Killer Country

by Mike Nicol

  ‘Hey,’ said Obed Chocho, ‘you’re on a good number with me. Keep it in mind.’

  Sheemina February smiled but the sight of it didn’t fill Obed Chocho’s heart with joy. Nor her words: ‘Oh I do, Mr Chocho, all the time.’

  He drank the rest of the beer without pause. ‘So Spitz is moaning. That’s what Spitz does, he moans. People who know Spitz say he’s a pain in the arse.’

  ‘He wants double payment.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘He believes he was contracted for one hit, ended up two. One plus one.’

  ‘That was my wife. He wasn’t contracted to kill her.’ Obed Chocho broke open another can of beer.

  ‘Technically, not his problem.’

  ‘Mighty fine. The trigger man goes in to do a job, someone else is there he shoots her too. Who asked him to do that? No one. No one said shoot everybody in the house. Take no prisoners. Like here is a licence to kill. Go ahead, be my guest. Massacre everybody.’ He drank deeply. ‘He didn’t have to kill her. She shouldn’t have been there.’

  ‘I’m not going to answer that.’

  ‘Why not? Why not? He didn’t have to kill her.’

  Obed Chocho felt the tears start, the emotion clogging in his throat. One thing he didn’t want was for Sheemina February to see him distraught. He swallowed more beer.

  ‘You want to do denial, you do it Obed. Just don’t do it on me.’

  Obed Chocho groaned, turning away from her to still the sobs, bring himself under control.

  ‘I’m going to pay Spitz, Obed. Keep it simple. We don’t want problems from him and Manga. When it’s over, what you do then is your business. For now I’m paying him.’

  Obed Chocho blew his nose into a handkerchief. Stuffed it back in his pocket. ‘Mighty fine. You’re the lawyer, sister. You handle it.’

  The lawyer didn’t reply, kept the car humming down the highway.

  * * *

  Half an hour later Obed Chocho stood on the stoep of the old farmhouse and looked at the sea. The water still with kelp heads resting on it. A path of broken shells leading from the house to a curve of beach. Headlands of white boulders either end.

  ‘Mighty fine view,’ he said to the two Smits, Henk and Olivia, standing between him and Sheemina February.

  ‘It’s our weekend park-off,’ said Olivia. ‘We love it. You can see Cape Town and the mountain from the top of the rise back there’ – she pointed off to the left – ‘but otherwise it’s like nineteenth century.’

  ‘With indoor plumbing,’ said Henk, laughing.

  ‘But no electricity,’ said Sheemina February.

  ‘We could’ve got it put in,’ said Henk. ‘For a price, but then we couldn’t see the point. If you put in electricity you’re going to bring work here. The idea wasn’t to do that.’

  ‘Gas and candles’re all you need,’ said Olivia. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her cut-off jeans, looking, to Obed Chocho’s way of thinking, far too easy in the situation.

  The conversation died. Obed Chocho thought spoilt white kids in their trendy gear, Raybans stuck in their hair, dark blue Saab cabriolet parked on the gravel patch at the back of the house. The house furnished shabby chic. And an apartment in Bantry Bay, Sheemina had found out.

  Where’d two kids not thirty, okay maybe thirty get this kind of money? Not a question he had to ask himself because he had the answer: white privilege. Centuries of it. People like Henk and Olivia made him want to spit.

  He stared at the horizon, realising the smudge in the haze was the northern tip of Robben Island.

  ‘That the island?’

  ‘You get a perfect view from the rise,’ said Olivia.

  ‘Mighty fine, I’m sure.’

  ‘On a clear day, through the bins, you can see people. It’s that close.’

  Sheemina February said, ‘Mr Chocho spent time there. In the old days.’

  Olivia Smit frowned, said, ‘Wow.’

  Henk Smit said, ‘Oh interesting.’

  Olivia saying, ‘Did you know Mr Mandela, Madiba?’

  ‘They’d taken him off already, when I got there,’ said Obed Chocho. ‘But I know the Old Man.’

  Olivia said, ‘That’s a privilege.’

  Obed Chocho made no further comment but turned to face the Smits. Smiling at them. ‘Business,’ he said.

  They nodded.

  ‘Mighty fine. The story’s you bought this five years ago? For what? Five hundred grand? Five hundred and fifty? Six hundred?’

