by Frank Lamour
Even though they were now heading back from where they’d just come, Joel had to confess he’d felt a little glad when Pinchas’s cell had chimed in with its Sarah Brightman aria. It had been a while since he’d had to do as much heavy lifting as he had today and as the day progressed he just seemed to feel like it less and less. If his boss was freaking out about safety, maybe he was also softening a bit with age.
They had eased up on the torture as Pinchas had taken the call. The three of them stood around waiting, the unfortunate guy Dan just about passing out on the back of the horse.
“Ja… okay… okay…,” the Pinchas had said into the phone, getting up and started to pace with the help of his cane. “Does he want me to bring the money? Okay. If you say so.” And then, after he’d hung up, to Joel, “Okay, take him down!”
Joel and his two colleagues had complied, lifting Dan up and off the horse.
Pinchas had then told them that that had been Rene on the phone. “The big guy now wants me to bring him over.”
“We were just there!” Sunnyboy had said.
“What do you want, a fucking medal?”, the tiny man had bellowed—showing he still had some bite. “Get moving!”
Joel and Sunnyboy had carried Dan, through to the garage, still in his filthy shirt and underpants.
Slowly following, Pinchas had said, “Seeing as you totalled the Jeep, we’ll take the Volvo.” Joel at the time thinking it was a bit of jerk thing to say as the old guy had never once rode in the Cherokee anyway.
To his left the old man was fidgeting, shuffling in his seat, looking sweaty. This guy Thornapple obviously still had some hold on him.
Joel had definitely noticed a change in the Pinchas since the old guy had started taking DMT. Probably initially for the better—at the start the old man had seemed happier, and maybe a just a bit more, well, human. But then something had happened. After stopped being asked to be driven to the House of the Vegetable, the man had become increasingly isolated, paranoid.
Joel had only met de Pooter / Thornapple briefly a couple of times before today, but so far from what he’d had seen, he just didn’t get it. The guy seemed like a nut, a flake, barely able to string a sentence together. Surely all those living at the house had to be motivated simply by the free drugs and board. At any rate, Joel thought, the sooner he was done dealing with these weirdos the better.
He relaxed back into the finely adjusted Volvo seat as he pushed the car further on through the suburbs.
Chapter 60
On the side of the house, to the left and down from the front door, there was a small, maybe half-sized, door that led to a crawlspace under the building.
A heavy padlock prevented anyone from wandering in. Thornapple had told all that it was locked because of mould spores—the environment was too hot and damp and mould spores could cause all sorts of serious health issues.
Thornapple now clicked open the lock and went inside. He usually tried only to get down here at night, but today, as a result of this morning’s events, was drawn again by the need inspect his work.
The dark space was filled with decades of junk gathered over three generations. Old appliances, crumbling items of furniture, rotting stacks of magazine and newspapers and the stench of rats and must.
The wedge shaped gap between the ground and the floorboards above was not great but one could move through it, in parts, okay enough, just stooped over—Thornapple maybe just needing to stoop a little bit more than most.
Thornapple now navigated his way through the maze of bare-brick structure until he reached the far end of the space underneath the ceremony room. Here he sat down on one of his pouffes to take comfort again in examining the spaceship he’d built.
Chapter 61
“What the fuck?” Lesley said to the two on the floor in the room at the back of Pinchas’s garage. De la Roche’s shirt was covered in blood. Beppe, next to him, was lying on his side, looking pretty sick, blood all over his hands and legs, not seeming to be aware of much going on around him. Ricky stared at Lesley with something like terror.
Lesley remembered the makeshift balaclava on his head and ripped it off. “Never mind,” he continued. “I don’t have time. Where the fuck is Tabachnik?”
Ricky now frowned, then appearing to put some pieces together. “You just missed him. He left five minutes ago to go to the House of the Vegetable. Just before all shooting started.”
