Mixed Blood (24 page)

C
HAPTER
22

When the half-breed finally opened the door, Barnard grabbed her by the throat and walked her backward into the room. He kicked the door shut behind him as he pushed her into a kneeling position on the floor. In the same motion he produced the .38 from its holster and shoved it into her mouth, grabbing a fistful of her kinky hair with his left hand. By tilting the gun barrel, he forced her to look up into his eyes.

“Okay. Listen to me and listen careful. When I take this gun out your mouth, I’m gonna ask you a question. And you not gonna lie. Understood?”

She nodded, choking on the gun. He slid the barrel from her mouth and she coughed.

“Who was that fucker who was here now?”

She shook her head. “There was nobody here.”

He took his arm back and hit her with the barrel. The sight dug deep into her cheekbone, and blood sprang, a red ribbon against her sallow face. She moaned and brought a hand to her cheek, trying to stem the blood that flowed between her fingers.

“There was one light on in the building when he came out. Yours. I’m only gonna ask you one more time. Who was he?”

“My dealer.”

“Did he see the kid?”

She was about to lie. He knew it and took his gun hand back, ready to hit her again. He saw the truth come into her eyes. “Ja. He seen him.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That it’s my friend’s kid.”

“A white kid?”

“I tole him that the daddy was a sailor.”

“He buy that?”

“Ja. I think so.”

“Anybody else see him?”

She shook her head. He believed her. He lowered the gun. “Where’s the kid?”

“In the bathroom.”

He banged past the old alkie, who snored on the sofa, dead to the world, and opened the bathroom door. The kid lay next to the filthy shit pot, so still he looked dead. Barnard lowered himself down and prodded a sausagelike finger into the kid’s neck. He could feel a pulse. The kid didn’t stir.

Barnard went back through to the other room and found the half-breed at the kitchen sink, holding a wet cloth against her face. The cloth was already turning pink.

“You give him something to make him sleep?”

She nodded. “Half a Mogadon.”

“And what if you’d fucken killed him?”

She stared at him, the blood seeping through the cloth. “You gonna kill him anyways, aren’t you?”

“What makes you say that?”

She shrugged. Blood dripped through the ook/p>

Then he came at her. She shrunk back against the sink, but he surprised her by putting his thumb against the cloth where the cut was, applying pressure. He held it there for nearly a minute, staring at her, his rotten breath rolling over her like the fumes from a septic tank.

“I’m gonna stay here tonight.”

“You can’t sleep with me!”

“You’d be so fucken lucky.” He laughed and released the grip on her face. The pressure had slowed the flow of blood.

Barnard turned and walked over to a threadbare chair, dragged it so that its back was to the wall and it faced the front door. He sat, his fat overflowing the arms of the chair, and unzipped the kit bag. He unwrapped the towel and rested the Mossberg 500 on his lap.

He looked at the door, not at her, when he spoke. “I won’t be sleeping. I’ll be sitting here waiting for somebody to come through that fucken door.”

The helicopters woke Burn again. This time he knew exactly where he was. And where he was made Desert Storm look easy. There had been rules of a sort in that war, if you were an American, that is. You took orders, you moved forward, and you killed people. At night you pissed into your ration pack to get the heater going and ate a turkey dinner while the smoke from the blazing oil fields wrapped you like a blanket.

But now, in Cape Town, the rule book had been lost. Or maybe never written.

Burn looked at his watch, just gone six a.m. His head was thick from the Scotch that had sent him to sleep. Reaching for his phone, he thumbed Mrs. Dollie’s number. He heard her voice, self-conscious, uncomfortable with technology, saying that he should leave a message. He killed the call, fighting his guilt at her death. And the terror that the kidnapper had already killed Matt.

Mrs. Dollie’s daughter, Leila, had called him again the night before. Her voice had been thick with grief, but she was composed and polite. She accepted his condolences gracefully, then asked him to come to the funeral. Mrs. Dollie was Muslim, and according to Muslim rites she had to be buried as soon as possible. The police had completed an autopsy and released the body to the family for burial. Burn had heard himself saying that of course he would be there.

