A Beautiful Place to Die Part 40

"He's trying to weasel out of it." d.i.c.kie was furious. "He's changing the rules on us. Look at him. He's white."

"I think he is," Piet said mildly. "But there's no way to prove it, which is why Cooper has chosen to give us this report. Claiming to be nonwhite is his easiest way out. No prison term and as much black s.n.a.t.c.h as he can poke. Right, Cooper?"

Emmanuel shrugged. His life was spinning down the drain while Piet imagined him living it up in a shebeen full of black women. It didn't surprise him. Blacks and coloureds laughed louder and longer...or so it seemed to whites. He was going to miss the job, his sister, and his life.

"He gets to walk away." Paul Pretorius couldn't believe it. "Recla.s.sification isn't enough to pay him back for Louis."

Piet ground his cigarette b.u.t.t under his heel and immediately lit another, as if it were oxygen and not nicotine that was poisoning his bloodstream. He sucked deep until the tip of the cigarette glowed hot and red.

"Cooper is forgetting that a nonwhite man has little protection from the law." The lieutenant handed the cigarette to Paul. "We will now be forced to make the punishment for what happened to Louis immediate and physical in the extreme."

s.h.i.+t, Emmanuel thought. Was there no way out of Piet Lapping's carnival of perpetual pain? The Security Branch officer in the doorway swung around and faced into the house, hand on his gun holster.

"Speak-" The officer barked the command down the corridor.

"Lieutenant Lapping?" Mrs. Ellis's voice, sharp with fear, called out from the sitting room. "Lieutenant Lapping?"

"Mummy-" Davida whispered before d.i.c.kie cupped his hand over her mouth.

"Ja?" Piet pursed his bulbous lips. The sound of a female voice put a damper on the high he experienced during physical questioning: like having your mother walk in on you just before the climax.

"Phone call," the housekeeper said quickly, aware on a base, instinctual level that the men in the room were unused to a woman interrupting their dark business.

"What?" Piet moved to the destroyed doorway and listened. He was ready to leap and strangle the housekeeper if she made a wrong move.

"There's a man on the phone. He asked to talk to a Lieutenant Lapping right away."

"The colonel?" d.i.c.kie asked.

"No," Piet said, and unrolled his sleeves and b.u.t.toned them, careful of appearances outside the room. "He doesn't know we're here."

So-Emmanuel's brain formed the thought with sluggish determination-Piet was keeping this excursion secret. He was determined to clear any obstacles that could throw doubts over the confession he'd extracted from the Communist last night.

"Put the cigarette out and don't do anything until I get back," Piet said, and left the room to answer the phone.

"Take a break." d.i.c.kie stepped into the boss's shoes and found them quite comfortable. "Cooper and his friend aren't going anywhere."

The Pretorius brothers retreated to the window and fell into a whispered conversation while d.i.c.kie pushed Davida into a chair and stood over her. Emmanuel sank his throbbing head into his hands. It was his fault that Davida was here, in this room with men who stank of violence and hate. Their pleasure had come at a high price.

"Look up." Piet Lapping was back in the bedroom and he was not calm. "Look at me, Cooper."

Piet paced back and forth in front of the bed, his fingers flicking the flame of his cigarette lighter off and on like a lighthouse beacon. Something had set him off and destroyed the mystic calm he insisted was a mainstay of the "work."

"You're really something," Piet said through tight lips. "You and your sissy friend van Niekerk."

Emmanuel had no idea what he was talking about. Van Niekerk was in Jo'burg and unaware of the disaster with Louis or that the Security Branch interrogation was taking place at Elliot King's game ranch. How the h.e.l.l had van Niekerk tracked him down?

"What happened?" d.i.c.kie asked.

Piet ignored him and bent down in front of Emmanuel, his pebble eyes wet with rage.

"Mozambique. That's where you got them. Am I right?"

Emmanuel lifted an eyebrow in response. Piet could go fish.

"What?" d.i.c.kie walked to his partner's side but kept plenty of s.p.a.ce between them in case he needed to duck out of the way in a hurry. Lieutenant Lapping was unpredictable when he was angry and he was rarely this angry.

"I should have known," Piet mused aloud. "That day you left for Lorenzo Marques to question the underwear salesman. I smelled something was wrong..."

"What underwear salesman?" d.i.c.kie was trying his best to get involved and be a genuine partner, not just a muscleman.

"Shut up, d.i.c.kie," Piet said. "I need to get this straight so we don't do anything foolish. I need to think."

