by Ian Martin
She had finished her coffee and sat listening to him sucking the marrow out of the sheep’s knuckles. Then she went to the bedroom and returned with a small vanity case. From it she took some bubble-packaged pink tablets. She began to crush some of them between two tablespoons. This powder was then dissolved in a teacup with some water from the kettle. Then she headed for the bathroom, cup in one hand, hypodermic in the other.
So this was her habit, he thought. Or one of them. Pinks. He’d never been seriously tempted to get into hard stuff like this. But he understood her need.
He was halfway through a Witblits and Breezer when she came back, dropped the syringe in the vanity, and sat down in the easy chair opposite him.
“Feel better?” he asked.
She said nothing; just nodded her head several times. And some more. Maybe that was the Wellconal. Then she raised her head and looked at him directly, and there was no trace of the fear he had seen before.
“Why did you have to kill them like that?” she asked.
“The monkeys?” He was taken aback. He’d already forgotten about the monkeys. But why had he killed them? “They were messing up the car,” he said, knowing that this didn’t in any way explain his behaviour. What the hell. It was of no consequence and he felt no remorse. These monkeys were vermin, anyway, just like humans. In a million years time they would have evolved into some abominable species to take the place of humans, who’d be long extinct. Then they too would go about fucking up the planet.
“And why did you and Gilbert want to kill me?” he asked, and saw the fear come back into her eyes before she looked away. “How much were those bastards going to pay you? Well, tomorrow it’s their turn.” He said this in an exultant way, for it was a great luxury to feel such certainty and purpose.
He got up to turn on the television. The pain in his knee had subsided. There was the usual shit on the box, but he left it on as a distraction. For over an hour he watched: the spectacular idiocy of some sport, and then the sordid intrigue of a soap. He was filled with a fascinated revulsion for the mindless pursuits being acted out on the screen.
It was nearly 10PM when she got up and went to the bathroom.
“I’m going to sleep now,” she said on her way to the bedroom. She didn’t ask about his plans for the morrow; she didn’t even look at him. The door closed.
It had been a hell of a day and tomorrow would be his last. It was a weird thought. He got up and went to the bathroom and undressed and got into the shower. For a long time he stood under the stream of hot water.
In the mirror his face was unshaven and looked haggard. The eyes were unblinking and without emotion.
Clad only in a towel he went to the bedroom door and turned the handle. She had put a chair against the door and he could feel the resistance.
“Matt, go away. Leave me alone.” In the darkness her voice was pitched high.
He soon had the door open wide enough to get his hand in and move the chair. The light from the living room was sufficient for him to make out her shape in the bed. He discarded the towel and pulled back the duvet and sheet.
“No,” she said.
This single initial ‘no’ was enough to make it rape. Never mind all the other ‘no’s’ and ‘don’ts’. She was wearing a t-shirt and panties. The t-shirt he lifted to her armpits so he could get at her breasts, and the panties he dropped on the floor. This was Rose. The Rose he had so often desired. This was the soft furriness and these were the lips. His fingers probed and discovered the warm and slippery entrance. This copious slime could mean only one thing: she secretly desired him. Ah, come on, man. Like the fucking Pope telling the South Americans they’d secretly longed for the conquistadors to come and rape, slaughter, destroy, burn, plunder and subjugate? Jou moer! En die Pope se moer!
It was brief and predictable. When it was done he lay there, on her and in her, and wondered at all the hype that had been thrown at this hormone-driven compulsion over the centuries. How ridiculous. It was as ridiculous as romanticising the act of defecation.
Around 3AM, on cue, the cop pulled his scumbag father out of the fridge. Matt woke up covered in sweat, his heart palpitating giddily.
When he had calmed down he became aware that she was awake and he went about raping her a second time. This time he did it savagely, as if he was trying to fuck a demon out of himself. He was barely aware of her moans of pain.
