Choice of Weapon Page 7

  Chapter 7

  Garrett lay in bed. It was unlike him to sleep past sunup. However, he wasn’t sleeping, he was merely lying still. Not thinking, just breathing in and out. The barest of autonomic bodily functions needed to stay alive. Heart beating slowly. After he had spoken to Petrus he had said goodnight to Manon. Then he had driven back to Brian’s place. Once again the dentist had arrived home late, after Garrett had sacked out. There were things that he needed to think about. Important things. Life changing things. But instead he simply lay still.

  Petrus was right. He had to decide exactly what he was going to do. If the children were being kidnapped for some foul reason then how would he react? Was it up to him to decide on the perpetrators punishment? Would he simply report the whole thing to the police and, if so, would they bother to do anything? Could they do anything? How big could this whole thing be? But debate with himself as much as wanted, one thing was abundantly clear; if he did nothing about it then nothing would ever be done. That decided he climbed out of bed.

  They called themselves ‘The Finders of the Children of the Lady of the Cedars of the Lebanon.’ Ostensibly they worked hand in hand with the Catholic Church. Particularly when it involved the homeless, the destitute or the infirm. They were a privately funded group, a mixture of upper middle class whites and working class black women. Some would say do-gooders, some busybodies. But those who had been helped by these women, those who had been given food, or clothing or a place to stay; they would call them angels.

  This Friday afternoon they were visiting the Alexandra Township, giving alms in the form of food and clothing. Nomusa Bongani, a plump middle-aged matron knocked softly on the cardboard sheet that formed a makeshift door to the lean-to. There was no answer, but she could hear a faint coughing. Weak but persistent. She pushed the cardboard to one side and went into the dwelling. Lying on the floor was a young girl of perhaps seven years of age. Her thin cotton dress drenched in sweat. Nomusa leant over her and felt her forehead. She was oven-hot. Her tongue hung from the side of her mouth like a panting dog and when Nomusa tried to talk to her the little girl babbled in fever driven delirium.

  Nomusa went outside and called for Missus Seagal. Annabella Segeal was the nominal leader of the group more for the fact that her husband was a wealthy plastic surgeon than for her own leadership qualities. However, that notwithstanding, she was a caring person who put in many hours of genuine hard work. She also spent a lot of her time telling people how much good she did but this did not negate the acts of charity in any way. It simply made her a complete pain in the ass.

  After questioning the people that lived around the cardboard lean-to and discovering that the child had no parents, the ladies carried her to Missus Seagal’s Range Rover and laid her on the back seat. Thirty minutes later the plastic surgeon’s wife pulled into the parking lot of the Honeydew Sunlight Orphanage.

  Petrus carried the child to the small private room at the back of the converted factory that served as a sick room and Manon wasted no time in calling the church doctor. Within the hour the girl had an electrolytic drip in her arm. The doctor explained to Manon that she was severely dehydrated due to chronic diarrhea and the cough would clear up as soon as her strength increased.

  ‘She’s sleeping naturally now,’ the doctor said. ‘When she wakes she may show signs of disorientation. This is normal. Keep her warm and well hydrated. Fruit juice, watered by half. Some dry biscuits and toast until the bowels stop acting up. Maybe some chicken soup, can’t go wrong with chicken soup. Any worries, give me a call.’ He shook hands with the sister and left.

  Manon sat with the girl for the next hour when she woke. She stared around the room for a while. Eyes wide. Puzzled. Not scared. Finally.

  ‘Where is my brother?’

  ‘I’m sorry, my sweet. You were very sick so some people brought you here to get better. We don’t know about your brother.’

  The little girls face puckered up. Her eyes glazed with tears. ‘I want my brother. He will be worried about me.’

  Manon took her hand. ‘Don’t worry, little one. We will find your brother. What’s your name?’

  ‘Thandi. I live in Alex with my brother. He made a door. He’s very strong. His name is Vusi.’

  ‘Okay, Thandi. You wait here. Don’t worry. I am going to call someone and they will find your brother for you.’

  Thandi nodded.

  Manon walked through to the front of the building to find Petrus. He was in his usual spot, leaning against the wall, eyes half closed. Cigarette dangling from his lips. The sister explained what she needed done.

  ‘No problem. I know where the church ladies found her. I’ll go there now and find this Vusi.’ He set off down the road. His stride deceptively long, muscular shoulders rolling as he walked. A thin tendril of smoke swirled around his head as from a lit fuse.

