Of Cops & Robbers (19 page)

Cake Mullins decides doesn’t matter how much Jacob Mkezi has on his plate, he connected him to Tol Visagie. Straight business deal. Straight business commission. Finder’s fee. Whatever you want to call it. They should talk money.

Might be midday but Cake’s in his dressing gown. Standing in his dressing gown at an upstairs window, Cake looks over the vineyard that abuts his property. Shiraz grapes. The wine that welcomes you like a woman with her legs wide open. Cake has this image of a naked woman sitting on a beach, leaning against a rock, one leg crooked, the other spread. Her hair’s wet, her arms are up to hold you, her boobs raised, nipples puckered, some curve to her belly, shaved crotch, the vertical smile. Cake Mullins gets a half-rise thinking about it.

Shakes his head to clear the image. Time he phoned Midnight Girls again, ordered a Shiraz.

Instead Cake phones Jacob Mkezi. ‘How’d it work out?’ he wants to know.

Listens to Jacob Mkezi saying, ‘Interesting, Cake. Interesting, my friend.’

‘It worked out then?’ Cake wandering into his bathroom, checking himself out in the full-length mirror.

‘What you mean is what’s in it for you? Cake Mullins on his game.’

Cake smiling at himself. ‘Something like that.’

‘No problem,’ says Jacob Mkezi. ‘How about one per cent?’

Cake keeping up the smile. ‘What’re we talking, actual figures?’

Again Jacob Mkezi laughing. ‘Cake on the bake.’

‘Ha, ha.’

‘Couple of hundred grand probably.’

‘Rands, dollars?’

‘Dollars.’

‘Two per cent.’

‘One point five. That’s it.’

Cake Mullins happy enough with the outcome but not finished yet. ‘You could’ve phoned me yourself about getting Vicki Kahn into a card game. You could’ve asked me.’

‘I could’ve,’ says Jacob Mkezi. ‘I asked Mart to handle it. He tell you about Lord?’

‘What about Lord?’ Cake Mullins letting the dressing gown fall open: the way he does it for the Midnight Girls, giving half an ear to the story of Lord’s fuck-up. His father’s words, Lord’s fuck-up.

Lord always was a wanker as far as Cake Mullins is concerned.

Cake admiring himself in the mirror: the chest hair, the
good-life
stomach, the hairy thighs, the cock and balls.

‘Nasty one,’ he says to Jacob Mkezi. ‘See you tonight.’

Fish takes the drive down Main Road to Daro’s boutique car lot slowly, checking the rear-view mirror for a black GTI.
Wondering
why he should even be bothered to find out the owner. You’re off the case, dude, he tells himself. Drop it. Go surfing.

But there’s the GTI, way back, five cars behind him. Not getting any closer, just hanging there.

Problemo: let him know he’s spotted, or cruise on like who gives a toss?

Options: slip left down a side road, stop in the park ’n ride at Heathfield station. Wait till the cracker passes then swing in behind him. See how he fancies it.

But Fish’s not in the mood for high jinks. Fish’d rather stop in at Daro’s, drink some of his filter coffee while Daro pops the CA number into the system.

Just for the hell of it.

Just to know.

Which is what Fish does. Listens to Jim, takes a sedate
speed-limit
shuffle through the traffic lights to Daro’s executive wheels. Because Fish plans to hit the beach when this’s done.

Despite that, he keeps an eye on the black spot in his rear-view. Out of professional interest. Because the guy’s good. The guy knows how to do this. What puzzles Fish is why’s he bothering?

He phones Vicki.

‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘I’m in a meeting. Hang on.’

He hangs on. Hears her making excuses, a door clicking shut. Then, a bit hissy: ‘What’s it?’

‘What d’you mean what’s it?’

‘I’m in a meeting, with clients, please.’

‘Big deal. I’ve got a black VW GTI, tinted windows, hanging onto my every move.’

‘Following you?’

‘Rocked up first at the Appollis’s. Then at the hospital. Now he’s breathing my exhaust.’

‘I told you to let it go. I told you, Fish. The hospital was a bad idea. We were off the case. Specific instructions. Can’t you listen to anything I tell you?’

‘It was my own scene.’

‘Ah, Fish. Come’n.’