At dawn the cop led him back into the cold white room with the wall of stainless steel doors. But this time he was carrying something heavy in his hand, and when the sheet was drawn back he yanked on a cord and a chainsaw coughed into life. He got the chain whizzing round, silver teeth a blur, and then sawed through the corpse’s neck like it was a pine log. Two pigs were snuffling about on the floor. He tossed the head to them and they began to fight over it, pulling it this way and that.
He awoke laughing. God it was funny! He would never dream about the bastard again. Then, with a jolt, he realised he was alone in the bed.
As he sat bolt upright he heard the toilet flush. Then the door opened. What was she doing? A drawer rolled open. The cutlery drawer. What…? Christ!
He scrambled from the bed as she came into the room and lunged at him with a steak knife. It grazed his ribs and snagged the inside of his arm, and then he had her wrists and was holding her from behind.
She struggled to break free but he was too strong for her. He twisted her hand and launched himself forward so that they both fell headlong upon the bed.
She gave a short scream followed by a long protracted groan.
For a long time they lay there motionless, he on top of her. He could feel the warm wetness sticky on his hands. Finally he disentangled himself and stood up. There was no doubt about it: she was dead. Lovely Rose with the charcoal eyes, the ringlets and the wild laugh was dead. Rose was dead.
He washed the blood from his hands and arms, put a plaster on the superficial wound she’d managed to inflict with the steak knife, and got dressed.
After making a cup of coffee he went back to the bedroom to look at her sprawled face down on the bed. How undignified, naked from the waist down, one leg half off the bed. Maybe he should rearrange her. One should show respect for the dead.
He unlocked the door and went out into the cold morning air. Direct sunlight was already finding its way into the kloof. He righted the second dustbin and stood it next to the first – the monkey bin.
When he’d pulled her off the bed he was surprised at how much blood there was on the bedding. It formed a circle at least two feet in diameter. He rolled her onto her back and got his hands under her shoulders and sat her up. With his arms through her armpits he hugged her from behind and began to drag her outside. His fucking stupid knee made it especially difficult.
He would have preferred to put her in headfirst but he immediately saw it wouldn’t work. A full-grown human doesn’t fit in a standard household dustbin like that. No, he must pick her up in a sitting position, one arm under her knees, and get her in bum first.
It was a tight fit and she wouldn’t go right down. But it would have to do. He stood back and examined his handiwork with a critical eye. One arm hung over the side, as did her lower legs, feet crossed. Her head was tipped sideways and her long hair dangled downward in ropey disarray. Yes, one must respect the dead. Like one must respect the living.
20
There was an Engen One Stop the other side of Mossel Bay and he pulled in there to fill up. The sky was cloudless and a warm berg wind was blowing. Now for the 300 undulating kilometres across the arid plain. Then over Sir Lowry’s Pass and down into Cape Town. He should be there by mid afternoon.
Rose’s cellphone was worrying him. He’d only thought about it after he had passed through Knysna. He hadn’t noticed it in the chalet – not that he’d been looking for it – but she must have used it to contact Claude. The success of his plan depended on surprise, and now it was highly likely they’d be expecting him. They might even have c
ontacted the cops. And behind him the police machinery would be grinding into action as an alert went out to stop the fugitive murderer. The ‘dustbin killer’.
The road began to snake its way down into a canyon. The Gourits was coming up. What had the sangoma said to him? ‘Beware of the three high places.’ Well, he’d survived two high places so far, and this was the last high bridge on his journey. Maybe he’d have a blow-out as he was crossing, and he’d crash through the railing. Superstitious bullshit.
The road began to climb away from the canyon. Oh no, this was just too much of an anti-climax. He pulled over, waited for the road to clear, and did a u-turn.
Putting his foot flat he sent the big car leaping forward. It roared back across the bridge and he even drove on the wrong side of the road; but there was no on-coming traffic. He braked hard and swung into the car park.
