by Mike Nicol
‘How long?’ said one of the men.
‘One hour. Two hours. We are here,’ said the driver. ‘We can wait.’
The men lit one of the pipes, handed it round, each taking two hits.
On the radio the man from Tibet said the Dalai Lama was the living Buddha. His words were powerful. He said the Buddha says, ‘The purpose of our life is to feel happiness, joy, satisfaction and peace.’
Short-arse let the smoke trickle from his nostrils. Said, ‘I can feel the satisfaction, my bra.’
10
Mace and Pylon were late. Passengers streaming out of customs, off to the side their celeb clients marooned among suitcases. More suitcases than would fit in the Merc’s boot. Enough suitcases to fill a small van.
Pylon groaned. ‘Would you look at that? What’re we supposed to do with them?’
The woman, seeing the two dudes dressed in black, shouted, ‘Yo, you guys, over here.’
‘We’ve got to stop dressing like this,’ Mace said to Pylon, giving the clients a once-over: the woman in a dark suit, a necklace of small bone beads; the man in a coat looked like it might once have been a bear. Underneath that a suit, his shirt fastened with a turquoise-inset bolo tie.
‘It’s the image, remember,’ said Pylon. ‘It’s why we do it. Snappy dressers.’
Mace unsure who the last referred to. The woman standing pert before him, her hand outstretched.
‘I’m Dancing Rabbit,’ she said, bright smile, lovely face. ‘Right here’s my husband, Silas Dinsmor – Dinsmor without an e. You’re Complete Security, right? Mace and Pylon?’
‘We are,’ said Pylon. ‘Didn’t know you were Red Indians.’
‘Choctaws,’ said the woman. ‘We don’t use that term anymore.’ She looked Mace in the eye, not letting go of his hand. ‘There’s a hurt in you,’ she said. ‘And anger. You need to de-stress, my friend.’
Before Mace could respond she’d released his hand, was shaking Pylon’s. Mace stood hesitant, not sure what to say. Heard Pylon asking, ‘That’s your name? I call you Dancing Rabbit?’
‘That’s what I answer to. Also Veronica. But I prefer the other.’ She glanced from Pylon to Mace. ‘Which one of you’s Pylon, which Mace?’
‘I’m Pylon,’ said Pylon. ‘After the electricity pylons. He’s Mace. After the ornamental staff, not the chemical.’
‘You know the movie, Bandolero?’ said Silas Dinsmor, talking to Mace.
Mace shook his head, looked up at the big man, a good head taller, broad shouldered. One thing: outsize ears. You couldn’t help notice.
‘James Stewart played a hangman name of Mace Bishop. Not a good Western. Funny to start with then goes foolish. But you got Stewart and Dean Martin playing the heroes it’s not gonna work. You like Westerns?’
‘Some of them,’ said Mace.
‘Give me three.’
Mace frowned. Gave it a few seconds thought. ‘Probably Unforgiven first off. Then Tombstone. Maybe Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch a close third. Also the first six minutes of Leone’s Once Upon a Time …’
‘I could live with that,’ said Silas Dinsmor, folding his arms over his stomach. A stomach as large as a Zulu belly. ‘Thing about Unforgiven I most appreciated was the sheriff saying his life shouldn’t of ended that way because he was building a house. Spoke of the complexities in the world.’
Mace nodded. Like the complexity of Oumou being cut to death. Just when she’d won an award. Not the way her life should have ended at all. Mace could imagine being Unforgiven’s William Munny though, standing over Sheemina February, taking her out with a face shot. Put blood into her ice blue eyes.
‘Perhaps,’ said Pylon, ‘we could talk movies in the car. Not sensible to be standing here. Except we have a problem.’ He pulled out his cellphone. ‘We need to call the cavalry to help with the suitcases.’
Ten minutes later Pylon had the luggage delivery sorted with a courier company. He brought the big Merc round to pick up the couple and Mace outside the terminal. The rain drumming down.
‘See the black guy still does the work,’ said Silas Dinsmor.
Mace held the door open for Dancing Rabbit, the woman winking at him. Said, ‘Some things never change.’ Whupped the door closed, taking his position shotgun beside Pylon.
The big Merc set off, the courier van following through the traffic lights down the straight towards the highway.
On the overpass Silas Dinsmor gestured at the shackland below lit up by mast lights. ‘About as pretty as a reservation.’
