by Raven, R. D.
And that excited Abbey more than the plumpy red-head who'd screamed his name like he was the Lord Almighty himself all those years ago! What power he had felt then. What power he felt now. It was an actual physical sensation in his fingertips, electrifying, galvanizing, awakening … arousing!
Abbey's internet connection would be murderous in the car (these blooming South Africans were so bloody backwards) but if he didn't leave now, he'd not be wherever Miguel was going to be, at the Right Time. He eyed the charge on his laptop (it was full), unplugged it and ran out of his room. (He really did need to get an iPad. That would've been easier. He was sure the CCB would get him one. Ahh, the money, all that money!)
On his way down the hallway, Abbey thought of his Pulitzer-Prize-winning speech. The thought was not one he'd been able to control lately. It just came to him at the most random of moments—moments like these, when his olfactory nerves were sharp like that of a bloodhound's, smelling a good story like a dead rat roasting in the sun.
Ladies and Gentleman, Members of the Press,
It is my honor to accept this award tonight. It all began for me—
The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Laptop in hand, he rushed to the garage where his rented Hyundai City Chic was standing. It was a nice car, smelled new on the inside and handled well, but he'd really wanted something much larger: maybe a Mercedes C250 Sport or, even, an E350 Cabriolet. But that had been too far out of his price range. He was sure the CCB would cover him a decent car for getting his news stories in the future. With such a knack for being at the Right Place they'd surely invest in him, understanding his value. He switched on the car and imagined its engine roaring and purring.
But it didn't.
Precariously, he placed the laptop on the passenger seat on his left (at least the South African cars had the steering wheel on the right side). Already, the flicking red dot which had been Miguel's car had begun to stagnate—but maybe that was just because Abbey was underground. And Abbey knew the general direction he would need to head into in the meantime. It was only when he got there that he'd need to have a decent connection again.
South Africa: he had to confess, he was starting to like this place. Maybe he would go on a safari after everything settled down. The blacks were not so crazy in the bush as they were in the city.
Blacks, there was indeed something different about them here. And then those Indians—eating with their hands and all that. Britain also had lots of Indians—curry-munchers, some liked to call them.
But he never called them that aloud.
Never.
Like being dumped in a tub of ice cold water and then pulled up from underneath it by her hair, Jaz awoke to a wash of wind hitting her from the open window, and the strange sensation that something was very wrong.
Why the hell was she in … a bed? In ... Miguel's—?
She shot her head right, then left. Shit. Oh, shit.
"Miguel. Miguel!" She was shouting his name out and lifting off the covers at the same time. Images and pictures of horrible things started pummeling her mind but she pushed those thoughts out of her head.
She was sure he was fine. She just needed to find him.
"Miguel? Honey, where are you?"
She looked in his ensuite bathroom. Empty.
She got out into the hallway, suddenly aware that his father was sleeping in the room next door, and lowered her voice. "Miguel?"
Like a battering ram, something started hitting up against her mind—bang, bang, bang, knock, bang, knock, bang—that she didn't want to think about. Bang. Bang. Knock.
Bang.
Bang.
"Miguel!" Now she screamed.
She went outside.
"Miguel!!" She heard her voice echo out into the street and then bounce back.
She heard footsteps inside, racing down the stairs.
"Jaz, is everything OK?" It was Miguel's father.
Jaz was suddenly paralyzed. She felt like Miguel had felt in all those previous days: there, but not there, her mind suddenly adrift like a feather in a tornado.
Senhor Pinto's hands on her arms jolted her. "Jaz," he said, and she was suddenly awake, brought back to earth, her muscles poised for action by a shot of adrenaline that made her feel like she could stay awake forever to look for Miguel.
"He's gone," she said to Senhor Pinto.
For a moment, he said nothing, but then Jaz saw an expression appear on his face as if he'd suddenly looked death in the eye. He shot a glance at the stairs.
"What? What is it?" she asked him.
His grip on her arms eased.
"What? Senhor Pinto, What—?"