‘Anyhow, I didn’t get anything at the hospital. Not anything we didn’t know already.’

‘You’re sure? Sure it’s the same guy?’

‘Same registration.’

‘He knows you’ve seen him?’

‘I’d say so. He’s a pro.’

‘Go surfing, Fish. Show him you’re off it.’

‘That’s your advice?’

‘No one’s paying you. Leave it. That’s what I asked hours ago.’

Fish lets this hang a while until Vicki says, ‘I’ve got to get back.’

‘Cool,’ he says. ‘See you later. What, six, six thirty?’

Hears her hesitation. ‘Can’t,’ she says. ‘I’ve got this work thing that’s come up.’

‘You didn’t have this morning.’

‘No.’

‘So afterwards?’

‘It’s going to be late. Dinner with clients. I’ll be tired, Fish, you’re a long drive from the city that time of night.’

‘You want a lift, I’ll fetch you.’ Fish thinking as he says it, back off, you’re getting too intense.

‘You’re sweet,’ she says. ‘But no. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

Before he can say bye, the connection’s cut.

He flips the phone onto the passenger seat. You don’t want full-on commitment. You want your pad. She’s got her
apartment
. Nice situation, couldn’t be better.

So what’s the big deal?

Her tone’s the big deal. It’s a tone he’s heard before. When they first got it together and she was gambling. That kind of defensive note in her voice. Like, leave me, okay, there’s a part of my life that’s mine.

The part she was ashamed of.

Nah, thinks Fish. Can’t be. She wouldn’t. She’s on the
programme
, she’s been for, is going for, counselling. Most Monday nights she does Gamblers Anonymous. Eight, nine months she hasn’t placed a bet. Hasn’t sat down to a game of poker.

At least that’s what she’s told him.

Now he’s not so sure.

Now he’s recalling those early heart-to-hearts, a year back, longer even. The line he took with her: please, please, please, Vicki, get out of the gambling. Tears from her. How it made him hurt. Once, in the early weeks, he got so emotional about her gambling he headed up the west coast for three days to surf. Left her to face the debts. He came back, she was black and blue. Scared. Really scared. She wouldn’t tell him who’d done it, but she hit Gamblers Anonymous right afterwards. Got a loan to cover the thirty grand she was down, told Fish, ‘That’s the end. No more.’

He whacks the steering wheel, redials. Call goes straight to voicemail.

‘Bloody women,’ Fish yells, ramping onto Daro’s forecourt faster than’s wise, skidding on the zooty tiles. Glimpses Daro’s face at the office window, alarmed.

He dials again. Voicemail. This time he’s come off the boil, leaves the message, ‘Phone me, okay? Just phone me.’ He cuts the connection, stares up at Daro standing at his car door.

‘Skilful,’ says Daro. ‘To the centimetre.’

Fish grimaces. ‘Sorry, hey’ – switches off the engine.

‘Nothing a hard scrub won’t clean off.’ Daro turns back to his office. ‘Coffee?’

‘Good idea,’ says Fish.

Daro pours two mugs, gives one to Fish, handle outwards.

‘I’ve come for a favour,’ Fish says.

‘No?’ says Daro, drawing it out, sarcastic.

Fish blows at the steam, looks at him over his mug. Daro’s not the sarky type.

‘You having a bad day?’

‘Two people across the floor this morning. One just looking, the other I don’t know what his case was. Maybe he’ll be back, maybe he won’t. Gut feel, he won’t. I need to sell another car.’

‘One sale last week’s not bad.’

‘Not good either.’

The two men focus on their coffee. Fish says, ‘My job got canned. Lasted all of three hours.’ He goes into a recap. When he gets onto Fortune Appollis’s change of fortune, Daro stops him.

‘The kids drag racing now,’ says Daro, ‘use Subarus. Jettas. I’m talking the latest models, half a million bucks worth, they smack in oversized pistons, V66 cam shafts, interceptor carburettor kits, wind these things up to three hundred kays on the R303.’

‘They do?’ says Fish.