Bungee jumping was from the old iron girder bridge a couple of hundred metres upriver from the concrete structure he had just driven over twice. He bought a ticket and hurried out to the launch platform at the halfway point.
Fortunately there was no one ahead of him. No, he didn’t want a video, or special music, or any of that crap. What he wanted was to experience the sensation of committing suicide from a bridge. He wanted to find out what he had missed back at Bloukranz. What it was like in those last few seconds. Would there be time to regret the decision?
They strapped him into the harness and gave him instructions. Maybe Godknows Tshabalala had put a curse on the equipment and some part of it would fail. He didn’t care all that much – it would save him the hassle of going all the way to Constantia to shoot cunt Claude and bitch Trudy.
He was in a hurry but now he must calm down, savour the moment. He stood with his toes over the edge and looked down. This was pathetic. Sixty-five metres down to the riverbed. Bloukranz was more than three times this. Oh well, fuck all of humanity, and fuck this lousy life. He slowly let himself lean and then fall forward.
At the critical moment of no return he expected to feel terror. Instead he felt the detached objectivity of an observer. The wind was in his face and the rocks rushed up to meet him. In place of the jerk on the harness he would have preferred the extra metres of free fall and the exquisite intensity of that last moment before his stupid existence was plunged into eternal darkness.
*
While Matt was busy jumping off bridges his uncle and his cousin were busy plotting his downfall – ha, ha.
Larry Apollis blamed Matt for the death of both his father and his sister, and Claude had turned to him, hoping to exploit the young man’s psychotic hatred. He phoned and asked him to come over immediately.
“He’s already killed Gilbert,” Claude said. “And now I’m really worried about Rose.”
Trudy joined them in the study, handing Larry a glass of Coke.
“You should be worried about us,” she said, her voice loud with recrimination and anxiety. “Your stupid plan to get him to commit suicide has gone all wrong. Now he’s on his way here to kill us.”
“Alright, alright.” Claude struggled to keep his temper. He wanted to shout at her and tell her to shut her fucking mouth. “The plan didn’t work and now we must come up with something else.”
“Any idea when he’ll get here?” asked Larry. He produced a handgun from inside his jacket, removed the clip and started cocking it and pulling the trigger. Then he replaced the clip and returned the gun to its holster.
“The last I heard from Rose was an SMS last night to say he was totally crazy and was coming for us. Since then there’s been nothing. He could be here any time this afternoon.”
“What about the cops?” asked Larry.
“No,” said Claude, shaking his head. “The cops are too unreliable, and also they might try to take him alive. We don’t want that, do we?”
“No ways,” said Larry, his eyes cold and pitiless like those of a great white shark. “The sooner this fucker’s in hell, the better. Er… sorry Auntie Trudy.”
“No, that’s alright,” said Trudy. “He might as well be dead. My son has turned into a mad monster, and the only way to deal with an evil monster is to destroy it.”
“What I propose,” said Claude, getting to the point, “is that you intercept him on the N2 as he comes into Cape Town. It looks like you know how to use that gun of yours.”
Larry’s vacuously handsome features twisted into a smirk. It was like the unpleasant expression on the face of a professional wrestler who has just thrown his opponent out of the ring.
They agreed that the best place to wait would be at the Ultra City this side of Somerset West.
“How much were you going to pay Gilbert and Rose to get rid of him?” Larry asked.
Claude looked surprised, then shrugged his shoulders. Of course this little creep would want to be paid.
“Two fifty thousand,” he lied.
“Make it half a million and I’ll hit the road. Time’s running out, the maniac’s on his way.”
*
Larry was driving a brand new Half-Past-Three, or BMW 330i. He had paid for it with some of the insurance money from his father’s life policy. So in a way he had Matt to thank for this extravagant vehicle. It suited his style, which was brash, arrogant and aggressive.
When he pulled into a parking bay facing the highway, the filling station behind him, he realised that this might not be the most brilliant of ideas. It was only two o’clock and he may have to wait an hour or more. There was a lot of traffic heading into Cape Town and it meant he couldn’t take his eyes off it for more than a few seconds.
