Black Heart

by Mike Nicol

  Veronica drifting off to that place with her granddaughter, this young girl looking up at her talking child talk, wondering at the world, laughing. The two of them, hand in hand in a place of sunshine. Even from there she could hear Silas arguing, the man ordering them out of the car.

  ‘My name is Dancing Rabbit,’ she said.

  53

  ‘It is time we went back,’ said Max Roland, finishing his coffee. He pulled a face. ‘Terrible coffee. Americano is always terrible coffee. Like the Americans, not one thing or another. Not quite water, most certainly not quite coffee.’ He pushed the cup away. ‘But I am pleased the steak was good. Second to Turkish beef.’ He made to stand.

  ‘I haven’t finished my wine,’ said Tami, pointing at her glass. She lifted the bottle from the cooler. ‘And there is still some left’ – poured this into Max Roland’s glass. The empty bottle she shoved upside-down into the ice. Flashed Max a grin.

  He reached across to take her hand. Tami balling her fingers, like a tortoise drawing in. ‘Uh-uh. Don’t.’

  Max Roland sat back. ‘You are a flirt. No?’ He raised his glass of wine.

  ‘No.’

  ‘A cockteaser.’

  ‘Bah.’ Tami broke into Xhosa.

  ‘What’d you say?’ Max Roland amused, taunting her with the glint in his eyes, the glisten on his lips.

  ‘That you think too much of yourself.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You shouldn’t.’ Tami sipped at her wine, thinking, Mace was gonna pay for this, one way or another. A bonus. Time off. A Mauritius holiday. She could fancy a Mauritius holiday on the beach with blue cocktails. Sexy French boys strutting around. Tax-free.

  Max Roland snapped his fingers in front of her face. ‘Come back. You have gone away.’

  She refocused. Looked at his hand in front of her face, the stumpy little finger like a blob of dough. Gave her the rittles down her spine.

  ‘That is your problem,’ Max Roland was saying, ‘you go away into your head too much for a young lady. I think you fancy Mr Bishop.’

  Tami dropped her mouth. ‘Huh?’

  ‘I can see it.’

  ‘That’s your fantasy.’ She drained her wine, stood up. ‘Time to go.’

  ‘But no opportunity for a little, what do you call it, patta patta?’

  Tami slapped his cheek. Not hard but the crack sharp enough to make some people stare.

  Max Roland rubbed his face. ‘Girls are so beautiful when they are angry.’

  ‘All men say that,’ said Tami.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Max Roland, grinning. ‘We have to wait for the bill.’

  54

  ‘Oosthuizen’s coming here?’ said Pylon.

  Mace said, ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘When?’ Pylon with the fish and chips parcel open on his lap picked out two chips from the heap, stuffed them into his mouth.

  ‘Said he was leaving straight away.’ Mace at the table also eating from the packet.

  ‘And we’ve downloaded what?’

  ‘Fifty-five per cent.’ Mace leant over his fish and chips to peer at the screen. ‘Fifty-six per cent. Gives the time left as forty minutes.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Pylon.

  ‘That’s what I said. When he phoned.’ Mace peeled the batter off his fish, lifted a piece into his mouth.

  ‘Will take him about that to get here.’

  ‘Maybe less this time of evening. Not so much traffic. Forty-seven per cent now. How about that?’

  They ate in silence. On the TV a soapie with black diamond types in fast cars, at cocktail parties, in their granite-topped kitchens with all the electronic gewgaws. The diamond types cheating on their partners, everyone making a thing about protected sex.

  ‘I hate that,’ said Pylon. ‘Aspirational bullshit. You wanna hear Treasure on it.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Mace. He finished his fish and chips, balled up the paper. ‘Not bad. Just too much batter.’

  ‘Batter’s the best part,’ said Pylon, waved a greasy finger at the laptop. ‘What’re we at?’

  Mace took a look. ‘Going some. Sixty-six per cent.’

  ‘At home,’ said Pylon, ‘I’ve gotta put aside the batter or Treasure strips her bearings about cholesterol.’

  ‘Same with Oumou.’ Mace stopped there, thinking, was the same with Oumou. The absence of Oumou a sudden pain in his chest. He sighed.

  Pylon said, ‘You okay?’

  Mace stood up. ‘Yeah. Still catches me on the turn that stuff.’ He held his hand out for Pylon’s scrunched-up debris. ‘Shrinks call it ambush grief.’

  Pylon grimaced. ‘Shrinks’ve got pop raps for everything. What time’s left on the download?’

