Payback - A Cape Town thriller by Mike Nicol

Author:Mike Nicol [Nicol, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

18

Two nights later Pylon hit Club Catastrophe a little after midnight. The building pumped, the street was jumping. On the corner Oupa K’s van issued a low requiem. He imagined the man inside watching him pass, knowing his reason for being there, probably smiling to himself. For a moment wondered if he shouldn’t knock on the tinted windows but didn’t. What for? Let the guy chill to his weird music in peace.

At the club door Pylon had to shout at the bouncers, ‘Ducky Donald around by any chance?’

The doorman looked over his head at the kids dancing in the street. ‘Who’s asking?’

Pylon told him.

The man spoke into the mic clipped to his lapel, kept his eyes on Pylon moving aside to let a couple of white boys stagger out, both wiggers, their hip-hop gear falling off their bums, their Nike laces whipping about like snakes. White kids, black kids, street cool was ridiculous.

The bouncer tapped Pylon on the shoulder, indicating with his thumb that he could go inside. ‘At the bar,’ he shouted. ‘Wait there.’

Pylon nodded, headed into the thundering drone of the club’s dark interior. Nothing seemed changed since he’d last been there, had to be almost three years back in ‘99: the same gothic style on the walls, the images of hanged cats.

At the bar Matthew shouted at him to go upstairs where Pylon found Ducky Donald sprawled on the not-so-white leather couch watching a movie of a bare-torsoed Ben Kingsley mouthing off at himself in a mirror.

‘Grab a beer, take a pew,’ said Ducky, flapping a hand towards a drinks counter that ran the length of the wall. Ducky sitting there in green tracksuit bottoms, a red T-shirt, bare feet. No sign of any female company. The room a pit of old newspapers, magazines, stacks of videos. A polystyrene box from the Hot Wok takeaway perched on a tower of discs. Ashtrays of butts on the bar and coffee table, the air heavy with cigarette smoke and not a window open on this hot night.

Pylon got a Becks from the bar fridge, uncapped it with a waiter’s friend. One thing he had to give Ducky, the noise insulation was good, only a dim boom audible from below.

‘Cheers,’ said Ducky, patting the white leather. ‘Siddown, watch this. Sexy Beast it’s called. I got a pirate. Bloody best movie Kingsley ever made.’

Pylon scooped newspapers off the couch, dumped them on the coffee table and sat.

‘Check this.’ Ducky Donald rewound to Kingsley aka Don Logan dissing Ray Winstone aka Gal.

The two guys facing off, Logan going: ‘Look at you, fuckin’ suntan, like leather! Like a leather man, your skin, you could make a fuckin’ suitcase out of you, holdall! Look like a crocodile, fat crocodile, fat bastard, you look like fuckin’ Idi Amin, know what I mean?’

Ducky slapped at his thighs. ‘Isn’t that great. Bloody wonderful. Wouldn’t you say?’ - and spun back for a replay.

Pylon sipped his beer, thinking fat Ducky Donald with his sunbed tan was only a shade or two off Idi Amin himself.

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