Black Heart

by Mike Nicol

  Mace shot a robot, heard Gonsalves say ‘Drive carefully, Mr Bish’ – before he keyed him off. Called Pylon.

  Pylon coming on with an apology, ‘Sorry I missed you when you picked up Pumla: changing a nappy.’

  ‘Very domestic,’ said Mace, ‘here’s what’s happening in the big wide world’ – laid down the gist of it.

  Pylon said, ‘Bloody fools. Lucky they sacked us.’

  ‘My thoughts on the nail. Gonsalves thinks we can spin this. Of more concern though is Tami. Ring her, won’t you.’

  He heard Pylon groan. ‘That chick’ll just give me lip.’

  ‘She’ll love it,’ said Mace. ‘She’ll feel appreciated.’

  Mace took the Black River Parkway, dropped onto Settlers Way, came off at Jan Smuts Drive, thinking, this was probably the route the Dinsmors would’ve been taken. Their last view of Cape Town. Not the best. He turned down the track towards the cooling towers, pulled up behind the cop posse. Gonsalves sauntered towards him, chewing.

  Mace got out of the car, hunched into an anorak.

  ‘At least it’s not raining,’ said the captain, holding out a hand in greeting.

  ‘Can’t shake,’ said Mace. ‘Burnt my fingers.’

  Gonsalves looked at the red digits Mace showed him. ‘Nasty. Seems you’re making a habit of it, burning your fingers.’

  Mace zipped up. ‘Very funny. Can I check this out?’

  Gonsalves didn’t move. ‘And the great Pylon Buso? Where’s he?’ Tobacco juice glistening on his lips.

  ‘Changing nappies,’ said Mace.

  ‘Even with a crook arm. Whatta daddy.’ Gonsalves looked at Mace’s car. ‘Thought your number was a red Noddy car? Every time I see you you’re driving this one. Changes your image. Kinda downgrades you. Not so zooty, I’d say. So where’s it, the Spider?’

  ‘Wouldn’t start this morning,’ said Mace. ‘Got a feeling it’s had it.’

  Gonsalves nodded at the knot of police standing around the bodies. ‘Like the Dinsmors.’ He spat out a plug of tobacco. ‘You wanna take a look?’

  ‘That’s why I’m here,’ said Mace.

  ‘We’re still waiting for the paparazzo to pitch, take his pictures. Wisdom of the sages is that they were probably zapped early like eight, nine o’clock. Doc’s over there you wanna talk to her.’

  ‘What for?’ said Mace.

  Gonsalves shrugged. ‘Just being helpful.’ He broke out a cigarette, started stripping off the paper. Waved Mace towards the bodies. ‘Go on. Take a dekko.’

  Mace did. Saw Veronica Dinsmor lying on her side, her face pressed into the weeds. Neat bullet hole in the back of her head. From the angle he couldn’t see the exit, had to be near her mouth. He grimaced. Metre off Silas Dinsmor on his stomach. Same sort of bullet hole in the back of his head. Both sans shoes, jackets, coats, jewellery. He turned to Gonsalves. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘You mean the way they’re lying about?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Found first by a bergie,’ said Gonsalves. ‘In the van over there.’ Mace looked over at a patrol van with a man in the cage staring at them, talking. ‘Patrol found him wandering along the highway with a pair of shoes in his hand, wearing a sort of furry coat. Had a chat with him. He brought them here.’

  ‘Bergies’ve taken to robbing corpses?’

  ‘For years now.’

  ‘What’s he saying?’

  ‘Lotsa stuff. Doesn’t make any sense.’ Gonsalves came up close to Mace. ‘So what d’you think? About this?’

  ‘Not the foggiest,’ said Mace. ‘Dunno what these two’re about in the first place. Who they’re mixed up with. You ask me you’ve got a long slog here. Professional hit, it looks like.’

  ‘My reckoning as well.’

  ‘Chances are you’ll go so far and it’ll go dead.’

  ‘Ummmm,’ said Gonsalves. ‘You think so?’ He moulded the tobacco into a pellet, flicked it away. ‘Too early for another one. Still, all the same, hey, I’m gonna have to get a statement from you.’

  ‘No problemo.’

  Mace checked the time. ‘I’ve got some contact numbers for them, back in the States. You can notify the next of kin.’

  ‘Obliged,’ said Gonsalves. ‘One thing: they tell you anything about the kidnapping?’

