by Ian Patrick
11.10
Michael Pullen was at a loss as to what he should do next. He had been able to ascertain quite a bit about the big detective who was involved in the shootings on the beach. Detective Captain ‘Nights’ Mashego. No, they didn’t have another name for him. The nickname was the name everyone used. The records didn’t indicate anything else. Yes, he was based with that unit. No, they couldn’t provide that kind of information. Yes, they could confirm that. No, they were not prepared either to confirm or deny this.
Definitely the same guy he had seen on Tuesday with Ryder and Pillay, thought Pullen. And even bigger than Ryder. So maybe the informant who had called him before dawn had just got that single fact wrong on the night. Easy to confuse the two guys, even if one is black and the other white. It was at night-time, after all. The rest of the information he had provided about the shootings was spot on, so Pullen was in no doubt that his informant had indeed been present as a witness at the shootings on Saturday at midnight.
But Pullen’s own name was now so muddied by the Monday news report that the Editor wouldn’t entertain anything further from him on the matter. Unless it was new information, and completely watertight. How to proceed?
He was shocked out of his daydreaming by his cellphone and answered quickly before even checking to see any call identification.
‘Hullo. Pullen.’
‘Is me. Mkhohlisi.’
‘Who? What did you say? I didn’t quite hear...’
‘I’m Mkhohlisi. Mzenzisi Mkhohlisi. I’m deciding to give you my name. You call me Mzenzi...’
‘Oh. Are you the one… yes, well, thank you, yes Mr Mock...’
‘Mzenzisi Mkhohlisi. You call me Mzenzi,’ said Thabethe, enunciating the words slowly and carefully.
‘Yes. OK. Menzi...’
‘Mzenzi.’
‘Sorry. Mzenzi.’
‘Is right. Mzenzi. I’m wanting to meet. I’m wanting you to meet my brother. He is a witness, too. He will talk to you.’
Pullen was as excited as a toddler with a new toy. Within minutes he had agreed to drive out to wherever they were, in order to meet them and hear what Mzenzi’s brother had to say. He paused in some trepidation as Thabethe told him he should drive out to KwaMashu. He was more nervous when he was told they would meet very near to a shebeen. He then relaxed a little when told that the area was safe, and right on the M21, and that no, there were no xenophobic attacks currently taking place in that area. He then relaxed completely when told that they would be meeting right outside a building housing the Durban Metropolitan Police Service.
He took down the directions and said he would set off immediately. Yes, OK, 12.30, no problem, he responded to the final instruction. They would first meet at the supermarket down the road, opposite the police building, for a chat in the carpark, and then they would go and have a beer at the shebeen just down the road.
Things were starting to look up for him at last, Pullen thought, as he headed out to his car.
11.55
Mashego came off the phone to Buthelezi in a smouldering rage, coupled with a deep welling of sympathy for surely the best police constable he had ever encountered. She was alone at home in the apartment she had shared with Thandiwe, recovering from her ordeal of the day before, and wanted no visitors. He had called her to ask whether he could take her some lunch and provide some comfort to her after the trauma.
But she couldn’t see anyone, she told him. She was completely wrecked. Over the phone she had poured out her heart to him about the deceased constable. She told him how she had never been happier than in the past eighteen months, and how she wondered whether she could possibly go on. The big man felt helpless. He feared for her safety, and worried about her possibly self-harming, yet he knew she wanted to be alone.
He had pulled in to the side of the road to make the call to her. Now he sat thinking through the events of the past few days. He had been involved in seven kills between Saturday and Wednesday. And there were more happening around them every day. Like that latest hit, yesterday, on the taxi drivers. That will bring some retaliation, somewhere. What’s happening in this city?
He moved out again into the traffic. As he drove away in search of a bite to eat he turned on the radio and heard the news updates both about his own incident at Virginia airport and about yesterday’s taxi homicides south of KwaMashu. First case straightforward enough. Police working on identification. Regarding the taxi carnage, police now suspect hit-men. One hit-man. Taxi wars, he thought to himself. Good thing I’m not involved in any cases there. Rich pickings. That attracts all types. You never know who your friends are.