‘They’re out there one behind the other, that’s the thrill, maybe a metre, maybe even less between them. You’re
travelling
at that speed the front guy touches the brakes, you’re both history. Bang, flip, mangle. I saw one of those …’ Daro drank off a mouthful, swallowed. ‘The front car burnt out in a fireball. The car behind flew, I mean, flew, ended up over the island on the other side of the road. Even then it doesn’t stop. Heavens, man, on and on. The metal sparking, scraping for a hundred, two hundred metres, I don’t know. The driver disappeared. Poof. Vaporised. Not a trace of him left. Nothing. Might have been a ghost driving that car.’

‘Hectic,’ says Fish.

‘I heard it was a seventeen-year-old kid behind the wheel. His daddy was, is, a major businessman couldn’t see any reason not to fork out five hundred grand for his little boy. Even though his little boy was too young to have a licence.’

‘That right?’ says Fish.

‘It’s happening two, three times a week on the Flats. And these guys come from money. The new elite. Which is why …’

‘My Appollis gets the private upgrade. Why his mommy and daddy drop the case. Yeah, I got that. Only one thing I want to know, for the hell of it, who owns this car?’ Fish smoothes out a piece of paper with a CA registration on it. ‘Black VW GTI with tinted windows.’

‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ says Daro. He taps into the system on his laptop, comes up with a try again message. ‘Licensing
system
’s down right now,’ he tells Fish, ‘I can find out tomorrow.’

‘No rush,’ says Fish. ‘I’m going surfing.’ He finishes the coffee in a swallow, says, ‘You still want me to speak to my friend? About the drugs talk?’

‘Why not,’ says Daro. ‘No harm in it.’

‘Great.’ Fish jiggles his keys. He’s tossing up: does he, does he not tell Daro about Seven’s hit list nonsense? Goes with: ‘D’you carry a gun?’

Daro gives him a quick headshake, a frown, a jokey: ‘What? Where’s that come from?’

‘Nowhere.’ Fish backtracking. ‘Just you being on the forum, maybe it’s a good idea.’

Daro keeps staring at him, nods. ‘I’ve thought about it. But why d’you say that?’

Fish shrugs. ‘No particular reason. Just guns can be useful.’

Outside it’s warm in the sun, the two men feeling it on their shoulders, gazing at the mountains cut out against the sky.

‘Close up,’ Fish says. ‘A surf’s what you need.’

Daro snorts. ‘It’s half past three.’

‘There you go,’ says Fish, ‘almost a whole day wasted. We shoulda been at the beach.’

Daro watches Fish drive off.

‘Guns can be useful.’

Puzzles why Fish said that now. Decides it’s Fish’s way of saying be careful on the forum. Thing is that’s the least of it.

Daro’s got the piece of paper with the registration number Fish gave him in his hand. He doesn’t need the system to know who owns the car.

Mart Velaze.

Understandable why Mart Velaze would need a quieter car if what Mart Velaze does is stake out people.

Mart Velaze and his casually dropped reference to Ray Adler.

Dries out Daro’s mouth.

He goes back online, keys passwords through to the traffic department’s lists. Gets an address for Mart Velaze in Milnerton. It’s a block of flats on Marine Drive.

Next he Googles Adler Solutions. No surprise there’s no website. No surprise it’s not in the phone book.

Daro’s not sure how to handle this one.

The Fisherman’s name is Dommiss Verberg. When Dom gets the bullet, he’s fishing off the concrete breakwater – the dolosse – outside Port Elizabeth one bright October morning. The sea’s flat, slipping, gurgling among the dolos concrete blocks piled to preserve the beach from washaways. Off in the distance the office blocks of the city stacked in the haze. Only souls nearby two men fishing down the break to his right. Dom sits on a dolos with his feet dangling over the edge. The water’s a murky soup, there might be cob passing through, even elf, but he’s not had a bite. Doesn’t matter. Dom is content to sit there, smoking, eating the cold meat sandwiches his wife made. The fishing’s an excuse, gets him out of the house on his off days.

He reels in. The hook is bare. Something’s been nibbling the mud prawns. Something not inclined to snatch the bait in a passing gulp.

Dom sighs. Fresh fish once a week would be nice. He hasn’t caught a fish in two weeks. His wife jokes that he must be having an affair. It’s a joke with teeth because once he had a scene with her sister until he got caught waving his bum in the air. Tears, tears, tears. Weeks of it. He had to make up with a seven-day break at Sun City. And give his wife a thousand to play the one-arm bandits. Which pulled her in eight grand on a straight-across four fruit. Ching. Ching. Did she give him five cents? Not a chance.

