Burn fetched Susan from the clinic shortly before noon. She looked pale but composed as he helped her into the front of the Jeep. He lifted Matt into the back and belted him into the car seat.
Susan didn’t look at him as they drove. “Where are we going?”
“Home. To the house.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to go back there, Jack.”
“Susan…”
“I mean it. Not after what happened.”
He said nothing, then realized that his knuckles were white on the steering wheel. He forced himself to relax. “Where do you want to go then?”
“I don’t care. A hotel. Anywhere but that house.”
He pulled over and stopped. An almost absurdly beautiful expanse of sun-washed ocean and mountain spread out below them. Neither of them was looking at the view.
“Susan, it’s important that we don’t do anything out of the ordinary. Anything that could attract attention.”
“You mean like kill a couple of locals in our dining room?” She was furious, two red spots touching her cheekbones. Susan shut her eyes briefly and took a breath, her hands resting on her swollen belly. She looked over her shoulder at Matt, who was staring at his parents anxiously.
Susan reached back and caressed Matt’s hair. “It’s okay, Matty. Mommy and Daddy aren’t fighting.”
Burn, watching in the rearview mirror, saw an uncertain smile touch his son’s lips. Susan turned to face forward again, staring down at the ocean below.
“Baby, you need to relax. Please.” Burn tried to take her hand. When she pulled it away, he noticed that she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring. “Where’s your ring?”
She looked at him. “Jack, did you hear a word I said yesterday? About going home?”
“Of course. It’s all I’ve been thinking about.”
“I meant what I said.”
“I know you did. And I understand.” He had to get ahold of himself, force himself to keep it together. “All I’m asking for is some time. To organize myself.”
“How much time?”
“A couple of days. A week at the most. Until then, we need to keep up our usual routine.”
She was looking at him, intuiting something. “What’s going on, Jack? What’s happened at the house?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s happened.”
“Don’t lie to me. Please.”
He nodded. “Okay. Those… those men left a car in the street, outside the building site. It must have been reported. A cop was around asking some questions.”
“Jesus, Jack.”
“It’s fine. He went to every house in the street. It was just routine.”
She was shaking her head. “So he’s watching the house?”
“No, I haven’t seen him again. I told you, it was just routine.”
Susan turned slightly to face him, her eyes searching his face. “Three days, Jack. Three days, and then I’m contacting the consulate. Are we clear on that?”
“Yes.” He started the car and pulled back onto the road.
His wife had become his enemy.
Berenice September carried shopping bags into her small house. She worked as a cashier at Shoprite, and she’d used her staff discount to buy supplies for herself and her three kids. Like many women on the Flats, she was a single parent. Her useless bastard of a husband had left her for a young slut and then got thrown under the wheels of the Elsies River train.
Good riddance.
Her eldest boy, Donovan, was doing fine. He had a job and brought some money into the house, and her daughter, Juanita, was too young to be any trouble. But it was her middle one, Ronnie, who reminded her of her late ex-husband. He had that same fuck you attitude. She would have to watch him.
Ronnie came slouching in while she was preparing supper, heading straight to the room he shared with his brother. She yelled after him. “Hey, come here.”
He hovered in the kitchen doorway. “Ja?”
“What time is this?”
He could never resist consulting the huge Batman watch on his skinny wrist. It was a Hong Kong rip-off but still his most treasured possession. “It’s ten past five.”
“I know the bloody time, Ronnie. I mean why you so late?”
“I had sports.”
“You got homework?”
“Ja, I’m gonna go do it.”
It was then that she saw his shoes. He saw where she was looking and stepped back out of the doorway. Berenice was a big woman, but she could move rapidly when she wanted to. She grabbed her son by the arm and pulled him into the kitchen.
“Where did you get those shoes?”
He tried to pull free of her grip. “I bought them.”
“With what? You little liar! Did you steal them?”
He shook his head. She grabbed him by the throat and pulled him to her. “Tell me the truth before I smack it out of you!”
Ronnie knew his mother never made idle threats. “Can I keep them if I tell you?”
“Just tell me, and I decide, okay?”
“I took it off a dead guy.”
She let him go, recoiled in horror. Berenice September lived in superstitious dread of those who had passed on.
