Blood Safari

by Deon Meyer

  In the other branch of Jeanette’s service were those whose job was to manage more subtle but also largely imaginary threats. They had to flatter the client’s ego with a curriculum vitae reflecting both official training and high-profile experience. They preserved the illusion of danger by moving in the periphery, incessantly observing and evaluating. Sometimes they worked in teams of two, four or six with tiny concealed ear- and microphones. Sometimes they worked alone, depending on the size of the client group, the financial means, or the nature of the risk. They had to blend into the environment the client was moving through, appearing only to whisper polite suggestions at convenient moments. The client expected that, because film and television had set the standard of behaviour. (I had a Scandinavian businesswoman who insisted I wear an earphone complete with a trailing wire disappearing down my collar, despite the fact that I was working alone and had no one to communicate with.)

  Consequently, Jeanette Louw would ask prospective clients or their agent: ‘Do you need a gorilla, or an invisible.’ In the world of the rich and famous it was recognised terminology.

  But Carel-know-it-all hadn’t got it quite right. His mistake told me something – his knowledge was only fragmentary.

  ‘When you hire a bodyguard, Jeanette asks you if you want a ghost or a gorilla,’ he explained to the rest of the table. ‘We have only used the gorillas for the celebrities who come to make ads.’

  I couldn’t think of an appropriate response. The situation was strange to me. The employee didn’t usually sit at the same table as the employer – it was socially unacceptable. Add to that my own lack of enthusiasm for small talk. But Carel didn’t require a response.

  ‘The gorillas are the big guys,’ he said. ‘They look like nightclub bouncers. But the ghosts are the real pros. The ones that guard state presidents and ministers.’

  They stared at me, the whole table.

  ‘Is that your background too, Mr Lemmer?’ Carel asked. It was an invitation, but I turned it down with a mere nod, slight and unenthusiastic.

  ‘There you are, Emma. You’re in good hands,’ said Carel.

  Good hands. I suspected that Carel did not have first-hand experience of the hiring process at Body Armour. It was something he left to subordinates. If he had handled it himself, he would have known that Jeanette had a price list and I wasn’t anywhere near the top. My place was in the bargain basement, the one that didn’t like teamwork, the one with a secret history and defective public relations.

  Did Emma know? Surely not. Jeanette was too professional. She would have asked, ‘How much would you like to spend?’ and Emma would have said she had no idea of the cost. ‘Anything between ten thousand rand a day for a team of four and seven hundred and fifty for a solo operator.’ Jeanette would have explained the choices without mentioning her twenty per cent cut, plus administrative charge, unemployment insurance, income tax and bank transfer fees.

  What did a brand consultant earn? How big a chunk of that was R750 per day, R5,250 per week, R21,000 a month? Not small change, especially for imaginary threats.

  ‘I’m sure I am,’ said Emma with a distant smile, as if her thoughts were somewhere else.

  ‘There’s more ice cream,’ said Carel’s wife hopefully.

  He invited me to his playroom. He called it his den.

  ‘Invited’ in the broadest possible sense. ‘Shall we have a chat?’ were the words Carel used, a grey area between invitation and order. He went first. A mounted kudu head stared out over the room. There was a billiard table and a cane bar, bottles on a shelf, along with a small cigar humidor. The pictures on the wall were of Carel-and-gun posing with dead animals.

  ‘Drink?’ he asked, and moved behind the bar counter.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said, leaning against the billiard table.

  He poured for himself, two fingers of brown, undiluted liquid. He drank from the glass and opened the humidor. ‘Cuban?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You’re sure? These are class,’ he said complacently. ‘They age them for twenty-four months, like wine.’

  ‘I don’t smoke, thank you.’

  He selected a cigar for himself, stroking his fingers down the chunky cylinder. He snipped the end off with a large instrument and put the cigar in his mouth. ‘Your amateur trims it with that cheap rubbish that crimps it here at the end.’ He held up his clipper for my inspection. ‘This is what they call a .44 Magnum. Makes a perfectly round hole.’

