Max Annas - The Wall

She had three options.

She could notify someone in The Pines. There was a caretaker there, a man who ran around in shorts even in the winter.

Warren had said, “Call him if there are any minor problems.”

“What counts as minor problems?” she’d asked.

“If someone’s hanging around, or something looks funny.”

For bigger problems, she was supposed to notify Central Alert. That was the company she worked for. The only reason she was sitting in this room was because the company for which Warren was head of security had a contract with Central Alert.

“What are bigger problems?” Happiness had asked.

“When you see a tsotsi,” Warren had said. “Or when you see someone who doesn’t belong there.”

But who didn’t belong there? Warren’s answer to this question would be different than hers, that much she knew. And the young van Lange, her Central Alert supervisor, had instructed her to not notify their people about every little thing. “If you think the caretaker can take care of the problem, give him a call.”

And then, there were the real problems. In those cases, she should call the police. When an actual crime took place, like if she saw someone break into a house. When that happened, though, there were two other problems. If someone actually broke in somewhere, then that meant she had overlooked something earlier. And most of the time, the police didn’t show up anyway.

What should she do about the boy? Happiness was so tired. And it was only a little after one. Still almost five hours until the end of her shift.

The second bedroom wasn’t very big. One bed, barely large enough for two, with the headboard against the wall. Across from it, a built-in wardrobe in pale wood. A nightstand between the bed and window, a table and two chairs in the corner, near the door in which Thembinkosi was standing. Blue carpet. Cheap furnishings.

Nothing indicated that this room had been recently used. Except for the keyring sitting on the bed.

“Hey,” he heard Nozipho call. “Look at this.”

He glanced up from where he stood. Nozipho was standing there, clutching a bundle of money. She was having trouble not dropping the bills on the floor. A few of them had already slipped through her fingers. Thembinkosi liked what he saw.

“It’s kinda strange,” Nozipho declared as she opened the briefcase and stuffed the bills into it. “Who leaves this kind of cash just sitting around? I mean… so much of it.” She walked back into the kitchen. “It was stuck in one of the drawers,” she added.

Nozipho was right. Who used cash these days? Who paid with anything but a card at this point? Except for them, but they had a reason for it: they were stealing it. Thembinkosi didn’t really want to answer these questions right now.

“We need to hurry,” he said as he returned to the small bedroom. Out the window, he saw someone jog past. Pretty fast at that. A young black man.

What he’d just seen didn’t really count as jogging, Thembinkosi thought. The boy was running away from something.

An older white man now came running after him. Okay. Not from something. From him.

Stress , Thembinkosi thought. Stress wasn’t good in their line of work.

He turned back to the room and looked around one last time. If the money had been kept somewhere as open as a kitchen drawer, then he might not need to waste time on the usual hiding spots. Not to speak of the unusual ones. However, he wanted to look anyway.

As he stepped toward the wardrobe, he noticed a small suitcase that had been shoved under the bed. He pulled it out and unzipped it. Jeans, t-shirt, a red dress. No modellike measurements, nothing all that modern. Also, women’s underthings, nothing very sexy. A cosmetics bag. A guest, no longer young. At least fifty, he guessed. Probably older.

The wardrobe was completely empty. A thin layer of dust lay on the boards and the hangers. He rapped briefly on the inside walls. Nothing. Went through the room one more time. Ran his hand under the tabletop, without much hope of finding anything concealed there. His thoughts darted back to the little guest room in the house in Gonubie, where they had been last year. Carelessly stored boxes and a few tattered pillows sitting on top of them. Carefully orchestrated disorder. It was the pillows that had tipped him off. He’d immediately sensed that there was something worth getting there. And he’d been right. The family jewelry had been hidden in an old stuffed animal, a hippo. Not much, but valuable items, including two diamond rings. The stuff here was different. He shut the door behind him as he returned to the hallway.

Moses ran along the wall, behind which he heard the splashing of the Nahoon. And random voices. I’d give anything to be on the other side of the wall , he thought. The voices were behind him, too. That had to be the referee and the fake security guy.

Moses had the greatest respect for them. He’d seen enough white losers take their frustration out on the homeless or shoplifters. He paused and looked back. They were still there. He was faster than both of them. That was his advantage. Theirs was that they knew this neighborhood. And there were two of them.

Although … he thought. They hadn’t exactly exploited this advantage, otherwise they wouldn’t just be chasing him together. Moses curved back to the street which ran a few more meters parallel to the wall and then doubled-back in the direction he’d just run from. He could still hear the voices of the two whites in the distance. He assumed the exterior gate should have a light sensor that would automatically open it if anyone got close. So, get out, that and only that. And then disappear. His car was locked. Main goal—to get out of here and find safety.

He was just passing the street where he’d caught sight of the camera when he noticed a car driving toward him. He was still far away from it, but he could tell that it belonged to a security company. Blue and silver. Moses spun around and sprinted down the street with the camera. The gardener was standing with his back toward him and was still—or once again—mowing the lawn. As he dashed by him, he turned around, and for a quick moment, their eyes met.

What was that? Did the gardener want to tell him something? Moses didn’t have time. He ran around the next corner, caught sight of a house with lowered sliding shutters, and headed toward it. A large garbage can sat between the wall along the property boundary and the house. He hid behind it.

Thembinkosi was standing in the larger bedroom, looking around. He lacked ideas, inspiration. He opened a drawer in the wardrobe. Women’s underwear. Ran his fingers through the small pile. Dull, also dull. Hmm… Again, dull. And, oh… sexy. Black and pink stripes. He imagined the slip on Nozipho, and then, him taking it off of her. He stuck the lingerie in his jacket. He had no idea if his wife would actually wear a used slip, but it was definitely hot.

The next drawer held menus. The one on top seemed familiar to him. A restaurant chain that had a branch in East London. He’d eaten there once. Then, a few others he’d never heard of before. Another one whose logo seemed familiar to him. Why did people take restaurant menus home with them?

The large bedroom made a very different impression than the small one. It was stuffed with an oversized bed, two nightstands, a mirrored dresser with a marble top, and three chairs from a suite of furniture whose other pieces had to be stored somewhere else. The coverlet was turquoise. A red runner stretched across the blue carpet. How could you live with all this?

Thembinkosi lifted the mattress and ran his hand underneath it. Raised it a little more and took a look as well. Nothing. He opened the cosmetics packages in the dresser. Two shirts still sealed in their original plastic bags sat in the wardrobe. He checked these out, too. He then left the bedroom and went to the kitchen.