Mixed Blood by Roger Smith Page A

It’s all I’ve been thinking about.”
    “I meant what I said.”
    “I know you did. And I understand.” He had to get ahold of himself, force himself to keep it together. “All I’m asking for is some time. To organize myself.”
    “How much time?”
    “A couple of days. A week at the most. Until then, we need to keep up our usual routine.”
    She was looking at him, intuiting something. “What’s going on, Jack? What’s happened at the house?”
    “Nothing. Nothing’s happened.”
    “Don’t lie to me. Please.”
    He nodded. “Okay. Those … those men left a car in the street, outside the building site. It must have been reported. A cop was around asking some questions.”
    “Jesus, Jack.”
    “It’s fine. He went to every house in the street. It was just routine.”
    She was shaking her head. “So he’s watching the house?”
    “No, I haven’t seen him again. I told you, it was just routine.”
    Susan turned slightly to face him, her eyes searching his face. “Three days, Jack. Three days, and then I’m contacting the consulate. Are we clear on that?”
    “Yes.” He started the car and pulled back onto the road.
    His wife had become his enemy.

    Berenice September carried shopping bags into her small house. She worked as a cashier at Shoprite, and she’d used her staff discount to buy supplies for herself and her three kids. Like many women on the Flats, she was a single parent. Her useless bastard of a husband had left her for a young slut and then got thrown under the wheels of the Elsies River train.
    Good riddance.
    Her eldest boy, Donovan, was doing fine. He had a job and brought some money into the house, and her daughter, Juanita, was too young to be any trouble. But it was her middle one, Ronnie, who reminded her of her late ex-husband. He had that same fuck you attitude. She would have to watch him.
    Ronnie came slouching in while she was preparing supper, heading straight to the room he shared with his brother. She yelled after him. “Hey, come here.”
    He hovered in the kitchen doorway. “Ja?”
    “What time is this?”
    He could never resist consulting the huge Batman watch on his skinny wrist. It was a Hong Kong rip-off but still his most treasured possession. “It’s ten past five.”
    “I know the bloody time, Ronnie. I mean why you so late?”
    “I had sports.”
    “You got homework?”
    “Ja, I’m gonna go do it.”
    It was then that she saw his shoes. He saw where she was looking and stepped back out of the doorway. Berenice was a big woman, but she could move rapidly when she wanted to. She grabbed her son by the arm and pulled him into the kitchen.
    “Where did you get those shoes?”
    He tried to pull free of her grip. “I bought them.”
    “With what? You little liar! Did you steal them?”
    He shook his head. She grabbed him by the throat and pulled him to her. “Tell me the truth before I smack it out of you!”
    Ronnie knew his mother never made idle threats. “Can I keep them if I tell you?”
    “Just tell me, and I decide, okay?”
    “I took it off a dead guy.”
    She let him go, recoiled in horror. Berenice September lived in superstitious dread of those who had passed on.
    She shook her head at her son. What kind of a monster had she brought into this world? Why couldn’t he steal off somebody who was alive like any normal bloody person?

    Benny Mongrel arrived for his shift intentionally early. Patrol cars zoomed in and out, armed response patrolmen swaggered around with their Kevlar vests and their Ray-Bans and their pistols on their hips. They were the movie stars of the security world.
    Benny Mongrel was a bottom feeder. Nobody noticed him.
    He knew that Ishmael Isaacs wasn’t there. He’d made a big show of telling them that he was taking a course for the day, at the head office in Parow. Hinted that he was up for promotion.
    Benny Mongrel paused for a moment, realizing that what he was about to do wouldn’t make him popular with Isaacs,