The doctor smelt nice. She didn’t smell of sweat like his wife. She had his smell, which was not good because that smell was meant for real men like him.
His little man was starting to misbehave just thinking about the doctor and what he would do to her once they were together, just the two of them. He knew they’d be together soon. He could feel it. There was now hope. This Mothusi guy was very valuable. As soon as they had left the shirtless man’s house he had excused himself to make a phone call and when he came back he had the grin that usually meant he had some information. Only problem was, when Dumani asked why he was grinning, he refused to tell. He simply said he was waiting for a phone call, and now, as they went into Choppies to buy something to eat, Mothusi remained outside the shop to take the call.
“What do you think of him?” Dumani asked. Thabang looked at him blankly and said, “Who are you talking about?” “Mothusi.”
“I don’t know. He seems like a nice guy.” “He is very useful. We need him.”
“I agree.”
Just then Mothusi walked in with a wider grin. “What is it?” said Dumani to Mothusi. “I’ll tell you. Let’s go find a shebeen,” he said. Which, Thabang reckoned, was good news.
Really good news. Modiri arrived just as I was becoming panicky. My fear of the dark had returned. I used to have a serious fear of the dark as a child and I was back to being a helpless child who had to rely on other people. Darkness was approaching and the fear was going up by the minute.
Modiri found me sitting on the sofa, staring blankly at the TV. I’d been watching and forcing myself to concentrate until the news came on. The headlines. A DANGEROUS MURDERER FLEES TO LENTSWENG. When Modiri walked in, the TV lady was just starting to expand on the story, the same picture that was on the Daily News up in the corner of the screen.
“Good evening bro,” Modiri said. Instead of answering, I pointed at the TV. He sat down and watched with me. I could see the disbelief on his face. I wasn’t looking forward to the lecture that would follow about me getting him in trouble for harbouring a fugitive. What if he kicked me out? Then I’d have no one to turn to. I’d be officially alone and stranded.
I cried. Modiri switched off the TV and said, “Ngano, I know I’ve asked you this question. I know it’s an annoying question, but did you kill anyone?”
“No. This is one hell of a setup.” Modiri was silent for a while as I carried on with my sobbing.
“Okay, I’ll believe you, but you’ll need to cooperate with me. You can’t put my life at risk. From the sounds of it, these people may very well know you’re living at my house and its location and when they come for you, they’ll make sure they silence me. Not only that, but if anyone sees and recognizes you, they’ll tell the cops where you are and I’ll be arrested. I know what a difficult time you’re going through, and it’s when people are going through difficult times that they make grave mistakes. My advice is, don’t leave the house for now, just stay put until I’ve done a few things. I need to go to the house of this Vusa guy. But not on my own. With cops. I’ve several cop friends.”
“I don’t think you should be telling the cops where I am. What if...”
“Relax. I won’t tell them where you are. I’ll come up with something to tell them, something that would give them reason to confront Vusa. I used to be a cop myself, remember?”
I was tempted to smile in relief, but I couldn’t bring myself to doing so. There was hope, but not enough to hold on to.
“I really appreciate this.”
“But if I find out that you did indeed kill someone, I will have nothing to do with you. Hell, I might even go to the cops myself.”
“I understand.”
Tiredness and hunger caught up with me. My appetite hadn’t returned completely, but I felt like I could eat something. As if he had read my mind, Modiri stood up and went to the kitchen. Before long the smell of rice and boiling meat was in the air. I slumped on the sofa and waited for the food. I needed food to think. And I needed to think if I really wanted to find my wife.
I woke up after about thirty minutes. Food was ready. Modiri explained that he didn’t want to wake me up as I looked tired. I wouldn’t say I was feeling better, but I did feel refreshed enough to feel hopeful that Modiri’s plan would work.
After supper we talked some more about this and that. It was obvious Modiri was only trying to distract me.
“I usually spend the day at my girlfriend’s house on Thursdays. I’ll go and see Vusa tomorrow,” Modiri said.
“But don’t you think it would be dangerous to leave me here on my own?”
“I don’t think it makes any difference. The main thing is to stay in the house until I tell you otherwise.”
I went to bed early, just after Modiri had left. As soon as my head touched the pillow I fell asleep.
I was woken by sounds, banging sounds that must have been coming from the door. I sat up in bed and flipped on the lights. I listened more attentively. The sounds were definitely coming from the door. Then they stopped as suddenly as they had started. Just as I was about to assume I had imagined things, there was a loud knock on the door. My first thought was that the cops had found me. I walked to the sitting room, then the kitchen, confused. I was looking for an exit. I looked at the window for a while, but it was too far up. The knocking was getting more frantic.
I tiptoed back to the bedroom, found my phone and tried dialling Modiri’s number. It rang out. I tried again with the same result. Once again I was back to square one. I was alone again. But I had told Modiri that it wasn’t a good idea to leave me alone in the house, and he hadn’t listened. Now this. I was about to leave the bedroom and look around for a backdoor when I suddenly experienced excruciating pain on the back of my head. I struggled with balance. Bent on doing further damage, my attacker hit me again in the same spot. I hit the floor, feeling dizzy. Everything turned pitch black.
