The Toyota’s engine roared in protest as Paul pulled away half a second before the traffic light turned green. It was dark, so he couldn’t see the cloud of grey smoke that belched from the exhaust after the car had been idling, but he could smell it. An acrid, choking scent that made him sick to his stomach.
Or maybe it wasn’t the exhaust fumes that were making him sick. Maybe it was the fact he was driving this ancient, wobbling heap of shit in the first place. A car that produced enough toxic fumes to rival Bhopal but couldn’t handle a decent pull-off when a light changed.
Still, as his father had always said, anything with an engine can go fast. He’d pushed the car to its limits a few times. Pushed it past them, even. He’d taken it to speeds on the highway where the engine screamed and the wind shrieked through the gaps in the ill-fitting window glass. Speeds where the needle wavered at the far right of the dial and the car shuddered and shook, where Paul’s hands gripped tight on the wheel, fighting the mushy steering, forcing it to stay on the road.
A triumph of man over machine, he thought.
The tyres screeched as he took the next corner too fast, then stamped his foot on the brake pedal, bringing the car to a juddering halt. He got out and slammed the door, grimacing at the rusty squeak of the hinges, and walked up the stairs to his rented flat. He wouldn’t need to drive this rattletrap for much longer, thank God. It had no status on the road. It made him sick to the stomach, getting cut off by every arsehole in Johannesburg, smug behind the wheels of their Audis and Beemers and Mercs. He could jack any of their vehicles in a second. While they were stopped at a light, talking on their cellphones or listening blank-faced to their radios and picking their noses. Smash and drag. Jam the business end of his Colt into their nostrils, see if they liked that better than their fingers.
He couldn’t risk it now, though. He couldn’t drive around in a stolen car, not with everything riding on the success of the next couple of days. He knew his faults – a foul temper and no ‘off’ button most of the time – but he wasn’t dumb. He wouldn’t jeopardise the success of a job he’d worked so hard for, just for the sake of having decent wheels.
Paul opened the kitchen door and walked into the tiny yard behind the house. Even out here, the fumes from the bucket of carburettor cleaner made his eyes smart. He picked it up and carried it inside, putting it down beside the ratty kitchen table. Then he fetched rags, an old toothbrush and an eraser from under the sink and the long nail and the bottle of oil from the cupboard and tugged his gun out of his belt.
Don’t work hard, work smart. That was another life rule his father had taught him. Paul applied it in every area he could. Gun-cleaning was one of them.
He stripped the magazine and tossed it into the bucket together with the spring. He removed the slide lock and pulled the gun apart, put the barrel into the bucket. Then he dunked the toothbrush into the fluid and started to scrub the firing pin and extractor.
One gun, made up of several working components. Assemble them and it became a deadly weapon. Strip it down and all you had were parts.
The gun reminded him of his gang.
Back in the old days, they’d been a gang of eleven, as lethal and tightly meshed as any gun.
Now the parts had been separated and a number of them had been lost.
Three men lost in the shooting at Nick’s house back in 2001. That happened just before Paul’s final sentencing, before he went inside. He’d had money then; he’d driven a fancy car and lived life large. Gambled huge. Blackjack, craps, roulette. Sums so vast he’d sweated as he waited for the fall of the dice or the flip of the cards. Well, that was how it should be. If you played too low, you didn’t get the adrenaline rush.
Gambling, cars and girls. His three favourite pleasures, and he’d enjoyed them all right up to the day the judge announced his sentence. Then he’d gone inside and lost out on them for years.
In prison, you lost everything. He’d experienced that twice over.
Unclenching his jaw with considerable effort, Paul swirled the powder-stained toothbrush in the bucket and scrubbed the breech face. Once had been enough. He’d made a mistake the first time round. He’d sold coke to the wrong guy; he’d been too inexperienced to spot the narcs. He would have done anything to avoid going in again. Then he’d experienced the ultimate betrayal when his prissy little brother had taken the witness stand and testified against him. What kind of crap was that?
Little Nick. Always the hero, never the victim in his protected little life.
He remembered his mother’s pleading voice, the way she’d spat blood from swollen lips as she stood in front of the pram and begged his dad, ‘Don’t hurt the baby. Please don’t hurt him.’
While he, at the age of six, cowering in the corner, battered and bruised from his father’s fists, had wondered ‘Why not me? Why doesn’t she tell him not to hurt me?’
Paul shook his head. He’d always wondered about that. His folks had got divorced soon afterwards. He hadn’t seen his dad for years after that, but eventually he’d made his peace with him – hell, they’d even worked together. The old man had issues he couldn’t understand, but didn’t most people? He could never forgive his mother, though, not after the bitch had refused to protect him.
Paul rubbed the eraser over the lead stains on the gun’s slide and watched them disappear. He gave the contents of the bucket a final swirl and coughed as the fumes caught in his throat.
Three men lost in 2001, and another three gunned down by Nick yesterday after the idiots had taken Paul’s instructions to follow the Jeep to a quiet spot more literally than he could ever have imagined. Five hours driving behind him on the highway when they’d heard via the GSM transmitter that he was headed for Makhado Park, and they still hadn’t managed to get it right. Paul’s lips twitched. Quite a kill rate, little brother. Good going for a guy with such poor marksmanship; he’d thought Nick couldn’t shoot himself in the foot even if he tried.
He’d had a feeling Nick would manage to beat the odds, though. He must have fought for his life like a cornered rat, like mercenaries were trained to do in tight spots. Fight hard, fight dirty. Paul had never been a hired gun, but he knew their rules.
So, six men down. That left four, plus himself and his associate. Jonas was one of the four. The others respected Jonas. He had become more of a leader to the gang than Paul was, because he hadn’t spent the last few years in prison, like Paul had. But Jonas couldn’t play an active part in the operation now. Paul had explained this to the other gang members and they’d understood. He’d told them Jonas was on the run and laying low, that he would keep in contact with them through Paul.
He removed the rest of the parts from the bucket, wiped them down and oiled them. Then he reassembled the gun, clicked the magazine into place and chambered a round. It was clean, good to go.
Would four people be enough? He hoped so, because tomorrow the action would start rolling. Tomorrow he’d have the chance to get back at Nick for doing what he’d done. Paul smiled, remembering Nick’s reaction when he saw the nightclub stamp on his wrist. He knew exactly how to push his little brother’s buttons. Nick might have helped to land him in prison, but he didn’t understand him. Not the way that Paul understood Nick, anyway.
Perhaps he’d need to use his gun tomorrow. Perhaps not.
He took the bucket outside and returned to the kitchen, slamming the back door behind him. He got a beer from the fridge and snapped the lid off using a spoon, one of his favourite party tricks. As he gulped it down, he noticed that the fumes from the solvent still lingered in the air, tainting it with a whiff of poison.