Roger Smith - Mixed Blood

At first, few had.

Then one or two, brave, foolhardy, or greedy, had spoken a little of what they knew. The local cops, brown men, had asked the questions. The darky had just stood and listened, eyes hidden behind his shades, absorbing what was said like he was made of black blotting paper.

So, slowly, the unbelievable became the believable.

Gatsby was a marked man.

After they put her son in the ground, Berenice September’s neighbors gathered at her house. The women and the girls were inside, serving cake and tea.

Donovan September stood in the cramped backyard with the men and the boys. The group spoke in low tones, each man and boy swearing to Donovan that they would get their hands on the human filth that did this to his little brother. And they would send the fat boer to hell.

Berenice stood at the kitchen window, filling the kettle at the sink, looking out at her son standing with the men. Donovan caught her eye, and then he looked away from her.

Oh, God, please let this thing end.

Another hotel room.

This one was in Retreat, the ass end of Cape Town. A run-down area Rudi Barnard was unfamiliar with, far away from his turf. The irony of the name wasn’t lost on him. He hated going into hiding. Not his way of doing things. Not at all. He lay on the bed, sweat running off his naked chest. There was no aircon in the room, just a desk fan that stirred the thick air, shifted it around, but didn’t make it any fucken cooler.

He reached for his cell phone and thumbed a number. Time to check up on the half-breed bitch and the boy. When he got the automated female voice telling him the number wasn’t available on the network, he nearly threw the phone at the flipping wall. The bitch hadn’t bought herself airtime, probably spent the money he gave her on tik.

Fuck.

He had to restrain himself from going down to the Ford and driving across to the bitch’s hovel, giving her a few smacks. No, that was just the kind of mistake that would screw up everything. They were out there, Zondi and his trained monkey Peterson, waiting for him to do something stupid. Tough as it was, he had to stay patient. At least until it got dark.

The promise of more money would keep the little whore from doing anything clever. Keep herin line until it was time to kill her.

And the kid.

He found a Gideon’s Bible next to the bed and opened it. Maybe if he read some Old Testament, he’d feel soothed. He was disgusted to see that most of the pages had been ripped out, probably used by some fucken heathens to roll joints.

He shoved the Bible back in the drawer, heaved himself from the bed, and walked to the window. The room overlooked a courtyard full of garbage cans and junk. A scrawny homeless woman in a torn dress and unlaced running shoes, a baby strapped to her back, was going through the garbage. A ragged man stood behind her, swaying on his feet as he watched her digging in the bins.

The man said something that Barnard couldn’t catch. The woman swung on him, hands still in the can. Her voice was shrill, hard from years of living on the street. “Your mother’s cunt!”

The man mumbled something. The woman found a couple of empties and turned to walk away. The man grabbed at the bottles. The woman evaded his flailing hands and swung one of the bottles, hard, smashing it against his head. The man slumped, blood flowing down his face.

The woman threw the broken neck of the bottle at him. “Now look what you make me do, you fucken rubbish!”

She walked away clutching the remaining bottle, still hurling abuse at him over her shoulder. She had the disjointed, crablike walk that came from years of frying your brain cells with cheap booze. The man was on his hands and knees, shaking his head, drops of blood landing vividly on the cement.

Barnard turned away and walked his gut directly in the path of the fan. It stirred the pelt of gingery fuzz that covered his belly like a worn carpet but didn’t cool him at all.

Ja, relationships. Marriage, whatever. It never fucken worked. Not if you were a homeless half-breed or whoever the fuck you were.

His had lasted a year.

He had met his wife at the Army of God Church, the run-down Pentecostal congregation in Goodwood led by Pastor Lombard. When the pastor was jailed as a pedophile, the congregation fell apart and Rudi Barnard had communed with God alone, in the privacy of his own home.

Well, not quite alone. He had met Sanmarie Botha at church. Amazingly, Sanmarie, though not blessed with a powerful intellect, was extremely good-looking in a blonde, corn-fed way. Even more amazingly, she took it upon herself to fall in love with Rudi Barnard. Barnard didn’t question why a pneumatic blonde would fall for an aging, stinking, obese wreck like him. He presumed he reminded her of her father. She cooked the cholesterol-intensive food he loved, she washed his clothes, and her sexual demands weren’t beyond his limited capacity.

They were engaged and then married. Barnard would spend his days terrorizing and murdering and then come home to a hot meal, a few hours in front of the TV with his wife, and then the dubious comfort of the marital bed. Happiness would be too strong a word to describe this period of his life, but he knew a kind of contentment.

But then Sanmarie joined the Living Joy of God Congregation in Monte Vista. A new church, with a young pastor, all teeth and blow-dried hair. She tried to persuade Barnard to worship with her, but the multiracial congregand the watered-down brand of Christianity peddled by Pastor Marius left Barnard cold.

As Sanmarie spent more time at church, he spent more time eating gatsbys from the Golden Spoon. Sanmarie’s sexual demands had ceased entirely. When she left him for Pastor Marius, Barnard had briefly considered some fitting form of biblical wrath to rain down on their heads, then had decided he couldn’t be bothered.

A man alone made the perfect soldier in God’s war.

He went back to the bed and got the dead woman’s phone out of his waist bag and switched it on. He thumbed through her contact list, then hit a number.

The American answered immediately. Eager, anxious. “Yes?”

“How’s it going with the money?” Barnard used the speakerphone, intentionally making his voice even harsher than it normally was. Dropping it a register.

“It will all be in place by lunchtime tomorrow.”

“Fine. And you’re keeping your trap shut?”

“Yes. As I promised. How is my son?”

“He’s fine.”

“I want to speak to him.”

“No. Not now.”

“Then how do I know if he’s still alive?” The American was trying to sound tough, in control. But Barnard could hear the panic just beneath the surface.

“Just take my word for it, he’s okay. And he’ll stay that way if you don’t screw up.” Barnard killed the call.

He sat on the bed, elbows on his knees, arms dangling, drops of sweat plopping onto the wooden floor. Then he decided he was hungry.

There was a Kentucky Fried across the way. A barrel of wings and a Colonel Burger.

It wasn’t a gatsby but it would have to do.

Benny Mongrel lay on the mattress in his shack, his shirt off, his right arm still in the sling. The bandage on his shoulder was spotted with blood. He stared at the tin roof and let the index finger of his left hand trace the crude lettering carved into his chest: I DIG MY GRAVE, I CRY FOR BLOOD.

The promise he had made to himself, the one about going straight, was forgotten. He was going to kill that fat cop. Finished. And he didn’t care what they did with him after. They could send him back to Pollsmoor and let him rot.

He didn’t give a fuck.

He had lost two things the night before: his dog and his knife. He regretted having to leave the knife behind; it was a good one. But he had another almost as good. Bessie wasn’t something he could ever replace. When she died, so did the tiny voice of hope and faith that had unexpectedly spoken from his heart. Now his heart was cold. Now he was a Mongrel again.