tricks. Like remaining smoothed over her without being held, solely by virtue of the static charge in the nylon, until a bounce too many brought it slithering down. To be caught at waist level and gradually gathered on either side into an ever-narrowing belt of lilac that sawed back and forth, lower and lower, becoming more opaque and yet less of a garment.
Three left… three right…
Up from some cerebral basement came strains of a boozy band steaming into a strutting number just made for the routine. The throbbing entered her and began to set its own pace, always progressively faster, although pausing intermittently to tease with a twang of silence before the downbeat. She abandoned herself to it. She was lifted to her toes and the petticoat fell away forgotten.
Lisbet was aware of only one thing: a sense of wonder as she looked into the mirror and realized That’s me.
Bump-bump!
God, yes, and she would share this discovery with the next man of her choice; an older man, a proper man who would rejoice with her-not shrink back startled and fearful of Sin.
Crash.
Her foot had snagged the cord to the table lamp. It lay on the floor with its china base shattered and its shade off but still working. The harsh light, striking upward, made her recoil.
Or rather the exaggerated shadows did, for they were vindictive in their illusion of aging; drawing muscle, sinew, and knobs of bone to the surface, while molding the swell of the stomach into a potbelly beneath the hollowed rib cage.
She barely recognized the face with its jutting chin, high cheekbones, and-
In that instant, Lisbet knew whose hard blue eyes had stared from the reflection all along, considering her body from every angle. They were his.
“I won’t change,” she whispered. “I’ll never change as much as this. Some people don’t.”
Knowing a lot about bodies, the eyes stayed steady.
Zondi wound up his gramophone and was reaching for the “Golden City Blues” when the twins came pelting in, shrieking something unintelligible. Miriam gave them a clout apiece and they calmed down enough to pant in unison, “Uncle Argyle is getting killed!”
Their father ran straight out into the night in his shirt and underpants without pausing to as much as slip on his shoes. There were no street lights so he had to rely on sound to indicate where the trouble was. That was easy, however, as short, weak blasts on a police whistle were coming from the next street.
He sprinted around the corner and found a crowd jibbering in high excitement outside the home of Nursing Sister Gertrude Dhalmini, an expensive whore when she was not on duty at the clinic advising on birth control.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
Everyone wanted to tell him, but by beginning at the beginning. He listened only for as long as it took him to push his way through. Even so, they conveyed a great deal.
Apparently Sister Gertrude had been entertaining an enormous witch doctor of incredible wealth-that was where his Lincoln had been parked-and unbridled savagery. All had been perfectly amicable until he had removed the trousers of his tweed suit, whereupon Sister Gertrude’s training alerted her to a definite public health hazard. She told him this and refused to run the risk of infection. Out of personal or professional pique, nobody was quite sure which, he had then beaten her brutally before leaving. Sister Gertrude, whose job gave her an extension line, rang the check-out gate and had him arrested for assault. She was just telling her neighbors about all this when the witch doctor returned on foot-having escaped custody with the declared intention of dissecting her. The neighbors had scattered. Argyle Mslope had gone in alone.
The whistling had stopped.
Zondi approached the door with one slight advantage: every house in Kwela Village was identical so he knew it would open into the living room and the bedroom would be to his left. The very nature of the case suggested he would find her-and the others-in the latter. He found her in both. The witch doctor had been as good as his word.
And was about to behead the reeling figure of Argyle with the same ax when Zondi leaped upon him from behind, clamping an elbow around the massive, fat neck. He could hardly encompass it.
Like a cheetah on the back of a maddened buffalo, Zondi realized that he had bitten into a lot more than he could chew. With a toss of his horned headdress, the witch doctor broke into a short charge, spun round, slammed backwards into the concrete-block wall.
Zondi collapsed with the breath knocked from him. He saw the ankles start to turn and grabbed them, leaping to his own feet and heaving. The witch doctor sprawled, letting the ax fly out through a window. A roar of delight came from outside.
Argyle blew his whistle and fell over a chair, dazed, bleeding badly. His spear was nowhere to be seen.
The quick glance around cost Zondi dearly. The witch doctor brought him down with a kick from the floor to the groin. Then tried to bite his nose off-the foul spittle pouring into Zondi’s own gasping mouth as he held him up and away.
Zondi was fighting for his life. It was not the first time, so he knew what to do. The problem was finding the right opportunity.
The prospect of which diminished almost entirely when the witch doctor relaxed his enormous weight, pinning him down as effectively as a pile of cement bags, and shifted his grip to the throat.
In a pink blaze of light Zondi saw-or thought he saw-the lieutenant enter the room.
“Shoot!” he gurgled.
But what made him uncertain was the fact that the ghostly blond figure failed to fire the gun in its hand. Instead it disappeared into the bedroom.
“Die, die, die!” the witch doctor bellowed, oblivious to any further intrusion.
This, too, led Zondi to believe he was going faster than he supposed. The pain was excruciating. He was no longer able to squeeze back. A wave of nausea swept up him and, finding the way blocked, spilled into his lungs. They tried to burst. His brain burst instead and everything went black.
For a very long moment, in the middle of which he heard the most terrible scream and wondered how he had managed it, he counted his children.
Then he sat up and was sick. He was alive and the witch doctor was dying.
That was all he needed to know until he ceased retching. And then he took a proper look.
The beast’s massive body lay on its side in a heap, heaving in spasm, with its tail sticking out straight. Not a tail at all, but the shaft of Argyle’s spear. And holding the end of it, Argyle himself, out cold.
Kramer preferred to sit outside in the Chev, so Miriam brought his tea out using her washboard for a tray, disguising it with a dishcloth.
“Pity I missed the fun,” he said to Zondi, raising his cup in salute. “Might have evened up our score a little. I still owe you for that time at the brickworks-that bugger with a knife in his bike pump.”
“So the score isn’t even, boss?” Zondi asked with a slight smile.
“No, man, and I’m glad it wasn’t this time. If I’d got mixed up in that business it would have been statements and inquests and all that rubbish right in the middle of this other job.”
“Argyle Mslope is a brave man to go on fighting with such wounds.”
“You’ve said it. A brave man to go in there in the first place.”
“I spoke with the doctor, boss.”
“Oh, yes?”
“He said he did not know how Argyle could do such a thing.”
“I don’t think that’s a problem. The bastard had his bum stuck in the air-must’ve done. Easy enough target even if you are half out.”
“Because, boss, Argyle’s right hand was nearly cut off already.”
“ Ach, no! I didn’t notice. So much blood about. Did the doctor say what his chances are?”
“Not very good.”
“Of course this will make sure his widow gets a proper pension-in the line of duty as they say.”
Zondi sipped his tea slowly.
“What are you thinking?” Kramer asked.
