Capture (25 page)

“You want sense? Okay, how’s this: Merinda Appolis was the social worker in charge of Dawn’s kid. Was busy getting a court order to have the child removed from her. On the day Merinda gets herself killed you show up at her office. So here’s what I’m thinking: Dawn knows you killed that piece of shit Boogie, says she’ll shut her trap if you sort out Merinda Appolis. You go to Merinda, chat her up, invite her on a date and throttle her. Dump her dead ass near Paradise Park. How am I doing?”

Water drips from Vernon’s armpits and ramps the corrugations of his ribs. He lights a smoke to give himself a gap, pleased to see that his hands aren’t shaking.

He sucks smoke and exhales at Erasmus, who twitches his nose holes. “Dino, you’re out of your mind, my brother. Merinda Appolis asked me to come by there, to ask me questions about Dawn and the kid. Matter of fact, I told her she was doing the right thing, that it was better for the girlie to be taken from Dawn. That’s it. End of fucken story.”

Erasmus grins. “You know your problem, Vernon? You think you’re too bloody clever. Got something going with Nick Exley. Got something going with Dawn Cupido. Juggling this. Juggling that. Well, my friend, I think you just juggled your ass right into Pollsmoor.”

Vernon opens the door and stands, leaning down to talk to Erasmus.

“Dino, next time you wanna speak to me, you come with a piece of paper, okay?”

He slams the car door, feeling calm and centered as he walks away from the dead man.

Chapter 38

When Dawn saw that video (or whatever it was) of the dead kid dancing, she had this flash: blur your eyes and it could be Brittany. Creeped her out, so she pushed it from her mind and did the samba dance thing, which was kinda fun.

Afterward Nick connected up her moves to a little skeleton in the computer and there it went, shaking its bones just like her. The two of them laughing, Dawn making him play it again and again.

But now, up in the kid’s bedroom, she finds a cork board filled with photographs of the little girl—on the beach, hugging her parents, opening Christmas presents, playing in a green field full of yellow flowers—and there’s no denying the resemblance. Brittany’s skin is a bit darker, her hair a bit wilder, and Dawn’s never in her life been able to afford such fancy clothes for her kid, but she can’t look at these pics without seeing her daughter and it makes her shiver, like somebody walked on her grave.

She hears voices downstairs, Nick paying the delivery guy who has brought them take-out lunch, so she unpins a picture and slips it into her jeans pocket. Dawn ducks out of the bedroom (came up to use the bathroom, not to spy, but what’s wrong with being curious?) and hurries down the stairs. The sea, framed by the huge windows, looks like tinsel, crazy with sunlight, and she wishes she could strip off and dive in there.

Another time, Dawn, if you play your cards right.

Nick’s in the kitchen, putting their pizzas onto plates.

“Can I help?” Dawn asks.

“Sure, why don’t you grab a couple of beers from the fridge? Or would you rather have Coke?”

“No, a beer’s good.”

He takes the plates and walks out onto the deck, leaving her in the kitchen. She opens the fridge, digging for the beers, but it’s not the cold air that makes the downy hairs on her arms rise. She hears Vernon, as they drove over earlier, saying, “Darkie comes into the house and stabs the wife dead in the kitchen. Hell of a fucken mess.”

There’s no sign that anything happened here (if anything the place is too clean, the antiseptic sting of industrial solvent still in the air) but her imagination’s going apeshit, so she snatches two frosty green bottles, one almost slipping from her hand as she shuts the fridge with her elbow, and gets the hell out of there, joining Nick on the deck.

They eat, Dawn vacuuming down her pizza with all the trimmings—salami, shrimp, meatballs—Nick nibbling at something with olives and asparagus.

“You a vegetarian?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“For how long?”

“Since I was a kid. My mother is into the whole Eastern religion thing, so meat just disappeared off the menu.”

“Me, I like my meat.”

“Guess I just lost the taste for it. My wife and daughter ate meat, so it doesn’t offend me.” Something crosses his face and he sets down the pizza slice, reaching for the beer, and he goes far away, staring out over the ocean, lines like a map of sadness on his face. She leaves him be, until he comes back. “Sorry,” he says.

“It’s okay.”

“So, Dawn,” he says, smiling, making an effort, “how long have you been a dancer?”

“I always loved dancing, since I was a little kid. Always showing off. But I been doing it professional since last year.”

“Where do you perform?” he asks.

