Of Cops & Robbers

by Nicol, Mike;

  What fun!

  A rage coming up in Fish that the lowlife scumbag shitheads could do this. Waltz over here like it was part of a fairground, take a whammo at a couple of target stalls. The lowlife scumbag shitheads not giving a fuck for what they were starting.

  Fish thinking, you ratcheted this up, you were talking grievous bodily harm. Which he wasn’t averse to. A shithead like Seven.

  ‘Hey, boet,’ says a voice. There’s a large guy peering over the back wall, got a .45 in his hand. A huge thing. All Fish can see of him is his head and shoulders, an arm like a ham ending in the revolver. ‘It was two coloureds. Gangster types. Hard thin okes with sucked-in faces. That’s all the ID I got. ’Cept they were wearing black tracksuits, takkies. The fancy Nike ones. They saw my Dirty Harry here they were gone.’

  The man wobbles, adjusts his balance.

  ‘I heard them when they smashed the glass. They were planning on taking a hammer to your boat.’

  ‘I owe you,’ says Fish.

  ‘No sweat.’ The man unsteady, gripping the wall with his free hand. Stares at Fish. ‘You a cop?’

  ‘No,’ says Fish.

  ‘That’s a cop gun.’

  ‘Once was,’ says Fish. ‘An inheritance. From an ex-cop. You a cop?’

  ‘Organised crime.’ The man changing the gun into his left hand, extending his right, the wall clasped under his armpits. ‘Flip Nel. Moved in a month ago about. Seems like an interesting place.’

  They shake.

  Fish says, ‘It is. Appreciate you trying you to stop them.’

  ‘They ran fast.’ Flip Nel laughing. ‘Especially when I pulled off one shot. When Harry talks, he talks big.’ He waves the Smith & Wesson. ‘You want any help, sorting it? Police ID can be useful.’

  Fish shakes his head. ‘Nah. The main man’s a dealer called Seven in the ghetto.’ The two men nodding at one another. ‘Dude needs another talking to.’

  ‘You security?’

  ‘Investigations.’

  ‘Tough job.’

  ‘Not that bad. Gives me time to surf.’

  Flip Nel nods, frowning. ‘You feel another presence would help persuade him, let me know.’ He hands Fish a card. ‘My cell’s best. You ring the other numbers, no one’s gonna answer. Cop life, hey?’ He’s about to step down, he says, ‘Ag, ja, one more thing, I’m a fisherman. Any time you’re going out, I wouldn’t mind. Share the petrol, you know.’

  ‘I don’t fish,’ says Fish. ‘The boat’s another inheritance.’

  ‘Seems a waste not to use it.’

  ‘Maybe you can show me?’

  Flip Nel grins. ‘A pleasure anytime’ – disappears behind the wall.

  Fish slips the pistol into his belt. First things first. Seven is first.

  He walks down the road towards the vlei. Pissed off that on a day like this, full-on sun and surf, there’s an arsehole scumbag shithead in it called Seven. He’s carrying a piece of his board, the piece with the skeg, he’s planning to smash it into Seven’s face.

  On the bridge he stops, gazes down at the water the colour of weak tea. Crabs in the shallows, lying black against the sand.

  He gets into a thing with Seven it’s going to ride and ride. Problem is he can’t let it go.

  Fish walks into the ghetto to Seven’s crack house, through the gate up to the front door. The security grille’s locked now.

  He knocks. Bangs with his fist.

  Toothless answers so fast he must’ve been crouching behind the door waiting. The house breathes out its foulness: dagga and boiling soup bones.

  ‘Get Seven,’ says Fish.

  Toothless looks seriously whacked. Pupils filling his eyes, his right leg jigging like it wants to dance on its own. A smirk on his face.

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘Get him,’ says Fish.

  Toothless doesn’t move, except his leg. Fish can smell him, he’s ripe, the stench sharp as rotting guavas.

  ‘Just get him.’

  Toothless makes to shut the door. Fish pushes through the grille, slams it back. Toothless going down in a heap.

  Fish shouts: ‘Seven. Seven, d’you hear me? Get out here.’

  Nothing. Not a floorboard creak, not a mattress sigh.

  Fish grips the grille. ‘Seven.’ Silence. ‘Seven, get out here. Seven.’ He hurls the piece of surfboard down the passageway, it clatters against the walls, slides into a corner. ‘Seven.’ Nothing. All he can hear is Toothless’s wheeze. Either Seven’s wetting himself or he’s really not there.

