by Deon Meyer
“We want to know who rents it now.”
“It’s not let, it’s owned.”
“Who owns it?”
Typed again, looked at the screen. “Orion Solutions.”
“Do you have an address?”
“I do, I do, I do,” she said, and looked at Tiny.
“Can we get it today?” asked Van Heerden.
“He’s real good with the ladies,” said Tiny.
“I’ve noticed. It’s Solan Street in Gardens. 78 Solan. Do you want the telephone number as well?”
“I do, I do, I do.”
Miller ran down the side street. Hope Beneke saw him through the gusts of rain. “Miller!” she screamed, hysteria in her voice, as he ran on.
“I’m going to publish the picture, Miller.” Despairing, angry, upset, O’Grady’s staring eyes filled her head. She saw Miller halting, looking round, waiting for her. Her hair was soaked, she kept her hand on the weapon in her handbag, and when she reached him she took out the SW99.
“You’re not going anywhere, do you hear me?”
“They’re going to kill us.”
“Who the fuck are they?” she said, distraught.
“Orion,” he said. “Orion Solutions.”
“And who are you?”
“Jamie Vergottini.”
They drove to town, to Gardens, 78 Solan Street, in the Mercedes. Tiny’s cell phone rang. “Mpayipheli,” he answered. “It’s for you”—passing the phone to Van Heerden.
“Hallo.”
“I’ve got Vergottini,” said Hope.
“Where are you?”
“In the rain on Kloof Street, on the corner, at Café Paradiso, and I know who’s behind it all.”
“Venter?”
“Orion Solutions.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“We tracked the clues.”
“O’Grady is dead, Van Heerden.”
“Nougat?”
“They shot him. In the restaurant. I—we… it’s a long story.”
“Who shot him?”
“They shot from outside. I didn’t see. Vergottini says the shot was meant for him. O’Grady got up to fetch food…”
“Jesus.”
“What do I do now?”
“Wait for us—we’re on De Waal Drive, we’ll be there in five minutes. Give me the street’s name.”
“O’Grady is dead,” he said to Tiny Mpayipheli when he’d finished talking, the cell phone shaking in his hand.
“The fat policeman?”
“Yes.”
“Now the shit is going to hit the fan.”
“He was a good man.”
Rain on the window, wind blowing from the harbor, the Mercedes swerving as they drove across the spur of the mountain on De Waal Drive.
“A good policeman,” said Van Heerden.
“I saw you in the flat, searching that body,” said Mpayipheli. “Your heart is soft.”
“It’s all getting too much.”
“Why did you become a policeman?”
He shook his head.
“You’re a good person, Van Heerden.”
He said nothing. He would have to phone Mat Joubert. But first, the dollars.
It was all getting too much.
54.
Nonnie Nagel had phoned, just after five that afternoon. “He’s going to a meeting about the Red Ribbon affair. He told me he wouldn’t be home until after twelve. Fetch me. At eight o’clock. We’re going out.”
We never went out. We were either at the Nagel house or at mine, but we never went out because we were too frightened that someone would see us. Our love, our togetherness, was between four private, clandestine walls, but we hadn’t seen each other for more than three weeks and there was excitement in her voice, a playfulness, a recklessness. I wanted to refuse, we shouldn’t have chanced it, but the longing was too great, the possibility that she might announce, tonight, that she was ready to leave him.
“Where to?” I asked when she got into the car two blocks away from their home.
“I’ll explain.”
I wanted to ask her why—why this evening, why were we going out, and what about when we went back, what if he was at home by then? But I said nothing, just drove, with her hand on my thigh and that secret smile on her face.
It was a dance hall in Bellville, just off Durban Road, not a nightclub, a place for ballroom, packed, the music loud, the light subdued. There was festivity in the air, she looked beautiful in a simple white dress, sleeveless, and white sandals, and when we walked in she took my arm and we moved over the floor and she threw her head back and laughed, deeply, with joy and abandonment, and the bass of the loudspeakers throbbed through our bodies.
