Killer Country

by Mike Nicol

  ‘Fat chance I’ve got of swimming there now.’

  Oumou rubbed a hand over his back.

  ‘If Christa can walk again, then you can swim one day.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The self-pity bubbling up in Mace. The way he felt so often: a spare part.

  ‘I’ve got to do something.’ He turned to Oumou, pulled her to him. He could smell clay in her hair.

  Mace brooded:

  With Pylon, in the office, thumbing through a mining magazine, the face of the gunman smirking at him.

  Pylon saying, ‘This isn’t the end. No ways.’

  Mace flipped the magazine onto the coffee table.

  ‘Give it up. Obed Chocho’s legal. He’s got the contracts. He’s got the tender. What’re you going to do?’

  ‘He took out Rudi Klett.’

  ‘Oh right. He’s confessed?’

  ‘Those guys stayed at Chocho’s house.’

  ‘Big deal. The cops would love it.’

  ‘The cops. Who’s talking cops.’ Pylon jumping up to pace the room. ‘Why’re you so negative. This isn’t Mace Bishop talking. The hellboy.’ He stopped next to his partner. ‘We should roll over on this? That’s what you want?’

  Mace let out a long sigh. ‘I don’t know what I want.’

  A silence in the room. Someone revving a bike on the square, someone calling a name. Pylon dropped onto the couch. ‘Wake up, brother. Get on the programme.’

  ‘I’m thinking of it.’ Mace raised heavy eyes at him. Saw the hard brown stare of the man he’d known for more of his life than anyone else. The pursed lips, the quiver in the nostrils that Pylon got when he was worked up. Felt a deep lethargy dragging him down. Times were he thought to go down with it.

  Pylon reached over and slapped his knee. ‘Come on. Snap back, save me Jesus.’

  Mace straightened in his chair. ‘Okay, okay.’

  ‘You with this?’ Pylon leaning forward, started tapping off points on his fingers. ‘Here’s what we know. We know they connected with Obed Chocho. We know they took out the farmer. We know one of them’s still alive. You with me?’

  Mace nodded.

  ‘Sharp.’ Pylon held up another bunch of fingers. ‘Here’s what we assume. For the hell of it. We assume this gent, Mr Hitman, did the number on Popo Dlamini. Taking the .22 headshot as a clue. Reason: Popo was screwing Obed’s wife and Obed didn’t like it. Same reason the lovely Lindiwe got done.’

  ‘Chocho takes a contract on his own wife? Give me a break.’

  ‘Ah, Mr Bishop returns.’

  ‘That shit happens only in movies.’

  ‘Whoa. Whokai. Hey, we’re talking assumption. We’re talking stories. Let’s play it out.’ Pylon waiting for Mace to agree. Mace opening his hands with a shrug. Pylon smiled. ‘Good. So we assume Mr Hitman took out Rudi Klett. Same sort of headshot. Also a .22. Reason: Rudi Klett could jeopardise Obed Chocho’s development plan. All of the details known to Obed thanks to double-dealing Popo Dlamini. How’m I doing?’

  ‘It’s a story.’

  ‘Course it is. Now here’re the blinds. Who got to the Smits and why? Could be Obed because everything’s signed and sealed, but why’d he bother? Also the shooters had a white BM. Could’ve been the Smits car.’

  ‘Possible.’

  ‘And who got Mr Hitman onto the farmer? No leverage for Obed Chocho there. Except Judge Telman Visser sentenced Obed Chocho to six years. The man could be pissed off. But if we’re talking some sort of revenge, why not take out the judge himself?’

  ‘Why not?’

  No answer.

  Tami came in with the post, handed a bundle to Pylon, another to Mace.

  Pylon said, ‘How about some sandwiches?’ Tami, on her way out the door, paused. ‘Make mine gruyere on half rye. With gherkins.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘I’ll have the same,’ said Mace, waving another copy of Mining Weekly. ‘What’s this?’

  Tami said, ‘Search me. Probably a freebie, fishing for a subscription.’

  Mace tossed the magazine onto the table.

  Pylon said, ‘Please, Tami, do us a favour, sisi.’

  ‘Jeez,’ said Tami. ‘Buti’ – giving him a run of Xhosa that brought an embarrassed laugh out of Pylon.