  Fish watches Toothless raising himself. ‘You guys had a lot of fun? Smashing my stuff. Very funny. So now we’re going to see, my friend. See how fucking funny it was. Where’s Seven? Where’s he gone?’

  ‘Fok off,’ says Toothless, standing there just inside the grille.

  ‘You stink,’ says Fish, reaches in, bunches his fist into the crackman’s jersey. One yank he has Toothless tight against the grille. Toothless wriggles. Fish gives him slack then jerks him back, holds him hard on the rusty bars. ‘Listen. You listening?’

  Toothless says what could be ‘Yaaah’. Could be pain, ‘Aaaah’.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Jouma,’ says Toothless.

  ‘So, Jouma,’ says Fish, ‘you tell Seven this’s over. Okay. Right now it’s over. All that crap he’s caused, he’s going to pay for. New tyres. New windscreen. New mirrors.’

  Jouma’s got his jaw free, says ‘Fok off’ out the side of his mouth.

  ‘Listen,’ says Fish. ‘Just listen’ – jerking the guy back and forth, slamming his head against the grille. Jouma spitting, whining, calling for help. Fish pulls out his gun, pushes the barrel into Jouma’s cheek. This quietens him.

  ‘Shut up. Just shut up.’

  Jouma whimpers.

  Fish’s closer to Jouma than he wants to be. Not only the sweat stench, the gangbanger’s got rancid breath.

  ‘You tell Seven before all the other stuff, he owes me a surfboard. I don’t get that surfboard tomorrow morning then I’m back here. You don’t want me to come back here. Seven doesn’t want me to come back here. I have to come back here, I don’t even want to think about it. About what could happen. That too complicated for you?’

  Jouma doing his ‘yaaah-yaaah’ sound.

  Fish pushes him back. ‘You could take a bath, do us all a big favour.’

  51

  By mid-afternoon Jacob Mkezi has his ducks in a row. He likes that expression, ducks in a row. He can see the ducks on a vlei, Cape teals, swimming one behind the other. He’s in the blind with a twelve-bore over-and-under shotgun, take them out bam, bam, bam.

  His ducks this afternoon are trucks, an Antonov, and a destination. Two calls settled the logistics, a contact in Yemen sorted the deal. All from the comfort of his sitting room. The one looking over the lawn towards Skeleton Gorge. The mountain in shadow, a high white cloud ridging in.

  The lawn’s substantial, the size of two tennis courts side by side. Neat spongy buffalo-grass lawn. Some hadeda ibises stabbing their long bills into the turf, picking out grubs and worms. Not the sort of birds Jacob Mkezi wants to shoot. He likes hadeda ibises, likes their harsh cry in the morning. The dawn birds he calls them.

  He goes outside onto his lawn, the hadedas moving slowly away. Not bothered; alert, but not bothered.

  Jacob Mkezi admires them, the gunmetal sheen on their wings, flashing in the sun.

  He phones Tol Visagie, says, ‘Thursday.’ Hears Tol Visagie whistle.

  ‘So soon?’

  ‘I don’t mess around.’ Jacob Mkezi bends down to feel the grass, the cool softness beneath his palm.

  ‘I know,’ says Tol Visagie. ‘I know.’

  Jacob Mkezi gives him details, contact names, time schedule, where to meet the trucks. Travel distance to the airstrip. ‘There’s a team to do the transfer: cave to truck, truck to plane. Treat them well. Food, cold drinks, beer when the plane’s gone.’

  ‘That’s it?’ says Tol Visagie.


  ‘What else you want?’ says Jacob Mkezi, straightening. ‘A military band?’

  Tol Visagie laughs. ‘I was out there this morning. Just to check.’

  ‘Check on what? There’s something I should know?’ Jacob Mkezi frowns, slaps his palm against his pants. With the back of his hand flicks grass blades from the material. ‘I’m a long way away, Tol. You’ve got to tell me what’s happening.’

  ‘Nothing’s happening.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘No buts. Everything’s fine.’

  ‘Except.’

  A pause. Jacob Mkezi about to say, Talk to me, Tol. Talk to me.

  Tol Visagie says, ‘That man we met, he’s back.’

  Jacob Mkezi taking this in. Standing on his lawn, looking up at Skeleton Gorge, taking this in. ‘Vusi Bopape?’

  ‘Ja, him.’

  ‘You’ve seen him?’

  ‘No, I’ve found out he’s back at the lodge till Thursday.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Thursday.’