‘You see,’ she said. ‘God’s watching.’

Dom wipes sandwich crumbs off his moustache, packs up, hurls the tin of mud prawns into the soup. Be a couple of days before he can get back, and one thing cob know it’s old bait. Might even be the Greek’d sold him stale bait this morning. Bloody Nico, and his ‘Fish don’t know the difference, my friend.
Fish eat anything dead. Why you think there’s only skeletons under the sea?’

Dom carefully hops across the dolosse, then the railway lines back to the car park.

In the car park two fishermen lean against their bakkie,
drinking
coffee from a flask, two nice-sized cob on the van’s tailboard. Dom remembers they were fishing about a hundred metres down.

‘I didn’t get a bite,’ he says to the men.

‘You wanna buy one?’ asks the man holding the flask. ‘Twenny rand.’

Dom considers this. Twenty rand’s a high price for a five-kilo fish. Bloody bushies always trying it on. Other hand he could say he caught it. Give his wife a thrill.

‘Alright,’ he says, pulling a ten-rand note from his pocket. He jiggles his small change. Says, ‘Not used to the five rand yet’ – picks out one from the coins in his palm. ‘Fifteen rand alright?’

The men look at the remaining coins, mostly coppers.

‘What about that?’

Cheeky. Dom squints at them. His cop squint from the old days that he’d follow up with a fist to the face, a nose cruncher. The thing with coloureds, always they’re cheeky.

The fishermen shift, unhappy. Dom keeps up the hard eyes, swivelling his gaze from one to the other. He were a cop he’d start hassling these two gents. He holds out the money. ‘Fair deal.’

The men shrug. The one takes the note and the coin. ‘Ja, okay.’

‘Any one?’

‘Any one.’

Dom hefts the heavier one by the tail. ‘Thanks, hey.’

He walks to his car, flops the fish into the boot onto sheets of newspaper he’s got there in anticipation, slams shut the lid. Pleased with the deal. Smiles to himself that they could tell he was a cop. Was once a cop. An attitude you can trade on.

He clips the fishing rod into the brackets on his roof rack, aware of the men watching him. Pretending not to watch him. Stuff them. Fifteen rand was a good price. More’n they’d have
got on a street corner.

Inside the car, he smacks out a cigarette, smelling fish on his fingers. Comforting. He lights up, blows smoke against the windscreen. Which is when he sees the bullet taped there on the outside. A small round.

Fuck! He stares at it. Sucks on the cigarette, exhales. Twists in his seat to look over at the men. They’re not watching him anymore. He gets out, shouts, ‘Hey, you see anyone round my car earlier?’

The one shakes his head. The other says no.

Dom tears the tape off the windscreen, pulls the cartridge free: a .22 with a cross-hatched nose.

Dom’s first thought: it’s Ray playing silly buggers. He hasn’t heard from Ray in four years after the Tambo job was called off, it has to be Ray. The bullet was Ray’s thing from the beginning: send a bullet to the victim in advance. Dom’s second thought, it’s not bloody funny.

He hears doors slam, the fishermen’s bakkie harrah-harrah into life. With a skittering of gravel they pull out, leaving Dom alone.

He waits, expecting Ray Adler to appear from behind a dolos. He even calls out, ‘Ray, come on, man, stop the nonsense.’

Nothing. Except seagull squawk, distant motorway noise.

Dom is retired. Has been retired for three years. Well, took a package because he could see the way of things and that way didn’t look like he would have a job in the new country. Worse. There might be witch hunts. Tricky questions. Better to duck out, keep a low profile. Which Dom did. Cut his cop mates, kept away from old drinking holes. Went fishing. Found work in a paint shop three days a week and Saturday mornings,
selling
gloss to homeowners. The paint shop in a small centre in an outlying suburb. Not much chance of bumping into his past.

A sweet enough life. Until now.

Dom worries about the bullet for two days. Keeps it with him in his trouser pocket. Doesn’t tell his wife. Doesn’t tell anyone.
Thing is, Dom has no one to tell. The cops he cut were his friends. Beer and braai friends. He dropped them, he dropped his social life. Men who’d known him all his working days. Proper gabbas. Good mates. Some of them tried to keep it up but Dom didn’t respond. Truth? Dom was nipping scared.

