by Roger Smith
He lifted the lid of the freezer and leaned inside. A putrid smell washed the room, competing with the stink from the dump. Doc was plucking at Maggott’s shirt with soft, palsied fingers.
“Hey, what you doing?”
Maggott lifted out a black garbage bag. He took it across to the table, untied the knot at the top, and shook out a human arm, severed above the elbow. A black man’s arm. Frozen. It clanged when it hit the tabletop.
“Tell me what Billy Afrika wanted, or I phone the Sun. You know how they love shit like this.”
For sure it would make the front page—six-inch headlines and lurid color photographs—and send Doc’s body parts suppliers running.
The drunk shook his fuzzy head, wheezing.
Maggott caught a movement and saw Robbie standing in the doorway, staring at the arm. Fascinated.
“Don’t you got ears? I told you to fucken watch the cricket. Now go!”
Robbie took one last look, then fled. Maggott had his cell phone out, scrolling for a number.
Doc held up a shaking hand. “Okay, okay. Slow down to a panic. Ja, listen, I gave Barbie a Glock 17.”
“He say why he wanted it?”
“No.”
Maggott pocketed his phone. “You know where he’s staying at?”
“No. Never said nothing.”
Maggott stared Doc down, saw he’d squeezed all he could out of the old boozer.
“You see Billy Afrika again, you tell him I’m looking for him.”
Maggott headed toward the front door, grabbing a handful of his son’s T-shirt on the way out. The kid was stroking the fur growing on a long-forgotten plate of food like it was a pussycat.
chapter 18
AS BILLY RAN, THE GLOCK AT HIS HIP RUBBED UP AGAINST HIS SCAR tissue, and he knew he would have a blister by the time they got back to the house in Bantry Bay. Doc’s service hadn’t run to holsters, so Billy had to improvise. Took the money belt he used in Iraq and tied it tight around his waist, hidden by his sweatpants and T-shirt. Shoved the Glock underneath the belt, against his skin. Not ideal, but the best he could do. No way he was going out into the world without a gun.
Roxy spoke without breaking stride. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Fucked if he was going to let her know he was suffering.
“Tell me if I’m pushing you too hard.” Her voice was easy, no strain. A trace of amusement.
Billy’s reply was to accelerate, trying to run his way through the pain. She cruised up next to him, matching him stride for stride.
He’d expected a short jog, the kind of thing these women did to con themselves into believing they were working out, but she’d surprised him. She hit the bricks hard, wearing her sweat-stained clothes the way she must have worn designer outfits on the ramp. No denying it, she was good-looking. Beautiful, even. And he’d seen too much of her body in the night. Pushed the image away.
Jesus, she was his asset. A piece of meat he needed to keep alive until he got his money. That’s all. Switched his thoughts from her body to his own.
As a kid Billy had been a pretty useful sprinter—needed to be where he’d grown up—but these days he worked out in private. So he wasn’t running fit, and by the time they reached the oceanfront his leg muscles were tight, and a stitch stabbed him beneath the rib cage.
He tried to breathe his way through it.
Billy heard the music first, the frenetic, banjo-driven sound of the Cape Flats. Then he saw a group of men in bright satin costumes, face paint, boaters and top hats, playing to a small crowd on the sidewalk beside the ocean. They finished the song to halfhearted applause. One man removed his boater and used it to collect small change, before they struck up another tune.
“What are these guys all about?” Roxy stopped, not even breathing hard.
“It’s a big thing this time of year. Minstrels,” Billy said. “There are thousands of them out on the Flats, and they have competitions, parades. Used to be called the Coon Carnival, but that’s not PC no more.”
“They look like Uncle Toms in blackface.”
“Ja. There’s a connection. Listen to what they’re singing.” Playing out the moment, giving himself time to breathe the pain away.
She tried to catch the words. “Something about Ali Baba?”
He laughed. “Close. Allie—bama. Alabama.”
“As in the state?”
Shook his head. “No, some American warship docked here hundred and something years ago. During your Civil War. There were black minstrels on board, so people say. And the whole look, the costumes and all, kind of became a big tradition.”