He let her go and bolted up the stairs, one of his slippers falling off as he scampered up.
Jaz ran behind him, her chest pounding, her arms weak with fear, and that thought again: knock, knock, bang.
Bang.
When she got to Senhor Pinto's room, he was kneeling, his head in his palm and his elbow on the side table. A drawer was open, all its contents strewn around the floor: socks, handkerchiefs, a red passport.
"Ai meu Deus. Não Miguel. Não!" The man was frantic.
"What—?"
He pulled the drawer out and it got stuck. It was clearly empty but he tugged and pulled at it as if there'd been some secret compartment behind it. His head was practically inside the thing by now—pulling, pulling, pulling. It came out with a crash and his side lamp fell to the ground. The man's emotions had gotten the better of him now.
"No! My God, No!" He threw the empty drawer against a wall, smashing it. His chest heaved. Jaz flinched back, briefly afraid, but held herself together.
"Senhor ... Pinto—"
"The gun, Jaz. He took my gun!"
They own a fucking gun?! My God!
The commotion of a spinning room paused only briefly but Jaz noticed that Senhor Pinto was getting dressed (ignoring that she was still in there with him). She ran to Miguel's bedroom and put on her shoes—her clothes were already on because she'd never changed to sleep for the night.
She saw a photo of Miguel and Sandile in his room, climbing some sort of jungle gym, Miguel's arm around Sandile's neck, smiles so wide that you'd think Santa himself had taken the photo.
She pushed the lump in her throat down. Now was not the time.
"Let's go, Jaz!" It was Senhor Pinto, already halfway down the stairs.
When they got into his SUV, he asked her if she had any idea where Miguel was.
Hopelessness and helplessness bathed her. She had no fucking clue where he was.
She prayed. She friggin prayed. And she wasn't even sure who she was praying to because her family wasn't particularly religious. Her mother was an atheist, her father a Methodist by baptism but never went to church. But she just, kind of, asked whoever was out there, whoever was listening—if there was anyone—to please, help her find this boy.
Please.
Please, just, please. Whoever, or whatever is listening, please, help me. I will do ... anything.
Miguel had gotten so used to keeping a fifty conveniently "hidden" in his ID book that, when the cops stopped him for jumping a red (how could he have been so stupid?!), he completely forgot to take it out. The cop lights had been such a surprise to him that he'd slammed on the brakes, sending the envelope (heavy with coins) flying to the floorboard on the passenger side.
He was less than two minutes from Clarendon Court on Claim Street, a building in about the most disgusting place in all of existence, with hookers (not the rugby kind) and dealers swarming around like horseflies on the proverbial shit-dump which was Hillbrow, Johannesburg—the sickest cesspool of human degradation in all of God's green earth, and home to everything that was filthy in Body, Mind, and … (there is no Soul in Hillbrow).
Moments after he had handed the (rather large) female police officer his ID book, he'd felt his hand twitch to grab it back, but she had already begun to open it. It's not that he was afraid of bribing cops—that was par for the course down here�
�it's that, tonight, he simply wanted to get his traffic fine like a good little boy, attract as little attention as possible, and move on. Miguel sat with both hands on the wheel, staring forward. He counted four cars go past him in the silence that ensued as the woman opened and closed his ID book, then she said something to the other cops behind her. He'd long since put the gun in the glove compartment, so at least he was free to get out of the car if they needed him to, but if they decided to search the car ....
The cop said some more things to the other cops. Then she laughed. They always laughed, and then they got serious. The serious moment was coming, like you've been a bad schoolboy and they're the friggin lords of the universe, stopping people, accepting their bribes, sending you off on your way with a spanking on the butt for being so fucking naughty.
"Here you go, sir. Please be more careful," she said. He saw the green ID book under his nose, pressed together by her index and thumb.
He didn't need to ask. He didn't need to look inside. He knew the fifty wasn't there anymore.
"Thank you, ma'am," he said, and swallowed. And just like that, he knew he'd contributed to a more corrupt South Africa—just as bad as the ones taking the money. But this was not his problem now. And by the end of the night, he would have done something a lot worse than paying a cop fifty measly bucks.
