Jaz & Miguel (25 page)

The last time they'd been in Hillbrow had also been the last time
they'd bought  anything from this "Igbo" guy (calling the guy "God"
just felt so wrong—and it caused a hell of a lot of confusion in discussions)
. You never hooted here, you never shouted. It was like the place
was a friggin church or something. Loud noises set these guys on edge—as if any
noise would somehow block their ability to hear the cops coming or something
(as if the cops ever came to Hillbrow). Miguel never understood it—he just
followed the rules: their turf, their rules. Very simple.

I'm looking for God
was the keyphrase.
And lo and behold, the fucking Lord himself would send off one of his slaves to
get you what you needed: women, pinks, tik, rocks, smack. You name it, he had
it.

Miguel had never seen the guy. For all he knew, he may've come from
California or even Norway, not Nigeria like the streets had it. Heck, for all
he knew, the guy could have been as white as the fucking snowcapped mountains
of the Alps! But, ultimately, who gave a shit? You smiled at his goons, money
exchanged hands, you left.

Goons such as Tsepho (although he had not moved much up the ladder).
The top of the ladder was right here, in Hillbrow, meeting the incoming
customers. Heck, Tsepho had sat on the bottom rung for about as long as Miguel
and Sandile had been out of the scene!
Tsepho was some Johnny-come-fucking-lately
who didn't know his ass from nose. There was always one. One of Igbo's henchmen
had even approached the two of
them
in the past to do it: to get more
business from the students. But it was clear from the psychotic
glare that Tsepho had held in his eyes all the time since he'd started working
for Igbo that there was never a time when the guy wasn't high on something
himself. Miguel knew the look—Crystal Meth,
days
without rest. No other
drug he knew of gave you a look like that. Sandile had also had that look once upon
a time.

Miguel knew it well.

Tsepho's hands had been shaking so much the day he shot Sandile that
it was clear to Miguel the slimeball had probably not slept in a week, buzzed
up on meth and crazy with paranoia.
He reasoned that
Tsepho killing Sandile was about as good for
Igbo's business
as the guy himself showing up at a cop-station with a whore and then blowing
her fucking brains out in front of twenty witnesses. If Miguel remembered
anything from the minions he'd dealt with in the past, money talked, and the
rest went for a drop off the pier.

He parked his car in the shithole of Hillbrow that smelled like a
sewer, garbage bags piled higher than his roof in at least three visible
locations from where he sat (including right in front of him) and waited for
the usual duo to approach. His heart lurched when a character he didn't
recognize—black leather hat, gold chains, lots of gold rings—came over to him,
his hand positioned on a clearly visible glock inside his belt. If the guy
wasn't careful, he'd blow his fucking dick off with that.

In the past, it had always been two men—the "duo"—not one,
that would come and verify the validity of incoming business. The man stopped
by Miguel's open window, flashed his piece and waited.

"I'm looking for God," said Miguel, not wasting a moment.

"Well, maybe God is not looking for you." The accent was
Nigerian. No doubt. Miguel knew it a mile away.

He swallowed. This was not how he remembered it. In the past, he'd
say he was looking for God, then another two came by to deliver what was
needed, they did the deal, and that was that.

The man kept standing there, his gun glaring at Miguel like a hungry
dog.

"I'm looking ... for
God
,"
Miguel repeated. He had nothing left to lose.

Miguel did not spot an intervening time between the moment the gun
had been in the man's pants and then suddenly, without warning, was now pressed
up against his throat so hard that he felt he would choke to death if the guy
didn't blow his brains out first. The man's face was also only an inch away
from Miguel's now, his drugged-up eyes rolling like the moving eyes of a doll,
and his breath so stale that it seemed like he'd just made love to a dog.

Miguel waited, and tried not to breath.

Nothing to lose
, he thought.

"I'm here to solve a problem for him. A mutual problem,"
said Miguel.

The man eyed him up and down, keeping his mouth open as he breathed,
making Miguel feel like his insides were about to come out. He'd smelled dead
mice better than this.

"God knows who you are."

No fucking shit he does, you dickwad. But I'm talking about the
dealer
, not the Good Man Upstairs.
"Good. Then it will
be easier to do business. There's a grand in that envelope." He pointed to
the floorboard. "Consider it a donation. And there's a message in there as
well. All I need is some information—an address—and I will take a problem off
his hands
."

The man gestured with angry eyes for Miguel to pass him the envelope.
Miguel tried to reach it, but his seatbelt caught and the guy got uncomfortable
at Miguel stretching so far down to pick it up.

"Get out!" said Dog-Breath.

"I just need to get—"

"No! Leave it. Get out!"

Fuck!

Miguel got out. Two women stood lasciviously against a wall at the
end of the street, each looking more disheveled and strung-out than the next.
Dog-Breath pushed Miguel against the car (although it was gentler than he'd
expected) and held him there by his shoulder. He said some things in a language
that didn't sound South African at all and, from nowhere, appeared another guy
holding an
AK, sauntering over to Miguel's car.

If there was one thing Miguel didn't like, it was AKs—those were bad
guns. People who carried AKs had only one thing in mind: shoot, don't aim.

The guy with the AK grabbed the envelope in his car and looked
inside it. The two animals nodded to each other and Bad-Breath told Miguel to
sit on the pavement, right next to the bags of trash that Miguel now also noticed
had maggots crawling around them.

"I'll stand, thanks."

