Muti Nation (12 page)

Jencko Graça isn’t evil for doing his job.

The janitor at his clinic, however, is an evil son of a bitch.

Amorphous clouds of smoke accompany Rochester Rhalapele as he stands on the fire-escape’s landing, staring into the alley behind the abortion clinic. He’s in his uniform, sucking greedily on a cigarette, scratching his head. Nothing about the man screams criminal, and yet there’s always something
off
about people in the human-muti business. I can’t explain it exactly but I get a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach, as though a boot has lodged itself in my gut. Detective Mosepi and I sit quietly in an empty apartment looking out on the alleyway watching our suspect’s every move. We’re far enough to observe him without Rochester being able to observe us. When his break ends Rochester opens the back door and slips inside again, unaware of being watched.

I turn to the scowling detective who scribbles ferociously on his notepad as he places the binoculars on the dusty windowsill.

“I don’t understand why I’m here,” I tell him, glancing at my wristwatch. It’s still early, 10:14 a.m. I should be in my office catching up on some paperwork, not sitting on a plastic chair to keep tabs on a cleaner with criminal intent. Besides, I have a bone to pick with Howlen. “Does this have anything to do with my current cases?”

“Maybe,” Detective Mosepi says under his breath.

“But maybe not, right?”

“Maybe not.”

I groan. “I hate stakeouts, especially if I don’t know
why
we’re going after small fry.”

“Small fry can be used to bait big fish,” Detective Mosepi says, looking up from his notepad. “You’re never this antsy. Even as a child you weren’t jittery. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” I mumble and force my leg to stop jumping up and down.

“Okay, don’t tell me, but I’m inclined to assume the worst then.” Detective Mosepi goes back to doodling on his notepad. “Is it drugs?”

“What?”

“You need a fix, don’t you?” He’s only half serious, but it’s enough to make me swear. “I told you I’d assume the worst.”

“So you think the worst I can do is drugs? You don’t know me very well,” I say. “And no, it’s not drugs. It’s personal.”

“Ah,” he tries to hide the amusement in his voice, but fails. “I wondered how long you and Howlen Walcott
Ph.D.
would be able to have this in-office romance without it affecting your work.”

“It’s not—”

“I’m not a B.E.E. employee, Esmé. I earned my position the old fashioned way, by being a fantastic detective.” He glances at the landing where Rochester earlier stood. “I’ve known about the two of you for, what’s it been now, two years?”

“I hate it when you do that.”

“Unlike your father I can’t turn this,” he pushes his pencil to his temple, “off.” Detective Mosepi closes his notepad and lays it down on his lap. “Rochester Ramphele sells medical waste from this facility on the black market at high prices. He’s an intelligent businessman, a go-between for those who don’t want to get their hands dirty, but he made one fatal mistake.”

“Which is?”

“Nobody can fool the taxman.” Detective Mosepi steals a glance at me. “The South African Revenue Services got sniff in the nose when the numbers didn’t add up in Rochester Ramphele’s bank account. Call it dumb luck, but I know the woman who did the audit and she said something wasn’t right. So, I’ve been looking into the guy.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t a homicide detective typically investigate murders? The title is kind of self-explanatory.”

“I had a hunch,” he shrugs his broad shoulders. “Turns out, my hunch paid off. Rochester is one of the brains behind a human body part smuggling ring. He and a few cleaners at other medical facilities steal small quantities of medical waste to sell on the black market. His reach is as far as it is wide, considering the janitor at the city morgue is also involved in the scheme.”

“And you got all this from your informant at SARS?”

“No, I got it from tailing the guy for the past two months,” Detective Mosepi says. “The reason you’re here is because I suspect Rochester Ramphele may know who our killer is. I’d like to have you here in case we find something sinister.”

“Is it the only reason?”

“Yes,” he answers simply, leaving no room for me to think otherwise.

I stand to stretch my legs. The apartment, a bachelor flat with barely enough room for a single bed, is as unappealing as it is small. The smell of mildew and dust does nothing to mute the tang of old piss that has seeped into the fibres of the threadbare carpet. Concrete peeks through the dark brown carpeting, though the squelch underfoot makes me wonder if the carpets were brown to begin with. A rusty old sink in the corner of the matchbox flat acts as both the kitchen sink and bathroom basin in the event of occupation. The only other door leads away from the equally rundown hallway of the complex, probably to the toilet. No amount of money would convince me to open that door. God knows what’s swimming around in that porcelain bowl. An array of stains decorates the yellowing walls—the remnants of a long-ago oil fire which had licked its way to the ceiling. There’s a splash of what could’ve been Fanta Grape, and another brownish splatter of what might have been blood.

“Was somebody killed here?” I ask.

The plastic chair groans under Detective Mosepi’s weight. “I suspect a great many people have been killed in this place over the years.”

I take my seat again. “I meant recently.”

He responds with a stiff shrug, and scribbles more in his notebook.

I look back to the landing. Rochester wheels a red plastic bin out the back door. “We have movement, Detective.”

Rochester studies the alley before he rolls the bin to the stairs. Each step down is accompanied by a hollow
thump
as he carefully pushes the bin towards the allocated fenced-off dumping zone. I count thirty-four thumps. He disappears from my sight.

“Suspicious for a janitor,” the detective murmurs, the binoculars pressed against his face.

Rochester Ramphele is out of my line of vision. “What is?” I ask.

“He’s sifting through the rubbish bags in the bin,” he answers. “And…”

“And?”

“There seems to be a cooler box hidden behind the dumpster. Probably to transport the medical waste,” Detective Mosepi explains. “It’s an unpleasant sight.”

I can only imagine.

Detective Mosepi and I don’t speak much after that. He’s always been a man of few words and I’ve always been incapable of engaging in small talk. The quiet doesn’t seem to bother either of us.