  ‘Hey,’ said Pylon, ‘remember who’s the makulu boss.’

  Tami sashayed off in the way that Mace appreciated, her arse tight against the black slacks.

  Pylon said, ‘Can I have your attention, sir?’

  ‘What for?’ said Mace. ‘We’re getting nowhere.’

  Mace brooded:

  About the hitman’s motive in not killing him, Christa. Finishing the job. Was it scorn? Pity? Ridicule? Was it because he could never be found. Could drive into the vastness leaving no traces of who he was. Mr Invisible. Mr Almighty.

  He could hear the man’s laughter. See his mouth wide open. His teeth glistening.

  Mace phoned Christa, the girl at school on break. Every morning he phoned her, keeping it light. Nonchalant. Like he just happened to do it on the spur of the moment.

  ‘I’m okay, Papa. You don’t have to worry.’

  Mace saying, ‘Just checking.’

  One morning Christa responded differently. ‘Papa, in life skills we heard about PTSD.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘You know, stress.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So you’re stressing.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I think,’ Christa talking quietly. ‘Like hectic.’

  Mace calling while on one of his mountain-top walks, hoping to flush out a mugger. ‘It bothers you? My phoning?’

  ‘Papa.’ A pause with the shrieks of playground noise in the background letting Mace know that the connection wasn’t down. Then: ‘It’s not that.’

  ‘What then? You think I need a shrink? Your Dr Hofmeyer?’

  ‘She’s a therapist.’

  ‘You think I’m crazy?’

  ‘I was shot, too, Papa.’

  ‘Been there, huh. Done that?’ Regretting the words immediately.

  He heard a bell ring for the end of break. ‘I’ve got to go Papa.’

  ‘I’m sorry, C,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean that.’ Realised she’d disconnected.

  Mace sat on a rock staring at the back of Devil’s Peak. Beyond a plane sank out of the sky. He tapped the phone against his knee, insistently, rapidly. Stressing. He was stressing. His daughter telling him this. That he needed to see someone. The strong silent untouchable Mace cracking up.

  The pebble scrape of footsteps snapped Mace back to the here and now. A man coming along the path, eyes focused on him. A black brother, lanky type, cornrow hairstyle, shades, something metallic in his hand. Mace slipped off the rocks, out of the man’s sight, planning to circle up behind him.

  Except he came round the boulders, the man was right there in his face. Mace going straight for him, spinning the brother, a lock across his throat, slamming him against the rockface. Shades snapping. Whatever the man held clattering as it fell.

  ‘Want to mug me?’ Mace said, bouncing the man’s head off the sandstone. ‘Think I’m some German pisswilly? Think again, china.’ Bringing a knee up hard in a groin mash. The man gasped, Mace let him fall on the sand. Brought out the P8.

  ‘Mountain ranger,’ Mace heard him wheeze.

  ‘What?’ Mace grinding the barrel against the man’s temple.

  ‘Ranger.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘Please.’

  Mace heard two-way radio static from the handset fallen between the rocks. A voice saying, ‘Dumisa, Dumisa? Come in, Dumisa.’

  ‘You’re Dumisa?’ said Mace.

  The man nodded. Mace put away the pistol. ‘You should wear a uniform,’ he said, walking off.

  Mace brooded:

  Alone. After being woken by Oumou in the small hours from a dream.

  Came awake with her voice soothing him.

  ‘What?’ he said, ‘wh
at?’ – sitting up.

  ‘You are shouting,’ said Oumou. ‘And jerking about your body.’

  Mace collapsed back on the pillow. ‘I’m soaking.’ Running a hand over his damp chest. ‘Ah, that was horrible.’ He got up. In the bathroom towelled himself dry, the images from the dream still vivid.

  ‘You are having a nightmare?’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said, ‘I’m okay.’ Standing at the bed. ‘I’m going to make some tea. Rooibos.’

  Oumou, half upright, resting on her elbows, watched him pull on a tracksuit. ‘Mace, cheri, why do you not want pills? With them you can sleep.’

  ‘I’ve had them,’ he said. ‘You know what they do to me. It’s like being half-asleep all the time. They’re not the answer.’ He zipped closed the tracksuit jacket, looked down at her. ‘There’s something I need to do. To get rid of. You know, purge it from inside me. I reckon that’s what’s my problem. When I get rid of this thing I’ll be alright.’