  He reached for the box of matches. ‘And then you get the fools who lick cigars before they light up. That comes from the days when you bought local cigars in the corner café. If the moisture content is properly maintained, you don’t lick them.’

  He struck a match and allowed the flame to burn strongly. Then he held it to the cigar. He inhaled in short, rapid puffs while rotating the cigar in his fingers. White clouds of smoke floated up around him and a rich aroma filled the room. He shook the match. ‘They say the best way to light a cigar is with a Spanish cedar spill. You take a long thin strip of cedar, set that alight first and then use it to light the cigar. It has a pure, clean flame that does not influence the flavour of the cigar. But where would we get Spanish cedar? I ask you.’ He smiled at me as if we shared the same difficulty.

  He drew deeply on the cigar. ‘Cuban, nothing can touch them. The Jamaican is not bad either, nice and light, the Dominican somewhere in between, Honduras is too wild. Nothing touches the cream of old Fidel’s crop.’

  I wondered fleetingly how long he could maintain a monologue in front of a bored audience, but then I remembered that he was a Rich Afrikaner. The answer was: infinitely.

  He drew an ashtray closer. ‘Some fools think you shouldn’t tap off a cigar’s ash. Total myth. Bullshit.’ He chuckled. ‘The guys smoke cheap cigars and then say the bitter taste is the result of knocking off the ash.’

  Carel sat on a bar stool, cigar in one hand, drink in the other.

  ‘There’s a great deal of bullshit in the world, my friend, a great deal of bullshit.’

  What did he want?

  Another puff on the cigar. ‘But let me tell you one thing, there’s no bullshit in little Emma. None. If she says there are people out to harm her, then I believe her. Do you understand?’

  I was not in the mood for this conversation. I did not respond. I knew he didn’t like it.

  ‘Don’t you want to sit down?’

  ‘I’ve been sitting too much today.’

  ‘She’s like a daughter in this house, my friend, like one of my own. That is why she came to me about this thing. That’s why you’re here. You have to understand, she’s gone through a lot in her life. Deep waters …’

  I tried to temper my annoyance by thinking how fascinating a man like Carel van Zyl was.

  Self-made Men all share a personality type – driven, smart, hard working and dominant. When the wealth grows and people start to defer to their power and influence, every Self-made Man makes the same mistake. They believe the respect is for them, personally. It polishes their self-esteem and tones down their personality towards geniality. But it remains a thin veneer; the original dynamo is still at work behind the self-deceit.

  He was accustomed to being the centre of attention. He did not like standing on the sideline of this event. He wanted me to know that he was responsible for my involvement; he was the father figure serving Emma’s interests, therefore he was actually in control, and the arbiter of my services. He had the right to interfere and to be a part of this. Above all, he had Knowledge. And he was about to share it with me.

  ‘She came to work for me after she graduated. Most men would have seen just a pretty little thing, but I knew she had something, my friend.’ He punctuated his sentence with the cigar.

  ‘I’ve employed a lot of them, account managers, and they just see the glamour and the long lunches with clients and the fat pay cheques. But not Emma. She wanted to learn; she wanted to work. You would never say there was money behind her; she had
the ambition of someone from a poor background. Ask me, my friend, I know. In any case, she had been working for me for about three years when the thing with her parents happened. Car accident, dead on impact, both of them. She sat in my office, my friend, poor little thing, crushed, I’m telling you. Crushed, because she had no one left. That’s when she told me about her brother. Can you imagine? So much loss. Turbulent times. What can you say?’

  He reached for the bottle and unscrewed the cap.

  ‘But she’s strong, that one. Strong.’

  Drew the glass nearer.

  ‘I only heard about the size of the estate later. And let me tell you now …’ He poured two fingers. ‘This is all about the money.’

  A dramatic silence, cap back on the bottle, a sip from the glass, a short pull from the cigar. ‘There are a lot of vultures out there, my friend. A lot. The bigger the fortune, the quicker they sniff it out. Ask me, I know.’

  He gestured with the glass: ‘Out there is somebody with a scheme. Someone that’s done his homework, someone who knows her history and wants to use it to get at her money. I don’t know how. But it’s about the money.’

