Payback - A Cape Town thriller

by Mike Nicol

  ‘Before we ask you to give us the address,’ he said, ‘we’re going to strap you in a bit tighter. You know, fasten your ankles to the legs of the chair. What could happen is that you’ll want to move around a bit with the pain but we need to keep you upright and focused.’

  He bent down with the roll of duct tape but Mikey kicked out his legs and Pylon stood up again, shaking his head. ‘Mikey, Mikey, Mikey. Don’t do this.’

  Mace pulled the Ruger from his belt and slid a round into the chamber. ‘I found this worked before,’ he said over Mikey’s head to Pylon. ‘But he screams so maybe the gag first’s a good idea.’

  ‘No, hang on,’ said Mikey. ‘Just a bloody minute. No, I can’t help you. Don’t you understand. Listen to me. Listen. I’ve got nothing to do with this. You’ve got the wrong man here. I’m no good to you. I don’t know what’s what. ‘Strues. Hey, hey. I can give you Val’s address. If you want that I can give it to you. Speak to him. He’s in there. Big time. Fully. With Abdul. You know, like in the leadership.’

  ‘Write that, too, Mikey,’ said Mace. ‘Because we don’t want a situation where we’re disturbing the neighbours.’

  He put down the Ruger and gripped Mikey’s head and worked his thumbs into Mikey’s cheeks until Mikey opened his mouth. Pylon balled in a sponge he’d found at the sink and got the duct tape winding round Mikey’s head to secure it. At the end Mikey couldn’t move his jaws at all.

  It took the two of them to fasten Mikey’s ankles to the chair legs, the guy doing his best to be uncooperative. When they were done, Mace stood, dusting carpet-lint from the knees of his jeans.

  ‘Spunky, Mikey,’ he said. ‘Perhaps not the right time, though.’ He shifted the pad of paper under Mikey’s right hand and fitted the pen between his fingers. Mikey flicked it away. ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said Mace. ‘I would realise now is the moment to be cooperative. What we need to see is that you can write. For your own sake.’

  He retrieved the pen and put it back in Mikey’s fingers. This time Mikey scrawled ‘fuck you’ on the pad.

  Pylon laughed. Mace smiled sadly.

  ‘Here’s the question: where can we find my daughter, Christa?’

  Mikey repeated his answer.

  ‘Fine,’ said Mace. ‘We’re going to do things a little differently from now on.’ He took a coin from his pocket, glanced at Pylon. ‘Best of three?’

  Pylon shrugged. ‘Your call.’

  Mace called heads and won. On the second flip Pylon called heads and lost. Mikey staring at them with crazed eyes.

  Mace slipped the chopping board under Mikey’s left hand, but Mikey balled his hand into a fist and kept it angled upwards from the wrist.

  ‘That’s not going to help,’ said Mace. He raised the mallet and brought it down hard on Mikey’s knuckles. The man’s fingers splayed. Mace gave Mikey’s index finger three piston blows, at the second smack splinters of bone showed white through the pulp.

  Mikey screamed and jiggled in the chair and rolled his head and for a moment looked like he might wrench free his hands from the strapping. Then his head flopped forward.

  ‘That used to do it,’ said Pylon.

  Mace got a jug of water from the kitchen, poured it over Mikey’s head, which brought the big fellow round.

  ‘All you have to do,’ said Mace, ‘is give us the answer. If you’re right we can drop you at a hospital afterwards. That doesn’t look good, that finger.’

  Mikey made a movement of his head that both Mace and Pylon took to be a negative.

  ‘Got a lot of the hero in him,’ said Pylon. He pinned Mikey’s splayed fingers to the board, brought the mallet down on the pinky. The blow broke the skin, pushed the nail out at an angle. Mikey jerked about until Mace put both hands on his shoulders to quieten him. When he was still Pylon smashed the pinky four, five times. Mikey fainted about the third hit.

  Mace brought him back with another jug of water and put the question to him again. ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘Write it down.’

  Mikey was snorting through his nose as if he couldn’t get in enough air. From the noises he was making, Mace wondered if he hadn’t swallowed the sponge. Also the guy was scrawling on the pad but nothing that was legible.

  ‘We’re going to cut free your gag,’ said Mace, ‘then you can tell us in your own words.’

