James Mcclure - Snake

“They get cancer?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Man, you live and learn.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Kramer murmured dryly, confirmed in a belief that Bokkie Howells owed everything to heredity, including his engineering genius-same as a weaver bird. “Now back to business. What if-”

“The gun, sir-thirty-two or thirty-eight?”

“Eight. Bull’s-eye at close range.”

“Not two shots?” queried Bokkie, pointing.

“That’s the exit wound.”

“And you say it’s the same method as before?”

“Uh-huh. Number five. Till cleaned out. Car used for getaway. Talking of same, what about my shocks, then? How long will it take?”

Bokkie was from the police garage; the pair of them had been road-testing Kramer’s new Chev Commando when the call to Peacevale came through. The suspension was altogether too soft for dirt.

“Could have it ready for you by tomorrow, say five o’clock.”

“Two days for four shocks?”

“Have a heart, sir. Got to order the spares. Make out the requisitions. Hey, he’s starting to pee in his pants.”

“It’s legal.”

“Could try-and I mean try, mark you-to get something done by tonight. But I’d have to take it now.”

“Fine with me. Uniformed has put up roadblocks, and Zondi is here anyway with his own vehicle. You go when you want.”

The sergeant seemed in no hurry. He looked around the store and then out over the heads of the crowd at the shanties ranged opposite.

“Not much of a place,” he sniffed.

“True,” agreed Kramer, glancing at his watch.

“Can’t have been much in the till either, this being a Monday.”

“Uh-huh.”

Kramer picked up an interesting piece of mud, which bore the clear imprint of an unusual rubber sole. The damned thing proved within seconds to have come off the dead man’s left sandal.

“Five in two weeks is bad,” Bokkie conceded, “but they must have all been in Peacevale-haven’t seen a thing about them in the papers. What’s so special?”

Irritation made Kramer bite through the dissolving peppermint and hurt his tongue.

“The papers?” he snapped, tasting blood. “Reporters? Those bastards can’t see what’s under their noses-and their values, so called, are all up to kak!”

Bokkie flinched. He could be an insensitive sod in many ways, and intellectual words were wasted on him, but his ear never missed a grated gear change.

“Hey, sir, I didn’t mean to-”

“What’s news to them? You tell me. Another coon killed in Peacevale? Hell, no. That happens all the time-that’s not news. But let a Monday Clubber lift a bottle of sherry in a supermarket, and they bloody crucify her on headlines so wide.” Kramer lifted his arms.

“Fair’s fair, sir. They do put wog death sentences in-I’ve seen them.”

“Ja, I know, death sentence-that’s a good description for it. Can’t you see, man? Or are you making the same mistake?”

“Not feeling sorry enough for the coons, Lieutenant?”

“Christ, no! In thinking it’s two worlds apart. That what happens in one doesn’t mean anything in the other. They actually touch, don’t they?”

“But so far-”

“Exactly-that’s the whole point I’m trying to make. So far these bastards haven’t tried elsewhere. But they’re bloody black lightning, man! Bang, in-out, no description, no sod all. How long do you think it will take before they catch on and move where the money is?”

“Hell,” said Bokkie, deeply impressed by such elementary foresight. “It’s a race against time, then, sir?”

“Uh-huh,” replied Kramer, looking down again at one of the losers. Lucky and he had been friends.

The emergency service put the call through to the duty officer at ten-thirty sharp. He noted the time on his pad and the other essentials. When he had enough, he put the receiver down.

“Bloody hell,” he said to his fishing companion, who had wandered across from Housebreaking, “but that bloke was doing his nut. Got a girl strangled.”

“Oh, ja? Big deal.”

“ Ach, no-he meant a girl girl. Y’know-a white female, young.”

“Hey? Where?”

“The Wam-bam.”

“Don’t get it.”

“Wam-bam, thank you, ma’am. Monty’s place.”

“Then I’m not surprised. Going to tell the lieutenant? He’ll also do his nut! They say this Peacevale gang have got him by the shorts and he just doesn’t want to know.”

“Sorry, but he’ll have to-colonel’s out.”

“What about Sarge Marais?”

“I’ll tell him, don’t worry, but first his superior has to be informed. All in standing orders. Besides, it’s a pleasure to screw the bastard for once.”

“That’s more like it,” said his fishing companion.

And they laughed.

Bokkie Howells doubled back to pick up Kramer after the message came through. Then he drove him into town with a respect for moving parts that was agonizing. Even a donkey cart on the approach road to the divided highway managed to beat them across the line.

Peacevale petered out in a straggle of lopsided homes and black pedestrians trudging the shoulder. The high security fences guarding the gray railway yards gradually gave way to the whitewash and white folk of the old part of Trekkersburg, wire gates and palm trees; then slowly the concrete of the tall administration buildings took over, as sharp as paper cutouts against the flat blue sky.

They entered the city center down a wide street along which three black delivery men were jockeying their motorcycles for position.

“Bloody menace,” grumbled Bokkie, abandoning his droned speculation about the dead girl’s morals. “They should never have taken them off their bikes. There-you see?”

The leading motorcycle struck a car that suddenly swung out of a parking area, sending the rider bouncing on his crash helmet, with his load of booze bottles after him. Kramer caught a glimpse of a pregnant housewife pinned by shock in the driving seat of her Mini.

“That’ll teach you, boy!” yelled Bokkie, as they sedately negotiated the obstacle. “Teach you how to bloody behave on the road!”

He was so enormously gratified by this chance demonstration of a pet theory that he overshot the address clipped to the dashboard.

So Kramer reached for the handbrake, jerked it on hard, and got out to more squeals and the blare of outraged horns.

“See you,” he said, and walked away.

“Where’s the district surgeon?” Kloppers demanded, as though Nxumalo had inadvertently stacked him in a corner.

“Me, I don’t know, boss.”

“Being late like this isn’t funny! Said he’d be here sharp at quarter to, and look at the time now. Plus where has Fingerprints got to? He should have been here to take snaps of the unidentified. They’ve got one more minute or I get on that phone.”

“ Hau, shame.”

“And you? What have you been doing for the last half hour?”

“Nothing, boss.”

“Good. I’ve got enough worries as it is.”

The narrow alleyway ran between a shoe shop and a real estate agency, ending in a high red brick wall made more interesting by exterior plumbing.

Halfway down it, Kramer stopped outside a door painted with bright zigzags under a neon sign on the lintel that read THE WIGWAM. On one side in a glass case were some poor prints of a female playing with snakes. She was not worth more than one look.

He went in and found himself shoulder deep in the press. The photographer from the Trekkersburg Gazette had better sense than to raise his camera, but some long-haired baboon took a shot of him.

“Film,” said Kramer, holding out his hand.

“Sorry?”

“Film,” Kramer repeated, snapping his fingers.

“Ah, come on,” he whined. “Cool it, man-okay?”