  ‘And this thing is?’

  ‘I don’t know. A fear. Something weird.’

  ‘You must see Dr Hofmeyer.’

  ‘No ways. Forget it. You and your daughter both want me on a shrink’s couch. Uh uh. I’m not mad.’

  ‘Of course. Macho is the same thing, yes.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Christa has seen Dr Hofmeyer and she has no problems. No nightmares. But you think you can be shot and be a tough man. Non, mon cheri, it is impossible.’

  ‘Soldiers do it all the time. So do cops.’

  ‘Ah oui, soldiers. Policemen.’ Oumou levered herself upright. ‘How many policemen kill their families? Shoot at their wives and their children? Every week I hear it on the radio.’

  ‘All right. Okay,’ said Mace. ‘Just let me work this thing out. Then I’ll do it.’

  ‘You are making a promise?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘For the sleeping pills and for Dr Hofmeyer.’

  ‘Both.’

  She looked at him. The sceptical tilt to her head Mace had seen plenty of times when she wasn’t sure if he was playing straight.

  ‘Genuine,’ he said.

  Oumou pulled her knees up under the duvet. ‘Oui, I am going to believe you. But what is your English saying that we will wait and see.’

  ‘You will,’ said Mace, at that moment convinced he meant it. He opened their bedroom door. ‘Want some tea?’

  Oumou shook her head, settled herself again. ‘Do not stay up for too long.’

  Mace looked in on Christa, a tight ball beneath the duvet. She didn’t stir at the click of her door opening. The cat did, made a strange strangled meeou, leapt off the bed, rubbed against Mace’s legs. Mace stared at his daughter, the spray of her hair across the pillow. Thought, even when you were with them, you couldn’t protect them.

  In the kitchen he dunked a rooibos bag in a mug of boiling water. Stood at the counter in the dark with the blinds open so that he could see the city: the bright lights pooled in the bowl. The yellow strings around the bay.

  Cat2 sprang on the counter, pushed against him for attention. He rubbed the skin between her eyes, thinking about the short dreads hitman. About why he hadn’t killed them? There was no reason. Two more deaths on such a hit list couldn’t be a bother. No. He’d let them live because he could. He didn’t care. It was a favour. A backhanded donation. The way you’d flip a coin into a beggar’s tin. Without thinking. Walking past in your own life, untroubled.

  Mace got riled at the thought. At the arrogance. To be dished out charity by a self-styled Mr Death. And then to rub it in.

  He spooled through the nightmare again, image for image. Being chased across a stony terrain: the ground rock-strewn, huge piles of boulders scattered about like silent mausoleums. His legs heavy, the muscles too fatigued to move him one step after another. Like he was staggering through soft sand. Panting with the effort. Pylon ahead, looking back to urge him on. The sound of gunfire. Of men shouting. And the face of the short dreads hitman suddenly at his shoulder. The man laughing, showing his teeth he laughed so hard. Bringing up a pistol with a silencer. Pow. Pow. Not gunshots, but the hitman’s joke imitation.

  Mace felt the sweat break out across his chest and back again.

  52

  She had visited him in hospital. Looked in on him while he slept, a vulnerable man taped to tubes and drips. His cheeks rough with beard, his face almost peaceful with his eyes closed. Those eyes that were like glass. Cold blue ice. Nordic, like her own. Which appealed to her. Gave them something else in common.

  She thought to leave a rosebud. A single stem in an elegant glass vase on the table beside his bed. It would anger him. Maybe even put a chill in his blood. Although she believed Mace Bishop hid whatever troubled him in violence.

  She smiled to think of his reaction. Imagined he would backhand it off the pedestal. Summon nurses, security, demand explanations.

  Describe her. How? Tall. Striking. High cheekbones. Perfect lips, deep plum lipstick. Her brilliant eyes. Her dark hair, glossy and bobbed. The stylish suit. The black glove on her left hand.

  Try to have her banned from the ward. For leaving a rosebud! His insistence that he be taken seriously. The puzzled expressions of the nurses and doctors, nodding, patronising, infuriating him.

