Roadkill, page 8
Meissner sipped his sherry. “All quite fascinating, Mr Abrahams. I’ve told the wife for years it’s not about how many channels you have on the TV, or the fancy soaps and lotions next to the bath, or the extra blankets on the bed, or … or fancy cups and plates, or rubbish like that. What you’re telling me is that people are looking for a unique experience. Something they don’t get at home. Not so?”
“Exactly,” said Cliffie, monitoring the flushed face opposite, the darting tongue. He had to be careful with this one.
“Where did you say you broke down?”
Cliffie wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ag, must be about sixty kays from here. The worst part, because of the stress and all, I went and forgot my briefcase in the boot. Can you believe that?”
“It could happen to anyone. Where’s the car now?”
“My company has already organised with Avis in Joburg to fetch it and bring me a new one.”
“All the way from Johannesburg?”
“They must do what they must do.” With the whisky working its magic, Cliffie felt back on solid ground. “We don’t mess around. They’ll send a helicopter if I tell them to.”
“They would do that for you? I’m impressed.”
Cliffie drained the dregs. “Oh, ja. Not that they’ll do it this time, but it happens quite often. It all depends on … what we call access.” As per Cliffie’s God-given talent for making connections where no logical connections previously existed, the TV series Skattejag floated into mental view. “Once I was working in the Alps mountains, hunting for something unique for a rich client of ours—”
“Like ski lodges and things?”
“Exactly. Ski lodges and things. Huge demand. Anyways, there was an avalanche higher up. Not a huge one, but we were trapped at our lodge because the roads below were covered over. I lie to you not, less than two hours later I hear the company chopper coming over the mountain. Even I was impressed.”
Meissner jammed his tongue into the bottom of the sherry glass. “Incredible. We need to talk more, my friend, because I’ve got some big ideas for this place that I’d like to squeeze your brain over.”
Seizing the moment – like Norm would have said, it was all in the timing – Cliffie placed his glass on the counter and stood up. “Anytime, sir, but looks like I better start making a move—”
“Where do you think you’re going this time of the night?”
Cliffie flashed his worried look. “Isn’t there a hotel or something close by?”
“This is it, my friend. Which means you are our guest until your replacement car arrives.”
Cliffie flashed another worried look. “But what about payment? I saw on the board outside—”
Meissner sneered. “What board? You can settle up when you get your wallet. How’s that sound?”
“I don’t know what to say—”
“Don’t look so surprised. You’re about to experience Austro-African hospitality at its best,” gloated Meissner.
“What can I say, sir? I am grateful. And I am humbled.” Cliffie scratched around in his head for something to add. Something to seal the deal. “I don’t know why, but I’ve got this funny feeling you and me are going to do some good business together.”
Otto Meissner reached over the bar and pumped Cliffie’s hand. “I think so too, my friend.”
Day 2
20
Steve Aldridge jolted awake to barking outside the window and a fly circling above his head. A blade of light cut through the rip in the curtain. He eyed the Casio G-Shock on the bedside table: five thirty-five. His wife was sprawled across the other single bed. Her arm flopped loosely over the side. Piglet-on-teat sounds gurgled from her open mouth.
Corkscrewing painfully onto his back, Aldridge contemplated the brown stain on the ceiling – all he saw in it was dried blood at a grisly murder scene. He pulled the pillow over his face, with little effect – the recent events still came at him like ravenous sewer rats.
Aldridge faced his first crossroad of the day: Do nothing and enjoy a nervous breakdown, or, execute … go along with Tarryn’s grand plan. She had it all worked out. One: take the car in first thing and get the radiator fixed or welded, “or whatever”; it only had to get them to Kruger. Two: offload him somewhere – in the veld, “or wherever” – on their way to Kruger. Three: continue as per normal with their holiday, so that people wouldn’t get suspicious.
