Snake by James McClure Page B

because one of the ladies said it made her come all over peculiar.”
    “Or was it you?” Marais said in Afrikaans.
    “What? Oh, sorry, can’t understand a word of it yet; a jolly bad show, I know.”
    Just as Marais had supposed. Christ, even Mickey could speak it fluent, and English, too, for that matter, and he was only a wog. But he was on duty and would have to stop playing games and behave himself.
    “ Ach , my mistake, as you say. But can we get to the point, please? When did you see Stevenson?”
    “Ah. Seeing I was left alone at the table, the manager came over—Monty, that’s right—came across and sat with me. We saw the show, then quietly killed the rest of the wine together. Then he started making noises about licensing hours and, rather unnecessarily, I thought, saw me to the door. After all, we had stopped drinking, and I wasn’t going to ruin his carpet for him! Remember saying to him, ‘Steady on, old chap, only twenty past—you can’t throw a knight out on a dog like this!’ Picked that one up in Dar.”
    Marais, for his part, would have left it there.
    “Well, Sergeant, any good to you?”
    But Marais was so tired by then that this indication of Stevenson’s innocence hardly meant a thing. Except more problems.
    Kramer stopped the Chev for only three seconds before roaring off again, saving Zondi any problems in getting the passenger door slammed shut Then they laughed together as they often did when first meeting up.
    Zondi began by reassuring him that all was well at Blue Haze, and that the children were very pleased with it, and then related his discoveries from the time of seeing Yankee Boy Msomi at the railway station. That gave them a great deal to discuss.
    “Okay, so I’m biased,” Kramer said eventually, “but all this explains is why they didn’t go for big-money places. It wasn’t the till they were interested in—that was just a cover-up.”
    “It also explains why the people say they see nothing. If they hear that Chainpuller is listening, then we stand no chance.”
    “That’s the part that contradicts, Zondi. All these years I’ve been hearing how Chainpuller can knock the ding-dongs off a bloke at forty yards by just scratching on the wall—and now suddenly he needs gangsters, guns, cars. Why?”
    “I have another thought: maybe this gang is using Chain-puller, boss.”
    “Hey, just wait. Another part that contradicts is that at Lucky’s place you told me the minister was a good bugger. Would he believe all this crap about wizards, too?”
    Zondi shrugged as if religion and superstition had never been separate in his view.
    “But you were saying…?”
    “Yes, boss, it is the way the money’s paid. One of these skabengas could hide there in the grass and catch the tins that are thrown. That’s how I mean by using Chainpuller.”
    Kramer smiled and said, “I take my hat off to them, then— at least they can’t be so poop-scared of him!”
    Which was another point that Zondi had evidently not considered, and so they went back to the first theory again.
    Until Kramer brought the Chev to a halt, made a U-turn on the Kwela Village road, and started back the other way.
    “So we go to find the guy who came in the shop,” Zondi said with satisfaction. “Beebop will talk to you, boss—you know his type.”
    “I’m not sodding round when I can go to the top,” Kramer replied. “That bastard Chainpuller has had things his way for too bloody long.”
    And not without reason, suggested the silence at his side.
    The rain began again, softly. Freckling over the windshield and then making Marais switch on the wipers.
    He leaned forward to see better, cursing the sting of his eyes, and regretting having accepted that drink from Littlemore. Scotch gave him heartburn.
    The street was oily with colors from the shopwindows and illuminated signs on either side of it. Cars cruised slowly, looking for parking places, and sodding well getting in his way. The route he had