  Dubula opened the door of the black Mercedes S500 and stepped outside. The roasting air brought an instant sheen of sweat to his face after the frigid cool of the climate control. A dust devil swirled across the dirty parking area picking up plastic packets as it danced. Yellow and blue and red partners pirouetting together in the dirt.

  He glanced around the lot looking for him. He knew that he would be there. He was there every Friday. And then he saw him, standing in the shade of the building trying to appear casual. Lounging. One hand on hip. Dubula hid his smile and beckoned for him to come over. They shook hands.

  ‘Good day to you, Vusi,’ he greeted the boy.

  ‘Sawubona, umnumzana.’ Vusi returned the greeting formally. Showing great respect.

  ‘So, Vusi. The usual please. Twenty Rands to protect my car. Half now,’ Dubula took a roll of money from his pocket and stripped off a ten Rand note. ‘Half when I get back.’

  Vusi bowed and went and stood in front of the car, his hand resting on the handle of the screwdriver in his pocket, his chest puffed out with importance. This was a man’s job.

  Dubula walked into the beer hall. A group of teenage skabengas, street thugs, were clustered around the entrance. Baseball caps on backwards, oversized jeans at jailbait half-mast. Fake Nike’s, shoelaces loose so when they walked they had to shuffle like zombies. Dubula scanned them and they averted their eyes. Hands in front of crotches like a dog covering its genitals with its tail in the presence of the alpha. The big man stopped to speak to them.

  ‘Hey, you shits, watch my car, okay? And if any harm comes to my car or to the boy I will hunt you down and roast you over an open fire. Okay?’

  There was a frantic nodding of heads and a chorused, ‘Yebo,’ of agreement. They knew that this was no idle threat.

  Dubula gave them a thumb up. He enjoyed Fridays. The end of the week was money collection day. Shebeens, illegal drinking halls, gambling joints, whore houses, even legitimate shops. All paid a percentage to the master. And Dubula was in charge of collections. In return the businesses received a form of protection. Protection from the wrath of the master as well as protection from both other gangs and any attempt at competition.

  This protection was not as dubious a perk as it might sound. Only two months previously a Chinese gang had attempted to take control of a number of the gambling joints that flourished in SOWETO and surrounds. They had come in hard and fast. Torching one of the joints and badly beating another two owner-operators. Then they sent a polite note to the master. It was along the lines of, let’s talk. There is room for all of us and no need to fight. The master had agreed and asked to meet at their premises. Their head office turned out to be situated on a smallholding close to Rustenburg some hundred miles or so from SOWETO. They had a number of houses for management and smaller single room dwellings for the muscle. The master had hit them with overwhelming and completely unexpected force. Fifty men armed with assault rifles, RPG’s and machine guns. They had driven straight through the electric fences and destroyed the place. Every building burnt to the ground. Twenty-eight Chinese were killed, including five women and
three children. Even the pets were exterminated.

  For the next couple of weeks it became life-threateningly unfashionable to be of Chinese extraction as the master cleaned up. Another seven people were put to the gun. And now everyone was under no illusion when it came to what they were paying their monthly ten percent of turnover for. And, as such, Dubula was treated by all as an honored guest. Tea was supped. Biscuits eaten and business talked in hushed and respectable tones. The big man even carried a briefcase. He was a businessman. A far cry from the boy on the streets.

  Despite what the people thought of Dubula he was not a violent man. Instead he was simply a man capable of great violence. He had killed his first man when he was very young and he had gone on to kill many more. But he had only done so when necessary and he had never enjoyed it. Bar the first one.

  His mother had been unemployed for over four years. His father was merely a giver of seed. He had left before Dubula had been born. In an effort to keep her three children, Dubula and his two older sisters, from starving, his mother was forced to become an injakazi, a street whore. And in Africa there is no more dangerous profession. By the end of the first year she was HIV positive and after another three was in the first stages of AIDS. But still she plied her trade at any opportunity. Servicing up to ten men a day with unprotected sex. By now both of Dubula’s sisters had succumbed. Malnutrition combined with filthy water and constant diarrhea had killed both of them. They had literally wasted to death. Most people in the western world are unaware of the fact that diarrhea is one of the leading causes of child deaths in Africa. Far higher than AIDS. But we see no brown ribbons at award ceremonies. Diarrhea is not trendy. We remain ignorant. So, one might say that Dubula’s sisters died of western ignorance.