The banjos were at one another like fighting cocks, and Billy caught the dust in his throat as he ran next to the minstrels in a Paradise Park street, ten years old, letting the music and bright colors and dancing men transport him away from the ghetto apartment that stank of white pipes and his mother’s juices.
He came back to the now with Roxy staring at him, jogging on the spot, blonde ponytail swinging. “Guess you grew up with this stuff?”
He nodded. “Ja. Some of my mother’s clients were minstrels.”
“What did your mother do?”
“She was a whore.” Trying to shock her.
Roxy stopped jogging and gave him a cool look. “At least she got paid for it. Mine gave it away for free.”
She laughed. So did he.
“Where’s she now, your mother?” Roxy asked.
“Dead.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not. And yours? Dead too?”
“No, worse. Living in Daytona Beach, Florida, with a taxidermist, last I heard.”
She started running again, waited for him to catch up, and increased her speed. They ran on past the swimming pool, heading toward the lighthouse. The pain under his rib was like a hot blade, and his calf muscles were starting to scream. He saw her sneaking a look his way, amusement in her blue eyes. He pushed himself harder, deep into the pain. Pain he could understand. Pain he could trust.
They were nearing Rocklands Beach. A crowd of people stood up at the railing, staring down at the sand. The beach was enclosed by crime scene tape, buzzing in the breeze, cops keeping the suntanned rubberneckers back.
Billy slowed. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll go find out what’s the story.”
Glad for the chance to suck air.
ROXY WATCHED HIM walk toward the uniformed cops. She knew he’d been struggling. That scar tissue must itch and burn like hell, and she’d seen him adjusting the pistol at his hip. Roxy had taken pleasure in his discomfort. Knowing she was pushing him. Wanting to pierce that bubble of cool. The certainty that he could invade her world and she had to keep her mouth shut.
Billy Afrika was different from most men she’d met. Men who saw her and immediately wanted her. Or what their limited imaginations told them she was. A beautiful canvas for them to project their fantasies onto. For nearly twenty years she’d populated her life with the Joe Palmers and Dick Richardsons of the world. Men with money, always older, using the lure of their wealth to have her on their arms and in their beds.
But Billy Afrika hadn’t given a damn. He hadn’t come on to her; no reflex calculation of her fuckability—as Joe used to say—appeared in his eyes when he looked at her. All he wanted was his money. When he’d told her he knew she’d killed Joe, he hadn’t blinked. The needle hadn’t moved. He’d stayed cool, detached.
She saw him over there, talking to a couple of brown cops. The three of them laughing as they looked over the railing at the beach below.
Roxy felt a sudden primitive dread, the fine down on the back of her neck rising like antennae. She turned to see the homeless black woman from the day before, standing with her shopping cart under a stick of a tree, watching her. Roxy tried to stare her down, but the woman’s eyes didn’t shift.
She’s just a crazy woman with a pimped cart, Roxy told herself. But it was creepy the way those eyes seemed to skewer her.
&nb
sp; “There’s been a murder.”
Roxy turned, relieved to see Billy walking back toward her.
“What happened?”
He shrugged, half laughed. “Listen, I know this is gonna sound like one of those jokes, but there’s a blonde down there. Without a head.”
chapter 19
AS MAGGOTT DROVE THROUGH PARADISE PARK HE SAW GODWYNN MacIntosh’s pulped skull. Saw Billy Afrika with a Glock 17. Had to be a connection. Cursed not having access to forensics. Fucken banana republic run by jungle bunnies.
Meant Maggott had to go primitive himself, grab on to trees and shake the hell out of them. See what fell out. He stopped at a house on Hippo Street, Dark City side. Nothing flashy, but set apart from its neighbors by the new Beemer parked in the driveway and the satellite dish on the roof. The paintwork on the house was fresh, and the wire fence didn’t sag like an old pair of tits.
Manson was protected from the law, but his 28 enemy, Shorty Andrews, wasn’t. His senior, a Muslim with a sprawling house in Constantia—vineyards and horses and money so old that it stank—had finally been sold out by an ambitious underling. The Muslim sat in Pollsmoor awaiting trial, and a new protection deal hadn’t yet been struck with his successor. So Maggott had a gap.
