Killer Country

by Mike Nicol

  Heard Christa saying, ‘Papa! Papa, listen.’

  Mace smiling at her.

  ‘Pummie wanted to know why she painted the toenails.’

  ‘What’d she say?’

  ‘She said to remind her of her foot. That she once had a real one.’

  ‘That is sad,’ said Oumou.

  ‘She’s tough,’ said Mace. ‘If it’s the woman I’m thinking of. Lives with an investigator, ex-cop, we used him once to track down stolen stuff. Chews a lot of mints. Nice guy. Him and his one-legged doll.

  Mace’s cellphone rang. He reached for it lying on the table next to the basket of croissants and rolls. The screen displayed ‘Pylon’. He thumbed him on. Watched Christa push back her chair and stand. Beautiful, the black costume against her honey skin. The child’s body morphing into a young woman. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this: her childhood ending.

  Said, ‘You’re interrupting my breakfast.’

  Heard Oumou say to Christa, poised on the edge of the swimming pool, ‘I must buy clay, cherie: you will come with me?’ Saw Christa nod and flash a smile before she plunged into the water. Slipping in like a dolphin, hardly a splash.

  Oumou turned from watching Christa gliding through the water, raised her eyebrows at him: who’re you talking to?

  Mace said, ‘Pylon.’

  Pylon said, ‘I’m driving now, passing Century City. Great view of the mountain opening up. I can tell you I’ve been sitting for four hours.’

  ‘Some particular reason you’re out there instead of at home?’

  Mace walked to where he could see the city clearly through a break in the trees. The cascade of the garden suburb down the bowl of the mountain into the concrete centre. The buildings clustered tall and white there, the sea a flat blue beyond.

  ‘Driving behind this brand new black Yengeni. Nice car the ML 350’

  ‘You’re thinking of one?’

  Pylon not into buying cars at all, happy to use the office Merc.

  ‘Too arriviste.’

  Mace smiled, turning from the view to his house: the house Oumou’d wanted of concrete and glass and chrome. Something as far removed from the mud towns of her desert life as she could get.

  ‘I work with clay, Mace,’ she’d said. ‘In my pottery are my memories. We must live in something modern. Where no one has lived before.’

  Once the house was built Mace couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. He glanced above the roof at Devil’s Peak, deep shadow still in the kloof.

  ‘So where’ve you been?’ Mace waved at Christa to keep swimming. To Pylon said, ‘Help me out, I’m pulling teeth here.’

  Pylon laughed. ‘Outside Mr Chocho‘s.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘A stakeout.’

  ‘We’ve registered as investigators? I didn’t notice.’

  ‘This’s private and confidential,’ said Pylon. ‘Got nothing to do with us, Complete Security. Got to do with us the property investors.’

  ‘The west coast thing?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Mace. ‘Maybe you lend me something against the Cayman account. An IOU.’

  ‘We can talk about it,’ said Pylon. ‘Another time. You have to listen to this first.’

  ‘Perhaps turn the music down,’ said Mace. The driving sound of the Cowboy Junkies in the background.

  ‘So what do I see?’

  ‘I couldn’t guess. Tell me.’ Mace watched Oumou clearing the table, Cat2 pawing at her for titbits.

  ‘I see my comrade and consortium partner Popo Dlamini coming out of Mr Chocho’s house.’

  ‘And this is interesting?’

  ‘At six in the morning. Very interesting. What I wonder is, does Obed Chocho know? What I also wonder is, how would that brother feel about this brother looking after his wife while he’s doing prison?’

  ‘It’s nine o’clock,’ said Mace. ‘Why’re you only on the highway now?’

  ‘I told you,’ said Pylon. ‘Staking out. Had to be sure Mrs Chocho’d been playing hostess. She’s driving the Merc I’m following. Must have a date in the city.’

  Mace dipped his toe in the water; Pylon’s machinations on the empowerment deal were labyrinthine in their complexity. Thorough though.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘after you’re finished playing Easy Rawlins, I’m meeting a prospective client. You got time to be in on that? A judge. Name of Telman Visser.’ He heard a blare of hooters and Pylon swear. ‘We could talk afterwards.’

  Mace said, ‘Hey, talk to me. You going to make it or what?’

