by Mike Nicol
‘Is that wise?’
‘Why not?’
‘Why not? Because right now it’s in a safe house that no one knows of. It is protected. Whereas you, you are not.’
‘No problem. I’ve got Mister Anaconda.’
‘Snakes in winter! How original.’
Silence.
‘On your head, Mr Oosthuizen,’ she said, thumbed him off. To Mart said, ‘He’s going to fetch the laptop.’
‘What? Now?’
‘Apparently.’
‘That’s a bit of a bugger.’
‘It is.’
‘Be a challenge for our friends.’
‘Nothing they can’t deal with.’
‘Perhaps though …’
‘No,’ said Sheemina. ‘You warn them, they’re going to say, set-up. Best to leave it. This’s Mace and Pylon we’re talking about. They’re big boys, let them sort it out.’
Mart’s phone rang. He listened, disconnected. Said, ‘Seems our Injun pardners are heading out for a bite to eat. Booking’s been made at the Cape Malay. How about that?’
‘Good choice,’ said Sheemina. ‘Very tourist. Bobotie and malva pud. Let’s hope they enjoy it.’
Mart finished his beer. ‘This’s all so exciting.’
46
‘No, not tomorrow, tonight,’ said Silas Dinsmor, his voice tight, not far off shouting. He put his hand over the telephone mouthpiece, twisted his head round to look at his wife, ‘Is she stupid or what?’
‘Shussh, hon.’ Veronica aka Dancing Rabbit rubbed his back. ‘Take it easy, she’s doing her job.’
‘How long’s it take to book seats?’
Veronica thinking what she wanted was an end to this nightmare.
‘What?’ Silas barking into the phone. ‘There can’t be no seats, there’re always empty seats. Every plane you fly in there are empty seats. People don’t turn up, there are empty seats.’
Veronica sat on the edge of the bed. She wished it were her own bed. She had this feeling she wouldn’t ever lie on her own bed again. Truth? They should’ve left Africa alone. You couldn’t understand Africa. Africa was mad. Crazy lunatic people with crazy lunatic ideas.
Silas shouting, ‘Standby isn’t good enough. I want a guaranteed seat. Two tickets. Tonight to New York, Atlanta, Washington, Philadelphia I don’t care, anywhere Stateside is where we want to go.’ Silas doing deep breathing, taking it down a notch. ‘Listen, listen to me. Miss. Miss, you listening to me? You with me here? I want two tickets. I am talking emergency. I am saying we have to be on that plane. This is life and death. No joke. Literally life and death.’
‘Hon,’ said Veronica, ‘hon, take it easy.’
‘Alright, alright. If we have to go to London we have to go to London. Just get us out of here. Two of us. My wife and me. Dinsmor – spelling it – ‘Silas and Veronica’ spelling these too. ‘For what time is that? Nine-ten’s departure. Check-in’s at seven.’ Silas glanced at his watch. Gave them a little over an hour to get to the airport. On the phone the woman was telling him where to collect the tickets. Silas jotting down a reference number.
Veronica got up, fetched a case from the wardrobe.
‘What you doing?’ said Silas.
‘Packing,’ said Veronica. ‘We’re going aren’t we?’
‘Not with suitcases. We check out Sheemina February’s gonna know in a couple of minutes.’
‘We’re doing a runner?’
‘No other way. This gets back to her, you heard her …’ he shaped his fingers like a gun, put them to his head. Said, ‘Pow.’
‘Don’t do that,’ said Veronica. ‘Don’t freak me out.’
Silas walked over to his wife, embraced her. Talked into her hair, ‘You’ve got through this so far, we can get through the rest. We get on to that flight, we get away from here, away from these people. That’s the priority. No matter what it takes. That’s the major thing. From back home we can settle the hotel bill. Arrange for our luggage to get shipped over. Nothing in it we can’t live without for a coupla months.’ He felt Veronica nod. ‘We’re not doing a runner, Vee. We’re taking precautions. Now, I’m gonna ask reception to get a taxi, ask them to recommend a restaurant. When the taxi comes we tell him, the airport. That okay?’ He stood back from Veronica, his hands on her shoulders. ‘Okay. Then I’m gonna phone the lawyers and cancel the deal. Plenty of time to stop the money.’
‘What if …?’ Veronica leaving the rest unsaid.