That was today, later in the afternoon.

He dragged himself from the bed and into the shower, alternating hot and cold to smash himself into some form of alertness. He shaved and combed his hair, dressed in the casually expensive clothes appropriate to the morning’s banking.

He looked at his face in the mirror and remembered that he was going to be a father again that day.

Barnard woke to the sound of somebody at the door. Fuck it, he hadn’t meant to sleep. He battled his way out of the chair, leveling the shotgun, then realized that he’d heard voices of men in the corridor, early morning workers on their way to the taxi stand. It was light already. He’d meant to get away in the dark.

He looked across at the old drk, who lay on his back, his mouth gaping, dentures slipped off his gums. The blanket had fallen from the sofa and showed his emaciated body, naked except for the filthy underpants. Barnard saw that the old alky had a hard-on, bulging out the front of his briefs like a tent pole. At his fucken age.

Barnard lifted the blanket with his foot and dumped it over the old man’s balls; then he walked across to the window. The glass was cracked and taped up. Barnard eased back the greasy lace curtain and peered down into the street. His Ford was there, and so was the Honda. From where he stood he couldn’t see the blood of the fucker whose brains he’d pulped, but he knew that sooner or later it would be noticed. He had to get out of there.

He bent over the sink and splashed his face, resting the Mossberg 500 on a pile of dirty plates. He wiped his face with his hand, not trusting one of the soiled dish towels. Grabbing the shotgun, he lumbered into the bedroom.

The half-breed bitch was asleep, covered by a gray sheet. He could see her naked shoulders, the swell of a breast, the kinky hair squashed against the pillow. He stood over her, looking down at her face. Her left cheek was swollen, the gash from the gun barrel crusted with blood. A vivid purple bruise was already spreading across the cheek toward her eye. Cape Flats mascara, he’d heard a colored cop call it one night during a domestic disturbance call.

These fucken people, they made a joke of everything in that lingo they spoke, a complex sublanguage of Afrikaans, prison slang, and street talk. Barnard understood it, after all the years out on the Flats. Though he would never bring himself to admit it, he felt more at home among these brown people he loathed than the white world he was supposedly part of.

The half-breed turned in her sleep, the sheet falling away, and he could see her tits. Aside from the stretch marks, they weren’t bad. Ja, you knew it was time to leave Cape Town when you started finding a tik whore attractive. He brought the shotgun up from his side and placed the barrel against the side of her head. She didn’t move, soft snores escaping her gummed-up lips. Maybe he should finish her now, one less witness, one less drug-fucked mouth to worry about. Finish the kid too, and the old rubbish on the sofa, and get the ransom and drive away from this long-drop of a city.

His fat finger tightened on the trigger. Then it relaxed. No, maybe it was too soon. He might need her and the kid. He could clean up this mess later.

He left the bedroom and walked into the bathroom. The boy was still asleep, curled up on the blanket, lying in the fetal position, sucking on his thumb. Barnard lowered himself onto the pot, lid down, and sat looking at the kid. He couldn’t stand children. Maybe because he knew only too well what they grew up to become. Just another fucker who wanted to take away from you what was yours.

Barnard leaned forward and prodded the little brat with the shotgun barrel. No response. He prodded him again, harder, and the kid opened his eyes and looked at him. And his blue eyes widened in terror.

C
HAPTER
23

Burn sat at the kitchen counter, an untouched cup of coffee before him. He couldn’t remember when last he had eaten. The thought of food made him want to puke. He was waiting for the minutes to pass so he could drive down to Sea Point and withdrawansom money. At least he would be able to fool himself that he was doing something. Not just sitting, passive.

His cell phone rang and vibrated, doing a slow dance on the wooden counter. When he saw Mrs. Dollie’s name come up, he grabbed at the phone. “Yes?”

“Just making sure you’re not doing anything stupid.”