  ‘It was a good deal,’ said Henk, taking the answer no further.

  ‘We needed diversity in our portfolio,’ said Olivia. ‘More property, specifically. The West Coast was obvious. Where else is there for the city to grow?’

  ‘We’re offering to double your money.’

  ‘Uh ha,’ said Henk.

  ‘Five years that’s a good return.’

  ‘It’s fair.’

  ‘Market related,’ put in Olivia.

  ‘So where’s the problem?’

  ‘No problem,’ said Henk. ‘We’ll sell at that price for a buyin. We like your development. Only thing we’ve got to do is structure this.’

  ‘We do it all the time,’ said Olivia. ‘Paperwork.’

  Obed Chocho said, ‘You got any beer?’ He’d had three in the car but could do with another. And one beyond that to wrap the deal.

  While Olivia went to fetch the bottles and glasses, Obed Chocho said, ‘You understand what’s going on here? This is a BEE project. Black. Economic. Empowerment. Totally. To push this through we can’t be seen otherwise.’

  Henk nodded. ‘Of course. We appreciate that.’

  ‘Not about getting our slice of the cake. About getting back the cake.’

  ‘I hear you,’ said Henk. ‘I don’t see it quite that way but I hear you.’

  ‘How do you see it, Henk?’ said Sheemina February.

  ‘I can talk straight?’

  ‘We’re adults.’

  Henk drew in a long breath. ‘Okay. What I see happening is some people getting rich on the back of a political situation. Getting very rich. Mostly it’s the same people. So happens I don’t have a problem here. This is capitalism: the acquisition of wealth. It’s what we do, Olivia and me, most waking moments of our day. No reason others shouldn’t.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Olivia, setting down the bottles on the table.

  ‘Make money.’ Henk moved to uncap the beer. Olivia laughed but neither Obed Chocho nor Sheemina February cracked a smile. ‘Glass or bottle?’

  Sheemina February said, glass; Obed Chocho said, bottle. He was thinking that these were punk whiteys wasting his time. His valuable time talking their stupid politics like there’d been no change of government. He took the beer Henk offered. ‘You think I’m greedy? That’s why I’m in jail.’

  ‘I don’t know you,’ said Henk. He handed Sheemina February a glass of beer and she took it in her good hand. ‘Personally I don’t know what you’re like. I’m talking generally. Theoretically. The reason you’re in jail, that’s old news. Doesn’t bother us.’

  ‘But if you come down to it,’ said Sheemina February, ‘what you’re saying is that Mr Chocho is greedy.’

  ‘Mr Chocho’s a businessman,’ said Olivia. ‘He lives in a nice house, he drives high-ticket cars. He has certain tastes. We all do that. So what?’

  Sheemina February sat down at a chair beside the table. ‘You’ve done your homework.’

  Olivia inclined her head.

  Obed Chocho standing on the edge of the stoep felt a pressure build in his temples. To get this far and be stopped by two young mlungus whose forebears had stolen the land in the first place. To be insulted. To be called greedy. These arseholes judging him. He swallowed a mouthful of beer, said, ‘You think I am corrupt? That I took bribes?’ His voice quiet, containing violence.

  Olivia was about to respond when Henk put his hand on her arm. She let him talk.

  ‘For myself I’m not concerned abo
ut that arms deal business. Neither of us are. What we see here is a way to make some money. We want to invest’ – he gestured at the beach and behind the house – ‘this property. For that we want a share of the profit. Open to negotiation of course.’ Henk shut up. He and his wife watching Obed Chocho.

  Sheemina February watching Obed Chocho too. The pulse point throbbing on his forehead. One hand gripping the beer bottle, the other latched onto the stoep railing.

  He turned to face the couple, went towards them, stopped a pace off. The woman and the man meeting his gaze. Obed Chocho held out his hand. He laughed. ‘My brother, my sister. I like you. So mighty fine we have a deal. Shake.’ He took Henk through the brother’s handshake, but kept it Western for Olivia. ‘We will negotiate like greedy people.’ Laughing again, letting them see he was relaxed. ‘Put your proposal in writing. We will work something out.’

  In the car driving away, the Smits standing arm in arm at the back door of the farmhouse, waving, Sheemina February said, ‘That was too easy.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Obed Chocho. ‘But I can’t deal with that shit. You’re the lawyer, fix the details.’