  Pylon kept Mikey’s hand fastened to the chopping board while Mace worked a boning knife into the duct tape and slit it. Mikey was heaving for breath, sobbing with pain. But he got the words out.

  ‘Grown older, grown wiser,’ said Pylon, putting down the mallet.

  ‘There’s a man,’ said Mace. ‘Well done.’ Then made Mikey repeat the address, bending close to his mouth to hear the panted words. Mace straightened. ‘Shows how wrong you can be. I guessed the northern suburbs. Paardeneiland factory land didn’t spring to mind first off.’

  25

  ‘Great choice,’ said Pylon, rain gusting in spurts, the wind force rocking even the big Merc. He slowed to a crawl in Section Street, a deserted zone. Most of the factories and warehouses in darkness, some showrooms with display windows blazing.

  ‘Keep on,’ Mace told him, routing them from a street map open on his lap. At Calcutta indicated right, the buildings thinning out with vacant lots between them. At Bermuda got him to slow.

  To the right the street was a cul-de-sac, ended by the Salt River Canal. Down there a one-storey building, empty land either side, the canal behind it. Had to be their destination.

  Before they made the turn Pylon pulled over, killing the lights.

  ‘What’s the plan?’

  ‘Search me. Break the door down and get Christa out.’

  He switched the wipers off and the street blurred. ‘There’ll be a guard.’

  ‘Sure.’

  The rain drummed loudly over the car while they waited for the squall to ease. In the after-lull Pylon nodded towards the back. ‘And him?’

  They had Mikey trussed and gagged in the boot.

  Mace pulled out his Ruger, checked the clip and racked a load into the chamber. ‘Could be a complication. Probably best if he walks from here. Depending on how things go down.’

  Pylon said, ‘Fair enough.’

  From the glove compartment Mace took two full clips, pocketed one and gave the other to Pylon.

  ‘Shotguns would’ve been better,’ Pylon said. ‘Like a twelve gauge sawn-off.’

  The door to the building was wooden, protected by a concertina security grille bolted into the concrete.

  ‘Hardly security,’ said Pylon.

  He levered the grille open with a tyre iron, used much the same technique on the wooden door, except it made more noise. Behind the door was a small office, another door leading out of it.

  They stopped, listened. Nothing but the rain, loud on the corrugated roof-sheeting.

  Mace opened the door onto what might once have been a workshop. A ghostly light filtered through the windows from the street, enough to see racks for tools on the wall above a bench, the outlines of spanners, screwdrivers, power drills. Parked facing a roller door was a small delivery van with the decal International Flowers on the side. The floor was stained with patches of engine oil. In front of Mace a metal staircase spiralled up to the mezzanine floor.

  Again they stopped. Rain noise. The rumble of wind over the roof. Mace gestured to Pylon that he was going up, disappeared into the shadows of the workshop.

  He paused on every step, the metal creaking with his weight. At the top of the staircase, a door. He opened it, a light clicked on.

  Abdul Abdul sat on a chair holding Christa tightly against his chest, his revolver in her mouth. Christa started at the sight of her father. Abdul tightened his grip, pushing the barrel deeper into her mouth.

  ‘Slowly, my friend,’ he said, ‘you gotta be careful.’

  Mace put the pistol on him. ‘Let her go.’

  The air smelt of cinnamon and something sweeter: dagga. The remains of a joint squash
ed in a saucer.

  ‘Take the gun out her mouth. Best thing is you point it at me.’

  ‘Best thing is you shut up,’ Abdul replied.

  Mace took a step into the room, sideways towards a tier of bunk beds, away from where they sat other side of a table. On the table a microwave and a kettle, dirty plates in a basin.

  He shifted the sight dead centre of Abdul’s forehead. ‘Give her up.’

  Abdul snorted. ‘God is great.’

  Mace took a step towards them.

  ‘No, my friend. Get back.’ He jerked at Christa and she moaned.

  Mace stopped.

  ‘Back. Now, my friend. Back, back’ - his voice rising in pitch.

  Mace did as he wanted.

  Abdul gave a grin of pointy teeth. ‘Put your gun on the top bed. Like a good boy, lie down in the corner.’

  Mace didn’t move.

  Abdul stared at him, waiting, the grin unwavering.

  ‘This is your daughter,’ he said, cocking the hammer.