Dawn laughs, she can’t help it.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nick, I’m a stripper in a shithole on Voortrekker Road. I wouldn’t call what I do performing, it’s more like going to the gynecologist every night.” Dawn laughs again, but she’s embarrassed him. “Hey, I’m not proud of what I do but a girl’s gotta pay the rent, you know what I mean?”

“I understand. It’s just you have real talent. I’ve done some work with choreographers and dancers over the years and you’re good.” Saying this with a serious look.

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Dawn, I dunno if this would interest you, but I’m building up a library of motion-capture data and I don’t have enough dance stuff. Maybe you could come back again? I’d pay, of course.”

Dawn lays her best smile on him. “Sure. Anytime. In fact, I just lost my job, so it would be a blessing. Serious.”

“What happened?”

She takes a sip of the beer and gives him a fantasy version of what went down at Lips, no social workers, no Brittany, just cartoon versions of the Ugly Sisters and Costa. She plays it for laughs, and he smiles and shakes his head at the craziness of it all. Even eats some of his food.

They finish their drinks and he goes inside the house and brings back a six-pack of the imported beer that tastes a bit like piss to her, but hey, who the hell is she to complain?

Vernon, carrying the cremation urn in a pink plastic bag, clambers over the boulders that flank Exley’s house. He’d parked the Civic outside the front gate and was about to buzz, when something said, no, go in the other way. Surprise them.

And there they are, Nick Exley and Dawn, sitting out on the deck, a pair of laughing shadows against the burning ocean, some kind of tuneless electro beat pumping from inside the house.

They don’t know he’s there and he stands a moment, on the rock where it all began, watching them. Dawn, barefoot, sits with her feet up on the wooden chair, one hand hanging down, resting on the neck of a beer bottle, the other up behind her head, playing with her hair, making little ringlets. Nick leans forward, elbows on the table, telling her something, and she laughs again—a loose laugh, like she’s a bit drunk—and juts her titties toward Exley, who looks too bloody relaxed for a guy in his situation.

Vernon skids down the rocks and advances on them, dragging his bad leg, boot scuffing a trail in the white sand, and when they turn toward him the atmosphere changes. Dawn lowers her feet and crosses her arms over her breasts, staring out at the water.

Exley stands, looking uneasy. “Hey, man, how about a beer?”

Vernon knows that they don’t want him here and he feels something old and dark twitch inside him. He turns on a smile to cover his rage as he crosses the deck, his boots like gunshots on the wood.

“No, Nick, thanks.” He sits, putting the bag down beside him, the urn clinking. “So, how’d it go?”

“Oh, excellent,” the whitey says. “Dawn’s a great dancer.”

“Ja, you should see her show sometime,” Vernon says, giving Dawn a look.

But she comes right back at him. “I already told Nick what I do, Vernon.” She shrugs her shoulders like she’s fucken shrugging him off and he knows he needs to exert some control here.

“No secrets between friends, hey?” he says, and Dawn stays quiet. He turns to Exley. “And you, Nick, you tell her
your
darkest secrets?”

That gets the skinny fuck’s attention and he coughs around the mouth of his beer bottle, staring at Vernon with an attempt at a smile.

“No, I wouldn’t want to bore her.”

“Oh, she wouldn’t be bored.” Bantering, then getting serious. “Dawnie, I gotta have a talk with Nick. Go wait in the car.” Chucking the Civic keys at her.

Dawn knows better than to argue and says her goodbyes sharpish, but still giving Exley cow eyes. He walks her to the door, and they whisper a few words, Exley touching her on the elbow. She leaves and he comes back and sits.

“What’s on your mind?”

Vernon raises the plastic bag and holds it out to Exley, who takes it, opens it and looks like somebody’s kidney-punched him when he sees the silver container.

“Jesus,” he says.

Vernon gets a warm and fuzzy voice going. “Sorry, buddy.”

Exley, fighting back tears, lifts the urn from the bag and places it on the table, all gentle, like it can feel what he’s doing.

“Nick, I know you wanna be alone,” Vernon says, and Exley nods, eyes on the urn, “but we got us a problem that won’t keep.”

Exley looks up and says, “Erasmus?”

“Ja.” Vernon nods. “The fucker’s like a pitbull. I been putting out feelers with my connections and it’s not looking good. He’s got a senior prosecutor on his side, seems like they’re gonna take this thing the distance.” Bullshitting, of course, but it sounds believable, and he’s scaring the little weakling stupid.