Lesley glared at the guy, then checked the time again on his watch. Christ, he was sure Pinchas had said one. There was a handful of carjackers now starting to cluster behind him, some peering into the room, trying to see what was going on.
“But I told him I was coming,” Lesley said, maybe trying to justify his mistake to all gathered—unhappy with the whine that had crept into his voice. He’d fucked up royally. What to do now?
He had to keep things moving. Lesley took a deep breath and tried shifting back down into what felt like the mental equivalent of first gear.
“We are going to the fucking House of Vegetable!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, Raging Judge held high. “And anyone who wants to re-negotiate gets point-four-fifty-four of an inch of lead up his fucking sphincter!” He pushed out through the mob gathered at the door—who were now looking more confused than anything else.
Trudging back down to the Corolla, he’d expected shouts of protest, or maybe a couple 7.62 x 39’s in the back of his head, but (so far at least) nothing.
Lesley reached his sedan, rested a hand on the open door and turned to look back up the drive.
The crew was still milling about, looking uncertain what do to. After a bit though, trading words with One-eye, they slowly, grudgingly, started to mobilise and head back down toward the two 4x4’s.
As long as they follow, Lesley thought. He still had the rest of their money.
He was just about to climb into the Toyota when he heard the sound of a small engine out by the street. He straightened and turned to see a little white bakkie, covered in decals, rumbling up the driveway towards him.
◆◆◆
The bakkie pulled to a halt just short of the busted gate and stood for a moment idling.
Lesley then heard the vehicle switch gear and watched as it began attempting a speedy reverse back down the driveway.
The neat exit was scuppered when a chatter of gunfire punched several holes through the driver’s side of the windshield. The vehicle shuddered and stalled, coming to a halt midway down the drive. The passenger door of the bakkie then swung open and the remaining occupant, in bulletproof vest and armed with both pistol and rifle, ran to take cover behind the car. He was hardly out of sight before the hail of bullets started, and all hell seemed to break loose.
Lesley, caught between the security van and One-eye’s crew, dropped to the paving as bullets started whipping overhead. He leopard-crawled as best as he could round to the other side of the Corolla to take cover, intermittently firing blindly down toward the security vehicle with the Judge, only remembering once he was safely behind the tyre that he’d spent all the chambered rounds in the garage, and had been dry firing.
He started fumbling for the full moonclip in his pocket, thought better of it, dropped the Judge and reached for .38 on his ankle.
One-eye’s crew had by now all spilled out of the garage, and were firing wildly while scrambling for cover—their fully-auto weapons meeting the lone semi-auto. The racket of the weapons was deafening. Noise bouncing off the surrounding buildings, echoes multiplied and seemed to amplify the din. Lesley decided instead to put the .38 down, and cover his ears.
A shot from somewhere took out the passenger side window above him and beads of tempered glass rained down on his head.
The thunderous exchange continued on for a good minute or so before Lesley saw One-eye gesturing with his panga for his guys to stop. His shouts drowned out by the noise.
Finally though, the gunfire started to peter out, sounding like a just-about-ready bag of microwave popcorn, Lesley thou
ght, one or two kernels still popping after the rest had finished.
After it quietened, Lesley collected up both his revolvers, stood and turned to see the damage.
The little reaction unit was just about torn to shreds, riddled with holes, and Lesley just hoped that the crew still had enough shells left for the rest of the job.
Chapter 62
Lesley’s ears were still singing as he climbed into Toyota. The apocalyptic noise would surely bring down more backup fast. The SAPS were slack, but this racket had no doubt been heard for fucking blocks and they must have every neighbour for miles fucking phoning in. They had to get out of there and toot-suite!
One-eye now also clearly seemed to be aware of this and was shouting and furiously at his men, gesturing them toward the vehicles.
On the plus side though, Lesley thought, if the cops were busy here, it might give them more time at the next destination.
