Payback - A Cape Town thriller

by Mike Nicol

  Then spot on comes her next period, everyone’s disappointed. Dieter goes sulky for a few hours. Camillo bites his lip. Tries to comfort her. Hello, when it’s his piss-poor ratings on the sperm count. Camillo saying, ‘Maybe we’ve got to pamper you even more this time, baby. Get the doctor to come to you.’

  Which is what he organises. She tells Camillo when the bleeding stops, a week later her apartment’s flooded with bouquets. She stays in bed. Camillo chats to her about the royals he’s dressed. Dieter looks in with tea. They’re constantly on about her temperature. They’re both in attendance when the doctor comes, either side of her, each holding a hand, peering at what the doctor’s doing. She doesn’t feel happy about this. Especially when it happens the next day and the next. But they’re sweet. Flapping about her like nannies.

  Again the blood comes. Dieter throws a heavy sulk. She overhears him talking to Camillo in German, understands enough to know he’s questioning the fertility tests. Suggesting that Camillo’s been taken for a ride. Camillo’s less prone to jump to conclusions. He doesn’t talk to her about this. Tells her of his disappointment, like it’s her fault. Like she’s doing something to prevent the pregnancy.

  Next time he says to hell with modern science. They’re going to do it like daddy and mommy. He keeps to the contract’s stipulation of once a day, three days only. He’s disgusting.

  The month after, nothing’s changed. Except they’re taking her to Cape Town for the Christmas holidays. ‘Cos they wanna go to some queer party.

  To Paulo in distant New York she said, ‘I’m not going to this place Cape Town to be a sex toy. I’ve gotta have time off, Paulo. I’ve gotta see you.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ he responded, that tone of you’re-being-a-prima-donna in his voice. ‘Where’s Cape Town?’

  ‘Fucking Africa. Any place’s more boring than Milan it’s Africa.’

  ‘Slowly, suges. Go again, slowly.’

  ‘What’s happening is your queer that doesn’t touch women’s found that maybe it’s not such a bad ride.’ A hiss that could be the transatlantic connection. ‘Three times a day!’

  ‘Hey, man! For an old guy like that!’

  Vittoria considered whether she needed another line to keep talking rationally to her lover.

  ‘You’re not hearing me,’ she said. ‘We’re talking bisexual. AC DC. That wants a sex toy on holiday.’

  ‘This happens,’ said Paulo, serious now. ‘What can I say? That’s the deal.’

  ‘The deal’s not Ria-the-Hooker. I’m gonna kill him. Him and the boyfriend. They’re perverts.’

  Silence. A long silence. Vittoria let it drag, the longer it went, the more Paulo would know she was serious. She spilled more coke on the dressing table.

  ‘Hang in there, suges,’ he said. ‘This’ll work out.’

  ‘I wanna see you,’ she said. ‘I’m dying here. I’m bored, Paulo. Bored, bored, bored.’

  Another silence, which she broke. ‘It’s heavy. I’m not gonna last this. You don’t come here ‘n see me, something’s gonna snap.’

  Paulo said, ‘Think of the bucks.’

  ‘The bucks aren’t enough, Paulo.’

  ‘Okay, baby, okay. It’s almost over.’

  ‘Big deal. Know what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s not going to be a kid. Medardo had sago for jism there’d be more chance. I’m gonna kill them. Dirty queens.’

  ‘Stay cool.’

  ‘And that Isabella. Get you outta her clutches, the way she’s dangling you. Power-tripping. I’m gonna kill her too.’ The thought of all the dead bodies suddenly very appealing.

  5

  Mace, sitting in his office on a warm November afternoon, stared at the photograph filling his screen and thought, now what? Simultaneously had to smile at the image.

  The photograph showed him and Isabella buttoned in long coats, huddled into one another, standing among rags of snow. Behind them a canal, on the canal a gunboat, a man in the boat watching them through binoculars. The only colour in the photograph that wasn’t grey was the black of their coats and her red boots, bright against the snow. They were both laughing.