  ‘Thirty minutes. Twenty-nine minutes.’

  ‘And we’ve got how long before Mr Chihuahua pitches?’

  Mace headed for the kitchen to dump the remains. ‘About twenty minutes. Twenty-five if we’re lucky.’

  ‘Luck’s not a factor.’ Pylon joined him in the kitchen to wash his hands. ‘This’s not gonna work out. We’d better think of something.’

  ‘Like what? Head him off at the pass?’

  Pylon forced a laugh. ‘Be serious.’ He wandered back into the lounge, Mace joining him. The two of them watching the download, the minutes dragging by. Eighty-five per cent. Eighty-six per cent. Eighty-seven per cent.. ‘Maybe phone him, tell him we’ll bring it to his house. Save him the trouble of coming all this way.’

  ‘Not a bad idea.’ Mace put through the call. ‘Been thinking,’ he said when Oosthuizen answered, ‘we could drive the laptop through to you. Be safer that way.’

  ‘Nice thought,’ said Oosthuizen. ‘Too late though. I’m almost there. Fifteen minutes it’ll be off your hands.’

  Mace disconnected. Said, ‘He reckons fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Eighty-eight per cent. Sixteen minutes.’

  ‘Bugger it,’ said Mace.

  Eighty-nine. Ninety.

  Mace said, ‘I’m gonna phone him again. Tell him we can’t wait, we’ll meet him at that shopping centre other side of Ou Kaapse Weg.’ He dialled Oosthuizen. The call going to voicemail. ‘Shit,’ said Mace. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

  ‘There’s a dead spot on the mountain,’ said Pylon. ‘Leave a message. Tell him we’re on our way.’

  Mace glanced at the download. Ninety-one per cent. He phoned again. ‘We’re on our way,’ he said when the voicemail buzzed, ‘meet you outside Jakes at Pollsmoor.’

  Ninety-two per cent.

  ‘You think he’ll turn round when he gets it?’

  Mace shrugged. ‘Might at least make him stop to phone us.’

  They stood over the laptop watching the bar edge slowly across the graphic. Ten minutes. Five minutes. Ninety-four per cent. Mace’s cellphone rang: Oosthuizen.

  ‘You’re on your way are you? I don’t think so. That’s your problem Bishop, you’re sloppy, you don’t keep strict time. I can hear you’re not on the road.’

  Ninety-six per cent.

  ‘Fact is I can see your car, that low-rent station wagon you drive. Not the sort of car a security man should be seen in. Want some advice, Bishop, get yourself a Hummer. A serious car. I’m parking next to it.’

  An Oosthuizen silence. Into it Mace said, ‘Buzz when you get to the gate.’ He disconnected. Connected to Tami. To Pylon he said, ‘How long d’you think we can keep him waiting?’

  Pylon kept his eyes on the loading bar. ‘Long enough, probably.’

  When Tami came on Mace said, ‘We’re done shortly. Take the night off.’

  ‘Such kindness,’ said Tami.

  ‘And tomorrow.’

  Mace heard Tami suck in her breath, say, ‘Oh wow, a whole day free.’

  55

  Jakob dozed, his head rolling off the headrest, jerking back. Kalle listened to the low chatter on the radio. Seemed pensioners had been scammed out of their life’s savings. Tales of desperation and tears. Stories Kalle had heard everywhere he’d been,
which was most corners of the world. You wanted to see a pirate these days you looked for a guy in a flashy car with a high-end lifestyle. A finance man. A type not far behind Vasa Babic.

  A Hummer pulled in beside Mace Bishop’s car. In a parking lot of empty places, stops beside Mace Bishop’s car? Lone man on the phone backlit against the row of lights. Kalle shifted in his seat for a better view. Could see a small dog at the passenger window. Scrawny dog with bulging eyes wearing a tartan jacket. Its snout trailing a mucus smear across the glass.

  The man in the Hummer closed his phone, brought up a pistol. Released the clip, checked it, slid it back into the grip.

  Kalle nudged Jakob.

  Jakob spluttering, rubbing a hand over the dribble at his lips. ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘Over there,’ said Kalle. ‘The man in the Hummer.’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘He has a gun.’

  ‘And a dog.’

  The man getting out of the Hummer with the dog under his arm, no pistol in sight.

  ‘The gun is in a shoulder holster.’

  ‘This is South Africa,’ said Jakob. ‘Everybody has a gun.’

  They watched the man walk towards the block of flats.