  For that alone it would’ve been worth it but she had other plans. Instead she stood at the foot of the bed, photographed him.

  She brought up the photographs on her laptop. A series: a long-distance of a stretcher being lifted from an air ambulance; another, closer, of the wounded man on the stretcher being placed in an ambulance, a woman and her daughter standing anxious, looking on; the ambulance under the portals of a hospital, its doors open, the stretcher being rushed into casualty. Two photographs of Mace Bishop in his hospital bed. The next of him leaving hospital on crutches. The photograph tightly framed, sharp enough to catch a wince of pain on his face. Then: Mace walking the promenade, his arm in a sling; Mace at a café, his arm free; Mace at the upper cable station, a photograph taken from behind with the bay in the background. Another of Mace approaching the photographer: a figure in the landscape on a path leading between rocks over low scrub. The top of the mountain, behind the figure the cliffs of Chapman’s Peak dropping to the sea.

  In recent weeks she had a number of photographs of Mace on the mountain. At first she’d wondered at his sudden taking to the heights. Then noticed they tracked what the papers called the mountain maniac’s attacks. How sweet, she thought. He’s playing vigilante. Unless he was the mountain maniac himself. The notion brought a smile to her lips.

  Leaving the pictures she poured herself a cold white wine, sauvignon blanc, went to stand on the balcony. Above the horizon a sinking sun held little heat. From below rose the voices of tourists on a sunset cruise, heading for the Waterfront. A few waved at the sight of her. She ignored their gesture. Then turned to face into her apartment: the crimson of a westing sun flushing its whiteness. She liked this time, this autumn season, with its hint of winter.

  She went in. Plugged the iPod Spitz had sent into her sound system and scrolled through the playlist to a section he’d called Songs of Murder. At first she’d found them too sentimental, too emotional. But on a second listening she’d heard something else: a simplicity that appealed to her. These were songs about people who lived by their own laws. They were ruled by their hearts.

  She liked that.

  Sheemina February turned the music louder, Love Me Someday, flopped down on a couch. She heard the song through, Jesse Sykes putting out an invitation. And the next. Soft Hand. A driving beat, got her foot tapping. Then the voice, full-on sex. Singing about a soft hand to ease him in. She could imagine doing that. Skin against skin. Reversing the roles. Sitting on him. Her thighs splayed over his. His slow thrusting into her. His hands on her breasts. Her hands around his throat. How gently he could be squeezed into death. She could see him on her laptop, the face of Mace Bishop staring across at her, puzzled.

  Th
e song ended and Sheemina February took a swallow of wine. Agitated, went back onto the balcony. The sea was empty now, a breeze scratching its surface. She could hear the music faintly still: another murder, another broken heart. Spitz’s anthems. I’ll Follow You Down. He Will Call You Baby.

  She’d been irritated when he’d sent the iPod. Phoned him. Asked him what he thought he was doing? ‘It is nothing,’ he’d said in his weirdly formal English. ‘A gift precisely.’

  ‘Alright. But this is it, understand.’

  Waiting for him to say, ‘I understand.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ she’d said. ‘Presently.’

  Sooner than she’d thought, as it turned out.

  She selected his number on her cellphone. The phone rang once only.

  ‘Everything is fine,’ Spitz answered. ‘There is no need for any concern.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought otherwise,’ she said, disconnecting.

  53

  Judge Telman Visser reached across the table and spooned lemon sorbet into the young man’s mouth. Smiling, his eyes fastened on the eyes of the young man, his coach, Ricardo, such emerald eyes, such a name. The young man sucked the ice off the teaspoon. With his own spoon scooped a helping from the ball of sorbet in the dish between them and held this towards the judge, the judge opening his mouth in anticipation, his teeth gleaming with saliva.

  ‘A palate cleanser,’ said Judge Visser sitting back in his wheelchair, following the tang of the sorbet with a sip of riesling. A 2001 vintage, crisp and clean. His second glass on a starter of grilled haloumi fingers. One of his most successful hors d’oeuvres, a word he used twice as Ricardo carried the plates to the dinner table, pronouncing it the French way. He touched his upper lip with the tip of his finger. ‘Sorbet,’ he said.

  ‘Ag.’ The young man coloured, wiped at his moustache with a serviette.

  ‘And how was that?’