  ‘Nothing they didn’t tell you.’

  ‘Weird, hey.’

  ‘No kidding.’ Mace watched a car turn in at the track come slowly across the vacant ground towards them. It stopped. A woman got out the passenger side: Rachel Pringle. ‘You tell her?’ he asked the captain.

  Gonsalves shook his head. ‘No mileage for me. Don’t know who she’s paying for the tip-offs.’

  ‘Bloody wonderful.’

  She came up and Gonsalves stopped her. ‘Crime scene beyond here, lady.’

  ‘Come’n Captain,’ she said, ‘this isn’t even your case.’

  Mace watched Gonsalves giving her the heavy frown. ‘Doesn’t matter whose case it is, you’re staying right here,’ he said. ‘Nobody’s gonna be squeezing my balls because of you.’

  Rachel Pringle glanced at Mace. ‘You can tell me,’ she said. ‘It’s the Americans?’

  Mace folded his arms across his chest. More than the cold and damp getting at him.

  ‘Has to be. That’s why you’re here. That’s the information I have.’

  ‘You want to know something?’ said Mace.

  She cocked her head. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Two things. Number one: we’re going to sue about that foreign exchange crap you wrote. Number two: last night, the Dinsmors cancelled their contract with us.’

  ‘You confirming this is the Dinsmors?’

  ‘Not confirming anything, Miss Pringle. Just telling you a point of fact.’

  Rachel Pringle brought out her notebook. Flipped pages. ‘Here’re some points of fact. The Dinsmors’re not at their hotel. They went out to eat last night. Except they didn’t because Mrs Dinsmor was ill at the restaurant. They called a taxi but the hotel says they never returned. Two last points of fact: they were booked on a London flight. They never checked in.’

  Gonsalves cleared his throat.

  ‘So I’m asking, Captain, Mr Bishop, is this the Dinsmors?’

  Mace said, ‘No comment.’

  Gonsalves said, ‘You gotta use the channels.’

  Rachel Pringle smiled at the two men, Mace thinking sometimes when a real bitch smiled there was nothing lovely in it. ‘I’ll take that as a positive.’ She closed her notebook. ‘Thank you, Captain.’ To Mace said, ‘It might interest you, we’re running more on Vasa Babic.’

  Mace kept his stare on her until she glanced away. ‘So?’

  ‘So, you’re guarding him.’

  Her eyes back on him again, that smile.

  ‘What’s your notebook say?’

  ‘Just that.’

  ‘Then you better make some phone calls.’

  Mace loved the uncertainty that flickered on Rachel Pringle’s face.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘You’re the ace reporter,’ said Mace. ‘Work it out.’ He started towards his car, Gonsalves walking off with him.

  ‘I still want my camera back,’ Rachel Pringle shouted.

  Mace muttered, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Said to Gonsalves, ‘She knows a lot.’

  ‘More’n me,’ said the captain. Gonsalves tipping him the nod as Mace was about to drive off. ‘Was this worth it or what?’

  Mace looked at him, couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  ‘A hundred bucks’ll do it.’

  ‘Jesus, Gonz,’ said Mace, ‘what happened to favours?’

  Gonz put his meaty paws on the car door. Leaned down. Gave Mace a blast of tobacco mouth. ‘Called intellectual property now, Mr Bish. Carries a monetary value. Ask any lawyer.’

  Mace got back on the road to Mart Velaze’s wondering what shit the Dinsmors had been dealing in. Rather not what shit, what shits? Casinos were big money. In their murky twili
ghts lurked serious players. They rubbed their hands when the ponytails came to town. The lucky ones got ripped off. The others got a third eye. The eye of eternity, Mace’d heard it called. The trouble with clients, you never knew what you were looking after. You never knew what world you were stepping into. Reminded him of the other wanker, Oosthuizen. And Tami.

  Mace got hold of Pylon, filled him in on the Dinsmors.

  Pylon’s comment: ‘Save me Jesus.’

  Mace asked about Tami. Pylon told him she wasn’t answering. He’d been trying every five minutes, left two messages. The last time got an inbox full response.

  Mace said, ‘Not good.’

  Pylon said, ‘Cool it. You gave her the day off. The girl doesn’t want to be bothered.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’ Mace slowing into a tailback along the Parkway. ‘When I’m done with Velaze, I’ll drop by her place.’

