Mixed Blood (15 page)

The dealer dealt him a five, then pulled a six for himself and then a ten. Too many.

The dealer shoved a stack of chips Burn’s way. Burn flicked a couple of chips back toward the dealer, who tapped them, then dropped them into a slot in the table.

Burn finished his drink and held up the empty glass to a passing waitress. What the hell, he could have one more.

He knew it was crazy to be here. Stupid. Reckless. Gambling had caused all the pain in his life. Got him running from a cop dead in the snow. His pregnant wife and his kid were about to be lost to him forever, and he was gambling again. Blotting out reality.

But he felt some of that old excitement, the thrill that gambling had always given him, like a shot of adrenaline straight into the heart. He loved it.

Even now.

The dealer dealt him a ten and a seven and pulled a king for himself.

The man next to Burn, a dark man with gold teeth, made his feelings clear. “Just, stick, okay?”

Burn ignored him, tapped his cards. “Hit me.”

The dealer gave him a bland look and dealt him a four. Twenty-one. Then the dealer went bust by pulling two picture cards.

Burn laughed out loud and reached for the Scotch that had appeared at his elbow.

He couldn’t lose.

C
HAPTER
13

Disaster Zondi stared down at the charred bodies. The howling wind rattled the portable klieg lamps that beamed down a merciless glare, threatening to topple them even though they were weighted with sandbags. The yellow crime scene tape sang and flapped in the wind, and the technicians battled the dust as they worked.

The wind flung snatches of conversation Zondi’s way. The crime techs were wondering why the hell they had been called out for just another Cape Flats mess. Glances were shot in his direction, as if this had to be his doing.

Zondi tuned all this out, impassive, communing with the dead.

The small figure was definitely a child, and the mother swore blind that it was her son. In the morning they would run dental records, but Zondi didn’t doubt she was right. Mothers weren’t wrong about things like that.

Zondi was aware that he had stepped outside his brief by being here. Call it research, the man from Johannesburg steeping himself in the crime that gripped the Flats by the throat. This hardly seemed typical, though. The bodies of two men would have indicated a gang killing. The body of the child alone would have been just another victim of the homicidal pedophiles the Flats produced with terrifying regularity.

But the three bodies together? This hinted at an altogether different beast at work.

Superintendent Peterson, station commander of Bellwood South, was on the scene. Zondi had no doubt this was for his benefit. Peterson had the well-fed look of a man who left the dirty work up to others.

A uniformed sergeant came up to Peterson. “Superintendent, we have Constable Galant.” He pointed at a patrol car.

Peterson followed the uniform. Zondi caught up with him.

“Okay if I tag along, Superintendent?”

If Peterson objected, he wasn’t about to say so. “Of course.”

Constable Gershwynne Galant, the reluctant minder of the satellite police station, sat in the back of the patrol car. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and smelled as if he had been brought in from a tavern somewhere. He looked sullen and nervous.

“Get the mother, Sergeant.” The superintendent nodded to where Berenice September sat in the passenger seat of Peterson’s car.

Berenice came across, walking slowly. She stumbled, and the sergeant had to steady her. Her face caught enough of the spill from the kliegs to show the hell she was living through.

Peterson pointed at Galant. “Mrs. September, is this the constable you took your son to?”

Berenice looked at Galant. He returned her stare, then looked away. “Yes. That’s him.”

Peterson told the sergeant to take the woman back to his car; then he slid in beside Galant. Zondi leaned in through the passenger window, listening.

“What happened after that woman left her son with you, Constable?”

“He ran away. Like I tole her.”

Peterson shook his head. “Now we both know that isn’t what happened.” He paused. “The woman says you phoned somebody. On your cell phone. Now either you tell us who you phoned or we get your phone logs. Believe me, if you cooperate, I’ll be more inclined to go easy on you. Do you understand?”

Galant nodded.

“Okay. So I’m asking you again. Who did you phone?”

Galant wiped the back of his hand against his nose, sniffing. “It was Inspector Barnard.”

