The bookie called again the next day, and his easy manner was gone. He told Burn to meet him down in the casino parking lot that afternoon.
Vargas cruised up next to Burn in his Eldorado and asked him to step into his office. A man sat beside Vargas, a man Burn had never seen before. Burn slid into the backseat and Pepe pulled away. Vargas stopped the Cadillac near a diner, and with a brief, almost apologetic glance in the rearview mirror, he left the car.
The man in the front seat turned to Burn. He was quiet, self-contained, carrying with him an air of understated menace. “You can call me Nolan.”
“Why would I call you anything?” Burn was reaching for the door handle.
“Don’t get out, Jack.” The way the man used his name grated on Burn’s nerves.
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t want me coming to your house. Believe me.”
Burn stared at Nolan. “What do you want?”
“I’m going to do you a favor. The hundred grand you owe Pepe is going to go away.”
“How?”
“You’re going to do a job for me.”
“I don’t think so.” Burn opened the car door.
“If you leave this car, please understand that I will kill your wife and your son.”
Burn stared at him, half out of the car. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me. Now close the door and listen very carefully.”
Burn had closed the door. And it had begun. It had ended with a cop lying dead in the snow in Milwaukee and Burn and his family on the run.
Burn had got them to Cape Town and found them the house on the slopes of Signal Hill. They had more money than they would ever need. All they needed was a life. They were busy inventing one for themselves, day by day, when the brown men with the guns came in off the patio and sent it all to hell.
And now Susan was going to leave him.
As he slowed outside the house, Burn activated the garage door remote. He was nosing the Jeep inside when he noticed a police car parked behind the red BMW. A uniformed cop walked around the vehicle, speaking into his radio.
Burn drove into the garage, and the door dropped like a slow guillotine.
It was still light when Rudi Barnard pulled up behind the red BMW. There was no sign of the cop who found the car. Probably getting pissed in some Sea Point whorehouse. Suited Barnard fine.
Barnard sat in his car a moment, surveying the scene. This wasn’t his turf, this wealthy suburb clinging to the side of Signal Hill, with the sweeping view of Cape Town and the Waterfront below. And it sure as fuck wasn’t Ricardo Fortune’s. No, something was wrong here.
That morning Barnard had woken with a nameless sense of foreboding. He couldn’t shake the feeling that trouble was coming his way. So, on bended knee, Barnard had asked his God for reassurance. For protection. For a sign.
And like Moses, God had sent Rudi Barnard up the mountain.
Barnard heaved himself out of the car and crossed to the BMW. He peered inside, saw nothing out of the ordinary. He tried the doors. Locked. Then he lumbered around to the trunk and tried that. Also locked.
He lit a cigarette, checking out the surroundings, taking in the luxurious homes hidden behind high walls and gates. The street was quiet. Not even a pedestrian in sight. Not akehe Flats, which teemed with people hanging out on street corners, gangsters doing deals, kids playing soccer in the streets, neighbors hurling abuse at one another. Not here, in this sanctuary of privilege.
Barnard went back to his car and got a crowbar; then he attacked the trunk of the BMW. Under the Michelin man suit of fat was a lot of power, and within seconds he’d sprung the lid. No bodies inside. Nothing but a couple of empty beer bottles and a pile of rags.
He smashed the side window of the car, reached in a meaty arm, and unlocked the door. Wheezing, red in the face, he leaned into the car and checked behind the seats and in the glove box. Aside from a used condom, a couple of nipped joints, and a half-empty bottle of vodka, he found nothing of interest.
As he heaved himself upright and leaned against the car to get his breath back, he glimpsed a half-breed with a dog up on the building site, looking down at him.
When Benny Mongrel saw the fat man looking up at him, instinct told him to duck back out of sight. Even though the man was in an unmarked car and wore civilian clothes, Benny Mongrel knew instantly he was a cop. Just like he had known the other men were gangsters. That radar came standard when you lived the life he had.
“Hey!” He heard the cop shouting down in the street. He ignored him. Bessie growled a low growl. He quietened her with a pat. “Hey, up there, I’m fucken talking to you!”
Benny Mongrel knew it would be better to show himself. He stepped forward. The fat cop was standing with his hands on his hips, looking up.
“Come down here. I want to talk to you.”
Benny stared at the cop, saying nothing. The cop was getting impatient. “What, haven’t you got fucken ears? I said get your fucken ass down here. Now.”
Benny Mongrel let go of Bessie’s chain, took the knife from his pocket, and slid it under a cement bag. Better not to have it on him in case the boer searched him. Gut instinct told him not to take the old dog down there with him.
“Stay, Bessie,” he told her softly. She whined as he disappeared down the stairs but did as he ordered.
Benny Mongrel stepped out of the unfinished house and approached the fat cop. It was instinctive for him to hunch slightly as he walked, like a tire deflating, and he fixed a submissive look on his face. He deliberately didn’t look the cop in the eye.
“Evening, boss.”
“This car, when did you first see it?” The cop pointed to the red BMW.
“This morning, my boss.”
“Never saw these guys arrive?”
“No, my boss.”
“You fucken lying to me?”
“No, my boss.”
The fat cop was scanning Benny Mongrel professionally, taking in the scarred face and the tattoos. “When did you get out?”
“Pollsmoor?”
“Yes, my boss.”
“You a fucken 28?”
“No more, my boss.”
“Don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m clean, my boss.”
“My ass is clean. You see anything last night? This car?”
“No, my boss.”
“You fucken lying to me?”
“No, my boss.”
The cop hit him with an open hand, right across the face. It was like being struck by a speeding taxi. Benny Mongrel had to put a hand to the wall of the house to stop himself from falling.
The cop raised his hand again. “You better not fucken lie!”
It was then that Bessie, normally the most pathetically docile of creatures, dragged herself from the house. She threw herself at the fat cop, baring her teeth at him, growling.
The cop was wearing heavy boots, and he took his massive leg back and kicked her in the ribs. Benny Mongrel could hear the air explode from her lungs as she spun in the air, her teeth clacking as she hit the ground. Bessie lay there panting. The cop had a pistol in his hand, pointed straight at Bessie, his trigger finger tightening. Bessie lifted her head and showed him her teeth.
Benny Mongrel grabbed her chain, dragging her away from the fat cop. “Please, my boss, no. Please.”
The cop was panting like a midnight donkey, still pointing the gun at Bessie. He looked up at Benny Mongrel.
