Of Cops & Robbers (32 page)

The man lies on a bed. He is cold. He is unkempt. He has been sleeping in his clothes, he has not changed since he was brought here. He has not washed. He teeth feel furry, his scalp itches. He lies curled up, hugging himself for warmth, facing the wall.

When he gets too cold he does squats, awkwardly because of the leg irons. He can manage forty before his thigh muscles scream with agony. Or he does push-ups. His arms are stronger than his thighs, he can rise and sink seventy times before the pain gets him. Then he collapses on the concrete floor, his breathing loud, urgent. Once he could’ve done double that.

The room’s small, windowless, two air vents high up. There’s a single light in the centre, a bulkhead screwed to the ceiling. It’s never switched off. The man doesn’t know if it’s day or night.

He can hear no sounds of activity. Only the distant, dull throb of a generator. He doesn’t know how long he’s been there.

His meals are slid in through a hatch at the base of the door. The door is metal, a safe-room door, solid on its hinges.

When his first meal arrived, he shouted: ‘What d’you want? Why’m I here? Talk to me. For God’s sake, talk to me.’ But no one answered. The hatch slid closed. His food was in a varkpan, the sort of pressed metal tray he remembered from his army days. Two slices of toast, a dollop of pap, stiff, long-solidified. A tin mug of tea, sweet milky tea. The same food at each meal. Sometimes a sauce with onion bits on the porridge, sometimes peanut butter with the toast.

Always the same routine. The hatch would slide back, a voice say, ‘Give me your tray.’ When he refused, he got no food. He learnt quickly, it was better to eat their offering than starve.

The man is lying on the bed when he hears door bolts being drawn back. He sits up. The door swings open.

Mart Velaze says, ‘Phew, Daro, buti, you stink.’ Mart Velaze fanning the air with his hand.

‘You would too,’ says Daro Attilane. ‘Have you had your fun now? You going to let me go?’

Mart Velaze laughs. Turns to the man beside him. ‘He’s tough, né, for a car salesman.’

The man smiles, says, ‘Maybe we should hose him? Clean him up first?’

Mart Velaze says to Daro, ‘You want that?’

‘Does it matter what I want?’ says Daro.

‘Nah,’ says Mart Velaze. ‘You’re right. Let’s do it.’ He
disappears
, the other man standing there, gazing at the prisoner.

‘Who’re you?’ says Daro.

‘Vusi Bopape,’ says the man. ‘Mart ’n I are colleagues.’

‘Men in black suits.’

‘No, we don’t wear suits. But, yes, in that zone.’

Mart Velaze comes back holding a garden hosepipe, a trickle of water at the nozzle. He throws Daro Attilane a bar of soap. Says, ‘I’m going to turn this on. For a cleaner wash you better strip.’

‘While you watch?’

‘We’re not perverts,’ says Mart Velaze.

‘We’re all men,’ says Vusi Bopape.

Mart Velaze opens the nozzle, directs the jet at Daro Attilane still sitting on the bed. Daro stunned by the cold drenching, taking the force full in the face.

‘We haven’t got all day,’ shouts Mart Velaze. ‘Wash.’

Daro raises his hand to block the spurt, stands to undress. Keeps on staring at them. The two men grinning at him, Mart Velaze playing the water, face, stomach, crotch, until Daro’s naked, only his jeans leg dragging at his ankle.

He washes, the two men watching him, their faces closed. Mart Velaze twists the nozzle, shuts off the water.

‘I haven’t finished,’ says Daro. There’s soap lather in his hair, streaks of it on his body.

‘Got to conserve water, Daro,’ says Mart Velaze, throwing clean clothes on to the wet bed. ‘Get dressed, we need to talk.’

‘What about the irons?’

‘The key’s in the pocket. Unlock them yourself.’

They wait while he dries himself with the blanket, dresses, not taking their eyes off him.

‘The lock and the key,’ says Mart Velaze, ‘throw them on the bed.’

