Payback - A Cape Town thriller (31 page)

‘I’m done,’ said Ludo.

She rang up, gave him the chit. The price of the bottle wasn’t on it, she took that money separately, counting the change into the palm of his left hand.

‘You want a room for the night, we’ve some above?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said.

She gave him a dimple-smile as he nodded goodbye. ‘Take care,’ she said. ‘Or take more care.’

Ludo liked that, for a moment it even eased the burning in his shoulder. A nice lady, he thought. Another time, another place he might have had a different attitude.

Instead he drove to the street address on the brochure, parked some distance back from the house, settled in for a range of hard sore hours until a time Paulo would least expect him. He drank. He smoked. He played blues CDs at low volume, sometimes passing out from the pain, the whiskey, the fatigue, the ache of Isabella hurting in his chest.

Morning came to Cape Town. Ludo watched the dawn spreading over the city, the mountain, tender orange changing to the clear of day. He moved, balanced the pain with the whiskey, and went knocking. When Paulo opened the door Ludo put the Czech in his face.

‘Surprise, surprise.’

Paulo stepping back, said, ‘Oh, shit!’

‘Right,’ said Ludo, feeling himself fall into the guy’s arms.

Ludo came back for his dying, the ringing of his cellphone fetching him up through the black. The phone in his hand.

Francisco. ‘Hi, Ludo. Ludo, what’s happening? You’re supposed to be keeping me on the score. You and Isabella.’

‘Dancing,’ said Ludo. ‘Dancing on the dunes.’

‘What’s that? You’re breaking up there.’

‘Boogie woogie,’ said Ludo. ‘Boom, boom, boom, boom.’ Hooker doing a riff behind the lyrics.

‘You’re faint. You’ve gotta get back to me, Ludo.’

Ludo brought Isabella up in his arms, a harp loud in his ear: James Cotton: ‘Fire Down Under the Hill’. He shuffled her about the bad terrain, her head bowed in rigor mortis, resting on his shoulder. The piano coming under the harmonica, talking, the guitar joining. The harp saying the words he couldn’t.

Francisco shouted, ‘You gotta get back to me, Ludo. Give me a report on the situation. How the deal’s going. You tell Isabella she can answer her phone sometimes.’

Ludo boogied, staggered, Isabella falling away from him, the two of them going down among the dune grass.

‘You guys gotta return,’ said Francisco. ‘This’s a bad connection, Ludo? Hey, Ludo!’

Ludo dropped the cellphone, took hold of Isabella.

Harsh sunlight on white sand, the dying and the dead. The harp wailing. Wha-ah. Wha-ah. Wha-ah.

Sunday morning Pylon contracted a taxi driver outside the hotel. Guy said his name was Joao. Spoke no English, didn’t look older than sixteen. Drove a 1970s model Mercedes Benz that might once have been green but was eaten out by rust, the skeleton showing in the doors and bonnet. Bald tyres, a holed exhaust. The interior: plastic chair seats tied with wire to the spring coils, the dashboard mostly missing. Mace got in the back, Pylon in the front telling the guy the harbour. A run that took ten minutes out of the city into a terrain of rusted hardware: lorries, engines, rail stock, ships, like half the world’s old fishing fleet came there to die. Joao turned down an alley following rail tracks that came out of the warehouses on the seaward side of the harbour, heading along the outer breakwater past an old tanker towards a familiar boat.

‘At least something’s right,’ said Pylon.

‘Relax,’ said Mace. ‘Webster’ll rock up soon enough.’

Pylon snorted, sceptical. ‘Soon enough was yesterday.’

They got out of the taxi, Pylon telling the driver to wait, and found the captain on the bridge eating sausages.

‘Can you unload for us?’ said Mace.

The captain licked his fingers, told them he already had and the crates were in the container yard under the watch of one Buffalo.

‘What?’ said Pylon. ‘Are you crazy?’