I have never been a good dancer. My mother taught me in the living room in Stilfontein but she was no expert. I could get along well enough not to make a fool of myself.
That evening, with her, the music moved me. We stayed on the floor for the first hour, one tune after another, pop from the seventies, sixties, eighties, Afrikaans rock. We kept dancing, dripping with perspiration. My shirt, her dress, clung to our bodies, her eyes glowed, her laughter, her joy shone, there for everybody to see.
And then she wanted a beer and we dodged through the crowd to a bar counter and swallowed our ice-cold beers and ordered two more, looked for seating and drank the second beer more slowly, our eyes on the other dancers. A thin little guy in black pants and a white shirt and a black waistcoat asked her to dance and she looked questioningly at me and I nodded. She rose and went to dance with him and I watched her with a lightness in me, light-headed with love and tenderness, watching her as she glided expertly over the floor with him, remembering at that moment Van Wyk Louw’s poem “The Hour of the Dark Thirst.” I heard Betta Wandrag’s voice again, reciting those sadly beautiful words: At eleven o’clock your body was/A hunger and thirst in me…
And then she came to fetch me again and we danced and at ten o’clock she looked at her watch and said, “Come,” and pulled me to the car, to my house, and we threw off our clothes from the front door to the double bed in our feverish haste to reach skin and flesh and love, and Betta Wandrag was right, because love with the One was different, so divinely different.
At one o’clock your hair,
caught my hand in an evil web,
your body like black, still water,
your breath a little sob.
Sometime after eleven we lay in each other’s arms, whispering as we always did, whispering to safeguard the secret of our togetherness, a laughing, pointless conversation, when he hammered at my door, a deep dhom, dhom, dhom of his fist on my door, and we lay there, petrified. I pulled on shorts. “Don’t open,” she’d said, whispering, urgent, despairing, begging. I walked out. “Please,” I heard her say as I walked down the dark passage. Dhom, dhom, dhom against my front door, I opened it, and Nagel stood there, fire in his eyes.
“Get dressed. We know who Red Ribbon is.”
Facing each other, on the threshold of my house, we knew he knew she was inside, and there was hatred between us, deep, black hatred until he turned away.
“I’ll wait in the car.”
55.
Speckle Venter, he thought, the only one left. “And then they allowed us to sleep. We were very tired but then Speckle took out his guitar. His real name is Michael Venter. He’s very short, Pa, and he has a birthmark on his neck. So they call him Speckle. He comes from Humansdorp. His father is a panel beater. He wrote a song about his town. It’s quite sad…”
A guitar-playing country boy. Behind all this?
He punched a number into the cell phone.
“Murder and Robbery, Mavis Petersen speaking.”
“Mavis, it’s Zatopek van Heerden. Tony O’Grady has just been shot in Café Paradiso, on Kloof Street. You must get hold of Joubert. And tell De Wit as well.”
“Good Lord,” she said.
“Mavis…”
“I hear, Ca
ptain. I’ll tell him.”
“Thank you, Mavis.” He cut the call. All hell was going to break loose. But before that happened… “We’ll have to get a map of Cape Town,” he said to Tiny Mpayipheli.
“There’s one in the glove compartment.”
He opened it, took out the map book, looked for Solan Street in the index, found the reference, turned to the map.
“It’s just below us.”
“But are we fetching the attorney first?”
“And James Vergottini.”
Then this whole affair would be sliced open, this Pandora’s box, this can of worms.
At last, a live witness.
Mpayipheli let the Mercedes ML 320’s tires scream around the corner of Kloof Street and the corner Hope had mentioned. An ambulance stood in front of Café Paradiso, a white Opel with blue police lights. They saw Hope’s BMW farther up the street, drove nearer, stopped next to the car.
There was no one near the car.
“Fuck,” said Van Heerden.
“You should become a writer,” said Mpayipheli. “Such a gift for language.”
Van Heerden said nothing. He felt exhausted. Too little sleep. Too much adrenaline. Too much struggling.