He cracked the car door and shoved a finger into Robbie’s face. “You wait here. And I fucken mean it.”
Robbie nodded, but he was watching a kid his age wearing yellow swimming trunks, jumping around in a small inflatable pool in the cramped front yard. Maggott went through the gate and walked up to the front door. The door opened before he had a chance to knock. Got the eyeball from a punk in his early twenties, wearing a tank top and a pair of baggy jeans held up by the swell of his balls. His scrawny arms boasted fresh 28 tattoos. Street, not prison. He hadn’t graduated yet.
They called him Teeth. Because he didn’t have none.
Teeth knew who Maggott was, slid tik-glazed eyes over him. “Ja?”
“Tell Shorty I’m here.”
“Says who?”
Maggott was one of those skinny guys who punched above their weight. You learned that young on the Flats. So when he sank his fist into Teeth’s abdomen, he did it with conviction. The punk sagged, and Maggott shoved him aside and stepped into the house.
Shorty Andrews and two other guys were slouched in front of an LCD TV the size of a billboard, watching reruns of English soccer. A cloud of smoke hung over the room. Shorty sat with a toddler on his lap, tamping a bottleneck of weed and Mandrax. The toddler held a pretend pipe in his closed little fist, mimicking his father.
Shorty looked up from his prep. “The fuck you want, Maggott?”
“Step out and talk to me.”
Maggott went back outside. He saw that the passenger door of his Ford stood open, and the car was empty. He looked across at the pool, and it took him a moment before he started running. The kid in the trunks had hold of Robbie’s head, pushing him under the water, Robbie’s feet kicking like crazy.
Maggott shoved the kid aside and hauled his boy out of the pool. Robbie was coughing and spluttering, fighting for air. Maggott raised his hand to give the little fucker in the trunks a clip across the ear hole.
“You touch my kid, and I kill you.” Shorty was coming across the yard, all six-foot plus of him.
Maggott dropped his hand. He gave Robbie a shove. “Go wait in the car.” Coughing and crying, the boy dripped his way across the patchy lawn.
Shorty picked up his son, held him in one arm. Gave the little thug a kiss on the forehead. “Talk quick, Maggott, then get your ass off my yard.”
“You seen Billy Afrika since yesterday?”
Shorty shook his head. “The fuck would I?”
Maggott said, “He was round White City with a Glock, looking for a 26 and the wife of your man Piper.”
“Piper’s not my man. And what do I care about a 26?”
“You don’t need to. He’s dead meat.”
“And the wife?”
“Hiding his stretched ass.”
Shorty shrugged.
Maggott looked up at the big man. “The ceasefire you got with Manson …”
“Ja?”
“Think, Shorty. How long’s it going to last with a 26 wearing his brains on the outside and fucken Barbie running around with a gun, stirring up shit from the past?”
Shorty was looking at him, impassive as a buddha. But taking it in. Maggott used his thumb and pinky to mime “call me” and went across to the car. Robbie sat in the passenger seat, sobbing, snot drooping from his nose like stalactites.
Maggott started the car. “Ah, shut the fuck up. It was just a bit of water.”
As he drove away he saw Shorty in the rearview, holding his bastard son, staring after the Ford.
Maggott was stirring things up. Him and the wind in the dust.
PIPER WORE CUFFS and leg irons, the chains trailing after him and whispering against the concrete like a legion of the dead.
Two guards in brown uniforms flanked him; another walked behind. The guards’ heavy shoes drummed as they moved Piper through the massive prison, built to house four thousand inmates, home to twice that number. Each time they came to a gate, the man on his left would unlock it with one of the keys on his ring, let the procession pass through, then lock it again.
It was after 4:00 p.m., past lockdown, so the corridors were empty. But sound and stink seeped from beneath the solid steel doors of the communal cells. Rap. East Coast if they were in 28 territory. West Coast if they were passing by the cells of the 26s. Cries and moans and laughter. TVs tuned to Oprah. The stench of bad food and unwashed bodies. The sweet-sour smell of Mandrax and tik and weed. These guards didn’t worry with men smoking drugs. By the time they unlocked the cells, the drugs would be stashed. Under mattresses, in rolled-up clothes. Inside the bodies of the men themselves.