She shook her head at her son. What kind of a monster had she brought into this world? Why couldn’t he steal off somebody who was alive like any normal bloody person?
Benny Mongrel arrived for his shift intentionally early. Patrol cars zoomed in and out, armed response patrolmen swaggered around with their Kevlar vests and their Ray-Bans and their pistols on their hips. They were the movie stars of the security world.
Benny Mongrel was a bottom feeder. Nobody noticed him.
He knew that Ishmael Isaacs wasn’t there. He’d made a big show of telling them that he was taking a course for the day, at the head office in Parow. Hinted that he was up for promotion.
Benny Mongrel paused for a moment, realizing that what he was about to do wouldn’t make him popular with Isaacs, but he thought fuck it. He no longer wanted to guard the building site. Not after the gangsters. And especially not after that fat cop had kicked Bessie. He wanted to get himself and his dog as far away from there as he could.
So he went up to the young girl behind the reception desk. She sat with her nose buried in a gossip magazine, chewing gum. She ignored him. Benny Mongrel had to find patience from somewhere. In his old world he would have blackened her eyes and bruised that painted mouth before she knew what was coming.
“Missy.”
She dragged her eyes from the magazine and stared at him. “What?”
“I want to see the boss.”
“Why?”
“Please. I need to talk to him.”
He could see she was finding it difficult staring at his scarred face. She looked away and lifted a phone, mumbled a few words. She pointed to a doorway. “You’ve got five minutes.”
Benny Mongrel knocked on the door and walked in. He had never spoken to the white man behind the desk, only seen him driving in and out in his Mercedes-Benz. He wore a dark tie and a shirt so white it hurt your eyes. His office was as cold as a fridge from the air-conditioning.
The man lifted his eyes from a laptop. He didn’t stand or invite Benny Mongrel to sit. “What’s your name?”
“Uh, Niemand. Benny Niemand.”
“Okay. Is there a problem?”
“No, sir. I just was wondering if maybe I could guard a different site, like.”
“Why don’t you take this up with Isaacs?”
“He’s on the course, sir.”
The man gave him a long-suffering look. “Where are you posted at the moment?”
“The new house. Above Sea Point.”
“Okay. What’s wrong with working that site?”
“Nothing. No, I thought maybe I could have something more, I dunno
… something with more responsibility, like.”
The white man laughed at him. “So you’re ambitious, hey? Okay, that’s fine. Look, you’ve been with us, what? Two months?” Benny Mongrel nodded. “Why don’t we give it another month or so? The house will be completed then anyway, and we’ll move you on. Okay?”
Benny Mongrel nodded again. The white man was already going back to his laptop. Then he saw Benny Mongrel wasn’t moving. The man looked up, irritated.
“Was there something else?”
“My dog.”
“Now what? Do you want a new dog too?”
“No, no, no, sir. She’s a very good dog. I was just wondering if, you know, one day I can maybe, like, buy her?”
The man looked at him in surprise. “Jesus, Niemand, what’s your problem? We don’t sell these dogs; this isn’t a bloody pet shop. Now come on, get going. I’m busy here.”
The white man was already typing on his computer.
Constable Gershwynne Galant was sure his blood was cooking, honest to God. There was no way he could sit inside the windowless metal container that housed the satellite police station. He took a stool and placed it in the tiny patch of shade outside. His boots were still in the blazing sun, but at least his face and chest were in the shade.
This satellite police station was the result of some visible policing initiative dreamed up by a politician who spent his life inside air-conditioned offices. Since the nearest police station was in distant Bellwood South, the residents of Paradise Park had shoved the usual rape and murder statistics in the face of local politicians. Finally, a trailer had been towed to a piece of open veld, and the satellite station opened its door.
The plan was to have a police officer on duty from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Which was totally useless as most of the crime happened at night, but what can you do? The first night, after the cop on duty went home, local gangsters had hooked the trailer to a truck and towed it away. Red-faced, the politicians had replaced the trailer with a heavy container, like the ones used on cargo ships.
Manning the satellite station was a punishment detail. Gershwynne Galant had made the mistake of getting caught with the takings of a drug dealer he had just busted. So he was frying like an egg, alone, day in and day out for a fucken week. Jesus.
Galant was paging through a magazine he’d found lying outside the container when the woman and her son walked up. Galant looked at his watch. Six o’clock. He would have to listen to their story.
