Payback - A Cape Town thriller (10 page)

Sheemina February opened the balcony doors to smell the ocean. And paused, breathing deeply, listening to the rasp of gulls and the smack of small waves against the rocks. How good was this place during the day? Yet she seldom saw it.

She turned into the apartment, draping her shawl over the arm of a couch on her way to the fridge for mineral water. Her
cellphone
rang but she let it go to voicemail.

She came back to settle on the couch that faced the horizon, kicked off her shoes, curling her legs beneath her as she sat. On the glass coffee table lay her briefcase. In it, more photographs of Mace Bishop and a recording of his voice.

She brought out the tape recorder and played through to the moment he said, ‘Miss February, what was this all about?’

Remembering the frown, the intensity of his eyes challenging her. Then how her wink had made him tilt his head yet he’d not moved his arm when she briefly, lightly placed her hand on it, feeling the solidity through the denim jacket.

She took out more photographs. In all of them he was at the pool alone. Most often he wore only the Speedo. Stood wet: his muscles pumped from the exercise, his stomach six-packed.

In four sessions he’d not noticed her. Not paid attention to the figure in the gown, reading, her towel bundled beside her on the bench. Hadn’t imagined she was there because of him.

Once she’d even swum with him. Watched from beneath the water the easy crawl of his arms, the steady movement of his legs hardly churning bubbles. She’d matched him stroke for stroke for half a length until the effort ached.

But that was over now. She had the photographs, his voice.

 Sheemina February looked up at the horizon, long and blue. Uncurled from the couch and walked onto the balcony. On the rocks below she could make out broken glass.

Could only have been that Sheemina February ordered a rifling of his doctor’s surgery, Mace decided. No great accomplishment. That sort of service could be ordered up from the Yellow Pages. Guy goes in, gets the necessary, slips out, nobody’s the wiser.
Question
was: why? Why the mind games? Mace had no answers there. Nor did he and Sheemina February cross paths over the following week. At least not that he was aware of.

Meanwhile Pylon got some background on the woman. Turned out she’d been married to their buddy in the arms trade and now high-flyer, Mo Siq. This, half a dozen years back for half a dozen months.

‘In the first flush of the new country,’ was how Pylon put it. ‘Old comrades tying the knot in celebration. Sweet sentimental touch.’

‘Except it didn’t last.’

‘This’s true. Then Mo likes dipping into new things.’

They stood beside the big Merc at the entrance to the arrivals hall, Cape Town International. On the tannoy the Airport Company said they were pleased to announce the arrival of the Atlanta flight. On it their new clients. He was going tunny fishing. She was having a boob job. They didn’t want muscle but they wanted protection.

‘No nasty incidents, Mr Bishop,’ he said over the phone. ‘We have a couple of days’ holiday in your fair city, we want good memories. Going to do a little shopping, visit some tourist spots, maybe spend time on the beach, eat your best food, hit some
late-night
venues, some clubs. This the sort of service you offer?’

Mace told him it was. Also told him it was autumn, maybe he would want to skip the beach. He laughed.

Pylon zipped up his jacket. Anyone giving the two men half a glance would have said security. The black shoes, the black chinos, the white golf shirts, the short jackets, the shades. Which was the point. One way to put out the signal: no nasty incidents.

‘Mo has nothing but bad words for her. Calls her a bitch. Bitch of the first water, to be precise.’

‘How’s Mo?’

‘Important.’

‘Friendly?’

‘You know Mo. Hi Pylon, what’s happening? You got three minutes, I’m waiting on the minister. I say we’re having some trouble with a woman called Sheemina February. He says, she told you we were married that I tried to kill her? I said that’s what we’d heard. He said, “I woke up one night that bitch was about to slit my throat. Huge kitchen knife. Afterwards, she laid an assault charge on me. She’s disturbed. The sort of girl pulls wings off of flies. Some advice: you want to make the problem go away, shoot her.”’

‘Ever the sweet-hearted Mo.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Pylon beeped the automatic locking on the Merc. They headed into the knot of people waiting on the
concourse
. ‘Another thing I found, her family’s Christian. No one’s ever been Muslim. No one’s ever heard of Sheemina converting. She got married to Mo, they did it in a registry office.’

‘So what’s the attraction to PAGAD?’

‘Search me. She likes pulling wings off of flies.’

So what’s the attraction to me, Mace was going to add but didn’t.