  ‘They’re sharp.’

  ‘Mighty fine,’ he said. ‘Blunten them.’

  ‘What?’ She glanced at him. ‘That’s not a word.’

  ‘Now it is. You know what I mean.’

  Sheemina February took the coast road: one side the shining sea, the other mile on mile of Tuscan complexes stacking up against the Blouberg highrise beachfront. Obed Chocho stared at the sea, wondering why nobody had found out yet that the woman’s body was his wife? How was he supposed to mourn before that?

  ‘Where’re we going?’ he said, suspecting he knew the answer.

  ‘Your house. Where else? You’ve done your business, you’re going home to spend the rest of the free time with your wife.’

  ‘And when she’s not there?’

  ‘You phone around trying to track her down. Find out what’s going on with her.’ Sheemina February checked the time on the dashboard clock. ‘It’s four. I’d have thought by now the cops would be on it. All they had to do was check his cellphone for a couple of clues.’

  ‘Mighty fine, okay. Mighty fine.’ Obed Chocho sat hunched and silent, not even concerned about another beer, until they turned into his street and saw an unmarked double-cab parked against the curb outside his house.

  ‘Cops,’ said Sheemina February. ‘About bloody time.’ She pulled up behind the van. A heavy brass got out, came up to the window on the passenger side.

  The heavy brass said, ‘Mr Chocho?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Obed Chocho, opening the car door.

  The heavy brass stepped back. ‘I’ve got bad news, sir. We have a body. We believe it’s your wife. Sir, could you come with me. To make an identification.’

  ‘You believe? You don’t know?’ Obed Chocho started ranting. ‘My wife’s at home. In there, in our house. What’s the problem that you can’t make a few decent phone calls first. Before you come with this stuff. Hey, you think it’s mighty fine to tell someone in the street, hello, man, your wife’s dead?’

  ‘Sir,’ said the heavy brass, ‘Mr Chocho, please.’

  But Obed Chocho was bending at the intercom mounted on a pole beside the driveway gates, stabbing the button, shouting into the mic, ‘Lindiwe, Lindiwe, open up.’

  ‘We’ve done that,’ said the heavy brass to Sheemina February. ‘Rang the home phone. It goes to voicemail. We’ve rung Mrs Chocho’s phone too, it rings in her handbag. That’s why we think…’

  ‘I’m Mr Chocho’s lawyer,’ said Sheemina February. ‘We’ll follow you.’

  ‘Ah, no,’ said the cop. ‘He needs to come with me. Regulations. Under the circumstances.’

  ‘He’s on a four-hour pass. The time’s not up yet. We’ll be right behind you.’

  The heavy brass sucked his moustache, considering, glancing across at Obed Chocho straightening up at the intercom post. ‘Stay close.’ He turned on his heel, saying, ‘Mr Chocho, let’s go, sir.’

  Following the cop van down the highway to the mortuary Sheemina February said, ‘Don’t overdo it Obed. Keep it contained. Grief looks better that way.’

  Obed Chocho said nothing.

  ‘The other thing we’ve got to sort out,’ she said, ‘is Rudi Klett. He’s flying in tomorrow. The sooner Spitz handles it the better.’

  A few minutes later, she took the Woodstock off-ramp, Obed Chocho still hadn’t answered her.

  ‘Should I talk to him?’

  No response.

  ‘Obed!’ She got no movement out of him. ‘Obed, listen to me. Should I talk to him?’

  At the traffic lights, they stopped behind the double-cab. The heavy brass watching them in his rearview mirror.

  ‘Obed, there is another option. I can let the president’s men know. Or your friend Judge Telman Visser even, if you’re feeling kindhearted. They all want to talk to Rudi Klett in their way. Which option? Take your pick. We do the president a favour, mmm?. Afterwards, let him know he owes you, oh good and faithful servant.’ She laughed, the hard sarcastic laugh that riled Obed Chocho. ‘What’s it going to be?’

  ‘Ja, mighty fine,’ said Obed Chocho.

  ‘Spitz?’

  No response.

  ‘Spitz it is then.’ She parked behind the police double-cab.

