of her tale and I took a large, sobering gulp from my glass.
“A verse in the Bible . . . ” Uncle Muzi’s thin, penetrating voice helped bring me back. “Jonah!” he shouted in triumph.
“Who’s John?” Tolo asked in mild surprise.
“Not John, Jonah, the son of Amittai. He’s in the Bible,” Uncle Muzi said.
“Well, we are here now and not in the times of those holy people,” I said flatly.
“They are back, the holy times of holy men and women of sacrifice,” he said.
I shrugged. What else was there.
“I’ll take him somewhere where he can rest,” Tolo said, standing up and taking Uncle Muzi’s arm. He resisted briefly but weakly and was soon being led out of the door our superhero had taken. I decided to get everyone back to reality before anyone else had to be taken out through that ill-fated door.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I began and they stiffened, probably remembering my earlier introduction. I hastily quashed their timid apprehensions. “I’m with you here. I also have some problems with that mall business, though I only heard about it in the newspapers in the beginning.” I put on my concerned-citizen act for their benefit. “But . . . ” I paused dramatically and raised a rhetorical finger like an orator about to deliver the devastating and indisputable clincher in a debate. “But I’ve got good friends who can look into this.”
“What can they do? The police have done nothing yet,” the tall man said angrily.
“The police have too much on their hands. They can’t do everything or be everywhere,” I said.
“Enough said about the police! He asked what you can do?” the thin woman shrilled.
“Not me. Not me, but my good friends.” I put her down firmly but also with what I hoped was a gentle smile.
The woman opened her mouth, but I was ahead of her with the admonishing oratorical finger. She snapped her twitching lips shut. I nodded at her forgivingly.
“The police have to go through a lot of time-wasting procedures and protocols.” I was holding them with the lofty, legal-sounding words – and the finger, of course. Any hope was better than no hope for these people. “The police want to put someone in front of a judge and in jail. That is where their job ends. But to get there is not easy and they have other cases to take care of. My friends, on the other hand, will try to put your money in front of your eyes and back in your pockets.” I lowered the finger. It was a mistake.
“Lies! Lies, all lies. He’s just another swindler,” the stiff, tall gentleman scoffed.
But Lulu came up to the dividing line, dithered nervously, biting her too-red lips, and finally plunged across. “We’d better listen to what he has to say,” she said.
“How much?” the tall man said with deep scorn.
“Nothing if they can’t deliver, if you’re talking about their fees.”
“Never heard of such a thing,” he said contemptuously.
“Now you’re hearing it, aren’t you? Just think how lucky you are, hearing such a thing for the very first time at your age. Many other people never get the chance. They blunder about and even die without ever hearing it,” I told him.
He jerked to his feet and marched to the window, where he stood looking out into the night. At least he did not go through that fatal door.
Lulu crossed over to my side and took Uncle Muzi’s vacated seat. “Tell me more,” she urged.
I told her about my inquisitive but discreet friends who could help them. I gave a glorious summary of some of the things they had handled before. At the end we all raised our glasses and solemnly toasted one another, all except the tall man, who was still standing at attention near the window.
“I’m tired, Thabang. Let’s leave,” Tolo said behind me, forgetting that I was supposed to be Gang. I had not seen or heard her re-enter the room. She did look tired and somewhat ragged, but I shouted, “What! Leave now, when we haven’t yet spun around the dance floor?”
Someone was already opening the door to the music hall next door, thus introducing a staggering blast of noise that made every doddering man and woman imagine they were sixteen again. They knocked over their glasses, ashtrays and chairs in their rush to get down and howl the night away as Letta Mbulu lifted them out of the doldrums with her joyful, evergreen chorus about a coming music man – playing his guitar, playing his waa-waa. Come on . . . come on, listen to the song of happiness!
“No, let’s leave now,” Tolo insisted, and once again I was at her mercy. We edged past almost unseen by anyone except the tall man, who followed us with his furious eyes.
Outside, the air was fresh and cool; it was good to be out of that house of shattered people, young and old. We went to the car and just as we were getting in, a window crashed open on an upper floor. An indistinct figure leaned out and shouted. “It’s all in the Bible, you heathens!”
It was Uncle Muzi.
I peered up at him as he fell or was pulled back into the room. He was indeed walking in a very dark place. We got in the car and drove off, unsettled in our separate and suddenly lonely minds by that last piece of grotesque farce.
I saw the guards only as limp shadows leaning against the wall on both sides of the open gates. I took a wrong turn at one corner and had to drive around blindly for five minutes before I got my bearings. I was not receiving any directions from Tolo, who appeared to have temporarily gone off air. I had to find my own way out, but my inner global positioning system is not bad.
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