Of Cops & Robbers

by Nicol, Mike;

  Vicki shakes her head. ‘I’m good.’

  Fish helps himself. ‘You just don’t know. About people. You just don’t know.’ He starts in on his second helping. ‘If you’d told me Daro’d been Security Branch, I’d have said impossible. Never. Never ever. The guy’s not like that. He’s a family man. He’s not a killer.’

  There’s a knock on the front door.

  ‘Probably Holy Joes,’ says Fish. ‘Early evening, they’re active, gathering stray souls. Leave it. They’ll go away.’

  Vicki doesn’t move. Says, ‘Everyone’s got a past, Fish.’

  He glances at her. ‘What’re you saying?’

  ‘Just that.’

  Now the knocking’s louder, insistent.

  ‘Shit,’ says Fish.

  ‘I’ll go,’ says Vicki. ‘Finish your dinner.’ She slips off the stool, pads out of the kitchen in his woollen socks. ‘You can fill my wine.’

  Fish thinking, everyone’s got a past. Thinking this while Shawn Colvin’s singing on the sound system. Hears Vicki call out, ‘Okay, I’m coming, hang on.’ Hears the bolts drawn back, the door open. Hears a deep low voice, too deep to make out the words. Hears the front door close. Vicki saying, ‘How can I help you, Mr …?’

  The man growls his response, Fish’s thinking, What the …? Pauses. He’s about to pour Vicki’s wine, he hears her scream.

  Hears the shot.

  Daro Attilane’s thinking déjà vu. Seeing the gun come up in Mart Velaze’s hand, the chest shot straight through the woman’s heart. Then the man is close-in, working a stiletto.

  Takes a long moment for Daro to react. Then he’s shouting, ‘No, no, no,’ pulling Mart Velaze off the woman. Mart Velaze pushing him away, bending down to wipe the blade on the woman’s dress, folding the blade into the mother-of-pearl hilt.

  ‘Been here before, hey, Daro?’ he says, looking down at the dead woman. He shakes his head. ‘What’s to be done?’ Then says, ‘Come, my brother, one more thing. Then we can watch TV.’

  He prods Daro out of the lounge down a passage into the kitchen. Opens a cupboard, takes out a spray can from among the cleaning fluids, holds it out.

  ‘That’s handy,’ says Daro. Realising, ‘You put that there. You’ve planned this.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Jesus’s not going to help. You know what to do.’

  ‘You’re full of crap.’

  ‘Do it. Same as before, RAU TEM, capital letters.’

  Daro has the taste of metal on his tongue. A harshness that was there from the moment Mart Velaze killed the woman.

  ‘Full circle,’ says Mart Velaze. ‘Give us all a sense of closure.’

  ‘You didn’t have to kill her.’

  ‘I did. She saw us. Bad timing on her part. Now spray, buti, let’s see the artwork. Over the fridge and the cupboard.’

  Daro sprays the letters: R on the fridge door the remaining spread across the cupboards.

  ‘Not bad,’ says Mart Velaze. ‘Neater than last time, from the pictures I’ve seen.’ He wrenches the can out of Daro Attilane’s hand. ‘Why’d you guys do that? Tell me, why?’ Looking at Daro, expecting an answer. ‘What was it supposed to mean? Something. It must’ve meant something. You don’t just spray letters for nothing.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I heard it’s German for dreams: Träume.’

  ‘It’s nonsense. Meant to confuse.’

  ‘I don’t think so. What dreams, Daro?’

  ‘Dissolving dreams,’ says Daro. ‘The wreckage of lives.’

  Mart Velaze drops the tin into a plastic bag. ‘Poetic. Very poetic. You’re talking shit, Daro. Talk sense.’

  ‘How’m I supposed to know? I was fucking young. A foot soldier.’

  ‘Foot soldier. That’s nice. For a hitman that’s nice. Gives you hero status: the last man standing. Except you’re the disappeared assassin.’ Mart Velaze, standing back, indicating the door. ‘Let’s go, down the passage. At the end’s the TV room. We can watch sport or something.’ Daro doing as he’s told. ‘You did good, Daro. Doing that. Wiping out your history, coming up as somebody new. Clever. Your mates should’ve done the same. What a bunch of sorry dogs. Alkies, wasters, rubbish. But that’s over. Truth and reconciliation. Up to you now: sort out the commissioner, and your slate’s clean.’

  ‘I should believe you?’

  ‘You should.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  Mart Velaze laughs, pokes Daro in the back with the barrel of the gun. ‘Really, brother, you’ve got a mouth. Wait and see, okay. Wait and see.’