Tiny’s cell phone rang again. He answered, listened. Eventually, slowly, he put the phone down.
“That was Orlando. Billy September is dead.”
“Too many,” said Van Heerden. “Too many.”
“Someone will pay,” said Mpayipheli. “Now someone will fucking pay.”
They drove up Solan Street. Warehouses, engineering works, panel beaters, a clothing factory, a Vespa scooter repair shop.
Number 78 was on the corner, an old, rundown, grayish blue single story, long and low, without signboards, its small, high windows protected with excessive burglarproofing. They turned, drove past again. The front door was on Solan Street, a single door on the sidewalk, on the side street a big double door allowing entry for vehicles, a small brass plate next to the front door with a barely legible ORION SOLUTIONS on it.
“Video cameras,” said Tiny, and pointed, but Van Heerden saw nothing.
“Where?”
“Under the overhang of the roof.”
His eyes searched, saw a closed-circuit camera in the shadows, barely visible, then another one.
“Lot of security,” he said.
“What do they do?”
“Rob and murder.”
“For a living?”
“I don’t know.”
“They know we’re here. Those cameras have seen us.”
“I know.”
“You have a plan?”
“Yes.”
“Like the one at the flat?”
“Yes.”
Tiny Mpayipheli shook his head but said nothing. He parked the Mercedes a block away.
“You can’t call the police, because you’re looking for the dollars.”
“Yes.”
“Let me call Orlando. Backup.”
“I’m not going to wait for backup.”
“Jesus, you’re a stupid whitey.”
Van Heerden put his hand into his jacket pocket. “Here’s a list of their shift schedule,” he said, unfolding the piece of paper that had been stuck to the door of the cupboard in the flat. “There are eight names. Schlebusch is dead and I presume the four who were at my mother’s house are on it, because Potgieter led us to the escort agency and the flat. That’s five, plus the one in the flat. Six dead or out of action. And Venter. Do you think we can handle three guys?”
“You want to go in at the front door, where they can see us coming a mile away. Where’s the strategic advantage?”
“Tiny, if Orlando sends a busload of soldiers, it’ll attract attention so fast that the police will be here within minutes.”
“True.”
“Phone Orlando but tell him to give us half an hour. No. An hour.”
Mpayipheli nodded and dialed, spoke. “Orlando’s giving us sixty minutes.” He took out the Rossi, reloaded it with bullets from his jacket pocket. “Never thought I’d go into battle with a white ex-cop,” he said, and opened the car door.
They walked down the road side by side, through the sifting rain, the wind lifting their jackets. Van Heerden looked up at the bulk of the mountain above them, the well-known flat summit covered in low, dark cloud. Just as well. Wouldn’t have been a good sign if it had been clear.
Those weeks after Nagel’s death.
All he had done was stare at the mountain. A huge, unavoidable, permanent reminder of his guilt. Of his badness.
They stood in front of the door. The brass plate bearing the name of the firm was dirty. He put his hand on the latch, turned it. The door swung open. He looked at Tiny, who shrugged his shoulders. They walked in. A large area, dim inside, an empty warehouse, the gray paint faded, the floor a rough cement surface, dusty, dirty. In the gloom he could see a table in a corner. Someone sat there, a dark shadow, unrecognizable, a heavy mass. They walked nearer, Tiny’s hand on the Rossi in the shoulder holster.
The figure at the table started clapping its hands, slowly, the sound of palm upon palm sharp and echoing in the great, empty space, keeping pace with their footfalls on the cement floor. They walked up to the table, the shadows forming themselves into something human: broad, thick neck, shoulders and chest bulging under the camouflage overall, squat, powerful, the face familiar, like a vaguely remembered friend, and then Van Heerden saw the dark mark on the neck, a splash as big as a man’s hand, and the rhythmical clapping stopped and it was suddenly quiet, only the rain pattering softly on the corrugated-iron roof.
“Speckle,” he said.
The face sunburned, the eyes bright and intelligent, the smile sincere, wide, and winning.