Piet flicked the lighter on and off, the sound of it like gunfire in the tense atmosphere. A muscle jumped in the cratered skin of his cheek and Emmanuel held his breath.

"He's going to release the photos if we touch another hair on your pretty head," Piet said after a long while. "He wants you to call him in ten minutes to verify that you're safe, like a f.u.c.king virgin at her first dance."

Emmanuel stood up, his body stiff from the beating he'd taken. He didn't care what the Security Branch threw at him. Van Niekerk had the photos and their power couldn't be p.i.s.sed away by slinging childish insults. He glanced over at Davida and saw that she understood. They were going to walk out of the room and then they were going to run.

"You're going to let him go?" Paul Pretorius pointed an accusing finger at the pockmarked lieutenant. "You promised us he'd get what was coming to him."

Piet caught Paul's finger and twisted hard until the finger snapped out of its socket.

"Ahhgg-" Paul Pretorius groaned, and sweat broke out on his forehead.

"We are letting him go because your pa couldn't keep his pants b.u.t.toned up and that slippery f.u.c.k van Niekerk has proof of it."

"That's a lie." Paul was red faced with pain. "He's lying."

Piet let go of Paul's dislocated finger and said, "I did consider the possibility that he was lying, but he has something, this van Niekerk. It was in his voice. I could hear it: the pleasure he takes in having power over us. Over me."

d.i.c.kie marshaled a decent thought and threw it into the ring. "Maybe he's just a good liar."

"Consider the facts," Piet said patiently. "Van Niekerk knows my f.u.c.king name, he knows where I am when even the colonel has no idea. This is not someone to be taken lightly and that is why I cannot take the risk that he is just playing with us."

Emmanuel limped past the bickering Security Branch men and held out his hand to Davida, who was perched at the edge of her chair, ready to make a run for it.

"Let's go," he said.

She stood up and took his hand. Her fingers curled around his and squeezed tight. Emmanuel turned to the door and noticed pockmarked Piet staring at them with evil intent. Not good. Emmanuel started walking. Please, G.o.d. The shattered doorway was so close now. Just four more steps.

"So sweet," Piet muttered. "The way you looked at her just then. It's as if you actually like her."

Emmanuel felt Davida's fingers slip from his. Piet pulled her back into the room with a yank and held her in the tight band of his arms. Davida twisted and kicked but remained imprisoned against the foul-smelling white man with the cratered face.

"Don't do this." Emmanuel heard the pleading tone in his voice and tried again, stronger this time. "Let her go, Lieutenant."

"The deal," Piet said, "was for your release. We keep her."

"No!" Davida arched her back and tried to wriggle free but she was no match for Piet's bullish strength coupled with his experience in subduing troublesome prisoners. "Let me go!"

Piet lifted her in the air, as easily as he'd lift an empty laundry basket, and threw her back on the bed. The springs groaned and he straddled her in one quick move and pinned her arms above her head.

Emmanuel was close behind. His battered body found a sputter of speed from a reserve located behind his damaged kidneys. He smacked Piet hard in the side of the head and got no reaction. He went in for a second hit and connected with air. d.i.c.kie and Paul pulled him back and threw him into the chair. The dark fear from the dream consumed him and grew stronger.

"Good," Piet said as Davida's body strained and pressed against his inner thighs. "I like spirit in a woman: a bit of fight."

"You have everything you want," Emmanuel said. "She's of no use to you."

"I want the photos. The photos for the girl, that's the trade."

"If van Niekerk won't give them up?" Emmanuel asked. That was a real possibility. "What then?"

"Well..." Piet pressed a thumb against Davida's mouth and forced her lips apart. "You can f.u.c.k off out of here or you can stay and watch me work on her. Your choice, Cooper."

"No." Emmanuel struggled against the mother lode of Boer muscle holding him in the chair but couldn't break free. "Don't do this."

"You cannot imagine"-Piet's breath was coming hard as the body underneath him continued to buck and grind-"how beautiful my work can be. I will get to know this woman in ways that are beyond you. I will break her open and touch her soul."

"Please-" Davida arched away from the evil man leaning close to her. "Emmanuel-help me-"

"Wait," Emmanuel said. He needed Piet to stop and listen. "Wait. I'll talk to van Niekerk and try to make a deal."

"The girl for the photos. That's the only deal I'm interested in. I'm not going to let your major hang on to evidence that might spoil my case further down the track."

"Okay," Emmanuel said. "Let her off the bed and sit her in the chair. I'll make the call."