The boy was holding a pair of Nikes. He was walking barefoot with a kind of skip, his bare feet burning on the hot sand. His mother looked like a bloody battle-ax.
Galant listened to what the boy had to say, about bodies in the veld, and decided not to phone this in to Bellwood South. Instead he dialed Rudi Barnard’s cell phone. Gatsby thrived on this kind of information, and it never hurt to do the fat man a favor.
Galant killed the call and told the mother and son to wait. Somebody was coming.
The battle-ax scowled at him. “And how long must I wait?”
Galant shrugged, his nose already back in his magazine.
The woman sighed, then spoke to the boy. “I got to finish cooking and help your sister with her homework. You wait here and sort this out. You hear me?”
The boy nodded, and she walked off.
Barnard’s Toyota scraped across the uneven veld. His great weight dragged the suspension down, and the exhaust smacked the ground alarmingly every time he hit a bump. The little half-breed was flying around in the seat next to him like a turd in a tumble dryer. Barnard’s car threw up a cloud of dust in the evening light, heading toward the spot where the kid said the bodies lay.
Barnard slid the car to a stop and hauled himself out, wheezing, wiping a beefy forearm across his sweating face. Ronnie September climbed out, staring at Barnard in mute terror.
Barnard pointed to the Nikes lying on the floor of the car. “Bring those with you.” The kid did as he said. Barnard told him to lead the way.
Barnard followed the kid toward a clump of bushes.
He saw Rikki Fortune first. Barnard squatted down. If the stench bothered him, he gave no sign of it. He took in the gash across the throat. Also the torn garbage bags and the duct tape. Who the fuck wrapped corpses up like Christmas presents before dumping them? No gangster he knew.
Barnard snapped a couple of pictures of Rikki with his cell phone camera.
He lifted himself and went across to the tall half-breed. Looked like he had been stabbed in the chest and shot in the stomach. Barnard took a couple more happy snaps.
Ronnie was hanging back, still clutching the shoes by the laces.
Barnard beckoned him over. “Come here.”
The boy came over to him. “Tell me again what happened.”
Ronnie began nervously. “I was coming on here this morning…”
“What time?”
“Past eight.”
“You alone?”
Ronnie nodded. “I was coming on when I saw that one.” He pointed to Rikki. “Then I saw the other one next.”
“You see anybody else here?”
The boy shook his head.
“Ja. Then what you do?”
Ronnie held the shoes up. “I took these.”
Barnard fixed him with a stare. “And then what?”
“Then I got a taxi. To Bellville. To play games. Then I went home. And my mommy saw the shoes. And I tole her about them.” He pointed to the bodies. “And she took me to the cop.”
“You didn’t bring anybody here?” Ronnie shook his head. “You lying to me?”
Ronnie shook his head even more vigorously. Barnard stared down at the boy. He thrust a hand toward the Nikes. “Gimme those.”
Ronnie held the shoes out to him. Barnard grabbed them, flinging them onto the tall guy’s body. He poked a finger into Ronnie’s chest. “You wait here.”
Barnard walked back to the car and popped the trunk. He took a. 38 revolver from under the spare tire and shoved it into his waistband. He’d taken it off a dead drug dealer and kept it for special occasions. Like this. Then he hauled out a jerrican and walked back to the kid.
Ronnie looked as if he was thinking of making a run for it.
Barnard stopped in front of him and set the jerrican down. Then he took the revolver from his waistband, cocked it, and shot the kid between the eyes. The little bastard hadn’t even seen it coming, just gave him a stupid look and dropped. Barnard shot him once more in the chest, jst to make sure.
Barnard dragged Rikki Fortune’s body until it lay next to his beanpole buddy. Then he grabbed the half-breed kid by a bare ankle and slung him across the two gangsters. He emptied the jerrican onto the bodies, set fire to a scrap of cloth, and tossed it, stepping back. The bodies exploded into flame.
There was no way that Barnard was going to let this crime scene into the system. He knew there was only an outside chance that anybody would give a shit about these useless lives ending, but it was a chance he wasn’t prepared to take.
No, he knew that the answer to his prayers lay in a house up on the mountain. This was a gift from God.
In very fucken weird wrapping paper.