Miguel had to admit that the rage and fury he'd felt earlier—the adrenaline rush that had gotten his legs moving and his hand on the pistol—was fading. Maybe it had been the drive, the scenery, the fresh air. Maybe it had been the cop who'd just now stopped him, giving him a moment to think things through.
He arrived on Claim Street. The place looked as horrid and disgusting as the last time he and Sandile had been there—about two years before. They'd always told everyone that it had only been zol—they're like the friggin Rastafarians down here, man. Smoking weed in South Africa is like being weaned off the bottle—who hasn't done it? So that was the story he and Sandile had stuck to all those years. Who needed to know? Except Thandie—that friggin chick was as sharp as a machete, I mean, nothing got past her!
The last time they'd been in Hillbrow had also been the last time they'd bought anything from this "Igbo" guy (calling the guy "God" just felt so wrong—and it caused a hell of a lot of confusion in discussions). You never hooted here, you never shouted. It was like the place was a friggin church or something. Loud noises set these guys on edge—as if any noise would somehow block their ability to hear the cops coming or something (as if the cops ever came to Hillbrow). Miguel never understood it—he just followed the rules: their turf, their rules. Very simple.
I'm looking for God was the keyphrase. And lo and behold, the fucking Lord himself would send off one of his slaves to get you what you needed: women, pinks, tik, rocks, smack. You name it, he had it.
Miguel had never seen the guy. For all he knew, he may've come from California or even Norway, not Nigeria like the streets had it. Heck, for all he knew, the guy could have been as white as the fucking snowcapped mountains of the Alps! But, ultimately, who gave a shit? You smiled at his goons, money exchanged hands, you left.
Goons such as Tsepho (although he had not moved much up the ladder). The top of the ladder was right here, in Hillbrow, meeting the incoming customers. Heck, Tsepho had sat on the bottom rung for about as long as Miguel and Sandile had been out of the scene! Tsepho was some Johnny-come-fucking-lately who didn't know his ass from nose. There was always one. One of Igbo's henchmen had even approached the two of them in the past to do it: to get more business from the students. But it was clear from the psychotic glare that Tsepho had held in his eyes all the time since he'd started working for Igbo that there was never a time when the guy wasn't high on something himself. Miguel knew the look—Crystal Meth, days without rest. No other drug he knew of gave you a look like that. Sandile had also had that look once upon a time.
Miguel knew it well.
Tsepho's hands had been shaking so much the day he shot Sandile that it was clear to Miguel the slimeball had probably not slept in a week, buzzed up on meth and crazy with paranoia. He reasoned that Tsepho killing Sandile was about as good for Igbo's business as the guy himself showing up at a cop-station with a whore and then blowing her fucking brains out in front of twenty witnesses. If Miguel remembered anything from the minions he'd dealt with in the past, money talked, and the rest went for a drop off the pier.
He parked his car in the shithole of Hillbrow that smelled like a sewer, garbage bags piled higher than his roof in at least three visible locations from where he sat (including right in front of him) and waited for the usual duo to approach. His heart lurched when a character he didn't recognize—black leather hat, gold chains, lots of gold rings—came over to him, his hand positioned on a clearly visible glock inside his belt. If the guy wasn't careful, he'd blow his fucking dick off with that.
In the past, it had always been two men—the "duo"—not one, that would come and verify the validity of incoming business. The man stopped by Miguel's open window, flashed his piece and waited.
"I'm looking for God," said Miguel, not wasting a moment.
"Well, maybe God is not looking for you." The accent was Nigerian. No doubt. Miguel knew it a mile away.
He swallowed. This was not how he remembered it. In the past, he'd say he was looking for God, then another two came by to deliver what was needed, they did the deal, and that was that.
The man kept standing there, his gun glaring at Miguel like a hungry dog.
"I'm looking ... for God," Miguel repeated. He had nothing left to lose.
