Free Devil's Peak by Deon Meyer Page A

the empty jug aloft.

It was all too hollow, too contrived for Thobela, this joviality. It always had been, since Kazakhstan, although that was a long time ago. A hundred and twenty black brothers in a Soviet training camp who drank and sang and laughed at night. And longed for home, bone-tired. Comrades and warriors.

The barman came past again.

“Where can I find the Boss Man?”

“It can be arranged.” He stood there expectant, without batting an eyelid.

He took out another fifty. The barman did not move. Another one. A palm swept the money away.

“Give me one minute.”
    * * *
    “The second problem is with the Twelve Steps. I know them off by heart and I can understand them working for other people. Step One is easy, because I fu . . . , I know my life is out of control, alcohol has taken over. Step Two says a Power greater than ourselves can heal us. Step Three says just turn over our will and our lives to Him.”

“Amen,” said a couple of them.

“The problem is,” he said with as much apology as he could put into his voice, “I don’t believe there is such a Power. Not in this city.”

Even Vera avoided his gaze. For a moment longer he stood in the silence. Then he sighed. “That is all I can say.” He sat down.
    * * *
    By the end of his second beer he saw the Boss Man approaching him from across the room, a fat black man with a shaven head and a gold ring on every finger. He would stop at a table here and there, almost shouting as he spoke to the guests—from the bar his words were drowned in the racket—until he reached Thobela. There were tiny drops of perspiration on his face as if he had exerted himself. Jewelry glittered as he offered his right hand.

“Do I know you?”

His voice was remarkably high and feminine and his eyes small and alert. “Madison Madikiza; they call me the Boss Man.”

“Tiny.” He used a nickname from the past.

“Tiny? Then my name is Skinny,” said the Boss Man. He had an infectious giggle that screwed up his eyes and shook his entire body as he hoisted it onto a bar stool. A tall glass materialized in front of him, the contents clear as water.

“Cheers.” He drank deeply and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, waving an index finger up and down in Thobela’s direction. “I know you.”

“Ah . . .” His pulse accelerated as he focused more sharply on the man’s features. He did not want to be caught unawares. Recognition meant trouble. There would be connotations, a track with a start and an end.

“No, don’t tell me, it will come to me. Give me a minute.” The little eyes danced over him, a frown creased the bald head. “Tiny . . . Tiny . . . Weren’t you . . . ? No, that was another fellow.”

“I don’t think—”

“No, wait, I must place you. Hell, I never forget a face . . . Just tell me, what is your line?”

“This and that,” he said cautiously.

The fingers snapped. “Orlando Arendse,” said the Boss Man. “You rode shotgun for Orlando.”

Relief. “That was a long time ago.”

“Memory like an elephant, my friend. Ninety-eight, ninety-seven, thereabouts, I still worked for Shakes Senzeni, God rest his soul. He had a chop shop in Gugs and I was his foreman. Orlando asked for a sit-down over division of territory, d’you remember? Big meeting in Stikland and you sat next to Orlando. Afterwards Shakes said that was clever, we couldn’t speak Xhosa among ourselves. Fuck, my friend, small world. I hear Orlando has retired, the Nigerians have taken over the drug trade.”

“I last saw Orlando two or three years ago.” He could remember the meeting, but not the man in front of him. There was something else, a realization of alternatives—if he had remained with Orlando, where would that have left him now?

“So, what do you do now?”

He could keep to his cover with more conviction now. “I am freelance. I put jobs together . . .” What would he have done when Orlando retired? Operated a nightclub? Run something on the periphery of the law. How close to a