According to the plan, by midday there would be two hundred kays between them and the nightmare. By evening they would be sitting around the fire enjoying sundowners and snacks. By the next morning they would start forgetting. That’s what humans did – they forgot. By the time they got back to Sasolburg, life would have returned to normal, as if nothing had ever happened.
With something to hold onto, Aldridge lapsed into a calm stupor. The fly had shifted its focus to Tarryn. With detached interest, he watched it settle on her face and hop across to the wet patch at the corner of her mouth. An arm came up and swatted the air. The fly circled back and settled on her chin.
He sat up and studied the pair of white feet on the salt-and-pepper carpet; they seemed oddly disconnected from his body. His gut felt heavy under his T-shirt. His neck and shoulders ached. It was time to kick into action.
Careful not to wake the sleeping tiger, Aldridge gathered up his clothes from the floor and dressed quietly. He dug his Rockies from under the bed and tiptoed to the door. He unlocked it and stepped into the day.
The sweet smell of Epol hovered on the morning air, punctuated by a trail of fresh chocolate turd clusters on the cement path. Navigating the minefield, Aldridge made his way along the side of the house. An open sliding door lay to the front of him. Short machine gun bursts of what sounded like German combined with English punctured the drawn curtain. Keeping his head low, Aldridge slunk past.
Peering around the corner, he scanned for Adolf’s whereabouts. With the coast clear, he proceeded cautiously down the driveway. More than anything he needed to get out into the open and clear his head. Regroup. Get perspective. Focus on getting the job done. There was something to be taken from this whole thing. A life lesson. It wasn’t like it looked on the surface; you always had choices. Reality was all in the mind.
The early morning sun on his face, and Adolf nowhere in sight, Aldridge felt a flutter of renewed hope. From now on he would focus on what mattered in life. His career. His relationship. His health. He would rejoin the gym, lose a couple of kilos, muscle up on those Verimark protein shakes, start jogging before work. He would sign up for Dale Carnegie Advanced: Mastering Your Destiny in this Life and the Next. “Bootcamp for the soul” was how the brochure described it. He would—
He had come face to face with a heavy-duty chain with Viro lock and a fence designed to keep in game of the long-horned variety. He looked up, played out the scenario, and decided against it – it wasn’t called razor wire for nothing. He pushed against the gate and his rising desperation; neither budged. He stared through the mesh. His Fortuner and his Jurgens and what remained of his freedom beckoned from under the blue gum trees.
Aldridge squinted into the sun … and pushed the thought from his mind. Even a school kid knew shadow and light combined to create weird effects. Even so … Again, he dismissed the thought. His mouth now inexplicably dry, his heart pumping in his throat, he walked along the fence line, stopped, glanced back. It couldn’t be. Or could it? Shadow or no shadow, it was staring him in the face – the caravan door, hanging wide open for all the world to see.
21
Clinton Truter stood up in the bath and pulled the window shut; the brats from number 12 were messing big time with his mojo. Settling back in the water, he picked up where he’d left off – giving it to Deidre the waitress on his kitchen floor. Until a few seconds ago, she’d been loving it: wet as a spons and begging for more.
Truter hit the Rewind on the mental tape, back to where he had offered to give her a lift home after her shift at EXAS GRILL. The van wasn’t even out the carpark and she was telling him straight out that she wanted him bad – she knew it from the moment she saw him. And what with her own messy divorce, she wasn’t into the romantic wining-and-dining thing; all she wanted was hot Grade A beef. Which suited him just fine. He also didn’t have time for complication.
Doing his best to ignore the snivelling outside his bathroom window, Truter upped the tempo. He had Deirdre moaning on the linoleum, her brown hair splayed in a fan. He could see himself reflected in the oven door, giving it to her hard. No ways she was faking the moaning like Sharon used to do; this one knew SAB quality when she got it. He was doing his best to satisfy, but what with his sore knee, the caretaker and Mrs Jacobs from 205 now having a fat chinwag in the passage, and the thing with Ferreira and Dippenaar still fresh on his mind, Truter was taking strain. Worst of all, he’d hit a nail on the road and was running soft. With time against him, he pressed down hard on the clutch and switched gear, giving it to Deidre on a blanket in the back of the police van. But even that wasn’t working.