“I’m about to get the money. As soon as the banks open.”

“Good. I’ll call you later. With details.”

Burn tried to manufacture some authority. “I’m not going to hand over the money until I get my son.”

“That so?” There was a pause; the phone bumped against something. Then he heard the man’s voice at a distance. “Say hullo to your daddy.”

Then Matt’s voice. “Daddy?”

He heard the terror in his son’s voice, and it was all he could do to reply.

“Matty, it’s going to be okay. Daddy’s coming to get you.” Then Matt screamed. A piercing scream, followed by sobs. Burn was shouting into the phone. “Stop it, you bastard! Don’t hurt him.”

The man was back. “Don’t worry, just a little pinch to bring some color to his cheeks. But you don’t give the orders; I do. Do you get me?”

“Yes. I understand.”

“Now you get the fucken money, and I’ll call you.”

The line went dead.

Susan Burn woke up believing that she had lost her baby. She was sweating, her breath coming in rasps as she fought herself out of the nightmare. It took her a minute to remember where she was. In the private ward at the clinic, bright sunlight behind the curtains. She put a hand on her belly and felt her daughter kick.

Susan lay back, trying to slow her breathing, inhaling long and deep through her nose, the way she had learned in yoga. Her baby was fine. Then she realized that the dream, the nightmare, had not been about her unborn child. It had been about Matt. And a feeling of nameless dread grabbed Susan by the throat. There was something wrong with her son.

She told herself to calm down. She was feeling guilty because she’d been distant from Matt. She tried to convince herself that she had repaired her relationship with him over the last few days. Allowed him back into her heart. But there was no changing the truth. When she looked at her son, she couldn’t stop herself from seeing his father.

As she lay there she remembered when she had met Jack Burn. How he had wooed her, pursued her relentlessly. She was young, used to the clumsiness of men, boys really, her own age, and she was no match for this man of nearly forty.

There had been a moment, just before they married, when she felt a momentary chill, as if a cloud had crossed the sun. She panicked. It was all going too fast. Could she really trust this much older man she barely knew?

Jack had done whations always did: took her in his arms and reassured her. Told her he loved her. So they were married, and Matt was born, and she was as fulfilled and happy as she had ever been in her life.

When she found out about Jack’s gambling, she thought her premonition was being realized. But he swore to her he would never gamble again.

She had believed him.

Then came Milwaukee and the series of events that had led her to Cape Town. Now she felt a superstitious dread, an almost karmic presentiment, that her happiness had been a borrowed thing, a thing that had never truly belonged to her, that it had come at a cost to others.

And that a price was yet to be paid.

Burn was at the front door when the landline rang. He was ready to ignore it. He knew it wouldn’t be the kidnapper. But what if it was the clinic? What if there were complications?

He went back and answered. Susan’s voice, distressed.

“Susan, is everything okay? With the baby?”

“Everything’s fine, Jack. I want to speak to Matt.”

Burn had to fight to keep his voice level. “He’s not here.”

“Where is he?” Anxiety tightened her voice.

He heard himself lie. “He’s gone for a walk with Mrs. Dollie. She went down to the store to buy some milk, and he went with her.” It had happened often enough before.

“Is he okay, Jack?”

“Of course he’s okay. Why?”

She hesitated. “I had a bad dream. I dunno. I just felt scared.”

“He’s fine. You’re just … anxious is all. Susan, when are … when will you have the baby?”

“Later today. Sometime after lunch.”

He could hear the distance creeping back into her voice. She was bringing up the barriers again. “Promise me, Jack, that everything is okay with Matty.”

“I promise.”

She hung up.

Burn hated himself more than he had ever hated himself before.

Disaster Zondi breakfasted in his room, his back to the sweeping view of blazing Table Mountain, the harbor, and the Waterfront. He had no use for scenic panoramas. While he ate slices of ruby grapefruit off a small silver fork, he considered the fingerprint and its owner, displayed on the screen of his laptop.

