Killer Country

by Mike Nicol

  Which was one of the reasons he hadn’t gone into cash heists: the stats were against you. More money, maybe, but you got killed or shot up or arrested.

  Spitz didn’t know any rich cash-in-transit heisters. Not soldiers. Knew of plenty of big players pulling cashflow from bank heists and carjackings and round-sourcing government contracts and crony deals and land development scams. They got richer and richer diversifying assets. One or two almost richer in twelve years than the Oppenheimers in a century.

  Spitz fired up another cigarette, took a pull. Most of them bastards. Bastards like Obed Chocho. Except the deal with Chocho had this percentage. This was a new arrangement. An incentive. One that appealed to Spitz. ‘He has heard about you,’ the woman had said. ‘He knows your work, that’s why the percentage.’ He checked his watch. The man was ten minutes late.

  A voice behind him said in English, ‘Yo, captain, am I waiting for you?’

  Spitz turned, not liking being surprised, saw this Zulu boy grinning at him.

  Manga marked Spitz right off, standing there outside the police station in his pressed chinos and brogues. Neat, dapper. New bag beside him. Saw Spitz look at the passengers getting out of the taxi, check his watch, grind out the cigarette. Not even noticing him. Manga dressed in floppy township. No difference between him and any cousin. Spitz not giving him a second glance. The great Spitz-the-Trigger.

  What Manga had wanted to know at the outset was why Spitz? When he got the call from the woman and was told the job and was told Spitz would be his partner he’d protested. ‘No, uh uh. Who needs that man, Spitz?’

  ‘You do,’ he was told. Because this was not some bang-bang arrangement where he could put the AK on auto and spray a clip far and wide. This was precision work. In out, one shot per.

  ‘I can do that,’ said Manga. ‘I’ve done that.’

  The woman on the line had laughed at him.

  Once, he’d done it. Once only. An assassination that’d taken three hits of brown sugar and not a little brandy in advance. Eight bullets in the execution. The place looked more like a massacre site than a hit, more blood on the walls and ceiling than a slaughter house. Splatter marks in the bedroom, down the passage way, in the lounge and in the kitchen. Only because it was open plan, Manga tried to explain. No, he’d been told, because you messed up in the bedroom. The man’s lying in bed with his wife, you’re standing over them and it still takes five bullets for the man alone. Three for the woman. And the woman ends up dead outside. That’s why you need Spitz. Spitz uses only one bullet per head. No shit on the walls. No smashed furniture, no broken vases. Nobody even attempting to escape. Better to stick to transit heists, she’d told Manga.

  Manga reckoned that too. Do the job, get the money, have a blast in some shebeen. Until the deal on this job was laid out: the fee plus a percentage. For being the driver. That’s all. Get him there, get the job done. We trust you Manga.

  Meaning, Manga believed, they didn’t trust Spitz. Hadn’t contracted with Spitz before. Knew the reputation, but weren’t sure about the man. At the end of it maybe Mr Spitz wasn’t going to be on the payroll. Such were Manga’s personal conclusions according to gut feel and a working knowledge of Obed Chocho people.

  Personally, he had no social problem with Spitz-the-Trigger. Personally he could hang with anybody, no big deal. Shoot a few beers, tell a few war stories and they were brothers. Personally, though, he’d rather have done the job with someone he knew. Personally Spitz-the-Trigger wasn’t high up the list of people he wanted to know.

  A man with a shoe fetish! Hey, wena, what’s to talk about with a shoe man?

  Manga looked down at his Adidas trainers. Stood in the police yard behind the security fence right behind Spitz, Spitz standing there in his polished brown brogues, their shine dulled with red dust. Sharp shoes. But what’d he want to wear smart shoes for in Soweto. They get scuffed in a taxi, ruined on the streets. Okay for a Sandton shopping mall but where they were going brogues weren’t the shoe. Where they were going the shoe was light and tight, urban-style.

  Manga noted the broad shoulders, the shirt creased in the small of the back from sitting in a taxi. The neat short dreads hairstyle. The way Spitz held himself he might break if he moved. This was the man they said had done some of the hits for high-up people. Manga rolled his tongue round his teeth. He latched the fingers of his left hand into the fence, said, ‘Yo, captain, am I waiting for you?’

  Spitz turned. He wasn’t grinning like Manga. He held up his arm and tapped his watch. ‘I am waiting for you. Ten minutes.’

