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invents her own whenever she gets stuck.
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Mother and son have to shout above the cacophony
at the back of the kombi to hear each other. He tells her
that he is worried about Stevo—he seems to be losing his
grip in prison. He did not address the question of the
girls at all but kept on repeating something about the
strange dreams that are haunting him.
Two evenings later, the magistrate arrives home
from work and is greeted by smoke that fills the whole
house. There is a stench that is so strong that even the cat
cannot stand it. It caterwauls and scratches the carpet.
She dumps her briefcase and files on the floor and runs
to the kitchen. There is a boiling pot on the stove. A thick
slimy liquid is seeping through the lid on to the red hot
plate, causing the smoke. She lifts the lid and a wave of
steam and stench assails her. The slime bubbles over,
creating even more smoke.
It is rotten tripe.
Pinned on a cupboard above the stove is a note writ-
ten in letters cut from a newspaper and pasted on a page
from an exercise book in kindergarten manner: Next time
it will be your cat!
She switches off the stove and opens all the windows.
She has a good mind to take the whole pot to Diepkloof
Prison and dump its rotten contents on Stevo Visagie’s
head. But common sense prevails; she would not like to
see herself in the dock for assault. Instead she goes to her
bedroom, sits on the bed and dials Krish Naidoo.
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The attorney is still adamant that his client is not
capable of such skulduggery. He is, after all, still in jail,
as the magistrate well knows. She must look elsewhere
for the culprit. Perhaps someone who has just been
released from serving time to which she had sentenced
him. The police are sure to find whoever is responsible
and she will be disappointed when she discovers that the
Visagies have nothing to do with it.
‘What pisses me off even more is that they used one
of my best waterless pots,’ says the magistrate. ‘You’re
not supposed to use water in these pots.’
‘Never mind the pots, Kristin. Call the cops now.’
But Kristin Uys is defiant and stubborn. She is deter-
mined not to be intimidated by small-time thugs, as she
calls them.
‘They are amateurs,’ she says. ‘They think they can
scare me.’
It is just bravado. She is scared. For instance, when
the cat leaps up from behind the bed, she is startled and
almost jumps out of her skin. Then she becomes embar-
rassed that she has displayed this outward sign of fear,
even though there was no one to witness it. She needs to
steel herself for the war of nerves that lies ahead and must
never show weakness, not even to herself.
‘They gained entrance to your house in your absence,
Kristin,’ says Krish Naidoo who sounds genuinely wor-
ried about her. ‘Clearly, you’re not safe. If you don’t call
the cops, I will.’
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But the magistrate thinks that would be playing into
the criminals’ hands. She wants to show them that she is
not a little girl who can be terrorized by bullies.
‘At least report this to the chief magistrate,’ pleads
the attorney.
The magistrate is adamant that she will do nothing
of the sort. The only thing she will do is to change the
locks.
She consults the Yellow Pages for a locksmith who
works all hours.
In no time all her doors have different sets of locks
and chains and the folding security barrier is reinforced
with iron bars so that it cannot fold open again.
The next day Shortie visits his brother to brief him
on his first real success. He is surprised to find that Stevo
already knows about it. So as to leave Shortie mystified,
Stevo does not tell him that he had an earlier visit from
Krish Naidoo who wanted reassurance from his client that
he had nothing to do with breaking into the magistrate’s
house and cooking rotten tripe in her pot. Of course,
Stevo denied all knowledge of it. He was convincing,
the more so because he really knew nothing about it,
although he suspected that his brother had finally had the
gumption to do something about the damn magistrate.
‘I swear I had nothing to do with it, my china,’ he told
his lawyer. ‘I am as innocent as a newborn baby.’
At this he assumed a look that he hoped passed for
the angelic face of a newborn baby.
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‘If I ever discover that it is your work, Stevo, you’ll
have to get yourself another lawyer,’ said Krish Naidoo.
Stevo Visagie scowled and said, ‘You law people stick
together like a bunch of thieves.’
Then he broke into uncontrollable laughter at his
own joke.
His good spirits continue as Shortie fills him in on
the details. It was not easy breaking into the house.
Shortie had to get help from Fingers Matatu, a well-
known cat burglar who is long retired from the trade
because of old age but still rents out his services to who-
ever wants locks picked. It is said that a lock has not yet
been invented that Fingers Matatu cannot pick.
‘It was a good one, Shortie. A very good one, my
china,’ Stevo enthuses. ‘Rotten tripe! You can be a genius
sometimes.’