‘Reservations I’ve seen were a lot prettier,’ said Mace.
‘Government started clearing it up,’ said Pylon, catching the eyes of his passengers in the rearview mirror. ‘Wants to build a project called Gateway in a place we’ll pass down the highway. Trouble is, soon as the shacks are cleared off, other squatters move in. Holds up proper housing schemes.’
‘Story of the poor,’ said Silas Dinsmor.
‘We have the same problems,’ said Dancing Rabbit.
Silas Dinsmor reached forward, tapped Mace on the shoulder. ‘Your movie choice,’ he said, ‘goes for a lot of wild justice.’
‘I suppose,’ said Mace, shifting sideways in his seat to look back at the couple.
‘Honour and revenge.’
Mace nodded. ‘You should think of it another way, the kind of official justice we get these days isn’t worth talking about. Also, security’s what we do. Cos the cops can’t. We’re keeping you safe, sometimes that means being the law.’
‘With all due respect,’ said Dancing Rabbit, ‘you could call it vigilantism.’
‘You could,’ said Mace. ‘We like to think of it more as being proactive.’
‘Talking about honour and revenge,’ said Silas Dinsmor, ‘there was another Bishop in those movies. Called Pike.’
‘In The Wild Bunch.’
‘Sells out his buddies.’
‘No relation,’ said Mace.
They all laughed.
Pylon said, ‘Hasn’t sold me out yet.’ He caught the couple’s eyes again. ‘Can I ask you something?’
They answered sure.
‘We do a lot of celebrities, our line of work. Can’t see that you fit the profile.’
The two laughed.
‘Celebrities, we ain’t,’ said Dancing Rabbit.
‘That’s what your PA said.’
‘Her opinion. Pumps up her job.’
‘So what’re you then?’ said Mace. ‘To need us.’
‘Casinos.’ Dancing Rabbit, fidgeted in her handbag, pulled out a leaflet, handed it across. ‘Our experience, when you’re talking casinos, you’re talking about tough people. Ourselves excluded.’ She giggled. ‘Most of the time.’
‘What we’re here for,’ said Silas Dinsmor, ‘is an investment opportunity. We’ve heard some folks aren’t pleased about this. Folks don’t like foreign money coming in. They feel they’re not getting their slice of the pie when the dollars flow. Some folks told us, stay away.’
‘Told you how?’
‘Phoned us.’
‘Death threats?’ Mace turned so he could see Silas Dinsmor. The expression on the man’s face impassive.
‘Sounded like that.’
Mace heard Pylon mutter, ‘Save me Jesus.’ Said, ‘Maybe you should have told us. Sort of thing puts you in a different category for us.’ He faced forward. ‘In our books you weren’t high risk.’
‘In our books,’ said Pylon, ‘you were rich and famous coming here for a good time. Just needed the edge taken off the street life. No big deal.’
‘Still not,’ said Dancing Rabbit. ‘In our experience people say they’re going to scalp you, they’re generally blustering.’
‘Not here,’ said Mace. ‘People here say that’s their intention, most often it is exactly.’
‘We have this problem,’ said Pylon, ‘called xenophobia. You might’ve seen clips on the news. People being necklaced. Burnt to death with car tyres round their necks. Makes good TV foota
ge.’
‘We’ve seen that,’ said Silas Dinsmor.
‘Then you understand the type of situation we might have going here,’ said Mace.
‘What we understood,’ said Dancing Rabbit, ‘was you had rule of law. A constitution. Bill of Rights. A democracy.’
‘We’ve got all those, ma’am. On paper. Just doesn’t mean squat in reality. What we’ve got in reality is another way of conducting ourselves.’
Pylon broke in. ‘You’re looking at a two-tier society: what we aspire to, and what we are. What we are can be ugly.’
The couple in the back took this in without comment. Mace glanced over his shoulder, saw them staring out at the lighted suburbs either side. Said, ‘Where’s your appointment tomorrow?’
‘Place called Grand West,’ said Dancing Rabbit.
‘You’re buying in there?’
‘No. No shares on offer,’ said Silas Dinsmor. ‘Our interest is new ventures. Development ventures. That’s our expertise.’
‘Back home, you see,’ said his wife, ‘on the reservations there’re casinos. Some profitable, some not so. We’re in the first category. We got experience situating these sort of ventures in unusual areas.’
