Black Heart

by Mike Nicol

  ‘Can’t be genocide,’ said Veronica. ‘You’re in the majority. More of you native South Africans now than there’ve ever been. Even with HIV decimations.’

  ‘You know about those?’

  ‘We did our homework.’

  ‘Then why did you overlook us?’

  Sheemina February watched Veronica Dinsmor finish her second slice of toast and poached egg. A dribble of yolk oozing from the corner of her mouth, quickly wiped away.

  ‘For us you were a competitor. Seeing as it was an open tender process. The best deal wins.’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Sheemina February brushed her fringe back off her forehead. ‘Uh-uh. That’s not how it’s done. Might look like it but it’s not. You’re right about the open tender, anyone can submit their proposal. The more the merrier. Some companies are actually encouraged to tender, the big boys, to make everything kosher. They know they’re not in with a chance but, hey, they don’t want any legal problems, besides it looks good. Looks like a free economy. Except the contract’s awarded to the BEE consortium. As I said, simple redress of historical injustices. But …’ She gave Veronica two more slices of toast. ‘But we’re always open to partnerships. International partnerships especially. Which is why we’re talking to you.’

  Veronica stopped buttering her toast. ‘I’m sorry? Did I hear you right? You’re talking to me? Like we’re having a business meeting here?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what this is.’

  ‘You kidnap me. You get armed men to kidnap me.’

  ‘Both of you. You and Silas, it was supposed to be both of you kidnapped.’

  ‘What? Honey, you’re way outta line. Way, way, way. I get kidnapped. Tied up. Assaulted. Humiliated. I see men shot. I get drugged and kidnapped again, and you, you, tell me we’re having a business meeting now. Like this is ordinary. All this mayhem. This is ordinary!’

  ‘Often.’

  ‘Honey. Sheemina, honey. Do me a favour. Take me back to my husband, let us get on a plane and go home. I have a granddaughter being born in a few months. That is the most important thing to me right now. You can keep the deal. We’re outta here. So fast you won’t even see our dust.’

  Sheemina February bit into her toast, the crunch loud in her head. ‘Congratulations. About the granddaughter.’ She chewed and swallowed. ‘A nice thought that.’

  Veronica nodded.

  ‘Thing is,’ said Sheemina, ‘we don’t want to see you flying off. We want to do business with you.’

  ‘You’re kidding me. You’ve got to be kidding me. No ways. No ways ever we’re gonna do business with you.’

  ‘There’s the money.’

  ‘Young men died.’

  ‘Unfortunately. This happens to hijackers. Violent men lead violent lives and sometimes, more often than not, they die violent deaths. No loss to society.’

  Veronica snorted. ‘Why? After what you’ve done to me, what you’ve put me through, what you’re putting me through goddammit, why would Silas and I go into business with you?’

  Sheemina February smeared honey over a last finger of toast. ‘Money.’

  ‘Oh God! You believe that? You believe greed’s the only thing that motivates us?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Miss Sheemina you’re so wrong. So completely, just completely off target.’ She stared at Sheemina February. ‘You think that, you don’t know the first thing about us. You ain’t got a notion. Let me tell you, when Silas and I got going back home, it wasn’t about money, it was about what we could do, the difference we could make in poor people’s lives. We came here with the same incentive. Now maybe you don’t understand altruism, maybe for all your talk of historical injustice, the first thing you think of in the morning when you wake is money, but Silas and I have other ideals.’

  ‘Ideals that’ve made you a lot of money.’

  ‘By happenstance.’

  ‘Of course. How silly of me to think otherwise.’

  Veronica Dinsmor pushed her chair back from the table. ‘I’m going. I’m going to walk out that door and you’re not going to stop me.’ She stood up.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Going to stop you.’

  ‘You’re threatening me?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sheemina February brought a small gun out of the pocket of her apron: a stainless steel, double-action North American Arms Guardian .32 loaded with hollow-points.

  ‘You see what I mean?’ said Veronica Dinsmor. ‘This is what I’m talking about. Your violence. People don’t do business like this. People don’t go about kidnapping people, killing people, threatening people, pulling out guns.’

  ‘You prefer trust and a handshake?’

  ‘Strangely. I do.’