  Be that as it may, by this stage Dubula’s mother was so weak that she could only tout for business that came very close to her hut. And she would take on anyone. Men diseased with syphilis, the infection so far advanced that the palms of their hands and the soles of their feet were covered with the dark brown syphilis rash and their genitals were a crop of seeping wounds. And Dubula would lie quietly in the corner of the hut, under a blanket, while these rotting men would pound on his mother as she earned enough coin to keep them alive for one more day.

  Until one evening, a man had finished, stood up, pulled his trousers up and made to leave. His mother had called out, asking for her money. But he had reacted violently. Backhanding her with a full-blooded sweep of his hand. He struck her flush on the side of her face catapulting her wasted body into the wall with such force that Dubula actually heard her rib bones crack. He reacted instantly, running out from underneath the blanket, a slim-bladed paring knife in his hand as he did so. The blade was small, perhaps three inches long, but it had been honed to a scalpel like degree. It slid into the man’s torso, somewhere between the forth and fifth ribs. The man picked up the boy by the throat and started to squeeze the life out of him. But it was no easy task as Dubula wriggled and thrashed about, kicking and punching.

  Eventually one of his kicks struck the handle of the knife hammering it even further in. Far enough to skewer the heart. Blood bubbled out of the man’s mouth and he sank to the floor. Dead. Dubula carried on kicking him for a while until he was utterly exhausted. And then he lay down on the floor next to his mothers body, pulled the blanket up to cover the both of them and slept until the morning. He was seven years old.

  Many more men had died since.

  And now Dubula carried a briefcase.

  The owner of the beer hall bustled up, bowing in respect as he walked. Dubula could smell the tea brewing. Yes, he liked Fridays.

  Garrett had filled the Jeep’s tank again and was heading to a house in the suburb of Sandhurst, the wealthiest area in South Africa. He was happy with the jeep, it was comfortable and had all of the mod cons but it drank fuel like an Irishman downs Guinness on St. Patrick’s Day. Not that it mattered with the petrol prices being so cheap. He had spent the morning on the phone tracking down the head of the Catholic Church in South Africa, a Cardinal Voysie. That had been the easy part. Getting an appointment to actually see him was a little more difficult. Eventually Garrett had resorted to an out and out lie, claiming that he was an English lawyer representing a large charity based in London and was looking at donating a vast sum of money to the South African Church to support its various outreach programs. The Cardinal’s personal assistant, Bishop Mandoluto managed to squeeze Garrett in, mid afternoon at the Cardinal’s house for a quick informal meeting.

  The satnav beeped and a Joanne Lumley sound-a-like informed him that he had reached his destination. The gates to the house were nothing short of stupendous. Dark hardwood slabs fully twenty feet high. Running along the top, two foot of electric fencing that joined the wall surrounding the property. Garrett buzzed his window down in order to push the intercom button next to the gate. He could hear the fence as it hummed and clicked. A full ten thousand volts of high-tech deterrent. Before he even touched the intercom it crackled into life. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Yes,’ affirmed Garrett. ‘Two thirty appointment with His Most Reverend Eminence. I’m from London.’

  The gate rolled to the side, whispering on greased ball bearings. A modern portcullis. The marble chip driveway curved out in front of him, a bow of glittering white, cutting through six acres of landscaped magnificence. Proteas, strelitzias and hydrangeas teemed in the flowerbeds, above them dense purple bougainvilleas and bright red bottlebrush trees added another layer of color. And high above them stately, lilac blossomed Jacaranda trees swept the skies and filled the air with the scent of honey and musk.

  Garrett brought the Jeep to a crunching halt in front at the house, the four wheel Bridgestones making a sound like a rainstorm on fabric. He left the keys in the ignition and strode up to the front door that was a mini replica of the gate. Perhaps ten feet of teak with an off-center swivel hinge. It swung open as he approached. A young man in a well fitting gray suit greeted him. Holding out his hand and walking forward. ‘Good afternoon, sir. I am Bishop Mandoluto, we spoke on the phone.

  Garrett shook his hand in the western way and found his grip to be firm and dry. Confident. ‘Your Excellency.’

  ‘Please follow me. His Most Reverend Eminence is busy training at the moment.’

  ‘Training?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Garrett could see that no further information would be forthcoming so he simply followed the Bishop. The opulence of the house was staggering. Original oils of the type normally only seen in museums. Statues of bronze and marble. Furniture that would grace the rooms of any royal dwelling and carpets from every part of the Ottoman Empire.