  In the television room, two leather couches face a large flatscreen on the wall. Shelves of DVDs to the right. Mart Velaze punches up the sports channel, the sound coming at them through a home theatre system. ‘Sit, my brother, relax’ – pushing Daro towards a couch. ‘You want sport or some movie? A drink, maybe? Shot of single malt? The former commissioner’s got this collection, scotch you’ve never heard of.’ He opens a cabinet. ‘How about that?’ Probably twenty bottles on display. ‘What’ll it be?’

  ‘Nothing,’ says Daro.

  ‘Your loss.’ Mart Velaze pours himself two fingers of Johnnie Walker Blue. ‘The nectar of the revolution. Cheers.’ He sits on the other couch. There’s cricket on the screen: a man in green running up to bowl. ‘You watch this sort of thing?’ says Mart Velaze. ‘I don’t. Sport’s rubbish.’ He gets up, finds a movie on the DVD rack. ‘How about a bit of Jennifer? Jennifer and George.’ Slots in Out of Sight. ‘You like George Clooney?’

  Daro says, ‘I want to phone my wife.’

  Mart Velaze shakes his head. ‘Watch the movie, Daro. Your wife’s fine. What happens to her’s up to you. You do your job she’s not even gonna know Vusi had her in his sights.’ He sips his drink. ‘Couple of hours you go back to your life.’

  ‘Except three people’re dead.’

  ‘This’s true. Not Georgina, though. Not Steffie.’

  ‘My friends: Fish and Vicki.’

  ‘A pity,’ says Mart Velaze. ‘But I don’t see a way round it. You should’ve thought of that one, Daro. Kept them out, hanging loose.’

  Daro Attilane rubs his face. Only thing is to wait. Sometime there’ll be a moment he can use.

  He gazes at the screen: the character Clooney’s playing, Jack Foley, robbing a bank.

  ‘He’s a dude,’ says Mart Velaze. ‘So unfazed. Check this, where he tells the guy the teller’s cute. Hey, you credit that?’

  Then Jack Foley’s outside in his car, except it won’t start. Next there’s a cop at his side window with a gun, telling him, Get outta the car.

  Mart Velaze laughs. ‘See how he takes it. Like it’s destiny. Fate. That is so sharp.’

  Daro’s thinking at some point Velaze has to give him a gun. A loaded gun. Might be only one round in it but one round’s enough to zap Mart through the frontal lobe. How he deals with Mkezi’s the unknown factor. Like surfing, you take the wave that comes. Daro watches the movie, feels adrenaline making him squirmy. It’s all he can do to keep sitting still.

  On the flatscreen there’s Karen Sisco in her car outside Glades Correctional mouthing ‘what the fuck’ at the jailbreak. The guys popping out of the ground like rabbits. Here she’s racking the shotgun, that long slit up her dress peeling away to show her thigh.

  ‘Wena! Sexy mama,’ says Mart Velaze.

  Cut to Karen and Jack in the boot talking movies: Bonnie and Clyde, Three Days of the Condor.

  Mart Velaze saying, ‘How amazing is that?’ He draws on his scotch. ‘You a Clooney man, Daro? You seen Michael Clayton? Probably the best movie he’s done. That scene on the hill with the horses. Haunting. Beautiful. Then his car blows up. Hey, how was that?’

  Now Clooney’s in the bath with Jennifer Lopez leaning over him, when they hear a car pulling in. Mart Velaze looks out the window, the headlights of the Civic on the garage door opening. ‘Here’s our boy, Daro. Showdown time.’

 
They hear Jacob Mkezi coming through the house calling, ‘Mellanie. Mellanie. You changed your mind?’

  Fish thinks, the Z88’s in the bakkie, there’s a Ruger in the bedroom. Both of them too far away. Footsteps coming fast down the passageway. He sees Vicki’s handbag, knows she carries, pulls out her .32. Not the best gun for a situation like this but what’re the options? The barrel hardly extends over his fingers.

  He calls Vicki’s name. The footsteps stop.

  Fish edges back, crouches behind the table.

  ‘Vicki.’ Gives it two beats. ‘Vicki.’ Thinking, she’s dead. Thinking, fuck it. This’s not Seven’s gangbanger style. This’s professional. He says, ‘I was you I’d run, man. Run fast.’

  Fish listens. All he can hear is Shawn Colvin singing how she’s gonna die in these four walls.

  ‘Now’s a good time, go.’

  Hears the floorboards creak. Thing about an old house the floorboards always have their say. Knows the shooter is closing. Time to shut up. Play this on its nerves.