  ‘Sit down, Veronica. Sit down and listen. Have some more coffee. Hear me out, alright. Hear me out, talk to Silas and then let’s see.’ Sheemina February dropped the Guardian into the pocket of her apron.

  The American sat. ‘I don’t like guns.’

  ‘You know what Capone said?’

  ‘You’re going to tell me.’

  ‘I am.’ Sheemina February looked up as if the words were written on the ceiling. ‘Now let me get this right. He said, something like, “Sometimes you can get more with a few kind words and a loaded gun than you can with just a few kind words.” And you know what I’ve found?’

  Veronica Dinsmor didn’t respond.

  Sheemina February went right on regardless. ‘I’ve found, most of the time, he’s right.’

  ‘When can I talk to Silas?’

  ‘In a moment. Hold tight. There’s other stuff to get through first.’ Sheemina February topped up both their coffee cups. Began to explain the deal, the whole business plan laid out for a chain of casinos, five in all. Gave her pitch for twenty minutes nonstop. Veronica Dinsmor listening without a question. Listening hard, Sheemina February could tell. The concentration written in her face. All came down to money in the end. The wonder of it. Sheemina could see that, the dollar signs in the Native American’s eyes. Dancing Rabbit about to perform a rain dance.

  ‘What’s the breakdown?’

  ‘Talk to Silas first. Then we can pow-wow, work out the percentages. What sort of investment you need to make here. What slice you can give us in your US operations.’

  ‘That’s a big ask.’

  ‘Negotiable.’

  ‘Let me talk to Silas.’

  Sheemina February held out her hand across the table. Veronica Dinsmor hesitated.

  ‘Shake. Trust and a handshake. I’ll get Silas to join us.’

  ‘You will?’

  ‘Trust me.’

  Sheemina February keeping back the smile from her lips. They shook.

  ‘This is all wrong,’ said Veronica.

  Sheemina February thought fifty-fifty chance the woman was making this play to keep the game alive. And herself.

  37

  On the down flight Mace had two hours to think some more about Sheemina February. Nothing that hadn’t plagued him on the up flight. Nothing that he could resolve. Like the timing of the estate agent getting hold of Dave. Like Sheemina’s car parked on the deck saying one thing, but her flat empty. Like what were the rosebuds about? Like had she really waited all night in the cold for Mace to pitch? Just to leave a rosebud in his windscreen wipers?

  Putting herself out like that not really her style. More likely she had a tracker on him. A chilling thought.

  Mace went back to the details. Maybe the estate agent chatter was a coincidence, normal shoptalk that wouldn’t mean anything in the usual scheme. Her car was on the deck because she was out of town, didn’t like leaving it at the airport. The rosebud in the vase was a rosebud in a vase.

  You looked at it like that these details meant nothing. You added the rosebud in the wipers into the mix there was a story.

  Mace thought about this watching the attendants at the refreshments trolley, five rows away down the aisle. Glanced about. To his right two business colleagues checking
pie charts, a young woman in the window-seat laughing at the candid camera video being shown on the overhead screen. Max Roland beside him in the middle seat, other side of him a thirtyish guy scrolling down a spreadsheet on his laptop.

  Max Roland flicking through the in-flight magazine. He nudged Mace, holding up a spread of bikini girls on a beach. Summer fashions. The beach could be Camps Bay, Mace believed, with its palms, white sands, the flat turquoise ocean. Water that looked tropical but froze your balls it was that cold.

  ‘Lovely bodies,’ said Max Roland. He kissed the pages. ‘I was in the Yemen for only five days.’ He held up five fingers. ‘Five days. My friend, it was eternity. Eternity in another world with no women. Black shapes that show nothing.’ He dropped the magazine, drew two parallel lines in the air with his hands. ‘Like that. No shape. They could be walking in boxes. The best thing in Johannesburg airport is women, girls.’ He drew an air picture of hips, cupped his hands round imaginary breasts. ‘That is what I missed. That there are no women to be seen.’

  Nice guys, this wanker and Oosthuizen, Mace thought. But what the hell, you didn’t have to like them, you just had to take their money. Money for a couple of months, which was even better. And best of all Max Roland didn’t seem to be attracting any attention.