The hours drag by. Now and then the crackling of Detective Mosepi’s radio breaks the silence with static-filled voices. Updates from other officers surrounding the building fill the room for brief moments. This operation is much larger than I thought. It doesn’t make sense for Mosepi to go all out to reprimand a nobody criminal, but I’m not about to question his intentions.

Throughout the day my phone vibrates with messages: Grandpa inviting me to dinner the next night, Precious with an update on the cases I’m working on, Dad asking me how I am. Howlen, however, doesn’t contact me.

I read an e-book I’d downloaded ages ago. When I tire of reading, I play a zombie game on my phone. Every once in a while I get up and walk around the apartment to get my blood flowing again. I’m not exactly bored but being cooped up in tight spaces for long periods always gives me a mild case of cabin fever.

The sunlight wanes as the working day ends. City noises are amplified as vehicles jammed with people rush to get home. From our position in the building behind the clinic we can’t see what Rochester Rampele is up to inside. We rely on the periodic updates from the rest of the team. Where they are located is beyond my knowledge but their vantage points allow them to paint us a pretty picture.

“The doctor has left the building, over.”

“Last patients have exited through the front door, over.”

“Ramphele is cleaning the surgery now, over.”

We wait.

At five o’clock, long after the clinic has closed its doors for the day, our perpetrator finally leaves. He exits through the back door dressed in ordinary clothing that’ll help him blend into the crowds. A black, slogan T-shirt paired with plain jeans and white sneakers leaves Rochester indistinguishable from anyone else his age on the streets. The only tell is the Kaizer Chiefs baseball cap he wears pulled low over his forehead. Though, I doubt his choice in clothing has anything to do with paranoia, one can never be certain if a perp suspects a tail.

When Rochester retrieves the cooler box behind the dumpster Detective Mosepi orders a couple of undercover cops to follow him. The rest are to stay well behind but within radio distance of the undercover officers.

I toss my cell phone and Kindle into my purse, pull my hair into a tight ponytail, and follow Detective Mosepi out. After spending the day in the shithole apartment it’s almost refreshing to see the disgusting hallway outside the door.

“He’s going to meet his buyer tonight.” Detective Mosepi says when we reach the staircase down the hallway. “As soon as the exchange is made, we move in. Two birds, one stone, all that.”

“Do you know where he meets his buyers?”

“Yes.”

It’s all he’s willing to give me and I don’t press for more.

Once outside the complex we walk at a brisk pace to where he’d parked his unmarked car. Hidden behind the mosque that shares the same parking lot, the black BMW sits by its lonesome self.

Detective Mosepi is winded when we finally strap into the seats.

“You should quit smoking,” I say as the engine purrs to life. “You’re killing yourself.”

He shoots me a sharp look, grunts, and reverses into the street.

I study the city I both love and loathe through the tinted window.

Classical architecture with long, sometimes dark yet fascinating histories, stand alongside modern glass and steel skyscrapers sparkling brilliantly in the sun. Trees line the thoroughfares beside the slender metal streetlights. Bronze statues, their significance lost to time, stare out at the ever-changing city from their patches of lawn. The homeless will move to Church Square, where the statue of President Paul Kruger watches over their weary, frail forms. Ironic, considering the new government sees the statue as an icon of Apartheid, yet the homeless are drawn to this spot for solace. Then comes the older part of the city where centuries-old churches compete with pop-up ministries for souls.

It’s a sad sight, but not sadder than the out-of-place primary school situated in the busiest (and possibly the most dangerous) part of town.

Eendracht Maakt Macht
. The slogan of Eendracht Primary is etched into a faded sign at their front gate. Like the rest of the city, this school has a rich history forgotten by most unless you were enrolled there. It’s not the biggest school in Pretoria CBD, but it’s old enough to make it a historical landmark of sorts. Back in the day, Eendracht Primary schooled almost all the children in the city, and some from well beyond the city’s borders. Children from varied backgrounds, ethnicities, and religions were all treated equally.

I should know; I spent a chunk of my childhood behind that metal gate.

No more than a block away stands the eyesores of Pretoria—the Schubart Park and Kruger Park flats. Once upon a time these buildings were state-of-the-art apartment complexes, housing thousands of families. Unfortunately, these buildings, and most of the families who lived there, weren’t granted a happily ever after. Stripped to the bone, the remnants of these apartment buildings look like the renditions of post-apocalyptic movie sets. Skeletal structures fenced off and manned by armed guards show the true horrors poverty has to offer.

It’s here, near the entrance to Schubart Park itself that Detective Mosepi parks his vehicle.

“Stay in the car,” he says, opening his door.

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” I gaze at the derelict towers that look like they might fall down at any time. To think, twenty years ago people were jumping to their deaths from these buildings, and now the buildings themselves look suicidal. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to wander around the place a bit, to see how it looks like now, but I keep it to myself.

Detective Mosepi gives me a dubious look before climbing out and closing the door behind him. He makes his way up the few stairs to where a guard patrols the entrance. They have a quick, quiet conversation before the detective is granted access to the grounds.

“Of course,” I say to myself, “maybe I would have listened if you had told me twice.” I release my safety belt and open the door.

I wouldn’t waste an opportunity to see what had become of a place so many childhood friends called home.

I’m not the most inconspicuous person in the world. I’m relatively tall at 1.77 meters and my fiery red locks are a beacon to anyone with eyesight. These elements make it difficult for me to hide in general. Therefore, I didn’t hold much hope of entering the fenced-off, condemned building, where armed guards patrol the perimeter. I was, however, prepared to bribe the guard out front to grant me entry. Imagine my surprise when I pass through without a hitch. The guy didn’t so much as spare me a second glance when I waltzed up the steps and smiled my most brilliant smile for him.