They'd driven around Germiston twice already and seen no sign of
Miguel. Senhor Pinto had called up several friends as well as one of Miguel's
pool hangouts to ask if he had come by, but he hadn't. Jaz tried to keep her
mind calm, but she felt like reality itself had begun to take an ethereal
appearance: flimsy, unstable.
For
a moment, she got the feeling of what it must have been like for Miguel to have
lost his family—a feeling of complete loneliness, emptiness, and desperation. Sensing
that she might never see him again, she gripped the handle of the door for
stability, but it didn't help.

Senhor Pinto stopped the car. His eyes were trembling with fear. In
complete resignation, he held his palms up and said, "I have no idea what
to do."
They sat in silence for a moment. They'd
decided not to call the police. Just by the fact that Miguel was carrying a gun
without a license, whatever he was planning was likely not legal.
I won't
let my son go to a South African jail. Never!
That's what Senhor Pinto had said.

Jaz had mixed emotions about it. She didn't want Miguel dead,
either, so maybe jail would've been a safer compromise?
She pulled out her mobile and called the only person
she thought might be able to help.

Thandie answered, and Jaz told her what was happening.

Jaz should have called her earlier.

"Jaz," said Thandie, "I hate to be blunt, but he's
doing one of two things. He's either killing ... himself"—a whirling
tornado of shock ripped Jaz's heart. And that thought she'd had from earlier: Bang.
Bang. Knock—"or he's ... going after Tsepho. And if he's doing that, then
he'll be in Hillbrow."

Tsepho. Of course!

"Hill ... brow?" Jaz had heard the name before. She knew
little about it; only that driving in there at two-thirty a.m. was pretty much
like signing off on your own death warrant. She saw Senhor Pinto's eyes widen in
terror. He got the car moving immediately and Jaz saw the speedometer needle
quickly rise.

"You need to pick me up, Jaz. There's only one place he'll be
if that's his plan."

"No, Thandie. This is not your prob—"

"Of course it is!"

Yeah ... she generally gets her way.
That was what Sandile had once said about Thandie.

Sandile.

And now Miguel?

Jaz did her best to focus.

"How far is this Hillbrow from the campus?" asked Jaz.

"Five minutes by car."

"We'll pick you up."

"Bugger!"
Jonathan
Abbey shook the laptop screen on the passenger seat, cursing at how backwards
the South African infrastructure was. The red circle on the map had disappeared
for five minutes, then reappeared, intermittently on and off. He was close now.
He needed precise locations!

Relief coursed through him when he saw it again.
Relief that was short-lived, because soon
after, he heard a siren, and saw blue and orange lights lighting up the seats
in his car. "What the—?"

It seemed that some
bobbies
were following him! Confused and irritated, he pulled over.

A large woman approached his window with a flashlight and shone it
on his lap and then at his laptop. He rolled down the window.

"Good evening, sir. May I see your ID, please?"

"Ma'am, I'm in a bit of a hurry. Would you tell me what this is
about?"

"Your ID, sir!"

"I don't have an ID. I'm a British citizen."

"Then your passport, please."

Blooming South Africans!
Abbey felt in
his pocket, but he didn't have his passport. He stretched to open up the glove
compartment—

"Sir, stop! What are you doing?"

"I'm getting—"

"Sir, step out of the car."
Is she blooming stupid?!
Does she think I'm carrying a flipping gun?!

"Look, ma'am, I'm actually in a hurry—"

"I know you are in a hurry. You were doing eighty-five in a
sixty zone! Now, get out of your car before I have you arrested!"

"I am a British citizen. You have no right—"

"You are not in Britain, sir. You are in South Africa. You are
welcome to return, but so long as you are here, you are expected to follow the
speed limit!"

Abbey looked at his laptop one more time as he undid his seatbelt.
There was the red dot—right there. Clarendon Court. Claim Street. Stopped. Two
minutes away!

"Sir"—the woman sniffed the air—"have you been
drinking?"

Bugger!

Miguel's hand trembled when the second of the two goons came back
down (after being gone for what must've easily been twenty or thirty minutes), his
AK waving as if it was a vuvuzela at a soccer match. The man flung the rifle
above his shoulder as he approached.
Only in South Africa
, thought Miguel. It was like this area had achieved diplomatic
immunity to anything Nigerian (or anything that sold drugs and carried an AK).
The man stuck out his free hand when he got to Miguel. By this time, Miguel was
wondering how he was even managing to keep his own body up—his legs were so
weak with fear.

There was a note in the man's outstretched hand. Miguel grabbed it,
looking at Bad-Breath for just a moment. Bad-Breath simply stared vacantly, as
if Miguel were just a ghost—some foreign entity that this animal could put a
bullet through and not even realize he'd killed someone.

He read the note:

Tsepho is not under God's care anymore.
308A, St. Michael's Court
92 Claim Street

You have one night. God's vengeance was
already on its way.
God thanks you for your donation.

So there it was. Tsepho was still alive, as if the gods of Fate had
timed it just so Miguel could have it land in his fortuitous hands. Because
surely this was a turn of good fortune. Wasn't it? Miguel could simply walk in,
aim his gun, and blow the guy's brains out. It would've been done tonight by
Igbo's goons anyway, it seemed. Maybe Miguel would walk out unscathed. Maybe
he'd be shot by some lunatic as he walked into Tsepho's building. Maybe he
would be shot after. Maybe he'd send the tip over to the cops. Maybe Tsepho
wouldn't be there.

But, just like that, in his hands, lay what he'd come for.

He hesitated, almost losing grip of the unrelenting truth of it all:
308A, St. Michael's Court, 92 Claim Street. You have
one night. God's vengeance was already on its way.

He hefted the paper, the two Nigerians eying him curiously, clearly
wondering what the hell he was still doing there—business was over, the
transaction had been done. The expected thing to do now … would be to leave.