

  “I was exhausted by my efforts getting there, with the bullet still lodged within my chest. The doctors managed to remove it and stop the bleeding. I was going to be okay if I took the necessary rest, but I did not have time to, so I left the hospital as discreetly as possible, without them discharging me. I could not lie in a bed whilst a madman threatened to ruin everything outside the walls in which I rested. He had to be stopped. So, here I am.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Vinny is a dangerous man, but I am a very motivated man when I find a cause that I am working towards. We will have to find a way to beat him and we’ll have to do so, weaker than ever.”

  He unbuttoned his shirt to show off the white gauze patched onto his chest.

  “There is something I need to confess to you, my girl. You are not the only reason why I am here.”

  He took out a photo from his top pocket and let Amritha unfold it. “Oh my gosh, this looks exactly like…”

  “Exactly.”

  “But I don’t understand. This doesn’t make sense.”

  “I promise I will explain everything in due course, but we need to move right away.”

  “Right now?”

  She wanted to hear those words since Preega had first come to see her. Yet, she could not find the strength to carry herself out. She was still too weak.

  “I will help you on our way out, but sooner rather than later, you will have to run on your own.” Clinking and rumbling were heard outside. The rapid sounds seemed to emanate from all directions.

  “Come, we must go now. They will come in soon and all hope will be lost for us.”

  He held his hand out to her. She tiredly looked at it. She had no choice. Strength or no strength, the time was now. She thought about the photograph. What did it mean? The boots clanked harder against the steel above them and her thoughts were cut short. The game would be over if they got caught. They could not get caught.

  Chapter 32

  7 October 2013. 8:14 AM

  They stumbled past crumbly and endless brick walls. The windows had been boarded up and the concrete floor was slimy, as Amritha hobbled through puddles. Preega held her hand and forced her to keep up the pace, as she threatened to fall away. They had laboured through darkness with Preega’s flashlight leading the way. They eventually reached a stairwell. Amritha sat herself down, breathing heavily.

  “No breaks. We still have a long way to go.”

  She did not have the energy to reply. She buried her head in her lap. “Jump on.”

  Preega offered her his back.

  “It’s pointless if I’m the only one who makes it out of here.”

  Preega slowly opened the door at the top of the stairwell with Amritha in piggyback position. He felt the rapid beating of her heart against his shoulder. The door opened and the light greeted them, a harsh awakening on their eyes. It was scorching on the other side of the door. Preega cupped his hand and placed it above his eyes, shielding himself from the blinding light.

  “Oh, my word,” he said, “Do you know what this is?” She shook her head slowly.

  “We’re in a greenhouse.”

  “Mr Chetty!” Vinny entered the greenhouse in a black vest, strapped tightly around his upper body. Greyish, long army-trousers sat over his black boots. He grinned as he sucked on his latest Fizz Pop.

  “Did you really think you’d waltz in here, rescue the princess, take her back to prince charming, and all would be well in that silly world of yours again?”

  Preega stood in front of Amritha.

  “If it was just me, you may, you may, have had a chance. But you know it’s not. Oh, it’s not gonna be just me for a long time now…”

  He picked up a steel rod next to him and banged it against the door three times. He moved away from the door as a rumbling began to make itself heard. It was the same booming noise that they’d heard downstairs. Amritha looked around. She realised what the greenhouse was. It was the place where she’d used the pulley to scale up towards freedom, before uncovering a deeper evil that Vinny was hatching. The greenhouse must have been covered when she was here.

  Now, that the covers were off, the sun illuminated the place she previously thought was completely devoid of life. But why a greenhouse? The rumbling drew closer. Amritha closed her eyes. She had become used to tracking noise in utter blindness. She focused on the rumbling. The movement was rhythmical, hitting the ground hard and true. Whoever was getting closer, was wearing steel capped boots. It clinked and rumbled on as it moved towards the door. The rhythm was consistent, as though it had been harnessed to move this way. Like an army.

  She opened her eyes and gasped aloud. The door burst open and 50 kids marched through. They had vests on, similar to Vinny’s and every single one of them was armed with an AK47 and an array of other artillery like bush-knives, grenades and nun chucks.

  “What are you doing? They’re just kids,” Preega moved forward towards Vinny.

  A girl, not much older than ten, jabbed a dagger into Preega’s bicep. Amritha screamed and the same girl pointed her AK at her.

  “This is the future of South Africa. This is how I’ll lead us into a great new era.”

  Vinny moved up to Preega, who crouched on the floor. He pulled the sai out of Preega’s arm, who howled into the openness.

  “All I need is to make a statement. To make sure that my message is received in the right manner. That’s why my lovely little children here are going to kill you on live television. I think it’s a worthy symbol, don’t you?”

  He smiled at his kids.

  “This is just the start. I’ve been building my army slowly, right in front of everyone.”

  “You drugged them, didn’t you?” Preega tilted back and forth on his knees as he clutched his bicep.

  “I did, old man. My magic drug gave them the strength, both physically and mentally, to carry out the greater cause. It’s what your nosey little daughter-in-law found, bubbling in my steel cylinders. Back at MediWorld Mews in Sandton, I’ve got nurses, drugging kids all the time. I’ve got policemen on the streets, drugging kids. The only difference is that these drugs make them better. They make them who they were born to be.”

  “Killers? Are you listening to yourself?”

  “It’s all for the greater good.”

  Vinny turned to Amritha.

  “Keep your stupid p
endant. I’ll take the country instead.” Preega managed to stand up.

  “But how are you making the drug? How?” He gave Preega the toothiest of grins.

  “I think you already know the answer to that.” Preega bowed his head.

  8 October 2013. 10:24 AM

  James had to get out there. Staying in a house, burrowing himself in a flat, drinking at bar, were all slowly suffocating any potential revolution. It was time for action. Linda was the answer until Vinny put an end to her. James needed a new lead which put his fat friend from the Parlour at the top of his list.

  He was never at the Parlour in the day, but something told James that his man would be at the Tab this morning. The people from the Parlour and the people from the Tab all seem to be connected. James snuck over to the betting room, slinking through the front. He looked over to the bar counter. Linda had been replaced by an old man, with grey hair and a black moustache. The curtain, with the so-called secret passage, was drawn open, but the door was firmly locked. Was Vinny behind that weak piece of wood?

  In between thoughts of breaking down the door, he caught a glance of the back of hippo neck. The barman’s distinct flab was the boon he’d been seeking. Hippo neck was carrying a garbage bag out through the back. James darted after him but froze shortly after. The alley. A murderer always returned to the scene of the crime. Did they want him back here to make sure that the frame was complete? James breathed out deeply and made a move towards the alley, anyway. He could afford no more delays.

  As hippo neck opened a dustbin to chuck the bag in, James pounced on him. He gripped the fat man by his light-yellow, formal shirt and flung him against the wall. He clasped his throat, pushing hard against his larynx. The barman struggled, making squealing noises in the process.

  “Alright, you tub of lard, let’s do this. You have three jobs, I see. One at the Parlour, one at the Tab, but I wanna know about your third one.”

  Hippo neck muttered something, his face became extra pink. James released his grip slightly. “What…what third job?”