by Mike Nicol
PRAISE FOR MIKE NICOL
‘Crime fiction flourishes in South Africa, and Mike Nicol is a king protea. Payback reminds you of the best American genre fiction: peculiar perverted characters like those favoured by an Elmore Leonard, the always dark, sometimes pitch-black humour of a Carl Hiaassen at his best, and the James Ellroy-like depiction of a Cape Town underworld that is true and believable. But Nicol’s voice and style is new, fresh, unique, truly Cape Town and South Africa. His dialogue snaps like pistol shots and the story is as fast as a Cape hare with unexpected twists and turns, so that it’s not until you’re finished that you consider the excellent writing.’
Deon Meyer
‘The dialogue is brilliant, the writing too, and Payback has perhaps the coolest ending one is likely to find anywhere’
Mail and Guardian
‘Watch out Elmore Leonard, here comes Mike Nicol, who scores 10/10 for this gritty, fast-paced thriller about revenge … Payback has it all: murder, sex, drugs, crooked cops, greedy developers and revenge’
Southern Mail
‘Exceptional … Nicol is a talent deserving a wide international recognition’
The Weekender
‘Payback is a great read, pacy, cool, hard-bitten and hard-hitting. The laconic, street-smart style is so convincingly laid-back that it may blind readers to the artistry of the writing’
Sunday Independent
‘In the top rung of South African fiction writers … Nicol’s clipped dialogue and sparse, high-impact prose recalls that of revered American recluse Cormac McCarthy’
The Citizen
payback
mike nicol
Table of Contents
PRAISE FOR MIKE NICOL
Title Page
GOING DOWN
PROLOGUE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
THE DEAL
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
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34
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36
37
38
39
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43
PAYBACK
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
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16
Copyright
GOING DOWN
‘… in this city of bombs and pain …’
- Anonymous victim
PROLOGUE
They sat for two hours waiting. Three men in an old white Toyota looking out at the sodden street. No one to notice them. No one about in this dark suburb above the city. In some of the houses lighted rooms in the upper storeys. The houses behind high walls. Below they could see the city’s tall buildings drifting through the trees.
‘This’s up to shit,’ said the one in the back, Mikey. He had a 9mm in his hand, racked the slide, released it. Racked it again.
‘Doesn’t matter what you think.’ Abdul Abdul turned round to grin at him. ‘You got no staying power, my bru.’ He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Patience, hey.’
Mikey grunted. He looked up at the mountain rising black above them. Threatening as the sky. He had his window open despite the rain gusts, the cold that numbed his feet seeped into his marrow. He had his window open because Abdul and Val smoked from cigarette to cigarette.
‘It’s bloody freezing,’ he said, putting the gun down to blow on his hands.
‘Close the window.’
‘Then stop smoking.’
‘Isn’t gonna happen,’ said Abdul.
Between cigarettes Abdul brought out a joint. Mikey toted on that.
‘You smoke dagga but you don’t smoke cigarettes.’ Abdul said to Val. ‘What a stupid. Mikey the moegoe.’
Mikey heard the car approaching, said, ‘Shit, man, watch it. He’ll see the glow.’ The car came past them, an Alfa Spider, swerved in at the open gates thirty metres down the street.
‘That’s him,’ said Mikey. ‘Mace Bishop.’
Abdul turned down Abdullah Ibrahim’s ‘Mannenberg’ that’d been on a loop in the tape system.
‘And now?’ said Mikey.
‘We’re gonna wait,’ said Abdul.
‘Jus wait?’
‘Jus wait.’
‘Maybe he’s not gonna go out again.’
‘He will.’
Mikey sat back, sighed. ‘For how long, hey, we havta wait?’
‘Long as it takes.’ Abdul wound up the song.
‘Enough,’ said Mikey. ‘We been listening to that for two hours. Three if you take it from when we left.’
‘So,’ said Abdul. ‘It’s a good song. Cape Town’s theme tune.’
Mikey took a last pull at the roach. Squashed it underfoot. He went back to playing with his gun. Rack release. Rack release.
They listened to ‘Mannenberg’ for another forty-five minutes until Mace Bishop drove out fast in the Alfa.
‘Here we go,’ said Mikey, hunching forward.
‘Not yet,’ said Abdul.
They waited five more minutes. All quiet. Mikey sitting hunched forward all that time.
Abdul started the car. ‘You get the pill down the woman’s throat, Mikey. That’s what you gotta do.’
‘Then I can bang her.’
‘Thought your thing was kiddies rather,’ said Val.
‘Kiddies. Grown-ups. I got a bone needs picking with her.’
‘Ag sies, man.’ Val opened his door, spat onto the gravel.
‘Remember,’ said Abdul, ‘we’re here for the girl.’ He turned, cuffed Mikey lightly on the cheek. ‘No shit, right. No bones. What we want’s the girl.’ He reversed the Toyota into the driveway.
The men pulled on balaclavas. Mikey had his pistol in his hand, Val and Abdul slid their guns into their belts. Abdul fancying American style with the barrel down the crack of his arse. They stood looking at the Victorian house. No burglar bars over the front windows. Same thing as leaving a door unlocked.