The captain told him, no, he always left stuff with Buffalo. Never had any problems before.

‘So where do we find him?’ said Mace.

The captain took a swig of beer, pointing down the breakwater at a wire-fenced compound.

They found Buffalo sitting in the doorway of a container, stirring a stew over a low fire. Bob Marley singing softly from a boombox. Mace could see the container was done out inside like a bed-sitting room, two collapsed armchairs in the front, a steel cabinet and a bed behind. For decor the Rasta had made mobiles of bones and shells and old china and cutlery: the collections chiming on the breeze. Leaning against the door an RPG grenade launcher; within arm’s reach a Kalashnikov and two spare clips. Rasta Buffalo didn’t look up from his stirring even when their shadows stopped over him.

Pylon said in his pidgin Portuguese, pointing back at the boat, ‘The captain there says you’re got our crates?’

The man looked up, his dreads falling about his face: blank eyes, a twitch at the corner of his mouth. He nodded at a
container
about fifty metres away, said, ‘Two hundred US.’

Pylon shook his head. ‘Too much.’

The Rasta went back to stirring his pot, brought up a spoonful of broth with a piece of white flesh in it, tasted the liquid, dropped the flesh back into the pot. ‘Two hundred US.’

‘What’s he want?’ said Mace.

Pylon told him and Mace whistled. ‘Try half that.’

Pylon squatted before the Rasta to make their offer. It got no visible reaction except the man repeated his position: ‘You pay two hundred’ - offering Pylon a spoonful of the stew.

‘Don’t refuse it,’ said Mace, going down on his haunches beside him.

Pylon tasted the stew and passed the spoon back to the Rasta. He dipped into the pot, held the spoon to Mace. Mace took it, smelling the pungency of the fish and mussels before he sipped at the liquid, the Rasta watching him, unsmiling. The soup was salty, the flesh in the mouthful rubbery.

The Rasta held up a key. ‘Two hundred.’

Pylon brought out a hundred dollar note, said that first they wanted to inspect their crates, when they collected they’d pay the balance. Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow.

The Rasta thought about this, staring at Pylon eventually
nodded
okay, flipped him the key.

‘He’s accepting half?’ said Mace.

‘It gets us the key,’ said Pylon, standing, the two of them
moving
away. ‘The rest when we collect.’

‘Non-negotiable,’ said the Rasta in English, back at his stirring, ignoring Mace and Pylon stopped in their tracks, gazing at him.

Pylon clucked his tongue, muttered, ‘Bloody pothead.’

The crates were stacked at the back of an empty container. They levered off the lids with a crowbar borrowed from the Rasta, revealing the hardware carefully packed in blankets. Enough
blankets
to excite a charity. Pylon took out a nine mil, said, ‘Look at this. When last did you see one of these?’

‘Nice gun,’ said Mace, taking it from him, a Z-88, old police stock made to beat the international arms embargo. Better, he believed, than the Beretta 92 it was modelled on. As he racked it, his phone rang, the voice he connected to said, ‘This’s John Webster.’

‘That right?’ said Mace. ‘We were starting to wonder about you.’

Webster ignored him. ‘The consignment’s ready?’

Mace said, ‘I’m staring at it.’

‘Where’s this?’

‘In a safe place.’

Webster didn’t answer, let the silence drag. Eventually said, ‘Someone’ll collect you this afternoon. Two-thirty, three at the hotel.’ He disconnected.

Mace thumbed off his phone, said, ‘Ummm.’ Said, ‘Maybe we should take precautions.’ He put the Z-88 back into a crate, took out a nine mil Taurus. Pylon already had one in his hand, loading the clip from a box in the ammunition crate.

On their way out Mace waved at the Rasta, ‘Cheers, and thanks for the fish.’