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Mace placed the pistol on the bunk. ‘Let her go. You can leave. I can’t stop you.’

  ‘Of course not. But you do not tell me what to do.’ He took the gun out of Christa’s mouth, gestured at the corner of the room. ‘Lie down. On your stomach.’

  ‘Papa,’ Christa yelled before he choked off her scream.

  Mace paused. ‘It’s alright, C. It’s alright now, baby. He’s going to let you go.’

  ‘On your fucking stomach,’ shouted Abdul. ‘Come on. Come on.’

  Christa whimpered. Mace could see scabs on her scalp where the shaver had nicked her, fresh blood leaking from a new cut. Abdul smothered her face against his torso, the gun at her bald head.

  ‘Lie down.’

  Mace went over to the corner, knelt: the lino sticky beneath his palms. ‘Call it quits, Abdul. Let her come to me.’

  ‘Get flat,’ Abdul screamed. ‘Stop buggering around.’

  His face was livid, a pulse working in his throat. He stood up, dragging Christa, kicked Mace in the small of the back.

  ‘Arsehole.’

  Mace went down, the pain sharp, but braced on his arms and kicked out, catching Abdul off balance. He staggered against the wall and Christa screamed.

  Mace heard a shot.

  Heard her cry out.

  Twisted into a crouch as she fell against him.

  Abdul fired again.

  26

  A little after sunrise the storm was over, the sky clearing a thin blue line along the tops of the mountains. Mace stood among the rain puddles in the hospital car park, his hands warming around a polystyrene cup of coffee, dreading that Christa might not make it.

  The what if unthinkable.

  He paced across the car park to the fence. Over the road, sacred ibis and hadeda picked through a sodden field after frogs. He watched the birds, their quick stab, the small deaths. If Christa died he would lose Oumou too. Wouldn’t be able to live with her eyes, brown and sad, accusing. And why? Because he’d not considered the fanatics. Their madness. Never believed his family was in danger. Or that Abdul Abdul would have no worries about snatching a child.

  He closed his eyes: saw Christa’s pain pulled across her face; Oumou’s tearless suffering. And remembered Techipa. Snapped on it suddenly: the faces of the MKs. Contorted, howling, bloody.

  Mace opened his eyes, looked up at the Constantiaberg clear in the washed sunlight. Shook his head to clear the recall.

  But the men were there, lying in the bush, in the sand, the sand in their wounds. The blood on the ground.

  How they’d gone from one to the next, he and Pylon. One frightened young man to the next. The men begging for help. Three of them.

  Half an hour earlier they’d sold the men guns. AKs, Russian and Chinese. Some Makarovs, some grenades. Twenty landmines. The deal was payment on delivery, Mace and Pylon rocking up in a Bedford, the MK commander paying in greenbacks. Ten men in the unit going to cause shit in the mountains. Hit and runs. Mine the tracks, take out some Boer armour. No fear in them then, only laughter.

  Mace and Pylon hadn’t driven off three kays when they heard the firefight. Had returned to find three men alive, gut shot and going nowhere, a short way off eight Boer soldiers dead. A hopeless situation. No medicine. A day’s drive to the nearest town. They flipped a coin that fell two one to Mace.

  Pylon’d said the men would be dead in hours anyway. Why have them suffer. Mace said nothing. Shot two men point blank, heard the retort of Pylon’s pistol behind him.

  Afterwards they collected the weaponry from both sides. Trucked it to Lusaka for resale to other cadres heading over the border.

  In all these years Mace hadn’t thought of the two men’s faces. Kept them in deep vaults he never opened. Would never have opened, he believed, if not for Ducky Donald Hartnell. Or had his daughter not been shot.

  He threw the dregs of his coffee into the undergrowth. Crumpled the polystyrene cup in his fist.

  A man coughed behind him. ‘Ah, Mr Bishop.’

  ‘What?’ Mace spun round. ‘For Chrissakes.’

  Came face to face with Captain Gonsalves. ‘You alright?’ The cop peering at him. ‘You look like shit.’

  Mace wiped a hand over his face, took a breath. ‘What’s it?’

  The cop keeping up his stare, rubbing a plug of tobacco round the palm of his left hand. ‘Bit of a storm, hey, last night!’

  Mace nodded.

