The Other Four

by Nsununguli Mbo

  “What are the options?”

  “One, once we’ve replaced the wheel, we could drive back to town and get one of my guys to paint the van a different colour. Two, you could steal another car. Both options come with risks, just as the job we’re doing does, too. But I think the job is worth taking risks for. So what option do you think is best?”

  “We’ve only one week. If we rely on the second option, we may have to wait. Stealing a car is not easy. We would have to identify a car we can steal first of all. Then wait for the chance. That could take hours. Or days. Or weeks. Or even months. Or we could get caught before we can even get away with the car.”

  Dumani cringed at the thought of how little time they had. Damon had clearly warned that now that they’d started it, if wasn’t done within a week, their lives could get worse. One of the many things Dumani didn’t like about the old man was that he had a tendency to give few details. And when he did give any, he was vague. Such as, he could at least have explained what sort of worst turn Dumani’s and Thabang’s lives would take if they didn’t finish the job in one week. That way Dumani would at least have known what he was gambling with. Judging from the sort of job the old man wanted them to do, Dumani guessed the “worst turn” was something grim, most likely something crippling. Something close enough to death or something prolonged. Something that would cause prolonged suffering. Karma. That’s what it was. Dumani was educated enough to know about The Rule of Three. Or The Law of Return as some called it.

  No matter what you do, your deeds will revisit you threefold.

  That’s why good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. Simple. And Dumani had always been a bad person, which meant whether the job pulled through or not, The Rule of Three was going to apply to him. But at least if they pulled it through, by the time the rule applied, Dumani would be an old man and ready for whatever it was that would happen threefold to them.

  I

  could just be a little paranoid, but I didn't like the looks people gave me as I got on the bus. I expected the Police to stop the bus

  along the way and march me out. The whole way I was uncomfortable. The stares were accusing. I had chosen a seat next to an old man whom I was sure had poor hearing. I didn't want to sit next to someone who talks too much. The old man fell into a snooze as soon as the bus exited the village. It made its usual stops along the way, stops I would normally enjoy, but not today. Today time was essential. I wanted to get as far away from the trouble I was sure was brewing for me as was possible.

  I found Modiri waiting at the bus terminus. For some reason he looked a little nervous. He led me to his car, an old white Corolla. We climbed in and he drove off. He kept stealing glances at me intermittently, evidently in an attempt to prompt me. He couldn't wait to hear why I was here. But I couldn't bring myself to tell him. Not just yet. I was still too emotional. I needed a proper environment. Somewhere calm. Not in the middle of traffic. I was concerned at scaring him with tears. I was sure he hadn't seen too many grown men cry before. Neither had I. But I was one of them right now. I cried. I just lost it just as we were passing Cash & Carry. Cash & Carry reminded me so much of my wife. We used to come here once a month to buy groceries when we’d owned a little shop. I would push the trolley while Mmoloki clung on to my leg, and my wife pulled Josephine by the arm.

  "Man, you're freaking me out. Are you going to tell me what's going on or what?" Modiri said.

  I tried to answer, but my emotions intensified. I bawled more. Modiri looked even more nervous. He increased the speed of the car. It was like he was trying to get away from me as fast as he could, forgetting that I was right in the car with him, moving at the same speed as him.

  "Did someone die?"

  I snuffled and sniffled. Finally I told him everything, including the details that I'd skipped when I'd told everyone else the horrific story. After I finished telling him, he remained silent for an uncomfortably long time. I couldn't tell whether he was musing over what I'd just told him, or if he doubted my story. Probably the latter. I've to admit, my story was too full of holes. Maybe I was going mad? Maybe...

  "That's a scary experience. So now you're on the run?"

  "If you want to put it that way, yes. But I miss my wife and children."

  "So what are you going to do about them?"

  "That's why I'm here. I need your help in finding them."

  He shot a sharp glance towards my side and said, "Ngano, you're my friend and I'll help you in whatever way I can. But I don't want to find myself intermingled in a messy situation I can't get myself out of. I don't want to do anything that's against the law. The fact that I'm with you in my car, taking you to my house, is trouble in itself. You're a fugitive. So..."

  "I'm not a fugitive. I'm not sure if the Police are looking for me yet."

  "You're running away from the villagers. That makes you a fugitive. There is one thing I don't understand though. Not that I don't believe you or anything, but why would you run away if you're not guilty of anything? Why not just go to the Police?"

  I sighed heavily in frustration and said, "Modiri, we've been friends for like, what, thirty years now. In all these years, I expect you to have created an enough impression to know that I shun crime."

  "People change. We haven't spoken in three months and all of a sudden you pop out of nowhere and come up with a pretty scary story. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and take you to my house, feed you and let you have a bed. That’s all I’ll do for you. The rest, I’ll let you fend for yourself. I can’t let myself get tangled up in a mess like the one you’re definitely headed for. I’ve already been in trouble for harbouring a fugitive before.”

  “A fugitive?”

  He sighed, changed gears, turned right and said, “I never told you, did I?”

  We had arrived. His house was nicer than the last time I’d seen it. It used to be a simple two-bed. Now it was bigger. And the roofing was no longer zinc; it was tile all through.