I woke up in a little house that smelt of human sweat, urine and dog fur. I was bound. My body ached all over and I was having difficulty focusing.
I was exhausted, hungry and frustrated. I told myself this was the end, the ritual killers had me. They were going to take whatever body part they wanted from me, most likely private parts, for that’s what I had heard ritual killers preferred.
Or had they taken them away already? I wriggled my legs and felt a slight ache as my balls squeezed against each other. I was never going to see my wife and children. I wondered if they had been killed already.
My eyes were blurry. I had a headache; an excruciating type that spread from the back of my head to my temples.
I realised there was a man sleeping in the corner of the room. Slowly I started to recognize him. It was the fattest and ugliest of the gangsters that were after me. I twisted around, trying to see if I could set myself free and batter the bastard. As if reading my mind, he opened one eye, then the other, and smiled, exposing toothless gums that you can only expect to see in the worst of horror movies. Not a pleasant smile at all.
Dumani had lied to the taxi driver and said he tried to call an ambulance but they were all busy. The taxi man shook his head and said, “Okay. But I’ll charge you double for this.”
Dumani had said no problem. So, with the help of Mothusi, Thabang had bundled Ngano into the car. They were all afraid that he may have died on them, which would have meant they would never see their promised wealth.
Thabang and Mothusi had sat on either side of Ngano, in the backseat. Dumani had ridden shotgun. The taxi man started the engine. He was just about to change gears when Dumani’s right fist rammed on his left temple, leaving him confused. Dumani had followed up with another punch.
The taxi driver had fainted — or died, it was hard to be sure. Dumani had got out of the car, opened the driver’s door and hauled the taxi driver out.
He hopped in the driver’s seat and they drove off to the house Mothusi was living in. All three had agreed that Dumani and Mothusi go to this other place i
n Hebron and get the car painted and plate numbers changed while Thabang remained with Ngano. They tied his legs and arms and put him in a stinky toilet. Now he was awake. And Thabang had pissed himself.
“What do you guys want?” the guy they had captured asked.
Thabang laughed and said, “You, my friend.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. Someone is looking for you. Tell you what, if I were you I’d prefer to be with this person than the cops. You’re looking at the noose.”
“And who is this person?”
“None of your business, young man.”
“What is he going to do to me?”
“I don’t know. It’s none of my business.”
“Where are my wife and children?”
“I don’t know. I don’t live with them.’
“Please, I beg you: you can do anything you want to me, but please, leave my wife and children out of this.”
Thabang laughed and said, “I think you’re a little bit confused, young man. You’re asking the wrong guy. I don’t know where your family is.”
“Do your friends know?”
“You can ask them yourself when they come back.”
“Where did they go?”
“To get a nice car so we can take you back to the jungle where you come from.”
They’re going to kill you, that’s what this is about. What are you going to do? Are you going to die without a fight?
The goon now sat in the corner of the little room, eyes closed as if about to dose off. How I wished I wasn’t tied? If I were to fight one-on-one with this goon, I’d definitely win. I did a bit of Karate in secondary school, so I knew how to release kicks and punches that connect.
I
sighed and resigned myself to fate. Things looked grim. The kidnappers had me. I was going to pay for whatever crimes I was being
punished for. This wasn’t a nice way to die. I’d never be buried properly, and my family would live in eternal grief.
“Please, let me go. You seem like a nice guy,” I said to the thug. He had the look of a stupid person.
He laughed, came closer to me, bared his gums and said, “You think so?”
“Of course. Just untie me. I walk out of here and you…”
“The Police are going to get you as soon as you walk out of here, and we will never be able to find you. We need you,” he said and smacked his gums, then winced in obvious pain. There was a wet patch on the front of his pants, which was growing rapidly. He smelt like the rear of Tlogelang Bojalwa bar where drunks urinate.
“But why do you need me? Why does this person who wants me need me?”
“I don’t know and don’t care why he needs you. All I know is that he is going to pay us dearly for bringing you in.” He bared his gums in an attempt to smile, then winced in obvious pain.
I wondered who this person might be. My fatherin-law? Maybe he wanted to take the law into his own hands? But then these guys had been looking for me even before…or had my wife disappeared when they first started looking for me?
But my wife was still alive. If she was able to call me, then I’m sure she would have called her father too, so her father would have known she was still alive, and he would have called these guys off, asked them to leave me alone. This meant it couldn’t be my father-in-law, unless when she called he had assumed I might be masterminding her captivity. Possible. Possibility number one.
Possibility number two was Vusa.
“Do you work for Vusa?” I said.
He looked at me blankly and said, “Who is Vusa?”
“The guy whose house you went to in Hillside.”
“Which house?”
“The yellow house.”
He seemed confused. He grimaced then removed something from his pocket. It was a half tooth. He looked at it for a very long time, then put in in his pocket. I wondered what he was going to do with it. Probably sell it to some deranged traditional doctor.
