“I don’t have that kind of cash lying around.”
“Listen, Burn, fuck with me, and I start cutting off his fingers and stuffing them in your postbox. You get me?”
“I understand. Please, I’ll do as you say. Don’t hurt my son. I need to transfer money, from offshore. I’m going to need more time.”
“How much time?”
“Until the day after tomorrow.”
All Burn heard was the wheezing of breath. Then the man spoke. “Okay, but no longer than that. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Now, I know who you are. I know the U.S. Marshals want your ass. So you’re not going to do something fucken stupid now, are you? Like go to the cops?”
“No. I won’t do that.”
“Okay. Because if you do, I’ll kill your brat.”
“I give you my word.”
“Can I at least speak to my son?”
“Not now. Just get the money.”
And the man was gone. At least it was about money. Greed Burn could comprehend; it meant there was still a chance that he was going to get his son back alive.
Something about the voice reminded him of the fat cop. Barnard. It made sense, the man prowling around, showing them photographs. Maybe even lifting Susan’s fingerprint. Barnard was foul enough. But Burn couldn’t be sure. Still, he felt the urge to do something, to take action. Try to track the fat cop down. Find out if he had taken his son.
He calmed himself. Making those kind of moves would be the quickest way to get Matt killed. Tough as it was, he had to wait. Take it step by step.
Burn crossed the living room, trying not to look at Mrs. Dollie where she lay under a blanket. He went into the spare room, booted up his laptop, and accessed his anonymous Swiss bank account.
The kidnapper wanted one million in South African currency. That was about one hundred and fifty thousand U.S. dollars. Not a lot of money, but double what he had lying in the safe in the bedroom. He completed the transactions, transferring money into two different Cape Town banks. He would attract less attention that way. He logged off and stood up. He needed to do something about Mrs. Dollie.
For the second time that week, Burn had to get rid of the dead.
CHAPTER 19
Disaster Zondi battled his frustration. He prowled the cramped office at Bellwood South HQ, the strip lights buzzing like angry insects. The building was deserted, way after midnight.
The fat man, the very reason for him being in this bloody painted tart of a city, had disappeared. Rudi Barnard, previously so visible, so present with his fat and his stench, so much part of the corner of the Cape Flats he’d made his own, was nowhere to be seen. He never went back to his apartment. He made no contact with those of his informers who could be relied upon to cooperate with the police. Even the woman who supplied him with his junk food had noted with relief that she hadn’t seen him.
Gone.
Zondi, via Peterson whom he used like a glove puppet, had mobilized as much manpower as possible to scour the Flats for the rogue cop. They had come up empty.
Meanwhile Zondi’d had to distract himself by interviewing the other two bent cops on his list. They were nothing, small-time nobodies who had their hands in a few pockets. Run-of the-mill. Boring.
His prey was Barnard. And his prey had slipped off the radar.
He knew he had to be patient. Barnard was too used to writing his own rules; he would screw up, and then they would have him.
Zondi stood at the window staring out at the lights of distant Cape Town. He fought an urge to go out into the night and prowl for sex; the more alienated the encounter, the better. Zondi had never married and had no companion. He had become slful at fending off the sexual advances of the female hunter-gatherers of affluent black Johannesburg. So skillful, in fact, that many thought he was gay.
He wasn’t, but he did nothing to contradict the rumor.
Zondi had no use for the comedy of manners that a relationship, or even an affair, would demand. The mating dance, the shared intimacies, the endless conversations about careers and status and, God forbid, where the relationship was going. The idea of waking up with a woman in his bed, her body slack from sleep and sex, her expensive perfume mixing with other more pungent smells, frankly revolted him.
Zondi was a hit-and-run man. When he couldn’t suppress the urge any longer, when it became too insistent, he went on the hunt. A pickup in a bar, or even a street corner-he had no qualms about paying, liked it in fact-a quick and brutal coupling in the back of his car or an anonymous hotel room and then out of there. Back to his place for a shower, a thimbleful of Glenmorangie, and, with the smoky tang of the barley and the peat fire still on his palate, a peaceful sleep alone in his bed, his appetites satiated. For the moment.
But he had made a pact within himself before he left Johannesburg. No sex, no distractions, until his work in Cape Town was done.
He had to be disciplined.
His cell phone rang. It was the computer technician at the police lab. The man, an Afrikaner barely out of school, surprised Zondi with his efficiency. “Uh, Mr. Zondi, I’ve traced that IP address, via an ISP in the States.”
“In English, please.”
“Okay. I tracked back the Yahoo address to a person in the USA.”
“Yes. And?”
“He is a deputy U.S. marshal in…” The technician paused; Zondi could hear fingers tapping a keyboard. “In Arlington, Virginia.”
Now Zondi was interested. “How do you know that?”
“The IP address is registered to the U.S. Marshals’ headquarters.”
Zondi reached for his notepad. “You have the name of this marshal?”
“Torrance. Dexter Torrance.” The technician spelled it for Zondi.
Zondi thanked the technician and killed the call. All thoughts of his howling libido were gone as he sat down in front of Barnard’s laptop. It was in sleep mode, and he drew a fingertip across the touchpad, wiping his finger on his silk handkerchief in unconscious fear of contamination.
The image of the fingerprint faded up onto the screen. Why had Barnard sent it to a deputy U.S. marshal in the States? And who the hell did it belong to? The first question might take some time to answer. The answer to the second question was within his grasp.
His own slimline laptop chimed the arrival of an e-mail. It was from his commanding officer, Archibald Mathebula. His boss had called in a favor and acquired an encrypted password for Zondi, a password that allowed him to access the FBI fingerprint database.
Burn slowed the Jeep and eased it into a parking spot between streetlights. He switched off the interior light of the car before he opened the door. He stood a moment in the quiet street of houses much like the one he rented, watching and listening. It was after 2:00 a.m., and the world was asleep. Aside from a dog barking in the distance and a car whining up an incline blocks away, all was quiet.
Burn walked around the Jeep and came to a steep flight of steps that connected the road he was on to the one below. They were a feature of this suburb built on the precipitous slope. The steps were used by joggers and dog walkers and domestic workers taking a short cut down to High Level Road and the minibus taxis. They were also used by homeless people as a place to sleep. Burn walked halfway down the steps. He saw no dispossessed bundle of humanity.
