The Steam Pig by James McClure Page A

trouble by chopping a witness in advance who would never be called anyway?”
    Zondi spread out the chocolate wrapping and licked it clean. Then he made a small silver ball of it which he flicked at a passing butterfly. It missed.
    â€œNot a witness, boss,” he said, “informer.”
    â€œHey? Shoe Shoe was your mate but he never told you a damn thing.”
    â€œPerhaps if he heard what they were going to do to the little missus.”
    â€œWarn us, you mean? Why should he?”
    â€œOh no, boss—wait until afterwards. Then he would come by and offer information if we kept him in a safe place. He would just stay there until they were hanged. I think he would like that very much, boss.”
    Kramer lit a Lucky Strike in slow motion.
    â€œBut it wouldn’t be the same mob, would it? This spoke man was from Jo’burg.”
    â€œThat’s what Dr Strydom says, maybe Shoe Shoe know different.”
    â€œAnd even if he didn’t, it would be a spoke man and that’s what really mattered to him?”
    â€œYes, boss.”
    â€œAnd he would get Gershwin, too?”
    â€œIt seems like it, boss.”
    Zondi borrowed the Lucky Strike to light his Texan off it. His expression was slightly sulky.
    â€œ Ach, it’s good thinking, Zondi man—but why didn’t Shoe Shoe pull this one when they first got him four years ago? Why wait all this time?”
    â€œBecause they did not kill him, boss,” Zondi reminded Kramer, as tactfully as possible. “The most for assault would be fifteen years inside and then they would come back for him. Or maybe their friends would do it meantime.”
    Kramer sat up. “Friends? Then this time he had to put everyone in the bag to make it safe!”
    â€œThat’s right, boss. Your white fellow, too.”
    Jesus, with stakes that high it was a wonder they had been so confident that the exposure treatment would work. Zondi read his gaze out of the window.
    â€œThey probably left a man here to watch that Shoe Shoe died without any trouble,” he said.
    â€œOkay, so you win. And if it hadn’t been for kaffir corn under the Dodge, we’d really have been buggered. Never even begun.”
    The meat wagon arrived as if making deliveries in a district ravaged by rabid dogs. Every week Sergeant Van Rensberg handled on average a dozen bodies mangled in road accidents and his frenzied motoring was some sort of inverted reaction. As Kramer had once remarked, you could only feel safe with Van Rensberg if you were already on one of the two trays under the curious pitched roof which covered the back of the Ford pick-up.
    The mortuary sergeant came coughing and hawking out of his dust cloud, trying to find a handkerchief. He was a colossal man. The combination of banana fingers and thighs that stretched trousers taut made the search quite something.
    Kramer cuffed the grin off Zondi’s face and then the pair of them got out, averting their eyes.
    Van Rensberg reached them, turned his broad back on Zondi, and saluted Kramer. A very excellent salute that should have been available for all recruits to study. A text book salute slow enough for Kramer to note the wide gleam down Van Rensberg’s right forearm. So he had not found what he sought after all.
    â€œHear you’ve got a real farty one for me, sir.”
    â€œSorry, Sergeant. He’s been out in the sun for a day or so.”
    â€œThat’s all right, sir—I’ll get your Bantu to put him on the tray.”
    Kramer glanced over his shoulder.
    â€œSergeant Zondi’s not a big man.”
    â€œ Ach, he can roll him, sir.”
    â€œFine, but just wait for the doctor first, hey?”
    â€œOkay, sir.”
    It was a long wait. Kramer and Zondi spent it on the humdrum of investigation; measuring the distance between the road and the body, calculating the wheelbase of the car which had left the tracks, making rough sketches and compiling