They left the maximum security wing behind and entered a corridor of offices. One of the guards knocked on a door and opened it, gestured for Piper to enter.
A man sat behind a desk in the faceless room, empty of decoration except for a calendar showing a variety of Cape wild flowers. The man wore the same uniform as the men who had escorted Piper. But he was older and had some seniority.
He looked up at Piper. “Johnson.”
Rashied Johnson. Piper’s almost forgotten name. Piper said nothing, stared at the dung-colored man in his dung-colored uniform.
“It is my duty to inform you that you have been subpoenaed to appear in court tomorrow. To testify in the Bruinders case.”
Bruinders: a trainee guard who got stabbed dead in the exercise yard. Piper had played no direct role, but he’d acted in a supervisory capacity. A youngster was being blooded into the 28s, and Piper ordered him to stab the guard. It wasn’t meant to be fatal, just a wound to draw the blood needed to initiate the soldier. But the youth had lost control, and he’d killed the guard. Now he was up for murder.
“I seen nothing,” Piper said.
“Tell that to the court.”
“I tell them nothing.”
The senior guard shrugged and waved Piper away, and the other men opened the door and he started the long walk back. Back along the dim, echoing corridors, high windows like gun turrets offering slices of the mountain beyond, brilliant in the hot sun.
Piper knew these men felt fuck all if the cops dragged him, chained like an animal, to the court in Cape Town only to have him stand mute in the dock. It had happened before. Only this time he wouldn’t get as far as the courtroom.
Piper had just been given his ticket out.
chapter 20
ROXY STOOD OUT ON THE DECK, THE HOT WIND CATCHING THE ENDS of her hair. Bantry Bay was sheltered, but the southeaster still came through in gusts. She stared down at the pool, which had turned swamp-green, the line between the water and the blue sky no longer ambiguous. All it needed was a couple of gators sunning themselves on the steps. The pool man who usually came in once a week hadn’t shown up, and there was no mo
re Joe to walk his gut around in the evenings, tossing chemicals into the water.
Roxy looked up to see Billy appear through the sliding doors.
“There’s a Dick here to see you,” he said. Deadpan.
Billy turned and went back into the house. Roxy followed him and found Dick Richardson standing in the sitting room, looking at the mess that Roxy hadn’t got around to cleaning up.
“Redecorating?” He flashed a smile, but his face looked drawn. There was a food stain on his Armani tie.
Roxy had called him earlier, putting pressure on him about the money. He’d assured her it was his number one priority, sounding distracted as he said it. But here he was.
“This is a surprise, Dick,” she said, giving him her best smile. If he was bringing her money, he deserved it.
Billy was on the stairs, walking up toward his room. Dick’s eyes followed him.
“Who’s that guy?”
“One of Joe’s people. A bodyguard. He’s staying here.”
“Good idea.” He shot a cuff and looked at his Rolex. “Want to grab a bite down in Camps Bay?” Same old Dick, never stopped trying. But his heart wasn’t in it.
“Thanks, but I’m tired,” Roxy said.
“Sure.” He hesitated, tugged at his collar. “Rox, wanted to ask you something …”
“What?”
“Joe’s laptop … Think I could have it for a day or two? There’s some info relating to the estate that I need to capture.”
Roxy shook her head. “Sorry. It was stolen.”
That jolted him. “When?”
She gave him an edited version of the home invasion. He stared at her.
“Jesus, Roxanne. What a couple of days.”
“Hey, what do they say about keep on keeping on?” She put a little folksy twist on this, some trash in her drawl. She took his arm and edged him toward the front door, got a whiff of the killer aftershave.
When they were outside, walking over to his Range Rover, she leaned in close to him, keeping her voice soft. “Dick, how are we doing with the money?”
“I haven’t forgotten, Rox. Give me a day or two, okay?” He smiled. A smile that didn’t touch his eyes. She had a bad feeling.