  ‘I’ve been here,’ said Manga. He let go of the fence, jerked his thumb at the door of the police station. ‘The man we’ve gotta see’s inside.’

  The sergeant they had to see took them to a compound at the back of the police station. About fifty cars in it, a few of them totalled. To the side two rows of good models, mostly new G-string Beemers, some Audis, Subarus, a few sporty Golfs, the sort of cars with fast nought to one hundred specs. Could have been on the forecourt of any northern suburbs dealership.

  ‘I saved you time,’ said the sergeant. ‘I picked out a car already.’ He pointed to a navy BM at the back of the row nearest the compound gate. Three series, the latest model. ‘That one. It’s fast, it’s clean. I drove it. You want to drive it? Fifty-five on the clock. Full service record.’

  ‘Any blood in it?’ Spitz put down his holdall, took a packet of menthols from his top pocket.

  ‘Valeted,’ said the sergeant, not looking at Spitz. ‘Anyhow, a no-shit hijack. No blood in it ever. Guaranteed.’

  ‘Number plates are the original?’ said Manga.

  Spitz lit a cigarette without offering the pack.

  ‘Sure.’ The sergeant grinned, exposing a missing molar, top right. ‘With the paperwork backlog it is a week before the car is in our system. Your holiday is a week, né? Until then the car is not missing. Never came in here. But in a week the car is hot stuff.’

  Spitz exhaled, the smoke hanging dense in the air before them.

  Manga said, ‘Let me listen to it.’

  ‘The key is inside.’ The sergeant opened the door for Manga to slide in. Said to Spitz, ‘This one is okay for you?’

  Spitz shrugged. ‘I am going for the ride.’

  Whatever the sergeant replied, he couldn’t hear beneath the whine and roar of the BM. When Manga dropped the engine to idle the sergeant said, ‘This car is perfect.’ He slapped the roof with his palm. ‘Sharp, sharp guaranteed.’

  Manga switched off the ignition and eased his legs out. ‘How about that Subaru, captain? BM or a Subaru I would choose a Subaru.’

  ‘No problem,’ said the sergeant. ‘In these two rows whatever you want it is yours. Your friend doesn’t want one with the blood, I can show you those. For you to pick. These are good cars. Every one. If you want my choice you take this BMW.’ He slapped the roof again. ‘That is my job. Find a good car I am told. I find it. Also, this’s a car for us. Two gents in it, that’s not unusual. In a Subaru, that’s strange. You get whites and coloureds drive a Subaru.’

  ‘Subarus are better,’ said Manga. He selected a model two cars down.

  ‘That one had much blood,’ said the sergeant.

  Manga scanned the interior. ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘You cannot see it now. I’m telling you. In the passenger seat that hole, that hole is a bullet hole. Forty-five millimetre, hollow-point. I do not have to say any more.’

  ‘This one,’ said Spitz, kicking lightly at the back wheel of the Beemer. He picked up his bag. ‘Can you open the boot?’

  The sergeant scooted round the car, grinning. ‘I have a present in there for you.’

  Manga, at the Subaru, started to say something, then stopped. Don’t argue, they’d told him. Stick with him. Do what he says. He slammed shut the car door. Spitz glanced up but the sergeant was too busy marvelling at the contents of the boot to pay Manga’s attitude any note.

  Laid out on a towel
was a Ruger small calibre pistol with a silencer. Shiny, like new. A box of .22 Long Rifle cartridges beside it.

  ‘That is what you wanted?’

  Spitz nodded.

  ‘I oiled it.’

  Spitz nodded again.

  Manga came up. ‘Captain. Captain, that’s a toy.’

  ‘It’s a very light gun,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘Sure,’ said Spitz. ‘This is what I use.’ He reached in and wrapped the gun in the towel, put the box of bullets into his bag. ‘No record on it?’

  ‘Stolen,’ said the sergeant. ‘Never reported. Not registered either. What’re we going to do with it? One day put it in the smelter that will make the gun-free people happier. We got stock piles waiting for that day. One, nobody’s gonna miss.’

  Spitz placed his holdall in the boot and rummaged in it for an iPod wired to headphones. ‘Do you have a bag?’ he said to Manga.

  ‘We can get it on the way.’ Manga gestured at the gate. ‘Meadowlands. Just down the road.’