  ‘Because you’re concerned?’ said Pylon, Mace picking up the bite in his voice.

  ‘Why else?’

  ‘Just wondering? Nothing going on I don’t know about? Like her sleepover at your house the other night. Bit kinda close isn’t it? For a man in mourning.’

  Mace stared at the car in front, an old surfer’s combi stuck with stickers, brand decals, a whole way of life. Surfers do it standing up. Just dropping in. Born to surf. Get stoked. Life’s a beach – except the beach was scratched out replaced with bitch. Next to that a painted addition, And then you die.

  Right on, dude.

  Pylon rabbiting away about the process of grief. Some passage of time bullshit. Mace not tuned in until he caught the name Sheemina February.

  ‘What’s that? What’s with her?’

  ‘That’s what I want to know. Sort of thing you gotta get out of your system. Do it or don’t. Come to a decision, bru, one way or the other. Know what I’m saying?’

  ‘I told you,’ said Mace, hearing the scream of baby Hintsa at full belt in the background. Over that, Treasure shouting for Pylon.

  Pylon said, ‘Duty calls.’

  Mace trying to get in another reminder about Tami but Pylon’d disconnected. He tried her himself. Got the inbox full advice.

  Mace sat in traffic a spit short of forty-five minutes crawling through the Koeberg interchange.

  ‘I look inside myself hmmm hmmm hmmm …’

  Hit the redial on Tami five times. No answer. Going into Rugby the traffic eased, Mace put foot when he could, ducking and diving lane to lane.

  ‘It’s not easy hmmm hmmm hmmm your whole world is black.’

  He swung a left at Boundary to Marine Drive, all the twinkly allure of the Drive at night replaced by a ranch-house suburb, seemingly deserted. The lagoon black and cold.

  At the Unitas flats Mace left the car in the parking lot, took a lift to the seventh floor. Wondered how he was going to handle this? Smack Mart in the jaw? Hang his balls over his tonsils? Or find out why he’d lied about SARS? He could hear him, ‘Not me, buta. Nothing to do with me. Go speak to Revenue.’ Mace reckoned to get in fast when Mart opened the door would be best. Play the rest of it by ear.

  He watched the numbers lighting up on the panel. Five, six, seven. The lift stank of antiseptic that he remembered from the previous evening. A camera watching him all the way up. Somewhere on the system, Mace reckoned, there’d be footage of an arsehole puking his guts. Small mercy, though, at least the cleaning staff were still doing their job.

  On the seventh floor Mace clipped down the corridor to the flat at the end. Knocked.

  Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.

  Knocked again.

  A door opened two doors down. An old man in a tracksuit and slippers came out, taser in his hand. Said, ‘No one there.’

  ‘There was last night.’

  ‘Hasn’t been anyone there since the woman jumped out the window.’

  Mace went over to the old man, got a whiff of burnt toast. The old man giving the taser a blast.

  ‘Good those,’ said Mace.

  ‘Dunno,’ said the old man. ‘You can try it out, if you come too close.’

  Mace held up his hands. ‘The guy that lives there, what time’s he get back from work?’

  ‘No one lives there.’

  Mace looked down at the old man’s slippers, the old man’s big toes popped through the tartan material. ‘I was here,’ he said. ‘last night, nine, nine-thirty, to drop something off.’

  The old man sucked at his dental plate. ‘I’m telling you. The flat’s empty. For four months.’

  ‘I was here.’

  ‘You got the wrong floor.’

  ‘The seventh, right. This’s the seventh?’

  The old man sucked his teeth. ‘That’s what it says on the number. Seven one o.’ He squinted at Mace. ‘You go inside?’

  ‘Not inside, no. We stood at the door. I could see inside: there was furniture. A television.’

  ‘All her furniture’s there. Like they think she’s gonna come back. I went inside, after she jumped. Place was neat as if she’d just cleaned it. Then she jumped. Nice girl. Always smiling and friendly. About twenty-five probably, with a good job in town, everything hunky-dory. Then she jumped.’

  ‘You sure there’s been no one living here?’

  He gave Mace the squint again. One eye, Mace noticed, dulled with cataract. ‘I’m telling you. The flat’s empty. For the last four months. Her parents were here, afterwards. They said they were gonna sell the flat. But they haven’t. Won’t let anyone come near it. People with more money than sense, you ask me.’

  ‘You got their phone number?’

  The old man had it off by heart.

