and then related his discoveries from the time of seeing Yankee Boy Msomi at the railway station. That gave them a great deal to discuss.
“Okay, so I’m biased,” Kramer said eventually, “but all this explains is why they didn’t go for big-money places. It wasn’t the till they were interested in-that was just a cover-up.”
“It also explains why the people say they see nothing. If they hear that Chainpuller is listening, then we stand no chance.”
“That’s the part that contradicts, Zondi. All these years I’ve been hearing how Chainpuller can knock the ding-dongs off a bloke at forty yards by just scratching on the wall-and now suddenly he needs gangsters, guns, cars. Why?”
“I have another thought: maybe this gang is using Chain-puller, boss.”
“Hey, just wait. Another part that contradicts is that at Lucky’s place you told me the minister was a good bugger. Would he believe all this crap about wizards, too?”
Zondi shrugged as if religion and superstition had never been separate in his view.
“But you were saying…?”
“Yes, boss, it is the way the money’s paid. One of these skabengas could hide there in the grass and catch the tins that are thrown. That’s how I mean by using Chainpuller.”
Kramer smiled and said, “I take my hat off to them, then- at least they can’t be so poop-scared of him!”
Which was another point that Zondi had evidently not considered, and so they went back to the first theory again.
Until Kramer brought the Chev to a halt, made a U-turn on the Kwela Village road, and started back the other way.
“So we go to find the guy who came in the shop,” Zondi said with satisfaction. “Beebop will talk to you, boss-you know his type.”
“I’m not sodding round when I can go to the top,” Kramer replied. “That bastard Chainpuller has had things his way for too bloody long.”
And not without reason, suggested the silence at his side.
The rain began again, softly. Freckling over the windshield and then making Marais switch on the wipers.
He leaned forward to see better, cursing the sting of his eyes, and regretting having accepted that drink from Littlemore. Scotch gave him heartburn.
The street was oily with colors from the shopwindows and illuminated signs on either side of it. Cars cruised slowly, looking for parking places, and sodding well getting in his way. The route he had chosen was the shortest between the garage and the CID building, but perhaps it might have been quicker to go a longer way round.
One sign, he noted, was out. Nobody was being enticed up the alley to Wiggle at the Wigwam. Tonite.
“ Ach, ja,” Marais said to himself. He had known there was method in his madness: he’d promised Gardiner to check by on the way back, mainly so they could have a drink together.
Driving much more slowly, he passed the entrance to the alley and saw a group of people standing there. That was odd. Mrs. Stevenson had surely thought to cancel any reservations, and he himself had pinned up a CLOSED sign on the door.
Ghouls! The boss had left strict instructions about how they were to be treated.
Marais left his car double-parked with the flasher going, and sprinted across.
“Okay, what’s going on here?” he demanded.
Indians all dressed up in bow ties and mackintoshes turned in alarm at the sound of the familiar phrase, making him blink disbelief until he identified them as waiters. Then a short white man in a ginger beard and wearing a sheepskin jacket came from the back of them.
“That’s what we want to know!”
“Who are you?”
“Could ask the same!”
“Police, so watch it. What’s the problem?”
“We turn up for work and sign says the joint’s closed. Nobody told us. Why and for how long? We’ve-”
“Owner’s under arrest,” said Marais.
The man grinned and said, “Hear that, boys? What did I tell you?”
The Indians smiled.
“You told them what?”
“Monty definitely had a finger in that pie,” the man replied, smirking at his witticism.
“You’d say-”
“Man, what are you? Security Branch? I’m not giving away secrets-everyone knows what a two-faced bastard he is!”
Everybody then decided to leave the pair of them alone.
“Give my love to Minnehaha!” the man called after them, and this time got his laugh. From a safe distance.
“Monty’s squaw,” the man explained. “Him we call Big Chief Running Guts-or Hiya Sexy! Depends.”
“You’re the funny man in the show?”
“Me? I’m the tickler. Pianist. Y’know. Drums and sax were here, but they’ve gone over the road to get pissed.”
“Name?”
“Bix Johnson. And you?”
“Marais, CID.”
“I’m BA.”
“Hey?”
The street, it seemed, was no place to hold an intelligent conversation.
“Are you prepared to assist in some inquiries? If you’re not, then I’ll want to know why and I’ll-”
“How much do you pay?”
“Who?”
“You know something? You’re terrific! Unreal! Oi, oi, oi. For you, I do dis for nuttin.”
“What?”
“You ask, I’ll tell. Easy as that. Where’s your motor? What do you say-can we make a move, Captain?”
They made a move. And then they made surprisingly good friends. Bix Johnson had a way with him that gave Marais an entirely new lease of energy.
He also gave him some information that had Marais on the radio, calling urgently for Lieutenant Kramer.
But answer came there none.
7
They made a startling sound in the dead of night. Within seconds the caretaker was out in the hall with a gun shaking in his hand.
Then, when he saw the empty milk bottles rolling about, and who had knocked them over, he quickly lowered the revolver before there could be an accident.
“Heaven’s sakes, laddie, but you gave me a terrible turn!” he said.
Kramer admired the old bugger’s courage and alertness, but wondered if he hadn’t been drinking-then saw his teeth were missing.
“ Ach, sorry, Mr. McKay. I was backing up and I didn’t notice them by the door.”
“Your boy should have warned you,” McKay said, just to show there were no hard feelings. “Still at it, then? Thought you’d finished before lunch.”
And he nodded at the burden Kramer and Zondi were carrying between them, peering short-sightedly in an effort to make out what was wrapped inside the car tarpaulin.
“Some bits of carpet from upstairs that didn’t suit the new place, so she thought the new tenants might like