  Spitz slammed the lid shut. ‘You have been helpful,’ he said to the sergeant.

  The sergeant grinned, revealing the gap in his teeth. ‘Sharp, sharp. You have a week. Drive safe.’

  4

  Tami came in with two beers, said, ‘I’m reception, né, not a waitress’ – plonked the bottles down on the coffee table in Pylon’s office right beside where Mace’s feet rested. Mace sprawled in an armchair, Pylon perched in the window looking down on Dunkley Square. The cafés filling with Friday drinkers.

  ‘Time you gave up smoking?’ said Pylon.

  Tami going, ‘Like what? Like how’s it a problem?’

  ‘Your clothes,’ said Pylon. ‘The smoke’s in your clothes.’

  Mace grinned. ‘He’s kidding, Tami. Working your case.’

  ‘Like I need it.’ To Pylon she said, ‘Your wife phoned. Wants you to call her back.’

  Pylon groaned. ‘Talk about working my case’ – taking up his cellphone

  Mace said, ‘Go home, Tami. Get out of here’ – watching her head for the stairs with a waggle of fingers goodbye. Had a good arse on her that hadn’t started spreading yet.

  Mace reached for a beer and took a pull. Pylon at the window gazing up Table Mountain saying, ‘Yes, Treasure. I’ll pick her up. In half an hour. Relax.’

  When he’d disconnected turning to Mace: ‘You’d think she’d understand we run a business. That I’m not a chauffeur.’

  ‘Mostly we’re chauffeurs,’ said Mace, ‘when you think about it.’

  Pylon said, ‘What?’ Lifted his bottle of beer from the coffee table. Said, ‘Pumla can wait another half an hour. She’s at your place anyhow. With Christa. Oumou watching over both of them. But, no, Treasure’s steaming.’ He drank a short swallow. ‘What d’you mean chauffeurs, anyhow.’

  ‘Seems to me,’ said Mace, ‘that’s what security’s come down to. Driving scared people around.’

  Pylon laughed. ‘Good money though.’

  ‘Time we got out.’

  ‘You serious?’

  ‘Reckon.’ Mace swallowed a mouthful of beer. And another before he put the bottle back on the coaster, matching the wet ring to the bottom of the bottle. ‘Guarding’s for kids. Macho types getting kicks out of belting up a nine mil when they dress.’

  ‘I’ve not heard this version before.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean it hasn’t been on my mind.’ Mace met his eyes. ‘Look at what’s happening. What we’re doing? All our lives we’ve been trading, getting shot at, shooting back. The war stops. Whatta we do? Search out a gap where we can get shot at again. Doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It did. Make sense.’

  ‘Not any more. Also I’ve got this court case on my head.’

  ‘I thought Captain Gonz had sorted it, quashed it.’

  Mace shook his head. ‘Adjournments. Technical postponements. He tells me no more adjournments’re possible. Pressure from the US consul looking after their murdering citizens. Try them, sentence them, get it over with.’ Mace took a pull at his beer. ‘The consul telling the prosecutors to stop dragging it out.’

  Pylon watched people on the square, people hugging each other, relaxing at the end of the week. ‘You should’ve shot them.’

  ‘Paulo and Vittoria?’

  ‘Them, yeah. Saved all this bother. You went soft.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Mace fidgeted with a lose thread on the couch arm. ‘I thought … I don’t know what I thought. I thought after the killing spree they’d been on, the case would be quick sticks done and dusted.’ He pulled out the thread, snapped it. ‘Two good scores for Captain Gonsalves notched to his service record. Paulo and Vittoria lost in the prison system. Instead they want to tell the world I tortured them.’ He wound the thread round his finger.

  ‘Which you did.’

  ‘To get a confession. How they murdered the Italian homos, Isabella and her sidekick.’

  Pylon frowned. ‘She was a problem. Isabella was bad news, we should of stayed away from her.’

  ‘She got us the diamonds, remember.’

  ‘She nearly got us killed. All because she lead you by the cock.’

  ‘I fancied her once.’ Mace pulled at the thread till his finger hurt.

  ‘Once was once. Your problem you don’t let things go.’ Pylon shook his head. ‘So what’s the captain say?’

  ‘He’s stuffed too. Colluding. Withholding evidence. Gonz’s an unhappy man. Hearing’s still set down for a month’s time. Any day they could subpoena me.’

  ‘But they haven’t yet?’

