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house and sleep, and the magistrate would be surprised
to see him in the morning. He is glad that he did not
return the keys when he left last night and she did not
remind him about them either.
He is greeted by loud techno rave music as he enters,
carrying his bags. He stands there for a while, wondering
what it is all about. He leaves the bags on the living room
floor and walks to the door of the magistrate’s bedroom.
He stands there and listens for a while. He knocks at the
door but there is no response.
Kristin Uys continues her pathetic dance. She does
not hear the knock since at this point nothing else in the
world exists. Don enters quietly and stands near the door.
He is astounded to see the magistrate in her whore get-
up dancing like a stripper. With her voluptuous boobs
she is a parody of the Blonde Bombshell of the Scope mag-
azines of old. She is oblivious of him. He looks on for a
while, dumbfounded, now and then having to duck her
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flying whip. To avoid the whip he is forced to move
against the wall, further away from the door. He wants to
escape but now the dance is very close to the door. She is
gyrating and moaning as if she is in sexual ecstasy. When
she moves towards the centre of the room, Don sees it as
his chance to make for the door. But she can now sense
that there is someone else in the room. She stops danc-
ing, and claps her hands four times. The Clapper switches
off the CD player and the disco lights. At the same time
the ‘house lights’ rise. The room is a flood of brightness
and she stands there with her defences down. She breaks
down and cries. He holds her in his arms.
She is messing up her make-up, smudging it with
tears. They sit on the bed while she continues to sob qui-
etly. She looks so vulnerable, and something stirs in him.
He holds her tightly and she submits. They remain like
that for a long time.
But as soon as she regains her composure she pushes
him away from her and from her bed. She is now livid.
‘You had no business entering my room without
permission,’ she cries. ‘You had no business spying on
me. You had no business seeing this.’
Without a word Don Mateza walks out of the
bedroom.
13
SHOOTOUT
Don Mateza is in the kitchen frying eggs. Kristin Uys
enters, all dressed up for work. The moment she sees Don
she turns away and tries to sneak out shamefacedly. Don
leaves the pan on the stove and goes after her. They face
each other, although in fact she does not look him in the
eye. Things are awkward between them.
‘Come on,’ says Don, ‘we can’t avoid each other for
ever.’
She turns and walks out of the house. He just stands
there in exasperation. Smoke comes out of the kitchen—
the eggs are burning. He runs back to save them. But it is
too late. After removing the pan from the stove, he
returns to confront Kristin but she has left the house. She
is already in her Fiat Uno and is waiting for the gate as it
slowly opens. He gets into his Saab ready to follow her.
She hollers at him, ‘What’s the fuck with you, man?’
‘Whoa! That’s wonderful! I didn’t know you knew
that kind of language.’
‘You shouldn’t have come back. I hate you! I hate
you!’
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She speeds away. He follows closely at first but slows
down later. He maintains a discreet distance as they
cruise on J. G. Strijdom Road and then up the steep hill at
Golf Club Terrace. Before she rolls down the hill, an old
grey Mercedes Benz tipper truck and trailer speeds past
Don’s car and forces itself between the Saab and the Fiat
Uno. It has no number plates. Don can no longer see the
magistrate’s car but his instincts tell him that something
is not right because the face of the truck driver is hidden
in a woollen balaclava. In this hot weather no one covers
his face in that kind of headgear just for the heck of it.
He steps on the accelerator hoping to overtake the
truck but stops trying when he realizes that he can’t see
if there is oncoming traffic or not. Just before the
Ontdekkers Road traffic lights, the truck swings towards
the Fiat Uno, pushing the small car off the road and
squashing it against the railings. The magistrate is
trapped in the smashed car. The man in the balaclava
fires some shots at her car from the cab window. Don
jumps out of his car and returns the fire as the truck
speeds away into Ontdekkers.
He rushes to the aid of the trapped magistrate and
tries to open the door. It is stuck. He phones 10111, but
even as he is dialling tow trucks swoop like vultures from
all directions. How on earth they knew of this accident
remains a mystery to Don. But each one wants to tow the
car away, without even finding out if anyone is injured or
even dead. All they are interested in is towing the car to
wherever the owner wants it towed for a hefty fee.
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181
‘You’ve got to get her out of there before you can even
think of towing the car away,’ says Don. ‘And then wait
for the police.’
It doesn’t take them much time to prise the door
open. The magistrate is quite shaken but fortunately she
doesn’t have any visible injuries.