Lesley fired up his car. The security van was still blocking the drive and Lesley watched in the review mirror as one of One-eye’s men leaned into the bullet-ridden vehicle, released the handbrake and pushed it off to send it snaking, slowly—but building up speed—down the steep driveway, till it finally came to a halt halfway through the neighbour’s wall across the street.
Lesley felt sure the carjacker could have just steered it out of the way, but supposed once a sense of anarchy had taken hold it was difficult to pack it all back in the bag.
One-eye climbed into the passenger next to Lesley. De la Roche and Redhead helping Beppe into the back seat and then climbing in themselves. Lesley chucked the car in reverse, motored backwards down the drive before tearing out into the street and taking off.
Once he was, what he felt was, a safe distance from the house he slowed, checking behind to see that the two Mercs were still following. Nought had been discussed further about the change of venue but as long as they were all following he was still on track.
His hair and face were now damp with sweat, but his gut holding up surprisingly well he thought. He was sure all this would just have to improve his level of attractiveness with Brunhilda. Via body language, pheromones or whatever, he would no doubt just fucking win her over. He was back in control.
Chapter 63
The gate of the House of the Vegetable ground open, Joel pulled the Volvo in, drove up close to the front entrance, parked and killed the engine.
Nutmeg was sitting, naked, smoking a pipe on the front porch. Otherwise there was no sign of anyone.
Joel briefly turned over in his mind the events of earlier this morning. He knew these patchouli types usually did not handle violence too well. He had a hypothesis though, that it was not so much because New-agers were non-violent but rather because many were just intensely suppressing their rage and given a chance they’d turn out to be more savage than your most hardened war vet. I mean, take that one with the rifle as example, Joel thought.
Joel untucked the portion of his shirt covering his pistol and tucked it back behind the gun.
Nutmeg rose and walked down the steps to greet them.
“C’mon Joel,” Pinchas said. “Brown, you hang back in the car a bit.”
The two men exited the car and went over to meet Nutmeg.
“Hey Rene,” Pinchas said. “Where is everybody?”
“Inside,” Nutmeg said. “We’re holding a vigil for Kratom.”
Pinchas nodded. “Ja, ja, it’s too bad. He was a good kid.” Then without missing a beat: “Where’s the big guy?”
Nutmeg folded her arms, suddenly looking uneasy. She pointed down to a small door, just to left of the front stoep. “I’m fully committed,” she said to Pinchas. “He knows that… he’s always looked up to you. Maybe you can talk to him.” She left them and headed back into the house.
Joel was not sure what that was all about, but his vague feeling of unease was not soothed as he caught the almost terrified expression on Pinchas’s face as the little old man stared down at the half door. The old man appeared to shake himself out of the trance and then with the help of his cane began making his slow way over to it.
“You want me to get the kid?” Joel asked.
“Let’s go see what this asshole wants first,” Pinchas said.
Reaching the half door, Pinchas stepped back, indicating for Joel to do the honours. Joel bent to inspect the door. It had a large padlock on but that was unlocked and hung loose. He tugged the little handle and was met by a strong odour of damp and rats as the door opened.
Joel peered in.
The small amount of light filtering in through the open door and gaps in the floorboard above illuminated a crawlspace, maybe a metre and a half high, maybe more, although getting lower as the ground sloped up. It was piled with masses of old junk.
Joel pushed in, followed by his boss. After squeezing through the small door, Joel could just about stand, dipping his head a bit. The old man was pretty much able to stand upright. Above could be heard the soft murmur of voices, the occasional creak and groan of a floorboard.
Joel leading, the two men pressed on, passing through a series of doorway-size gaps and room-sized chambers before finally locating Thornapple in a larger space, filled with criss-crossing beams and struts.
The tall man was sitting near the far wall, back to them, under a harsh work-light that was hung from a wire on a hook, cross-legged on one of the pouffe things. He had his head down, staring at the floor, or sleeping. In front of him were a several wooden pallets stacked on top of each other, on top of those a strange object—what to Joel looked like an orange-yellow, three-dimensional Star of David.