  ‘He is a visitor,’ said Jakob, relaxing back into the seat. ‘If he was worried he would be looking around. Perhaps he has come to see a girlfriend.’

  The man pressed a number on the security keypad at the gate to the flats. Gazed up at the rows of lighted windows, the kitchens and bathrooms of the ordinary citizenry. Walked a few paces off, came back to the keypad.

  ‘He is getting no reply,’ said Kalle.

  The man jiggled at the handle to the gate. Buzzed again. Dug a cellphone from his jacket pocket.

  ‘Maybe the girlfriend has another boyfriend,’ said Jakob.

  ‘No,’ said Kalle. They watched him walk to the flat that Mace and Pylon had entered. ‘Who is this person?’

  Five minutes later the men watched the man with the small dog leave the flat, nobody seeing him off. Now he carried a laptop.

  ‘Where are our friends?’ said Kalle.

  Jakob yawned. ‘If they are colleagues why would they stand at the door to wave goodbye?’

  ‘If they are colleagues why does he go in with a gun?’

  Jakob stifled a second yawn. ‘We are colleagues, we both have guns.’

  ‘Still it is strange.’

  The two exchanged a glance. Jakob snorted, tapped his head. ‘You are being crazy. He didn’t shoot them.’

  ‘In this place anything is possible.’

  They watched the man come through the gate, carefully closing it behind him. He paused in the shadows beyond the entrance light, scanning the parking lot.

  ‘You see,’ said Kalle, ‘this time he is more nervous.’

  The man hurried to his car.

  ‘This is not a relaxed man.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Jakob. ‘Maybe the flat is full of dead bodies but I do not believe it. Vasa Babic cannot be killed so easily.’

  They watched the man drive away in his Hummer, the dog in the tartan jacket barking soundlessly.

  ‘Now what to do?’ said Jakob.

  ‘We wait and see.’

  ‘And if nothing happens?’

  ‘Then we have a small problem,’ said Kalle. He offered Jakob a cigarillo. ‘A small problem but nothing that cannot be solved in some way.’ The two men lit up.

  They smoked in silence. Watched people come out of the mall, hurry through the darkness to their cars. No one so much as glancing at the men in the Benz, dots of fire glowing at their mouths.

  ‘Must be a movie has finished,’ said Kalle. ‘Perhaps that is where Vasa was? He likes movies.’

  ‘When he is in them.’

  After a few minutes, the dribble of people stopped. No Vasa Babic.

  ‘Verdamnt,’ said Jakob, stamping his feet to get the circulation going, ‘this waiting waiting waiting is crazy.’

  ‘Better than sitting in our winter.’

  ‘Cold is cold.’

  ‘Snow is worse.’

  ‘Ja, okay. But this is Africa. The hot continent.’

  ‘Look.’ Kalle pointed at the block of flats. ‘Our friends.’

  ‘So they are not shot dead.’

  There was Mace and Pylon locking the door of the secure flat, heading along the corridor to the stairs.

  ‘And now?’ said Jakob.

  Kalle stubbed out his cigarillo. ‘We sit still I think.’ The men watching Mace and Pylon come out of the shadows at the gate to the flat complex, walk quickly across the car park to the Opel station wagon. ‘They are in a rush it seems.’ The car’s tail lights glowed red, the car pulling off away from them.

  Jakob powered on the laptop. ‘Let us see which route they take.’

  ‘Good, good,’ said Kalle, his eyes following the red dot on the screen as it headed towards the intersection out of the shopping precinct. At the crossroads, the dot turned left.

  ‘Over the mountain again,’ said Jakob. ‘Back to the big city.’ They watched the dot sliding along the Silvermine pass until it faded. When they looked up there was Vasa Babic and a young woman coming out of the mall. Could have been a tourist and his holiday catch.

  ‘Here we go,’ said Jakob, opening his door with a soft click, pulling a H&K from a shoulder holster.

  Kalle started the Merc. At the catch of the ignition Vasa Babic glanced to his left where the car was edging towards him, grabbing Tami in a tight hug.

  Tami shouting, ‘Get off me, Max.’

  Jakob saying in German, ‘Hullo, Vasa, it is time for another little ride’ – as Kalle stopped the car next to the struggling couple, popped the boot. ‘Let the girl go before she is hurt.’

  Vasa laughing. ‘The old bounty hunters. Go home old fools. It is pension day soon.’

  Both Kalle and Jakob circled the couple, their guns pointing down. The car park deserted. This time of night not even a car guard working his patch.