  West Berlin, January 1989, Mace recalled. After he’d returned from meeting a bunch of comrades who needed AKs and ammunition ten thousand kilometres away otherside the Limpopo River in five days’ time. AKs and ammunition that Mace hadn’t sourced yet. No problem, he’d said to the comrades. Walked back through Checkpoint Charlie and said to Isabella after he’d made five phone calls from the payphone in Café Adler, ‘How am I going to do this? Pylon’s up the Congo, everyone’s out of stock. I’m on a limb over a shit pond.’

  ‘Maybe I can oblige,’ she’d said. ‘Once again.’

  Her chance to work the phone although it only took one call and she returned to their table in the window to say, ‘You’ve got it.’

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Basically, whatever you want. At Francistown. How you get it over the river’s your issue.’

  ‘Bullets too.’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘I won’t ask,’ he said.

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘Just think of the money.’

  Which was why they were laughing in the photograph. Well, not the only reason Mace remembered. The other reason was the Kempinski, more particularly their suite, as Isabella indulged her flamboyance for fine hotels.

  ‘Next time in the Meurice,’ she’d said.

  The Kempinski suite stacked with antique furniture, a mammoth bed, in the bathroom a double marble bath and gold taps, a shower with adjustable head. You could set it for a massage, the water pulsing out in needle jets.

  She’d booked in a few hours ahead of him. Was sitting on the bed in a towelling robe painting her toenails green when he arrived, cold, dog-tired after a four-plane trip from Mogadishu. She’d looked up, the gown loosely tied and gaping, his eyes plunging from her face to her breasts half-revealed. Isabella standing and walking towards him, long-limbed, the gown framing her, the girdle looped across the curve of her stomach.

  As Mace remembered, it’d been a lost two days before he met the comrades.

  ‘Perhaps we should try the shower first,’ she’d said. ‘It’s got this effect you have to feel.’

  He had an image of her that the photograph brought back: her hands white against the black marble tiles of the shower, her hair wet in the nape of her neck, soap froth on the curve of her back, her breasts almost liquid in his hands.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he thought, snapping to the photograph, ‘what’re you thinking?’

  It was why they were laughing. Going back to the Kempinski for another of those showers before they flew out separately the next morning. The penultimate time they had an expensive fling like that. Couple of months later he’d waltzed into Malitia and seen the irresistible Oumou.

  Hi Mace, Isabella’s email read, neat website. I heard that security had become a big thing for you guys. But Complete Security? Who’re you trying to kid? Anyhow this is not about that, this is about something you’re good at. It’ll fatten up your bank balance, too. And how’s this photie for old time’s sake? When next are you in New York so we can talk? There’s been a lot of water. Isabella.

  Dangerous, Mace thought. Dangerous Isabella. When next you’re in New York… He’d be in New York in a week to baby-sit a banker flying out for a holiday at the Fairest Cape.

  When he’d told her at the Meurice that they were off, that he’d committed to Oumou, she’d put a Makarov to his head and asked if there was one good reason she shouldn’t pull the trigger. Very melodramatic. Very Isabella. Then she’d laughed and set down the pistol. Stripped off her shirt and capris, said, ‘You’re a bastard, Mace Bishop. Two days you spend screwing me to come out with this?’ For the last time they’d had sex. Nothing loving in it: rough and dry and quick. Afterwards Isabella said, ‘Don’t think we’re finished, Mace. It doesn’t work like that.’

  Yet in all this time, ten yea
rs, there’d not been a word out of her. For which he was thankful. So now what?

  6

  Across the Company Gardens from the offices of Complete Security, Sheemina February in the firm’s offices got Isabella’s email to Mace Bishop and his response to Isabella bundled in a message from her contact at the service provider not long after Mace sent it.

  Sheemina February double clicked the attachment to bring up the photograph of happy Mace and Isabella clasped together beside the canal. How quaint, an old flame suddenly rekindled. Had to be Berlin, she reckoned. The Spree, judging by the gunboat and the wall and the dark buildings behind it. Such a beautiful couple. Could be on their honeymoon, tourists getting off on Cold War glamour. The sort of photograph Sheemina February doubted Mace Bishop had ever shown his lovely wife.

  She saved it in a folder named ‘Membesh’ after the guerrilla camp where she’d served.

  7

  The call to Paulo came from Francisco himself. Made Paulo feel, wow, this was a thing. Not usual for Francisco to put through his own calls.