‘Those windows,’ said Abdul.
Mikey smashed a pane and they were in. Inside stank of wet clay and turps. Before he could say anything, Abdul put his hand over Mikey’s mouth. They listened, a television playing somewhere. Val pointed up. Abdul nodded.
They came out of the room into a hallway, facing a flight of stairs. Again Val pointed up.
Abdul drew his pistol, went up the stairs first, treading close to the banister. Still some of the boards groaned. Each time he stopped dead. Listened. No movement. Just the te
levision, bangs and sirens of a cop show. He waited on the landing for Mikey and Val.
They came up separately. Mikey the only one silent as a cat.
He grinned at Abdul and Val. Mouthed: ‘Good, hey.’
Abdul grimaced, pointed with his gun at the third door along the landing. The door slightly ajar. He gestured for Mikey to go in. ‘The woman,’ he whispered. ‘Get the pill into her.’
‘Relax,’ said Mikey. ‘Be cool like a schul.’ He shoved open the door, stepped into the room. ‘Hello, darlings.’
Mother and daughter lying on the bed. The woman with her eyes closed, the girl under the duvet, watching television. The woman opened her eyes, seemed to spring from the bed at the same time. Mikey had to crack her one with his pistol. She went down and he was on her. Had a good feel of her breasts in the tumble.
The girl screamed.
Abdul had her, hauled her free of the duvet. The kid’s PJ top hiked up.
‘Sshh, Christa,’ said Abdul, squeezing the wind out of her. ‘Bru,’ he said to Val, ‘light us a cigarette.’
Val did. Mikey was raising up the woman, his pistol hard against her neck. Blood trickled down from where he’d opened a cut on her forehead.
‘Oumou,’ said Abdul, ‘my friend’s got a pill we want you to take.’ He put the cigarette to his lips, pulled gently. Blew out the smoke from the corner of his mouth. ‘If yous don’t’ – he pushed back the girl’s pyjama sleeve to expose smooth skin – ‘I’m gonna put this out right here’ – brushed the hot tip of the cigarette across Christa’s arm.
1
1998
Mace Bishop, wearing sunglasses, said, ‘There are people I’m happy to offer my services to, Ducky. And those I take on because I owe.’ He owed Ducky Donald Hartnell for five RPGs, two dozen Chinese AKs, and an assortment of pistols, grenades, ammunition. A debt Ducky had let slide fifteen years.
Fifteen years back Ducky’s son Matthew was ten years old. When Ducky called in the favour, Mace had heard tell of Matthew as a stuttering dipshit cokehead running a nightclub that daddy set up.
‘I’d rather come to an arrangement,’ Mace told Ducky over breakfast at Café Paradiso up Kloof, among the young suits, male and female, execs one and all.
‘Sure you would,’ Ducky said. ‘But a payback I don’t need, Mace. I need someone like you. A ruthless cold bugger. To be a babysitter.’
‘That I can arrange, if you like. Just not me. Or Pylon.’
Ducky wiped egg from his chin. ‘How’s that black bastard these days?’
‘These days,’ said Mace. ‘In love.’
‘Never could keep his pecker in.’
Mace took his espresso in a swallow. ‘In love, Ducky. It’s not the same thing.’
‘You mean he’s not balling her?’
Mace shrugged. Ducky Donald Hartnell always had been a rude pig.
‘I hear you’ve got a neat thing going, you’n Pylon, playing muscle for the rich and famous.’
‘We’re doing alright.’
‘Complete Security. What sorta bloody name’s that? For two gun runners!’
‘Times change.’
‘You’re not kidding.’ Ducky Donald cut into his bacon. ‘Look, Mace, it’s a favour, okay? The boy’s got bouncers, Centurion Armed Response. He’s paying protection …’
‘To?’
‘Americans. It’s their corner of town.’
Mace watched him shovel a load of bacon, mushrooms and fried banana into his mouth, half-closing it but not enough so he couldn’t talk.
‘I told him, you’ve gotta understand how the city’s divided up. You pay who you must if you want to stay in business. Revenue takes their assessment, the gangs get their turf toll, and the strollers and the homeless need an allowance. So what we’re a heavily taxed society? We have sea and sun. Pay the rate, don’t overpay, I told him.’
He masticated for a moment.
‘That much he did, I’ll admit. I was proud of him. He’s gonna manage this, I thought. Next thing the fundamentals start blowing up bars, even that steak house, Planet Hollywood. I warned him, Matt, they’re going to come calling. Chill dad, he tells me, they’re not a scare. Attitude like that suggests to me the boy’s taking too much white, Mace. Know what I mean?’
Mace nodded. Matthew Hartnell’s pretentious little rave cave had a reputation as the place you could get anything. For a price. But anything.
‘All due respects,’ Mace said, ‘your son’d be safer wandering in a minefield.’
‘This much I’m aware of, china. What I’m doing here is keeping the boy’s mother happy in Hampshire. Reassuring her that all is well in our new land that we struggled so hard and so long to create. The land she so generously gave back to the natives by returning to the country of her forefathers. All the same, the last thing she wants is for her darling boy to get blown up. Lose a few digits like his dear old dad.’
