Last Train to Retreat (12 page)

Gesturing expansively Sasman called out, ‘Come Hannibal! Come and sit in this chair. One day, young man, you too will own a view like this!’ To a compact, muscular man with black wavy hair and almond-shaped eyes he said, ‘And Danny, you sit over there.’

Sasman always gave Hannibal the same seat at their monthly meeting – brought forward this time because of ‘recent disturbing events’ as he called it. From the deck on the second floor of Sasman’s house in Plattekloof, Hannibal could see Table Mountain, Lion’s Head and Cape Town, with the bay stretching out to the right. Not out of kindness did the Gnome give Hannibal a view seat but to make him eat his heart out – Lavender Hill had nothing like it – so that he would work even harder. The Mother City they called it, so bright and beautiful today in the summer sun, Hannibal thought. Some mother! Favouring her fair-skinned children and banishing her mixed-blood offspring to the Flats. Having given of herself so promiscuously over the centuries, enduring the pains of birth only to reject her young – things neither black nor white – flinging them out of sight never to take them back in her arms. Some mother-fucker she was. Hannibal wished he could nuke Cape Town, create a contaminated wasteland twenty, no, thirty times the size of District Six’s eerie empty space.

‘Hannibal, we were hoping you’d bring Curly,’ the Gnome said, removing his glasses and wiping the lenses in measured fashion. ‘He saw it happen on the train, right?’

‘I got everything out of him, don’t worry. And just now he gets
stirvy
from all the attention,’ Hannibal said. ‘Already he wants Gatiep’s job at the parlour.’ He grinned, his dental bridge displaying the letters J-I-T-S which meant ‘cool’. S-O-E-K with its meaning of ‘look for trouble’ might have put the Gnome in a mood because there was enough trouble already. K-I-L-L would probably have been just right.

It was as though Danny read his thoughts. ‘Firs’ Cupido, now Gatiep. We mus’ fin’ them … kill them dead,’ Danny said. He could have been talking about cockroaches or mosquitoes. He clenched and released his fist making the dragon tattoo bounce around on his muscular forearm. Danny had strange-looking
tjappies
all over his back. Hannibal had seen them once at the Gnome’s pool.

Sasman raised a hand. ‘Everything at the right time, okay … next time I’m doing an agenda, I swear! Lettie, please bring tea and biscuits, the ginger ones,’ he shouted through the sliding doors. ‘Now let’s start with what we know. Over to you, Hannibal.’ Black stubble covered Sasman’s lower face like blackened
veld.
There was a carpet of hair on his arms, and from his throat, ears, and nostrils strands protruded in an attitude of anticipation. Danny fixed dead eyes on Hannibal. The only thing Hannibal liked about Danny Ho was his long wavy hair – he looked like the men in Hong Kong triad movies – but he distrusted Danny like he distrusted Sasman. They would take his turf if they had half a chance; only the fact that Hannibal
was
Lavender Hill stopped them. Danny had grown up in Hong Kong on the edgy streets of Mong Kok and was in his time a top triad fighter and leader of a gang of 49ers under a notorious Dragon Head. Today Danny was a businessman and his own boss. Sasman poached abalone off Hawston and Hermanus, sold it to Danny who exported it to China, Hong Kong, and Macau, bringing back heroin and cocaine from China, girls from China and Thailand as well as from Johannesburg, Durban, and Bloemfontein, and selling them to Sasman while still keeping a share – a spider-web arrangement that defied being put on paper and netted them millions. ‘A real win-win situation
,
’ Sasman said, proving that alliances were all about looking after your own. Danny was already onto the next thing in South Africa – slaughtering rhinos for their horns which fetched astronomical prices in the East especially Vietnam. Hannibal dreamed about being in a cage with Danny, locked up until one of them was down, and then going after the Gnome and his men in the style of De Niro in the movie
Taxi Driver.

‘Okay, this is what I make of it,’ Hannibal said, avoiding
Kapie-taal
because of Danny’s Hong Kong English, ‘
One,
the girl and the man weren’t together on the train, it was like they were strangers, but then they could’ve planned it.
Two,
the girl pulled a knife and stuck it in Gatiep … a real Rottweiler bitch according to Curly.
Three,
there was this guy thought he was son of Bruce Lee … legs like rubber, bringing Curly down.’ Danny’s eyes went from dead to alive at the mention of Bruce Lee. ‘I show him any time, jus’ fin’ him, okay? He fuck wit’ me an’ I fuck
him
!’ he said. ‘Hey!’ Sasman said, ‘let Hannibal finish … and Danny, you fuck someone
up
, okay?’ Jesus, how he hated these meetings, Hannibal thought – three people, three agendas. He carried on, ‘
Four
, they got off at Wynberg, Curly saw them … the girl limping badly from Gatiep’s knife.
Five,
Wynberg Hospital knew of no girl who was admitted with such a wound on that night because I got Lulu to phone.
Six,
the paper reported an “unidentified body”, so Gatiep’s stuff, his ID and cell, must’ve been stolen.’