He’s nipping scared now. Rubs the bullet between his fingers trying to figure out what to do.

He’s got one, maybe two cops in the service he could phone. At a push. The one being a former brother-in-law. The
brother-in
-law whose wife he’d screwed. So maybe only one contact who might have a number for Ray Adler. Or Pat Foreman, with his rictus grin. Though he’d heard Foreman was a drunk. Out of it on an hour-to-hour, day-to-day basis. Completely stuffed.

From a public phone near the paint shop where he works, Dom puts through a call to his contact, Flip.

‘Yusses, Dom, you got a cheek, hey,’ says Flip.

‘Please, man, Flip,’ says Dom.

Flip goes off on a diatribe about Dom dropping his mates, not caring about years and years of friendship. Not coming to funerals. Just disappearing. ‘As if we were nothing.’

‘Don’t be like that, Flip,’ says Dom. ‘You know I had reasons.’

‘Reasons? We all had bloody reasons. We were all in the kak after the elections. Why were your reasons any worse?’

‘Forget it,’ says Dom. ‘Forget it. I just asked if you had his number.’

‘Listen, my friend. You’ve heard about this TRC thing. Truth and Reconciliation. A commission, hey. That’s gonna be major kak. What’re you gonna do about that?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You tell the truth and they believe you, you get amnesty. Some of the manne think that’s the way to go.’

‘Not for me.’

‘You gonna blab, Dom?’

‘I said no.’

‘The okes that’re gonna try for amnesty, they’re leaving.
Leaving the force. Rats ’n sinking ships. They’re gonna drop us. Name names. Nice, hey? You wanna know what it’s like round here these days. Bloody kak. Everybody’s on their nerves.’

Dom says nothing.

‘Yusses, Dom, you’ve got a cheek.’

‘This’s urgent, okay.’ Dom keeps his voice low, his lips
touching
the phone’s mouthpiece. There’s a woman behind him,
staring
at him.

‘Will you be much longer?’ she says.

‘One minute, lady,’ says Dom. To Flip, ‘Please, Flip, I wouldn’t ask otherwise. It’s an emergency.’

‘Alright, alright,’ says Flip. ‘The last number I’ve got he was in the UK. But he could be in Oz. I heard that he went there. Maybe.’ He gives Dom a London number.

‘What about Foreman? Pat Foreman?’

‘How much more, hey? You want a roll call?’

‘Come’n, Flip. Please, man.’

He hears Flip sigh. ‘Foreman’s an alkie. Forget about him.’

‘Strues?’

‘Strues bob. Bag wine and meths. Does blue train.’

‘Shit.’

‘Ja. Very shit.’ And Flip laughs. ‘Who wants to be a cop, hey? Not you.’ Again he laughs.

‘Thanks,’ says Dom. ‘Thanks, Flip.’

‘Easy to say.’

‘I mean it.’

‘So buy me a beer.’

Dom hears this but hangs up. Flip Nel’s a good man, but Flip can go on, moan, moan, moan. He glances at the number he’s written down, glances at the woman, decides, bugger it, this’s an emergency, she can wait.

‘Are you finished yet?’

‘One more,’ says Dom.

‘Can you hurry up, please?’

Dom ignores her, presses the numbers. He’s got a pocketful
of coins. When the phone’s answered he feeds the slot, says. ‘I’m looking for Ray Adler.’

‘Ray Adler?’

‘That’s right.’

‘No one here by that name, mate.’

‘Wait,’ says Dom, but the line’s cut.

‘Can you let me phone now?’ says the woman.

Dom doesn’t go fishing for two weeks. Mopes about the house getting on his wife’s nerves.

‘For heaven’s sake, Dom, what’s with you?’

‘Nothing, girlie,’ he says, sitting in the lounge watching
repeats
on television ten o’clock in the morning. Having just got out of bed. And Dom usually a seven o’clock up and raring to go sort of man.

‘You don’t go fishing anymore. Four days you’ve skipped work. What’re you sick?’

‘I’m okay, okay?’

‘You’re not, boykie. You’re a bloody pain sitting here all the time.’ She picks up his empty coffee mug. ‘I’m going to phone the doctor, you’re depressed or something.’

