The Other Four

by Nsununguli Mbo

  It has to be someone with enough connections to know that my mother was on her way to hospital. Or could it be someone known to her? Could there be something I didn’t know? Things just didn’t make sense. Could she have stumbled upon some information as to the whereabouts of my wife and kids and she got silenced before she could squeal?

  There were too many unanswered questions and, whenever there are unanswered questions, that’s usually a sign that things are deeper than they seem.

  I was suddenly feeling paranoid. What if the nurses — or even the whole hospital for that matter! — were involved? What if there was in fact no man who visited claiming to by my brother?

  "I think she is dead!" I said. A young child who'd been enjoying a piece of fried chicken choked on it when he heard me say this.

  "Calm down," said one of the nurses.

  "She is not breathing!"

  The nurse walked into Room 5 and quickly came

  out saying to her colleague, "Call Code Blue." The nurse pressed some button and within minutes the place was swarming with doctors and nurses of all strains. They all entered Room 5. I couldn't bear the sight of my mother's corpse. But I still had some hope that somehow she could be revived. I hoped for a miracle but felt unsafe. The person who'd claimed to be my brother could still be around here. He could have done this to lure me here. He may not have known I already knew my mother was being taken to hospital. He probably had been hoping that I'd receive a call from someone informing me she was in hospital. Then I would come rushing in. And he would ambush me. But where could he be?

  Just then I saw my mother being wheeled away, a mask of some sort over her face.

  "Is she going to make it?" I asked what I assumed to be a doctor, probably fresh from Medical school. He looked scared.

  He looked at me and said, "I really don't know."

  I followed behind and one of the doctors told me now was not a good time. She needed to be in the Intensive Care Unit. I walked back to the nurses' station and asked one of the nurses, "Is she dead?"

  "No. She had a cardiac arrest but responded well to CPR. She'll need to stay in ICU for a little while."

  "This guy who came in claiming to be my brother, what did he look like?"

  "Certainly not like you."

  "What was he wearing?"

  "Blue jeans and a white tee shirt, and he smelt."

  I could only think of one such person.

  Mothusi didn’t like the way he looked. He was a little bit too dirty to be walking around in town. Being dirty and driving a stolen van wasn't a good combination. But then he hadn't known he would be driving a stolen van to town. If he had known he would have had a good bath, and changed into better clothes. Fate doesn’t warn you in advance of what’s going to happen next. You just find yourself in the middle of things. But if fate wanted things to be that way, so be it. The blue jeans he was wearing had a dark smudge of dirt running down both legs. The white tee shirt he wore was torn at the back. For some reason the clothes smelt of urine. His foot was hurting more and more. It was time to take another painkiller. The job that lay ahead of him was a risky one. But it was worth it, considering the wealth that lay ahead once he'd done it. He took another Panadol as soon as he parked the van at the bus rank. Boxer had said he would meet him there. He was a little bit nervous. His plan was to ditch the van because he was sure it was stolen.

  He was in the hands of fate. And now, because of fate, he was walking away from a stolen van like it would explode at any time.

  "Hey you?" an ugly guy wearing a white tee shirt and blue jeans said.

  Mothusi ignored him because he thought the guy was talking to someone else. Boxer couldn't have sent someone else on his behalf, could he?

  "Hey you," the guy said again, trotting towards Mothusi.

  Mothusi stopped. The guy literally ran into Mothusi and punched him twice in the face while yelling, "You thief!"

  Mothusi was perplexed. He couldn't understand why fate would do this to him. Could Boxer have set him up? But for what reason?

  Another punch that caused him blurred vision followed and he nearly lost balance. A crowd was gathering, seemingly undecided as to whether to help assault Mothusi or to intervene.

  "What's wrong man? Why are you attacking me?"

  The guy was about to deliver another punch when a burly type stepped forward and stopped his fist midway.

  "This guy is a thief. He stole my van. I reported it lost the other day."