  Mace ordered rooibos tea from the trolley-dolly. Roland going into his charm shtick.

  ‘Molo, sisi, I like your bracelet’ – two strands of plaited elephant hair you could buy in any tourist shop. The woman asked what he wanted to drink.

  ‘Coffee, sisi, black with no white.’ Mace saw him wink, the cabin attendant giving him a polite smile. ‘Where can I get such a bracelet?’

  ‘Anywhere,’ she said, handing him a polystyrene mug of coffee. ‘Enjoy your day, sir.’

  ‘Would you be free to show me the shop?’

  ‘Not today,’ said the woman, leaning over to give the spreadsheet man a bottle of water.

  Max Roland caught her wrist. ‘Very nice.’

  ‘Please.’

  He released her. ‘You have lovely skin.’

  The attendant smiled again but Mace saw the irritation in her eyes.

  ‘Enough,’ he said to Max Roland. ‘Let it go, okay.’

  ‘I am only, how do you say, chaffing her.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Mace.

  ‘She is a pretty girl.’

  ‘Enough.’

  Max Roland returned to his magazine. Mace picked up on Sheemina February. One thing she had to know, he was after her. Hunting her. Going to kill her. She goes to ground, then concocts a trap. So the estate agent chatter’s a set-up. So the car on the deck’s a set-up. Ditto the rosebuds. For why? To let him know that she’s one step ahead. Intent on entrapping him. In the process getting him mad. Furious. Irrational. Angry enough to make mistakes.

  Okay, Sheemina February, he thought. Let’s see how it works tonight.

  The Stones coming in: I see a red door … A door red with Oumou’s blood.

  Mace closed his eyes. For a moment thought, Jesus, can I get through this? The heaviness of his grief. Christa. The shit with the Dinsmor kidnapping. The bloody newspapers nailing him. Sheemina February. His chest tightened. He wanted to jump up, walk around, get rid of the frustration. Half rose, the seatbelt holding him down.

  ‘You want to pee?’ said Max Roland. ‘Me too.’

  Mace crushed the cup, dregs of tea splashing on to the service tray. He mopped at them with a paper serviette.

  The problem with this sort of job, Mace thought, was if the client wanted to pee, you had to go with him. Kindergarten duty.

  An hour later the plane taxied to a parking bay, the cabin supremo doing his it’s a lovely day in the Mother City number. No one listened, the passengers jostling into the aisle to get on with their lives. Mace flipped open his seatbelt, connected his phone. A voice message from Pylon that they needed to talk about Max Roland. Didn’t sound that urgent. Wasn’t the sort of conversation Mace was going to have in public anyhow.

  He and Max Roland still jammed halfway down the plane waiting to disembark, when Oosthuizen called wanting to know, when were they going to get to the safe house? When could he meet up with Max Roland?

  Mace tried to get a word in. ‘Slow down …’

  Oosthuizen going into a pause. Then: ‘Let me talk to him. Max Roland. Put him on.’

  ‘Not a good idea. Not now.’

  To Mace’s surprise the man leaving it there. ‘Get back to me, Mace Bishop. Soonest, you hear what I’m saying?’

  Max Roland, behind Mace in the shuffling queue, said in his ear, ‘Magnus does not like to wait. With this project he is very nervous.’

  In the bus from the plane to the terminal building, his phone went again: Tami.

  ‘Such a popular man.’ Max Roland, flicked back his blond quiff, grinned at Mace.

  Mace thought, only so much of this you could put up with. Connected, heard Tami say, ‘We don’t know where Dinsmor is.’

  Mace wondered if he’d got that properly. ‘Repeat.’ His gorge rising a taste of the airline’s omelette and mushrooms breakfast. Not that it had far to rise.

  ‘Dinsmor’s gone, Mace. We can’t find him.’

  Mace thought, shit.

  The bus stopped at the arrivals gate.

  ‘I’ll phone you,’ Mace said. ‘Look again. Just find him.’

  Max Roland pulled a sad face. ‘The popular man gets some bad news.’

  My friend, Mace thought, you want me to be nice to you then cut the commentary. Grabbed Roland by the sleeve, herded him amongthe passengers jostling out of the bus.