  Tami struggled to free herself. ‘Let me go. Let me go’ – screamed till her breath ran out.

  ‘Do that again,’ said Vasa Babic, holding her tight within the clamp of his arms. ‘Shout for help.’

  ‘Another scream in the night,’ said Jakob. ‘Let her run away, Vasa. There is no need for all this girlie noise.’

  Tami heaved for breath, squirmed against Vasa until her arms were free. Gasping, panting.

  ‘This does not have to be difficult,’ said Jakob. ‘You do not need the girl.’

  Tami brought out her gun, swinging it from Jakob to Kalle.

  ‘Ah,’ said Jakob. ‘That is very brave, miss, but it is unnecessary.’

  ‘So, she is your protection, Vasa,’ said Kalle. ‘The mass murderer is hiding behind a black girl. This is very amusing.’

  ‘Wrong man,’ gasped Tami. ‘This’s Max Roland.’

  ‘Same thing,’ said Jakob. ‘Throw away the gun, miss.’ Jakob holding up an identity badge. ‘We are officers of the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague. Officers of the court. The man with you is a killer.’ Jakob starting forward.

  ‘Stay away. Back.’ Tami still heaving for breath.

  ‘We have talked to your boss, miss. He said he would tell you.’

  ‘What? What would he tell me?’

  ‘That we will look after Vasa Babic now.’

  ‘You can release him to us. My colleague has said, we are court officers.’

  Vasa Babic and Tami backing away from the men and the car.

  ‘This man has done serious killing, miss. In Kosovo. Innocent women and children. Raping young girls. We have films of him.’

  ‘This man is Max Roland,’ said Tami. ‘He’s a scientist.’

  Jakob held up his hand, stop. ‘Wait, miss. One moment.’ He took a cellphone from his pocket, waved it at her. ‘You see this?’

  ‘It’s a cell,’ said Tami. ‘I know what a cellphone looks like. Get real.’ Tami fighting for space in Vasa Babic’s clasp. ‘Give me
some air, Max, I can’t breathe.’ Vasa Babic holding her like a shield.

  ‘Miss,’ said Kalle, ‘be careful, he is dangerous. Throw away the gun.’

  ‘Miss,’ said Jakob, ‘I will phone your Mr Mace Bishop, he will tell you what to do, okay? You will listen to him?’ He looked at Tami. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good, miss. I will put the handy on speakerphone. Listen now.’ Jakob glancing down at his cellphone to key the connection.

  Behind the couple, Kalle with a straight shot into Vasa Babic’s back if he wanted Vasa Babic dead. Which he didn’t. The deal being: you kill him, that’s tough luck on you. This is not the Wild West, wanted dead or alive. No Vasa, no fee. Kalle seeing Vasa Babic drop to the ground pulling the girl down with him, wrenching the gun from her grip. Hearing the girl shout. Jakob shout. Vasa lying beneath the girl twisting to put the gun on him, Kalle. Squeezing off a shot, the bullet zinging into the darkness.

  Kalle stumbled, brought his gun up. Fired. Once. Again.

  Jakob came in, kicked Vasa’s head, kicked his gun hand, the gun skittering across the tarmac. Dragged the girl aside. Kalle putting the boot into Vasa’s stomach, the two men hefting him to his feet.

  ‘The girl?’

  ‘Leave the girl.’

  The German and the Swede hauling Vasa Babic into the boot of the Merc, slamming closed the lid.

  ‘Let’s go, let’s go.’

  Doors opening in the block of flats, people standing there in their pyjamas.

  ‘The girl.’ Jakob looking back at her lying on the tar.

  ‘Forget the girl.’ Kalle slipped the gear into drive, pulled away fast in a slither of small stones. ‘Phone to get us clearance. We can still make the plane tonight.’

  Jakob dialled the Hague. From the boot they could hear Vasa Babic shouting and thumping.

  ‘We should have put him in handcuffs,’ said Kalle. ‘What a nuisance.’

  56

  Mace lay on his bed staring at the ceiling, aching with loss. His left hand smoothed the emptiness beneath the duvet as if he could conjure back the life, the body, the warmth. Oumou. He turned on his side to face her pillow. Could imagine her hair on the white linen, her slender neck, her Arabian features. Could almost hear her breathing. Almost an accusation. He slammed his fist into the mattress. Tomorrow night. Flopped back to stare at the ceiling. Tomorrow night, he’d nail Sheemina February.