Piet s.h.i.+fted his weight and considered the request. He was reluctant to break away from the bruising and intimate tango that prisoner and interrogator danced together in the dark of the holding cells. He lifted his body and let the girl wriggle from under him. If he didn't get the photos, he had this to look forward to. The task of breaking the woman to his will.

Emmanuel sat Davida down in the chair and let her feel his touch, gentle and unforced. It hurt to look in her eyes and see the stark terror flickering in the dark circle of her pupils.

"Don't leave me," she whispered. "Please don't go."

"I have to," he said. "I'll come back in a few minutes. I promise."

"You promise?"

"Yes." He didn't know if he was coming back with the keys to her release or with nothing at all. He had to roll the dice.

"Go with him," Piet said to d.i.c.kie. "Make sure he doesn't start trouble."

"I'm going alone," Emmanuel said. "Van Niekerk won't talk if someone else is listening in. Or is that what you're hoping for, Lieutenant? A no from van Niekerk so you can get back to work on the girl?"

"p.i.s.s off," Piet said, and fumbled for his cigarettes. "You have ten minutes."

"Fifteen," Emmanuel said, and shuffled out of the room past the guard in the hallway.

21.

HE MADE SLOW progress toward the office, his bruised muscles twitching with five different kinds of pain. The cut on his eyebrow had opened again and he stopped to wipe away the trickle of blood obscuring his vision. Through the red haze he saw Mrs. Ellis standing in the doorway to the kitchen, neat and trim. progress toward the office, his bruised muscles twitching with five different kinds of pain. The cut on his eyebrow had opened again and he stopped to wipe away the trickle of blood obscuring his vision. Through the red haze he saw Mrs. Ellis standing in the doorway to the kitchen, neat and trim.

"My G.o.d...my G.o.d..." she whispered. "Did they do this to you?"

Emmanuel nodded. He was still in his undershorts: a sorry, beaten man with skin pulsing red, yellow, and bright purple.

"My baby-" Mrs. Ellis gave voice to her worst fears. "My baby is alone with those men?"

"Yes," Emmanuel said, and limped to the office. He had fifteen, twenty minutes tops to turn things around. "I'm trying to get her out."

"Trying?" Elliot King appeared in front of him, his face pinched tight with impotent rage. "You lured her into that room. It's your fault she's in this position."

Emmanuel slammed Elliot King hard in the chest and sent him flying back into a wall. He leaned to within an inch of King's suntanned face. "Your daughter came of her own accord and she would have left of her own accord but for you and your half-baked attempt to manipulate events. This has been your doing right from the start."

"I sent for the police, not a gang of Afrikaner thugs. I should have known not to trust the Dutch."

"You entrusted Davida, body and soul, to a Dutchman in exchange for a piece of land," Emmanuel said. "Now you're not even in charge of your own house. How does it feel, Mr. King?" Emmanuel turned his back on him and limped to the office.

Winston King was inside with the phone to his ear and a crossed-out list of names balanced on his knees. He hung up and rubbed the flat of his palms over his eyes.

"No takers," Winston said. "Botha will try to contact the commissioner of police in an hour or so to see what can be done. No promises, though. n.o.body wants to mess with these Security Branch f.u.c.kers. For once the size of your donations isn't big enough."

"The commissioner won't take the call," Emmanuel said. "A member of the Communist Party confessed to Captain Pretorius's murder last night. The Security Branch has a signed confession. n.o.body is going to go up against them."

"s.h.i.+t." Winston looked sick. "f.u.c.king h.e.l.l."

"I'll take that as an expression of genuine regret for your actions," Emmanuel said, and signaled him out of the office. "It comes a little too late for the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d who was beaten into a confession and it comes too late for Davida. Two other people are going to pay the price for you, but you're used to that, aren't you, Winston? Someone else picking up the bill."

"Davida doesn't mean anything to those men," Winston protested. "Why hold her?"

"She's currency," Emmanuel said. "They want to exchange her for a piece of evidence that could derail their case in the future."

"I'll tell them-" Winston was ashen. "I'll confess to everything if they let Davida go. I'll put it in writing."

"Wait-" King said from the doorway. "I'll give them a good price to walk away. How much do you think they'll take?"

"This might be hard for you to understand," Emmanuel said, and sank into the office chair. "But this situation is above money. Those men believe they are guarding the future of South Africa. Your cash means nothing to them. Not with a Communist ready for trial."

"No one is above money," King stated with certainty.

"Fine." Emmanuel lifted the phone. "You and Winston go in and offer them a bribe, see what happens."

The King men eyed the blood dripping off his chin onto the beaten flesh of his torso.