Read Online Apocalypse Now Now by Charlie Human - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Charlie Human
Ads: Link
trying to be strong, but Esmé is our babbbbieee,’ she says, steadying herself against the large ceramic sculpture of a Dalmatian that squats at the entrance to the lounge.
From what I can glean the disappearance of Esmé went down like this: her mother and Olaf, her stepdad, had gone out to a function and left her watching TV. They’d come back to find an Esmé-less garden apartment. They had phoned her friends, phoned me too apparently but my phone had been off. No Esmé.
Sandra van der Westhuizen is a chiselled Aryan specimen who looks like she could headbutt a rhino into submission. Which, in a sense, is what she’d done. Olaf was said rhinoceros, an IncredibleHulk of a man, which only made his matrimonial humiliation all the more poignant. There was no question of who wore the beige chinos in the Van der Westhuizen house.
‘Baxter,’ Sandra says with pretend enthusiasm, batting her false eyelashes and touching her freckly, gold-cross-adorned chest. She hates me, of course. She told Esmé that it’s because she thinks I’m a bad influence but I suspect that my eye condition strikes a deep chord of distrust in her ovaries. I’m just a bad genetic choice for her daughter. Sorry, darling, evolutionary psychology is just not that into you.
‘I know you must feel awful, just awful, but there was really no reason to come,’ Sandra says. She fake-kisses me on both cheeks and leads me away from her relatives. ‘We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything, but in the meantime perhaps you can speak to Sergeant Schoeman about Esmé’s disappearance. Maybe you know something that might help.’ She ushers me into the kitchen.
‘Sergeant,’ Sandra says to the man sitting at the kitchen table, ‘this is Baxter. Esmé’s … friend. Perhaps he can help.’ She pats me once on the shoulder and then returns to
the
grieving event of the season.
Sergeant Schoeman is big man. No, let’s not euphemise. He is fat. Hugely fat. Obese, in fact. To clarify, Sergeant Schoeman is the Michelin man of the South African police force, a giant cream doughnut of a man stuffed into a worn leather jacket. A dark goatee wraps around his lips like he’s been huffing on an exhaust pipe. He nods to me and points to the chair across the table from his.
‘So you’re the boyfriend, sugar?’ he drawls as I sit down.
‘What did you call me?’ I say.
‘Um, nothing,’ he says, his large face drawing inward into a deep scowl. ‘I’m asking the questions around here. Name?’
‘Baxter Zevcenko,’ I say.
‘Zevcenko, Zevcenko,’ he says, tapping his pen against his chin. ‘Not one of the Zevcenkos that used to live in Bergvliet?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘Oh, wait, that wasn’t Zevcenko, that was Zarkowitz. First question. Did you make the double-backed beast with your disappeared lover?’ he asks.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Coitus, sexual intercourse, the horizontal mambo on the dance floor of love, the –’
‘OK cop, pig, orificer, I get the idea. How’s that relevant?’ I say.
He curls his mouth into a smile. ‘Just trying to ascertain whether it’s a crime of passion,’ he says, scribbling something in his notebook. His hand is huge but he writes delicately, as if he were writing in a fluffy pink diary instead of a police notebook.
‘You think I had something to do with this?’ I say.
‘Just answer the question,’ he says.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I had sex with her.’
‘Nice!’ he says, holding his hand up for a high five.
I stare at him. He chuckles. ‘The thing that interests me is that you also knew Jody Fuller.’
‘I barely knew Jody,’ I stutter. ‘And why do you think Esmé was taken by the Mountain Killer? From what I’ve read in the papers this isn’t exactly his MO.’
‘I’d agree with you,’ he says. ‘If it wasn’t for the large eye carved into her wall.’
He opens an envelope and slides a photograph across the table. It’s a picture of Esmé’s room and, indeed, a large
From what I can glean the disappearance of Esmé went down like this: her mother and Olaf, her stepdad, had gone out to a function and left her watching TV. They’d come back to find an Esmé-less garden apartment. They had phoned her friends, phoned me too apparently but my phone had been off. No Esmé.
Sandra van der Westhuizen is a chiselled Aryan specimen who looks like she could headbutt a rhino into submission. Which, in a sense, is what she’d done. Olaf was said rhinoceros, an IncredibleHulk of a man, which only made his matrimonial humiliation all the more poignant. There was no question of who wore the beige chinos in the Van der Westhuizen house.
‘Baxter,’ Sandra says with pretend enthusiasm, batting her false eyelashes and touching her freckly, gold-cross-adorned chest. She hates me, of course. She told Esmé that it’s because she thinks I’m a bad influence but I suspect that my eye condition strikes a deep chord of distrust in her ovaries. I’m just a bad genetic choice for her daughter. Sorry, darling, evolutionary psychology is just not that into you.
‘I know you must feel awful, just awful, but there was really no reason to come,’ Sandra says. She fake-kisses me on both cheeks and leads me away from her relatives. ‘We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything, but in the meantime perhaps you can speak to Sergeant Schoeman about Esmé’s disappearance. Maybe you know something that might help.’ She ushers me into the kitchen.
‘Sergeant,’ Sandra says to the man sitting at the kitchen table, ‘this is Baxter. Esmé’s … friend. Perhaps he can help.’ She pats me once on the shoulder and then returns to
the
grieving event of the season.
Sergeant Schoeman is big man. No, let’s not euphemise. He is fat. Hugely fat. Obese, in fact. To clarify, Sergeant Schoeman is the Michelin man of the South African police force, a giant cream doughnut of a man stuffed into a worn leather jacket. A dark goatee wraps around his lips like he’s been huffing on an exhaust pipe. He nods to me and points to the chair across the table from his.
‘So you’re the boyfriend, sugar?’ he drawls as I sit down.
‘What did you call me?’ I say.
‘Um, nothing,’ he says, his large face drawing inward into a deep scowl. ‘I’m asking the questions around here. Name?’
‘Baxter Zevcenko,’ I say.
‘Zevcenko, Zevcenko,’ he says, tapping his pen against his chin. ‘Not one of the Zevcenkos that used to live in Bergvliet?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘Oh, wait, that wasn’t Zevcenko, that was Zarkowitz. First question. Did you make the double-backed beast with your disappeared lover?’ he asks.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Coitus, sexual intercourse, the horizontal mambo on the dance floor of love, the –’
‘OK cop, pig, orificer, I get the idea. How’s that relevant?’ I say.
He curls his mouth into a smile. ‘Just trying to ascertain whether it’s a crime of passion,’ he says, scribbling something in his notebook. His hand is huge but he writes delicately, as if he were writing in a fluffy pink diary instead of a police notebook.
‘You think I had something to do with this?’ I say.
‘Just answer the question,’ he says.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I had sex with her.’
‘Nice!’ he says, holding his hand up for a high five.
I stare at him. He chuckles. ‘The thing that interests me is that you also knew Jody Fuller.’
‘I barely knew Jody,’ I stutter. ‘And why do you think Esmé was taken by the Mountain Killer? From what I’ve read in the papers this isn’t exactly his MO.’
‘I’d agree with you,’ he says. ‘If it wasn’t for the large eye carved into her wall.’
He opens an envelope and slides a photograph across the table. It’s a picture of Esmé’s room and, indeed, a large
Similar Books