Conceding defeat, Truter pulled the plug and climbed out the bath and dried himself off. He walked through to the sitting room and turned up the TV. For a while now, he’d been wanting to phone in for one of those black blow-up mattress deals. He could see Deidre sliding around on one, smeared in baby oil, and for a moment contemplated getting it up again for her and her nympho cousin. But the day was ticking, and what with Ferreira and Dippenaar chewing on his brain, he was no longer in the mood.
Truter walked over to the laundry basket and scratched around for a pair of jocks with another day or two left in them. He pulled them on and headed into the kitchen, where his T-bone takeaway was waiting in the microwave. Turning the dial to Turbo, he stared absently at the meat revolving slowly under the yellow light, his head back at that night with Jakkals and the others on the Farm.
22
“More coffee, sir?”
The sales rep held out his cup. “Thanks, my friend.”
“Hundred per cent Nescafe Gold is what you’re drinking there.” Otto Meissner hooked a thumb in the direction of the couple in the corner. “Not the overrated stuff these city slickers pay big bucks for. Cappuccino, Frappuccino, café latte … Suzy, what they call that biscuit they serve with it?”
“Biscotti.”
“Yes, biscotti. They give you this tiny biscotti biscuit, some shaving cream on top, then think they can charge an arm and a leg.” Meissner tapped his head. “You want my opinion? Bonkers!”
“I hear you loud and clear,” said the rep, flashing a gold incisor, and lifting his cup to Meissner. “You don’t get better than this.”
Meissner sidled over to the Aldridge table. “More toast for you people?”
“No, thank you, I’m banting,” said the wife.
“What, like you training for badminton?”
Susan Meissner gave a nervous laugh from behind the buffet table. “It’s a diet where you can’t eat bread and pasta, am I right?”
“Yes, but instead of the carbs we can eat a lot of animal fats and protein—”
“I see you’ve hardly touched your plate, sir; I suppose then you’re also into this banting smanting?”
“I’m just not feeling so good. I think I must have—”
“Steve’s got a little stomach bug, that’s all. You want me to eat your bacon, sweetie?”
Otto Meissner edged closer, angling for a glimpse of cleavage. “You want my opinion? It’s just another one of those diet crazes that will come and will go.”
“Maybe they don’t want your opinion, Otto. Sorry, guys … Can I get you some more milk, Mrs Aldridge?”
“Just a drop. Actually, banting isn’t a diet, it’s a way of life. That’s what Dr Tim Noakes calls it.”
“Who is Dr Tim Noakes?”
“The scientist who discovered banting.”
“Banting discovered banting, Steve. Dr Tim Noakes just imported it into this country. He’s one of those super-bright genius types with a hundred titles behind his name.” Tarryn Aldridge reached across and removed the crust from her husband’s plate. “What is the plan with those tiles in the corner?”
“Don’t bring up the war,” said Susan Meissner, clearing the empty plate, and giving her husband a hard look across the table.
“What you mean?”
“The guy who was supposed to lay them for us hasn’t pitched.”
“He’s probably sick or something?”
“That’s what I said.”
Otto Meissner tugged irritably at his goatee. “So sick he can’t even pick up a phone, Suzy? So sick he ignores my calls? How many so far? Five? Ten? Fifteen? You know what it’s costing me? Rule number one: never listen to a woman for—”
“Otto! Sorry, guys—”
“I’m just saying.” whined Meissner.
“Well, don’t.”
“Maybe we should change the subject … You want me to help you with your sausage, Stevie?”
