Layout 1, page 29
left exposed.
‘Oh, look who’s a little girl now,’ says Stevo laughing
and staring at her breasts.
He slashes her arm and blood spurts out.
‘Who is a scared little boy now, eh?’
She can’t just stand there stubbornly any more. She
tries to escape again. But he is at her heels.
‘Who is a little wiggly worm?’
She falls down but he hauls her up.
‘Please, Stevo,’ she begs. ‘Please.’
‘That sounds nice,’ says Stevo lasciviously. ‘Like
you’re fucken coming. It’s good, isn’t it? It wants you to
scream, “Please, Stevo, please.”’
She is now crying shamelessly.
‘Who’s a crybaby now, bitch?’ asks Stevo. ‘Who’s a
fucken crybaby? OK, enough of your games. Dance,
bitch, dance.’
He fiddles with the stereo manually and the music
throbs again. She begins to dance.
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311
‘Faster, man! Faster! I hate lazy bitches!’
She dances faster and faster.
Neither of them hears a car stop next to the Visagie
delivery van, or Don and Shortie opening the door. The
security grille is wide open; Stevo found a way to pick its
lock. That was why it took him so long to get here—he
had to go to Soweto first to get Fingers Matatu, who in
turn had to get a younger lock-picker who came to
Weltevreden Park with Stevo, fiddled with the lock and
then drove back to his interrupted tavern-drinking as
soon as he had unlocked both the security grille and the
door.
The magistrate dances for a few beats and then stops.
‘Who said you should stop?’
‘Please, Stevo, I’m tired.’
He slashes her skimpy dress, exposing her frilly
panties.
‘ Sies, lady, you don’t have any taste at all,’ he says
laughing heartily. ‘My hookers are more high class than
you. They don’t wear stuff like that.’
She spits at him, right in his face. This stops his
laughter short and infuriates him no end.
‘You know what? I’ve had enough of your shit,’ he
says. ‘I am going to kill the fuck out of you.’
He has the knife ready to slit her throat when the
door flies open and Don barges in, his gun drawn. Stevo
reaches for his gun and fires blindly. Don’s gun drops as
he takes cover. Stevo is going to kill them both. He raises
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his arm and aims, ready to pull the trigger. But Shortie
rushes in yelling, ‘No, Stevo! Don’t do it!’
His brother’s voice takes him by surprise. Don takes
advantage of this distraction and lurches at Stevo. But
Stevo is too fast for him. He fires a shot and Don falls to
the floor.
‘Ma will be really mad at you, Stevo,’ says Shortie.
‘Get out of here, Shortie, or I’ll kill you too,’ says
Stevo.
The magistrate seizes the moment and kicks Stevo
in the balls. While he is reeling Shortie gets hold of him.
Stevo kicks his legs trying to break free but Shortie’s grip
is a firm one. The magistrate grabs a chair and knocks
Stevo out cold. She rushes to Don and kneels beside him,
sobbing. He opens his eyes and she is relieved that he is
not dead.
Stevo has recovered and is trying to reach for the gun
on the floor. Don kicks it away and trips the still groggy
Stevo. Stevo falls down and Shortie holds him in his tight
grip again. Both Don and the magistrate hit him with
whatever is in sight until he loses consciousness.
While the magistrate is trying to stop the bleeding
on Don’s arm with the rags from her torn bra, Shortie is
sobbing over the unconscious Stevo.
‘Ma is gonna give me shit for betraying Stevo,’ he
cries.
Police sirens can be heard outside.
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313
‘Stop whining, man, you did the right thing,’ says the
magistrate.
Two police squad cars with blue lights flashing stop
outside the yard. Police leap out of the cars and dash into
the house.
Don has spent two days at the Johannesburg
Hospital when he gets a visit from Jim Baxter. He fills him
in on the cash heist. Two VIP Protection Services guards
were killed. They were transporting cash in an armoured
vehicle from one Johannesburg branch of a bank in which
Dr Molotov Mbungane is the majority shareholder to a
branch on the outskirts of the Tshwane Metropolis. The
heist was carried out with military precision; the robbers
fired their AK-47s mercilessly. It was clear that they
intended to kill every VIP Protection Services guard.
However, they had not reckoned with the guards in
unmarked cars that always discreetly follow armoured
vehicles. One robber was killed during the ensuing
shootout. Another one was injured and is in police cus-
tody. The rest—estimated at about eight or so—escaped.
But, praise the Lord, none of the cash in the armoured
vehicle was missing. The reputation of VIP Protection
Services was saved by the brave men who sacrificed their
lives. If the crooks had managed to take the cash the com-
pany would certainly lose Dr Mbungane’s contract.
But the main reason Baxter came is that there is a
strange development in the case. The police have discov-
ered that the armed robbers were former guerrilla fight-
ers in the liberation movement.
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‘I thought you should know since you are a former
guerrilla yourself,’ says Baxter, who has never failed to
mention that fact in company because it proved how
open-minded he is; at the time Don was fighting in the
bush Baxter was a colonel in the South African Defence
Force.
‘Have the police questioned the guy they caught?
Was he able to say who the rest were?’
‘They have questioned him,’ says Baxter. ‘But he
won’t talk. He is under police guard here at the hospital.
I told the police about you. They think if you see the guy
privately you may be able to talk some sense into him.’
Don does not think he is up to the task. But Baxter is
a very persuasive man.
In the afternoon Don hobbles on crutches to the pri-
vate ward where the prisoner is being held. Don’s arm is
in bandages and he is in agony, especially in the area of
the ribs. The policeman at the door has instructions to let
him in.
He cannot mistake the figure of Fontyo chained to
the bed and guarded by three policemen armed with
machine guns.
When Fontyo opens his eyes there is Don’s pained
face hovering over him. He just stares back at him and
says nothing.
‘So this is the trip for which you stayed sober, com-
rade?’ says Don. Tears are streaming down his face.
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315
‘Bova is dead. Your people killed Bova, you bloody
capitalist pig.’
And he turns his head to the wall. That is all he is pre-
pared to say.
Don hobbles back to his ward.
Kristin is waiting beside his bed with a bunch of
flowers.
‘You’ve been crying,’ she says looking at his blood-
shot eyes.
‘It’s OK,’ he says.
He does not know what to say next. She doesn’t
either. She could say ‘thank you for saving my life’ but
that would not sound like her. That would sound too
maudlin.
‘When are you coming home?’ she asks instead.
‘I have no home,’ he says matter-of-factly.
‘Home is where your cat is,’ she says.
He smiles for a while, and then says quite earnestly,
‘For now . . . maybe. Me and Snowy . . . we can no longer
be kept.’
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Black Diamond (pdf), Layout 1