Shortie has the broadest of grins because he has
never been called a genius by anyone before, let alone by
his brother.
‘Now for the big one, Shortie,’ Stevo announces like
an impresario on stage, or perhaps like a circus ringmas-
ter. ‘Next time the bitch comes home, she must find her
cat cooking in that pot.’
This horrifies Shortie.
‘I can’t kill a cat, Stevo,’ he pleads. ‘It’s one thing to
buy tripe from the street vendors, keep it for a while until
it stinks . . . but to kill a cat, Stevo!’
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‘We are the Visagies, man. We’re not scared of
nothing. You’ll kill that cat and cook it.’
‘Come on, Stevo, what do you hope to gain from all
this?’
He wants to run the magistrate out of town before
she gets the opportunity to carry out her threat to close
down their operations once and for all and send the whole
Visagie clan to prison.
‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the bitch is
only after nailing my ass,’ says Stevo. ‘She’s after your ass
too, and after Ma’s ass, and after the ass of all the Visagies
dead or alive.’
She will stop at nothing, unless she is run out of
town.
‘Think of Ma, Shortie,’ says Stevo. ‘Think of all the
work she put into establishing the business from the
time we were teensy little babies. What will Ma say,
Shortie? What will Ma say? You’ve always been a coward,
Shortie. But think of Ma.’
At that moment the magistrate is drawing her own
battle plans. She has a map of Roodepoort and environs
in front of her and is highlighting all the spots she sus-
pects are red-light districts. The decaying city centre
especially has buildings that have been taken over by
pimps and madams and by run-down hotels where johns
and their low-class street walkers can rent rooms for ‘day
rest’. Despite the complaints of attorneys that she has
been authorizing police invasions of suspected brothels
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without probable cause, or reasonable suspicion that a
crime was being committed there, she will continue to
sign search warrants indiscriminately. It is part of her
crusade against the moral decay that has overwhelmed
the city. She hates the whores for the power they can
unleash in their bodies to render men so insane that they
part with fortunes, and with their wives and families.
The phone rings. The chief magistrate for the
Roodepoort district, Mr Bangani Mbona, is summoning
her to his office. She suspects it must be about a search
warrant that she signed without so-called reasonable sus-
picion. Some attorney must have complained.
Mr Mbona is sitting behind his desk as Kristin Uys
enters. He is one of the youthful sharp legal minds that
are taking over the South African legal system and who
insist on misguidedly sticking to the letter of the law even
when it defeats justice and criminals go scot-free. Yes,
Kristin herself is a stickler for tradition. But she considers
herself smart enough to know when the law is becoming
an ass and can carefully bend it in order to see to it that
the guilty are punished. Especially if they are pimps and
prostitutes.
Even before she takes a seat, he addresses her.
‘Why did I have to hear of this from Mr Naidoo?’
he asks.
So, it is not about a search warrant; Krish Naidoo has
ratted on her.
‘Because he does not mind his business,’ she says.
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‘You cannot afford to be flippant about this, Ms Uys.
I’m going to ask the Police Commissioner to post police
guards at your house.’
This is the last thing Kristin Uys wants. She will not
have her house crawling with police. That would be send-
ing the wrong message to the petty gangsters who are
trying to intimidate her. This is between Stevo Visagie
and her, and she intends to win it on her own terms.
‘Police don’t crawl, Ms Uys,’ says Mr Mbona. ‘And in
my experience, petty gangsters are the most dangerous.
They don’t think twice. They don’t reason. They don’t
consider the consequences. They just act.’
‘What I meant to say, sir, is that the police are short-
staffed as it is. What with all the crime in the city.’
‘OK, we’ll hire a private security firm. I know just the
right one. It’s across the street on Dieperink. VIP
Protection Services. They’ll assign a bodyguard who will
be with you 24/7.’
Kristin Uys’s protests are in vain. She will have a
bodyguard and that is final.
8
CADRES IN THE TRENCHES
These are hectic times for Tumi Molefhe, what with her
TM Modelling Agency gaining more international recog-
nition and her involvement in a consortium that is bid-
ding for a free-to-air television station. But despite all
this she will not miss going to the gym. She must stay in
shape and must look as good as any of the younger
models in her stable. She leads by example. That is why
we find her at the Virgin Active Classic Club in Melrose
Arch this afternoon sweating it out in a virtual-reality
enhanced spinning class. She comes here at least four
times a week.
