Wake Up Dead: A Thriller (Cape Town Thrillers)

by Roger Smith

  She was too numb to think of contradicting this fiction. The next few days were a blur of hospital wards and sedatives. She came home a few days later with milk in her breasts and a still-swollen belly, but an empty womb.

  A womb, the doctors told her, that would never hold a baby again.

  The emptiness extended beyond her womb. She felt nothing. No pain. No grief. No anger. Just an all-consuming emptiness. Wanting to be dead.

  She sat in the pink room now, hugging her knees, and let the tears come for the first time. It was only when she had lifted the gun the night before, that the wall had burst and rage and grief had swamped her, as she realized, of course, it wasn’t herself she wanted dead.

  It was Joe.

  chapter 15

  BILLY AND DISCO DROVE THROUGH PARADISE PARK, LOOKING FOR Godwynn. Disco saying Goddy didn’t stay any place permanently, moved between those friends and family who would put up with him. They stopped outside a ghetto block to talk to a girl with a hairlip, who went all moist for Disco and told him that Goddy was at Five Star. A White City shebeen.

  Billy parked up the block from the booze joint, beyond the tepid wash of a solitary streetlight, the Hyundai lost in a row of tired cars surrendering to rust. Five Star occupied a cramped house, surrounded by a wall of concrete wagon wheels, a sad string of colored lights dangling over the front gate. An insistent hip-hop bassline thumped from inside, like a drunk smashing his head against a wall.

  There was no way Billy was going into Five Star. He would be outgunned. Things were different from back in the day, when gangsters were all about knives. Like Piper. Hard men who liked to do their killing up close and personal. Now any pimply-faced punk with a buck in his pocket scored himself a gun. The morgues were full of dead brown men sporting bullet holes.

  Billy, in pre-Iraq days, had met U.S. Army doctors doing volunteer work out on the Flats, skilling up on gunshot wounds. It was the closest thing they could find to a war zone before Shock and Awe.

  Disco said, “Can I ask a question?”

  Billy nodded. “Ask.”

  “What you gonna do with me?”

  “You show me Goddy, and we’ll see.”

  Disco saw how Billy was staring at him. “What?”

  “It true what I hear? You were Piper’s wife?”

  The boy’s expression was answer enough. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

  Billy nodded. “Okay. I can respect that.”

  “You know Piper?” Disco asked.

  “Oh ja. Me and Piper go back a long, long ways.” Billy felt his scars itching. “He still a big man in Pollsmoor?”

  “Ja. A general. He fucken run the place.” Disco squirmed next to him. “You got a smoke for me?”

  Billy shook his head. “Don’t smoke.” Watched an alky stumble past the car, stop under the light, and piss on his shoes. “Tell me, why do they call you Disco?”

  “’Cause I got the dance moves, like.”

  “So what’s your real name?”

  “Ferdinand,” Disco said. Saw Billy’s look. “After my granddad. He were a Frenchman.”

  Billy laughed. “Stick with Disco.”

  Then the boy was sliding down in his seat as a squat, dark man in his twenties came out of the shebeen, swapped words with a couple of guys hanging in the garden, laughed, and walked down the street, away from the car. The walk of a man with booze in his blood and money in his pocket.

  “That Goddy?”

  Disco nodded. “Ja.”

  “He pack?”

  “Most times. A Colt.”

  Billy looked at the pathetic figure at his side and took pity on him. Figured that after spending years as Piper’s sex-boy he had suffered enough.

  “You can go,” Billy said. Disbelief made Disco hesitate. “Fucken go before I change my mind.”

  The door opened, and Disco let the wind blow him in the opposite direction from his friend. Billy started the car and rolled after Godwynn. A short man with an even shorter future.

  MANSON LOOKED FROM Godwynn, bleeding in the trunk, to Billy. “The fuck’s going on, Barbie?”

  “Your boy here pulled a freelance today, Cape Town side. Home invasion, like. He’s already sold the stuff.”

  Manson squinted down at the man in the trunk. “This true?” Godwynn shook his bloody head vigorously. It must have hurt because he stopped pretty smartly. “He lie, this fucker.”