Zondi looked across at Peterson. Was that fear he saw on the man’s face?

“And what happened next?” Peterson seemed almost reluctant to ask the question.

“The inspector came and took the boy away. In his car.”

Peterson slid out of the car and turned to the sergeant. “Lock him away. Single cell, okay?”

The cop nodded and got behind the wheel of the car, started the engine, and drove away. Zondi and Peterson stood in the howling wind, trying to shield their eyes from grit.

“I’m going to issue a warrant for Barnard,” Peterson said, blinking.

“I think that’s a good idea. I want to be along every step of the way, Superintendent.”

“Of course. Absolutely.”

Berenice September walked back toward them. She had caught the tail end of the conversation. “Is it Gatsby what did this?”

Zondi looked at Peterson quizzically.

Peterson shrugged. “Gatsby. A street name for Barnard.” He turned to Berenice. “It’s too soon to say.”

Zondi took the woman’s arm and walked her to the car. Peterson looked as if he was about to follow; then he hung back.

“Do you know this man, Barnard?” Zondi helped her into the car.

“Ja. We all do. He makes his own law.”

“I think those days may be over.”

Berenice said nothing, busy with the nightmare in her head.

Zondi walked off toward his BMW, the wind snatching at his suit, his eyes tearing up from the dust. In the distance Table Mountain blazed, tongues of flame leaping against the night sky.

Rudi Barnard hated the wind. In all the years he had spent in Cape Town, he had never got used to it. It made him feel lonely. Barnard took pride in his self-sufficiency; he trusted only himself and his God. He had little usehuman interaction, but tonight he needed to speak to somebody. He needed reassurance.

Barnard drove through the back streets of Goodwood until he hit the railway line. He sat in the car, looking up at a crumbling building, two apartments over an African traditional healer. The healer’s rooms were closed, but streetlight fell across the crudely painted windows offering cures for everything from impotence to AIDS.
COME INSIDE NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE
, urged a sign.

The last time Barnard was here, the place had been a pet shop. Things change.

A light burned in one of the apartments. Barnard hesitated; it had been months since he had visited, and he almost lost his nerve. But he left the car, cursing as he took a gust of grit full in the face.

Fucken wind.

He hurried to the doorway of the building, stepping over a man and a woman asleep under cardboard boxes and plastic, anesthetized by cheap booze. Barnard trudged up one floor, panting as if he had run a marathon, and banged on an apartment door. There was rustling and thudding inside, then shuffling steps as somebody stood on the other side of the door, listening.

“It’s me, Pastor. Rudi Barnard.”

Many keys were turned, bolts drawn back, and the door cracked a sliver. A yellow eye regarded Barnard suspiciously. Then the door opened to reveal a tall, skeletal man with greasy gray hair framing a wrinkled face the color of urine. His mouth twitched a smile, and ill-fitting dentures clicked wetly.

“Come in, Brother Rudi.”

Barnard was the least sensitive of men, but he battled to hide his shock at the pastor’s decline since he had seen him last.

Johan Lombard, once master of the Army of God Church, had fallen on reduced circumstances. Five years in Pollsmoor Prison for sexually abusing street children had left him fearful and even more paranoid than when he went in. Lombard swore he was innocent, that he had only been doing his duty by introducing the children to Jesus. Why he had also introduced them to his penis he could never fully explain. Rudi Barnard believed implicitly in the innocence of Lombard, believed he had been the victim of the lies of godless half-breeds and had paid the price.

Lombard wore a pair of soiled gray flannels, carpet slippers, and a frayed shirt that had once been white.

“I haven’t woken Pastor, have I?” Barnard was at his most deferential, still convinced that Lombard’s bloodless lips were close to the ear of God.

“Who can sleep, Brother Rudi? In times like these?”

Lombard shuffled ahead into a small living room, crammed with a molting sofa, two ball-and-claw chairs, and piles of books on theology.

He pointed to one of the chairs. “Please, sit.”