Teaspoons clinked. A gingerbread biscuit crunched as the Gnome bit into it. Hannibal’s new jeans felt tight around his crotch. In the beginning Hannibal had worn his best clothes to show the Gnome and Danny that he wasn’t just any
hotnot
from the Flats. But nowadays it was because for 60 kilometres – from Lavender Hill in the south to Plattekloof in the north and back again – he rode in the backseat of Sasman’s Mercedes S 500 and that alone was worth dressing up for. He’d leave his Honda Civic 1.8 CVi at home, walk to the corner of Prince George Drive and Concert Boulevard for Terrance to pick him up on the first Sunday of every month. He’d watch, with a mixture of scorn and pity, people on their way back from church – they having prayed to a timid, weak God who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do a fucking thing to help them while he, Hannibal, was looking out for himself and doing very well thank you.

‘I paid Danny a lot for the Thai girl,’ Sasman said accusingly, ‘and she didn’t even make the first night of the World Cup. You know how much revenue we lost in the six weeks of the tournament – a fucking fortune!’

‘Yeah, Jelome, that chicken was something, best catch in two years,’ Danny said proudly. ‘You know what she looks like, Hannibal?’

‘Only photos, in Cupido’s book,’ Hannibal said dismissively. Just as he had to go to Sasman’s house, so Cupido and Gatiep had to come to him, it was the way it worked. Sasman was paranoid about layers – to protect all of them, he’d say, when in fact he thought only of himself, in the same way he left the recruiting of girls to Danny. Danny had run small newspaper ads in Beijing, Shanghai, Bangkok (in Hong Kong police were sharper), Johannesburg, Durban, and Bloemfontein for jobs at health spas and wellness centres in Cape Town four months before the World Cup. Interested women between the ages of 18 and 25 had to phone or email information, including pictures. Danny would carefully select the ones he wanted. Then they were flown in on a tourist visa, or, if they were local, put on a bus, met in Cape Town and taken to Sasman’s parlour in Long Street where wham! The chameleon tongue of deception would shoot out and catch them. Locked up and drugged, their passports, money, and clothes would be taken away, they’d work as prostitutes, and whatever they earned would go on their drug habit, on their keep, and towards paying off the Gnome’s acquisition costs. It was a self-imprisoning scheme for women that made a lot of money for the Gnome, Danny, and, to a lesser extent, Hannibal and his gang. And Hannibal’s wasn’t the only gang in Sasman’s pocket – Sasman could choose from 130 gangs and 100,000 members on the Flats. He was like a murderous rich kid on the loose in a gun shop.

‘I hope you’re still looking for her, Hannibal,’ Sasman said, hitting out at a fly near the biscuit plate. ‘Fuck off!’ he bellowed. ‘Christ, I hate them – flies and
gattas!’

Hannibal nodded – he hated cops more – and said, ‘It took two months to do Voortrekker Road, you know how long it is, then it was Bo-Kaap and Green Point. Now it’s Sea Point, it’s dense and you don’t always recognise sex joints – they look like ordinary houses. After that we’ll do the southern suburbs. Manpower’s my problem, and the hours it takes.’ He could have been a businessman talking about a knock-‘n-drop promotion.

Danny suddenly turned on Hannibal: ‘Cupido dead and now Gatiep, bot’ men yours, bot’ in charge of the girls, bot’ killed with knife. We mus’ fin’ these people, Hannibal!’ He had the aggrieved tone of someone who’d swatted a mosquito only to see his own blood smeared on the wall.

Sasman added, ‘And both of them Evangelicals … what if Gatiep is identified and the cops realise they both belonged to your gang? They’ll knock on your door, Hannibal, then mine.’ A chain-eater when agitated, Sasman was now devouring biscuit after biscuit. ‘More biscuits, Lettie!’ he shouted. ‘I’m gonna have to pay those cops more … I mean,
we
didn’t kill Cupido and Gatiep, and what’s two dead gangsters anyway? It helps the cops, doesn’t it?’