The star was maybe roughly about a cubic half metre in size, made out of what Joel might have guessed was plasticine if it weren’t for the giveaway colour and the dozens of wired blasting caps that led from it down to a heavy nine-volt battery and crude trigger mechanism laid on the pallet.
Pinchas now approached. Joel followed.
Thornapple heard them, turned, looked up, the bump on his jaw more swollen and bruised than before. “Hey. You bring Betelnut?” he murmured.
“He’s in the car,” Pinchas replied after a pause. “What the fuck is that?” He said, now pointing at the object on the pallet.
“Uh, are you familiar with Plato’s allegory of the cave?”
Pinchas stared blankly.
“It’s a focus of intent. It’s a spaceship, basically,” Thornapple said. He uncrossed his legs and rose, still though somewhat bent over under the floorboards. He moved over to the wall next to the pallets, where he leaned back, hands in pockets. “Everything’s fucked.”
Pinchas sighed. “What are you talking about?”
“Kratom.”
“We sorted that out!”
Thornapple shook his head. “It’s not going to work. His family thinks he’s still here! I’ve been thinking about it. There’s no way I can see this working out without either media or police fucking things up for me. I’m gonna be on Carte Blanche!”
“What are you talking about? We sorted that out,” Pinchas repeated.
“Think of this as just a relocation,” Thornapple said, not really listening. “I just wanted to first check if you wanted to join us? Even though you left, you’re a founding member. All of us who drank, we’re now bonded in service to something greater. You, me, even Betelnut. I don’t blame the guy, it’s not his fault. I’m more to blame. I should’ve picked up his intentions. It doesn’t matter. He’s one of the family now.”
“What about everyone else? How do they feel about it?”
Thornapple shrugged.
“You know what?” Pinchas said. “You’re fucking nuts. Maybe you can do some stuff but you’re still fucking certifiable. I was crazy to get messed up with you. Where the fuck did you even get that shit? Is it even fucking real?” Pinchas said pointing at the object on the palette, briefly turning to Joel for confirmation.
Joel nodded.
“Someone actually offered it to me,” Thornapple said, shrugged.
“That’s my life. I took it as a sign. Anyway, I hope it’s fucking real. I paid a lot for it.” He leaned over to inspect the star. “It was easy enough then to get hold of some blasting caps, wired them to a battery. If I press this it closes the circuit, well you know how it fucking works.” He turned to Pinchas. “So you in?”
“Uh, yeah, nah,” Pinchas said.
Thornapple rubbed his hands together for a bit seeming to consider this. “You’ll thank me later,” he finally said and moved his right hand toward the trigger.
Joel’s many of hours of practising his waistband draw in front of the TV now came into play as he smoothly drew the Wilson Combat, flicked off the safety, aimed and fired.
The sound of the weapon boomed in the confined area, and scream was heard from above.
Thornapple smartly retracted his hand, clutching it to his chest. He stared hard at Joel and then Pinchas, looking like some hard-done-by animal. His left hand cradling the wounded right, the gaps between the fingers now started to drip blood. Thornapple moved the hand away from his chest to inspect it, maybe try assess the damage. Joel saw the man’s forefinger was sticking out at an odd angle and realised it was simply hanging on loose by a flap of skin.
Thornapple tried his best to push the digit back roughly into place then clutched the hand again to his chest.
Noises above, footsteps, commotion.
Thornapple stared at Joel again for a long moment and moved again for the switch, though this time with his right foot.
The next two shots took the shaman through the torso. His body stiffened like a board, head slamming with a loud thump into the floorboards above before the tall man dropped forward to the dirt, pushing up a cloud of dust as he landed.
Joel stood staring at the body as above he now heard further sounds of panic. To his left, he thought he heard his boss gagging. Joel turned to see Pinchas drop to the floor and begin to violently seize.