“You’re good, Van Heerden, I have to hand it to you. You achieved in… what, six, seven days, something that took the entire SADF twenty-three years.”
It was the voice from the telephone that morning. Quiet. Reasonable. “And now it’s over,” said Van Heerden.
The smile widened, white teeth gleaming. “You’re good, Van Heerden,” he said again. “But you’re not that good.”
“But he’s not alone,” said Tiny Mpayipheli.
“Shut up, kaffir, the white bosses are speaking now.”
Van Heerden felt Mpayipheli stiffen as if an invisible knife had sliced into him.
“It’s over, Speckle.”
“No one calls me Speckle now.” The smile vanished.
“Where’s the will, Speckle?”
He hit the metal table with the flat of his hands, a thunderclap in the room. “Basson!” The exclamation an explosion, he was halfway up, but Tiny’s Rossi was in his hands, big black hands gripped around the stock, the barrel gleaming, a deathly hush in the air.
Slowly Venter sat down again. “They call me Basson,” he said softly, his eyes on Van Heerden as if Mpayipheli didn’t exist. His whisper filled the echoing space.
“Where’s the will?”
“Didn’t you get my message?”
“I didn’t believe your message.”
The smile back again. “Dr. Zatopek van Heerden. Criminal Psychology, if I’m not mistaken.”
Van Heerden said nothing.
“The will is at the back.” The hand indicating a door behind him was large and weather-beaten, the fingers and wrist thick.
“Let’s fetch it.”
“You fetch it. The kaffir and I want to discuss white domination. If he’s not scared of putting down his little gun.”
Mpayipheli turned the Rossi in his hands, holding out the butt to Van Heerden.
“Take it.”
“Tiny.”
“Come on, Speckle.” The Xhosa’s voice was a deep growl, like an animal’s. He tore off his jacket, threw it aside.
“Tiny!”
“Fetch the will, Van Heerden,” said Mpayipheli, his eyes on Venter. He thrust his hand into his collar, ripped the shirt off his body, buttons flying, materia
l tearing.
“Open that door, Doctor.” Venter stood up behind the table, short, impossibly broad, unzipping the military overall, massive muscles rippling, a network of tattoos covering the impressive torso. They stood facing each other, the tall, athletic black man, the short white man, a freak of thick bundles of tissue and bulging blue veins.
“Open that door.” Venter had eyes only for Tiny, his voice a bark, an order.
For a moment he was undecided.
“Go,” said Tiny.
He took two, three steps to the door, opened it.
He froze.
Hope Beneke, Bester Brits, and another man, all on their knees, arms manacled behind their backs. The barrel of a gun in each of their mouths, three men standing there. They didn’t look at him, kept their eyes on their targets, fingers on the triggers. Behind them stood a Unimog truck, the back covered with a tarpaulin, and a white panel van.
“You see, Doctor, it’s not over. It’s not over by a long chalk.”
He looked back at Venter, saw the two men facing each other in the murky light, both crouching, ready, swung back to the other room, saw Hope’s shivering body, her lips around the barrel of the M16, the tears rolling down her cheeks, her eyes turning toward Van Heerden. He lifted the Rossi, saw his hands shaking, aimed at the soldier in front of Hope.
“Take the gun out of her mouth.”
“I planned it differently, Doctor.” Speckle Venter’s voice came from behind him. “I assumed you would come on your own, the way you handled the investigation. Alone. And then we would’ve negotiated. Hope Beneke and the will for you. Bester Brits and Vergottini and the dollars for me. The will is there—do you see it?”
The document, rolled up and pushed down Hope’s neckline.
“The dollars are on the truck, a few gemstones, and my little arsenal. And we would ride heroically into the west, against the setting sun, and everyone would’ve been happy…”
And then he spat out, “But then you brought the kaffir. And now things have changed.”
Van Heerden didn’t look round, his eyes and the Rossi still on the soldier in front of Hope. He could see they were young, rough, tough, like the bodies in front of his mother’s house.