  He brought the glass to his lips again and then put it down on the counter with finality. ‘All you have to do is work out the scheme. Then you have your man.’

  At that moment I could have told him Lemmer’s First Law. I didn’t.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  It was not a word he was used to hearing. His reaction proved that.

  ‘I’m a bodyguard. Not a detective,’ I said before I walked out.

  My room was beside Emma’s. Her door was shut.

  I showered and set out clothes for the next day. I sat on the edge of the bed and sent Jeanette Louw an SMS: IS THERE FILE AT SAPS GARDENS RE ASSAULT/BREAK IN ON E. LE ROUX YESTERDAY?

  Then I opened the bedroom door so that I could hear and I switched off the light.

  5

  Nobody followed us to the airport.

  We travelled in Emma’s Renault Mégane, a green cabriolet. My Isuzu pick-up stayed in Carel’s garage. ‘There is more than enough space for it, Emma.’

  He had ignored me this morning.

  ‘Do you drive, Mr Lemmer?’ she asked.

  ‘If it’s acceptable to you, Miss Le Roux.’ It was our last formal exchange. While I was familiarising myself with the automatic gearbox and the startling power of the two-litre engine between Fisherhaven and the N2, she said, ‘Please call me Emma.’

  This was always an awkward moment because people expect me to reciprocate, but I never volunteer my first name. ‘I’m Lemmer.’

  Initially, I watched the rear-view mirror with extra attention, because that was where the amateurs would be – visible and keen. But there was nothing. I varied the speed between 90 and 120 kilometres per hour. Ascending the Houw Hoek Pass, I wondered about a white Japanese sedan in front of us. Despite the precautions I had taken, it maintained the same speed as we did and my suspicion grew stronger as we descended the other side of the pass when I pushed the Renault up to 140.

  A few kilometres before Grabouw, I decided to make certain once and for all. Shortly before the T-junction, I put on the indicator, slowed down as though I intended to turn off and watched the white car. No reaction, it kept on going. I put off the indicator and accelerated.

  ‘Do you know the way?’ Emma enquired politely.

  ‘Yes, I know the way,’ I replied.

  She nodded, satisfied, and rummaged in her handbag until she found her sunglasses.

  Cape Town International was chaos – not enough parking owing to the building additions, too many people, a beehive of anxious Christmas season travellers on their way to somewhere and keen to get the journey over as quickly as possible. Impossible to spot shadows.

  We checked in Emma’s large suitcase and my black sports bag.

  ‘What about your firearm?’ she asked on the way to Departures.

  ‘I don’t have one.’

  She frowned.

  ‘Carel just assumed,’ I said.

  ‘Oh.’ Not happy. She wanted the assurance that her protector was suitably equipped. I kept quiet until we were through the baggage scanner, when we waited at the Nescafe coffee shop for a table to become vacant.

  ‘I thought you were armed,’ she said with faint concern.

  ‘Guns make things complicated. Especially travelling.’ It wouldn’t help to tell her that my parole conditions forbade the possession of a firearm.

  A table became available and we sat down. ‘Coffee?’ I asked.

  ‘Please. Cappuccino, if they have it. No sugar.’

  I went to stand in the queue, but in a position to see her. She sat with her boarding pass in her hand, staring at it. What was she thinking? About weapons and the level of protection she expected? About what lay before us?

  That’s when I saw him. His eyes focused intently on Emma. He weaved between the tables. Big, white, neat beard, mustard T-shirt, pressed jeans, sports jacket. Early forties. I moved, but he was too close to intercept. He reached out a hand to her shoulder and I blocked him, gripped his wrist and swung back his arm, got my weight against his back, pressed him up against the pillar beside Emma, but without violence. I didn’t want to attract attention.

  He made a noise of surprise. ‘Hey,’ he said.

  Emma glanced up. She was confused, her body taut with fright. But she recognised beard-face. ‘Stoffel?’ she said.

  Stoffel looked at her, then at me. He pulled back, trying to free his arm. He was strong, but uncoordinated. An amateur. I stayed fluid, gave him a bit of leeway.

