“Come on!”
“We’d already agreed that they wouldn’t stay here forever.”
“They’ve been here longer than I thought they’d be.”
“No… I mean…”
“The two guys in the car? From earlier?”
“Uh-huh.”
“But they won’t come back in here if the gated community is full of security folks. Not if they’re the ones who stuck that woman in the freezer.”
“You have a point.”
36
Moses slowly moved away from the terrace door and further into the house.
As he walked by, he glanced once more at the photos, at the picture of the woman in the bikini that stood in the back.
He now knew exactly what he had heard. The kitchen door was there, the bathroom across the hall. Further on was another door, had to be one of the bedrooms. However, Moses strode straight toward the staircase.
He could once again hear the siren that wasn’t a siren. He was glad his shoes had soft soles and that the stairs were covered in carpet squares. Eight, nine, ten. Four steps to go. Right before he reached the top, he leaned a little forward. Another hallway, a wardrobe, and two dressers which looked antique. At the end of the hall, a mirror was hanging on the wall at about his height. In the mirror, he caught sight of a bright glow from one of the rooms. The edge of a bed covered in white sheets. Sunlight reflected off the white walls. He was almost blinded.
The sound resumed. Moses moved a step forward. Climbed the final step to the top. Slid his foot further into the hallway. Pulled his body up after it. Very slowly. Then the other foot, followed again by his body.
He could now see the woman’s hair in the mirror. Her head was moving up and down, though simultaneously forward and backward as well. Even without the sound—which was rising and falling, like the body he could partially see—he would have known what was happening. Just a bit farther. He could now see the contours of the brunette’s body. Her back, her ass, her breast in profile. Her groaning grew more intense. Just a little farther.
Moses was so far down the hall that he was about to lose sight of the reflection in the mirror. One step to the side, and he had a direct line of vision into the room. Wow. The woman was straddling a man. She wasn’t a lesbian at all. The man’s legs were stretched underneath the sheet, his body was completely covered by the woman. He could now hear a sound coming from his mouth as well. He was responding with a slow rhythm to the woman’s continuous tone. A bass line.
Moses then realized why the space was so bright. Numerous mirrors in all shapes and sizes were hung on the walls, reflecting back the light of day.
He focused again on the woman. She was lifting and thrusting her crotch faster and faster, and Moses could hardly believe his eyes. She was sitting on a black cock. He still couldn’t see any other part of the man.
She had to be a foreigner. White South African women never slept with black men. Black men all had AIDS anyway. At least, that’s what white women seemed to think.
Hmmm, Moses thought, they knew each other pretty well. They weren’t using a condom. He felt himself get hard. No wonder. He’d been so excited at the thought of having sex with Sandi. And he was now watching two other people make love. Of course, he didn’t have to, but he couldn’t seem to stop. What a beautiful woman. Her movements simply aroused him even though she was straddling another man. Just a little more to the side. He was now standing at the wall on which the large mirror was hanging, the one he had just been staring into. The man was no longer young. He could see part of his head. Bald actually, but the stubble was silvery. He now raised his arms and reached for the woman’s buttocks, slowly brushing his fingers across her skin. The woman lifted her head and breathed deeply. As she did this, she opened her eyes. In the mirror on the wall next to the bed, he could see her aroused face. Her hair clung in sweaty tendrils across her eyes and nose.
Moses realized all he needed to have done was glance out of one of the house’s front windows, where he would have probably seen two cars, and known instantly that he wasn’t alone in the house. Rookie mistake. Well, he wasn’t exactly an experienced burglar. He wondered if it was time for him to disappear, regardless of how much he was enjoying what he was watching. One more look, he told himself. The woman’s movements were slowing down. She was brushing her hair back with one hand while she gazed forward contentedly.
That was the moment their eyes met. Moses froze there in the hallway. The woman’s eyes widened as she went through the endless transformation, the escalating and highly complex process that evolved from seeing and comprehension to classification and confirmation. Her body, which had been so relaxed and lovely, now went rigid. Right before her eyes were about to leave their sockets, she emitted a high-pitched, panicked scream.
Moses spun around and dashed down the stairs.
37
“Where are you going?” Nozipho asked.
“To the garage.”
“Why?”
“If I have to spend some time with her under one roof, I want to know who she is,” Thembinkosi said. “Was,” he amended.
“How?”
“We’re going to check her out.” Thembinkosi opened the door to the garage. Switched on the dim light.
“But she’s dead.”
“Of course, she’s dead.” He was already lifting the lid.
“No!”
“Yes!”
“Why?”
“Because we have time. And because we don’t know what we might be able to get out of it.”
“I’m not touching her. It brings bad luck.”
“To whom?”
“Don’t make fun of me.”
Thembinkosi was still holding the freezer lid. “Hold it up!”
Nozipho shook her head.
Thembinkosi shut the chest again. Looked around. Walked straight across the garage. A broom was standing close to the outer garage door. He returned with the broom. Opened the chest again and propped the lid up with the broom handle.
“Did you straighten everything up in the bedroom?” he asked, bending over the freezer.
“Yes. Looks like it did before. What did you think I did? I stuck the empty hangers under the underwear in one of the drawers.”
Thembinkosi thought about the shirts he had stuffed into his briefcase. He’d left the hangers on the rod.
He ran his hands over the body. Pockets. Change. He felt inside the t-shirt pocket. Thought about rigor mortis, which he’d heard about on some crime show. Pulled out a piece of plastic.
“Well?” Nozipho asked.
He looked at the plastic card. Health Care. A name.
“Celeste Rubin.” A number, too. “Maybe she was at the doctor’s this morning.”
“So what…. What are you doing?”
Thembinkosi was halfway in the chest, attempting to flip over the body. He had stuck his hands under the corpse and was tugging at her jeans. However, the body wasn’t cooperating.
“Help me!”
“No,” Nozipho said. “How?” she then asked.
Thembinkosi propped his arms on the edge of the chest. “Let’s pull her out.”
“What? Why would we do that?”
“I want to know what else she has on her.” He leaned back into the freezer and grabbed the corpse’s feet with both hands. “Help me!” The feet were already up on the edge of the freezer. “Come on!”
Nozipho reached into the arctic climate and wrapped both hands around one of her arms. She was pulling with all her strength when the fabric of her dress ripped. She immediately dropped the arm.
“Shit!” she cried. “Look what happened!”
It was only a tiny tear. Thembinkosi had a hard time not laughing while keeping his grip on the feet.