‘Ain’t any what-ifs,’ said Silas. ‘Maybe Sheemina’s checking her balance every hour but even fast-tracked it ain’t gonna show up there until tomorrow. Relax, okay. Relax. Deep breaths. Take it slowly. Take a shower. Pack what you need for the flight in a handbag. Then we’re outta here. Laughing.’
‘I hope so,’ said Veronica. ‘I hope so.’
‘I know so.’
‘She’s a hard bitch, Silas. Not someone to cross.’
‘Exactly. Which is why we’re off.’
He went back to the phone. Veronica kicked off her shoes, headed for the bathroom. The trouble with Silas he thought he’d considered all the angles but there were angles he hadn’t thought of. That’s where Sheemina February would be, in the angles he hadn’t thought of. She went back to Silas, waited till he’d finished with reception.
‘We go to the restaurant,’ she said. ‘From the restaurant we get another taxi to the airport.’
‘What for?’
‘Because that’s safer.’
Silas forced a laugh. ‘No need. This gets back to Sheemina …’
‘It will get back to her.’
‘Okay, this gets back to Sheemina February, she hears we’re booked in a restaurant, she’s gonna leave it.’
‘She won’t.’
‘Even if she doesn’t, what’s she gonna do? Send someone to check?’
‘Yes.’
‘No worries. Maybe after fifteen minutes they realise we’re not coming. Even if she phones the airport then. Even if she’s got a man waiting there, it’s gonna be too late. We’re gonna be through. Through check-in, through passport control, in the departure lounge. A place not even Sheemina February can reach.’
‘Still,’ said Veronica.
Silas shook his head. ‘We haven’t got the time. That’s gonna take too long. Delay us.’
Veronica looked at him, Silas pressing through his cellphone contacts for the lawyer’s number. Sometimes he didn’t get it. Usually the times when things went wrong. ‘Play it my way,’ she said. ‘Please, hon.’
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘whatever.’
She could tell he was humouring her, holding the cellphone to his ear, that smile on his face when he believed he’d scored.
47
The German and the Swede moved quickly to their car. Kalle taking the driving seat; Jakob powering up a laptop. ‘Come on, baby, come on’ – drumming his fingers next to the touchpad. The screen filled with a map.
‘Ja, here we go,’ said Jakob, zooming in. ‘Where are you? Where are you? Ach, so.’ He caught the flashing red dot moving off screen, adjusted the window.
‘De Waal Drive,’ he said, pointing at the red dot, ‘driving quite fast I would say.’
Kalle took Dunkley out of the square, into Hatfield coming up against the lights at Mill. Said, ‘Skit, skit, skit’ – at the pack of traffic.
‘Quickly,’ said Jakob, ‘they are fading.’
‘We cannot move,’ said Kalle.
‘Maybe they are going towards the airport. That would be a good place. The problem is the split: the airport? Or the south? If they are off the screen we will have to guess.’
Kalle swore, swung the Merc out of the queue of cars into the opposite lane, at the intersection ran the robot into Mill, cars coming up fast behind, hooting.
‘Okay, okay,’ he said, waving an apologetic hand at the flashing headlights, ‘no one is hurt, keep your blood pressure’ – the traffic moving at a steady sixty kays into Jutland up the slope onto De Waal. ‘Where are
they?’ he said, accelerating in the fast lane.
‘Gone,’ said Jakob.
‘These bloody things,’ said Kalle. He flashed his lights at a slow car ahead, the car’s exhaust swirling out blue smoke. ‘That car should be off the road. We can die from the exhaust. Do they not know about climate change?’ He hooted. Shouted, ‘Move over, move over, arsehole. Why do they not move out of the way? In this country nobody understands the fast lane.’ He swung the Benz into a gap on the left. ‘This is why they have so many accidents. Because you must duck and dive. Crazy, crazy, crazy.’ As they drew level with the slow car, Kalle gave the finger. The people in the slow car mouthing at him, slapping him the up-yours fist. He pulled in front of them. ‘What is the tracker range?’
‘There,’ said Jakob. ‘There on the bend where the road splits. Ah no, ah no. Gone.’
‘Before the split?’
‘Not far I would say.’
Jakob lifted two cigarillos from his pack. Hung them on his lips while he dug out a lighter.
‘How far is that?’
‘The split.’ Jakob speaking from the corner of his mouth, the cigarillos bobbing on his lip. ‘They have probably passed it.’
‘And the tracker range?’
‘When there are no mountains, ten kilometres.’
‘This city is only mountains.’