He does.

They take him barefoot across a courtyard to a small building that’s part office, part storeroom for shovels and picks. There’s a table in the room, four plastic chairs around it. A briefcase on the table. In a corner, a heap of clothing, two pairs of black takkies on the pile.

Daro points at them. ‘Those available?’

Mart Velaze shrugs. ‘The owners don’t need them anymore. You want them, help yourself.’

The two men sit, wait for Daro to join them. Daro Attilane saying, ‘You’re Mkezi’s men? You’ve read what I had in the file. Seen the photographs. He’s finished.’

‘That’s right,’ says Vusi Bopape. ‘He’s finished.’

‘Yesterday’s man,’ says Mart Velaze. ‘All the same, Daro, we want you to kill him. Shoot him.’

Daro glancing up from tying his laces.

‘No big deal for you, Daro. Maybe you’re out of practice, but no big deal.’ The two men smile at him. ‘What d’you say?’

Daro Attilane goes back to his laces. When he’s done, sits opposite Mart Velaze and Vusi Bopape, his eyes on the briefcase. ‘That was then,’ he says.

‘Then,’ says Vusi Bopape. ‘Then, now, it’s all the same.’

‘No,’ says Daro. ‘I finished with that stuff.’

‘Let me tell you something,’ says Mart Velaze, ‘let me tell you that Mr Mkezi is out of control. This week he organised to steal state assets. Rhino horns, worth millions. This’s no problem for Mr Mkezi. Last week he puts a hit on his friend because
the man’s turned state witness. And look.’ Mart Velaze takes some printouts from the briefcase on the table. ‘That’s Mkezi’s Hummer. Mkezi screws rent boys, Daro. Street kids. This’s not very nice.’

‘Your problem,’ says Daro. ‘I gave you the file.’

‘You gave something to other people too.’

‘I did.’

‘That was not clever.’

‘It was insurance.’

Mart Velaze shakes his head, looks at Vusi Bopape. Vusi Bopape says, ‘Now they know too much. You must shoot them too.’

Daro Attilane laughs. ‘What? Are you mad?’

‘No.’

‘Doesn’t work like that. What’ve they done?’

‘Not done. It’s what we said, they know.’

‘They don’t know about the money. The money that went from Dr Gold to Jacob Mkezi. The state money.’

‘You’re not going to say anything, Daro. You’ll keep quiet.’

‘You think so?’

‘We do,’ says Vusi Bopape.

Mart Velaze saying, ‘There’s Steffie and Georgina. There’ll always be Steffie and Georgina, Daro. Our mutual insurance’ – Mart Velaze giving a grin to the word.

The men pausing there.

‘Vicki Kahn’s the problem,’ says Mart Velaze.

‘What’s she got to do with it?’

‘You gave her the information, the documents.’

‘You’re wrong.’

Mart Velaze smiles. ‘Alright, you gave them to your surfing buddy, the hotshot PI, Fish Pescado. That’s why he keeps phoning me, leaving messages in my voicemail. I can work these things out, Daro. So if Pescado has seen the pictures then so has his girlfriend Vicki Kahn. And what I think is that you realised or found out her aunt was the Amina Kahn you guys killed. The
one in Paris, the stabbing. How’m I doing?’

Daro Attilane looking down at his feet in the black takkies. ‘You’re wrong.’

‘We don’t think so. Which is why we think Vicki Kahn’s a problem. Because Vicki Kahn’s a lawyer, and lawyers ask
questions
. And the people who deploy me, Vusi and me, don’t want her asking questions.’

‘Why not? It was a hit, a Special Branch job. One of many.’

‘Yes and no, Daro. You see, what you don’t know and what I’ve found out is that you guys did the job for us.’

‘Us?’

‘The struggle. MK. The ANC.’

‘We got her for you? Rubbish.’

‘Strange, né? Problem was Amina Kahn was interfering.
Getting
in the way for both sides.’

‘You expect me to believe this nonsense?’