  "Sorry man. I didn't know it was your van. Some friends of mine lent it to me."

  "What friends?" The guy tried to pry himself free of the burly guy's grip so he could deliver another punch, but yet another guy stepped forward and restrained him.

  "I reported my van missing to the Police and they thought I was lying. Can someone call the Police at least, before I kill this thief?"

  Mothusi was finding it hard to come to terms with what was happening. He felt betrayed by fate.

  Fate, in a town with a population of about fiftythousand, led him to the very place where the owner of the stolen van he'd been driving happened to be.

  "I honestly didn't know the van was stolen. Some guys gave me the van and sent me to buy something for them here. They told me it was their van."

  "Well, you or they'll have to explain to the Police."

  As if on cue, just then a Police car passed by and took a U-turn. Mothusi felt his bladder and bowels going loose and if he wasn’t careful he was going to lose control of them.

  The owner of the van quickly explained what had occurred. Mothusi was thinking of suing the guy for assaulting him. But then the cops, without giving the owner of the vehicle time to finish explaining what he wanted to explain, told him that they had been looking for him. He tried to fight them. They cuffed and took him away, confiscated the van, leaving Mothusi totally confused. Fate had led him to a place where he got assaulted for stealing a vehicle and, instead of arresting him, the Police arrested the very person who claimed Mothusi had stolen his vehicle. Mothusi was just about to wonder why when a sympathetic town guy approached him and said, "You should sue the bastard. This guy is one of the most notorious car thieves here in town."

  Just then Boxer arrived. Mothusi explained to him what had just happened as Boxer led him to a taxi that was waiting nearby.

  Eric was getting impatient, just waiting around in this heat. He had wanted to get out of the van and sit in a shade, but Dumani had refused like he was the boss.

  He said they had to be ready just in case the target appeared. The plan was for Dumani and Thabang to identify the target, and as soon as they did, Eric would drive right up next to him and they would scoop him up and dump him into the van.

  Eric was hungry. The smell of food was permeating the atmosphere, making the hunger pangs that were gnawing at him worse. The way he was right now, he could eat anything. He regretted agreeing to be part of this stupid deal. Things were not as planned, not as they had sounded when Thabang sent him an SMS earlier on. Eric had thought that they knew where the target was and it was a matter of collecting and delivering him to the right person. Had he known the true state of affairs, he would have made up an excuse. Or he would simply have helped with the tyre and left. Now he was deep in this shit. He was stuck with two dumb guys, one of whom was sleeping soundly and had no teeth. Eric wondered where Thabang’s teeth had gone. The last time he had seen him he had only two missing. That was a few months ago. It was bad enough that the guy was ugly, but to lose so many teeth was to add salt to injury. Eric would never understand how this world worked.

  He hated himself right now. Sitting in front of the hospital, waiting for somebody that both Thabang and Dumani had admitted they were not sure was here yet worried him. From what he could remember, there were at least three entrances to the hospital. Why Dumani felt this was the best entrance to wait at evaded Eric. It would have made more sense if they had split. They could at least have covered two entrances because Eric didn't know the guy,
so couldn't cover an entrance on his own.

  Dumani was miserly with information, but from the little Eric had gathered, the target knew they were after him. He’d run away from them, that's why they were here. Coincidentally, his mother ended up in hospital, and they got that information and were now trying to use it to their advantage. But it looked like they didn't know how to use it well. They were dumb, dumber than anyone else Eric had ever met. If you come to think of it, if the target knew they were after him, he would be careful. Well, he might not know that the two dumb guys that were after him knew he was in town, but still he would be extra careful, so wouldn't come barging into the hospital through the main entrance. Instead he would sneak in through the back one. Eric wondered if there was room to reason with Dumani. He said, “Dumani, are you aware that there are several entrances into the hospital?”

  “What’s your point?” “I was just thinking that maybe this guy we are waiting for might use one of the other entrances.”