‘Would be tragic.’
Ducky glanced up from mopping a crust of toast through the eggmush and brown sauce on his plate, but Mace kept po-faced until he went back to his trough. ‘What I want you to ensure is he doesn’t. Do me the favour, hey. So I can tell people Mace Bishop’s good for his word.’
Mace caught the threat but let it ride. Easier said than done admittedly. He picked up the empty espresso cup, put it down. Gazed out the window at the tower blocks below and the sea beyond them, brown haze turning the view murky. Most autumn days the city disappeared in the muck, only the mountain rising behind into a stark blue.
‘Your son’s a drug dealer,’ he said. ‘Here is an obstacle.’
‘Sure,’ Ducky said. ‘I’m working on it.’
‘Also, I have some sympathy with those trying to take out druglords and gangsters.’
‘Don’t we all. Meantime I need the protective power of my old pal Mace Bishop.’ Ducky wiped a serviette across his mouth, squinted at Mace. ‘Maybe I should mention two other things could help you in this.’
‘Like?’
Ducky paused for effect. ‘Like Cayman accounts. Like what happened at Techipa.’
Mace kept blank, Ducky leaning into his face. ‘I know, china, about both. Trust me, I wanna keep your secrets.’
Mace thinking, how in Christ’s name?
Ducky Donald saying, ‘So how about it? Boy’s got a meeting with those wonderful types in a few hours. Woman the name of Sheemina February.’ Ducky grinning. The sort of grin Mace believed a hyena might have running down a zebra foal. ‘Tell me you’ll be there.’
2
Matthew Hartnell had an office in a sad building on Harrington, one block up from the Castle. A quarter of town nothing much happened at any time, day or night. A lick away from a major tourist site but no frumps with cameras came wandering here even by accident. Vagrants and cardboard collectors staggered about the street, Angolans ran the parking lot. Mace’s little red Alfa Spider caused them some excitement. He left the top down, a holder of CDs in the glovebox, the Becker a shining invite to anyone with a screwdriver.
A car-guard sauntered over, smiling.
‘Hey, Cuito,’ said Mace, ‘you’ve moved your patch?’ The last time he’d seen him the Angolan was car-guarding at a shopping mall in the leafy suburbs. Had done Mace a favour by keeping an eye on a wealthy client.
Cuito gave a wide white smile. ‘Sometimes the local Xhosa do not like our hard work, Mr Mace. They make trouble. It is best to move away.’
‘Sorry to hear it.’
Cuito pointed at the Spider. ‘It’s safe,’ - taking the offered ten.
‘Obrigado,’ Mace told him.
The foyer of No 23 Harrington Street was cold and dark and stank of urine. The lift was boarded up, the stairs stripped of what lino might once have covered them. Mace went up to Matthew Hartnell’s business quarters on the first floor at the end of a corridor where every door had a security gate. Once there were probably frosted glass panes in the doors and people had their names scripted on in attractive flourishes. Obromowitz & Son
s, Jewellers. Jackman & Jackman, Shipping Chandlers. Now you didn’t want to know what went on behind the closed doors. Or why club-owner Matt regarded this as a good address. Mace knocked. Matthew opened.
‘Yo, the ar-arms dealer,’ Matthew greeted.
Mace pushed in past him. ‘Don’t give me uphill, Matt, okay, I’m doing your daddy a favour. And stay off the weed before you meet people.’
Which got Matthew pouty. ‘I d-d-don’t need you. I got my own g-guys. I’m looked after b-better than the president. I can ha-handle this.’
Mace thought, I, I, I, bullshit. Raking a glance down the thin youth in a beanie, baggy jeans and a bomber jacket that was vogue when Neil Young sang ‘Heart of Gold’.
‘Matt,’ he said, ‘Matt, we’re talking People Against Gangsters and Drugs. You’ve seen the pictures. They carry serious weaponry. How many bombs are we talking? How many dead? Fifteen? Twenty? I don’t know. These are the people coming to see you.’
Matthew tapped his cellphone against his front teeth. ‘I ca-can sort it.’
Mace took a look out the window at the side of a building an arm’s length away. Gave a cursory scan of the four plastic garden chairs, the second-hand desk and the grey-green filing cabinet that served as office furniture. Pulled a chair to the side of the desk and sat down.
‘Sure you can.’
Matthew took his place behind the desk.
‘How long do we have to wait?’
‘That’s the-them,’ Matthew said, the tread of the well-heeled echoing on the concrete stairs.
They came in: a woman first, then a fat man, followed by a goon who worked out so much his neck and head were a continuum. She was well-groomed: silk trouser suit, fingernails like drops of blood on her right hand, her left in a black glove, plum lipstick, eyes an ice shade of blue, a silk scarf over her hair that Mace felt was pure statement. She carried a leather briefcase, attorney-style, in the gloved hand.
Her name was Sheemina February, a senior partner in the law firm Fortune, Dadoo & Moosa, legal representatives for the anti-drug vigilantes. As Mace understood it, she’d called Matthew to suggest the meeting would be in his best interests.