Lombard’s shirtsleeves rode up to his bony elbows, and Barnard saw the needle tracks from the self-administered morphine shots. Lombard perched on the sofa, his hands on his knees. As Barnard lowered himself into one of the chairs, his stomach growled like a cement mixer. He patted it.

Lombard attempted a smile. “You are looking well, Rudi.”

Barnard nodded. “I’m okay. And you?”

The pastor shrugged. “It won’t be long before I get my eternal reward. Praise the Lord.” Cancer had eaten through most of Lombard’s liver and was nibbling at other organs in the vicinity. “And your work? Are you still fighting the good fight?”

“I’m trying, Pastor.”

“You are a brave man, Rudi. You must stay strong.”

“I do my best, Pastor.”

“Do you still ask God for his guidance?”

Barnard earnestly nodded his massive head. “Every morning and night, Pastor.”

“Good. And he listens. I see his strength in you.”

“Thank you, Pastor.”

Lombard’s clawlike hands gripped the sofa as a tremor of agony racked his body. Sweat sprang from his forehead, and his eyes pulled shut like dusty drapes.

Barnard felt uncomfortable. Expressions of sympathy did not come naturally to him. “I shouldn’t be bothering Pastor.”

Lombard fought his way through the pain, then sighed and sat back. He opened his eyes and held up a shaking hand. “No. Please.” He sucked air. “Is there something worrying you, Rudi? You look preoccupied.”

Barnard shrugged. “I don’t want to burden the Pastor.”

“Speak to me, Rudi. If I can help in some small way …” Some color had crept back into his sunken cheeks.

“I’m facing a battle. Maybe the biggest that I have fought.”

“Can you put a face to your enemy?”

“Yes.”

“Then God will give you strength, Rudi. See this as an opportunity, a chance to walk through the fire. A gift from him.”

“I am trying.”

A manic glint had come into the eye of Lombard. “Your enemies are sinners, Brother Rudi. Just as that mountain is burning tonight, so will their souls be lost in a lake of fire. Those fires of hell will melt their very bones and their lungs. A terrible stench will arise from them. And this fire is a fire that will burn for all eternity.” He gasped for breath but would not surrender the imaginary pulpit. “But you, Rudi, will walk through the fire, and you will receive the Holy Spirit! I know; I have walked that path!”

Lombard stood. “Come, my son, kneel.”

Barnard wrestled his bulk from the chair; then he folded down on bended knee before the quivering man. He closed his eyes.

Lombard lifted his face to where he believed heaven to be, somewhere beyond the stained ceiling, and squeezed his eyes shut. He placed a trembling hand on Rudi Barnard’s forehead, and a torrent of glottal, unintelligible words flowed from his lips, growing ever more powerful and louder.

Barnard kneeled like a small boy as the gift of tongues rained down upon him.

Berenice September was in her living room, the TV mumbling in the background, some politician lying about crime statistics in South Africa. Juanita sat next to her on the sofa, crying softly. Berenice put her arms around her daughter, trying to find enough strength in herself to comfort her.

The front door opened and Donovan came in from working late shift at the Goodwood McDonald’s. He still had a McD’s shirt on and carried a bag of Big Macs and fries.

He stood looking at his mother and sister. “Mommy?”

Berenice looked up at him. “I found him.”

Donovan put the bag down on top of the TV. “Tell me.”

Berenice stood and kissed Juanita on the forehead. “Stay here. I need to talk to your brother.”

Juanita reached for her, clawing at her blouse, grabbing the fabric in her fingers. Berenice gently broke the girl’s grip. “You wait here, my baby. We won’t be long.”

Donovan followed her into the kitchen, and she told him as much as she could bear to repeat. He was eighteen, a man. He deserved to know the truth. Donovan stood, his face gray. All at once he was puking; half-digested Big Macs spewed into the kitchen sink. She came up behind him and wet a dish towel, wiped his mouth off while he got his breath back.

When he could speak, he looked her in the eye. “You’re sure it’s Ronnie?”

She nodded. “I’m sure.”

“And it was Gatsby? What did it?”

“That’s what they are saying, ja.”