  ‘Can’t,’ said Pylon. ‘Consortium meeting. I told you, there’s major shit on this deal. The seller holding out ’cos he can see paydirt. Young white couple wanting in on the act or major compensation.’ A pause, Pylon muttering in Xhosa, ‘We’re coming off the highway. Check you later.’

  Mace disconnected, thinking Pylon was taking strain on this one. Putting in a lot of effort to get them sorted, get them access to the Cayman stash. He flipped closed the cellphone. If only there wasn’t the court case. If only. He closed his eyes, shook his head as if to shake out the thought.

  With an hour and a half till he met the judge, he could join Christa in the pool for a dozen laps. Work down the two almond croissants. And the salami roll. He stripped off his T-shirt. Stood poised in his Speedo on the edge of the pool.

  Oumou came up, rubbed a hand over his stomach. ‘A little bit round,’ she said.

  7

  Pylon, three cars behind the SUV, slid left out of the middle lane into the Woodstock off-ramp, nothing but seventy metres separating him from Mrs Obed Chocho. Lindi, short for Lindiwe to her friends. Friends like Popo. Friends you’d placed some trust in, up to yesterday. Until you heard it through the grapevine that your consortium partner was consorting with the enemy.

  A call from a property man, Dave Cruickshank: ‘Pylon, old son, you’re in with Popo Dlamini on the west coast deal, I heard.’

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘Bidding against the mighty Obed Chocho. The convict.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Then maybe, my son, you’d want to know that I’ve seen the lovely Lindi with your man Popo.’

  Enough said. Pylon ran the stakeout; turned out Dave was on the nail.

  At the traffic lights corner of Lower Church and New Market, he was behind Mrs Chocho, the lovely Lindi on her cellphone, oblivious to the world. Easier following her than a blind woman in a hospital corridor.

  With the green, up to Victoria then left. Lindi still on her phone, Pylon wondering where this was heading: what point was there to following her anyhow? Instinct, he believed. The only downside, all the twisty bits she was taking. Mrs C had half an eye to the rearview she had to notice the black Merc driven by the guy in shades. Pylon eased off. Problem was this time of a Saturday morning there wasn’t much traffic to hide in.

  His cellphone rang. Pumla. ‘Mommy wants to know where you are?’ she said, using English, almost the only language she spoke these days. Whispering, ‘She’s in a bad mood.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ said Pylon. ‘I need that.’ Seeing the SUV going right into Roodebloem, no cars turning behind her. No ways she wouldn’t notice him. ‘Pummie, tell her I’ll be home in fifteen, twenty. What’s the agenda anyhow?’

  ‘Breakfast,’ said Pumla. ‘You promised, remember?’

  Pylon turned into Roodebloem and pulled against the curb, watched the SUV power up the steep street.

  ‘No problem, we can still do breakfast. Vide e Caffè. The Palms, anywhere she wants.’

  ‘Dad?’ Though she wasn’t his daughter, she’d known no other father most of her life. She called him that it still tweaked his heartstrings. ‘Mom’s really mad.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’m on my way.’ Maybe it had something to do with Treasure being pregnant. Morning sickness. A bit like living with an angry cobra. The deal was: if she fell pregnant they’d also adopt an AIDS orphan.


  ‘I’m the only black man in the country without a child,’ he’d complained. ‘There’re boys of fifteen with more children than me. If we just had one.’

  ‘What about the AIDS orphans?’

  ‘What about them? We’re not a charity.’

  ‘You want a child, then we adopt one too.’

  ‘Mr Zuma did that there’d be no AIDS orphans.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Pylon accepted the deal though.

  ‘On our income, our standard of living, it’s what we should be doing,’ was Treasure’s point of view.

  Pylon had counter arguments but he didn’t advance them. Not to Treasure. To Mace over a few Windhoeks. But not to Treasure. Never to Treasure. One ran that if the government took HIV seriously there’d be fewer orphans. As a nurse she should know. But the fat cow of a minister told them African potatoes were the answer.

  ‘All I want’s a child,’ Pylon would say, three or four beers down. ‘Not a bloody orphanage.’