  Jacob Mkezi thinks when the ducks get into line too easily, there’s always a problem.

  ‘Don’t go back to the cave. Okay. Not till Thursday. Stay away from it.’

  Again the silence. Jacob Mkezi says. ‘You’ll do that?’

  ‘Ja,’ says Tol Visagie, ‘ja, of course.’ Then: ‘Who is he? Who is this Vusi Bopape?’

  ‘Good question,’ says Jacob Mkezi.

  Next he phones Mart Velaze, says, ‘Comrade, fill me in.’

  ‘On what?’ says Mart Velaze.

  ‘Everything, comrade. All the shit happening in my life.’

  ‘It’s sorted,’ says Mart Velaze. Gives him a status rundown on Lord, the boy in a coma, Daro Attilane. ‘That’s it. All sorted.’

  ‘What about Vusi Bopape? Who’s he?’ Jacob Mkezi wants to know.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Mart Velaze. ‘No one knows. Maybe he’s freelance.’

  ‘Ein solcher Diener bringt Gefahr ins Haus. Find out, comrade,’ says Jacob Mkezi. ‘Find out a-s-a-p. A servant of his kind is full of present danger. Faust to Mephistopheles, comrade. Faust to Mephistopheles.’

  Jacob Mkezi swears. Loudly. The hadedas take off: kwaak, kwaak.

  52

  Fish’s been into the back yard three times with a torch to stare at the Isuzu. Once at seven, again at eight thirty and now at ten. He shines the beam at the slashed tyres first, then the smashed windscreen and rear window, the bust mirrors. It still seems impossible. Unbelievable. He clicks off the torch, stands there dumbstruck.

  A couple of grands’ damage. Just replacing the tyres would take care of most of that.

  Then the rest.

  Like how much is this going to cost to sell?

  Like Seven is ever going to cough up. This thing with Seven has legs. One of those nasty tit for tats. Depresses the hell out of Fish.

  What’d he think telling the cop over the wall that fishing was an option? No ways he could get the Isuzu on the road any time soon.

  Unless he got a loan from Estelle. Yeah, that was likely. Really likely he was going to ask his mother.

  Especially with ten voicemails from her, eight SMSes, four emails.

  ‘You said this afternoon, Bartolomeu. It’s now seven o’clock your time. You’re letting me down badly. Don’t do this to me.’

  Ten messages of that order. Every time Fish saw his mother’s name on the screen he keyed her to voicemail. Tomorrow he’d sort out her problem. Right now he’s got other worries.

  He goes inside. On the kitchen table’s the plastic bag with Colins’s life story. He takes out the first page, reads: ‘I am Colins, you will know me by this name.’ This written in a neat cursive in ballpoint, filling up the whole line. Not a bad start, Fish reckons. Has a ring to it. On the next line the same sentence: ‘I am Colins, you will know me by this name.’ Below that a repeat, repeats all the way down the page, the same line like Colins is doing detention at school. Filling up all the pages in the bag, the same line.

  Jesus, thinks Fish, this’s his life story?

  I am Colins, you will know me by this name.

  Fish blows out a long breath. Takes a pinch of weed from his herb tin, pestles it with his right index finger in the palm of his left hand. Sprinkles the crush on a Rizla paper, picking out the seeds.

  What a wipe-out day!

  Starts like it’s paradise, ends like it’s hell. A tanked job. A good deed turned crap. An ace surfboard maliciously chopped. A stuffed-up bakkie. The bergie Colins dead on his conscience. His mother on his case. You get through all that then you get to the Vicki thing. Her tone of voice that he knows means she’s lying. She’s not with clients. Not at some business dinner. Not at Gamblers Anonymous. Something else is happening. Something she’s ashamed of. Has to be a poker game. Has to be she’s on the cards again. And when did that start? Last week? Last month? Tonight?

  Not a good situation.

  Fish licks along the edge of the paper, rolls it into a tube. Taps the spliff on the table.

  The worst was sitting on the beach wall watching the afternoon surfers slicing the waves. The swell building again on the high tide.

  ‘You not going in?’ one or two asked him as they strapped leashes to ankles. ‘Haven’t seen it cooking like this in ages.’

  ‘My boards’re broken,’ Fish replied. ‘Both of them.’

  ‘Ah, bru, that sucks,’ they sympathised.