Jakob flicked the lighter. Shook it. ‘Maybe six, seven kilometres, I don’t know.’ Flicked the lighter again. Shook it. On the fifth flick getting a flame. He fired the cigarillos, gave one to Kalle, let out a whoosh of exhale against the laptop screen. ‘In Berlin they work very well. But not in Rio.’
Kalle clamped his lips round the cigarillo, took a long pull. Breathed out smoke. ‘And now, can you see them?’
‘No,’ said Jakob. ‘And we have the split coming up.’
Kalle tailgated into Hospital Bend, keeping to the middle lane. In the four-lane strip, drivers shifting right and left to line up for the split.
‘Which way?’
‘Airport,’ shouted Jakob. Then: ‘No, no, the other way. There is the dot. There they are. Near the university.’
‘There is too much traffic.’ Kalle shouting now, drifted right until the driver alongside braked to let them in. A blare of hooters going off.
Kalle took another drag at the cigarillo. ‘Arsehole.’
‘On the radar,’ said Jakob. ‘There are our gentlemen.’
‘Good,’ said Kalle, ‘but we must get closer.’
They tracked the car ahead through Newlands Forest, the Paradise chicane, up Edinburgh, down Wynberg Hill onto the M3, only one car separating them at the end of the highway.
‘In the old days,’ said Jakob, ‘we would have been stuffed.’
‘I do not think so.’
‘At night! In a place where they have no lights! I think so, yes. We would have been going to the airport. Like fools.’
48
They drove in silence. Pylon uncomfortable, shifting on the seat, Mace thinking about their Cayman money. About bringing it through in suitcases if that was the only way. About how they had to do something or they’d have Mart Velaze rocking up to put the screws on whenever the agency needed a little job done. The sort of insecurity Mace didn’t want to live with.
Coming off the highway, Pylon said, ‘This is buggered up. We didn’t have this kind of trouble selling guns.’
‘What d’you mean?’ said Mace.
‘I mean a coupla days and everything’s buggered up. My arm shot to hell. The Dinsmor job down the toilet. This job doing in our heads. Bad press in the papers. And I’m supposed to be having fun being a dad. Save me Jesus!’
‘You want me to drop you at home,’ said Mace. ‘I can do that, no problem.’
‘Uh-uh,’ said Pylon.
‘Not as if this job’s a ballbreaker.’
‘Maybe not. Thing is, I face Treasure now or in a few hours time makes no difference to her. Makes a lot of difference to me. It’s a few hours less of her tongue.’
‘Call Tami,’ said Mace. ‘Tell her to have a slow supper.’
‘I’ll dial her,’ said Pylon, ‘then she’s all yours. Black chicks prefer whiteys.’
‘I’m driving.’
‘There’s a hands-free. It’s no big deal.’
Tami came on, said, ‘Wait’ – Mace and Pylon getting full volume restaurant noise. When she came on again, the background quieter. ‘This’s like the deep south,’ she hissed. ‘The only black people are the waiters. They think I’m some kind of escort.’
‘How long’ve you been there?’ said Mace.
‘Long enough to feel like shit.’
‘How long’s that?’
‘Ten minutes. We haven’t ordered yet.’
‘Good,’ said Mace. ‘Take it slowly, okay. At least two hours.’
‘Stuff that,’ said Tami. ‘You think I’m sitting here for two hours, you’re mad.’
Mace let it ride.
‘Ah, please, Mace. He’s a major prick. Doesn’t stop groping me. I slap his hands he thinks that’s fun. What’s with the two hours anyway?’
‘Afterwards,’ said Mace. ‘Just keep him charmed.’
Tami went off in a string of Xhosa Mace couldn’t understand. Pylon could, burst out laughing. Tami giving him a mouthful too.
Pylon saying, ‘Hey, sisi, hey sisi, careful sisi.’
‘Sisi, your moer,’ she said. ‘Strues, Mace, you’ve got black blood, the way you think you can treat women.’
Mace and Pylon protesting to dead air.
‘She disconnected.’ Pylon gesturing at the cellphone. ‘She disconnected. She’s staff, staff don’t cut us dead.’
Mace brushed it off, accelerating through the slip road onto the Ou Kaapse Weg, Oumou’s station wagon powering up the pass. ‘What’d she say? Earlier.’
Pylon laughed. ‘Lot of stuff about getting the ancestors to chase you into the sea.’
‘Me? I’m the one who pays her.’
‘We’re the ones who pay her.’
They drove in silence to the top of Silvermine, the sandstone catching silver in the headlights, the mountains dark beneath the stars. On the descent Mace said, ‘We’ve got to get that money out of Cayman, even if we sail it in on a yacht.’
