Killer Country Read Online Free Page B

much for a session at the Point swimming pool. He lost any more training time he wasn’t going to keep up with Christa. Have his daughter leave him behind on the Robben Island swim? He wouldn’t live it down. Pylon wouldn’t let him.
    ‘Perhaps we could do this Tuesday, I’ll be back in town then.’
    ‘I need to expedite an arrangement urgently, Mr Bishop. Tomorrow latest. Do you understand?’
    Mace thought, had to be a judge would use a word like expedite. Decided, hear the guy out. Could be good business.
    ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Ten thirty. Where again?’
    The judge repeated the address.
    ‘An art gallery?’
    ‘There’s something I want to show you. To make my point.’ The judge rang off.

5
     
     
    They’d been on the road for two hours. Got through the mine dumps and the industrial belt and into farmlands, the road opening up, quieter, the sun sliding off the western rim hot and red right where they were heading. Cast an orange light over the maize fields. Manga driving, clicked on the headlights. He needed a burger and chips, tomato sauce, a beer to wash it down.
    Spitz in the passenger seat listened to his iPod, eyes focused on the landscape. Every forty-five minutes he smoked a menthol. Manga noticed that. Forty-five minutes exactly, Spitz would light up. Like there was an alarm went off only he heard. After the cigarette he took a mouthful of sparkling mineral water. Replaced the bottle in a holder over an aircon vent on the dashboard. Not a word exchanged in two hours.
    Manga thought, captain, you’re not making me laugh. He reached for the can of Coke in the holder next to Spitz’s water. Drained it. Dropped the can over his shoulder. Wasn’t for his cellphone, he’d have had no one to talk to. Worse, he’d brought no sounds himself. Bloody going anywhere without Zola was a mistake. And this cousin wasn’t going to share his tunes. Weird shit that it was by the vague sound leaking out. Not rap. Not R&B. Not kwaito. Some sort of pop shit.
    He leaned across, touched Spitz on the arm. Spitz turned his head, eyes drowsy, hooded.
    ‘Something to eat, captain? Burger and chips? Five kays there’s a One Stop coming up.’
    Spitz pulled off his headphones. ‘Say it again?’
    ‘A One Stop.’
    ‘A One Stop?’
    Manga laughed. ‘Not Spur or Steers? Not even McDonalds. The One Stop.’
    Spitz shook his head. ‘What is this?’
    ‘Hey, captain.’ Manga glanced at him amused. ‘You don’t know about One Stops?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘You don’t drive? Like this, long distance?’
    ‘I fly. When I work in another city, I fly to it.’
    Manga thumped the steering wheel. ‘No shit. Not once, in all your life, you’ve driven across this country? Not even before?’
    ‘No. What for?’
    ‘What for? Captain, hey, captain. To see the place. You know, see where the ancestors hung out. On the grass plains. In the desert. Up in the mountains. The sort of country they knew. The sort of stuff that happens between the cities.’
    Spitz shook out a menthol, pressed in the car lighter. ‘It does not bother me.’
    ‘Hey?’ Manga rolled his tongue round his teeth, considering a sudden realisation. ‘You don’t know where we’re going or what’s the job?’
    ‘That is your problem.’ Spitz lit his cigarette, blew out a short puff. ‘The way I operate is you have to get me to the place, and you tell me what is the target. I do it. Then you take me back home.’
    ‘Guess what, captain?’
    Spitz didn’t respond.
    ‘Come’n guess what?’
    ‘I cannot see your mind.’
    ‘I don’t know bugger all. What I know is we’re booked in a motel another four hours drive away. That means midnight. Tomorrow they’re gonna phone us there. Give me directions.’
    ‘That is okay.’
    ‘Maybe for you captain. But me, I like a bit more information.’
    Spitz pulled on the menthol. Some way down the road was a blaze of light in the dusk. Had to be Manga’s One Stop.
    Manga saying, ‘This’s not my sort of