A few moments later Netcare 911 paramedics arrive
on the scene and insist on taking her to the hospital. Even
in this state she is still stubborn, although it has dawned
on her that she is no longer dealing with what she
thought were petty thugs but dangerous criminals who
are prepared to murder her to make a point.
She is shivering and Don puts his jacket over her
shoulders and holds her in his arms. She clings to him.
Her body is so warm, so soft and supple it makes his
mind roam to forbidden places. He feels guilty that he
should have such ungodly thoughts about a woman who
was almost murdered. But she looks so vulnerable right
now, and therefore so in need of love and protection that
it gives him a shameful hard-on. If only the moment
could be frozen for a while longer—not in ice though, for
that would make her revert to being the ice queen she
usually is, but in some warm and snug freezing sub-
stance that is yet to be invented.
The police arrive on the scene to spoil the moment.
She is suddenly self-conscious and pulls away from his
embrace. They are two young white guys and she doesn’t
want them to get the wrong idea about her. But they are
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182
more concerned about the accident and take statements
from both of them. They cannot buy it when Don insists
that it was an attempted murder, until he mentions that
there was a shootout. They ask him to go to the
Honeydew police station immediately, and call a detec-
tive who will attend to him there.
Don contracts one of the tow trucks, the burly guy
who prised the door open, to take the Fiat Uno to a panel
beater he knows in Strijdom Park—the panel-beating
capital of South Africa. He is not sure if the car is a total
write-off or if something of it can be salvaged.
He manages to persuade the magistrate to go with
the paramedics to Flora Clinic, just to make sure that
everything is fine with her, that she has no internal
injuries that may give her problems later.
‘Call me when they’re done with you and I’ll come
pick you up,’ he assures her.
As he drives to the Honeydew police station he
decides that he will reveal everything to the police,
including the past harassment, such as the telephone
calls that the magistrate has been receiving. If she won’t
let the police handle the Visagies, he will drag them into
taking action against the brothers, whether she likes it or
not. This has gone beyond a joke now, beyond a few tele-
phone pranks. She could have been killed. If she wants to
continue playing her childish game of standing up to
what she considers cheap bullies, he will not be part of
that. The bullies have now become killers. Or, at least,
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183
prospective killers. They won’t give up. They are going to
try again.
A uniformed policeman ushers him into an office
where a detective is waiting for him. He is playing
patience and seems annoyed that his card game is being
interrupted just when he was winning against himself.
The uniformed policeman also takes a seat and jots down
some notes as Don speaks.
The policemen don’t seem to take the harassment of
the magistrate too seriously. If the magistrate is being
threatened by criminals why haven’t they received such
a report from the magistrate’s office? Why would a mag-
istrate, a senior official of the court, want to keep such a
thing to herself ? As for the so-called attempted murder,
did Don see the truck driver’s face?
‘No,’ says Don. ‘He was wearing a balaclava.’
‘Then how do you know it’s the Visagie boy?’ asks the
detective.
‘Who else?’
‘Maybe it was just an accident. A hit and run.’
‘And the shootout? An accident too?’
‘ Ja. You got a point there.’
‘Get that Shortie Visagie and squeeze his balls until
he talks.’
‘We no longer work that way,’ says the detective in a
cynical voice. ‘Not in the new South Africa. We respect
people’s human rights. We must find the grey Mercedes
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Benz tipper truck with a trailer. That will solve all our
problems.’
However he will not assign anyone to the case until
he has spoken to the magistrate. She is the one who must
lay a charge. When told that she may be reluctant to do
so, the detective says that without her they cannot pro-
ceed with the case. Don cannot be the complainant in a
case that only involves him peripherally as a bodyguard.
As he drives to Flora Clinic he wonders if Kristin Uys
will finally lay a charge. He has his doubts. She is such a
stubborn bitch, although perhaps the experience this
morning will bring her to her senses.
She is not at Flora. She took a metered taxi back
home as soon as the doctor had finished examining her
and assured her that, apart from a few bruises, she was
fine. He is really mad at her and phones her house. She is
not there. What if something happened to her and he was
not there to protect her? Not only would he never forgive
himself for letting her out of his sight soon after some
maniac attempted to kill her, but his company would see
him as a failure and he would surely not get the promo-
tion. Without the promotion he will never gain Tumi’s
respect.