  ‘Here’s the situation, Paulo,’ said Francisco, ‘we need someone we can trust.’

  Paulo heard him out, thought, incredible, a place you’ve never heard of scores twice in so many days. Cape Town in Africa. Thought Ria, suges, you’re not gonna believe this. Dialled her on the turn.

  Vittoria was sitting in the Café Cova, wondering if white powder was big in Cape Town when her cell gave the Star Wars ringtone, her personal signature for Paulo. She picked up the phone lying next to the cooling espresso, clicked on.

  ‘Baby,’ he said. ‘Like how’s this? I’m gonna be doing a little business in Cape Town. Right about when you’re there.’

  That brought a reaction from Vittoria. She licked a finger, dipped it into a sachet of powder open in her bag, sucked the candy, feeling a whole lot better even before it got to work. She had a large swallow of the espresso too. Said, ‘Tell me everything’ - took the rest of the espresso in a second gulp while Paulo outlined Francisco’s scheme.

  ‘She going to be there?’ Vittoria wanted to know when he’d finished.

  ‘Isabella? Most likely. Also Francisco’s hitman, Ludo.’

  ‘Francisco up on my movements?’ Vittoria said.

  ‘No ways,’ Paulo came back, ‘this is just a coincidence.’

  ‘Gives us a great opportunity,’ said Vittoria. ‘Also, I’ve been thinking, I’m not going through another session. You get the kill fee before that happens.’

  A pause. Paulo catching up; Vittoria waiting.

  ‘What’re you on about?’

  ‘The money. Like the contract says. Before my next egg comes on stream.’

  ‘Ria!’

  ‘I’ll call you when we get there,’ said Vittoria. ‘Give you the address. They’re gonna want to start trying for baby about a few days after we get in. If my body’s running to schedule.’

  She thumbed off, headed for the toilet. In the cubicle she ran a short line on her compact, drew it up through a fuzzy thousand-lire note. Half the powder got stuck on the fuzz. The sooner they went to euro the better, Italy needed some clean new notes. Nonetheless the hit was enough. Made her feel a whole lot better.

  8

  Pylon, at the wheel of the big Merc on De Waal Drive, said, ‘The reason I don’t have a fancy car, is because of the crap it gets you into. Maintenance plans. Garage bills.’

  ‘No car at all, you mean,’ said Mace.

  ‘Alright, no car at all. You want to go that route we could buy another company car, you could sell the Spider. That’d cover your house repayment.’

  ‘Sell the Spider?’

  ‘Why not? It’s an old car, Mace. Old-fashioned. I don’t get this thing with cars. Cars’re cars.’

  Mace stared down into the Bowl, afternoon haze distancing the city. ‘Since I first saw that car,’ he said, ‘I wanted one. I was what? Fourteen. Something like that. A neighbour in the flats got this bluey-green number with a white hood, a white stripe down the side. I was standing there, in the parking area looking at it and he came down and asked if I wanted a ride. What’s his name?’ Mace clicked his fingers. ‘Sampson, Randal Sampson. Chelsea boots and tight trousers. Had chicks in and out of his flat like he ran a fashion house. Randy by name and nature I guess. I said sure. We hop in, spin to Llandudno, Hout Bay, over Chappies to Noordhoek. Noordhoek under the oaks he pulls out a zol and we tote this. My first Spider, my first grass. Heaven. The sweet smell, the sweet sound of the engine. That explain it?’

  ‘Save me Jesus,’ said Pylon, taking the inside lane past the hospital with the traffic picking up. ‘That’s bullshit. Sentimental pap.’

  Mace grinned. ‘I drive a Duetto. You horde money. Same thing really.’

  ‘Invest. To invest isn’t to horde. What we’ve got in the Cayman’s a horde, in case you’d forgotten. But in our land of milk and honey I invest. Which is why I can get you out of the shit you’re in. And keep us squeaky clean.’

  ‘One month,’ said Mace. ‘That’s all.’

  The traffic slowed bumper to bumper.

  ‘One month is five thousand bucks, if I heard you correctly.’ Pylon glanced at his watch. ‘What time’s your flight?’