  ‘Do you know him?’ I asked Emma.

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s Stoffel’

  I loosened my grip and he jerked his arm away.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  I stayed very close to him, intimidating him with a look. He didn’t like that. Emma stood up, holding her hand in the air apologetically. ‘This is all a misunderstanding, Stoffel. Nice to see you again. Please sit down.’

  Stoffel was indignant now. ‘Who is this guy?’

  Emma took his hand. ‘Come say hello, it’s nothing.’ She pulled him away from me. He allowed it. She offered her cheek. He kissed it quickly, as if he still expected me to do something unexpected.

  ‘Coffee?’ I asked in a friendly tone.

  He didn’t reply immediately. He sat down, slowly and solemnly, so he could restore his dignity. ‘Yes, please,’ he said. ‘Milk and sugar.’

  There was a little smile on Emma’s face, the anxiety forgotten. She glanced fleetingly at me, as though we shared a secret.

  The flight to Nelspruit was on SA Express’s fifty-seater Canadair jet. I sat beside Emma, on the aisle; she sat by the window. The plane was nearly full. There were at least ten passengers who, according to age, gender and level of interest, could qualify as members of Emma’s imaginary opponents. I had my doubts. To place someone on a plane as a tail is overkill, because the point of departure and arrival is known.

  Before we took off she said, ‘Stoffel is an attorney.’ I hadn’t sat with them over coffee. There were only two seats at the table and I preferred to stand for a wider view and a final chance to stretch my legs. I expect Stoffel wanted to know who I was and she had avoided the question.

  ‘He’s a good guy,’ she said now. And added, ‘We dated, a few years ago …’ With nostalgia that indicated a history. Then she took the flight magazine out of its slot and flipped it open.

  Stoffel, the ex.

  My assumption had been otherwise – I thought he was a business acquaintance, or the husband of a friend. He hadn’t struck me as the kind of man she would be attracted to. And their interaction was so … friendly. But I could picture it: they meet at one of the social or cultural watering holes where the rich gather after sundown. He is well spoken and intelligent, with a cutting self-mockery and a fund of judicial inside stories that he tells with flourish. His attention to Emma would be subtle, he would have a method with women, a recipe
he had perfected over twenty bachelor years. She would find it pleasant. When he procured her number from a mutual acquaintance four or five days later, she would remember who he was. She would accept the invitation to the top-ten restaurant. Or the art exhibition, or the symphony concert. She would know from the start that he was not really her type, but she would give it a chance. By her mid-thirties she would have learned enough about people in general and men in particular to know that her type had complications. A woman like Emma would be attracted to the Men’s Health cover man – a finely sculpted Greek god only half a metre taller than she was. So that they would make a fine picture as a couple.

  Her sort was a metrosexual with a dark fringe, pale eyes and the perfect smile. The sporty, fit, outdoor kind that went jogging on the beach with his Staffordshire terrier, and parked his old, secondhand Land Rover Defender in front of Camps Bay’s hot spots, the spade prominent on the rack along with the jerrycans. After four or five relationships with clones of Mr Men’s Health she would know that the soulful silences and the laconic devil-may-care chats were mostly camouflage for self-absorption and average intellect. So she would allow the Stoffels of the world a chance, and after a month or so of entertaining, albeit unexciting dates she would gently tell him it would be better if they were only friends (‘you’re a good guy’) while secretly she wondered why this sort of man could not set her heart alight.

  We took off into the south-easter. Emma put the magazine away and stared out of the window at False Bay, where the white horse breakers galloped into the shore. She turned to me.

  ‘Where are you from, Lemmer?’ With apparent interest.

  A bodyguard does not sit with his client on planes. The bodyguard, even on a solo mission, forms part of the greater entourage. Usually he travels in a separate vehicle, always in a seat, to perform his duties anonymously and impersonally. No intimate contact and conversation, no questions about the past. It is a necessary distance, a professional buffer, so ordained by Lemmer’s First Law.

  ‘The Cape.’

  It was not enough to satisfy her. ‘Which part?’