  They walked down a long corridor, through double doors and finally reached their destination. Huge windows ran down the length of the room, looking out over the garden. On the opposite side mirrors reflected back the sunlight. He could tell as he walked that the wooden floor was sprung. But there was no barre so it was no ballet studio.

  Running down the center of the room was a marked area measuring approximately fourteen by two meters, the last two meters on each end marked with white hashes. Garrett recognized it immediately as a piste or fencing strip. However, even if he had not, it would have been apparent by looking at the two men in full fencing kit, engaging in a bout.

  Bishop Mandoluto leaned towards Garrett and pointed. ‘Closest to us is His Eminence,’ he whispered. His voice low but precise. A man used to conversing quietly.

  The two men were using Sabers and, although they were not wired up, they were keeping score, relying on each other’s sportsmanship to declare touché or pas de touché. The Cardinal was good. Very good. Better than the other man whom Garrett took to be the coach as he was dressed in black. The Cardinal had the reach on him, by a good yard. The holy man was probably six foot seven in the shade and the instructor perhaps a foot shorter. Combined with perspective it made the coach look about two foot high. Or the Cardinal eight feet. O
r perhaps like they were standing twenty meters apart.

  Saber bouts are notoriously quick to finish and this one was no exception. It lasted perhaps eighty seconds and the Cardinal won five points to nil. They both saluted and stepped apart, the Cardinal stripping his mask and gloves off as they did so. He approached Garrett, his hand held out in front of him. Garrett knelt down on his left knee and kissed the ring. ‘Your Grace.’

  ‘My son.’

  Garrett stayed on his knee until the Cardinal gestured for him to rise. With the mask no longer covering his face the Cardinal was revealed to be a man of surprising countenance. His large beaked nose flanked by small stone black and eyes topped by bushy charcoal eyebrows. A small moustache and a goatee surrounded a pair of very red lips, full, wet and sensual. He radiated a force of will. Power. The unshakable strength of belief.

  ‘You do not dress like a lawyer.’

  ‘No, Your Grace.’

  The Cardinal smiled. His eyes bored into Garrett. All knowing. Garrett started to speak. He could not lie to this man. Every second that he stood in front of him without telling the truth he demeaned himself. But the Cardinal held up a finger to his lips. ‘Do you fence?’

  Garrett nodded. ‘A long time ago, Your Grace.’

  ‘Suit up. Plastron and mask should suffice.’

  The instructor came forward with a mask and a plastron, an underarm protector that provides protection on the sword arm side and upper arm. Garrett strapped it on and then, holding the mask under his arm, selected a saber from the pair offered by the instructor. He donned the mask, squatted a few times and swung the saber left and right. Took a few breaths and approached the piste.

  The instructor stepped up and raised his hand.

  ‘This will be a five point bout. First to five wins. Standard saber rules apply.’ He dropped his hand.

  Garrett and the Cardinal saluted the instructor and then each other before assuming their positions. The Cardinal advanced, forcing Garrett back. The soldier felt clumsy, untutored next to the Cardinal’s fluid movements. But Garrett had fought before, both on the piste and for real, with two-foot lengths of razor sharp high carbon steel as opposed to the lightweight, plastic pointed toys that they now wielded.

  And when you have fought for real you enter a room that normal people never go. It is a room full of terror and panic and dread. Full of darkness and blood. The reek of offal and the stink of the beast. It is a room that gives a man the ability to conjure up reserves of speed and endurance that no normal man can. And once you have visited there you can always bring it back.

  The Cardinal scored first. A classic Moulinet off Garrett’s extension. A flashy, impressive cut, but slow. Slow enough to show that the Cardinal had no respect for Garrett’s capabilities.

  Garrett took a deep breath and opened the door to the room. Sound faded, focus sharpened, heartbeat sped up. Massive quantities of adrenaline stretched the microseconds out into seconds. He started with an appel, stamping his foot hard on the ground to distract followed immediately by a flunge, jumping high into the air and striking with the edge of the blade to the Cardinal’s mask. The next three points went the way of the soldier in embarrassingly quick time using a combination of compound attacks and in fighting.

  They saluted once again and removed their masks. The Cardinal approached Garrett with his hand out, held ready to shake and not to kiss. Garrett hesitated momentarily before grasping the holy man’s hand.

  ‘It is customary for people to shake hands after a bout,’ said the Cardinal. ‘So be not nervous about protocol, I am a person before I am a Cardinal.’

  ‘Your Grace.’

  ‘Come. We shall drink some tea and you can tell me why you are here. Truthfully.’