  Sucks alright. Sucked so badly Fish thought about going another round with Jouma. Knocking the rest of the pegs out of his mouth. But didn’t. Just sat on the wall, hugging himself as the sun dipped behind the mountain, spread a cold shadow across the beach.

  Sat there waiting for Daro to pitch. Because Daro had spare boards at home, could loan him one until the thing with Seven was sorted. At least that’s what Fish was thinking while he waited for Daro.

  Around five he gave Daro a call, got his voicemail. Left a message: ‘This is what you missed’, held his phone towards the crashing surf.

  Then walked home. More hangdog than a township mongrel, obsessing about his misfortune. Again counting off the downers on his fingers: totalled four. When he got home, five was the state of his fridge: one piece of cold lasagne, wasn’t even meat lasagne, two bottles of milk stout.

  He drank the stout, nuked the lasagne. Vicki’s idea of supper, a veg lasagne. The only thing with some chew were the mushrooms. After that, he put Shawn Colvin on the sound system while he smoked a joint. An older singer but sexy, very sexy.

  Shawn singing about not getting too close, not going too far.

  53

  Vicki Kahn’s hating this. She’s driving around Cape Town’s vineyard suburbs in search of Cake Mullins’ house, cursing the darkness, cursing Cake Mullins. A bad bad feeling in her stomach. Churning in the pit of her stomach.

  That bad feeling and the darkness.

  The thing about the vineyard suburbs at night is the darkness, the darkness in between the street lights.

  You’ve got high walls, electric fencing, dense shrubbery, trees overarching the street, you’ve got darkness. At nine o’clock no one’s about. Everyone locked down. The CCTV cameras on. Outside sensors throwing beams across the lawns. Occasionally you get a passing security patrol car, big bloody deal.

  She doesn’t like the vineyard suburbs at night. At night they’re scary. And now she’s lost in their darkness.

  The last Cake Mullins poker game Vicki played was about a year ago, just before she signed on the programme, so she’s trawling the streets trying to recall the route.

  Her phone goes. Cake Mullins on the display. She thumbs him on. There’ve been calls from Fish she pressed through to voicemail. His SMS too that she’s ignored. Didn’t want to ignore but had to.

  ‘Everyone’s here, Vicki,’ he says. ‘Waiting. You’re late.’

  ‘What’s a couple of minutes?’

  ‘That’s the problem.’

  ‘Help me here,’ she says. She gives him a street nam
e, he gives her directions. She’s a few houses away.

  ‘Get a Garmin,’ he says.

  Before she can reply he’s disconnected. ‘Rude bastard,’ Vicki mutters, thumbing her phone off.

  The thing about Cake Mullins, Vicki Kahn remembers as she buzzes him from the intercom box at the gate to his house, is she doesn’t know how he makes his money. Poker’s more a passion. Ask him about his financial interests he trots out a story about investments. Offshore leveraging. Dubai developments. Vicki thinks not. On the net she found a photograph of Cake Mullins and Mark Thatcher. You’re photographed with Mark Thatcher this puts a different spin on offshore leveraging.

  The wrought-iron gates open, she drives between the white columns. Since her last visit Cake has added two guardian lions to his entrance. Very Cake Mullins.

  There’re four cars parked in the driveway. She stops her Alfa behind a Hummer, checks her lipstick in the rear-view. Checks in her handbag: the money, a can of mace. The tiny .32: the Guardian.

  She takes out the pistol, releases the clip: six rounds, hollow points. Presses the magazine back, racks a load into the chamber. Better than a full house, aces high.

  The garage door swings up, Cake Mullins stands, in the light, behind him a Porsche Boxster, a Lexus coupé. Cake not the sort of man to bother with family cars. Not the sort of man to bother with family. Women, yes. Including a one-nighter with Vicki Kahn, which she regretted. Cake being a sweaty man, all that meat.

  Big Cake Mullins, in black chinos and a rollneck, snazzy leather loafers, his hair cut short, his moon face more cratered than the moon, says, ‘The gorgeous Vicki Kahn.’

  Vicki standing there in skinny jeans, a loose jersey wondering if he’s expecting a kiss. She holds out her hand.

  ‘Hello, Cake.’

  ‘Ah, don’t give me that,’ he says, clasping her into a hug. Cake holds her tightly, whispers into her ear, ‘I’ve got a great opportunity for you here tonight. You won’t regret it.’

  ‘I feel I might already,’ she says.

  He tickles her ear with his tongue. ‘This’s the making of you.’ He squeezes. ‘Let’s go inside.’