Mixed Blood (6 page)

Cash that made things that little bit easier around the house.

After two weeks Tommy started looking restless, and he packed his kit bag and hit the road, leaving a trail of postcards from San Diego, Baja California, Fort Lauderdale, and then Chicago, where he had family.

Over the next two years Burn had carried on making those secret trips down to Gardena. Where he was Lucky.

Until his luck ran out.

Carmen Fortune woke alone in her bed. As she always did, she kept her eyes closed as if she was still asleep, listening for any sound of her husband. The way Ricardo Fortune started the day was an indicator of the treatment she could expect. If he was still passed out when she awoke, his body stinking of booze, tik, and other women’s juices, she knew she had time to put some distance between herself and him. He would drag his body from the bed after midday, demanding food. If he didn’t have any tik, he would be irritable and his fists would talk.

On the rare occasions he was up before her, it meant he had a job to do. Gang-or drug-related business, which meant that he was too preoccupied to bother with her. He would dress, clean and load his pistol, then slam out of the apartment.

But there was no sound when she woke up. All she could hear was the rasp of Uncle Fatty snoring on the sofa. Carmen got out of bed and parted the frayed curtain on the window in the bedroom. The glass was broken, shattered by a rock thrown by one of Rikki’s many enemies, and half the window was boarded up with a Castle Lager box. She looked out into the street, at the spot where he usually parked his red BMW. There was no sign of it. Carmen relaxed.

She went through to the living room and kicked Uncle Fatty in the ribs with her bare foot. He grunted and rolled over, his scrawny frame covered by a filthy blanket. Fatty, whose real name was Errol, was the brother of Rikki’s mother. He had worked for the council for years until he was pensioned off with lung problems. He’d always been a drinker, but when he retired he went from gifted amateur to pro. He gladly handed over his pension to Carmen, wanting only a constant supply of cheap wine and a roof over his head.

Carmen checked on Sheldon. He was in his cot next to the TV, sightless eyes open, hands moving. He had survived another night. She smelled that he needed to be changed. She would deal with that later.

Carmen had three abortions before Sheldon was born. Two were babies from her own father. He’d started coming into the room she shared with her two baby brothers when she was seven. There was no way, in the tiny house, that her mother could not have known. Carmen had fallen pregnant the first time when she was eleven.

Her mother had beaten her, called her a whore, and taken her to the clinic. Her mother had never said a word to her father; she had just quietly hated Carmen. When Carmen got pregnant again a year later, her mother threw her out of the house and Carmen went alone to the clinic.

By the time she was fifteen, she was carrying the child of some guy from the neighborhood, Bobby Herold. The Mongrels kicked Bobby to death in front of her eyes, the day she went to the clinic for the third termination.

Then she met Ricardo Fortune, and it happened again.

Amazingly, he had married her. The skinny little bastard strutted around like a king, Carmen and her swollen belly like a trophy at his side. Then Sheldon had arrived, and the beatings had followed not long after.

Carmen made breakfast. Uncle Fatty dragged himself from the sofa, walking around the apartment in stained briefs. She slapped a plate of baked beans and egg in front of him.

“You better wash today. Your ass stinks.”

He said nothing, pecked at the food. His toxic engine could only be kick-started by his postbreakfast drink.

Carmen fed Sheldon. She couldn’t face changing him now. He wouldn’t know the fucken difference. The downside of Rikki not being there was that there was no tik to take the edge off the day. She would have to go and score.

She washed herself and dressed in her best jeans and blouse. She tried to discipline her coarse hair with a clogged brush, cursing Gatsby for breaking her mirror. Fat fucken boer.

When she heard the knock at the door, she assumed it was one of Rikki’s useless connections. She yanked the door open, ready to give them a mouthful, when she saw Belinda Titus, the social worker who dealt with Sheldon’s case. They usually met at Social Services when Carmen went in once a month to collect Sheldon’s grant.

“I’ve come to check on your son, Mrs. Fortune.”

“You didn’t phone, nothing.” Carmen blocked the door.

“That’s the point of an unscheduled inspection, Mrs. Fortune. Please let me in.”

Carmen stepped back.

Belinda Titus was only a couple of years older than Carmen, also from the Flats, but she carried herself with an air of superiority.

“She thinks she shits ice cream” was how Carmen described her to Rikki in one of their rare conversations. The social worker, by her manner and the way she looked at Carmen, made her feel like trash.

Belinda Titus stood looking around the dingy apartment, wearing a pinched expression on her face. Uncle Fatty chose that moment to emerge from the bathroom, still wearing nothing but his filthy underwear. He looked at the two women, stayed mute, just sat down on the sofa and stared into space.

The social worker walked across to the cot where Sheldon lay. She moved aside the sheet covering him, and her nose twitched. She looked up at Carmen.

“Mrs. Fortune, this child is in a disgusting condition.”

“I was about to change him.”

“That’s the least of it. Without even examining him, I can see he has bedsores. And look at this bedding; it is shocking.”

Carmen felt herself coloring, felt the anger rising. She battled to control herself. “I tole you. I was gonna clean him and change him.”