  “Why don’t you check his pockets?” Billy asked.

  Manson nodded, and the big man holstered his piece and stepped forward. Frisked Goddy. Found about two grand in cash and handed it to Manson. Billy could only imagine the real value of the stuff the moron had sold.

  Manson slapped Goddy. “Where you get this?”

  Godwynn was trying to speak faster than his swollen lips would allow. “I swear, on my life, Manson. This isn’t true.”

  Billy gonged the lid of the trunk down on the idiot’s head to shut him up. Gave Manson an outline of what had gone down up in Bantry Bay. He saw that the gangster was buying. No fool, Manson.

  Billy turned as a girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen, appeared in the doorway. A hungry look on her face as she watched.

  Manson said, “Go inside, baby. Daddy’s working.”

  “I wanna see.”

  “Bianca, go inside.” Manson waved a dismissive hand.

  Reluctantly, the girl went back into the house, and the scrawny man with the Uzi shut the door.

  Manson turned to Billy. “And what’s your interest in this, Barbie?”

  “The woman they robbed is my client. I’m bodyguarding her.”

  Manson laughed. “Shit bodyguard. Letting this in.” Nodding at the man in the trunk.

  “Got on the payroll after they pulled their move. But there’s something I want from you, in exchange for this favor.”

  “Ja? And what’s that?”

  “I want you to leave Clyde Adams’s girl alone.”

  He saw the look on Manson’s face, like the moon sliding behind a cloud. This could go either way. The gunmen were like dogs sensing their master’s mood shift, and all their attention was on Billy.

  He pressed on. “I’m earning again, and I’ll be making payments into that account. Cut her some slack until I do.”

  Manson was staring at him. “You got balls, Barbie. Coming here with this.”

  Billy shrugged. “I’m talking man to man.”

  Manson nodded. “Okay. Man to man, I leave her be for a week. You get your cash flow sorted.”

  Billy nodded. “Fine.”

  “Your money, Barbie, it’s not as if I need it. Understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “It’s just that I wannit. I just wannit, is all.” Manson laughed. Shrugged his shoulders.

  “Cool. I get it.”

  “Ja, you better. Or …” He grabbed at his package, swelling beneath the sweats, and did one of those grinding dances, all hips and dick and balls, singing in a pimp’s falsetto: “Oh, Jodie, Jodie, Jo—deeeee.”

  The guys were laughing. Even Goddy, still bleeding in the trunk, experimented with a smile. Sensing a shift in the mood. That ended when Manson backhanded him through the face.

  “Get out, freelance.”

  “Please, Manson.” All at once Godwynn was crying, the water dissolving the blood on his face, so he looked like he was experiencing some Cape Flats stigmata.

  “Come. Out.”

  Godwynn hauled himself from the trunk, stumbled, tried to keep himself upright by holding on to the car. Manson kicked Goddy’s legs from under him and extended a hand to the big man, who passed him the .22, butt first.

  Godwynn pissed himself, a puddle appearing at his crotch and leaking from the bottoms of his trousers onto his sneakers. “Please, Manson, please …”

  A movement on the top floor of the house caught Billy’s eye: Manson’s daughter, peeping through a chink in the drapes. Manson cocked the .22, put the barrel to the base of Godwynn’s skull, and stepped back and sideways, s
o he didn’t get any splashback on his outfit when he pulled the trigger.

  BARBARA ADAMS WALKED down Protea Street, past the row of shabby houses identical to her own. The night was hot, and the nagging wind did nothing to cool it. She heard snatches of hip hop, a baby crying, and a man and a woman arguing—voices thick with drink and desperation. She stopped next to an empty lot, littered with garbage and builder’s rubble, keeping an eye on the house where her two children slept.

  She slid a box of Vogue Satin Tips from her pocket. Barbara never smoked in front of her kids. How can you tell them not to if you did? She turned her back to the wind and lit a cigarette, drew the smoke deep into her lungs. Man, that was good.

