Of Cops & Robbers

by Nicol, Mike;

  ‘Not now,’ says Fish. ‘It’s confidential.’

  The professor back at the photostat with his magnifying glass. ‘You know the thing about him, Mr Pescado, a lot of powerful people don’t trust him. Didn’t then, don’t nowadays either. But then what I heard from the people in the know is Jacob Mkezi had a lot of dirt on a lot of people. He knew who’d been colluding with the enemy, so to speak.’

  Fish’s phone rings: Vicki. He takes the photostat from the professor, says to Vicki, ‘Hang on.’ To Summers, ‘Thanks, Prof. Much obliged.’

  ‘Pleased to be of assistance,’ says Summers. ‘You can repay the favour in grass. And a copy of that.’ Fish waves, heads out the gate.

  ‘Babes,’ Vicki’s saying in his ear, ‘I’ve found out some stuff about Jacob Mkezi.’

  ‘How about my place?’ he says.

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  ‘What’re you bringing to eat?’

  ‘Godfathers, Fish,’ says Vicki, ‘don’t you think of anything else?’

  All the drive home Fish’s thinking of something else: he’s thinking of Daro. Of who Daro really is. Thinking how can a man vanish? Drive away and disappear. Completely. Gone. No traces. Like aliens have zapped him. Walk out on his family. Fish saying out loud, ‘I’ve got nothing to work on. This’s killing me.’ Except for the photostats. He gazes up at Muizenberg mountain at the end of the highway, at the fire in the sky, the dying day. Thing is, he likes Daro. Daro is okay. That’s the problem. Because he’s got a sense that Daro was into heavy shit.

  78

  Through the morning Jacob Mkezi watched porn on his laptop: men in togas lounging with boys. Young boys with shiny skins and stiff little pricks over puckered balls, reminded him of chicken flesh on a drumstick.

  Sat at his desk in his study in the quiet house, not completely distracted, troubled. Troubled by the rent boy photographs, troubled by silence.

  The silence of Mart Velaze, most of all.

  He’d left two voicemails. One at 7.30: ‘Comrade, what’s happening? Call me.’ The second at 9.50: ‘I am worried about you, comrade. You need to talk to me.’ An hour later he put a missed call on Mart Velaze’s log.

  This was strange, this was not Mart. Mart was his man.

  Then there was Tol Visagie. At 5.30 he’d been woken by an SMS: ‘The trucks are here.’ Half an hour later he’d phoned the vet, his call going to voicemail.

  He’d phoned his point man, been told they’d met the contact, were proceeding.

  At 10.30 there’d been another message from Visagie: ‘Loading the aircraft.’ He’d phoned back immediately: voicemail. ‘Tol, phone me,’ he’d said.

  No response.

  Again he’d got his point man’s confirmation. Then had messaged Tol Visagie, ‘It’s okay to talk.’

  After that took to watching the porn, watching his phone out the corner of his eye.

  Emails pinged on his phone, totted up in his inbox. He scanned them: the daily traffic at his company: invoices, statements, newsletters, notices of sales, investment opportunities. Nothing that wasn’t being dealt with by his staff. He wondered to whom else the photographs had gone? He needed Mellanie doing R&R: research and restitution. Damage control.

  Each email he hoped was hers. None of them were.

  He wondered about phoning her, but didn’t.

  Instead went through to the kitchen, made coffee. Drank it standing at the sink, looking into the back yard. The empty washing lines, the wheelie bins for recycling. Mellanie’s insistence that the recycling would make a photo-story: police commissioner goes green. The enviro-friendly commissioner. And then when he was suspended: Time to recycle the commissioner. And then when he offered to resign: Former top cop dumped.

  He’d told his household staff to go. No dusting, no vacuum-cleaning, no washing windows, cleaning silver, polishing brass handles. No raking leaves, no shining the cars. Take the day off. They’d looked at him as if someone had sent them the pictures too.

  When the house was his, he’d spoken with Cake Mullins, an agitated Cake Mullins.

  He’d suggested lunch.

  ‘I’m outta here,’ Cake Mullins had said. ‘Off to the Caymans. I’m packing as we speak.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ Jacob Mkezi had asked.

  To which Cake Mullins had come back brittle, ‘What d’you mean, what’s happened?’

  ‘This’s sudden.’

  ‘It’s been on the cards.’

  Jacob Mkezi about to tell him the rhino horns were in the air had bitten down on his words, had said instead, ‘Pleasant flight.’