“How do you know we went there?” he said when the tooth is safe in his pocket.
“Because I saw you.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing there?”
I told him. I could tell he was drunk. Drunk people can surprise you sometimes. They can be sympathetic at times, or they can be impulsive, or they could kill you, or feel sorry for you. You just could never know.
“We went there because Mothusi told us you were there.”
“Who is Mothusi?”
“The other guy we with us. We thought he was you, but now he works with us,” the thug said proudly following which he attempted some sit ups, but fell backwards instead. “Ouch!” he said when the back of his head connected with the floor.
His legs flew apart and his trousers tore right across the middle, exposing a pair of the largest balls I’ve ever seen in my life through a hole in his underwear. I felt like puking. I looked away and when I looked back at him he was back on his feet and evidently annoyed as he examined the hole in his trousers.
He was about to force his testicles away from the hole when he pulled them further out, looked closely at them and, in excited tones, said, “These were not this big this morning. That little doctor is sure going to be impressed.” Then to me, “What the hell are you looking at?”
I looked away.
Mothusi, the murderer. How would he have known I was at Vusa’s house? Could the DIS be involved? Could Mothusi be working with the DIS? Was I being watched by the DIS? But why?
“How did he know I was there?”
“Who?”
“Mothusi, how did he know I was in Hillside?”
“I don’t know. You can ask him when he comes back. It’s none of my business. I do what I’m told, and I’ve been told to look after you while the others are gone.”
“But…”
“Will you just shut up? You’re starting to annoy me.”
I sighed and winced, but not because I was in pain. It was only an act. I was hoping this would elicit some sympathy. But the thug had turned away and was looking out of the window.
“Please, do me a favour. I’ll pay you for this,” I said, unable to hide the desperation in my voice.
He turned around and said, “Will you shut up for a minute please?” There was sudden anger in his voice. He turned back to face the other way and looked out the window again. I could hear some voices outside. I moved my hands. The rope seemed to loosen. I moved them further apart. The rope came off. I smiled to myself. I untied my feet, but stayed in the same position, pretending that I was still bound.
The door was flung open. The guy named Mothusi came in first. There was fury in his eyes. He walked towards the thug and removed a knife from his back pocket. In a flash he stabbed the thug in the shoulder.
The other thug that tried to kidnap me walked in just then. He was bleeding from the hands and both shoulders. The murderer was quick and sober. He picked up an axe that had been hiding under a sack of some sort in the corner of the room, charged towards me, raised the axe above me, and brought it down with all his might, but I was ready for him. I moved sideways and swiped him off his feet. He landed with a thud. I rushed for the door. Cargo Pants tried to block my path, but I easily brushed him aside. He yelped as I shot past him.
I wasn’t sure where I was going but the taxi parked outside gave me an idea. I fiddled with the driver’s door. It opened with ease. The keys were in the ignition. I had no licence but I could drive. I eased the car into gear, reversed in a screech of tyres and swung it in a wide arc that left a cloud of dust behind.
I drove like a maniac. I knew this in itself could bring me to the Police’s attention but I wasn’t thinking. All I knew was that I had to get away from here and go somewhere as soon as I could. Where, I didn’t know. Vusa was in my mind. But I wasn’t sure if paying him a visit would be a good idea. I searched my left pocket.
At least my cell phone was still there. I took it out with my left han
d while keeping the right one on the steering wheel. The petrol light was on. If I ran out of petrol, I would have to abandon the car. I couldn’t risk going to a filling station.
I had one bar for battery on my phone. I frantically dialled Modiri’s number. He answered on the first ring. He was out of breath.
Modiri was waiting at the front door to his house when I arrived. He had a bandage around his head. I had dumped the taxi, which I was sure was stolen, and took a taxi to Modiri’s house.
“What happened to you?” I asked, puzzled.
His eyes were red. Could he have been crying? Or was it due to lack of sleep?
“We need to talk,” he said and led me into the house. I followed him. He had a little limp. We went to the sitting room. He sat and I followed suit. The TV was on but muted.
At first there was a short moment of silence, then he said, “Like I said on the phone, things are deeper than they had seemed at first. I found out the hard way.”
“What do you mean? What’s going on?”
“I was nearly killed last night. You remember I went to stay over at my ex’s? I stayed there for a while but then her current boyfriend came in. I…”
“Did he assault you?”
“No. Let me finish. When he came in I excused myself. I drove down here, came home and you were not there. I panicked. I tried to ring you but your phone was off. I thought of calling the Police but I couldn’t. Just as I was about to go to bed there was a knock on the door. I thought it was you so I opened. But obviously it wasn’t you. I never knew who it was. All I remember is this darkness that descended upon me as soon as I threw the door ajar. I was assaulted, Ngano. I think whoever did this left me for dead. I came to after a little while, finding myself in extreme pain. I found this note on the coffee table.” He gave me the note. It read:
You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. You’ll die if you continue protecting him.
Out of the blue, Modiri started crying. He clamped his hands against his eyes and bawled. I just watched, confused. I let him cry as much as he wanted.
The Other Four Page 21