We sit in the car with the lights off, but the motor running. The Ford Cortina is less than 3 months old and its 3-liter engine thrums quietly, vibrating comfortably under my feet. We’re parked in a narrow street in Verulam, an Indian township where Gandhi once lived. Ramshackle houses abut newer brick boxes with polished red stoops. It’s 7 pm and the smell of garam masala wafting from nearby reminds me I haven’t eaten since lunch.
He explains it to me again as we wait for the runner to emerge from the darkness.
“You can’t pull the same number you pulled yesterday. It’s called a Can’t Come. If you pull that same number in the next three days, it’s called a Dao Dai. You can do it if you’re desperate, but the punters won’t like it if you do it too often and they’ll complain.”
I nod in the darkness. I’ve heard it all before, but my cousin, Jimmy, has promised me a bank of my own and he doesn’t want me to mess up in his territory. He said I could make some easy cash operating a Fah Fee game and offered to set me up. I jumped at the chance, because my parents paid for tuition and rent, but said I was on my own for pocket money. Yook Koh, Dennis’s father, had offered me a job in his restaurant on the Durban Strand, but Jimmy says I could make about ten times as much in the numbers game.
“You’ve got to keep on top of your runners,” he goes on, “If they start skimming and shorting the punters, they’ll make a noise or bet with someone else. But if you come down too hard on him, he’ll turn you over to the Mahtah. Most of these runners think they could take over your job, especially the buggers who’ve been running since our Toppie’s days.”
Jimmy drags on his Marlboro, and it glows bright red in the darkness. Blue grey smoke is beginning to fill the interior of the car, but I know better than to open the window. His new car already reeks of cigarette smoke that clings to our clothes and mixes with the scent of Aramis cologne, a smell that always reminds me of discos at 4 am. Thank God he doesn’t smoke Gauloise. He flicks ash towards the ashtray in the center console, but misses, watching without comment as I brush it off the cassette tapes we borrowed from Dennis.
“Where the fuck is this guy? I’m already late for the next collection. If this bank wasn’t so big, I’d cut this damn charra out and let someone else run for me. Come on baya, Its Friday night. Raffles is opening at 10.”
I shrug. What can I say? Somewhere outside, a dog’s barking suddenly turns into a yelp as something is thrown at it, accompanied by a string of Gujarati curses. Jimmy rolls his window halfway down, flicks the cigarette butt onto the road, and peers into the darkness.
“Ah, let’s go,” he says, after a few seconds, “This guy’s wasting my time.” He switches on the headlights and puts the car into gear. Just as he is about to pull off, I see a shadow emerge from the alley between the rows of houses on the other side of the street.
“Hang on, Jimbo, someone’s coming. Is this him?”
He pulls up the handbrake and looks over his shoulder.
“Ja, the poes better have a big bag with him.”
Jimmy kills the lights again but leaves the car running in first with his foot on the clutch. An emaciated looking Indian man with a pockmarked face limps over to the car. He has a bank bag in his hand, with a faded Barclay’s logo on the front. It looks heavy. When he reaches Jimmy’s window, he half raises a shaking hand in greeting.
“Hello, boss. S-sorry I’m late. Some of the guys wanted to get a last m-minute bet in.” He bobs his head in apology and smiles ingratiatingly. He has a large red welt on the left side of his jaw which is obvious even under his dark skin. His eyes are bloodshot and he has bloody cotton stuffed up one nostril. His shirt pocket is torn.
Jimmy gives him a cursory glance. “Jeez, what happened, Abner, did your wife catch you drinking again?” he says, smirking in my direction, as he lowers his window.
“J-ja, boss, she’s too bad that one.” His hand trembles as he hands the bag through the open window to Jimmy. His eyes shift nervously and he glances over his shoulder as if she might be behind him. It looks like he has a nervous tic, because he keeps jerking his head backwards and to one side.
When Jimmy hands him the slip of paper with that night’s number on it, his hands are shaking so hard that he drops it.
“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” Jimmy says, “You drunk? You’d better have added up right.”
“S-sorry boss,” Abner says. By now his head is moving frantically and he is clearly gesturing with his eyes in the direction of the alleyway. Jimmy doesn’t seem to notice. He switches on the overhead lights and hands me the bag with the coins and notes. They are wrapped into individual plastic bank bags for each punter.