  He gave Lindiwe Chocho almost to the top of the road, before accelerating after her. Chances were he’d delayed too long. Had to be she was heading into University Estate. Early to be visiting, but Lindiwe clearly made her own arrangements. Then again she could as easily take the Eastern Boulevard either direction. Chances were he’d screwed this one. By the time he reached the highway intersection, the Merc ML 350 wasn’t to be seen. At least not on the boulevard. Into town or out of it.

  He headed into University Estate, just on the off chance. And there, down the far end of Ritchie Street, Mrs Chocho was getting out of her SUV. Pylon stopped behind a parked car. He reached for binoculars lying on the passenger seat and focused on Lindiwe ringing a gate buzzer. She leaned forward, talking into the intercom, neat in white capris. Moments later the gate opened. Lindiwe and her host embraced. Moments enough for Pylon to recognise the woman: Sheemina February. Attorney Sheemina February. ‘Shit!’ he said. Then: ‘Fuck.’ Then: ‘Bitch.’ Then: ‘Bloody bitch.’ Keeping the bins focused on the woman. The woman who’d once worked Mace’s case. Given him major grief. The woman behind Christa’s shooting. Mace’s kidnapping. Maybe even behind some club bombings. Ms Teflon. ‘Save me Jesus,’ he said. Thinking: what’s the bitch’s connection?

  Chocho was mainstream, swung with the big boys. Sheemina February definitely wasn’t kosher. A weirdo psycho. In it for the bucks and the blood. Anyone’s blood. Strange alliance for Mrs Chocho to be seeing Sheemina February. The two women disappeared into the house.

  Pylon rested the binoculars on the steering wheel, puzzled about this development. Of all the things it couldn’t be, it couldn’t be social. Sheemina February didn’t do social. When Sheemina February appeared shit happened. Strange stuff that got people killed.

  While he thought about this, his phone buzzed: Treasure.

  8

  Obed Chocho waved the prison commander to take a seat. On a three-seater couch done out in a floral print. A couch moved up from the warders’ common room when Obed Chocho complained he couldn’t spend the day on a plastic garden chair.

  Wasn’t the only piece of furniture the commander had commandeered for his prisoner. Other items included a desk, a side table for his coffee and bowls of peanuts when Obed sprawled out to watch television on the forty-seven centimetre Sony. Also a video player. The DVD player was Obed’s. Ditto the mini-tower and speakers, the rack of CDs.

  Obed was watching the first series of the Sopranos when the prison commander rapped on the door.

  One thing Obed Chocho disliked was being interrupted while he watched the Sopranos. Lindiwe had learnt this with a split lip. Not the first time Obed had backhanded her but the other occasions he’d been tanked. The Sopranos incident he wasn’t.

  It was ten o’clock in the morning. She was bringing him coffee and marmalade toast in bed, treating him, spoiling him, even considering putting out on a wet winter Sunday. She crossed his line of vision to set down the tray. Crossed back again getting to her side of the bed.

  She’d leaned towards him, the neck of her negligee gaping, letting him get a good dose of her breasts. Her nipples extended, longer than any nipples he’d ever seen. So he’d told her. Expecting him to pull her down. Instead he hit her, opened her lip with his wedding ring.

  Said, ‘What’s this I’m watching?’

  Lindiwe in tears, blood dripping on her negligee, sniffed the answer.

  ‘Mighty fine,’ he said. ‘This is nothing you don’t know about.’

  To the prison commander, he said, ‘You know the Sopranos?’

  ‘I’ve watched them,’ the commander said, sitting on the couch, across from Chocho, looking at the shaven-headed man, lying on the bed, propped by two pillows against the metal head. A conventional hospital bed that Chocho’d complained about. He had conjugal visiting rights. How was that supposed to happen on a single bed?

  The commander could imagine, especially with Mrs Lindiwe Chocho, but kept his mind off picturing her naked.

  Couldn’t requisition the bed Chocho wanted either. Well, actually, he hadn’t tried. No, that was going too far. The man was a convict: four years for fraud. The commander clicked his tongue. No. To hell with that.

  Obed Chocho had been up on other charges: corruption, bribery, extortion, that the prosecution couldn’t get to stick but that didn’t make Obed Chocho any less guilty in the commander’s eyes. So no double bed.