  Obed Chocho looked up at Devil’s Peak, then across the wide street at the mortuary: brown face-brick with a gable. The sort of building you don’t notice among other buildings you didn’t notice in an empty part of town this hour of a Sunday afternoon. He thought of Lindiwe lying on a gurney in there. Her lovely face with a bullet hole in it, given how Spitz worked. He wasn’t sure how he’d be when he saw her.

  22

  Spitz, stretched out on the bed in front of the television in his hotel room, answered the call from Sheemina February.

  ‘You’re getting your money,’ she said.

  ‘Sharp,’ said Spitz, and waited.

  So did Sheemina February. The only sound Spitz heard from the phone was a car pass slowly wherever Sheemina February was. It could be, he thought, that she was bringing the money to him?

  Eventually she said, ‘That’s it? Sharp?’

  Spitz liked the irritation in her voice. Smiled at how he’d riled her. ‘Sure.’

  She let it go and he imagined her mentally shifting the issue aside. Putting it in storage for later use. The sign of a revenger in Spitz’s book. The sort of person who preferred salads and cold meat. As he did.

  ‘Tomorrow it’ll be in your account.’

  So she wasn’t driving it over personally. ‘I will check it.’

  ‘I’m sure you will. And if it’s not?’

  ‘You have said it will be. That is fine. I trust you on your word.’

  ‘You don’t know me, Spitz.’

  ‘We have talked together.’

  ‘And what? You’re a psychologist? Just by talking to someone you get a profile?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Spitz brought up the remote to turn down the sound on the television, reckoning there was something else on Sheemina February’s mind that she was letting this conversation draw out.

  ‘There’s another job for you,’ she said.

  Again he had to smile. ‘I know that one.’

  ‘What do you mean you know?’

  ‘That is the one I’m contracted to undertake.’

  ‘Later,’ said Sheemina February, ‘next weekend. This one’s tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Spitz. He fired a menthol. On the television Humphrey Bogart told Ingrid Bergman ‘Here’s looking at you kid.’ Spitz wondered if you watched television everyday for a month how many times you’d see Casablanca. In six months of random watching this was the second time. The other time had also been in a hotel bedroom between jobs.

  ‘Not difficult,’ Sheemina February was saying. ‘I’ve got pictures of the man who’s not the target. The one with him is. No collateral, okay
?’ They’re flying in tomorrow.’ She gave him the flight details.

  Spitz inhaled, and let the smoke ooze back out. Ingrid Bergman was in the plane taxiing for takeoff.

  ‘Another thing, I thought you might like to know that was Mrs Lindiwe Chocho you blotted last night.’

  The dame, as Bogie would call her.

  ‘I did wonder about that woman,’ said Spitz.

  ‘You wondered?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Like to tell me why?’

  Spitz swung his feet off the bed. ‘I do not have anything to tell you.’

  ‘But you will anyhow.’

  Spitz made a face in the mirror. He thought he might like Sheemina February. ‘There is a feeling you get about a job. A feeling of what is right and what is not right.

  ‘That so?’

  ‘If a job comes suddenly then I must wonder why?’

  ‘This’s a sudden job.’

  ‘But you are phoning me. Before it was Mr Chocho on the phone.’

  ‘He can’t call you,’ Sheemina February said, ‘he’s over the road in the morgue. Identifying his dead wife.’

  ‘That way he knows the job is done.’

  ‘He’s upset, Spitz. Grieving.’

  ‘This collateral does happen sometimes.’ He opened the curtains to a view across a motorway at the mountains. ‘He has to tell me. In the beginning. Who is the target, who are the friends.’

  ‘Like I’m telling you now,’ said Sheemina February. ‘One smack. Not the guy in the pictures.’

  ‘These pictures, you have them with you?’ said Spitz.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I will fetch them.’

  ‘Tomorrow. They’ll be delivered.’

  ‘With another gun?’

  ‘There’s a problem with the one you’ve got?’

  ‘It has shot two people.’

  ‘It can shoot another one.’

  Spitz shrugged at his reflection in the window. ‘For me I do not like that sort of arrangement.’

  Sheemina February laughed. ‘What arrangement? That the cops will connect them. Since they put black brothers and sisters in there the system’s gone kaput. Forensics is sitting on a backlist two years long. You get unlucky and they put these two together, the files will be buried under stacks taller than a giraffe. This is not a problem, Spitz.’