“Count it.” Jimmy says. He grabs a pen from the visor and begins to check the numbers on the master sheet. Abner’s nervousness is beginning to affect me, and I try to look around in the direction he is jerking his head, but the lights have temporarily dazzled me and I can see nothing beyond the car’s interior. I sense rather than see the two figures rushing towards the car from behind and I barely manage to shout out “Jimmy! Watch …” before a beefy hand reaches through the window he has forgotten to close. He pops the clutch too quickly and the car lurches forward then stalls. The hand snatches the key out of the ignition. Jimmy freezes for a second, then reaches for his.45 under the seat. I see a gun barrel at his head and a booming voice says “Police! Don’t fucking move, china.”
Next to my window another gun points at my head. “Out the car. Hands on your head!”
Jimmy looks over to me and nods once. We unlock our doors and step out. There are two of them – a white guy and an Indian, both in plain clothes. The white cop has a badge on his belt. He is wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The Indian is slender, his hair slicked back and tucked behind his ears. On the driver’s side of the car, Abner is lying on the road curled up with his hands covering his face as the white cop kicks him.
“Try. To. Warn. Him. Hey?” Each word is punctuated by a kick to a different part of Abner’s unprotected body.
“Sorry. I’m sorry boss.” Abner is half whimpering, half crying between grunts of pain. I can’t tell if he is apologizing to the cop or to Jimmy.
“Fuck off out of here,” the white cop says to Abner, who slowly gets up and stumbles off into the darkness. He doesn’t look back.
The White cop looks us over. “Detective Van Tonder and this is Sergeant Naidoo. You’re both under arrest.”
“What for, Officer?” Jimmy says, “My friend and I were just talking in the car.” He looks calm. I can’t stop my legs from trembling.
Van Tonder smiles without humor and shakes his head. He is a massive human being, about as wide as he is tall, with closely cropped sandy brown hair that makes his head look like a fuzzy bullet. His size is deceptive. I remember how quickly he disabled the car.
“I know who you are, Jimmy Ford. Don’t play that game with me, boet.” After that first order he barked at Jimmy, he has not raised his voice. He is not even winded from kicking the crap out of Abner. “You chinamen think you can run your game in my town, and I won’t know about it? We’d better take a ride down to the station.” He gestures to Jimmy to get back into the car. “I’ll drive,” he says.
Naidoo pushes me towards the back seat. He climbs in after me. It strikes me as a little strange that they’ll be taking us to jail in our own car, but I don’t say anything. They apparently don’t search suspects either, because I still have the .357 magnum that Jimmy insisted I wear, in a pancake holster under my jacket, and Jimmy’s .45 is still under the driver’s seat. As we pull off, Jimmy says “Mind if I smoke?” Van Tonder nods and he pulls out the pack of Marlboros. He offers one to Van Tonder who shakes his head, then turns around to Naidoo. Naidoo also declines, but as he leans over the seat, Jimmy catches my eye and gives a pointed glance at my left side and almost imperceptibly shakes his head. I’m not sure what he thinks I might do, but I have no intention of making any sudden moves. I start thinking about how I’m going to tell my parents that there is no point in my going to law school because felons can’t become lawyers. My heart is pounding so hard, I am sure that everyone can hear it. I wipe my palms on my thighs and try to still my shaking hands by holding onto the armrest.
I’m not sure how long we’ve been driving, but it seems like a really long time. When I look up, I see that Van Tonder has driven to the top of an escarpment. There road is deserted, with no sign of life for miles. The city lights twinkle in the distance; they seem very far away. I fold my arms and feel the gun under my hand. The wooden stock, which was chafing my armpit earlier, feels very reassuring right now. I wonder if I would be able to draw it, but the Colt Python has an eight-inch barrel, and the space is too confined. I would need to be outside to get at it.
“You boys are in a lot of shit,” Van Tonder says without taking his eyes off the road. “You know Basie Smit is in charge of Durban now.”
Jimmy nods. “I heard.”
I have also heard of Colonel Basie Smit from Dennis and the other Fah Fee bosses. He was in charge of the Vice Squad in Johannesburg and had driven the Fah Fee game deep underground with his zealous pursuit of illegal gambling and prostitution. A joke went around during his tenure – don’t steal or fuck prostitutes in Jo’burg– Basie Smit doesn’t like competition. Basie Smit had been so successful in Jo’burg that he had been transferred to Durban to clean it up. The word spread quickly throughout the Fah Fee community, which is exclusively Chinese, and is closely, almost incestuously connected by blood and marriage ties which go back at least three generations.
Van Tonder pulls off to the side of the road, and the tires crunch on the gravel. The car is on the edge of a small cliff overlooking the Hazelmere Dam.
“Ja,” he says, “Basie wants us to lock all you guys up quickly so that he can go back to Jo’burg.”
Jimmy takes a long drag on his cigarette. “Listen, officer, maybe we can come to an accommodation.”
I can’t believe what I am hearing. Jimmy is trying to bribe this guy?