  Gonsalves popped the plug into his mouth, chewed tentatively. ‘Look, tell me if I’m outta line but a coupla answers to some questions would be useful.’

  ‘My daughter’s in ICU.’

  ‘I enquired. I’m sorry about that.’ He gave the plug a more vigorous chewing. ‘We could do it later at my office if you want. But now would be better. Abdul Abdul having such a, what you might call, high profile.’

  Mace tossed the crushed cup into a refuse bin. ‘What about Pylon?’

  The captain shrugged. ‘Due process, that’s all. No problem. Abdul had a bloody great forty-five in his hand. Had to be self-defence. What I hear there’s legislation pending that we’re gonna have to charge anyone who kills in self-defence. But we’re talking a couple of years’ time. Right now all we gotta do is file a statement. Know what I’m saying? For the autopsy.’

  Mace sighed, looked up at the red tinge on the clouds. Sailors would get the horrors at crimson dawns.

  ‘Ten minutes of your time.’ Gonsalves spat out a stray strand of tobacco. Before Mace could respond he put his own spin to it. ‘This’s a follow-up on the Catastrophe bombing as I read it. Not so?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mace said, ‘it is’ - and gave him a brief account of Christa’s abduction, how he’d tracked down Abdul through a lucky break.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘A mutual contact.’

  Gonsalves looked dubious. ‘That right? Within twenty-four hours?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Going some.’ He gave the plug a suck. ‘Usually we’re talking days, weeks even.’

  ‘We got lucky.’ Mace pinched the bridge of his nose. Suddenly exhausted. ‘Anything else?’

  The captain nodded. ‘Maybe. For instance, why’n’t you let us know?’

  ‘I was told to keep the cops out of it.’

  ‘They always say that. People think they can handle it, take their time getting to us. Only causes grief.’ He snapped closed his notebook. ‘This’s a help for now’ - offered his hand, and Mace shook it. ‘If I prayed I’d pray for your daughter. If I believed I’d say trust in God.’

  As Mace turned away Gonsalves said, ‘That lawyer Sheemina February involved in any of this?’

  Mace glanced back. ‘Not so’s you could pin it. Made some legal threats to the Hartnells I heard.’

  Gonsalves said, ‘She was Abdul’s attorney.’

  ‘Then she’s got one less client.’

  The captain opened the door of an old Cressida. ‘I’m expecting her call. Once she gets to he
ar, she’s gonna be all over us.’ He spat the tobacco plug into his hand and flicked it under a bed of shrubs edging the parking lot. The Cressida’s engine swung a couple of times before it fired.

  Watching the cop drive off Mace thought, Techipa. He’d looked in the guys’ faces, seen fear and hope. Moved quickly from one to the next. Jesus Christ, to remember it now.

  He went back into the hospital, took the stairs to the ICU wing. On the landing his phone rang: Sheemina February.

  ‘My flight’s just landed,’ she said. ‘I am told your daughter has been badly wounded.’

  Mace walked to a corner, away from a group of people huddled on chairs, blank-eyed and stunned. He kept his voice low, controlled: ‘Then you know your friend Abdul Abdul is dead.’

  ‘Client, Mr Bishop. I represent - represented - him.’

  Mace snorted. ‘Of course. The detached lawyer. Well, I don’t see it that way.’

  ‘Oh, how do you see it?’

  ‘I see your hand in this somewhere. I don’t know where. But somewhere.’

  Sheemina February laughed. ‘How flattering, Mr Bishop. That you should think I have power over men such as Abdul.’

  ‘Get out of my life,’ said Mace. ‘Out of my life, out of my family’s life.’ He thumbed her off, thinking, leave it, walk away, when once he wouldn’t have. Once he’d have played it differently with Sheemina February, but that was once and elsewhere. Now he had to leave it. She was too high profile. Too connected. You touched her you got burned. Mace didn’t want that. He had too much to lose. Had almost lost Christa, didn’t want to think of losing Oumou. He put the phone in his jacket pocket, went off to find his wife.

  Oumou sat in a chair, a cup of tea long cold at her elbow. The doctors were with Christa, she whispered. Mace sat beside her, held her hand. Until there was this woman, he thought, he had not known another’s pain; until there was Christa he had not known fear. The fear that a life might be lost to him. The fear of being without her.