Black Heart

by Mike Nicol

  6

  Mace’s cellphone rang. ‘Old son, Dave here,’ the voice said. ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  What he had was an address.

  ‘I’m not saying it’s her, my son. I’m saying it could be.’

  A Bantry Bay address.

  ‘Very nice apartment. Very nice block. On the rocks. You stand on your balcony you could be on a ship. Know what I mean? Ocean, my son. Miles and miles of ocean. All the way to the horizon. Pad like that’s worth a mint. Sort of place the rich Jews buy. As a summer hangout. They come back for Christmas from Tel Aviv, Toronto, Sydney, wherever the hell they’ve buggered off to. Well, not exactly for Christmas. Though I’ve known some celebrate it on account of the presents.’

  Mace said, ‘How’d you know it’s hers?’

  ‘That’s it, my son. I don’t. I’m guessing. On account of there’s no title deeds, no transfers, no paperwork. Deeds office’s got zilch. Everything misfiled I reckon. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Only thing, my son, Dave’s an estate agent with connections. Turns out I know the agent who sold the flat. Asked her if the buyer was a coloured lady, a lawyer, black hair, startling blue eyes. Bingo. Number one ID. Except the agent says she’s a blondie now. Got rid of that black bob a few weeks ago, got it short like what d’you call that style, pageboy.’

  ‘All the same, no doubts?’

  ‘Not a one, son.’

  Mace took down the address in ballpoint on the palm of his hand.

  ‘I get any thanks for this?’ Dave said.

  ‘Sure,’ said Mace. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Make it Johnnie Walker, Black.’

  ‘Don’t push it.’

  ‘What you want her for anyhow? This Sheemina February.’

  ‘For killing my wife.’

  A pause. Then Dave hesitant: ‘I thought …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The papers ran it as a robbery. That she’d surprised the bugger. Your wife.’

  ‘Was a hit, Dave. Ordered up by one Sheemina February.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Call it history.’

  The house bell rang.

  ‘Got to go,’ said Mace. ‘Pylon’s here. Celebs flying in we have to collect.’

  ‘Wait, my son, hold on …’ said Dave. ‘Listen, if you wanna sell your house I’m your man.’

  ‘Why’d I do that?’

  ‘You know … On account of your wife’s murder. Still living there. It’s weird, my son.’

  ‘Happens I don’t think so.’ Mace disconnected. In his head a refrain from the Stones’ song on a loop: ‘hmmm, humm, until my darkness goes.’

  7

  Four men in a shack, drinking Blackie quarts. A corrugated iron shack, the walls papered in magazine covers, mostly of cars. Two men sitting on an car bench seat, one in a wingback chair, the short-arse propped on the bed. Keeping them warm a paraffin heater up full. On the table at the door, four guns, neatly arranged side by side.

  The men dressed in black tracksuits, red stripes down the sides. Black anoraks. All wearing beanies. On their feet, black Hi-Tec trainers that might’ve come out of the box that day.

  The men relaxed. Kicking back. Chilling. Smoking. A wet Sunday afternoon in the township. Zola on the Sony ghetto blaster. Soccer on the TV, the sound turned low. The brother in the wingback half watching the action on the box.

  A cellphone rang. The man in the wingback answered. All he said was, ‘Ja.’ Listened, disconnected. Set down his quart. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We have the address.’

  ‘My brus,’ said one of the men on the bench, ‘quick picture.’ The four of them going into a huddle, the brother holding his cellphone at arm’s length to get in their heads. ‘For the record.’ The men grinning, gung-ho for the show.

  Short-arse turned off the paraffin heater, waited while the men each took a gun from the table, ducked out of the door into the rain. The cameraman took the Beretta. Short-arse about to say something, then didn’t. That left an H&K. He could live with it. Was a good gun to have in your hands. People saw any gun they took you seriously. He switched off the Sony, the TV, the single light, grabbed two quarts, ran out to the Citi Golf he’d jacked earlier in the day. Sort of car no one was going to notice.

  8

  In the big Merc going down Molteno Road, Mace’s first words to Pylon: ‘I’ve got her address. Dave came through.’

  Pylon glanced at him. ‘You can’t take his word.’