‘It’s a two-way thing,’ said Silas Dinsmor, ‘you got to know how to trickle down some money, upgrade the locals. Win-win, all round.’
Pylon took the car into the fast lane, said softly to Mace, ‘I’ve got the courier van in the rearview all the time. Can’t see what’s behind them.’
‘You think there’s a tracker?’
‘Could be.’
‘See anything?’
‘Only far back. Too far to tell. We’d of known about this, we’d of done it differently.’
Mace didn’t respond, said to the two in the back, ‘Your PA didn’t say anything about your business. She should have.’
‘Ain’t no stress,’ said Silas Dinsmor. ‘We get this all the time.’
‘This’s under our watch, that’s the difference,’ said Mace. ‘You need us for the meeting?’
‘We do. What our PA was supposed to contract you for,’ said Silas Dinsmor, ‘was twenty-four/seven guarding. Don’t say it’s not so.’
‘It’s so,’ said Mace, although it wasn’t. ‘What we need’s an updated schedule. Where you’ve got to be, when.’
‘You got it,’ said Dancing Rabbit.
She spoke to her husband in a low tone, though Mace couldn’t make out a thing she said. He glanced at Pylon. The glance that said, suckered.
Silas Dinsmor answered his wife in the same language. Then said, ‘Our first appointment is noon tomorrow. Like I said, at Grand West.’
Mace and Pylon said, ‘No problem’ – Mace thinking plenty of time to handle Magnus Oosthuizen first. A silence settling while the Merc powered up the rise, Devil’s Peak above, the road going into the snake curves of De Waal Drive, the city below.
‘That’s the city?’ said Dancing Rabbit, leaning over her husband.
Pylon launching his history spiel about a town built by slaves, their bones still part of the foundations, saying the disadvantage of coming in by night you didn’t get to see the drama of the mountain, the city, the ocean. Dancing Rabbit saying the lights were pretty though in the valley.
‘We call it the city bowl,’ said Pylon, his eyes flicking onto the rearview mirror.
‘Anything?’ said Mace.
‘Not as I can tell.’ Pylon cursing the courier van for sticking so close behind.
For the rest of the ride along De Waal, Mace and Pylon shut up, the Dinsmor couple talking in their own language like fluttering doves. No cars overtook them, the rain eased off to a drizzle which Mace liked. In the dip Pylon accelerated up onto Jutland, came off at the slip road to zigzag into the suburb. Deep in they stopped at a security gate, waited for it to roll back, the van tight behind them.
‘These gates,’ said Pylon, ‘are the worst. They take forever to open, eternity to close.’ They drove in up a short drive to a cottage back among trees and high shrubbery.
‘Looks cute,’ said Dancing Rabbit.
‘Cute alright,’ said Mace. ‘Has a heated pool if that takes your fancy in winter. Quiet, secure. Close to the Gardens Mall. You want to go there we can make arrangements.’
‘I’ll open the house,’ said Pylon, heading up the stairs to a wide stoep. Mace going round the van to help with the luggage, noticed the gate hadn’t closed. He walked down, pressing the remote to activate the mechanism. Could hear the motor whining. At first thinking, damn it, before the realisation clicked in, the gate was jammed. Mace stopped. Scanned the darkness. Listened to the whisper and drip of wet trees, the distant drone of the city. From where he stood he couldn’t see into the street. Behind him could hear the van driver asking where to leave the luggage, Silas Dinsmor’s response, Pylon calling from inside the house for the couple to come in out of the rain. Then a shout, and the high pitched scream of Dancing Rabbit cut off. Mace stepped sideways into the shadows, wet foliage slapping at him. And stopped. Drew the Ruger from under his arm. Racked the slide.
How many? he wondered. Two or three? More likely three. Three’s what it usually took. One to keep everyone under the gun. The others to pull off the robbery. Supposing it was robbery. He crouched. Went slowly forward, thankful that the damp had soaked the fallen leaves, made the ground spongy. He circled to the left, away from the street towards the side of the house. From there he reckoned he could look on them unseen. Still puzzled: was this a syndicate job? Cherry pick the victims at the airport. And the Dinsmors were easy targets. All that luggage. A syndicate looking for a pushover, these two were it, and stuff the security. Track them back to the accommodation. Maybe even know their destination in advance. If they had someone inside trolling through the landing cards, no need to even set up a following vehicle then. All you’ve got to do is send round the welcoming committee, wait for everyone to arrive. Walk up, wave some hardware, drive off with the cars and the bounty in the boot. Couldn’t be easier.