  “Nice house. When did you expand it?”

  Either he didn’t hear me or he chose to ignore the question, or he was simply absorbed in driving. The road was a bit bumpy with too much gravel and no tarmac. You had to concentrate to drive around here.

  But finally, “Last month.”

  “Did you get promoted or something?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  “Because from what I remember of your salary, you couldn’t have afforded to just expand the house just like that.”

  “Miracles happen,” he said, pointing towards the backseat. I looked. Lying right on the centre of the seat was a Bible, actually a new one. I looked at him like I was seeing him for the first time and said, “You’ve become a Christian?”

  “Not just that. I’m a prophet. That’s why I know why you’re here.”

  The hair on my neck stood on end. I suddenly felt paranoid. My trust for him temporarily evaporated.

  That’s why I know why you’re here.

  Could he be involved? Why should I trust him?

  I looked at him. The innocence on his face made me feel guilty. Why would I suspect him of being involved? We had been friends for eternity. I didn’t think he could be involved.

  “So, you were telling me about the fugitive stuff?” I said as we hopped out of the car.

  He sighed and said, “It’s not a story I like to recount. It’s part of the reason why I turned to the Lord. My life nearly fell apart.”

  “So what happened?”

  “It was last year. I was sitting at home watching television after work. This guy, his name is Themba, called me. I wouldn’t call him a friend, but we hung out once in a while, and had a few beers together now and again, you know. Anyway, on that day he called and told me he needed somewhere to put up as his house was undergoing renovations. I didn’t think much of it. Plus, I have a spare bedroom. So I said to him, sure, come over. I should have suspected something was not right when he brought a large bag with hi
m — two bags, in fact. He wouldn’t leave the house, claiming that he was under the weather.

  “On day three, he agreed to tag along with me and have some beers at Tlogelang Bojalwa Bar. While we were sitting there, four Police cars rocked up and close to twelve Police officers hopped out, surrounded us, guns drawn, shouting, ‘Police! Raise your arms above your heads.’

  It felt like a movie. I felt like the world was coming to an end as I didn’t know what was going on.

  I raised my arms above my head. He didn’t. He seemed to be looking for an exit. They approached and arrested us. I cried on the way to the Police station. The interrogation lasted five hours. I learnt that he was a murder suspect. He’d killed and decapitated his girlfriend. I pleaded my innocence. Luckily enough he confessed to the murder and told the cops that I wasn’t in any way involved. He told them that he hadn’t told me what he had done. That’s how I got released. As I walked out of the Police station, I came across a three day old edition of the Mmegi newspaper. Right on the front page was his picture. He was wanted for murder! I felt stupid for not having seen the story earlier. I called in sick and cried for three days. I lost weight. I felt betrayed.”

  “I promise you: I haven’t done anything gruesome. I’ve told you nothing but the whole truth.”

  I felt sorry for the guy. And sincerely hoped I wasn’t getting him into any trouble like what Themba had put him through.

  Mothusi couldn’t help smiling as he walked home. Mission accomplished. The blame had been laid. At least it seemed like the witness hadn’t reported the murder just as yet, and now it was too late for him to do so. Now he was the suspect. Mothusi had closed all possibilities of himself becoming a suspect.

  What he guessed was that the guy was on the run. The chief had revealed details that he was obviously not supposed to have released, such as, the witness had called him earlier on, sounding weird and sort of confessed to the murder. That, though, presented some sort of problem.

  The chief had said he was going to contact the Police, which meant now Mothusi was in a rat race, and had to find the guy before the Police did. If the Police found the guy before Mothusi did, that didn’t necessarily mean Mothusi couldn’t get to him. But it would be more difficult, though still doable. He knew guys who were in prison, guys who could lure the witness into Mothusi’s arms. Mothusi wondered what would happen if he just killed the guy, rather than doing so as a last resort. He should have asked. The thing he didn’t like about Damon was that he was never specific on details.

  This was not the first time that Mothusi had worked for him. He had, twice in the past. Both projects had failed. The first one involved kidnapping a specific child. Mothusi never found the child in question. The child was later reported in newspapers as missing. That’s when Mothusi started having doubts about working with Damon.

  A year later Damon rung him saying he needed a body part. He was specific: he needed big testicles of a man. No more details than that. It was up to Mothusi to find a man with big testicles. It wasn’t easy.

  People thought he was acting strange after that. And he was. He walked around all the time, went into shebeens and discussed testicles, told everyone how big his own testicles were in the hope that the others would reveal the same information. But people eyed him like he was an alien. They alienated him and he became a loner.

  He became desperate, as a result of which he killed one guy only to find out the guy had smaller testicles than his own. The murder was covered in the newspaper but the killer was never found. Damon was insistent: he needed “very big testicles.” Once he was in ownership of this, Mothusi would get really rich. So rich he would be able to afford a house in Phakalane.

  Mothusi had been to Gaborone before, many times, and he had seen Phakalane. It looked like what he believed America must look like. The promise of such wealth had propelled him to persist with the project. The only problem was Mothusi thought he had one of the largest testicles possible; he even pulled down his trousers, showed his testicles to Damon and asked, “Larger than this?” Damon had smiled wryly and said, “Are you serious? You call this big?”

