Killer Country by Mike Nicol

of Pollsmoor Prison. You ever been there?’
    ‘Come on,’ said Mace. ‘We’ve got clients staying there right now. Maybe you’re letting the land deal thing take up too much time.’
    ‘That a criticism?’
    ‘Hardly. I’m looking at it as a life raft.’
    Pylon squinted at him. ‘It can be.’
    ‘Except I’ve got no cash. Except for Cayman.’
    ‘How about this?’ said Pylon. ‘I’ll back you five hundred K.’
    ‘Against what security?’
    ‘Cayman.’
    Mace thought about it. ‘Why not? Or diamonds. I’ve still got diamonds.’ Two, three hundred thousands worth in a safe-deposit box stashed from the Angolan gun run.
    ‘Whatever.’
    ‘One catch: Oumou.’
    ‘No problem. You tell her I’m shifting it sideways to you, at ten per cent when the profit’s totalled. Save me Jesus, what could be easier?’
    Mace said, ‘I’ll run it past her.’
    ‘Why not? Hey’ – he leaned towards Mace – ‘this afternoon I’m seeing the Smits, you know, the whiteys holding out for a stake of the action. I come to a deal with them, some mutual arrangement and we’re home. Everything’s sweet. On Monday you fly in our man Klett and the scheme’s a done deal. Obed Chocho’s left weeping in the dust.’ 
    ‘We hope,’ said Mace. ‘Right now what we got to talk about is a judge called Telman Visser.’
    ‘I know that name,’ said Pylon.
    ‘Sure. What he wants is farm security for his parents.’
    ‘We don’t do that.’
    ‘I told him.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘So he wants an assessment.’
    ‘Where’s this?’
    ‘Hell knows. Out there.’ Mace waved behind his back. ‘Takes six, seven hours to drive. I told him, okay, normal fee I’d do it. He says best to fly in.’
    ‘At his cost.’
    ‘Of course. Rather I’m thinking of heading out next weekend with Christa. Give the kid a joyride.’
    ‘I got it.’ Pylon clicked his fingers. ‘He’s the judge sentenced Obed Chocho.’
    ‘Physically challenged guy in a zooty wheelchair?’
    ‘Don’t know that. I remember he handed down six years, knocked the breath out of comrade OC.’
    ‘What, knowing he’d only sit a tenth of that?’
    ‘Having to sit at all. Com Chocho couldn’t figure out why fraud was a problem. Com Chocho reckons he personally’s owed big time for the suffering of two centuries of colonialism and apartheid.’ Pylon finished his Dom Pedro. ‘A judge puts away such a nice man can’t be all bad.’

14
     
     
    Spitz smoked a menthol every forty-five minutes, crushed out the butt in the ashtray, took a drink from his bottle of mineral water. The mineral water in a holder over the air-con vent kept nice and cool. Tindersticks crooning their deadly anthems in his ears had  chilled his anger at the long drive. The moment would come he could reclaim on this waste of his time.
    He relaxed, let the empty scrub roll by, wondering at the ruined homesteads scattered on the plains, the stone blockhouses at river crossings. Mostly the only living movement was sheep.
    For an hour he watched mountains come closer: turning from blue to brown. How people lived with this vastness he couldn’t imagine? By the look of them, the few they passed walking from nowhere to nowhere, the space had shrivelled them. Small and wrinkled people, had to be Bushmen he believed. Or their remnants.
    Manga drank Coke, the empty cans rolling about in the well behind his seat. He wasn’t freaked about the driving, actually enjoyed the easy speed of the G-string. A Subaru would’ve been better, more fun, but this was okay, he was happy on the road.
    He called a few friends, spent maybe an hour talking till the cellphone battery beeped its death throes. He plugged the phone into a recharger, turned his attention to the shimmering land.
    He’d driven this distance about five or six times, the last northwards from a heist in Cape Town. Four of them in the car hyped on adrenaline, dagga, pills, and quarts of beer. A million in the boot. Their driving all over the