Meissner waited until his wife had returned to the kitchen, then maneuvered behind Mrs Aldridge for a deeper look-in. “This is what happens when you’re too generous. It’s not like where I come from in Austria where people respect one another. Here? Pfft! Nobody respects nobody.” He aimed an accusing finger at the pile of Tuscan Sunset tiles in the corner. “I felt sorry for this character. I took him off the street, gave him a second chance at life, taught him everything I know. If it wasn’t for me …” Meissner’s face had turned puffy and red and sweaty. His left eye twitched. “Two days, not a word. Nothing! Zilch!” Meissner breathed out slowly. “Him and me had an agreement.”
“I’m on your page, my friend,” said the sales rep from across the room. “There’s no respect any more in this country.”
Otto Meissner smiled gratefully. “At long last, someone who understands where I’m coming from.”
“One hundred per cent. People like us must stand together. Ons moet saam staan. Show these lui gatte who’s boss!”
“A man after my own heart, Mr Ferreira. How about I fetch you some more coffee?”
“I won’t say no.”
The Aldridges stood up from their table. “Thanks for breakfast, Mrs Meissner.”
“Only a pleasure. You guys have a good day now.”
Susan Meissner pulled the door behind the couple. “Is my husband still carrying on about those stupid tiles?”
But Otto Meissner wasn’t quite done. “With you as my witness, Mr Ferreira—”
“I’m really sorry about this. Otto, please—”
“No worries, ma’am. A man must say what a man must say.”
“Thank you, sir. With you as my witness, let me just say one thing to my wife here.
“Okay, Otto, what is it?”
“Gary Johnson mustn’t for one second think he can step a foot back on my property. That’s it, that is all I have to say.”
23
Delport’s Corsa was already there when Truter pulled into the station yard. Typical subordinate behaviour: always trying to get the one up on their superiors. Truter pushed the thought aside. Like it said on the Wimpy sugar sachet: Live today like it’s your last. Not even Delport and his silly mind games were going to mess it up. Truter had read his Bible verses. He had swallowed his pills. He had eaten a T-bone for breakfast. He had taken a good crap. He felt calm and collected.
Truter parked the van and slammed the door. Sidestepping the alcoholic rubbishes and their vuil babies sucking on empty, he rolled up the cement stairs to the charge office.
“Good morning, South Africa!” he boomed. “Delport, waar is jy!”
Constable Delport appeared from behind the kitchenette curtain, carrying a plastic jug. “Morning, Sergeant. How’s it going?”
“Top of the pops. Where you taking that?”
“The plants at the front are looking a bit thirsty—”
“Chrissake, Delport. Here our motherland is burning, and you’re watering your daisies. Just make sure nobody sees you; you’ll give the police services a bad name. I hope you switched the kettle on whilst you were in there?”
“Just boiled, sir.”
“Nice. At least you got your priorities straight. What you waiting for? Go water your daisy flowers and then let’s drink some serious coffee. Whose turn was it anyway to bring the biscuits?”
“Yours, I think?” ventured Delport.
“You bullshitting me again?”
“But there are still some Lemon Creams left over from yesterday,” Delport quickly added.
“There we go. I knew there was a reason I didn’t buy.”
Truter swaggered into his office. It sat to the side of the charge counter, with a direct view over the front entrance – what with ISIS working its way down Africa, one had to be hyper-vigilant. The Taliban café owner around the corner was a case in point; he didn’t trust him further than he could shoot a load.
Truter reached into the filing cabinet for his Ricoffy. An unopened roll of toilet paper was perched alongside. “Now, where were you when I needed you, my lovely?” he crooned. The memory was still raw, as was his ring rash. The Vaseline hadn’t kicked in yet, and for all he knew, carbon paper contained toxic chemicals. How was he going to explain the blue dye to Dr Santos? A bridge he would cross later, because right now he would kill for a cup of coffee and rusk. He gave the Ouma box a shake. Empty. He could have sworn there were some left last time he looked. If Delport wanted a rusk, why didn’t he just ask? Instead of snooping around his office, helping himself to his property. What he needed was one of those Verimark home security cameras—