  “Why would he? This is the main entrance that everyone uses. This is where the kombi stops are. It would take a really dumb person like you to use any other entrance.”

  “Okay.” Which made Eric wonder, how many dumb people there were, because whoever built the hospital had added two entrances just for them?

  It was all because of Thabang that Dumani found himself in such an annoying situation. He had been in control. Or he would be, if it wasn’t for Thabang.

  But, no, Thabang invited a wiry bastard who couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He’d forced Dumani to tell the wiry man about the deal. As if that was not enough, Thabang fell asleep, leaving Dumani with the wiry one. What Dumani was thinking was that the wiry one needed a good whack on the mouth, preferably with an elbow, and knock out a few of his teeth. That way he’d keep his opinions to himself in the future for at least two reasons, one, being the fear of being whacked in the mouth again, and the other being that he wouldn’t be so keen on opening his mouth because he wouldn’t want people to notice that he had missing teeth.

  Dumani suspected that could be part of the reason Thabang was always sleeping. You see, the Thabang from back in the days was very talkative. The Thabang with teeth, that was. So it made sense that lack of teeth was what was keeping him quiet, so that must be what Eric needed. But the current circumstances were not right. If he hit Eric, the guy may fight back — or, worse still, call the cops. While dealing with the ensuing scuffle, their guy may come by unnoticed, and that would annoy Dumani. He wanted their target more than anything else. Once he had the target in the van, he would decide what to do next. He would deliver the guy to Damon of course, but he just wasn’t sure right now at what point he’d get rid of his two annoying colleagues.

  Dumani now suspected that the story about it being impossible to drive Eric’s van except by him was all bullshit. He suspected Thabang had told Eric about the deal even before he came over. If he hadn’t known about it, he’d have shown some shock at being told, which he didn’t. If you tell a guy that you’d like him to help you capture somebody and deliver that person to some crooked old twat, he’d be shocked, or he’d refuse, or at least ask questions, like what the guy might have done to deserve kidnapping.

  But Eric accepted the deal like it was something ordinary. This could only mean one thing: Eric had known about the deal. Thabang was up to no good, but he was in for a shock.

  Thabang hated dreams. He hated them because he always had them, day and night. Even during a ten minute snooze he'd still have one or two. And they were never good. In most, if not all, he was always either running away from something or fighting. In some cases, he was fighting for his life. Right now he had just finished having a bad dream. He had been just about to nip a car when the owner appeared out of nowhere and threatened him with a large gun. Just as he was running away from the bastard, two large dogs appeared from the direction in which he was headed. And he pissed himself. Not just in the dream, but in real life. He was wet. That's probably why he woke up. He looked at the patch on the front of his pants and got annoyed. He wasn't annoyed by the patch, people piss themselves every day and there is nothing that can be done about that. He was annoyed because they were still here, waiting. He had hoped that...he wasn't sure what he had hoped for. All he knew was that he was annoyed, sober and hung-over.

  "Where is he?" he said.

  "Who?" Dumani said, looking perplexed. "The guy we're waiting for."

  "Thabang, you know, you're really annoying.

  You go to sleep and the first thing you ask just after being woken by your own piss is where the target is. You should have stayed awake if you really cared about this guy's whereabouts. Now it's too late."

  "What do you mean it's too late?"

  "He has left."

  "What do you mean, he has left?"

  Dumani laughed, and this annoyed Thabang even more.

  "Relax man, he hasn't come in yet." Then something caught Thabang's eye. Walking out of the hospital fast, looking around like a thief, was their guy. "There he is!" he exclaimed.

  His two pals looked. Eric started the van instantly.

  "Quick, he is heading for the kombi," said Dumani.

  Traffic was heavy. Eric couldn't just plough across the road to the other side, risking an accident.

  "Quick man!" shouted Dumani.

  Eric was alert, waiting. But the road was busy.

  "We're losing him!" said Dumani again, impatiently.