Her two best friends are with her—Nomsa, a dentist,
and Maki, who is serving articles with a leading firm of
attorneys. Even though the three women come from dif-
ferent worlds they have been very close since they met at
a book club a few years back. One thing they have in
common is the ambition to hit it really big in some BEE
deal one day. Hence they are all part of the consortium
that is bidding for the television station. They are always
on the lookout for investment opportunities and for
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white corporations that are searching for BEE partners.
For instance, Nomsa dabbles in construction and last
year hit the jackpot with a low-income housing contract.
The pace is very fast and the women look good in
their spinning shorts and Pedal Power jerseys that cling
to their bodies. Although Tumi’s friends are not built like
models, they are both beautiful and well groomed. Both
are younger than Tumi, perhaps in their late twenties.
Maki is petite with gleaming Jabu Stone dreadlocks while
Nomsa is buxom and, like Tumi, sports cornrows today.
The three cannot but ogle the guy in front who is
wearing padded leggings that highlight all his endow-
ments and a tight tee that displays his pecs to full advan-
tage. They covertly make naughty gestures and giggle.
After the class the women meet at Kauai Health Food
and Juice for long fruit cocktails. They are still in their
spinning gear and are full of good cheer and laughter.
‘ Sies, Maki,’ says Tumi. ‘You were practically drooling
at him.’
Maki laughs and declares that the man is not her
type; the person who was actually drooling was Tumi
herself.
‘Not your type?’ asks Nomsa. ‘You know who that
guy is? One of the BEE Fat Cats. He’s worth millions.’
‘Who cares,’ Maki finally admits. ‘With a body like
that, he can be worth zero and I’d still go for him.’
‘Good for you, Maki,’ says Tumi. ‘This is the new
South Africa. The sisters are doing it for themselves, as
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they say. You don’t need a guy with big bucks—you make
your own.’
‘And create your own man too,’ says Nomsa. ‘Like
you’re doing with Don.’
‘What do you mean?’ asks Tumi. The laughter has
vanished from her face. Nomsa realizes that her friend is
offended by her remark and tries to hide her embarrass-
ment with giggles.
‘You guys wouldn’t understand,’ says Tumi quite
seriously. ‘Me and Don, we come from far. Don has got
connections. He was a freedom fighter. He’s going to be
a Black Diamond too one of these days.’
Of course Don is a great guy, the women agree. You
don’t find guys like Don in Johannesburg any more. There
is a drought of men in the city, not because the species is
extinct but because it is intimidated by successful
women. Yes, the typical Jozi sophisticate would like to
take a woman like Tumi or Nomsa or Maki to bed and
boast about it to his buddies at the country club the next
day, but he certainly would not like to take her to the altar.
Women like these are far too independent-minded for the
altar. For a wife these men prefer a beautiful young thing
with not too many brains. Someone they can display at
cocktail parties where, pray to God, she must not open
her mouth lest she says something stupid or, worse still,
something that will betray her common origins and
her lack of education and finesse. Someone who will get
all her fulfilment from shopping and whose greatest
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achievement in life will be featuring in the society pages
for nothing more than wearing particular French and
Italian labels with poise. Someone who will be at his beck
and call at all hours of the day and night and who will
wait patiently and uncomplainingly while he spends the
night pub-crawling or bonking schoolgirls in the apart-
ments he is renting for them. Someone who will be com-
pletely dependent on him and will be dead scared of
being sent back to the poverty of Soweto or of some vil-
lage in KwaZulu-Natal if ever she showed the slightest
sign of rebellion. Someone whose main task in life is to
stand next to him and smile. Until she is replaced by a
younger version when the skin begins to sag a little.
After a boisterous group shower reminiscent of care-
free schoolgirl days, the women go for a massage. Then
they cruise down Corlett Drive and Oxford Road to the
consortium meeting at Sandton Square in a showy
convoy of Tumi’s Jag, Nomsa’s Mercedes Benz SLK and
Maki’s BMW 3-series—she already has plans to upgrade
it to a 5-series as soon as she completes her articles of
clerkship.
The meeting is intense as usual. It has been going on
every evening for the past two weeks. The bid for the tel-
evision licence is spearheaded by the Mabanjwa Trust, a
group made up mostly of former political prisoners on
Robben Island, but also from various inland prisons.
Tumi is amazed how they have evolved into savvy busi-
nessmen who speak the jargon both of the television
industry and the corporate world, albeit occasionally
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