I knew about the Cold Hearts. They were blood-spilling brothers. They talked – when they did talk – as if emotion was painstakingly sucked out of each word, so much so that if you were to replace their original words with others, the sentences would still sound the same.
In the township, there were horror stories about the Cold Hearts. Their signature was on the cash-in-transit heist up at Stanger that left all the guards dead, as well as the bloody hijackings at Hillcrest, which had brought the flying squad into the township. The disembowelling of a taxi driver in broad daylight – over a parking spot – had township people shaking their heads in silent outrage. Was their insanity enshrined in brutality and sheer barbarism?
I had a question of my own: What did they want from me?
The older of the two Cold Hearts pulled me aside. He seemed okay, so we went outside, by the painted part of the blue wall. He was a short, stocky, bald-headed heap of pure muscle. Despite their reputation, the Cold Hearts neither drank nor smoked. I had not seen any of them talking to the girls at the party in Lamontville. In the boisterous party atmosphere, they were blank-faced and aloof, and sipped only soft drinks.
He looked up at me with eyes so blank I wondered if anything functioned behind them.
“Help me with this. I hijacked a car and drove it all the way from Hillcrest. I even went to the party in it. Now when I want to take it to the buyer it won’t start. I hear you are good with these things. Can you start it for me?”
It did not sound like a question, so I did not answer. Only when I saw a slight crease on his forehead did I inquire, “How much will you pay me?”
“Don’t worry, we will pay you,” he said.
“I just need to know. I like everything out in the open. I have had people come here just like you, but in the end I don’t get paid.”
“Don’t worry, you will get paid,” he said.
“If your problem is what I think it is, I will charge you R800.”
“We will pay you,” he said again.
“Let me get my things, then. How far away is this car of yours?”
“First line of houses behind the church in G Section.”
In the fog of a hangover, I collected wires and pliers from our tool box by my father’s legs.
“Do they have a problem with wiring?”
“The way they describe it, I think so, Dad.”
“Before you go, can you start this car?”
The ignition on the Ford Courier only turned. There was no spark.
“Okay, stop. Will you pass any shops on your way? I need the paper, and bread for when your sister comes back from school.”
“I’ll see, Dad.”
“Those are expensive pliers, please come back with them. You keep losing tools but you never replace them.”
“I will, Dad.”
When I saw the car supposed to take us to G Section, I felt a sickening ball of fear which I first dismissed as heartburn. It was the latest BMW 3 Series – not even the yuppies and taxi owners had it yet. I had felt such fear only once before – a year before, almost to the day, when I’d crashed a car into a concrete barrier on my sixteenth birthday.
Everything stopped. My heart and lungs took time out. I felt severe nausea when I closed the door and sank into the cream leather seats. It became almost unbearable when I saw that the upholstery around the ignition had been torn out and a screwdriver used to start the engine. The icy storm of the air conditioner, and the absence of a licence disc on the windscreen, sent a single stream of cold sweat down my back. The reservations I had about starting a hijacked car in G Section were zero compared to R800. I would work fast, get the job done, take my cash and disappear in fifteen minutes. But the car supposed to take me to G Section was also stolen. This added an unforeseen, worrying dimension to the matter. The ride to G Section in a stolen car was not part of the calculation.
The Cold Hearts went wild with the car’s gadgets, like children let loose in a toy shop. Thick fingers poked the sunroof button, while the taller and younger one set the air conditioner to full blast. I needed fresh air, but thought of fingerprints being dusted off the window button and quickly cancelled that idea. The younger Cold Heart turned to me in the back seat, a dead gaze on his boyish face.
“What is your problem? Why are your eyes bulging out?”
I pointed to the windscreen.
While they were playing with all the gizmos inside the car, Musa had parked right in front of us, blocking the way. He got out, his face a mask of revulsion. He spat on the tarmac and called over the older Cold Heart. They crouched in the space between the two cars. Musa did not answer my greeting, and he just stared at the gangster. The ball of fear in my throat dissolved when he spoke.
“You are trespassing, brother. This here is my soldier. There must be a very good reason he is in your car. You better be giving him a lift or something.”
Musa had his thumb in front of his face. When 26 gang members crouch to resolve issues, the raised right thumb is the sixth digit, on the presumption that all fingers of the left hand have been counted. Musa had his thumb up. The sign of the 26 gang. That six briefly turned into a seven when he pointed at me.
“Nice party at Lamontville yesterday,” replied the Cold Heart. “And I must say it was nice when you played your cars, though personally I find it to be plain showing off. But girls like it. We are brothers, you and I, money lover. The very thumb you raise up, I was raised on it. My body is a gallery of medals. We can go there from dusk till dawn, Musa. You have never seen your kind wild like me, two and six.”
The older Cold Heart rolled up both sleeves of his shirt.
“You see, Mr Superstar from nowhere, everything written on this body tells a story. I am a captain, I have led teams and pushed schemes in and out of prison. Do not fluke me because I know this: the law of the number says it does not matter if it is my soldier or your soldier as long as we get money. Or has the law of the number changed? I hear in Westville Prison you can buy the number these days. Did you buy it, Mr Superstar? Who are you, to speak of soldiers? What do you know about the thumb you raise to my face?”
“It is all the same, money lover. It is still as I say: my soldier is coming with me. We have money to make,” Musa said.
“Money lover, we were also on a mission that was smooth sailing until you came along. Who do you think you are? Do you know you can die for this?”
“Man from the east, money over everything. A captain never talks to a general like this. I am a general here; in essence, I run things.”
Musa took off his T-shirt.The tattoo over his heart showed two playing cards: a two of spades and a six of flies. Its appearance averted the threat of violence, for the younger Cold Heart had climbed out of the car with a knife in his hand. He silently moved away.
“It is as I said – my soldier is coming with me.” Musa crouched firm.
Tattoos in prison are like certificates in society or medals in the army. The Cold Hearts were ready to take out Musa, yet the law of the number proclaimed him untouchable. The older Cold Heart stood up and retreated with a shake of the head. Musa parked the 325is on the side of the road. I realised, as the Cold Hearts sped off, that the ball of fear had vanished – and that my father’s pliers were gone.
I am a township child; I knew what Musa and the Cold Heart were on about. I knew that what I had just witnessed was the law of the number of convicts, as laid out only briefly in number lore. I knew what the stars tattooed on my father’s shoulders stood for. I knew that the stars were