He calls her cellphone. She is at a car-rental company
in Randburg and seems to be going on with her life as if
nothing has happened. This infuriates Don.
‘What the heck are you doing there?’ he shouts.
‘I am renting a car. I must have a car.’
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185
‘But you promised to wait for me at Flora Clinic. You
were not supposed to leave Flora Clinic without me,
damn it!’
‘Don’t yell at me, damn it!’ she says and switches her
cellphone off.
He dials her again. He wants to ask her the address
of the car-rental company so that he can go there imme-
diately to protect her, willy-nilly. But her phone is on
voicemail. The bitch! She is going to be the death of him.
He decides to confront Shortie Visagie personally at
his home. He may be fortunate enough to find the tipper
truck there. He phones the secretary at VIP Protection
Services for the address, since they have it in the file on
the magistrate’s case. Then he drives straight to the
Visagie home in Strubensvallei.
He stops in the street near an open gate, gets out of
the car and walks into the yard. Shortie, in greasy over-
alls, is under a car that has been lifted up with a hydraulic
jack. His back is supported by a skateboard.
‘Hey, Shortie Visagie,’ calls Don.
‘Who are you?’ asks Shortie.
He slides out from under the car.
‘What did you do with the truck, Shortie?’
‘How the shit do you know it was me in that damn
truck?’
Don chuckles at the dof-ness of the question.
‘Because you just told me.’
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186
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ says
Shortie, trying to display an innocent mien. But he is not
a good actor. And he is jittery.
‘You’ll tell that to the judge. The cops are going to
catch up with you, Shortie. We know all about you. We
know Stevo has been using you to create shit for the mag-
istrate, and if you don’t stop you’ll have me to deal with.’
Shortie tries to look menacing but it doesn’t suit
him. Instead he looks ridiculous.
‘You think you can scare me, china? We are the
Visagies—we are not afraid of nothing.’
Ma Visagie appears round the corner, bringing her
sonasteamingmugofcoffee.Shestopsinhertrackswhen
she sees this strange man confronting her boy. Neither
man sees her as they glare at each other aggressively.
‘You are going to join your brother in jail, Shortie,’
says Don. ‘He’s not coming out any time soon. Instead
you’re going to join him there, and you’ll stay there for a
long time. Attempted murder is not a small matter,
Shortie. And we are getting more evidence of your other
criminal activities. And of your brother’s too.’
Shortie’s bravado has disappeared. He is scared now
and cannot hide it. Ma Visagie disappears round the
corner.
‘You’ll regret you ever tried to kill the magistrate. I
am going to squeeze your balls until you tell me where
you have hidden that tipper truck.’
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187
At this he walks threateningly towards Shortie and
Shortie reverses towards the house until he finds himself
against the wall.
Shortie leaps at him. Don is taken by surprise and
before he can duck Shortie punches him in the stomach.
Don falls down. We see that Shortie can be very danger-
ous when he is cornered. He is about to kick Don in the
face with his huge boots, but Don rolls on the ground,
grabs Shortie’s leg and throws him down. Don is quick
on his feet and kicks Shortie in the stomach. Shortie
screams, ‘ Eina! Ma! Ma!’ Don is about to kick him again
when Ma Visagie appears armed with a shotgun.
‘Out of my yard or I’ll blow your brains out!’ she yells.
Don jumps back, away from Shortie, who is writhing
on the ground. He has an amused expression on his face
as the woman points the gun at him.
‘Hey, you can’t do that, Ma Visagie,’ he says, as he
raises his hands in surrender.
‘Try me. Just try me,’ says Ma Visagie.
Don thinks this whole scenario is funny. He just
stands there and laughs. His hands are still up though.
Ma Visagie blasts the ground in front of his feet. His
amused expression turns into a horrified one—he real-
izes that Ma Visagie means business. He jumps on the
spot as two or three bullets raise dust in front of him, and
then he runs like a scared rabbit to his car, while
Shortie—who is now standing up and enjoying the whole
show—and Ma Visagie laugh their lungs out.
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188
Ma Visagie shouts after him, ‘My boy will be out of
prison soon and you’re all going to kak!’
It was not very smart of him to invade the Visagies,
he admonishes himself as he drives away. Instead he
should have tackled the problem from the magistrate’s
side, persuaded her to lay a charge. He can’t get anywhere
without her cooperation. Then he suddenly remembers
Aunt Magda. He just might discover the Visagies’ weak
spot from her. One never knows unless one tries.