“He was fucking aggressive when he was here yesterday. Do I need a lawyer?” Exley asks, nice and stressed.

“No, not yet. That’ll just send out the wrong signals. But we’re going to have to contain this.”

“Contain it how?” Vernon shrugs and Exley says, “Erasmus is making all these accusations, but what’s he got? What proof?”

“Nick, strong enough circumstantial cases get convictions in court. Especially if the prosecution has the judge in their pocket. Remember there’s no jury system in this country, just a judge. And him and the prosecution’s born from the same hole, if you get my meaning.”

“So what do we do?”

“What I want you to get nice and clear, Nick, is that I done what I done to save your ass.” Exley’s ready to mouth off, so Vernon holds up a hand. “Whoa, buddy. My balls are on the line here. If things get too hot I’m gonna have to make a deal with Erasmus. Plea-bargain.”

Exley stares at him. “Jesus, Vernon.”

“I was a cop, Nick. Put a lot of nasty motherfuckers behind bars. How you think it’s gonna go for me if I get locked away with them in Pollsmoor?” He shakes his head. “Not an option. But if I make a deal, I’ll get sent to some medium-security prison in another province. Get my own cell. Probably serve no more than six, seven years. I’ll be out by the time I’m forty.” He lights a cigarette, draws on it, never taking his eyes off Exley, speaking around a mouthful of smoke. “Means I’ll have to give you up, Nick. And for you, my friend, things won’t go so well. In a recent case a foreign guy who hired hit-men to kill his wife ended up pulling a double life sentence.”

“But I didn’t hire you!”

“Who’s to say?”

“Okay, Vernon, what do you want? Money?”

“You come at me with that crap again, Nick? At a time like this?”

“Then what? Tell me what you want from me.” Desperate, his fingers clenched on the arms of the chair.

Vernon leans forward, crowding Exley. “I want you to make this whole bloody nightmare go away.”

“How?”

“Simple, Nick.” Vernon, working his mouth like a goldfish, blows a perfect smoke ring and watches it float on the breeze and disperse. Then he looks deep into Exley’s panicked eyes. “You gonna kill Dino Erasmus.”

Chapter 39

Vernon speeds along the coast toward the city, the mountain looming above, feeling the earth pulling at him as he takes the car through the curves. He hates this stretch of road, with its twists and turns imposed by the chunk of rock. Vernon’s a straight-ahead guy. Plain and simple. Grew up out on the Flats, a man-made grid thrown down on the windswept badlands. A place all about forward movement. Something gets in your way, you take it down. End of story. You look back and you’re fucked.

But now he feels just a whisper of self-doubt as he fights this road that chases its own tail. Is he getting in too deep, pressuring Exley to do this thing? Will the soft white man crack and take them both down?

Vernon lights a Lucky and breathes out his doubts and fears with the smoke, knowing that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t sort this Erasmus business himself. He’d be suspect number one. No, he has to have an unshakeable alibi when Exley does what he has to do. And that is fucken that.

Vernon looks across at Dawn, who rests her head against the side window, watching the sunset. Remembers that night when he first got her into his car on Voortrekker. Changed her life for her. Is she grateful? Not a fuck. She’ll drop him in a heartbeat.

“He pay you?” Vernon asks.

“Huh?” She sits up, squinting at him.

“Nick. He pay you?”

“Ja.”

“How much?” She hesitates. “You don’t have to lie, Dawn, I don’t want any of your money. I’m not your fucken pimp.”

“Two grand,” she says.

“So, you going back?”

“Ja. Day after tomorrow.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“I can find my own way.” Looking out over the sea again.

He grabs her thigh and squeezes until it hurts. “Now let’s not get too full of ourselves, Dawnie.”

He puts on Percy Sledge—“When A Man Loves A Woman.” One of her favorites. But Dawn just stares at the light dying over the ocean, not even responding to the music, and Vernon knows he’s losing her.

From where Exley sits on the low rocks—right where the water took Sunny—the swell obscures the beach, and the house looks like a lightship adrift on the Atlantic. How he got out here Exley can’t recall, but alcohol must have been involved because he holds an empty cut-glass tumbler in his hand. He stands, fighting for balance on the kelp-slick rocks, and has to sacrifice the glass to the deep when he needs both hands to keep from plunging into the water.