His thoughts returned again to the events of last night at the airport. Both he and Buthelezi were confident that forensics would show the three men as being the final three of the seven being sought for the Sugar Cane Road homicide. They would have to wait for confirmation but there was no doubt in his mind. Now he could turn his attention back to the focus he had had before yesterday afternoon. The witness in the rocks on the beach at Umdloti. This Thabethe guy. The one guy who, if he was arrested and turned state witness against the cops, might destroy everything.
He had to get Thabethe.
He thought back on his initial enquiry to Sergeant Piet Cronje on Monday, when he was trying to find out more about Thabethe after getting the lead from Addington Hospital. What was it Cronje had said? Thabethe’s old haunt. That was it. Nomivi’s Tavern.
Mashego suddenly knew where he was going to be having lunch.
12.30
Pullen drove into a free parking bay in front of the Superspar at the corner of 106354 Street and Malandela Road, as instructed by Thabethe. He felt extremely nervous. The place was crowded, and he attracted quite a few stares as the only white person around. He didn’t wait long, however, because within five minutes Thabethe and Mkhize tapped at the passenger-seat window to get him to unlock the car, and they got in, Thabethe in front and Mkhize behind. Pullen kept a guarded eye on his back-seat passenger with the aid of the rear-view mirror.
‘He is my brother, Mlungisi. You call him Mlungi.’
‘Hullo, Lungi,’ said Pullen.
‘Mlungi,’ said Thabethe.
‘Oh. Sorry. Mlungi.’
‘Is right. Mlungi. Mmmmlungi,’ said Mkhize. ‘Me, I’m his brother. Me, too, I’m having the name Mkhohlisi, like my brother...’
‘OK. We talk,’ said Thabethe, thinking that Mkhize was about to milk this way beyond where he should, and consequently might give away the whole game.
‘OK, bra,’ said Mkhize.
Within minutes Thabethe had laid out the facts that he felt Pullen needed in order to imagine a large conspiracy. Pullen was instantly drawn in. Mzenzi’s brother Mlungi was a drug-dealer. He had been working for Detective Jeremy Ryder for years. But he had decided to run away, because Ryder was a violent man. A dangerous man. Ryder had built up a drug empire in the province, crucially involving corrupt police officers. He had overseas connections. He was a South African who used to live in England, and when he came back out to South Africa he brought a lot of his international drug connections…
Pullen was breathless with excitement. He was scribbling furiously. Mkhize was enjoying himself. He was throwing in lots of very unsubtle things, to the consternation of Thabethe. According to Mkhize, Interpol had been after Ryder, but he slipped away before they could catch him. That’s why he had come back to South Africa. Thabethe was worried that Mkhize would lose control and blow the whole thing. He was going far too fast. He needed to slow down! The reporter might start to smell a rat! Thabethe decided to intervene before his unsubtle friend went overboard and painted Ryder as a CIA operative who had switched over to the Chinese and stolen a nuclear weapon before choosing a more lucrative career in narcotics.
‘Mlungisi was telling me, he was saying that that other big detective, that black man, big one, he has been working with Ryder. So when I was saying to you that I’m seeing that Ryder on the beach on Saturday
night, it was night-time, you know, and I was seeing this big detective, but the big detective it was this other one, and not Ryder.’
‘Detective Mashego,’ said Pullen. ‘Captain Nights Mashego. Funny name. Yes, I made some enquiries, and yes, Menzi, I can see that you could easily make a mistake like that. Both of them are big guys.’
‘Mzenzisi,’ said Thabethe.
‘Yes, sorry, Mzenzi. Sorry. But, tell me. What’s the relationship between Ryder and Mashego? I saw them outside the police station in Durban North on Tuesday. They were arguing. Mashego was threatening to hit Ryder...’
Thabethe was a little taken aback to hear this. If the journalist had indeed seen such a thing, then Thabethe needed to take that into account and build on it, so he continued.