  ‘Your dog has gone missing? Or your cat?’

  ‘Get your bag,’ said Mace.

  ‘Be cool, Mr Bishop, it is the only way in these situations, no?’

  Mace got back to Tami, keeping an eye on Max Roland waiting in the crush round the carousel. ‘What happened?’

  ‘We’re in the breakfast room. He gets a call from America.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Now now. Half an hour ago. About twenty to eleven.’

  ‘He told you it was from America?’

  ‘Yes. A call from his office he said.’

  ‘No change in his attitude.’

  ‘Nothing I noticed. Like the guy’s agitated obviously. He’s got this disturbing DVD playing in his head. We all have. We’re not sitting there having a joyous breakfast. But he takes the call and it doesn’t seem a big deal. No freeze on his face. He doesn’t start tugging at his ponytail. He checked the screen, answered with his name like he always does, said excuse me, and got up from the table, wandered off to the sliding doors and went outside onto the stoep. But like we can see him. Walking around out there, talking on his phone.’

  ‘We. Who’s with you? One of the guys?’

  ‘Sure. And the cop, Gonsalves.’

  ‘He’s still with you?’

  ‘Hyper pissed off. We’ve got two cars of cops here searching.’

  ‘Good,’ said Mace. ‘So go back, Dinsmor’s out on the stoep, you’re watching him.’

  ‘Sort of. You know, not full-on watching him. Aware that he’s out there. You know keeping an eye on him from the table.’

  ‘You’re all at the table, sitting down?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Jesus, Tami.’

  ‘What? You’d have done it differently? We’re talking, rather Gonsalves is talking, we can see Dinsmor. Gonsalves is looking full at him. Me and our guy, what’s his name, haven’t got a direct visual, we’re a bit side-on but we’re aware. It didn’t seem to be an issue.’

  ‘You didn’t notice a lurker?’

  ‘No one. Anyone had stepped onto that stoep we’d have seen him. No question.’

  ‘Go back again,’ said Mace, ‘to the phone call. The phone rings, he checks the screen, answers with his name.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘I know. I’m trying to get this in sequence, get it straight for my own sake, okay.’ Mace paused. ‘So he
takes the call, there’s no change in him. Nothing. He’s Mr Poker Face.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Like I said, he listens for a bit.’

  ‘And you’re looking at him. And you don’t see any emotion.’

  ‘Your Mr Poker Face.’

  ‘He doesn’t smile. His jaw doesn’t clench. There’s nothing in his eyes.’

  ‘He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t like smiling. He’s like, you know, stern.’

  ‘Does he say anything?’

  ‘To who he’s talking to he says, hang on. To us he says excuse me.’

  ‘So how’d you know it was his office in America?’

  Mace heard Tami take in a breath. ‘He said, excuse me, it’s my office.’

  ‘He didn’t say America?’

  ‘No. I told you that. He didn’t say America.’

  Mace saw Max Roland lifting his bag from the carousel. ‘Got to go, but confirm. The only words he spoke that you heard were: Silas. Hang on. Excuse me, it’s my office.’

  ‘Full marks.’

  ‘And outside. How long was he talking outside?’

  ‘He wasn’t talking much outside, he was listening mostly.’

  ‘For how long? Thirty seconds? One minute? Two minutes?’ A long hum from Tami. ‘Come’n, Tami, I’ve got other stuff happening here.’

  ‘Maybe a minute.’

  ‘Long enough to get you relaxed about the situation.’

  Max Roland came up. ‘You will fry your brain,’ he said.

  Mace gritted his teeth. Another quip he’d fry Max Roland.

  ‘Then what, Tami? Then what? What’s your take?’

  ‘You’re asking me?’

  ‘For Chrissakes, yes.’

  ‘Hey, my opinion counts!’

  ‘Cut it.’

  Max Roland glanced at Mace amused at the tone. ‘Be cool, Mr Bishop.’

  ‘You want my opinion, here it is. He walked down the steps, got into a car. Poof.’

  ‘You heard a car drive away?’

  ‘There were cars coming and going. It’s a hotel, Mace.’

  ‘They’ve got him,’ said Mace.

  ‘The firemen have found your pet,’ said Max Roland.