The first-class passengers were dribbling out. They spotted their clients: late thirties, she Max Mara, he Lacombe. Difficult to guess why she needed a boob job. Perfect looking at a glance, Mace thought.

‘Also, Mo was seriously concerned for a couple of weeks she would do him. Was stalking him. He’d see her behind him. She’d pitch up where he was. Restaurants. Coffee bars. Sort of chance encounters, except too many to be chance. Weird stuff like that.’

Mace and Pylon moved into their clients’ line of sight, saw the relief on their faces.

‘This I got from one of the guys that watched his back. He said Mo was freaked she’d get into his house.’

‘Not something you associate with Mo.’

‘Not usually.’

The men greeted the clients, took their luggage. At the car the clients remarked that spring in New York was colder than fall in Cape Town. ‘All I see is blue sky and sunshine,’ he said. She said, ‘Where’s the Cape of Storms?’

Mace pointed at the peninsula chain. ‘Other side those mountains, a butterfly’s flapping its wings.’

They got the couple to the Mount Nelson, arranged a schedule for the next five days. That sorted, Pylon and Mace agreed to meet at the Club Catastrophe at ten for the grand reopening. Pylon took off to get some family hours, Mace headed to the Point swimming pool. As he pulled into the parking lot his cellphone cheeped: Ducky Donald. He’d taken a call from him every day since the meeting with Sheemina February.

‘She’s phoned,’ Ducky said, ‘the cow.’

Mace switched off the ignition, waited. On Signal Hill the grass flared tawny in the dying light.

‘She says her clients wanna know if we’re opening tonight. Her clients, for god’s sake! Bombers. Killers. These are the lowlifes she calls clients.’

‘Anything like a direct threat?’ Mace heard ice clink, said, ‘Cheers.’

‘Come’n have a drink, Mace?’

‘I’m about to go swimming, Ducky.’ He got out of the car, lifted a tog bag from the boot.

‘What’s with this swimming? You didn’t used to be into men’s health. Anyone offered a drink you took it.’

‘Still happens when I’m in the mood.’

Two women came out of the gym, glanced at Mace. He held the door, went in to sweat and doof doof musak.

‘Christ,’ Ducky Donald said in his ear, ‘sounds like hell.’

Mace nodded at trainers and familiar faces, threading through to the change rooms. His swimming mates, Tyrone and Allan, were already costumed and waiting.

‘I must go, Ducky. See you later.’

‘Wait,’ Ducky Donald shouted. ‘Mace, Mace, I’ve got a lotta money invested here. Another bomb I don’t need.’

‘She make any threats?’

‘She’s a goddamned lawyer, for goddamned Chrissakes.’

‘Call the cops. Talk to Gonsalves. You got high-up friends. Speak to Mo.’

Ducky Donald spluttered in his drink. ‘Thank you, Mace. Thank you for that advice.’

Mace disconnected. Tyrone and Allan looked quizzical. ‘Man with a problem he wants me to share.’ Mace grimaced. ‘What’s in it for me I don’t get.’

They hit the water, striking the rhythm and pace that took Mace’s mind off the world and Ducky Donald. No reason to think here: just follow the black line across the tiles, roll into the turn, kick against the side, straighten for the return and as his left arm came up suck in air. At that moment he glimpsed Tyrone matching his actions stroke for stroke. On his right Allan would be similar. These guys knew nothing about his prostate problems, and if his performance dropped during the months he was popping pills, they made no comment. Now, though, he was fit, easy, even when Tyrone powered it on for the last stretch. They ended clutching the sides, heaving for breath.

‘Killer,’ gasped Allan. ‘Have to cut back on the cakes.’

Mace could feel last night’s chocolate mousse oozing from his shoulders.

They showered, changed, ordered energy drinks at the bar counter. On the TV was a replay of a Tri-Nations rugby match. One of those the Boks had thrown away. A depressing spectacle.

‘Enough to send you home,’ said Tyrone draining his glass.

The three men went out into a parking lot as dark as it was the night the street kids packed Mace. There’d been no incidents since, plunging any moves to get lighting to the bottom of the gym’s agenda.

But Mace didn’t need lighting to notice the rose stuck under the windscreen wiper, the flower still a bud. He pulled it free, shouted across to Allan, ‘Someone leave a rose for you too?’

Allan slammed shut his boot. ‘Not a chance.’

Mace called out the same question to Tyrone. Got another negative.