‘Yes, Mlungisi and me, we are hearing that Ryder and Mashego they have been having arguments. Mashego is not happy with the money that Ryder is giving him, we are thinking. Maybe he is wanting more. Maybe because the drugs business is growing...’
‘Yes. That’s exactly what I thought when I saw them together,’ said Pullen.
Suddenly they were all off down another track. Maybe Ryder and Mashego were getting greedy and there was an argument about the split in the profits. Maybe the Indian detective who always hangs with Ryder is in on the split…
After an hour Thabethe and Mkhize had woven the web for Pullen, and all three of them decided it was time to go and have that beer in the Emahawini Tavern. And an hour later that beer had turned into half a dozen beers, then whisky, and Pullen had picked up the tab and he was completely convinced that he had the scoop of the year. He stumbled out of the tavern envisaging a future Mercury front page that not only exonerated him for the earlier minor error of mistaking one bad SAPS detective for another equally bad detective, but that lauded him for single-handedly cracking a corrupt cop drug-dealing scenario that stretched from Durban to Johannesburg to London and New York and Beijing and Moscow... could a Global Shining Light Award be lurking far behind?
14.35.
Nxumalo was in a quandary. He had felt strangely elated all day. Eliminating the two taxi gangsters had injected energy into him that he had not experienced for months. He felt like a man with a mission. Why was he worried, then, when he took another call from Frankie, the second of the day. Repetition of the earlier message of gratitude from Mr. du Plessis.
And another case, if he wanted it. Three men. Even worse than the two he had taken out yesterday. Can they meet? Frankie had an envelope. Two envelopes. One of them had cash. The other had the info on the three new men. Also taxi men. Really bad men.
Nxumalo felt suddenly that this was too quick. He thought that these cases would come along maybe at no more than one a month. Even less. He wasn’t a hit-man. He wasn’t expecting someone to phone him all the time and say wipe out this guy for me. Especially not the day after he had done a big job.
He agreed to meet with Frankie. But as he hung up on the call from Frankie he started thinking about whether he could really continue to do this kind of work alone. He needed to partner with someone. Someone who would watch his back. But someone who felt just like him about all the evil men around, the men who were growing in number and against whom the police were battling in vain, seeing their work dissipated by the courts who were handing down suspended sentences, light raps over the knuckles, and downright catastrophic acquittals. As fast as the police were putting them behind bars the courts were freeing them.
Nxumalo was tormented by anger and frustration. He needed an ally that knew exactly what he had gone through. And who thought the way he did.
Then he thought again, for the second time in as many days, of his old friend Nights Mashego.
15.15.
Mashego made a small breakthrough in his hunt for Thabethe. After ordering something to eat at Nomivi’s he had asked a few casual questions of the staff and eventually met with a woman who, someone had said, was the best person to talk about the man with the evil eyes.
He had gone outside the tavern to find her. She was eating a sandwich in the shade of a tree, waiting for lunch inside the tavern to be over so that she could clean the place again. It took time for him to win her confidence. He immediately picked up on her fear of the man Thabethe, and spent some time reassuring her. It was only after he had committed himself to never, ever, letting on to anyone that it was she who provided him with the information, that she finally reached for her bag.
She told him about Mkhize, the only man she knew who was a friend of evil eyes. Mkhize, she said, had sworn her to secrecy and had given her a phone number that she should only hand over to the man called Thabethe. She had scribbled down on a piece of paper the number he gave her, but she had decided to also record the number on another piece of paper, in case she ever needed to contact Mkhize herself. She had done so because she knew and respected Mkhize’s mother, who lived in KwaDukuza, and if ever something happened to the old woman then someone would want to contact her son, so…
After tapping the number into his iPhone, recording the name Mkhize against it, and then returning the scrap of paper to her, and after further reassuring her, Mashego left and went back to his car. He sat there with the engine running, air-conditioning switched on, working out how he could use the phone number for the man called Mkhize in order to get to his friend Thabethe. He ruled out using the police to track the phone. From what Cronje had told him on Monday there had been a lot of that when they first started tracking Thabethe. If Mashego now made a similar request then questions would be asked about why he was tracking Mkhize. Why wasn’t he working with the cops from Durban Central, who are on that case?