They’d been driving around all morning. Paulo hyper, stopping twice to ritz some powder. Talking a blue streak about a condo in Miami or settling in Hawaii somewhere with a sea view. Or scrub that, some Caribbean hideaway island, pelicans circling overhead, water so clear you could snorkel without a mask. All they’d need would be an inflatable to go out fishing on the reef, maybe scooters for transport into the nearest town.

‘The thing is,’ Paulo said, ‘to have low aspirations. I mean not want the big-ticket numbers: no flash. Choose a good lifestyle. Then the money’s gonna last and nobody’s gonna be stressed out having to work again at any sorta job. That’s what I don’t wanna do, work again. I wanna wake up each morning thinking this is it, no problems. Money in the bank gently compounding. Nothing I have to do today but swim, maybe drift over to the reef in the Zodiac, dive some lobster. Lunch time take my usual stool at the Oyster Pond, eat some seafood, drink some beers, talk to the tourists. Laze through the afternoon trying to work out where to eat, like at the Orient again, or the Rouge this time or Captain Oliver’s Restaurant.’

They’d driven round the glitz strip, Sea Point, Clifton, Camps Bay, come back over the Nek, Paulo saying why return to the apartment on a day like this, taking De Waal down the peninsula through Newlands Forest, Cecelia Forest, across Constantia through the vineyards up and over the mountain till coming down into Sun Valley Vittoria said, ‘I’ve gotta eat, Paulo. It’s one o’clock. I’ve gotta eat’ - and Paulo had swung into Longbeach Mall saying, ‘A Wimpy should do,’ finding a parking space right at the entrance, the car-guard giving him a slip of paper that said Amos was pleased to watch his car, have a nice day.

Taking the card, Paulo said, ‘The thing I’m not gonna miss about this place is you guys.’

The Wimpy was loud with kids and grandparents but a granny leaving with two brats freed up a cubicle in the window for Paulo and Vittoria - a view of the parking lot and the mountains beyond. A waitress took their order for all-day breakfasts and fast coffees.

Vittoria stared out at the fat people wheeling trolley loads of groceries to their cars. Could be a home-mall if you blinked, everyone as badly dressed. ‘I’m not sure I want that,’ she said. ‘The paradise island.’

‘Babe. We try it, you’ll like it. Trust me.’

The coffees came, he finished his before she’d had a sip, still selling her the Caribbean idyll.

‘The way I look at it,’ Vittoria said, ‘this is a start.’

Paulo shook his head vigorously. ‘That’s the point. Keep off the greed. The greed’s what kills people.’

The waitress put two full-house plates on the table: bacon, sausages, eggs sunny side up, French fries, fried tomato, two slices of white bread toast. Filled up their coffees. ‘Anything else?’

Paulo said, ‘This is good.’

They ate in silence, Vittoria relishing each mouthful, Paulo getting through an egg and a slice of toast.

‘If you’re not eating it, I’ll have your bacon,’ said Vittoria, heisting the rashers from his plate. ‘So what’s the plan, tomorrow?’

Paulo said, ‘Shit that reminds me’ - taking out Isabella’s
cellphone
- ‘I better keep her lover smiling, after all the messages he’s left.’

SMSed: ‘Hold tight, babe, talk to you soon.’ Repeated it to Vittoria.

‘That’s gonna please him?’

‘Sounds to me like what Isabella would say.’

‘She’d call him.’

‘Yeah, well, this time she hasn’t.’ He pressed send.

Vittoria clattered her knife and fork on the empty plate. ‘Breakfast for lunch is as good as breakfast at breakfast.’ She wiped her mouth. ‘Still haven’t told me what the plan is.’

‘Simple. We meet. They give us the diamonds, we cut them their share. Adios amigos.’

‘You think?’

‘Sure. Where’s the hitch?’

‘No Isabella. No Ludo.’

‘Tonight she’s going to send him a message, she’s at the airport on standby, got to fly home urgently, Paulo’ll take care of everything. Talk tomorrow.’

‘He’ll buy that?’

‘Can’t see why not. Shit happens all the time.’