  ‘An agent friend of his sold Sheemina February a Bantry Bay flat. Confirmed. Dave describes Sheemina February, the agent says, that’s her. What more do I want?’

  ‘And you’re going to do what? Stake out the place? Break in?’

  ‘Confirm it first,’ said Mace. ‘Then I don’t know. Disappear her like we should’ve done all those years ago. In the camp. We knew she was bad news. A spy. We’d shot her then, I would have Oumou now. Christa would have a mother. This’s because we let her walk.’

  ‘We weren’t sure, Mace.’

  ‘We bloody were.’

  ‘Not as I remember it.’

  They’d smashed her left hand trying to get the truth out of her. Broken every bone in it with a mallet. ‘She’s a government spy,’ their commander insisted. ‘We know. Make her confess.’ They couldn’t. Even through all the pain she kept her story: I want to join MK, be a guerrilla fighter. Mace had watched her taken away to the Membesh camp. Nights of rape ahead of her as the big boys had their way. The big boys now MPs, government men, oligarchs. Was hardly a wonder he and Pylon went off to run guns. The camps weren’t a picnic.

  ‘What I recall is someone knew her handler.’

  ‘So they said.’

  Mace turned sideways. ‘Shit, Pylon what’s it matter? The bitch is a killer. Had a go at killing me. You and me both. That doesn’t work, she kills Oumou. I don’t need any more reasons. She’s history. Dead.’

  They drove not talking, Mace hearing Paint it Black looping through his head, looked down on the city buildings shining white as whale bones on a beach. City of the dead. And the blood seeping across his mind. Thought, why’re we arguing about this? This’s not about the past, this’s about now. Just get out there and do it. Move on.

  The silence holding between the men down hospital straight, under the railway bridge, over the Black River before Pylon broke it.

  ‘Okay. What I’m going to say is this: you don’t go alone. I go with you. Maybe she’s been after you. Maybe she’s got a thing about you. But we started this together. We finish it that way.’

  Mace considered the option. ‘I’m fine with that. First though I get the details. Confirm the address.’

  ‘Without funny stuff.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Sure you do.’

  The partners going quiet again to a love song on the radio and the hiss of tyres on the wet surface. Mace kept away from the words, staring maudlin at the decommissioned cooling towers, the squatter camp, the shacks strung with washing. In the gloom, Pylon switched on the headlights, muttered about the winter dark.

  Said, ‘Time we thought about the Cayman money again. I am so sick of this.’

  ‘No kidding. Let me tell you about my overdraft.’

  ‘Overdraft? You’re on overdraft again! Shit, Mace. That’s what I mean? How long’ve we been doing this? Nine years. Ten years. Forever. You’re on overdraft. That’s bullshit. There’s got to be a way to bring it in, that money. Without the tax guys jumping us.’

  Mace shrugged. ‘I’m the one that’s broke. You’re the finance man.’

  ‘Who’s out of ideas. Out of tolerance. Not sure how many more of the bright and beautiful he can take. That’s what we are, Mace. Goons for the rich and famous. Where’s the advantage in that?’

  ‘No advantage. Only bucks.’

  ‘Scrape-along bucks. This isn’t money. This isn’t making us rich. Treasure’s going to pop soon. This week I’m a father. Probably. Most likely. Almost certain. Then we have to get the Ai
ds orphan. Not forgetting young Pumla or me. That’s five mouths I must feed. What I call a big deal for one bread-winner.’

  ‘Treasure not going back to work?’

  ‘Nurses earn shit, Mace. And how’s she going to work with two babies? Next we’re employing staff. More of my earnings blowing away. This’s rubbing my face in it because we’re rich on paper. Government men, all the old strugglistas, get fatter by the minute with their deals and schemes. But us, who earned it the hard way in hard times, we’re penalised.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Mace. His cellphone vibrated in his hand. A no number advice showing on the screen. Mace connected, pressed the phone to his ear, turned down the heartache duet on the radio. ‘Talk to me.’

  ‘Mr Bishop?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Silence. Except the wheel drums of the big Merc on the highway. The highway surface at this section rutted and torn up, stones clattering against the chassis. Pylon clucked at the noise.