After half an hour he concluded it was actually an incredibly dumb idea. This was exhausting. He needed a cooldrink but with each passing minute it became increasingly important for him to remain alert. He glanced longingly in his mirror at the door to the shop, restroom and restaurant. Jesus!
Parked at the kerb, illegally, was a big saloon, dark blue in colour. A Lexus. Fuck it, man, could this be his quarry? Yes, there was no doubt about it. Emerging from the shop was the slob himself, limping heavily. He’d probably been inside taking a piss in one of Shell’s state-of-the-art urinals.
Larry started the car, engaged reverse, groped for his gun. But the golden opportunity had been missed, for Matt was already driving away as if he had urgent business to attend to. Instead of drawing alongside and putting a bullet in the middle of that bloated moon-face, Larry was obliged to put his foot down and chase after the fast-disappearing saloon.
Matt cruised at 150, sometimes overtaking on the grass, sometimes weaving from lane to lane. While going over the mountains and down the pass he’d been listening to Leonard Cohen. Now he was playing Tom Waits. Hold on, hold on. The music was saturated with the bitter-sweetness of futile hopes, inevitable failure, and impending death.
Only when they were getting close to town and the road had widened into four lanes was Larry able to make a move. Because of the heavy traffic Matt had been forced to reduce his speed to a sedate 100. Larry saw the gap and the silver Beemer drew alongside the Lexus. Pressing the control on his armrest he lowered the front passenger’s window and took aim. Matt glanced sideways and found himself looking into the gaping barrel of a handgun. In the background was his cousin’s familiar face, contorted and snarling with hatred. He saw the finger tighten on the trigger and knew that he was dead.
But if either of them had been keeping an eye on the rear-view mirror he would have seen an angel of hell, hooded and clad in black, coming up fast behind them astride a mighty Kawasaki charger and galloping along at 140 km/h.
Matt winced as the imagined bullet struck him, then realised he hadn’t been hit at all. In the road ahead the motorcyclist was already tilting away from the vertical and drifting to the left. Matt put his foot down hard and pulled away from the enraged assassin in the BMW.
*
Past the cooling towers and the golf course, and under the bridge at Mowbray. Then he broke away from the N2 up onto Edinburgh Drive. Mos
tert’s Mill on the left, UCT to the right. Matt weaved his way through the south-bound pack, managing to keep several vehicles between him and his pursuer.
The traffic lights at the Kirstenbosch intersection were against him. He would have jumped the lights but there was a wall of cars blocking his way. Larry was only six vehicles behind him and he was leaning out of his window trying to take aim.
The traffic began to move. Larry’s shot missed the Lexus completely and found another mark instead. This was a pregnant young woman with a toddler strapped in the back, and she died instantly. Out of control, her car ran down the hill and crashed into the back of a car driven by an elderly gent who suffered severe whiplash and was destined to spend the rest of his days in a neck brace popping pain killers until his ulcer burst and he died from loss of blood through the anus. Very tragic.
Through Bishop’s Court and over Wynberg Hill they went. They raced down towards the start of the Blue Route and there were only two cars separating them. Matt took the Constantia off-ramp at speed and only just managed to prevent the car from sliding into the sweep of crash barrier. He jumped the first set of lights and Larry was forced to stand on his brakes and take evasive action before resuming the chase.
Constantia Village went by on the left and again he jumped the lights at Parish Road. Now he was heading away from his loathsome family neighbourhood and taking the tree-lined twists and turns up to Constantia Neck. He was stuck in the middle of a slow-moving procession of nine cars with Larry’s Beemer bringing up the rear.
A mad scheme had popped into his head. If he could break loose and get to the Neck well ahead of his homicidal cousin he could take the traffic circle on two wheels and come hurtling back down the pass, gun blazing.