  ‘Seven. It’s okay. No rush.’ Mace coughed. ‘The other way is I take it out of the business. Increase the bond on the Dunkley Square building.’

  ‘We don’t need that,’ said Pylon.

  ‘Write it off against tax.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think the best is I lend it to you. Trouble is what happens after that?’

  ‘I’ve got three months,’ said Mace. ‘I told you. We make this payment and the bank extends. January, February there’s extra income from Oumou’s exhibition. We’re out of the brown stuff.’

  Pylon took a gap to the right, accelerating into the taxi lane. ‘Face it,’ he said. ‘The house’s the problem. Too larney. Door handles like you’ve got, Italian door handles. Who needs Italian door handles to open a door? Travertine marble. What’s that about? Fancy French hob. And gas. What’s wrong with electricity? People in the township cook on gas.’

  ‘Our investment,’ said Mace. ‘Dave Cruikshank’s philosophy: buy high. Five years down the track you’re smiling.’

  ‘If you can make it five years down the track.’

  ‘Also it’s for Christa, remember.’

  ‘Right. Lifts for Christa. This’s the point, Mace. Somewhere on the flat would’ve been better for Christa.’

  ‘Comes back to an investment. The mountain’s where it’s at. So Dave says.’

  ‘Dave says. Right. Second-hand car dealer. Estate agent. Dave says.’

  ‘One month,’ said Mace. ‘It’s all I’m asking for. No big deal. The way the business is going it’s back in your pocket by the end of the year. Interest included.

  ‘Eight per cent’s the deal.’

  ‘Loan shark.’

  ‘Hey. You want it or you don’t want it?’

  Mace leant back against the headrest, turned to Pylon. ‘Thanks, hey. Much appreciated. I can fly away relaxed.’ He blew out a sigh of relief.

  ‘To New York? Nobody can fly into New York with relief.’ Pylon switched lanes back to the left for the airport turn-off. ‘See this bridge?’ he said pointing at a pedestrian footbridge arching over the highway. ‘This’s the one you have to watch out for.’

  ‘I thought so,’ said Mace. ‘The woman died, you know, I heard it earlier on the news.’

  ‘A bloody block of concrete, they dropped. You get a block of concrete through the windscreen at one twenty, you’re lucky to live long enough to get to hospital. Even a brick’s bad news. Every time I drive under here I check for pedestrians. Someone who looks like they’re into a bit of gratuitous. Because most times it happens, it’s from this bridge. Why they don’t close it, build a subway I don’t know.’

  ‘Then people’ll be mugged. Women raped.’

  ‘This’s the problem.’

  At the junction to the airpor
t, Pylon slowed, edging into the traffic flow.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you,’ said Mace. ‘I had a mail from Isabella.’

  ‘Just like that?’ Pylon frowned.

  ‘Just like that. No kidding.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘About a week ago.’

  ‘A week ago, and you keep it quiet!’

  ‘It’s business. The possibility of business.’

  ‘Which is why you should’ve mentioned it earlier.’

  ‘Not really. It was something I had to think about first. The implications.’

  ‘And having thought about the implications you’re going to meet her?’

  ‘I am. For lunch.’

  ‘For a friendly chat?’

  ‘About something she thinks we could handle.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Pylon, giving a hooter blast to get a tourist operator out of the drop zone at international departures. ‘I bet.’

  9

  Mace took a cab to the restaurant. Told the cabby Cesca’s, 164 West 75th Street.

  The table was reserved in the name of Isabella Medicis, a table at the window so he could watch her get out of the cab: the black calf-length boots emerging first, her skirt ridden up slightly to show knee and thigh in black tights as she moved through that awkward moment between sliding off the car seat and standing on the sidewalk. Once it was over, she was all grace. Wardrobe and make-up perfect. Choreography professional.

  Mace appreciated it. Got just long enough to take this in before the action started and she headed for the door, long-legged, confident. The way he’d seen her move in jungle and desert.

  Next she was beside the table, being helped off with her coat. Ten years had gone since they’d last seen each other. The thing about Isabella he realised was that you couldn’t take your eyes off her. Maybe her beauty was even more startling with the extra years. He watched a smile sneak across her lips.