Gun Dealing (The Ryder Quartet Book 2) Read Free Page A

and
Pillay were helping themselves to coffee in Sergeant Cronje’s office. Cronje’s
intern, Mavis Tshabalala, was smiling nervously at the banter among the three
of them as they teased her. Cronje did his best to reassure her.
    ‘Don’t worry about these three,
Mavis. They always get hysterical at this time of the morning. They spend their
days chasing all the skelms with
their whoonga , and lock them up and
warn them about the dangers of nyaope ,
but no-one ever accuses themselves of being far worse drug-takers than those okes . These three are always high on
caffeine. Especially in the morning.’
    ‘Can’t start the day without a fix of
caffeine, Piet,’ said Pillay. ‘When the Captain said he was launching his early start early finish experiment I
knew that my caffeine intake would escalate for a month.’
    ‘ Ja ,
Navi, you’re right, hey,’ Koekemoer added. ‘I can’t wait for this month to be
finished so we can return to normal working hours.’
    ‘What you mean, Koeks, return to
normal hours? You think we will?’ Dippenaar was genuinely surprised at what his
colleague had said, and continued. ‘I heard Nyawula say that the experiment was
going so well he was thinking we would stick with it as a permanent
arrangement.’
    There was a chorus of protest from
the others, saying that there was no way they would be able to sustain these
hours and that the Captain had assured them at the beginning that coming in
early for one month and ending each day early was only an experiment. Dippenaar
added the observation that they had been coming in early but no way were they
ending early. Cronje calmed them down.
    ‘ Yissus ,
you guys. Take it easy, OK? We all agreed to an early start for one calendar
month only. Don’t jump the gun. There’ll be no permanent change unless we all
have a discussion like we had when we agreed to go with the Captain’s
suggestion. You see, Mavis, what coffee does to these okes ? They get all out of control when they’re on caffeine.’
    ‘ Ja ,
Mavis,’ said Koekemoer. ‘You listen to uncle Piet. He knows best. I seen the
sergeant drink coffee and put smoke into his lungs out there in the car park
just about every day since I met him. He drinks almost as much coffee as
Detective Ryder, and that oke must
have the world record for the amount of caffeine he puts away each day.’
    Mavis smiled shyly, her hands half-covering
her face, and Koekemoer continued.
    ‘You know what we talking about, when
we say caffeine, Mavis?’
    ‘I know caffeine, yes, I know about
it.’
    ‘You do?’
    Given the opportunity, Mavis let it
gush out.
    ‘I know, Detective Koeks. Caffeine is
a - what you call it - a psychoactive drug. The people in Peru, there, they’ve
been chewing the coca leaves for one thousand years. Longer than a thousand. In
America the Food and Drug Administration people there say that caffeine   is safe because a toxic
dose is more than ten grams for one adult person, so we can have twenty cups of
coffee before we reach that level.’
    They
were all stunned into silence. Koekemoer especially, with his mouth still open.
Mavis paused only slightly before continuing.
    ‘Caffeine
is alkaloid, just like cocaine, nicotine, and morphine. It stimulates the
nervous system, and...’
    ‘ Fok !’ said Koekemoer.
    ‘ Yissus! ’ said Dippenaar.
    ‘You go , girl!’ said Pillay.
    ‘ Jeez , Mavis,’ said Cronje. ‘Where you get
all that stuff from?’
    ‘Me,
I’m studying at UNISA, Sergeant Piet, like I told you. I’m doing a BSc. I want
to do forensic science. So that I can work at the DNA Project one day.’
    The
teasing immediately turned away from Mavis and they all focused instead on
Koekemoer. The humorous barbs came fast and furious, led by Pillay but with
Cronje and Dippenaar diving in with glee, as they teased him mercilessly about
his assumptions, his preconceptions and his lack of scientific knowledge, while
Mavis beamed. But Koekemoer took it in good spirit.
    ‘