Roger Smith - Mixed Blood

She saw his face, blanched white under her tan, and did as he said.

Benny Mongrel looked back toward the bag. It was gone. He scanned the crowd and glimpsed a fat shape about to disappear up the flight of stairs that led to the street.

Benny Mongrel was running.

As Burn approached the pedestrian bridge spanning the waterway, he heard a shrill blast of a whistle and the gates at the front of the bridge closed. A yacht with a towering mast approached the low bridge, en route to its mooring. With agonizing slowness, the bridge swung away from where Burn stood and traveled in an arc until it hugged the opposite bank.

The yacht glided slowly past, a tanned man in shorts at the wheel and a ridiculously good-looking woman sipping a glass of wine on the deck, neither deigning to look at the rabble on the banks.

Burn couldn’t resist a glance over his shoulder, up to the first floor. He saw the watchman take off, running, toward the stairs to the street. On the tail of Barnard.

Burn couldn’t stop himself. He turned and plunged into the crowd.

The call that Disaster Zondi was dreading came as he piloted his BMW southbound on the N2, cruising toward the city that huddled at the foot of the mountain. His outward appearance of imperturbable calm belied an inner turmoil. He sensed that Barnard was close, so close he could almost smell him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was dogging the fat man’s footsteps. But how far behind he didn’t know.

Zondi had decided to leave Superintendent Peterson and the rest of the cops at Bellwood South HQ out of the loop. He couldn’t risk a leak now. He knew it would take him more time to do everything himself, but he needed to keep control.

His phone, hooked up to a hands-free, was yapping on the seat next to him. He sneaked a glance at caller ID. His commanding officer. He was tempted to let it go to voice mail, but at the last moment he took the call. “Zondi.”

“Afternoon, Zondi.”

To Archibald Mathebula, Zondi was always just Zondi. He called his other investigators by their first names, but it was as if giving voice to the name Disaster was an insult to his sensibilities. He would have fought to the death to defend Zondi’s right to the name, but it conjured up an African world that was too rural, too primitive for a man of his refinement.

“And how is the Cape?”

“Windy,” said Zondi.

Mathebula chuckled. “Yes, it can be. Now I understand that you have completed your task?”

“Well, not entirely.”

“But an arrest warrant has been issued for this Barnard?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“And you’ve made recommendations regarding the other policemen?”

“I have.”

“Then it’s time for you to return to home and hearth.”

“There are a couple of loose ends, sir, that I’d like to tie up.”

Mathebula dropped the avuncular tone. Under the genial exterior that he worked so hard to project, Zondi’s boss was a hard man. A killer. Zondi, of course, had compiled a dossier on his superior and knew that during the struggle years, when Mathebula had been a commander in the ANC’s armed wing, he had personally executed nine of his men whom he suspected of selling information to the apartheid government. No trial, just a bullet in the head and an unmarked grave in the Zambian veld.

“Zondi, I know of your history with this man, Barnard.”

“That is not influencing me.”

“We don’t do vendettas, Zondi. I have cut you some slack, but now I’m losing patience. My p.a. will liaise with you regarding your flight back to Johannesburg. I want you back in the office in the morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mathebula was gone. Zondi cursed quietly. He was passing the Ratanga Junction Theme Park and saw that one of the rides, the cobra, had stalled in midair, people dangling upside down while men in a cherry picker battled to get to them.

He knew how they felt.

His phone beeped as a text message came through. Zondi drove one-handed and sneaked a look at the message. He was flying out at 8:00 p.m. He had six hours to do what he needed to do.

Mathebula was right. It was a vendetta. He wanted to be there when Barnard was taken down, to bear witness. He didn’t yearn for the closure that the daytime TV shrinks peddled like twenty-first-century snake oil, the fuzzy notion that you faced up to things and then went on with your life. He wanted revenge. It was as simple as that.

He wanted blood.

Barnard shouldered his way through the crowd, deaf to the angry complaints thrown his way. Pounded his bulk up a flight of stairs and crossed an open plaza, his body as wet as if he’d walked through a car wash. He had avoided pay parking and left the Ford in a narrow road at the bottom of a ramp that led back to the city. He unzipped the duffel bag as he walked, just enough to glance inside. It was stuffed with notes. He felt like laughing. He sent a quick glance heavenward. Thank you, God.

He would get down on bended knee and offer a prayer of thanks as soon as he was safe.

Burn ran, dodging tourists. He lost sight of the watchman for a few seconds, then saw him heading up the stairs. There was no sign of Barnard. Burn hit the stairs, pumping his legs, racing to the top. He slowed when he hit the plaza above. The tourists were thinner on the ground here; he couldn’t risk being spotted.

He saw the watchman, using a minibus loaded with tourists for cover, walking toward the ramp that joined the main road into downtown Cape Town. Burn speed-dialed the phone he had given to the watchman.

Benny Mongrel shadowed the minibus, which crawled as a giant tour bus passed, waiting to swing out into a lane and accelerate. The phone in his pocket started to ring and vibrate. Benny Mongrel threw it into the gutter and walked on. The fat cop looked back, but he couldn’t see Benny Mongrel.

Then the cop ducked off the ramp and hauled his fat ass down a narrow flight of stairs that led to the road below. The road flanked a dry dock, and Benny Mongrel could see a group of Chinese sailors scraping and repairing their rusted trawler. One of them saw the cop’s man-breasts jiggling as he humped down the steps, and he said something to his friend and they stopped scraping and laughed. The cop didn’t notice. He was heading toward a brown Ford that was parked outside the old fish canning building.

Benny Mongrel knew he was going to be exposed on the stairs, but he had no choice. If he didn’t make his move now, the cop would be in the car and away. He hit the stairs at a run, two at a time.

The fat cop was at the rear of his car, popping the trunk, his sweating back to Benny Mongrel. He dropped the bag into the trunk, slammed it, and turned. And clocked Benny Mongrel, who was closing in fast. Surprise, astonishment even, crossed the cop’s face. He had to get both his fat and the T-shirt out of the way before he could draw the revolver at his hip, and that saved Benny Mongrel’s life.

Benny Mongrel closed the gap and kicked the fat cop in the balls while he was still trying to draw the gun. The cop made a sound like air escaping from a blimp and sagged but didn’t fall. Benny Mongrel kicked him again, in his ribs. And the cop was on his knees.

The Chinese sailors were chirping excitedly, hanging over the railing of the boat. It was better than a Jackie Chan movie. Benny Mongrel had the knife in his hand, and he flicked the blade open on the pocket of his jeans. The fat cop was looking up at him, gasping for air, stinking. Benny Mongrel held the blade so that it gleamed in the sunlight, grabbed the cop by his thatch of hair, and pulled his head back, exposing his throat.

Time to say goodnight.

Benny Mongrel felt the cold barrel of a gun shoved up against the back of his head. “Drop the knife,” said Burn.