  ‘Yeah, all twenty hours of it. Connecting in Miami, yeah it’ll be pleasant.’

  Causing Jacob Mkezi to wonder if Cake Mullins hadn’t got the photographs as well, was getting away ahead of any fallout. Had been about to ask him straight but Cake Mullins had rung off.

  Then comes another SMS from Tol Visagie: ‘Mission accomplished.’

  Mission accomplished. Jacob Mkezi laughs out loud at Tol getting with the Bush-speak. Puts through a call. Voicemail. Redials. Same thing. Goes again. Voicemail. Swears, ‘Wena! Visagie, stop being an arsehole. I didn’t mean don’t speak to me at all.’ Keys the number once more. No dice.

  He does what he did earlier: phones his point man. Is told, ‘All good, chief. All sharp.’

  Eases the troubled mind of Jacob Mkezi. Five, six hours the plane’s in Sana’a, he’ll be a rich man, a richer man. Stuff the old comrades. Fuck them all and their ancestors’ cattle.

  Jacob Mkezi sits down to his porn. He’s getting back into it, the toga men playing chase with the boys in a garden, when the gate buzzer rings. He clicks through to his security links, brings up on the screen this picture of a white guy in a car at his driveway gate: a mlungu with surfer’s hair, deep-set eyes, squinting up at the camera, his finger working the bell button ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong like he’s not seen this technology before. Like he’s a kid with a new toy. Jacob Mkezi wants to yell at him to voetsak, fuck off, wants to fire off a couple of shots, put a spike in the man’s pulse rate.

  He doesn’t. He sits it out till the man stops his foolishness. Watches him reverse into the street, drive away. Muscle, Jacob Mkezi reckons. Someone’s muscle. Something in his attitude, the way he leaned out his window, stared into the camera, kept his finger on the buzzer. A mlungu with attitude. Could even be the photographer.

  Time to go, he decides. Hang loose in a couple of places he knows, Mzoli’s place in Gugulethu not a bad idea. Until he’s got the confirm from Sana’a.

  Jacob Mkezi shrugs into a leather jacket, picks up his sunglasses, decides against taking the Hummer. Times like these he needs to fly under the radar. Times like these he uses his other car, a white Honda Civic. He walks through to the garage, remote-triggers the door which slides up on silent runners. There, turning into his driveway, is Mellanie.

  79

  The man lies on a bed. He is cold. He is unkempt. He has been sleeping in his clothes, he has not changed since he was brought here. He has not washed. He teeth feel furry, his scalp itches. He lies curled up, hugging himself for warmth, facing the wall.

  When he gets too cold he does squats, awkwardly because of the leg irons. He can manage forty before his thigh muscles scream with agony. Or he does push-ups. His arms are stronger than his thighs, he can rise and sink seventy times before the pain gets him. Then he collapses on the concrete floor, his breathing loud, urgent. Once he could’ve done double that.

  The room’s small, windowless, two air vents high up. There’s a single light in the centre, a bulkhead screwed to the ceiling. It’s never switched off. The man doesn’t know if it’s day or night.

  He can hear no sounds of activity. Only the distant, dull throb of a generator. He doesn’t know how long he’s been there.

  His meals are slid in through a hatch at the base of the door. The door is metal, a safe-room door, solid on its hinges.

  When his first meal arrived, he shouted: ‘What d’yo
u want? Why’m I here? Talk to me. For God’s sake, talk to me.’ But no one answered. The hatch slid closed. His food was in a varkpan, the sort of pressed metal tray he remembered from his army days. Two slices of toast, a dollop of pap, stiff, long-solidified. A tin mug of tea, sweet milky tea. The same food at each meal. Sometimes a sauce with onion bits on the porridge, sometimes peanut butter with the toast.

  Always the same routine. The hatch would slide back, a voice say, ‘Give me your tray.’ When he refused, he got no food. He learnt quickly, it was better to eat their offering than starve.

  The man is lying on the bed when he hears door bolts being drawn back. He sits up. The door swings open.

  Mart Velaze says, ‘Phew, Daro, buti, you stink.’ Mart Velaze fanning the air with his hand.

  ‘You would too,’ says Daro Attilane. ‘Have you had your fun now? You going to let me go?’

  Mart Velaze laughs. Turns to the man beside him. ‘He’s tough, né, for a car salesman.’

  The man smiles, says, ‘Maybe we should hose him? Clean him up first?’