  ‘No.’

  Mace tightened the thread, grimaced.

  Pylon said, ‘You’ll pop your finger, you carry on doing that.’

  They drank in silence. Voices from the square drifting up. Pylon broke the quiet. ‘So this’s why you want to cash in, sell the business? You want to do a runner before the hearing?’

  Mace glanced at him, squinted to see his expression against the light. ‘You see another option? I’m facing jail time at the end of this. What happens to Oumou and Christa then?’

  ‘The way I see it we’ve been through this three times already with adjournments. Every time the wheels of justice fall off. Trust to the captain, the man’s got a lot to lose.’

  ‘It’s not your skin,’ said Mace.

  ‘All I’m saying,’ – Pylon slid off the window sill, stretched his back – ‘is we got to keep the options open, choose the moment to sell out. Now’s not it. Know what I mean. You can’t put your life on hold because of this court case. Maybe it doesn’t get to court. Then what?’

  Mace raised his eyebrows, the yeah, yeah in his expression.

  ‘No, hang on. I mean it.’ Pylon moved from the window, sat on the couch opposite Mace. ‘Listen,’ – leaning forward to get Mace’s attention – ‘there’s a way out, in the long term. Come in on the west coast scheme. Golf estates make big bucks.’ The west coast scheme one of Pylon’s capitalist ventures, something Mace wanted in on anyhow.

  ‘How?’ Mace took another swallow. ‘With what? Where’re Oumou and I going to get spare cash?’

  ‘From me.’ Pylon giving him the full eyeball. ‘This’s our out, my brother. You want it that badly, grab the lifeline. This comes off we can start thinking of selling up. Get out. No more crap and cranola. Liquidate the Cayman account. Live properly. We do it carefully Revenue’ll not suspect a thing.’

  ‘And the court case?’

  ‘Forget the court case. Plan positive.’

  Mace glancing off out the window at the mountain. The last of the sun against the cliffs, catching the buttresses, the red in the sandstone. ‘We sit here, all that money in Cayman, we can’t touch it. Our bucks. Hard earned moola.’

  ‘We get the golf estate we can launder it. Some of it. Whatever we want. No problem.’

  ‘It eats me,’ said Mace.

  Pylon sat back. ‘It’s a way to sort things out.’

  ‘If I go to jail.’

  ‘I didn’t s
ay that. I said forget the court case. We face it if and when.’

  Mace looked at his partner. Unwavering conviction in Pylon’s eyes.

  ‘Believe me,’ said Pylon. ‘Mightn’t happen. So’ – he came forward again – ‘let’s put that aside, clarify this other matter, about cashing up. I’ve heard this before from you, this closing down number. Maybe two, three times.’

  ‘Sure.’ Mace nodded. ‘After Christa got shot. After that bastard pulled that kidnap stunt. After Isabella got killed. I know, I said enough each time. But really, hey, how could we do it really? I needed the bucks. Need them still. Without the money we’re in the dwang, Oumou and me.’ Mace reached for his beer. ‘What I’m saying is, with the court case, I’m stuffed. My family’s stuffed.’

  They drank in silence. Mace thinking, he did a runner where in the world would they live? Malitia? Go back to Oumou’s desert village where they’d met. Medieval Tuaregs and goats. Nothing but Sahara sand, hazed distant mountains. He’d go mad. Nothing to do. No one to talk to. No water, nowhere to swim. And Christa was a city girl. No ways she’d cope. The trouble was Pylon was right. Pylon wasn’t going anywhere. This was his life. He had to keep the business until something happened he could wash in the offshore funds. Bit by bit so that no one noticed.

  Mace said, ‘What about Obed Chocho? He’s going to snatch the west coast from you?’

  ‘Major crap,’ said Pylon. ‘A headache like you can’t believe. I have to admit even from prison the man pulls a network. The man who could stuff this up for us. Snatch this deal out of our hands.’ Mace’s cellphone rang and he dug it from his pants pocket, connected.

  A voice said in his ear, ‘Is that Mr Mace Bishop?’

  Mace getting that heavy sensation in his chest. The reason he knew he wanted out. He said, ‘Who’s this?’ – watching Pylon launch off the couch, Pylon mouthing at him, ‘We’ll talk tomorrow.’

  Mace held up a hand, wait. Pylon shook his head, drew a finger across his throat. Said, ‘Treasure.’