Mace kept to the shrubbery, thick either side of the driveway. Ideal for a waylay. Could hear Pylon saying, ‘Okay, guys, let’s stay cool. You take the cars, no problem. Release the people.’ The hijackers responding in Xhosa, calm, assured. So it wasn’t a coloured gang. Coloured gang the issue was robbery. Black fellas it could be anything. One thing it wasn’t was a hit. A hit there’d be no messing about. Pop, pop, the screech of getaway tyres. Though Mace knew sometimes the hitmen got greedy. The amateur jacks. Went for a little search and seizure on the side. But this wasn’t one of those. This, Mace believed, was a scare job. Bit of rough stuff. Fire a clip into the trees. Whisper a few words in the large waxy ears of Silas Dinsmor. Enough said. Have the Dinsmors checking into international departures toot sweet. Complete Security’s rep in tatters.
The van’s engine fired. Then the Merc’s.
Pylon said, ‘You don’t need them. Leave the people here. You don’t want to get involved in hostage-taking.’ Not speaking vernacular, keeping to English for the Dinsmors’ sake.
Mace thought, shit. Kidnapping. Maybe weren’t three but four men. One each for the Dinsmors, one to drive the van, another to take the Merc. From the garden had no clear view of the driveway. No idea of the positioning except of Pylon on the stoep. Could see him standing backlit. An easy target for anyone wanting to up the ante. No chance of getting to the side of the house either without the kidnappers seeing him. Mace looked round. Didn’t want anyone surprising him. Nothing moved.
Heard Pylon saying, ‘Wait, wait.’ Saw him start forward. The crack of a Magnum, saw Pylon hurled backwards. Mace went into instinct, fought the urge to rush out. Crept forward. Doors slammed. The van reversed, tyres skidding before they gripped on the cobbled drive. The Merc’s engine revved. Mace stepped onto the driveway, put a nine-mil hollow-point through the passenger window into the driver’s head. The Merc roared back, left the driveway smashing up against a tree. A rattle of Beretta fire in there too. Mace circled towards the c
ar through the garden’s darkness. Stopped metres away. The back windows sprayed with blood. He peered forward. Unsure. If the shooter popped out with the Beretta on auto, he was going to take at least one smack. Mace moved behind the car. Waited.
The far passenger door opened, Silas Dinsmor heaved himself out.
‘Poor bastard shot himself,’ he said. ‘The other one, you killed him.’
‘I’ve always been lucky that way,’ said Mace. ‘You okay?’
‘Full of his gore,’ said Silas Dinsmor. ‘Where’s Veronica?’
‘They got her.’ Mace backed off towards Pylon, digging out his cellphone. ‘And the van. And your luggage.’
Heard Dinsmor groan, say something in his strange language.
Pylon had taken a shoulder hit, was lying propped against the stoep wall, gun in hand. Said, ‘Just my luck, the arsehole can shoot.’
Mace bent down to his friend, a lot of blood, but nothing life-threatening. ‘Don’t move. Let me get the emergencies.’
Ten minutes they had to wait before a cop van pitched. Another few minutes for the ambulance. In Mace’s estimation not a bad response time. He called Captain Gonsalves too. Always best to have a friend on the scene.
11
Captain Gonsalves, in a plastic mac, hands in the pockets, spat a tobacco plug into the shrubbery below the stoep. He and Mace standing out of the rain. The cop scrimmaged deeply in a pocket for his cigarettes, drew out a crumpled packet. The two of them looking down on the crime scene activity. Men and women in jumpsuits getting the bodies out of the car.
‘Trouble with rain,’ said the captain, ‘washes everything away. The evidence.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Mace. ‘You got my statement, Pylon’s statement, the American’s. What more evidence d’you want?’
From behind them in the house came the loud voice of Silas Dinsmor demanding action.
Gonsalves said, ‘Sounds like your Yankee doodle’s raising merry hell.’
‘Can’t blame him.’
The captain shook out a cigarette, stripped it, rolled the tobacco in the palm of his hand. ‘I was in a foreign country my wife got abducted I’d be calling on the embassy.’ He popped the pellet into his mouth. Sucked hard on it. ‘Then again, maybe not.’