The bud’s colour was deep plum. The attached courtesy card said International Flowers.

When Mace got home, Christa had her mother’s box of jewellery spread over the sitting-room floor. A treasure chest in one sense. In another, an ongoing dispute between father and daughter.

The pieces were silver, fine-patterned filigree work. Bangles. Amulets. Necklaces. Earrings. Silver and coral chokers. Filigreed pendants. Ropes of glass and amber beads. Work from the Tuareg, the Maghreb, the Berbers. For Oumou the pieces had talismanic powers, they were not simply pretty. They were also her past.

Something of this past drew Christa to the jewellery. At birth she was given a customary set of beads. At two years old a cast silver bracelet. At the age of eighteen, the age she became a woman, she would receive another with a moon pattern symbolising life.

‘Papa,’ she said, as Mace bent to kiss her, ‘can I have my ears pierced?’

A question that came up from time to time to an answer that never varied. ‘No problem, when you’re eighteen.’

‘Please.’

She held up a pair of earrings, from each dangled four red beads attached to fine silver chains. In the centre of the earrings were stylised doves, the carriers of good news. They were beautiful. Oumou had promised them to her some time back.

‘No. You’re too young.’

Suddenly she was not far off tears. ‘Maman wasn’t too young.’

Mace glanced at Oumou. She lifted a hand to stroke her daughter’s hair. To her this was no big deal. It was a cultural thing. Where she came from kids had their ears pierced before they could talk.

Mace didn’t see it that way.

‘Where your Maman lived that was okay.’

Christa sobbed. ‘Pumla’s got them.’

‘It’s alright for Pumla too.’

Christa looked at her father, her eyes tearing. ‘Why?’

‘It’s okay for people like Pumla and Treasure.’

Which made no sense to her.

‘Please, Papa.’

Tears spilled onto her cheeks.

‘Enough.’ Mace crouched before her. ‘I’ve told you, when you’re older.’

She sniffed. ‘Why Papa?’

‘Because that’s my rule.’

Oumou said, ‘She is my daughter too, no?’

Mace held up an admonishing finger. ‘We’ve been through this. My rules. You agreed. My rules.’

‘Bof! They are stupid.’

Oumou glared at him. To Christa said, ‘Go to your room, ma puce.’ They stood listening to their daughter run up the stairs, crying hard.

‘You are stupid, Mace. Stupid. You do not know what is the right thing to do. Always you must say no to her for a small thing. You do not think that maybe I would like to have her wear these earrings.’

‘She is not going to have her ears pierced.’

Quietly Oumou said, ‘This is what I am going to do for her.’

‘No.’ Mace grasped her arm.

‘Yes. Oui, oui, oui. Yes.’

‘Forget it.’

She locked her free hand onto his wrist, pushed him away.

‘Non. You must forget it, Mace. This is my custom. This is what I want.’ She moved around him towards the door. ‘She is a little girl. When she has the nightmares you are the big daddy to protect her. When she wants to do something that makes me happy, you say no. Why is this? What is this here in Mace Bishop’ - she poked at his chest - ‘in the heart of Mace Bishop that cannot do this little thing for his daughter? Can you tell me? Why you must be so hard?’

Mace kept blank.

‘No.’ Oumou sighed. ‘There is no answer, no?’

She opened the door.

‘Sometimes you must think of our family. There are your ways. There are my ways. For Christa we have to give her some of both. This is not a big thing to do.’

Mace didn’t waver the hard stare, held his hands rigid at his sides.

‘Maybe you must have some therapy.’ Oumou shook her head, went upstairs to comfort their daughter.

In the kitchen, Mace sat down to supper by himself. Ate forkfuls mechanically, chewing the food without relish or taste, the anger dry in his mouth. Oumou’s questioning of what was in his heart getting to him: that he’d failed his daughter? Over earrings. That he’d failed Oumou? Over earrings. That he wasn’t big enough for them both. He gave them the best, what’d he get back? Some crap that he wasn’t on the nail. Not attentive enough. That he was small-minded.

‘To hell with it,’ he said aloud, shoving back the chair as he stood. ‘I’m in this too.’

He dumped the rest of the food into the rubbish bin and slammed out of the house on his way to the opening of Club Catastrophe mark two. He knew he should have gone upstairs to say goodbye. He could imagine mother and daughter curled asleep on the bed. He shouldn’t have gone out feeling pissed off. But he did because he was.