cappuccino.
The colored waitress whipped the cup away from him. On her way back to the kitchen she paused to chat with another brown-skinned woman, who was mopping a table and setting salt and pepper shakers straight.
They spoke softly, in the local patois, but Zondi could hear them. And understand.
“Can’t he see we want to go?”
“Typical darky behavior. I’m sorry, but it is.”
“They behave as if they own the place.”
“But they do. Now.
“I know. It makes me sick.”
“I mean, did you hear on the radio this morning, they even saying that God is black.”
“No!”
“I’m telling you.”
“I’m sorry. I can deal with God being white. But not black. I can still work for a white boss!”
They laughed and walked to the back of the shop.
Zondi allowed himself a tight smile. His cell phone chirped. Bellwood South HQ.
Carmen Fortune put her lips to the globe and sucked hungrily. The glass burned her lips, but she didn’t feel the pain, too anxious to get the smoke into her lungs, desperate for the rush that followed like a train hurtling from a tunnel.
Sweet Jesus, her head felt like it was going to fragment into a million shards of bone and brain matter. She saw the tattooed hand, nails black with dirt, take the globe from her before she collapsed back onto the stinking mattress and closed her eyes. The rush passed, and she was left with the glow, the euphoria, the feeling of owning the whole fucken world.
She opened her eyes and smiled. Conway Paulsen squatted, watching her, a mushroom cloud of tik smoke exploding from his mouth. He returned the smile, exposing teeth blackened by years of abuse.
Carmen sat up, light-headed. She was in Conway’s zozo, a wooden hut built in the yard of his parents’ house. Conway, still in his teens, was a connection of Rikki’s, an American wannabe who was used as an errand boy but was never allowed the full initiation he dreamed of. He was simpleminded, the butt of endless mean-spirited jokes.
“So, you gonna tune Rikki. About me? That I wanna sell for him?”
“Ja. Soon as he get back from the west coast.”
“What he doing up there anyways? I hear some abalone deal with the Chinks?”
“Fuck, I dunno. Maybe.”
“Or, is it tik? Is he, like, supplying towns right up to Namibia?”
She shrugged. “You know Rikki.”
Conway laughed. “Ja, he’s big time.”
“Ja. He’s fucken big time, okay.”
Using the wall for support, Carmen pulled herself to her feet. She thanked Conway and went out into the night.
Carmen walked down Tulip Street, passing the rows of identical houses, stepping around potholes, heading toward her ghetto block. The heat was oppressive, and she felt as if she were being suffocated under a blanket of stale air. Snatches of Cape Flat’s life wafted out to her as she walked: shouts, curses, the low keening of a crying woman, a drunken man laughing.
A chopped-down Honda Civic, tuned loud, bumped down the road toward her, forcing her to give way. She saw the four boys inside, slumped low in the car, their eyes sliding across er as they passed, gangsta rap thudding in their wake.
Little fuckers.
Carmen walked faster. She passed three housewives gossiping on a corner, under a streetlight. Two of them had their hair in curlers; all three sucked on cigarettes like they were life support systems. Their eyes locked onto her.
Carmen pretended to ignore them, their whispers echoing after her like sticks dragged along a wooden fence. She heard tik whore and slut before she was out of range.
When she heard her name being called, she ignored it. More insults. Then she felt a tugging at her sleeve and found her hands in fists, ready to lash out. She turned and saw the wife of her useless brother.
“What you want?”
Carol was a runt of a girl who caught a fright at her own shadow. She let go of Carmen’s sleeve and stepped back. “It’s your father, Carmie.”
“I don’t got no father.”
“He’s very sick.”
Carmen stared at the girl. “Good. I hope that rotten thing dies.”
Carmen walked on. That was enough good news for one night.
Burn couldn’t lose.
No matter what he did, he kept on beating the dealer. He sat drinking Scotch at the blackjack table out at Grand West Casino, Cape Town’s answer to Vegas.
The dealer, who was sitting with a queen, dealt Burn a ten and a six.
Burn tapped his cards. “Hit me.”
There were mutters of disapproval from the others at the table. Fuck them. The dealer was looking at Burn inquiringly. “You heard what I said. Hit me.”
The dealer dealt him a five, then pulled a six for himself and then a ten. Too many.
The dealer shoved a stack of chips Burn’s way. Burn flicked a couple of chips back toward the dealer, who tapped them, then dropped them into a slot in the table.
Burn finished his drink and held up the empty glass to a passing waitress. What the hell, he could have one more.
He knew it was crazy to be here. Stupid. Reckless. Gambling had caused all the pain in his life. Got him running from a cop dead in the snow. His pregnant wife and his kid were about to be lost to him forever, and he was gambling again. Blotting out reality.
But he felt some of that old excitement, the thrill that gambling had always given him, like a shot of adrenaline straight into the heart. He loved it.
Even now.
The dealer dealt him a ten and a seven and pulled a king for himself.
The man next to Burn, a dark man with gold teeth, made his feelings clear. “Just, stick, okay?”
Burn ignored him, tapped his cards. “Hit me.”
The dealer gave him a bland look and dealt him a four. Twenty-one. Then the dealer went bust by pulling two picture cards.
Burn laughed out loud and reached for the Scotch that had appeared at his elbow.
He couldn’t lose.
CHAPTER 13
Disaster Zondi stared down at the charred bodies. The howling wind rattled the portable klieg lamps that beamed down a merciless glare, threatening to topple them even though they were weighted with sandbags. The yellow crime scene tape sang and flapped in the wind, and the technicians battled the dust as they worked.
The wind flung snatches of conversation Zondi’s way. The crime techs were wondering why the hell they had been called out for just another Cape Flats mess. Glances were shot in his direction, as if this had to be his doing.
Zondi tuned all this out, impassive, communing with the dead.
The small figure was definitely a child, and the mother swore blind that it was her son. In the morning they would run dental records, but Zondi didn’t doubt she was right. Mothers weren’t wrong about things like that.