  Mothusi had become frustrated. He hung around in shebeens, bars and everywhere, asking the weird question: “Which race has the biggest testicles?” And he got the same answer. That is, no answer.

  People still found him weird. And that turned him into a frustrated killer, one who wanted to find an answer to his weird question. And the question never got answered: he killed three men and found out none of them had bigger testicles than his. One even had one testicle, for God’s sake. All the murders were covered in the local newspapers. They all happened in Lentsweng. And Lentsweng was big enough for a murderer to disappear into thin air.

  But now Mothusi was back to square one. In square one, there were no specifics. It left him with questions like: was it okay for the required victim to be killed by someone else other than Mothusi? But Mothusi knew Damon well enough to know the answer to that one. And the answer was no. This left Mothusi in limbo. He had to find the witness himself, and either bring him to Damon or kill him himself. Mothusi suspected there was more money in bringing the man alive. He should have asked, but then Damon would probably not have given him much of an answer. Always vague.

  Sometimes Mothusi suspected the guy was just out to play games that involved using other people. But then there was an eeriness and seriousness to his demeanour, which must mean he was for real. Therefore, there had to be some seriousness behind the deals he proposed, so Mothusi was going to have to be serious and find that witness, capture and deliver him whole.

  That way, he was now sure, there would be more money than if he killed the guy. Besides, killing the guy would involve making sure the evidence that he killed him disappeared, and that could be difficult. Mothusi was sure if he found and killed the guy, he wouldn’t be as lucky as he had been following that woman’s murder. Or the three murders before that. You don’t always get lucky.

  Fate doesn’t play that way. You don’t commit murder and find two men who are dumb enough to make it their problem to make sure the evidence of the murder disappeared. Which, now that Mothusi thought of it, introduced another problem: what if those two men knew it was him who had killed the woman and decided to report the matter to the right people? Mothusi had to find them, too. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find two dumb men riding in an old red Toyota Hilux.

  The red Toyota Hilux was limping more than before. Thabang was angry. Dumani shouldn’t have recruited him into such a stupid project. Thabang preferred straightforward deals. He preferred guys who asked for stolen cars, guys who specialised in buying stolen cars. Stuff like that.

  That’s the job he had been doing all along and that’s the job that maintained his survival and that of his family. But the job had brought him nothing but poverty so far, that’s why he decided to expand his chances and do more dangerous business like kidnapping a rabbit hunter. And now he was stuck in a limping van that he stole himself and that made him a criminal. Thing was, you could never trust anyone in the business of crime. You’d be dumb to. That’s why Thabang had bad feelings about Dumani.

  What if Dumani was up to no good? He could be one of those dumb undercover cops you see at the traffic lights, blocking traffic. There were many undercover cops out there these days. You could never trust them. They were like the ordinary man; some of them even looked like Dumani. You could never tell them apart from criminals. You’d only realize they were not criminals when they took out handcuffs and cuffed you. Or they took you right into a Police station, where there were many Police officers who looked like Dumani. Thabang heard from someone about a group of cops that were going around breaking into places. If Thabang were to become a cop, that’s the sort of cop he would like to be. He wouldn’t even bother breaking in like the ones that got caught. From what he knew, cops carried identification of some sort. That’s all he would need. He would knock on doors, show whoever opened his Police ID and tell them he was inves
tigating a case and had come to collect evidence. He would collect everything he could, even sofas, and sell them on the black market. He should apply to the Police school.

  At first when Dumani had approached him about this stupid deal he had wanted to say no. But then he said yes, because he had no choice. He had to get out of the gnawing poverty and Dumani had said there was a lot of wealth waiting at the end of the dangerous deal.

  And now he was stuck in a limping van, with no wealth in sight. They had a week, for God’s sake! God knew what would happen after the week if they hadn’t found and brought in the victim. It was annoying to think that a poor old twat was promising them wealth. It was even more annoying to think that this same old twat had given them a week to complete a stupid deal, promising terrible things should the deal not succeed by then. Thabang was thinking that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to kill the old twat and sell his body to a richer and stronger traditional doctor. But then there was no guarantee of getting paid much if he did that. Worse still, the traditional doctor might report him to the cops for murder. You could never trust anyone when it came to such things. So why should Thabang trust Dumani? Shit, his gums hurt. He was going to make sure Dumani paid for his teeth once this deal was over.

  The van smelt of blood, although not so much after they had given it a little wash with wet sand. They found a little stream earlier on, which thankfully wasn’t so dry. As if he had expected to end up with blood on his clothes, Thabang had brought along a spare shirt and a pair of pants. He had now changed into these and felt good. He had dug a little hole and buried the clothes he had been wearing inside it.

  Jeez, he was so tired. He didn’t sleep well in the van last night. A snooze wasn’t a bad idea. What Dumani really wanted was to get paid. A week would have been reasonable if he wasn’t working with a moron. But he needed the moron, you see.

  The pain Thabang had inflicted on his body during the fight was killing him. It wasn’t normal pain.