Pylon snapped his fingers. ‘Now there’s an idea. Maybe we could do an asset swap with some rich larney. Maybe you’ve got an idea there. Yeah, maybe.’
They came off the pass into Sun Valley, approaching the safe house along the main street, then circling the block to stop in the mall’s parking lot. Waited in the car five minutes to ensure they hadn’t been followed. Mace cracked his door, said, ‘Let’s do it.’
‘I haven’t got a gun,’ said Pylon. ‘Remember.’
‘In the glove box,’ said Mace.
Pylon took out a small Beretta Tomcat. ‘Looks like a toy.’
‘Toys don’t fire hollow-points,’ said Mace.
49
Silas and Veronica Dinsmor waited in the foyer for the taxi. Veronica sitting on an armchair beside the fire, Silas chatting up the receptionist like there was no problem in the world. Veronica with her largest handbag on her lap: their passports, credit cards, cellphone, notebook and pen, comb, packet of tissues, purse with change, glasses case, headache tablets, lipstick, courtesy mints, Silas’s turquoise-inset bolo tie that he couldn’t leave behind. ‘So wear it,’ she’d said, but he’d insisted on the silver bolo tie with the jet stone. ‘Smarter for a night out,’ he’d said, winking at her. Veronica sitting there next to the fire, feeling naked and cold. Dead anxious that somewhere along the path lay a rattlesnake. Heard Silas say, ‘So what d’you recommend we eat at this place? You say it’s traditional? Real home-cooking?’ And the receptionist with her silky black hair and large brown eyes say something Veronica didn’t catch, Silas coming back with ‘Bowbootay’ – or that was how it sounded. Silas again, ‘It’s a ground beef ’n rice dish. Maylay. With raisins. Sounds dee-licious.’ The receptionist flicking back her h
air, smiling at him, a hint of white showing between her lips. Silas swinging round, ‘You hear that Veronica, the local cuisine’ – but not moving from the reception desk.
‘I heard,’ said Veronica, wondering what was it with Silas he got so overkill in these situations. All have-a-nice-day normality. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. To anybody who’d stand still to listen. Mr Jovial. Mr Carefree. Putting out this high-five attitude. A flash of light in the outside darkness caught her eye. Through the window she saw car beams approaching along the driveway. Had to be the taxi. Which put a knot in her stomach, a fist that seemed to push up against her lungs. She glanced at her watch: seven on the dot. Thought: twenty-four hours ago I was tied up in a warehouse. Another twenty-four hours this could be over. Heard Silas say to the receptionist, ‘You think that’s our taxi?’ The young woman say, ‘I’m sure it is.’ Silas saying, ‘See you in a few hours.’ Coming towards her, his hand outstretched. ‘Let’s go, Mrs Dinsmor.’
Veronica stood up, wondered how she managed it her legs felt so wobbly. ‘Shouldn’t we wait to see?’ she said, Silas taking her arm. Saying, ‘It’s gotta be.’ And there in the doorway the taxi driver in a leather jacket and jeans, smiling at them. ‘Are you the Dinsmors?’ Silas going into overdrive. ‘We sure are. Take us to the eatery, Mr Cabbie.’ The cabbie offering Silas a business card, stepping back to hold the door open for them. ‘Kind of you,’ said Silas. ‘Polite city, this.’ Like she hadn’t been kidnapped, seen men shot, like they both hadn’t been backed into a corner by a truly evil woman. The cab driver skipping down the steps to the waiting car, opening the back door for them. Felt to Veronica like the leather seats she slid onto might have been the padding in a coffin.
‘My way,’ she said to Silas after the cab driver had shut them in. ‘Restaurant then airport.’ Silas nodding, smiling, patting her hand. Patronising. ‘Silas, please.’ The cab driver slipping into the front seat, turning round to them. ‘Okay, folks, the Cape Malay, I believe. Very nice establishment, if I might say so.’ Veronica feeling the knot in her stomach harden, painful enough to clench her teeth. Put her hand on Silas’s thigh, squeezing. Silas answering, ‘They do local food, we’re told?’ The cab driver firing the engine, saying, ‘They do. Not eaten there myself but everyone I’ve taken there loves it.’ Silas covering her hand with his own. ‘That right?’ ‘Absolutely is.’ Veronica closing her eyes, leaning back in the seat, thinking, This is going to be alright. This is going to be alright.