  Back in his car Mace dialled. When the call was picked up gave a cock-’n-bull story about wanting to trace their tenant. Was told the flat wasn’t rented out. There was no tenant.

  Mace thought, nice one, buta.

  ‘I see my red door hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.’

  Painted black.

  ‘Mart bloody Velaze,’ Mace said to Pylon, ‘pulled a blind.’

  Mace still in the car park outside the Unitas flats gazing up at the seventh floor window on the end. A long way to fall.

  ‘She’s in the Constantiaberg,’ said Pylon. ‘ICU.’

  Mace saying, ‘I should’ve bloody known he’d do that.’

  Pylon saying, ‘Mace. Mace. You’re not hearing me. It’s Tami.’

  Mace shut up. Ice in his veins.

  ‘She was shot.’

  Mace said, ‘Fuck.’

  He spent the next three hours at the hospital, waiting, thinking, eventually cadging a few minutes to see her. Tami strapped up to machines and bags, unconscious. He held her hand. Stared down at her, not a sign on her face she wasn’t just sleeping. Said to her, ‘This shouldn’t have happened. Stay with us, okay. Stay with us.’

  A nurse moved him out, Mace going reluctantly. He collared a doctor in the corridor, asked what were Tami’s chances? The doctor gave him the up and down, said, ‘Who’re you?’ ‘A friend,’ Mace replied. Adding, ‘A colleague.’ Fifty-fifty, he was told, the doctor’s attitude suggesting he thought Mace was responsible for Tami’s situation.

  Mace thought he was responsible. He bought a coffee in the downstairs cafe, sat in a corner thinking of what Oosthuizen had said. ‘Snatched out of your hands, Mr Bishop.’ Wasn’t too difficult to work out what went down. The Krauts must’ve shot her. Mace took a mouthful of the coffee, spat it back into the cup. Only thing for it, find the Krauts.

  Mace went looking at the airport. Got Pylon to call up contacts to open doors until a couple of hours later he was standing in Max Roland’s cell. Only Max Roland wasn’t there any longer. ‘D’you believe me now?’ said the Interpol man. ‘He was taken away.’

  ‘By who? Two men, a German and a Swede?’

  ‘No. Not them. They were cross. Woo yai yai, they were cross. Shouting. Making telephone calls. But what can they do? Nothing. This is South Africa.’

  ‘So who took him?’

  ‘Dunno. State securi
ty. NIA. CIA. Big men in black. The sort of people you don’t bugger around with.’

  ‘And the European guys?’

  ‘They left.’

  ‘Say where they were going?’

  ‘Probably to get drunk, I should think.’

  Mace’s phone rang. Christa.

  ‘Where are you, Papa?’ she said. ‘You should’ve been here like an hour ago. To fetch us.’

  59

  Sheemina February pulled her X5 into the Seafarer car park and stopped next to the Hummer. She nodded at Magnus Oosthuizen taking a call in the Hummer, a Chihuahua dancing on his lap. He waved at her, rang off. Change of plan, Mart Velaze had said. Magnus, he’d said. She’d raised her eyebrows. Orders, he’d said, from above. Now she watched Oosthuizen shove the dog aside, come over to her car. No loss really.

  ‘Get in, Magnus,’ she said. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘You haven’t heard? I’m surprised.’

  ‘I’m flattered you think I have such good contacts.’

  Oosthuizen settled himself. ‘Nice view’ – gazing at the container ships in the roadstead. The swell breaking around the wreck.

  ‘We’re not here for the view, Magnus.’

  ‘Have you brought champagne?’

  She inclined her head, said, ‘Aah. A celebration.’ Saw Oosthuizen’s hands were trembling. ‘It went alright then?’

  ‘I would say so. Yes, I would say so.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  For twenty minutes Sheemina February listened to Magnus Oosthuizen going on and on about how he’d been applauded, about how the defence committee were blown away by his system, about how it was a done deal just waiting for the signatures. His weapons system, the project he’d ploughed all his capital into, was coming good. After all these years. This was a major triumph. A proud victory against the might of the European arms industry.

  She could see the dog in the Hummer smudging its nose against the glass, yapping incessantly.

  ‘Afterwards,’ Oosthuizen was saying, ‘after my presentation, they couldn’t praise me enough. They all wanted to shake my hand. They said I’d pulled off a major coup for the country. I had performed a service. Me! The man they once hated.’