Danny went for the jugular: ‘Curly say Gatiep start it all on the train then Curly run away! In Mong Kok, bad discipline mean you be killed by myriad of swords, Hannibal. And losing face worse than death, not so, Hannibal?’ A breath of wind picked up strands of black wavy hair and deposited them over one dead eye, leaving the other to stare at Hannibal like a demented pirate’s.

Hannibal knew it – he knew it would be two against one today. That was their way, just as they’d kill each other if either felt threatened.
Kak
on them! He turned his Jeep cap to shade his eyes from the sun arcing westwards and said: ‘
One,
I’ve got Curly at Wynberg station every day, watching early departures to the city, and again arrivals from the city from 5 pm until the last one at 8.24 pm. He’s the one who knows their faces.
Two,
Cupido could have been targeted – he was working the streets – but not Gatiep. The man and the girl didn’t know Gatiep and didn’t know he was getting on
that
train at
that
time. So Cupido and Gatiep couldn’t have been killed by the same people, right?
Three,
if that’s true, it means their deaths just happened, so why panic?
Four
, Gatiep’s got only a father – mother’s gone – and I’m not gonna tell him his son’s in the morgue … leave the body to be buried unidentified.
Five,
I’ll make clear to Curly that if he talks he’ll end up as fish feed in the Steenbras Dam.
Six,
I personally want to know who the man and the girl on the train were, and if Curly can’t find them I’ll find them wherever they are, okay?’

Through his lenses Sasman’s eyes became hot points of light on Hannibal’s caramel face. Sasman hated being treated as an equal by anyone. He regarded his gangs and their leaders as
his
soldiers, there to do his bidding. Hannibal was different. He paid over to Sasman and Danny the profits due to them – to the cent – but he made sure his men stayed his own and took directions only from him.

‘Your arrogance doesn’t sit well with your youth, Hannibal. Never forget, you’re successful only by the grace of the Gnome,’ Sasman said slowly. ‘And if you’re fobbing me off, think again – you have thirty days, Hannibal, to find the man and the girl and bring them to me. Your only choice is, dead or alive.’

•

To nuke this house too would be awesome, Hannibal thought as he walked across the gravel to the Mercedes. It was located in Plattekloof 2, the most expensive of the four parts of this suburb nestled against the Tygerberg. Streets were all named after trees – Olienhout, Keurboom, Essenhout, Lorea, Mimosa, Aurea, and Swarthout – some of them cul-de-sacs with bulbous ends for turning around in, their shape reminding Hannibal of glass
lollies
for smoking meth. Sasman’s house was in one of them. It had three storeys, each with a deck, sliding doors and expansive views; the main bedroom and study were on the top for security, the lounge, dining room and kitchen on the middle level, and more bedrooms on the ground floor. It also had two servants’ quarters, four garages, and a swimming pool. Not less than R15 million, Hannibal guessed. Protecting it were large electric gates, high walls with electrified fencing running along the top, and two Dobermans.

Hannibal put on his bomber jacket and said his goodbyes. Sasman was now standing at the front door, his dogs beside him on leashes. Hannibal could feel six pairs of eyes on him as he bent over to slide into the plush leather seat. The car crunched along the driveway towards the gates. Hannibal turned around and gave a little wave. It was always the same – being fetched in the Benz every month, sitting in his allocated chair on the deck having tea and ginger biscuits, Danny opposite him, the Gnome running the show, and when it was time to go, the Gnome at the door flanked by his Dobermans, the dogs that were everything the Gnome was not – sleek, beautifully proportioned, elegant and supple. But Hannibal was under no illusion. What the Gnome and his dogs shared was an intense suspicion of strangers and a propensity to attack at the slightest threat. No one dared touch the Dobermans except Sasman and no one dared touch Sasman – he had made himself untouchable by bribing the police
,
doing favours for the communities, using his legitimate tax-paying businesses for laundering money (a nightclub, a panel-beating and spray-painting shop, a petrol station, a toilet-making factory), buying everything for cash including his house and his car. Sasman left no paper trails, bought goodwill when he needed it, made people reluctant to testify against him, and had others actively protecting him. He was what the police called a high-flyer, a kingpin who used others to do his dirty work so as to keep his own hands clean – an untouchable.

As Hannibal leaned back in the luxury of old-world leather and wood trim to the sound of a haunting melody from the 15-speaker stereo system, a sudden lust for bloodletting swept over him. It was always like that after Plattekloof, never more so than today with the Gnome’s words ringing in his head.