Why didn’t he just try dialling the number he had obtained from the woman? He reached for his iPhone and pressed for dial and then changed his mind before it could connect, and hit the red icon to cancel the call. He paused, thinking.
Not yet, he thought. Maybe later. If there was no other way.
He engaged the gears and drove away from Nomivi’s.
15.35.
Mkhize and Thabethe had remained behind in the Emahawini Tavern after Pullen’s departure, finishing off the last of the beers that Pullen had paid for. They drained the last drops and decided to leave, but before doing so Thabethe had gone through to the toilet. Mkhize sat for a few moments in drunken bliss and then, almost absent-mindedly, pulled out his new iPhone. Missed call. Must be a wrong number, surely? He hit re-dial and waited. The call was answered within a few seconds, the speaker identifying himself with one word.
‘Mashego.’
Mkhize froze, terrified, and immediately hung up, instantly made sober.
How? What? Who? He stood up in shock, looking around the tavern, stupidly, as if this must have something to do with people in the venue. Thabethe, returning, saw him across the tavern and immediately knew there was something seriously wrong. Mkhize grabbed him and pulled him to the exit, whispering in anguish.
‘That Mashego, Skhura, that Mashego. He’s got my number. He called my phone. How does he get my phone?’
Thabethe was equally shocked and perplexed. Mkhize showed him the instrument and explained the missed call. They both huddled over the phone, checking the time of the call. Ten to fifteen minutes ago.
‘You sure, Spikes? You sure he said Mashego?’
‘I know that name, Skhura. I know that name! He said Mashego.’
Thabethe probed him on the voice he had heard. Big, deep, resonant voice. He described the accent, as far as he had been able to ascertain it from one word. It sounded to Thabethe like the big detective. That voice on the Umdloti beach. Thabethe would never forget it. The way Mkhize described it, it seemed like it was indeed Mashego.
The two men were highly agitated. They tried to understand how this could possibly be happening. Maybe, somehow, the cops had traced the phone. But it wasn’t possible. How could they? Eventually, they abandoned any attempt to solve the problem. They decided to get out of there, in case the cops had some way of zoning in
on the instrument. They needed to put distance between them and the shebeen. They would have to take stock. Mashego was now after them.
*
Mashego, driving toward the centre of Durban, had pulled out his phone to take the call, without checking the screen for the caller ID. He answered, simply, in his customary fashion.
‘Mashego.’
It was only when the caller hung up that he glanced at the screen, while driving, to see who had called him, When he saw the name Mkhize he pulled rapidly into the kerb and stopped the car.
How was this possible? He quickly checked his calls made and saw the problem. The call he had made to the Mkhize number, which he thought he had killed before it connected, had indeed connected a fraction of a second before he had cut it off.
Damn! Stupid mistake!
He sat there, fuming. He’d blown it. This Mkhize guy now knew that he was being tracked. He would also work out why he was being tracked. He would know that his friend Thabethe was the target.
Nothing to do. Mashego, cursing his own stupidity, continued on his journey. The Mkhize phone would now be a dead duck. A wasted opportunity.
*
Thabethe and Mkhize hurried toward the taxi stand. Both of them were bristling with anger. The cops were closing in on them again. Both Ryder and Mashego were tracking them. Mkhize posed the question as to whether they should abandon the plan with Pullen and get out of the province altogether. Maybe it was getting too hot. Maybe the Eastern Cape…
Thabethe was having none of it. Instead, he argued, it was time to focus on getting rid of both of these detectives. They would never be able to recover their business until both cops were taken out. They had to get the detectives first, before they themselves were taken down. They had to get more information, Thabethe said, about the movements of both cops. Maybe they should try a hit on Ryder’s home. Maybe they should find out where Mashego lives and hit him at home. Maybe there was a way in which they could find out about Mashego’s movements in the next couple of days.