  Vusi was pleased. It had been a good day. Mister Dubula had given him twenty Rands for guarding his car and then the man who owned the beer hall had called him over and given him a plastic bag full of buttered bread slices and some small packets of sugar. To make sugar sandwiches, he had told Vusi. He couldn’t wait to get back to Thandi to show her how well he had done.

  He started running as soon as he saw that his new door had been pulled off at the hinges. Thandi would never have done that. Something was wrong. He burst into the lean-to. His little sister wasn’t there. The water bucket was still there so she hadn’t gone for water. He ran out and went left to the area by the trees where she always went to squat. There were others there, relieving themselves, but no Thandi. His heart hammering in his chest he started asking around. Whoever he saw. Where is she? Where is my sister? Finally he came across someone that had seen her being taken away. An old toothless woman who stitched clothes for the locals.

  ‘They took her this afternoon,’ she said. ‘The church people. They took her and put her in a white lady’s car. She was sick. They had to carry her.’

  ‘Where did they go, umame?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, my child. Maybe to the hospital, maybe to the church, maybe to the orphan house.’

  ‘I must find her. I must find her and bring her home so that I can take care of her.’

  Vusi tied the plastic bag to the loop on his tattered jeans and started jogging. He would go to a church. There were lots of churches. He would find one and ask the holy man where Thandi was. And he would tell him and then he could bring her home. And she could have sugar sandwiches. As many as she wanted.

  It was a short drive back to Brian’s house and Garrett was hungry so he stopped at a likely looking burger place to load up on sustenance. There was a sign outside what looked to be a standard, plastic tables, paper tablecloth establishment boasting, ‘the biggest burgers in town.’ Under that a smaller sign told everyone to, ‘ask about our live oysters.’ Garrett did so and was served up a bizarre combination of half a dozen live oysters accompanied by a beef burger the size of a baby’s head. It was one of the best meals that he’d had in a long time. The oysters a fresh taste of the sea, lifted with a little lemon juice. The burger, rare, the bun homemade, crispy on the outside, soft in the middle. Pickle, tomato, onion. Seasoned with salt and pepper. The flavors honest and unadorned. For some reason the chef had stuck a small flag on a toothpick into the top of the burger. It said, ‘burger.’ There were no flags in the oysters.

  Garrett sat outside at a pavement table where he could smoke. Took time over his meal, enjoying it, mulling over his meeting with the Cardinal. The man of the church had given him a full twenty minutes and had listened intently, asking questions at the right time, compassionate, concerned. At the end Garrett realized that he had told him far more about himself than he had meant to. Far more than he was comfortable with. The Cardinal had assured Garrett that he would have someone look into the matter of the missing orphans even though he was sure that it was of no real import. The general consensus amongst everyone involved seemed to be that, from time to time, orphans go missing. Like cats. Or odd socks. The lack of empathy left Garrett with a vague feeling of unease. Disquiet. It was as if society had drawn a line in the sand and the orphans had fallen on the wrong side. Unessential. The ones that they took care of, there merely as a sop to conscience rather than through concern and kindness.

  He paid for his meal and left a good tip. He also pocketed the little ‘burger’ flag. As he climbed into the Jeep he considered going to see Manon but rejected the idea. There was nothing to tell her of any import, and being close to her made his soul ache. Their knees touching. Breathing the same air. The heat off her body. The smell of her hair. And the ever-present silver crucifix between them. Looming as high as a wall. Higher than understanding. Higher than human love.

  ‘I couldn’t find him.’ Said Petrus. ‘Kids like that, living in Alex. It’s like they’re invisible.’ The guard lit a cigarette. ‘I found where they lived. Not much more than a cardboard box. I will go back tomorrow. Try again.’

  ‘Thank you, Petrus.’ Manon touched his shoulder. She could see that the normally taciturn Zulu was upset. The usual loo
k of casual arrogance was gone from his face. Replaced with reticence. Melancholy.

  ‘You know, sister, that place should not exist. What happened? What happened to our dream of a new South Africa? Sometimes I wonder what we fought for.’

  Smoke trickled from his nose. His mouth. As if he were simply too exhausted to expel it.

  ‘There are more shacks now than there were under the Apartheid regime. An abandoned factory burnt down last week. There were forty families squatting there. Over two hundred people. Almost all died. It’s not right.’

  Manon said nothing. There was nothing to say. In the melting pot of South Africa one did what one could and that had to be enough. She left Petrus to his musings and went to tell Thandi the bad news.