Van Tonder whips his bullet head around to face Jimmy, his face red. “What did you just say?” Panic crosses Jimmy’s face for a moment, as if he just realized that he has miscalculated and he backs up against the passenger door.
“Steady, Andre,” Naidoo says from the back seat. “Let’s hear him out.” In contrast to Van Tonder, whose accent is coarse and heavily tinged with Afrikaans, Naidoo sounds like he went to a British public school. It is the first thing I have heard him say since he ordered me out of the car.
“Go on,” he tells Jimmy. Jimmy has recovered smoothly and puts on his dumb Chinaman face.
“Look, nobody’s getting hurt here, officer, I’m just trying to make a living. Just like you” he says, emphasizing the ‘you’. “Maybe if you help me out tonight, I can help you with something.”
Van Tonder turns to look at Naidoo, who gives a little nod, a short up and down with his chin.
“We want a hundred a week from each bank, china” he tells Jimmy.
Jimmy looks pained. “Come on Officer, I don’t even make that much in a month.” I have known Jimmy since childhood and never heard him use this tone before. He is almost wheedling. I cover my nervous giggle with a coughing fit. Jimmy ignores me. “Maybe I can come up with twenty a week from each bank, but I’m opening more next month. I’ll have five in a couple of weeks.”
I look out the window so that they won’t see my face. I’m scared that they can see that I know Jimmy is lying.
Van Tonder snorts and shakes his head. “Listen, china, you’re not in a position to negotiate. And don’t try to fuck with me. I know you already have four banks in this area.”
I stare at my reflection in the window, thinking, they don’t know about the other four banks over in Chatsworth.
“OK, I can come up with about three hundred a week for you guys”, Jimmy pauses, then seeing no reaction, he adds”..each.” Van Tonder looks over at Naidoo. Jimmy says “Come on, it’s not going to do any of us any good if I’m out of business. I’ve still got to eat. Look, take tonight’s bag as goodwill.”
Naidoo smiles. “We were going to take tonight’s bag anyway.” He nods at Van Tonder, the same economical move of his head.
Van Tonder pulls off again. He grinds the gears, making Jimmy wince.
“OK, china, make sure you’re here same time next week, and bring the ash.”
Having concluded business, he is almost jovial and accepts a Marlboro from Jimmy. He asks us where he can get good Chinese food. Jimmy gives him the name of place in the suburbs that all the local Chinese avoid. They make small talk about the merits of hookers on Point Road and complain about Basie Smit being bad for business. I haven’t said a word the whole time.
“What’s with your buddy? Van Tonder says during a lull in the conversation. “He dumb, or something?”
“Nah, he’s not in the business, he just tagged along with me tonight. He’s going to be a lawyer.”
Van Tonder bursts out laughing, as if this is the funniest thing he has heard. “Maybe, you can help us out one day, my china.”
His use of the word ‘china’ annoys me. Obviously, the irony of an Afrikaner using cockney rhyming slang to address a Chinese man as ‘china’ is lost on him. But I smile and say, “Ja, maybe.”
Naidoo smiles as well, but his eyes appraise me as if he has just seen me for the first time. Despite Van Tonder’s size and his capacity for casual violence, Naidoo makes me more nervous.
We pull up to the spot where they caught us, and they get out of the car with the bag. Jimmy and I move to the front.
“Don’t forget Mr. Ford” Van Tonder says, patting the roof of the car as we pull off, “See you next week.”
We drive in silence for a while. The night is over; we can’t make it to the other banks in time.
“Fucking Dutchman Mahtah,” Jimmy says, “I knew they were coming, I just didn’t think it would be tonight. Dennis got shaken down last week, but at least his contact at the station warned him about it. Oh well, looks like we’re having burgers tonight instead of steak.”
I shake my head at his nonchalance. “I thought we were dead. I was going to pull out the gat if they made us get out of the car.”
“Didn’t you see me warning you not to? I knew they only wanted money.” He blows a smoke ring. “It’s the cost of doing business.”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. The smoke is beginning to sting my eyes. “I thought they were going to throw us into the dam. Look at my hand, I’m still shaking.”
He laughs and pops in one of Dennis’ cassettes. It’s the Average White Band, playing Pick up the Pieces. He turns the volume up high.
“Let’s go to Raffles”, he says, “Dennis and the girls are probably there already.”
I never did get my own bank. The following week, I went to work for Yook Koh, waiting tables at his restaurant. Six months later, Basie Smit returned to Johannesburg. The Fah Fee bosses held a big party to celebrate and invited half the Durban vice squad. Van Tonder and Naidoo were there. They bought a bottle of whiskey.