“I can’t let this child stay here in these disgusting conditions.” Belinda Titus was reaching forv> phone.

“What are you saying?” asked Carmen.

“I’m saying that colleagues of mine will come and collect him and take him to a place of safety. Where he will be properly cared for.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I can, Mrs. Fortune. And if you try to stop us, I will call the police.”

“You can’t just take my child away from me!”

Belinda Titus ignored her and spoke rapidly into her phone, giving the address of the apartment. Then she slipped her fancy little phone into her pocket and fixed a withering look on Carmen. “I have to do what is best for the child.”

The social worker busied herself with filling out an official form she had taken from her attaché case.

Carmen sat down. She felt like puking. If Sheldon went, so did his grant. And her tik money with it.

The half-breed spun on his head like a top; then he sprang up into a kind of handstand, the muscles on his naked torso popping. He landed in the splits and seemed to pull himself up to standing by the hand that grabbed his balls. He thrust his hips back and forth into the face of a teenage girl who laughed like a bitch in heat. There was a group of them, dancing like monkeys in the yard of a faded-blue house.

Just watching them made Rudi Barnard tired. He had a headache, and the animal music that thumped out of the boom box hit him like a jackhammer. He was parked in one of Paradise Park’s cramped side streets, the sun turning his car into an oven, even with all the windows open. Sweat pumped from Barnard, burned his eyes, got the rash between his thighs going.

He was feeling edgier than normal since he had wasted the tik cooker. He’d had to hand in his weapon at Bellwood South Police HQ, go through the usual rigmarole of filling out forms and making statements. Meaningless bullshit that would come to nothing. Still, it drew attention to him, and he didn’t like that.

The fucken racket was driving him crazy. He was about to exit the car, go into the yard, and smack the gyrating half-breeds with the boom box, when a new Pajero SUV cruised past him. It was top-of-the-line, with shining mags and windows tinted darker than was legal. The Pajero stopped outside a house that was in marked contrast to its squat neighbors. A new two-story, surrounded by a high wall and razor wire. The gate slid open and the Pajero drove into the yard. Barnard started the Toyota and followed. The gate closed after him.

Three men got out of the Pajero. Two were Cape Flats muscle, all hair gel and tattoos. The third was older, midthirties, not big but with the look of a man who wasn’t scared of the sight of blood. Manson. Head of the Paradise Park Americans.

Barnard, wet and wheezing, levered himself out of his car. “You fucken late.”

Manson shrugged. “Business. What you got?”

Barnard went around to the rear of his car, popped the trunk, and gestured toward a kit bag. One of Manson’s guys opened the bag, revealing a stash of handguns.

“How many?” Manson asked.

“Twenny-seven.” Barnard was lighting a smoke, shielding the match from the wind. He watched as Manson checked out the merchandise. Weapons confiscated by patrol cops on the Flats. They brought the guns to Barnard, and he paid them a pittance or agreed to turn a blind eye to their extracurricular activities. Long as they didn’t threaten his own.

Manson was cocking a 9mm, sighting along the barrel, aiming at the sky. “How much?”

“Gimme three grand.”

“You crazy, man.” Manson pulled the trigger of the unloaded gun, and the falling hammer clicked. Anybody else talking to Barnard this way would have been spitting teeth by now, but he allowed Manson some leeway. The American had a network that Barnard tapped into, and he always paid on time.

“Okay, make it two-five.”

“Two.”

Barnard coughed and spat. “Fuck, it’s too hot to argue. Two-two. Take it or leave it.”

Manson nodded and gestured for his guy to take the bag from the trunk. Manson slipped a wad of notes from his designer jeans and peeled off a bunch for Barnard.

The fat cop didn’t count them, shoved them into his wet pocket. “You seen Rikki Fortune?”

Manson shook his head. “I’m looking for him too. He owe you?”

“Ja, but I can’t find his ass nowhere.”

“He’s taken some liberties. Maybe he’s lying low.”

“Do me a favor, you find him, lemme talk to him before you sort him. Okay?”

Manson nodded. Barnard lowered himself into the protesting car and shut the door. Manson leaned into the open driver’s window. “You heard anything about this new anticorruption task force?”

“No. Fuck all. What’s up?”

“Just heard bits here and there. Gonna be a cleanup. Targeting cops.”

Barnard laughed. “Must be election time.” He started the car.

Manson stepped back. “Keep your eyes open, anyways.”

“I was born with my eyes open.” The gate slid open and Barnard drove out. His headache was worse. He needed a gatsby.

Susan Burn was a prisoner of fear.

She lay in the sunny private ward feeling dread like a poison heavy in her body. She’d always known, of course, that after what Jack had done back in the States, retribution was inevitable. But she had gone along with his plans. Allowed him, as always, to convince her.

It was as if she had been waiting for those men to step into their lives, with their guns and their rapists’ eyes. When they’d appeared, she had recognized them even though she’d never seen them before. She had known"0em" hey were and why they were there. They had been sent to even a score, to settle a karmic debt.