  Mart Velaze says to Daro, ‘You want that?’

  ‘Does it matter what I want?’ says Daro.

  ‘Nah,’ says Mart Velaze. ‘You’re right. Let’s do it.’ He disappears, the other man standing there, gazing at the prisoner.

  ‘Who’re you?’ says Daro.

  ‘Vusi Bopape,’ says the man. ‘Mart ’n I are colleagues.’

  ‘Men in black suits.’

  ‘No, we don’t wear suits. But, yes, in that zone.’

  Mart Velaze comes back holding a garden hosepipe, a trickle of water at the nozzle. He throws Daro Attilane a bar of soap. Says, ‘I’m going to turn this on. For a cleaner wash you better strip.’

  ‘While you watch?’

  ‘We’re not perverts,’ says Mart Velaze.

  ‘We’re all men,’ says Vusi Bopape.

  Mart Velaze opens the nozzle, directs the jet at Daro Attilane still sitting on the bed. Daro stunned by the cold drenching, taking the force full in the face.

  ‘We haven’t got all day,’ shouts Mart Velaze. ‘Wash.’

  Daro raises his hand to block the spurt, stands to undress. Keeps on staring at them. The two men grinning at him, Mart Velaze playing the water, face, stomach, crotch, until Daro’s naked, only his jeans leg dragging at his ankle.

  He washes, the two men watching him, their faces closed. Mart Velaze twists the nozzle, shuts off the water.

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ says Daro. There’s soap lather in his hair, streaks of it on his body.

  ‘Got to conserve water, Daro,’ says Mart Velaze, throwing clean clothes on to the wet bed. ‘Get dressed, we need to talk.’

  ‘What about the irons?’

  ‘The key’s in the pocket. Unlock them yourself.’

  They wait while he dries himself with the blanket, dresses, not taking their eyes off him.

  ‘The lock and the key,’ says Mart Velaze, ‘throw them on the bed.’

  He does.

  They take him barefoot across a courtyard to a small building that’s part office, part storeroom for shovels and picks. There’s a table in the room, four plastic chairs around it. A briefcase on the table. In a corner, a heap of clothing, two pairs of black takkies on the pile.

  Daro points at them. ‘Those available?’

  Mart Velaze shrugs. ‘The owners don’t need them anymore. You want them, help yourself.’

  The two men sit, wait for Daro to join them. Daro Attilane saying, ‘You’re Mkezi’s men? You’ve read what I had in the file. Seen the photographs. He’s finished.’

  ‘That’s right,’ says Vusi Bopape. ‘He’s finished.’

  ‘Yesterday’s man,’ says Mart Velaze. ‘All the same, Daro, we want you to kill him. Shoot him.’

  Daro glancing up from tying his laces.

  ‘No big deal for you, Daro. Maybe you’re out of practice, but no big deal.’ The two men smile at him. ‘What d’you say?’

  Daro Attilane goes back to his laces. When he’s done, sits opposite Mart Velaze and Vusi Bopape, his eyes on the briefcase. ‘That was then,’ he says.

  ‘Then,’ says Vusi Bopape. ‘Then, now, it’s all the same.’

  ‘No,’ says Daro. ‘I finished with that stuff.’

  ‘Let me tell you something,’ says Mart Velaze, ‘let me tell you that Mr Mkezi is out of control. This week he organised to steal state assets. Rhino horns, worth millions. This’s no problem for Mr Mkezi. Last week he puts a hit on his friend because the man’s turned state witness. And look.’ Mart Velaze takes some printouts from the briefcase on the table. ‘That’s Mkezi’s Hummer. Mkezi screws rent boys, Daro. Street kids. This’s not very nice.’

  ‘Your problem,’ says Daro. ‘I gave you the file.’

  ‘You gave something to other people too.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘That was not clever.’

  ‘It was insurance.’

  Mart Velaze shakes his head, looks at Vusi Bopape. Vusi Bopape says, ‘Now they know too much. You must shoot them too.’

  Daro Attilane laughs. ‘What? Are you mad?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Doesn’t work like that. What’ve they done?’

  ‘Not done. It’s what we said, they know.’

  ‘They don’t know about the money. The money that went from Dr Gold to Jacob Mkezi. The state money.’

  ‘You’re not going to say anything, Daro. You’ll keep quiet.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘We do,’ says Vusi Bopape.