  He watches the kitchen door slowly open, till it knocks against a cupboard, half-ajar. Gives the shooter the advantage, he can use it as a shield. Nice solid door like that the .32’s going to get stuck in the wood.

  What’s he got, the hitman? 9-mil? .38? Bloody big noise it made, has to be one or the other. Cocky bastard not even bothering with a silencer. What’s that tell you? He doesn’t care. His intention is in, out, away before anybody’s thought perhaps those were gunshots they heard.

  Another shifting of the floorboards. Fish thinks, put one into the door see what happens. One wasted leaves five. It’s a good bullet the .32 carries but it’ll need two for the job. Maybe three if there’s ducking and diving.

  He pulls off the shot, middle panels of the door, the lead burying itself.

  The shooter’s hand comes round, takes three measured positions. Left into the sink, the ricochet zinging round the room. Centre across the kitchen table smack into the wall. Right into the sound system, end of Shawn Colvin.

  ‘I’m still here,’ says Fish. ‘What’s your next play, bru?’

  Doesn’t let him think about that. Fish’s out of the blocks like a sprinter, bam into the door. Hears the grunt as the shooter takes the knock hard against his shoulder, staggers back. Fish ducks, goes low round the door, fires up at forty-five degrees, reckoning that’s where the guy will be. Hears the hollowpoint juice in. A round comes down, punches into the door above his head.

  Fish lets go a wild third, the lead bouncing off the passage walls. Looks up at the man above him. This man with a hole in his chest, this man with his face pinched in pain. The man’s swaying but still standing, bringing up his gun hand.

  Fish goes for a stomach shot, best available target. The shooter bends on impact, staggers back against a wall, slides down till he’s sitting, staring at Fish. The gun’s still in his hand, he’s still trying to raise it. Fish steps forward, kicks it away. Four more paces he’s down the passage, there’s Vicki lying in the lounge, blood splatter on the walls, blood pooling under her.

  Daro Attilane hears Jacob Mkezi say, ‘Fuck,’ at the sight of Mellanie’s body in his lounge. Repeat it, ‘Fuck.’ Imagines the former commissioner seeing the chest shot, the stab wounds, bending down to feel for a pulse in her neck. Then the man shouting, ‘Comrade, what’s the story here?’ Knowing the person watching a DVD in the TV room has to be his man.

  Daro sees Mart Velaze turn down the sound, grinning at him. ‘Let’s talk to the former commissioner.’ On screen Karen Sisco’s in hospital, mouthing to the FBI dude and her daddy. Mart Velaze waves Daro out of the TV room towards the lounge.

  There’s Jacob Mkezi crouched beside the body of Mellanie Munnik. He stands, looks from Daro Attilane to Mart Velaze. Says, ‘What’s he doing here?’

  ‘There’s a reason.’

  ‘Explain, comrade, explain. There’re things I don’t understand.’

  Mart Velaze smiles. ‘There’s a reason.’

  ‘You’ve said that. Why’re you here? Why’s he here?’ – pointing at Daro Attilane. ‘Explain, now.’

  ‘Okay,’ says Mart Velaze.

  Daro watches Mart Velaze reach under his jacket come up with the 9-mil he used on Mellanie in his right hand, thinks, this’s it. This’s where he gives me the weapon, tells me blow away the ex-commissioner. Thinking, I’ll take the gun, blow away Mart Velaze, see how things work out with Jacob Mkezi in the aftermath.

  Sees Mart Velaze draw out a revolver with his left hand.

  Jacob Mkezi frowning at the sight of the second gun, his eyes on Mart Velaze, watching this two-draw, waiting for an explanation.

  ‘Thing is, Mr Mkezi,’ says Mart Velaze. ‘I’ve got orders.’

  ‘Orders?’

  ‘Being a servant of the state.’

  ‘Mephistopheles to Faust. Had I not become the devil’s—’

  Daro sees Mart Velaze raise the snubnose in his left hand, pop a load into Jacob Mkezi’s chest, another into his face. The one-time commissioner standing there like he’s become a statue, then dropping backwards. Swivels his eyes to see Mart Velaze raise the pistol in his right hand, aiming it at him, lining up the sights. The weapon he used on Mellanie. Daro aware of the play in that moment. Even sees the skin tighten on Mart Velaze’s trigger finger.

  82

  No sunrise flush yet on the mountain. Wraiths of mist upon the water in the grey dawn light. Coming out of the bay these tidy sets, not pushing much punch: half a metre, metre tops. A slight offshore holding them up. Still worth doing the dawn patrol.