  ‘Mr Bishop of Complete Security.’ The voice of an Afrikaner, deep toned. A voice of earth.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Your Colindictor gave me this number.’

  Colindictor? Who used the word any longer? Mace wondered. Only a dinosaur.

  ‘Interesting name for an answering machine,’ said Mace. ‘Haven’t heard anyone call it that since 1985.’

  Again the silence. Like the guy didn’t know which way to go with this.

  ‘You talking?’ said Pylon, glancing at Mace, keeping the speed steady onto the airport slip road. ‘Ring him back.’

  Mace shook his hand, no. Gravel voice saying, ‘My name’s Oosthuizen. Magnus Oosthuizen. That mean anything to you?’

  It did. To Mace a name that came up alongside the name of Dr Death, the chemical-warfare scientist. Mace paused, said, ‘Can’t say so. Any particular reason?’

  ‘If it doesn’t, it doesn’t,’ said Magnus Oosthuizen. ‘That’s good. I like a clean slate.’

  More unused airtime. Mace thinking, what’s with the man he can’t get to the point? But holding off. Not making it easier for Magnus Oosthuizen.

  ‘You were recommended. You and the darkie, your sidekick.’

  Mace said, ‘Goodbye, Mr Oosthuizen,’ – thumbed him off.

  ‘And now?’ said Pylon.

  ‘Magnus Oosthuizen,’ said Mace. ‘Recall the name? Linked into the germ warfare unit. Cholera, anthrax experiments in Angola. Tied up with Wouter Basson.’

  ‘Dr Death.’

  ‘The very one. Dr Only-Following-Orders Basson. This’s his chommie. Got the manners of an arsehole.’

  ‘And he wants what? … Our protection?’ Pylon laughed. ‘There’s a thing. Like we’re gonna do that!’ He smiled at Mace. ‘On the other hand, why not for the right tom? Make a change from the botoxed.’

  Mace’s cellphone rang. ‘Persistent bugger. Called you a darkie.’

  ‘I am,’ said Pylon.

  ‘Not in that sense.’

  Pylon held up his hand. ‘Pink one side, black the other. Take your pick. Talk to him. Like we can turn down a job.’

  Mace answered. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I don’t like being cut off, Mr Bishop.’

  ‘No, don’t suppose so,’ said Mace. ‘It’s bad form.’

  The Oosthuizen silence. Mace broke it as Pylon stopped the Merc at the entry boom to the parking lot. Reached out, took the ticket, cursing at the rain sluicing down.

  Mace said, ‘You want to set up a meeting, name the time and place? I can’t hang on longer. Can hardly hear you in this downpour.’

  ‘Your place,’ said Magnus Oosthuizen. ‘Tomorrow. Ten o’clock. I want to see what kind of outfit you run. Big time or small fry. Need to know you’ve got the balls for this, Mr Bishop. You and your pellie. How big’re his nigger balls, huh?’ He laughed. Not a laugh so much as a rasp without mirth. Put Mace in mind of waves sucking at a pebble beach. He cut the connection. It was dead already.

  ‘What a gentleman.’

  ‘You get them,’ said Pylon.

  They found parking at the back of the lot. He and Mace hurrying off through the rain towards international arrivals.

  9

  Four men in a Citi Golf, streaming along the highway in the rain at sixty. Sixty-five tops, anything faster the wheel-shudder was disturbing. Short-arse in the back with the H&K at his feet, an open quart in his hand. The other quart with the brother in the passenger seat. The driver pissed off with short-arse, pissed off that the wipers didn’t work properly. Pissed off with the car. Calling it a skorokoro. A rustbucket. A crock. A heap of shit.

  Number four doubled up with laughter.

  The driver swearing in Xhosa. Cursing short-arse for a fool. Wanting to know did he get the car from a scrap yard?

  Short-arse looked hurt. Said high-voiced, ‘Outside a church, my bra. A Pentecostal. To get their blessings.’

  Number Four beside himself, smacking his knees at the expression on short-arse’s face.

  Short-arse: ‘Wena, my brother, what kind of moegoe you think I am?’

  The man in the passenger seat also shaking with laughter.

  The driver reached back, slapped at short-arse. ‘You went to church?’