‘Doesn’t matter, Daro. We’re cleaning up.’

‘We’re cleaners, my friend,’ says Vusi Bopape. ‘Fixers,
cleaners
making our new country neat and tidy. Getting rid of all the bad karma. We want a history that tells a nice story, us the good guys and you the bad guys. Jacob Mkezi was both a good guy and a bad guy, but this complication doesn’t work for us anymore. We only want good guys.’

‘Daro.’ Mart Velaze puts the printouts back into the
briefcase
. ‘Daro, it is a simple matter. You don’t do this we will kill Georgina and Steffie, Vicki Kahn and your mate Fish Pescado. Then we will kill you. We gave you the bullet, né?’

‘And I should believe you? That you’d kill all those people?’

‘Doesn’t matter. Mkezi and your friends are history, one way or another. Georgina and Steffie, that’s up to you.’

‘Your call. Get your own back on Jacob Mkezi for your chommies. You know what, he arranged for you to be taken out, every one of you in that unit: Ray Adler, Verburg, Foreman, you. So get even. Save your family. What’d you think?’

Mart Velaze pushes back on his chair, ‘Come, let’s show
you something. Some housekeeping we’ve already been doing.’

Daro Attilane follows him into another outbuilding, Vusi Bopape bringing up the rear. A room of chest freezers, must be eight or nine, Daro reckons. Mart Velaze opens one. ‘Abalone, taken from poachers.’ Another: ‘Lobsters, taken from poachers.’ The third has two naked corpses. ‘You knew these gentlemen.’

Both have been shot in the forehead.

Daro Attilane leans over, sees the frosted bodies of Seven and Jouma. ‘That’s no loss.’

‘Exactly,’ says Mart Velaze. He tells how Seven tried to shoot him, how the gun was loaded with blanks. He tells the story of the museum rhino horns. ‘What we’ve decided’ – he points at Vusi Bopape – ‘is to take them back. The museum can glue on the horns, no one will know the difference. It’s the right thing to do, né? Cleaning up, it’s the right thing to do.’

Mart Velaze closes the freezer.

‘These are his shoes?’ says Daro, looking down at his feet. ‘Seven’s shoes.’

‘Seven’s. The other guy’s, I don’t know which,’ says Mart Velaze.

‘Christ!’ says Daro. ‘This’s all I need.’

‘They’re shoes,’ says Mart Velaze. ‘Shoes are shoes.’

‘Dead man’s shoes,’ says Vusi Bopapi, laughing.

The three men leave the room, return to sit around the table.

‘So?’ says Mart Velaze.

‘So why aren’t you doing this?’ Daro Attilane comes back.

Mart Velaze nods, puts his hands flat on the table, stares at them. Raises his eyes to Daro Attilane. ‘Some work we do
ourselves
, some work we contract out. This one is yours.’

‘What’s this?’ says Fish to Vicki, looking at the plastic shopping bag she’s hefted onto his kitchen table. ‘I thought you were bringing food?’

‘I did,’ she says. ‘Smoked snoek. Basmati rice. Four tomatoes. Two onions. Packet of raisins. Bottle of Mrs Ball’s chutney, extra hot. You’ve got some sweet wine, I’m hoping?’

‘Somewhere,’ says Fish. ‘You want me to make smoervis?’

‘That’s the general idea,’ says Vicki. ‘Reason I bought all those ingredients. You cook, I tell you what I’ve found. You tell me what you’ve learnt. Means you’ve got to multi-task, but you can manage that? A big boy like you?’

Fish pulls out a bottle of sweet jerepigo from a cupboard. Says, ‘Very funny.’

Vicki slaps down a notepad on the table. ‘In the bag there’s also a Pinotage. I’ll have some of that.’

Fish pours two glasses, smacks his lips at the first taste.

‘You could say cheers.’ Vicki holding up her glass.

‘Just checking it wasn’t corked,’ says Fish.