  Midweek, so it’s Fish and maybe a dozen others strung from Surfers’ Corner to the vlei outlet. Fish’s in the corner. The rocks hard to his left. The break’s going nicely right, for the moment he has the spot.

  He’s taken two rides, no fancy footwork, just standing there: the board slicing along the wave, the thrum in his feet, the cold against his face. Ridden them until they were white water. Then kicked out, headed again for the backline.

  His first surf since …

  He’s on Daro’s board. The one Daro lent him. It’s not the best but it’s a board.

  Fish still trying to figure out Daro. Reckons there’s the Daro he knew, and whoever he was before. There’s the manner of his death in a gunfight with Jacob Mkezi. There’s the picture of the group of men on the beach, Daro and Jacob Mkezi among them. This’s Daro’s guessed-at life.

  There’s Mart Velaze.

  Mart Velaze phoning him: ‘I heard about your invader, my friend.’

  Fish saying, ‘You did? How’s that?’

  ‘I hear things. I’m sorry about Vicki Kahn getting hurt.’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘She’s a spritzy woman. I like hot dames.’

  ‘How d’you know her?’

  ‘I don’t. By reputation only.’

  Fish letting in a long pause before saying, ‘Why’re you phoning, Velaze?’

  ‘To tell you something. To give you a message for her.’

  ‘A message? Like what?’

  ‘Tell Vicki she has people worry about her. About who she is. What she knows about her aunt’s death. We live in a dangerous country. A bad time. She doesn’t want to ask questions about her aunt’s death.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Tell her, my friend. Ms Vicki will know what I mean. Nice talking, Mr Fish Pescado.’

  Fish saying, ‘Wait.’

  ‘You’ve got something to say?’

  ‘Daro Attilane?’

  ‘Daro Attilane: a sad story.’

  ‘I’ve got this photostat, Velaze, with Jacob Mkezi, Daro Attilane, some other men.’

  ‘Frame it.’

  ‘Who’re they, the others?’

  ‘Dead men, Mr Pescado, dead men. All of them.’

  Fish waiting for more, the silence lengthening until Fish breaks it. ‘What’s going on, Velaze?’

  Mart Velaze coming back, ‘Nothing any more. We’re done.’

>   ‘You’re still out there.’

  Hearing Mart Velaze snort a laugh. ‘I’m still out here. Yebo yes, I’m still out here. But I’m no hazard. No jeopardy to you or your loved-one. Not at the moment. Enjoy the rest of your life, Mr Pescado. Surfing, smoking doob, investigating. Making out with Vicki. Maybe finish that law degree like your mother wants.’

  Fish frowning at this, wondering, how the hell does he know what Estelle wants? Saying, ‘Meet me.’

  ‘Not going to happen, my friend. You should be pleased about that. You wouldn’t want to meet me.’

  ‘Then one question: why? The gold? The money?’

  ‘There you are. The dreams in our hearts, né, Mr Pescado. The dreams in our hearts. Some or other German thing like that Mkezi always used to quote. Dreams, Träume. RAU TEM. You’ve got the answer to your question.’

  Fish saying again, ‘Meet me. Tell me about the Appollis boy.’

  Mart Velaze saying, ‘Goodbye, Mr Pescado. My best to your lady friend. Tell her to take care.’

  End of conversation. The trace Fish got a mate to put on the cellphone ended at a stolen SIM card.

  My best to your lady friend. Vicki right there and then in ICU but stable, out of danger. If being in hospital is out of danger.

  Thing was, not two hours after the call from Mart Velaze, Samson Appollis was on the line.

  ‘Mr Fish, we’s got the money. Thank yous, thank yous, thank yous.’ Fish hears him calling out. ‘Ma, Ma, I’ve got Mr Fish on the telephone.’

  Daphne Appollis saying, ‘You’s very kind, Mr Pescado. May the Lord bless you.’

  ‘Samson,’ Fish said. ‘Samson, what’s going on?’

  ‘We got money, Mr Fish. I’m phoning to tell you, we’s got money. Out of the blue Lord the Father’s heaven. Fifteen thousand rands in cash. And flowers, such a beautiful vase of flowers. From Mr Velaze, Mr Fish. He brought them to us, here in our house. He said they was from his rich friend to comfort us in our grief.’

  ‘Fifteen thousand rand? That’s it?’

  ‘That’s a lot of money, Mr Fish.’

  Fish thinking, it’s bloody peanuts. Lord Mkezi getting away with murder.