  ‘No, man. When they came out I asked them for the keys. Nicely. Not even showing them the knife. The old man says, It’s all we have. I tell him not a problem. When I’m finished the emergency the police will call him to come and fetch his car. His wife says, thank you my son. The Lord will bless you.’

  The driver going into Xhosa about the blessings that would rain on short-arse’s head if the car broke down.

  The laughter died, the men passing the quarts between them. They didn’t speak again, listened to a man on the radio talking about the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.

  The driver said, ‘That’s crap. When you die, you’re dead.’

  ‘You go to the ancestors.’ Short-arse squirmed on the back seat, could feel the springs through the plastic.

  The driver snorted. ‘Wake up. You think somewhere there’s ancestors herding cattle?’

  ‘The ancestors are close.’

  ‘Watching now.’

  ‘They watch for us.’

  The driver banged his head on the steering wheel. ‘Moegoe. A moegoe fulla shit.’

  The men went quiet again, the man on the radio saying it was the Dalai Lama’s fourteenth reincarnation. That in Tibet he was a sacred man.

  The driver said, ‘This car goes any slower we’ll be late.’ Going past the airport, squatter settlement, the cooling towers, Black River, up Hospital Bend, taking the Eastern Boulevard into Woodstock.

  ‘This’s the place?’ said short-arse.

  ‘For some more beers,’ said the driver, turning left into a narrow street, cars parked against the kerb. He cruised slowly, checking out the lighted windows, every one barred. Stopped at a dark house, two straggly trees in the front yard, thick beds of cannas beneath the windows. Kept the engine running.

  ‘No one’s there,’ said short-arse.

  ‘Always someone here,’ said the driver. He got out walked up to the door, a metal door, pressed a button on the buzz box. A voice said, ‘Hoezit?’ Queer tone, a coloured moffie to the driver’s ear. The driver said, ‘Two Blackie quarts, four white pipes.’ The voice said, ‘Bottleneck or finger?’ – drawing out the ‘er’ like a long ‘a’. The driver said bottleneck. The voice told him how much.

  The driver said, ‘No, man, that’s double.’

  ‘Sunday night prices,’ said the voice. ‘Okay, my sweetie. You want it still?’

  The driver said yes.

  The voice told him to pull out the tray at his feet, put the money in it. The driver bent down, dropped the notes in the tray, pushed it back in.

  The voice said, ‘Wait, sweetie.’

  He could hear them other side of the door putting his order into the tray.

  ‘Okay, now,’ said the voice.

  The driver pulled out the tray: two quarts rolling about, in
a plastic bag four bottlenecks stuffed with dagga and mandrax. Even a plug of tape over the broken ends to stop the mixture spilling out.

  The voice said, ‘Enjoy.’

  The driver picked up the items went back to the car.

  They drove out of Woodstock along Main Road, came into the city at the Castle. Only people in the rain were the vagrants: bergies in the doorway of the City Hall, some street children outside a fish-and-chips takeaway. No traffic in Adderley, the lights in their favour up past the Slave Lodge into Wale, left into Queen Victoria.

  ‘Where’s the job?’ said short-arse.

  ‘Not far.’ The driver reached forward to wipe condensation from the windscreen. Cursed in Xhosa the car’s failings – no heating, no power, no lights in the dashboard. He tried to wind down the window, the handle came off in his hand.

  ‘Not my fault,’ said short-arse. ‘You must be careful with old cars.’

  The driver hurled the handle over his shoulder, short-arse ducked.

  ‘Just a joke, my bra. Just a joke.’ He used his sleeve to clear his side window, peered out. Said, ‘This’s Nigeria-town. Those brothers catch you in the street, they’re cannibals, they eat your heart while it’s still beating.’ He fished for the H&K at his feet, placed it in his lap.

  The driver clucked his tongue. Told short-arse he was missing out. ‘Nigerian women,’ he turned round, wagging his tongue at short-arse, ‘hey la la, you taste that flesh you want more. Those ones with the stuff cut away. The best.’ He kissed the tips of his fingers. ‘Tight, my brother.’

  The men laughed, uncapped one of the beers.

  They drove off into the Gardens backstreets: Victorian rows, gracious homes behind high walls. The driver stopped in a street hung with dripping trees, pointed at a gate up ahead.