  The little girl sat on the end of her newly allocated bed in animated conversation with two of the other girls. Her recovery had been almost miraculous. Within hours the drip had replenished her vital fluids and by that late evening she ate a full meal of maize porridge and gravy. This morning she had eaten a large bowl of maltabella malt porridge with butter and sugar. The doctor had checked her out after breakfast and recommended that she go to school with the other children the next day. Keep her occupied. Youth was a cure for most ailments.

  She accepted Manon’s news about her brother without comment, confident that they would find him. After all, they were grown-ups. Manon spent the next twenty minutes with her while she chose a new second hand dress from the charity box. She wanted her to look her best for her first day at school. It was yellow. With frills. Faded but whole, the material still thick and unworn. The newest, nicest thing that Thandi had ever owned. She couldn’t wait to show Vusi.

  Garrett walked up to the door at Brian’s place. Even before he let himself in he was aware of the overpowering smell of burnt toast. When he opened the front door the air was full of rank, purple smoke and the stink of burning caught at the back of his throat. A physical presence.

  Brian sat at a barstool next to the toaster, empty wine bottles strewn around him. Three. Four. Another, half finished, stood at attention on the glass kitchen surface. As Garrett watched, two pieces of charcoal toast popped out of the toaster. A pyromaniac’s Jack-in-the-box. Brian removed them carefully from the machine. His movements precise. Particular. As seen in recovered stroke victims. Or the very drunk. He pushed the foot pedal of the stainless steel kitchen bin. The lid jerked open like a hungry hippo and Brian threw the toast in. Dropped the lid. Then he inserted two more slices into the toaster and pushed the reset lever to the bottom.

  ‘Hey, mate,’ said Garrett. Quietly.

  Brian’s head bounced up. ‘Hey, Garrett.’

  ‘What you doing?’

  ‘I’m feeding the bin. They like burnt toast. Love it. Their favorite food. I’m feeding it.’

  Another pair of burnt offerings raised their heads to be snaffled by Brian and proffered to the ever-hungry stainless steel mouth.

  Brian picked up the bottle and downed it, spilling a good amount down his neck and chin. Red wine. The blood of Christ. Garrett lunged forward and caught the bottle as it slipped from his friend’s fingers. Placed it safely on the floor.

  ‘Wine finished. Gone. Be a good friend, Garrett. Get more.’

  ‘I thought that you’d given up.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  Garrett ignored the insult. Drunken friends are allowed leeway. He glanced around the kitchen. ‘There is no more wine.’

  ‘Is.’

  Brian pointed carefully at a door that Garrett had assumed to be the broom closet. ‘In there. Down a steps. Wine cellar. Lots. Give it to clients. Lots’

  Garrett opened the door. A switch on the left. Flick. Light. A narrow corridor and a short flight of steps opened into a small but well stocked wine cellar. Garrett simply grabbed the bottle closest to him and turned to leave. But as he turned the bottle slipped. Smashed on the floor. It was the least of his problems so he grabbed another and went back into the kitchen. Handed Brian the bottle.

  Brian squinted at the label. ‘Good choice. 1972 Nederburg Baronne. Highly recommended with burnt bakery products.’ He laughed. Loud and high. A child laughing at the dark, hoping to drive the monsters away. Brian struggled with an opener. Slipped and cut his thumb. The blood flowed rich and dark and velvet. Pooling on the thick glass kitchen surface. Garrett grabbed a dishcloth. Tore off a strip and bandaged the cut.

  Brian stared at the small pool of blood. ‘Six liters. That’s about ten pints.’

  ‘What you talking about, mate?’

  ‘That’s how much blood we have in us. How much life.’

  Garrett nodded. ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘What?’

  Brian stood up and threw the unopened bottle against the wall. It exploded. Left a shape on the wall like a melting purple chrysanthemum.

  ‘Bullshit. I was in Burundi once. Shot a guy in the leg. Just missed his dick. He sat down and bled out. Took him about four minutes. I gave him a cigarette. He thanked me. I’d just shot the fucker. Thank you, he said. Looked like he was sitting in a pool of old engine oil. Pints of it. Fucking pints and fucking pints. Gallons.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Brian?’

  Brian stared at Garrett like he was a stranger. His eyes red rimmed. Watery. ‘I’m not an evil person.’

  ‘You’re a good friend, Brian.’

  ‘Not evil. No one ever called me Popobawa. Never.’ The dentist’s eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped to the floor. Unconscious before his head hit the tiles. Garrett carried him to bed.