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from Ma Visagie he moves his tiny frame away from the
door, while Aunt Magda shifts uncomfortably towards
the door.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. ‘Me and
Aunt Magda, we are getting married, Ma,’ says Stevo.
This comes as a surprise to Aunt Magda. But she is
not averse to the idea of marriage, even though she knows
she is an ouma and at no time did the subject come up
between them. She did not even know that they had that
kind of relationship—maybe the poor boy is haunted by
carnal memories from his early teens.
Shortie bursts out laughing. The prostitutes titter
and Ma Visagie takes a long questioning look at Stevo and
then at Aunt Magda.
‘So there!’ says Stevo triumphantly. ‘She’s your
daughter-in-law, Ma. You can’t kick her out now. She’s
family.’
Ma Visagie turns her back on them and walks away.
Aunt Magda and Stevo breathe a sigh of relief. This is his
first victory over his mother and he intends to savour it.
Never again will he kowtow to her.
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The prostitutes begin clearing the table, leaving only
the turkey, since Shortie is still nibbling at it. He looks at
his brother and Aunt Magda expectantly. His eyes are
questioning them: What’s next, now that you are a happy
couple? But they don’t seem to know what to do with each
other now that they are a happy couple.
Ma Visagie saves them the agony of uncertainty. She
returns armed with her shotgun which she promptly
brandishes at the couple.
‘If you want to leave with Magda, you can go, Stevo,’
says Ma Visagie.
Everyone in Roodepoort and beyond knows that Ma
Visagie’s shotgun is not a toy. Aunt Magda is still keen on
life, so she pushes Stevo aside and darts away as if the
house has spat her out like a gob of snuff. Ma Visagie
stands at the door and blasts the ground behind the hap-
less woman who is now yelling for help.
The last time anyone at the Visagies’ sees Aunt Magda
she is running for dear life down Alverstoke Avenue in
the quiet and respectable suburb of Strubensvallei.
Stevo Visagie does not follow Aunt Magda. Instead
he sulks and sits at the table holding his head as if he is
going to cry. The women let him be and go to the kitchen
to wash the dishes.
Ma Visagie, as calm as if nothing has happened,
looks at Stevo briefly, shakes her head in pity, and takes
her smoking gun to her bedroom. Shortie is the only one
who remains with his brother in the dining room. He is
calmly drinking his beer.
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‘So, what are you going to do now?’ he asks.
Stevo suddenly becomes resolute.
‘Everyone wants to shit on me, Shortie, and that has
to stop,’ he says. ‘I have some urgent business to attend to.’
‘What urgent business? What are you gonna do,
Stevo?’ asks Shortie, suddenly becoming nervous.
‘The magistrate,’ says Stevo.
Panic sets in on Shortie.
‘Please forget about the damn magistrate, Stevo. It’s
dangerous,’ pleads Shortie.
Stevo grins at him menacingly. ‘Guess who didn’t kill
her cat, my china?’
He takes a carving knife from the table and plays
with it. Then he angrily hacks at what remains of the
turkey until he pulverizes it.
‘Guess who messed up my plans just because he was
scared of a teensy weensy cat,’ he says as he walks away
to their bedroom.
Shortie follows Stevo. He is worried that his hothead
brother will do something very stupid. Stevo packs his
gun and the carving knife.
‘Guess who’s trying to talk me out of taking care of
the bitch who wants to stop us from becoming the best
outfit since Al Capone walked the streets of Chicago?’
‘I saw the movie too,’ says Shortie. ‘But what you
want to do is stupid, Stevo. You just came from jail.’
Stevo Visagie is done with talking. He gets into the
delivery van parked outside and drives away.
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302
Darkness has descended from the sky and the city
lights try to fight it back with their dull yellow glow. Don
Mateza’s Saab has stopped at the traffic lights. He is still
surrounded by garbage bags up to the roof. He is impa-
tient. The red light is wasting his time. But he can’t risk
beating it because the street is busy. As soon as the green
light flashes on he steps on the accelerator and weaves his
way frantically through the traffic.
Fortunately the streets of Strubensvallei are not busy
and he is able to keep up the speed until he parks in front
of the Visagies’ gate, which has been left open since
today’s festivities and Aunt Magda’s hurried flight. He
hoots persistently until Shortie comes out of the house
and walks to the gate. At this stage he does not recognize
Don as the man who once confronted him here.
‘Where’s Stevo?’ asks Don.
‘What do you want with Stevo?’
‘I want to warn him to stay away from Kristin.’
‘Stevo just came out of jail, man,’ says Shortie. ‘He’s
not doing any chick called Kristin. Plus he is getting mar-
ried to Aunt Magda.’