‘To the man in the crocodile shoes,’ says Vicki. ‘May the wrath be upon him.’

‘I’ll go with that.’

‘The very same charming man who offered me a job.’

Fish frowns at her. ‘You didn’t say.’

‘I was thinking about it.’

‘And now?’

‘I’m not.’ She points at the rice. ‘But let’s have some action, babes, some of us’re starving.’

‘Simple as that, you’re not thinking about it? About taking his job offer?’

‘Simple as that. First my smarmy boss came over all
cootchy-coo
,
hen there’s this.’ She points at the photostats.

‘Okay, you go first, I’m listening.’ Fish gets the rice steaming. Weeps over the onions as he dices them.

Vicki says, ‘This goes back to Dr Gold in the 1970s, when he was minister of finance.’ Tells how the government salted gold bullion away, millions and millions of taxpayers’ money, mostly in London. A long story of who and what and when and how.

‘I know that,’ says Fish.

Vicki stops. ‘How? How d’you know?’

‘A birdie told me.’

‘Come on, Fish.’

‘This professor I know. He’s into politics, lectures it. I showed him the photostat of the man in hospital, he told me what you’ve just said. I’m ahead of the curve. Also he recognised Jacob Mkezi.’

‘So he told you how Dr Gold moved the gold from London to Zurich for a small percentage per ounce sold?’ Vicki asking Fish this in her quiet way. Her lovely voice filling his head as he fries the onions.

‘He did.’

Vicki saying, ‘But here’s the thing, I’ve been going through the Truth and Recon papers. You don’t find the minister’s name anywhere there, but you do find Jacob Mkezi.’

‘Oh yeah?’ says Fish. He’s set aside a cupful of raisins in water to soften. He’s chopping up the tomatoes.

‘I think Jacob Mkezi worked for both sides.’ Vicki takes a swig of her wine, shuffles papers. Says, ‘Three times Jacob’s name comes up. The first time it’s mentioned is after an attack in Swaziland. At the hearing this woman says she prepared a meal for Comrade Jacob Mkezi.’

‘What woman?’

‘A woman who was there. The Security Branch shot her, but she survived. She told the hearing they were waiting for Comrade Jacob Mkezi. They’d cooked food but Comrade Jacob didn’t come.’

Fish nods, adds more butter to the onions, says, ‘Hang on,
you’re saying that back then there was a link between young Jacob and this Dr Gold?’

‘What I’m saying, Fish … All I know is Jacob was MK from sometime early in the 1980s. How he got from there to sitting on Dr Gold’s hospital bed in Switzerland, I don’t know. You read Jacob Mkezi’s biog details you’re reading about a revolutionary. A man the security police want dead.’

Fish unwraps the snoek, starts easing the flesh from the bones with a knife.

‘There’s another hit attempt on Jacob Mkezi a year later, back home in South Africa.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Uh huh. Look,’ Vicki glancing hard at Fish, ‘suspension of disbelief, okay.’

‘Get on with it.’ Fish waving the knife in the air, bits of snoek flying.

‘There’s a mysterious car wreck with three comrades on a mountain pass. The car leaves the road, catches fire, they all die.’

‘Stuff like that happened.’

‘Sure, but they were supposed to be driving Jacob Mkezi to a political meeting but Jacob Mkezi never pitched at the
rendezvous
. Hear what I’m saying?’

‘Sort of. You’re saying because he misses two attacks that can’t be coincidence. That someone tipped him off.’

‘Right.’

‘Bit of an assumption.’

‘But a possibility.’

‘I’ve heard stranger stories.’

‘Exactly. But I’ve got another story, about Paris.’

Fish tastes the rice. It’s done. ‘Paris?’

Vicki waves a small diary at him. The cover’s a blue plastic worn at the edges. She thumbs through it to a yellow Post-it sticker. ‘Here, 15 September 1987 at eleven thirty Swiss
ambassador
written in ballpoint. That was a Tuesday.’