  Eric, unable to control his anger anymore, switched off the engine, faced Dumani and said, "Look man. This is my van. You don't tell me how and when to drive my van. You've been bossing me around since I met you and I'm getting fed up with it. You continue bossing me around, I'll tell you to get out of my van and you'll regret ever knowing me."

  Dumani was breathing hard. Eric took the risk of retorting, safe in the belief that Dumani wouldn't fight him at such a crucial moment.

  "I'm sorry man. Just that time is of essence. We can't afford to lose this guy. A spell will be cast on us."

  Eric wished a spell would be cast on Dumani. Just Dumani. But, because he was now part of the deal, Eric believed that whatever spell was cast, he would be included in it.

  Eric started the van just as Thabang pointed to a blue kombi. "He just boarded that kombi over there.”

  It was a fast one whose driver, like all kombi drivers, had no regard for road signs. It was already waiting to turn left at the next T-junction.

  Eric could feel the looks of his two pals boring into him. He stepped on the accelerator and did a quick U-turn, eliciting angry honks of horns from irate drivers and nearly causing a three car accident. Without waiting to assess the damage he nearly caused, he sped down the road. The kombi had turned left. And the lights were red at the T-junction. Eric waited impatiently, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he did. The blue kombi had stopped to pick up some passengers, he could see it. It seemed like whoever was in control of the lights knew what hurry Eric and his pals were in and was punishing them by taking too long to change to green. He knew what Dumani was thinking: run the red light. He knew how crooks think. They don't think doing so would be a way of inviting the cops over. The blue kombi was now disappearing round a bend. Eric knew the town well, and he knew that after the bend there were many several possible turns the kombi could take.

  Finally the lights changed to green. Eric revved the engine and risked getting stopped for speeding. He reached the bend and looked left and right. There were five blue kombis up ahead, headed in different directions.

  "Did anyone grab the kombi's plate number?" he asked.

  Dumani looked at Thabang. Thabang looked at Dumani. And they both shook their heads.

  "I think it's that one," said Thabang, pointing at a kombi that was turning left on the far side. Eric followed it.

  "But he could have got off anywhere here," said Dumani.

  "So what do you want us to do? Why don't you ring the person who has been giving you information about this g
uy's whereabouts? He may..."

  "There he is," said Dumani.

  Eric saw a young man carrying a plastic bag, walking fast towards a two-bedroom, unpainted house. He drove fast, ignoring all road signs. He nearly knocked the man over. The man panicked and ran for dear life.

  Dumani shot out of the car in an instant. Thabang tried to do the same but he stumbled and fell. By the time he caught up with Dumani, the latter was just reaching out for the target who was fumbling for keys in his pocket while screaming for help. A crowd was gathering, but Dumani didn't care. He pulled the man by the arm. Thabang had arrived. He held the man by the other arm and they pulled him towards the van.

  The victim said, "Let go of me. Damon is going to be very upset with you guys."

  Dumani said, "Damon? How do you know him?"

  "This is the second time you make the same mistake."

  "Oh, Dumani, this is the same wrong guy you captured the other time," said Thabang.

  "Not too loud." Dumani said then turned to the target and said, "What were you doing at the hospital?"

  "Checking on my uncle."

  Dumani looked at Mothusi for a long time. He suddenly realised there was more betrayal in store for him than he'd suspected. He was being betrayed by the very man they were serving. Damon.

  "Thabang, let's go," said Dumani. Thabang followed. Somebody laughed and pointed at Thabang. The patch of piss, that's what it was all about.

  Dumani was deflated. Things were falling apart. What he was thinking was, Damon had sent Mothusi to capture their target.

  Mothusi was competing against them. Whoever gets him first gets paid. But he — or they — had an advantage over Mothusi. Dumani had a plan that would ensure that regardless of who did the capturing, Dumani — and only Dumani — would do the delivery and receive the wealth.