Free Killer Country by Mike Nicol

you are my darling, you are my sweetheart, I love you, I never loved him, until Obed said, ‘Mighty fine, enough. Tomorrow you pick me up in the afternoon, this is forgotten. Like it didn’t happen. We are together. No one laughing behind me about who Obed Chocho’s wife is jumping. Obed Chocho the convict moegoe. No more bullshit like that, alright?’
    He got her promise. Let her sobbing continue until it became sniffling. Said, ‘Tomorrow you get here two o’clock. No African time shit. Two pee em. Now, let me speak to Sheemina.’
    Sheemina February said in his ear, ‘The German’s name is Rudolf Klett. He is a businessman based in Berlin. At the moment that’s all I know.’
    ‘Find out more,’ said Obed Chocho.
    ‘Oh yes sir, right away sir,’ said Sheemina February. ‘Anythingelse, sir?’
    ‘No. Nothing.’ He disconnected, his palms sweating at her sarcasm. Might be the best bloody lawyer in town but two things about Sheemina February put him on edge: one was her tongue. The other thing, she was a bushie. You couldn’t trust a coloured.
    Calmed down, the image gone of Lindiwe’s hips banging against Popo Dlamini, Obed Chocho stretched out again on the bed. Stared at Tony Soprano’s scheming face. A German? These guys bringing in a German backer. He snorted. Well, to hell with them. They didn’t know what sort of fight this was. That’s how Tony would handle it. Change the game. Obed aimed the remote, pressed play.

13
     
     
    Top down, Mace drove slowly along Somerset Road wondering about Judge Telman Visser, his sense of the dramatic. For heaven’s sake, like a photograph was going to impress someone. A strip of highway with some wreaths on it. And for that he’d pay over a hundred thousand bucks. The judge had more money than sense.
    But he had sense too, doing his homework. Checking up on the sort of people he hired. Probably the judge did know the Bishop household’s bank account. Judges had contacts; they could get things done. Find out stuff.
    Not that knowing how much was in his bank account was a big deal, Mace reckoned. It wouldn’t tell you anything more than how  often Mace Bishop was in overdraft. And he wasn’t bothered about the judge knowing that. Because that became an explanation for the mean and lean attitude when payment was due.
    Issue was, the real issue was, time this bullshit came to an end. This client soft-soaping. He thought about that: soft-soaping. Pictured Judge Visser in a bubble bath, himself an attendant with a loofah on a stick about to scrub the judge’s back. Not a pretty picture. But what guarding came down to, you looked at it that way.
    Time to quit the scene as he’d told Pylon. Get out of security, sell the business. Sorting other people’s crap wasn’t doing it anymore. Had been okay for a time. Even fun, even lucrative. But enough. The more he thought about it, the more Pylon’s west coast scheme became an out. Pylon got that to work they’d be steaming. No more Judge Vissers. No more surgical safaris. No more neurotic celebs. Could even make the future look a bright place, you took it in that light.
    Mace stopped at the traffic robots on Buitengracht. A hot March sun on his shoulders, hotter than normal without the south-easter pumping across the city.
    A Big Issue vendor thrust a magazine at him. ‘Hey, boss my larney, sweet ‘n sporty.’ Dropped the mag into Mace’s lap.
    ‘I’ve bought one of those,’ said Mace, handing it back.
    ‘Ten bucks,’ said the vendor. ‘Present for a friend.’
    ‘I already did that.’
    ‘Present for another friend.’ The vendor gave him a two-jerk nod of the head. ‘Howsit with a smoke?’
    ‘I don’t,’ said Mace, irritated now that he couldn’t wait at the traffic light, gaze up at the mountain, be okay about the day undisturbed. ‘Give me a break, hey, china.’
    The vendor pulled a sour face. Mace watched him in the rearview mirror getting nowhere with other drivers. Someone finally giving