So, Magda was stringing him along after all. She is
not only with the Visagies but of the Visagies. He has no
time to cry over his lost money. He must find Stevo.
‘I’m talking about the magistrate, you fool. Where is
your brother?’
Only now does Shortie recognize the man as the
magistrate’s bodyguard. He begins to panic. He must tell
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this guy the truth. It may be the only chance of stopping
Stevo before he does something foolish. He is even more
fearful when it dawns on him that if the bodyguard is
here, it may mean that the magistrate is unprotected,
wherever she is. One never knows what Stevo might do
to her. He does not want to lose his brother.
‘You’re too late, my china,’ says Shortie. ‘He’s gone
to talk to your Kristin.’
Don gets out of the car and opens the passenger door.
‘You’re coming with me,’ he says.
‘Oh, no, I’m not going nowhere,’ says Shortie. ‘You
can’t involve me in this.’
Don grabs Shortie by the collar, imploringly rather
than aggressively. ‘You are involved already, my china. You
got to talk to your brother. You don’t want him to do
something foolish and end up in jail.’
‘That’s exactly what I said to him but he still left,’
says Shortie.
‘You’ll be implicated too,’ says Don. ‘If he kills Kristin
you’ll be implicated. You just told me here that he told
you what he was going to do and you didn’t report it to
the police.’
This convinces Shortie. There may still be time to
save his brother. That is his main concern. Not so much
the magistrate. He does not give a damn about saving her.
Not after what she did to the Visagie family. And she
plans to grind them into the ground too. Stevo said so.
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Shortie gets into the car just as Ma Visagie comes out
of the house.
‘Hey, where are you taking my little boy?’ she shouts.
Don speeds away with her little boy ensconced
among the garbage bags.
He is speeding on Ontdekkers Road when his cell-
phone rings.
It’s Jim Baxter. He needs him urgently. There is an
armed robbery in progress. Guards from VIP Protection
Services in an armoured vehicle have been waylaid by a
gang armed with machine guns on the M1 Highway to
Pretoria and there is a shootout.
Jim Baxter rattles on like an AK-47 and Don misses a
lot of the details; his mind is not at the cash heist but in
Weltevreden Park.
‘You need to come over immediately, Don,’ says
Baxter. ‘You need to be at the command post. You are the
CEO now.’
‘Not quite, Jim. You’ve not yet handed over officially.
But I’ll be there. Not immediately though. I am more than
an hour away.’
Of course he is lying. He is less than fifteen minutes
away. But he must get to Kristin first. He has to take her
to a place of safety. Then he will attend to VIP Protection
Services’ problems.
Don is frantic as he works his way through the traf-
fic. Shortie sits uncomfortably among the garbage bags.
He is beginning to have second thoughts about his role
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in all this. He does not know what the call to Don was all
about. He hopes it does not mean something has hap-
pened to his brother.
‘Stevo’s gonna kill me for this,’ he sighs resignedly.
‘Yeah. But after that he’s going to thank you,’ says
Don.
He is dialling a number on the cellphone.
‘I’m calling ten-triple-one,’ he says.
‘Hey, you can’t call the cops on my brother,’ screams
Shortie, trying to snatch the phone from Don.
‘Don’t be stupid, Shortie. The magistrate’s life may
be in danger as we speak.’
Shortie gives up and Don dials again.
The magistrate has reached the lowest ebb ever. She
is sitting at the dressing table mirror making herself up
in the garish manner of prostitutes. She gets into her
‘whore’ costume with grace and deliberation as if it is
something sacred.
She takes a bow and applauds herself, and The
Clapper switches on the music and the lights. She begins
her ‘whore’ dance, at first slowly as if it weighs heavily on
her. As if the dance is resisting her. As if her body has for-
gotten the well-practised moves. But soon it picks up.
Moments later she is completely immersed in it.
The music is throbbing and the strobe is flashing,
creating a bizarre slo-mo effect. She is so immersed in the
dance that she does not notice the dangerously armed
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man who walks into the room and stands at the door
watching. After a while he speaks.
‘Good evening, madam,’ he says, in what he thinks is
a genteel voice.
But the magistrate is oblivious of him. She continues
with her dance. This annoys the man. He grabs her shoul-
ders with both hands and yells in her face.
‘I fucken said good evening, madam!’
She claps her hands to stop the music and the disco
lights. House lights rise and she is face to face with Stevo
Visagie. She freezes and lets out a blood-curdling shriek.
Stevo slaps her face hard, which immediately silences
her.
‘Now, you gonna dance for me,’ says Stevo.
