Roger Smith - Mixed Blood

There were mutters of disapproval from the others at the table. Fuck them. The dealer was looking at Burn inquiringly. “You heard what I said. Hit me.”

The dealer dealt him a five, then pulled a six for himself and then a ten. Too many.

The dealer shoved a stack of chips Burn’s way. Burn flicked a couple of chips back toward the dealer, who tapped them, then dropped them into a slot in the table.

Burn finished his drink and held up the empty glass to a passing waitress. What the hell, he could have one more.

He knew it was crazy to be here. Stupid. Reckless. Gambling had caused all the pain in his life. Got him running from a cop dead in the snow. His pregnant wife and his kid were about to be lost to him forever, and he was gambling again. Blotting out reality.

But he felt some of that old excitement, the thrill that gambling had always given him, like a shot of adrenaline straight into the heart. He loved it.

Even now.

The dealer dealt him a ten and a seven and pulled a king for himself.

The man next to Burn, a dark man with gold teeth, made his feelings clear. “Just, stick, okay?”

Burn ignored him, tapped his cards. “Hit me.”

The dealer gave him a bland look and dealt him a four. Twenty-one. Then the dealer went bust by pulling two picture cards.

Burn laughed out loud and reached for the Scotch that had appeared at his elbow.

He couldn’t lose.

Disaster Zondi stared down at the charred bodies. The howling wind rattled the portable klieg lamps that beamed down a merciless glare, threatening to topple them even though they were weighted with sandbags. The yellow crime scene tape sang and flapped in the wind, and the technicians battled the dust as they worked.

The wind flung snatches of conversation Zondi’s way. The crime techs were wondering why the hell they had been called out for just another Cape Flats mess. Glances were shot in his direction, as if this had to be his doing.

Zondi tuned all this out, impassive, communing with the dead.

The small figure was definitely a child, and the mother swore blind that it was her son. In the morning they would run dental records, but Zondi didn’t doubt she was right. Mothers weren’t wrong about things like that.

Zondi was aware that he had stepped outside his brief by being here. Call it research, the man from Johannesburg steeping himself in the crime that gripped the Flats by the throat. This hardly seemed typical, though. The bodies of two men would have indicated a gang killing. The body of the child alone would have been just another victim of the homicidal pedophiles the Flats produced with terrifying regularity.

But the three bodies together? This hinted at an altogether different beast at work.

Superintendent Peterson, station commander of Bellwood South, was on the scene. Zondi had no doubt this was for his benefit. Peterson had the well-fed look of a man who left the dirty work up to others.

A uniformed sergeant came up to Peterson. “Superintendent, we have Constable Galant.” He pointed at a patrol car.

Peterson followed the uniform. Zondi caught up with him.

“Okay if I tag along, Superintendent?”

If Peterson objected, he wasn’t about to say so. “Of course.”

Constable Gershwynne Galant, the reluctant minder of the satellite police station, sat in the back of the patrol car. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and smelled as if he had been brought in from a tavern somewhere. He looked sullen and nervous.

“Get the mother, Sergeant.” The superintendent nodded to where Berenice September sat in the passenger seat of Peterson’s car.

Berenice came across, walking slowly. She stumbled, and the sergeant had to steady her. Her face caught enough of the spill from the kliegs to show the hell she was living through.

Peterson pointed at Galant. “Mrs. September, is this the constable you took your son to?”

Berenice looked at Galant. He returned her stare, then looked away. “Yes. That’s him.”

Peterson told the sergeant to take the woman back to his car; then he slid in beside Galant. Zondi leaned in through the passenger window, listening.

“What happened after that woman left her son with you, Constable?”

“He ran away. Like I tole her.”

Peterson shook his head. “Now we both know that isn’t what happened.” He paused. “The woman says you phoned somebody. On your cell phone. Now either you tell us who you phoned or we get your phone logs. Believe me, if you cooperate, I’ll be more inclined to go easy on you. Do you understand?”

Galant nodded.

“Okay. So I’m asking you again. Who did you phone?”

Galant wiped the back of his hand against his nose, sniffing. “It was Inspector Barnard.”

Zondi looked across at Peterson. Was that fear he saw on the man’s face?

“And what happened next?” Peterson seemed almost reluctant to ask the question.

“The inspector came and took the boy away. In his car.”

Peterson slid out of the car and turned to the sergeant. “Lock him away. Single cell, okay?”

The cop nodded and got behind the wheel of the car, started the engine, and drove away. Zondi and Peterson stood in the howling wind, trying to shield their eyes from grit.

“I’m going to issue a warrant for Barnard,” Peterson said, blinking.

“I think that’s a good idea. I want to be along every step of the way, Superintendent.”

“Of course. Absolutely.”

Berenice September walked back toward them. She had caught the tail end of the conversation. “Is it Gatsby what did this?”

Zondi looked at Peterson quizzically.

Peterson shrugged. “Gatsby. A street name for Barnard.” He turned to Berenice. “It’s too soon to say.”

Zondi took the woman’s arm and walked her to the car. Peterson looked as if he was about to follow; then he hung back.

“Do you know this man, Barnard?” Zondi helped her into the car.

“Ja. We all do. He makes his own law.”

“I think those days may be over.”

Berenice said nothing, busy with the nightmare in her head.

Zondi walked off toward his BMW, the wind snatching at his suit, his eyes tearing up from the dust. In the distance Table Mountain blazed, tongues of flame leaping against the night sky.

Rudi Barnard hated the wind. In all the years he had spent in Cape Town, he had never got used to it. It made him feel lonely. Barnard took pride in his self-sufficiency; he trusted only himself and his God. He had little usehuman interaction, but tonight he needed to speak to somebody. He needed reassurance.

Barnard drove through the back streets of Goodwood until he hit the railway line. He sat in the car, looking up at a crumbling building, two apartments over an African traditional healer. The healer’s rooms were closed, but streetlight fell across the crudely painted windows offering cures for everything from impotence to AIDS. COME INSIDE NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, urged a sign.

The last time Barnard was here, the place had been a pet shop. Things change.

A light burned in one of the apartments. Barnard hesitated; it had been months since he had visited, and he almost lost his nerve. But he left the car, cursing as he took a gust of grit full in the face.

Fucken wind.

He hurried to the doorway of the building, stepping over a man and a woman asleep under cardboard boxes and plastic, anesthetized by cheap booze. Barnard trudged up one floor, panting as if he had run a marathon, and banged on an apartment door. There was rustling and thudding inside, then shuffling steps as somebody stood on the other side of the door, listening.

“It’s me, Pastor. Rudi Barnard.”

Many keys were turned, bolts drawn back, and the door cracked a sliver. A yellow eye regarded Barnard suspiciously. Then the door opened to reveal a tall, skeletal man with greasy gray hair framing a wrinkled face the color of urine. His mouth twitched a smile, and ill-fitting dentures clicked wetly.