‘Ag, girlie.’

‘No really, Dom. This’s worrying, you sitting here day after day. Look at you. All you wear’s that old tracksuit like a poor white. Twenty years of marriage you’ve never done this. You’re forty-five, Dom. Not seventy-five.’

She hauls him off to the doctor, the doctor says there’s
nothing
physically wrong but maybe, yes, he’s depressed.

‘You anxious about something, Dommiss?’ the doctor asks.

Dom’s wife’s in the consulting room and she comes in with how he spends all day in the chair watching television. Doesn’t go fishing. Doesn’t go to work. Well, called in sick for the last four days. Doesn’t dress properly. Doesn’t talk to her. Doesn’t have any friends.

The doctor prescribes antidepressants, a tonic, tells Dom to
go fishing.

‘That’s what I tell him,’ says Dom’s wife. ‘Only before you didn’t have to tell him that. Before you couldn’t stop him. Any excuse he’s away like a stray. Before I had to beg him, Dom we got family for a braai, can you get back for that please? To start the fire early so we don’t have to eat at midnight.’

All the ride home in the car she’s at him to go fishing.
Beautiful
day like it is, no wind for a change, he should go down to Cape Recife. Buy a tin of mud prawns from the Greek. Go cast a line. She’ll make him sarmies, a flask of Nescafe. Maybe take a couple of beers. He can sit there, get some fresh air and sun. Even, if he wants to, on the way home stop in at the old bar for a beer with his mates. Because why’d he drop them? Sometimes the wives phone, say they used to enjoy the fish braais on the weekends. They’re not the only ones, she misses it too. So what’s your problem, Dom? What’s going on?

‘Alright,’ Dom says. ‘Alright, okay, alright.’ Anything to get her off his back.

They get home, he clips his fishing rod to the roof rack, checks there’re enough hooks and sinkers and line and swivels and bait cotton in his tackle bag, and his knife’s in the side pocket.

‘Good,’ says his wife. ‘It’ll do you good to get out for a bit.’

He changes into jeans and a T-shirt, sticks his .38 into his belt.

His wife kisses him on the way out. ‘Enjoy it, Dom. Catch us a fish.’

‘Ja, girlie,’ he says.

He doesn’t go to Cape Recife, he goes to the dolosse. There’s a rusty Corolla in the parking area, the only vehicle. Dom slings his tackle bag over his shoulder, heads for the breakwater to find himself a spot. He’s not fully into this, the bullet’s nagging at him as it has been all this while. His wife doesn’t know but he’s been sitting with the .38 under the cushion of the lounge chair every day. Waiting for them, him, whoever it is, to break in. Each day that passes he reckons the heat’s going off but you can’t be sure. They could be playing him. On the plus side
there’ve been no more little presents.

Dom stands on the dolosse, surveys the scene. There a black guy fishing the Bluewater end, otherwise nobody. The guy doesn’t even notice him. Dom skips along about fifty metres in the city direction before he baits up.

This time the Greek’s sold him fresh mud prawns that’re squirming and clicking in the tin. He threads one onto the hook, binds it fast with cotton. Stands, holds the rod in his left hand over his shoulder, balancing, feeling the weight of the sinker. The sea’s got some life today, a chop that cracks among the dolosse, spitting up spray. Its colour’s blue, that dark blue it goes in the afternoon. Good elf water. Dom casts a long arc. The line plays out, slackens. He reels in one, two turns, tests the line between his thumb and forefinger.

For a while he stands there, the butt of the rod resting on his belt. A Thursday afternoon, peaceful, the city at work. What’s to worry about? But still Dom’s edgy, not quite the laid-back happy fisherman. There’s that bullet in his pocket with the cross-hatched knob, the way they used to cross-hatch the lead before a job.

One o’clock the Friday morning, more than ten hours after
Dommiss
Verburg went fishing, he’s not home. His wife’s going spare, hysterical. She reported him missing, the cops’ve said they don’t do missing until twenty-four hours have passed, minimum. She called them bastards, hung up in tears. Her daughter’s with her but that’s small consolation when she’s convinced her husband’s dead. Convinced he’s killed himself. Because his gun’s missing.