He sits on the bed and places his carving knife and
his gun next to him. He lights a cigarette and puffs with
aplomb. He is really enjoying himself. The magistrate’s
lowest point is his highest. He claps to switch the disco
lights on. But it is not the appropriate rhythm, so nothing
happens. He tries again. Nothing happens.
‘OK, bitch,’ he says. ‘You do it. Switch the damn
thing on.’
But the magistrate just stands there looking at him.
‘Never mind,’ says Stevo. ‘On second thoughts, I want
you to dance with the normal lights on. I don’t want any
of your fucken disco lights. I want to see every sexy move.’
She just stands there stubbornly.
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‘Dance, bitch!’
He grabs the knife and approaches her. She reverses
until she has backed into the wall. He slashes her arms—
just a little bit—enough for some blood to flow and
enough to drive it home to her stupid head that he means
business.
She begins to dance slowly and reluctantly. He goes
back to sit on the bed and gulps wine from a bottle he
finds on the nightstand. Then he stands up again because
he is not satisfied with the way she is dancing. He bran-
dishes the knife in front of her face.
‘Listen, bitch, I want you to dance the way I saw you
dance when you didn’t know I was here. I want you to
dance like the whore you are.’
He grabs her and forces a slurping kiss on her lips.
Then he pretends to throw up.
‘ Sies! I kissed a whore! Dance, whore! Dance!’
She begins to dance again. He turns his back to reach
for the bottle of wine and she seizes the opportunity and
tries to escape.
‘You won’t get away, bitch.’
He chases her into the living room, round the furni-
ture, while she grabs items like flower pots, vases and
even books and throws them at him. All the while he is
ducking and charging at her. His head spins a bit when
an ashtray hits it, giving the magistrate a chance to
escape into another room—the guest room that used to
be Don’s bedroom.
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‘I’m going to kill you for this, bitch,’ says Stevo,
wiping blood from his forehead with the back of his
hand.
The two cats are curled on up a mat next to the bed.
They are woken from their nap by the commotion. Stevo
creeps into the room and steps on Snowy’s tail. Both cats
snarl and screech and attack him, scratching and tearing
the leg of his pants.
‘ Eina! Goddammit, man,’ he screams, and then under
his breath, ‘I’m gonna kill Shortie for this.’
The cats escape out of the room.
The magistrate is hiding inside the built-in closet and
is whimpering with fear. Stevo looks everywhere for her.
He looks under the bed, behind the cupboard, behind a
sofa. Then he stops and listens. There is silence for a while.
He hears faint breathing and whimpering. He knows
exactly where she is but he bides his time and whistles to
himself. That should give her enough chance to wet her
pants. Then he tiptoes to the closet and opens it swiftly.
There she is, snivelling in the corner. He drags her out.
‘What do you want from me, Stevo?’
‘I want you to dance for me, sweet lady. That’s all I
ever wanted in my life.’
He drags her by the hair like a caveman, back to her
bedroom. She stands defiantly in the middle of the room.
Stevo sits on the bed, lights a cigarette, and drinks some
more wine. He reads the label on the bottle and shakes
his head in disgust.
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‘You drink this kind of shit?’ he sneers. ‘Only bergies
drink this kind of shit. You’re a magistrate, for God’s
sake.’
She does not move.
‘OK, dance, bitch,’ he says.
She is defiant. He walks menacingly towards her,
wielding the knife.
‘You’re a stubborn little whore.’
He looks at her big stuffed breasts and pretends to
drool.
‘When did you become ou Pamela Anderson, your
worship? The last time you sent me to jail your chest was
very flat. Like a boy’s.’
She instinctively reaches for her breasts, but her
hands escape just in time as Stevo slashes her bosom. The
pieces of cloth stuffed in the bra fly out.
‘Oh, they are fake!’ says Stevo in mock shock. ‘Our
little whore has fake titties.’
She cannot stop the tears from streaming down her
cheeks. She is utterly mortified.
‘Fuck you, Stevo Visagie,’ she says, almost in a whis-
per. ‘Fuck you!’
Stevo slaps her hard on the face. Again and again.
Her face is smudged all over with lipstick and blusher and
mascara and tears and mucus.
‘Who is not a man now, eh?’
He slaps her again.
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‘Who is playing with little girls? OK, OK, it’s me—
not so? I’m in fucken chains in jail and you tell me to my
face I’m not man enough, I play with little girls. Guess
what? You were right, bitch. I play with little girls and
you’re the little girl I’m playing with tonight. Let’s see
your big boobs again.’
He slashes the second breast with the knife and the
stuffing flies out. Then he puts the knife against her chest
and snaps what remains of the bra. Her small breasts are