In April 1997 Susan Ford, a student at UCLA, had been arrested in possession of ten grams of marijuana. She had pled guilty to a first-degree misdemeanor and paid a thousand-dollar fine.

That was all he’d gleaned from the FBI database.

Zondi wiped his fingers on ainen napkin before executing the series of keyboard commands that allowed him to zoom in on the girl’s mug shots. Blonde. Pretty. Not looking too fazed at what was going down in her life. In the front view she seemed to be biting back a smile, like she had just shared a joke with the cop shooting the pictures.

Where had Barnard picked up her fingerprint? Was she holidaying in Cape Town, drawn by the mountains and beaches and wine estates like so many foreign tourists? She’d be in her late twenties now, that youthful glow maybe just starting to dim, but she’d still be attractive, he’d bet. He liked that wholesome blonde look.

He was reminded of a boer girl he’d met when he was ending the career of the corrupt commander of a rural police station. She couldn’t get enough of Zondi in her parents’ bed while they were off at Sunday devotions. Each time she had climaxed, she yelled
Disaster
at the top of her voice. Her father would have echoed those sentiments if he could have seen what was going on between his sheets.

Zondi pushed that thought away, bit into the grapefruit, and winced slightly at the bitterness. He would e-mail a request to U.S. law enforcement, via Interpol, asking for an update on Susan Ford. From prior experience he knew that would take at least a week. If he was lucky.

Zondi had run a check on Deputy U.S. Marshal Dexter Torrance, the man Barnard had e-mailed Susan Ford’s print to. Torrance, a member of the Marshals International Fugitives Task Force, had been in Cape Town a few years ago to escort an American fugitive back home. The fugitive had hanged himself in his cell, and Torrance had ended up accompanying a coffin. The suicide took place at Bellwood South holding cells. Where, no doubt, Barnard and Torrance had met. And become friendly enough for the U.S. marshal to do Barnard a favor. Zondi wondered about the kind of man who would feel an affinity with Rudi Barnard. Probably some redneck who let his sidearm do the talking. No shortage of those, he was sure.

Zondi scrolled his computer to a new page and faced the images of Barnard’s Cape Flats human barbecue. The two unknown men. And the boy, Ronaldo September. Ronnie. At least Mrs. September had been able to bury her child. The charred remains of the men burned with him lay in the police morgue awaiting their inevitable disposal in a pauper’s graveyard.

Forensics had given him very little beyond confirming that the victims were male and, based on surviving dental work, possibly in their twenties. They had found a .38 slug still lodged in what was left of the abdomen of the tall man. It didn’t match the .38 bullet they found in Ronnie September.

Two men in their twenties. Most likely from the Cape Flats. Most likely gangsters, given the world in which Barnard ran. Something occurred to Zondi, and he shifted windows, his fingers moving with deft certainty on the keyboards. There. Two nights before he disappeared, Barnard had put out an APB on a car, a red 1992 BMW 3 series with a CY registration plate. Wealthy Cape Town and the downtown area carried CA license plates; the working-class suburbs and the Cape Flats that sprawled north and east of the city carried CY plates.

So Barnard was looking for an early-nineties Beemer, car of choice for Flats gangbangers. It would seem that he had found it.

With two men inside.

Burn dove the Jeep up the hill toward the house, on his way back from the banks in Sea Point. Lion’s Head was above him to his right, etched against the blue sky. The slopes were blackened, and smoke rose like a funeral pyre. The helicopters were gone, but the wind was picking up, ready to carry sparks to the dry brush. The choppers wouldn’t rest for long.

Burn had the money crammed into a duffel bag on the seat beside him. It was after ten, and he had heard nothing from the kidnapper. He slowed outside his house, thumbing the garage door opener. Burn eased the Jeep into the garage. He stepped down from the car and reached across for the bag of money.

Out of the corner of his eye Burn glimpsed the silhouette of a man as he ducked under the descending garage door. The door bumped as it hit the cement floor. The man was locked in with him.