  Barbara allowed herself two smokes a day. She lived on the Cape Flats—dying of lung cancer was the least of her worries. Sometimes she felt so helpless. If she had the money, she would take her kids away from here, to a place where children weren’t raped and murdered and boys didn’t consider crime an acceptable career choice.

  Barbara heard a noise and tensed. Something coming at her from the open ground. It wasn’t safe to walk here, a woman alone. She laughed out a puff of smoke when she saw it was just a scrawny dog, all balls and ribs, rooting through the garbage. The dog saw her and cringed away, tail curled between its legs like a comma.

  Something about the dog brought Billy Afrika to mind. The way he’d looked at her when he came to the house. Beaten. She’d begged him for help because she’d had nobody else to turn to. For sure, not the police. The crooked cops had been glad to see Clyde put in the ground, and the few honest ones knew better than to go up against Manson.

  All she had was the man who had let her husband’s killer walk free.

  Billy Afrika had called her, a half hour back. Told her he’d spoken to Manson, that things were sorted. His word. Billy hadn’t elaborated, just said he had a plan for her and the kids. He’d give her the details when the time came. That was it.

  God only knew she wanted to believe him. But no matter what he promised, she couldn’t trust Billy Afrika. He was weak, and you didn’t depend on a weak man.

  Barbara took a last drag on her cigarette, ground the butt dead under her heel, and turned for home. Found a mint in the pocket of her dress and popped it into her mouth, to kill the smell of smoke.

  She crossed the paving stones to her front door, tried not to remember what she always remembered. Failed. As she went inside she could hear the wind banging a loose board on the roof. The house was falling apart. She felt a rush of anger. How could Clyde have left her like this?

  The anger drained, leaving loneliness and despair in its place.

  Barbara opened the door to the bedroom where her two children slept, the girl too big now to share a room with her snoring brother. In the spill of light she could see Jodie sleeping, clutching one of her soft toys. Not a girl anymore, but not a woman. Not yet.

  She thought of Manson and his threats. Saw Jody in the car with him, the excited look on her face, like she wanted those filthy hands on her body. An image Barbara couldn’t forget.

  She found herself praying as she closed the bedroom door.

  BILLY AFRIKA ARRIVED back at her house unannounced, carrying a duffel bag.

  Roxy’s hair was freshly washed, falling to her shoulders. She wore a white spaghetti-strap top that set off her tan nicely, and a pair of blue jeans. No shoes. The crucifix around her neck added an air of virtue, she hoped. She was way more composed now, no trace of the crying jag in the pink room.

  “Mr. Afrika. You’re back.” Keeping it light, like she always did. Trying not to show that he made her nervous. The way he looked at her as he stepped through the front door.

  He said, “Those guys, from earlier. They won’t hassle you no more.”

  She worked on a puzzled frown, but her pulse rate was up at aerobic levels. “Okay, maybe you better explain.”

  “I tracked them down. We had a talk.”

  “How did you find them?”

  “Lady, I told you. I was a cop.”

  “And you spoke to them?”

  “Ja. We speak the same language.” Giving her a tight smile. “It’s sorted. You don’t wanna hear the details.” Staring at her. Hard. “Anyways, you got other things to worry about.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like shooting your husband.”

  Containing her shock, letting it play out as confusion. “I don’t get what you’re saying here. Joe was shot by the hijackers.”

  “The tik heads plugged him in the leg. Panicked. Dropped the gun and ran. You finished him.” Those green eyes on her. Unblinking.

  So, there it was. She’d been busted. Her hand went up to the crucifix. Hell of a lot of good it had done her. “You going to hand me over to the police?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I want what I’m owed. Thirty thousand dollars. That’s two hundred and ten thousand rand at today’s exchange rate.”

  Roxy shook her head. “I don’t have access to that kind of money. Everything is frozen until the estate is processed. The lawyer told me it’ll take a while.”

  “What’s a while?”

  She shrugged. “A couple of weeks. At best.”

  “I don’t have a couple of weeks,” Billy said.

  “It’s out of my hands. If those men hadn’t cleaned me out, I could’ve sold some jewelry, got you part of the money at least. But, hey, look around …” Gesturing at the looted house.