‘So?’

‘So my aunt Amina was a big-time strugglista. In the
movement
’s finance section. She ran their money. She would’ve seen payments coming in, payments going out.’

‘Your aunt?’

‘My aunt.’

‘Okay.’

‘She was killed. Stabbed in the metro, five days later.’

Fish upends the rice onto the onions and tomatoes, adds the snoek bits, raisins, a cup of white wine. Mixes it all with a spatula.

‘So she met Dr Gold. So what? Maybe the assassination’s a coincidence.’

‘I don’t think so. We got the diary anonymously, separately. It wasn’t with her other effects. They were all in a cardboard box: clothing, some books, ornaments, a few records, photographs, letters she’d received from family and friends. Nothing out of the ordinary. The diary pitched up with our post, except it hadn’t been posted. It was a hand drop.’

‘You’re saying someone who should’ve got rid of the diary, someone who should’ve destroyed it, didn’t?’

‘Exactly.’

‘We didn’t get any of her other diaries, just that one for 1987. I’ve been through it day by day. The only person she met who was not part of the struggle was Dr Gold.’

‘Still doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Something happened at their meeting.’

‘You’re assuming.’

‘Then why is her file secret? We tried to get her death
investigated
by the TRC. They got nowhere. The investigators got death threats. I got a death threat.’

‘What sort of death threat? A letter? A phone call?’

‘A phone call. African voice. Told me I didn’t want to go the same way as my aunt. That was it. That and the investigators telling me there was a file on my aunt but it was secret.’

Vicki sweeps up her papers. ‘There’s a story, a family story that my aunt knew something. Something she didn’t like.’

‘Such as?’

‘That the struggle heroes were doing a deal with Dr Gold. Probably involving the bullion. I don’t know. I’ve only met Jacob Mkezi twice, both times he said he’s got something to tell me about my aunt. Why would he do that? Why say that?’ She forks a mouthful of smoervis from the simmering pan. ‘This’s ready. I need to eat.’

Fish dishes. Twists open the cap on the chutney. ‘You want some?’

‘Of course.’ Vicki’s into her second mouthful. ‘Delish, Fish.’ Grins at the rhyme, the pun. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to wait till I have the sit-down with Mr Mkezi.’

They eat. Fish clears space for the photostats. ‘Which brings us to these. And the thing here I don’t want to admit.’

‘Which is?’

‘That Daro was a Special Branch cop. Part of an icing unit.’

‘Tell me.’

Fish takes wine, another mouthful of food. Slides the
photostat
of the group of men on the beach in front of her. The background’s whited out but the vegetation’s thick to the side of them. Four men. Three with uncombed hair, probably unshaved, wearing shorts or swimming costumes and T-shirts. The one with a mop of hair’s got on surfers’ baggies, has a cigarette in his mouth. One’s better-dressed, stylish. Looks like he’s stepped out of a smart-casual lunch party. All of them with sunglasses.

Fish hands her a magnifying glass. Says, ‘The snappy dresser, the black guy, you look closely at his face you’d say it was Jacob Mkezi. Problem is without the original there’s no telling for sure. But you compare the two copies and that’s who it looks like.’

‘Accepted,’ says Vicki, bent over the image.

‘Now, one thing I’ve heard Special Branch used to have these beach parties. Like they were an institution. Maybe that’s what’s happening here. And those guys are an icing unit. Questions: what is Jacob Mkezi doing at a Special Branch beach party? Who took this picture of Jacob Mkezi and Dr Gold? Why is
Jacob Mkezi visiting Dr Gold in hospital? And why did Daro make sure I got them?’

‘Good questions.’

‘And what connects those two men to Daro is the blond guy with the cigarette in the beach pic.’

Vicki looks closely. Glances at Fish then down again at the picture. ‘I don’t want to think that.’

‘Me neither,’ says Fish. ‘Because I’ve got this feeling it’s
probably
these guys who killed your aunt. Daro being one of them.’