  Tough shit. Mr Chocho had it as soft as it got. Own room in the prison’s hospital wing. Own loo and shower across the corridor. Ordered in food. Cellphone connectivity. The pressure coming from above: keep Obed happy.

  Which he was inclined to do, his job and career being vital components of his life. Prison commander not the final title in his planned trajectory either. He screwed up here it could be. So he played the Chocho thing down the line. When a memo said give Obed Chocho a rehabilitation pass this Sunday afternoon, he did just that.

  Said to Obed Chocho, in green tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, chilling to his favourite series: ‘Can you pause that for a moment?’

  Obed frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Pause it.’ The commander surprised at his own response, curt, no bullshit. Pleased and edgy about this at the same time. Met Obed’s hard stare and held it.

  Obed didn’t take his eyes off him, raised his right hand holding the remote, pointed it at the television, a question furrowed into his brow: You want to reconsider?

  The prison commander waited. On screen Tony in a session with the shrink telling Dr Jennifer Melfi about his life, the camera closing on T’s face, that perplexed expression he wore like his favourite clothes. The image froze.

  Obed Chocho lowered his arm, didn’t say anything, not letting go of the eyeballing.

  The prison commander submitted, glanced off at the picture on the wall. This snowed-in village in a valley. Hunters and their dogs coming down from the hills. Some print Mrs Chocho had brought in. Some print they’d bought in a Vienna art gallery that Obed liked. Six months with Obed Chocho wasn’t an honour. Two weeks to parole couldn’t go fast enough.

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon,’ he said, ‘the board’s given you a rehabilitation pass.’

  ‘Now you tell me,’ said Obed, swinging off the bed. ‘The day before! Hey, what’s that about? Mighty fine, get on with it Obed. Get everybody to drop their lives, come pick you up take you for a drive to the beach. Have an ice cream. Hey, my brother, the day before!’

  ‘That’s the way it’s done,’ said the commander. ‘A preparation for parole.’ Actually the memo’d come in mid-week but the commander had sat on it.

  ‘Mighty fine,’ said Obed. ‘Twelve years I spent on the island, my brother. No Sunday afternoon pass. No preparation for parole. Four months I’ve been here. A Sunday pass’s an insult.’

  ‘After four months you’re eligible,’ said the prison commander, getting up, planning to keep this conversation short. ‘Two o’clock to five o’clock. No alcohol.’

  Obed Chocho smacked his right fist
into his left palm. ‘You’re telling me that?’

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘Hey, brother.’ Two more palm strikes sharp and hard. ‘You’re walking a fine line. Know what I mean?’

  The prison commander felt the heat prickling on his own palms, was about to say he’d been there too when Obed Chocho’s cellphone rang. The commander moved to leave.

  Obed Chocho said, ‘Wait. Hang on, okay.’ Answered with good humour in his tone of voice. ‘Ms Sheemina February.’ He listened. Laughed. Turned towards the prison commander, said, ‘I have the prison commander with me.’ Paused. ‘No, no, no. He’s happy to wait.’

  The prison commander stood uncomfortably poised between the couch and the door. Obed Chocho ignored him. Faced the window with its view of a courtyard below, convicts playing volleyball there. The prison commander moved to the desk. Three neat piles: four paperbacks in a stack, Right as Rain on top; an A4 feint-ruled pad with the names Henk and Olivia Smit in pencil; the third pile a printout of sms messages.

  Obed Chocho said, ‘What’s that? Popo? Yes, yes, Dlamini. Sure. I know. It’s no problem.’

  Glancing down the messages the prison commander reckoned some of them couldn’t have pleased Obed Chocho. The ones from this Popo to Lindiwe. The ones from her to Popo. The sort of messages no one should send.

  The prison commander smiled, picked up the Pelecanos, flipped to where Obed had dog-eared the page. A third down a character was sniffing white powder from the crook of his thumb. The prison commander believed Obed Chocho would have understood the rush.

  His back still to the commander, Chocho was saying, ‘I’m out tomorrow afternoon, how about you set up a meeting. What’s that?’ He listened. Said, ‘I’ve just been told.’ He turned to face the prison commander, holding out the phone. ‘My attorney.’