  “This lawyer. He and Joe were tight?”

  She shrugged. “I guess. They were in the army together, way back.”

  “Look, Joe had cash stashed away. Guys like that always do. For when they need to run. Bet your ass the lawyer will know how to access it, in case he needed to bail Joe out of trouble. You just need to ask nice, okay?”

  She nodded. “Sure. I’ll call him in the morning and schedule a meeting.”

  Thinking about the twenty thousand dollars Dick Richardson had promised her. No way she would give it to this man. That was her emergency fund. So she could run.

  “Lady, I want you to understand something. I don’t give a shit if you killed your husband. Knowing Joe, he had it coming. But I need that money. And if I don’t get it, no guarantee I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  “You’re blackmailing me?”

  “No, lady, I’m incentivizing you.”

  Nerves made her laugh. “What’s it going take for you to stop calling me ‘lady’?” He shrugged, set his bag down on the tiles. Her eyes followed it. “And that?”

  “I’m moving in.”

  “The hell you are!”

  “Till I get my money, I’m going to take care of my asset. You.”

  “And what if I don’t want you here?”

  “Way I see it, you got no choice.”

  Roxy took a few moments to adjust to this change in her circumstances, wondering what the hell kind of deal she was getting into now.

  Then she smiled, shrugged, laying a veneer of cool over her fear. “Do you want a mountain or an ocean view?”

  “Gimme a room overlooking the gates.”

  “That’ll be mountain.”

  THE BLONDE WALKED ahead of him up the stairs toward the bedrooms, giving him the benefit of another view. She was about the best-looking woman he had ever seen. Not that he’d ever let her know that. She left him alone in an antiseptic white room, the window framing Lion’s Head in the moonlight. Billy shut the drapes.

  As he unpacked his toothbrush and shorts from the duffel bag, Billy wondered about people who were shit magnets. Some were born like that: the Discos and Godwynns of the world. Others became that way through circumstance. Like Roxy. People called it bad luck. He didn’t believe in bad luck. He believed in bad choices.

  Roxanne Palmer had opened a door when she killed Joe, stepped into a world of shit. When you took a life, you lost some form of protection you didn’t even know you had until it was gone. Left you in a place where bad people started tun
ing in to your frequency.

  For sure, Roxy’s shit wasn’t over. And it wasn’t shit that he wanted to be part of. But she needed to be managed until he got his money. Then she could take up sewage farming for all he cared.

  HER SCREAMS WOKE him. The kind of screams that cut right through you, like a blade through bone. His reflexes kicked in, and the Glock was in his hand, and he was running before he was fully awake.

  chapter 16

  BILLY SMASHED OPEN THE BEDROOM DOOR, HIT THE LIGHT SWITCH, and went in rolling, raking the room with the Glock.

  Roxy was alone, cowering in the corner where the closet met the drapes. Naked. Her eyes unfocused, her chest heaving, hair dark with sweat. Another scream was building. Then she choked it off, staring across at him.

  He got to his feet, aware that he was wearing only shorts. Felt her eyes on his scars.

  Billy killed the light and put the Glock down on the bedside table. The drapes were open, and enough moonlight shafted into the room for him to see Roxy as he stood over her.

  “You okay?”

  “Bad dream. I’m sorry.” Her voice heavy with fear and broken sleep.

  He could see the outline of a printed cloth, the kind of thing she would wear to the beach, lying on a chair. He lifted it and let it float down toward her. She wrapped it around herself. When Roxy stood, he could feel the heat of her body. He retreated. She went across to the bed and sat down.

  “I’m going now,” he said, heading for the door.

  “Sure. Thank you.”

  He picked up the gun and went out. The door clicked shut after him.

  ROXY REACHED ACROSS and switched on the lamp beside the bed, the terror receding now, beyond the range of the light at least.

  She had woken as if fighting her way from a depth, felt a presence in the room trying to suffocate her. The screams were dragged from her lungs, and she found herself on the floor. Hiding. Only came fully to consciousness when Billy Afrika burst in. He’d left the light on just long enough for her to glimpse the puckered, dead-white scar tissue that marbled his brown body.