  Mart Velaze saying, ‘There’s Steffie and Georgina. There’ll always be Steffie and Georgina, Daro. Our mutual insurance’ – Mart Velaze giving a grin to the word.

  The men pausing there.

  ‘Vicki Kahn’s the problem,’ says Mart Velaze.

  ‘What’s she got to do with it?’

  ‘You gave her the information, the documents.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  Mart Velaze smiles. ‘Alright, you gave them to your surfing buddy, the hotshot PI, Fish Pescado. That’s why he keeps phoning me, leaving messages in my voicemail. I can work these things out, Daro. So if Pescado has seen the pictures then so has his girlfriend Vicki Kahn. And what I think is that you realised or found out her aunt was the Amina Kahn you guys killed. The one in Paris, the stabbing. How’m I doing?’

  Daro Attilane looking down at his feet in the black takkies. ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘We don’t think so. Which is why we think Vicki Kahn’s a problem. Because Vicki Kahn’s a lawyer, and lawyers ask questions. And the people who deploy me, Vusi and me, don’t want her asking questions.’

  ‘Why not? It was a hit, a Special Branch job. One of many.’

  ‘Yes and no, Daro. You see, what you don’t know and what I’ve found out is that you guys did the job for us.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘The struggle. MK. The ANC.’

  ‘We got her for you? Rubbish.’

  ‘Strange, né? Problem was Amina Kahn was interfering. Getting in the way for both sides.’

  ‘You expect me to believe this nonsense?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, Daro. We’re cleaning up.’

  ‘We’re cleaners, my friend,’ says Vusi Bopape. ‘Fixers, cleaners making our new country neat and tidy. Getting rid of all the bad karma. We want a history that tells a nice story, us the good guys and you the bad guys. Jacob Mkezi was both a good guy and a bad guy, but this complication doesn’t work for us anymore. We only want good guys.’

  ‘Daro.’ Mart Velaze puts the printouts back into the briefcase. ‘Daro, it is a simple matter. You don’t do this we will kill Georgina and Steffie, Vicki Kahn and your mate Fish Pescado. Then we will kill you. We gave you the bullet, né?’

  ‘And I should believe you? That you’d kill all those people?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Mkezi and your friends are history, one way or another. Georgina and Steffie, that’s up to you.’

  ‘Your call. Get
your own back on Jacob Mkezi for your chommies. You know what, he arranged for you to be taken out, every one of you in that unit: Ray Adler, Verburg, Foreman, you. So get even. Save your family. What’d you think?’

  Mart Velaze pushes back on his chair, ‘Come, let’s show you something. Some housekeeping we’ve already been doing.’

  Daro Attilane follows him into another outbuilding, Vusi Bopape bringing up the rear. A room of chest freezers, must be eight or nine, Daro reckons. Mart Velaze opens one. ‘Abalone, taken from poachers.’ Another: ‘Lobsters, taken from poachers.’ The third has two naked corpses. ‘You knew these gentlemen.’

  Both have been shot in the forehead.

  Daro Attilane leans over, sees the frosted bodies of Seven and Jouma. ‘That’s no loss.’

  ‘Exactly,’ says Mart Velaze. He tells how Seven tried to shoot him, how the gun was loaded with blanks. He tells the story of the museum rhino horns. ‘What we’ve decided’ – he points at Vusi Bopape – ‘is to take them back. The museum can glue on the horns, no one will know the difference. It’s the right thing to do, né? Cleaning up, it’s the right thing to do.’

  Mart Velaze closes the freezer.

  ‘These are his shoes?’ says Daro, looking down at his feet. ‘Seven’s shoes.’

  ‘Seven’s. The other guy’s, I don’t know which,’ says Mart Velaze.

  ‘Christ!’ says Daro. ‘This’s all I need.’

  ‘They’re shoes,’ says Mart Velaze. ‘Shoes are shoes.’

  ‘Dead man’s shoes,’ says Vusi Bopapi, laughing.

  The three men leave the room, return to sit around the table.

  ‘So?’ says Mart Velaze.

  ‘So why aren’t you doing this?’ Daro Attilane comes back.

  Mart Velaze nods, puts his hands flat on the table, stares at them. Raises his eyes to Daro Attilane. ‘Some work we do ourselves, some work we contract out. This one is yours.’

  80

  ‘What’s this?’ says Fish to Vicki, looking at the plastic shopping bag she’s hefted onto his kitchen table. ‘I thought you were bringing food?’