Miguel did not spot an intervening time between the moment the gun had been in the man's pants and then suddenly, without warning, was now pressed up against his throat so hard that he felt he would choke to death if the guy didn't blow his brains out first. The man's face was also only an inch away from Miguel's now, his drugged-up eyes rolling like the moving eyes of a doll, and his breath so stale that it seemed like he'd just made love to a dog.
Miguel waited, and tried not to breath.
Nothing to lose, he thought.
"I'm here to solve a problem for him. A mutual problem," said Miguel.
The man eyed him up and down, keeping his mouth open as he breathed, making Miguel feel like his insides were about to come out. He'd smelled dead mice better than this.
"God knows who you are."
No fucking shit he does, you dickwad. But I'm talking about the dealer, not the Good Man Upstairs. "Good. Then it will be easier to do business. There's a grand in that envelope." He pointed to the floorboard. "Consider it a donation. And there's a message in there as well. All I need is some information—an address—and I will take a problem off his hands."
The man gestured with angry eyes for Miguel to pass him the envelope. Miguel tried to reach it, but his seatbelt caught and the guy got uncomfortable at Miguel stretching so far down to pick it up.
"Get out!" said Dog-Breath.
"I just need to get—"
"No! Leave it. Get out!"
Fuck!
Miguel got out. Two women stood lasciviously against a wall at the end of the street, each looking more disheveled and strung-out than the next. Dog-Breath pushed Miguel against the car (although it was gentler than he'd expected) and held him there by his shoulder. He said some things in a language that didn't sound South African at all and, from nowhere, appeared another guy holding an AK, sauntering over to Miguel's car.
If there was one thing Miguel didn't like, it was AKs—those were bad guns. People who carried AKs had only one thing in mind: shoot, don't aim.
The guy with the AK grabbed the envelope in his car and looked inside it. The two animals nodded to each other and Bad-Breath told Miguel to sit on the pavement, right next to the bags of trash that Miguel now also noticed had maggots crawling around them.
"I'll stand, thanks."
They'd driven around Germiston twice already and seen no sign of Miguel. Senhor Pinto had called up several f
riends as well as one of Miguel's pool hangouts to ask if he had come by, but he hadn't. Jaz tried to keep her mind calm, but she felt like reality itself had begun to take an ethereal appearance: flimsy, unstable. For a moment, she got the feeling of what it must have been like for Miguel to have lost his family—a feeling of complete loneliness, emptiness, and desperation. Sensing that she might never see him again, she gripped the handle of the door for stability, but it didn't help.
Senhor Pinto stopped the car. His eyes were trembling with fear. In complete resignation, he held his palms up and said, "I have no idea what to do." They sat in silence for a moment. They'd decided not to call the police. Just by the fact that Miguel was carrying a gun without a license, whatever he was planning was likely not legal. I won't let my son go to a South African jail. Never! That's what Senhor Pinto had said.
Jaz had mixed emotions about it. She didn't want Miguel dead, either, so maybe jail would've been a safer compromise? She pulled out her mobile and called the only person she thought might be able to help.
Thandie answered, and Jaz told her what was happening.
Jaz should have called her earlier.
"Jaz," said Thandie, "I hate to be blunt, but he's doing one of two things. He's either killing ... himself"—a whirling tornado of shock ripped Jaz's heart. And that thought she'd had from earlier: Bang. Bang. Knock—"or he's ... going after Tsepho. And if he's doing that, then he'll be in Hillbrow."
Tsepho. Of course!
"Hill ... brow?" Jaz had heard the name before. She knew little about it; only that driving in there at two-thirty a.m. was pretty much like signing off on your own death warrant. She saw Senhor Pinto's eyes widen in terror. He got the car moving immediately and Jaz saw the speedometer needle quickly rise.
"You need to pick me up, Jaz. There's only one place he'll be if that's his plan."
"No, Thandie. This is not your prob—"
"Of course it is!"
Yeah ... she generally gets her way. That was what Sandile had once said about Thandie.
Sandile.
And now Miguel?
Jaz did her best to focus.