He's making a fool of you, Lulu!

GINA SHMUKLER AND LAWRENCE JOFFE (Bokkie ‘Bubbles’ Levine)

LULU: Daddy, you've got to help me get Jimmy out of prison.

BOKKIE: Lulu, my shnookums, what the hell can I do?

LULU: You've got connections. You're a big wig in the town.

BOKKIE: So?

LULU: Get a favour out of Lewis Matome.

BOKKIE: Matome? He's just a business man!

LULU: Daddy, You know as well as I do, your friend Lewis Matome is a powerful man!

BOKKIE: So?

LULU: He's in with the big boys! He's close to the ear of the President!

BOKKIE: If you really wanna know - the only thing closer to the President's ear is the President's ear wax!

LULU: That's my point!

BOKKIE: And so?

LULU: He's your big chaver (friend)l He can help get Jimmy out!

BOKKIE: If you really wanna know, I ‘m glad your poet is in prison!

LULU: Daddy, how can you say that!

BOKKIE: Because I believe it!

LULU: Jesus!

BOKKIE: I don't want you to see that gangster friend of yours any more! He's a danger! Besides - he writes kak poetry! I know this is the new South Africa but there are limits!

LULU: You always said your greatest happiness is my happiness!

BOKKIE: And so?

LULU: I'm your princess, your precious, your blessing…

BOKKIE: And so?

LULU: Daddy, I'm so unhappy, I can't live without him!

BOKKIE: You're in love with a shwartsa (black)\

LULU: Daddy …

BOKKIE: And what's more, not just any shwartsa - a gangster shwartsa!

LULU: That is not a nice word!

BOKKIE: I didn't send you to an expensive Jewish day school so that you could end up in love with a shwartsa!

LULU: That's where I met him, remember!

BOKKIE: I've forgotten. Remind me!

LULU: Jesus! Jews for Social Justice.

BOKKIE: Oivay!

LULU: He's a great artist of the struggle and a proper mench. So leave me alone. It's thanks to heroes like Jimmy that we're free today. Where were you in the days of struggle?

BOKKIE: Paying for your education and your n|ce clothes and your mother's psychiatric bills. Which CV do you want to see?

'Do we let him out or do we keep him in?'

LINDA SEBEZO (Queenie Dlamini, Chief of Police) and Arthur Molepo

Shadows dominate, but two rather sinister pools of light are evident.

QUEENIE is in the one, LEWIS is in the other. There is a significant distance between them.

They are both on cellphones.

QUEENIE: So? Must I keep him in, or must I let him out? I want to know. I need to know.

LEWIS: Can we, with a clear conscience, keep him behind bars? Is that the question?

QUEENIE: Is what the question?

LEWIS: In short and in truth, is he innocent or is he guilty?

QUEENIE: Is that the question?

LEWIS: Is he innocent or is he guilty?

QUEENIE: Damned cellphone! You're breaking up … you're breaking up …

LEWIS: Hello? Hello? Are you there?

QUEENIE: I'm here, I'm here! Is that the question?

LEWIS: Is what the question?

QUEENIE: Look let's say he robbed the bank, and I'm not saying he did, that doesn't mean he's guilty.

LEWIS: I'm losing you …

QUEENIE: I said … Just because he robbed the bank, doesn't mean he's guilty …

LEWIS: I'm losing you …

QUEENIE: I said … Just because …

LEWIS: I can hear what you are saying, but what do you mean?

QUEENIE: I mean, there may be a good reason to rob a bank.

LEWIS: Come on, Queenie!

QUEENIE: No look, if he's in the secret secret service, maybe they wanted him to rob the bank!

LEWIS: You're breaking up again!

QUEENIE: What?

LEWIS: You've gone completely fuzzy!

QUEENIE: I said, if he's in the secret secret service, maybe they wanted him to rob the bank!

LEWIS: Oh, come on, Queenie!

QUEENIE: That's the sort of thing the secret secret service does. Take bombs to Cape Town! Infiltrate the gun running operations! Launder the money! That sort of thing! Some of our best bomb planters and gun runners have been our own guys!

LEWIS: Let's say he's innocent.

QUEENIE: I'm losing you!

LEWIS: Let's say he's innocent!

QUEENIE: Well … let's say he's been framed, let's say the secret secret service put the money and the guns in the car.

LEWIS: Could have been anyone.

QUEENIE: What you mean?

LEWIS: He could have been framed by anyone.

QUEENIE: What do you mean?

QUEENIE bursts in on JIMMY's cell and finds it empty. She howls out in rage.

QUEENIE: Oh my God, an empty cell! He's gone! Jimmy ‘Long Legs’ Mangane is gone! [She addresses the audience] Bring me a pen! Bring me a pen! What kind of a police station is this with out a pen! Where are the chairs? Who's taken the tables?

Here I am, Chief of Police, and I can't even keep a prisoner locked up in a cell.

This job's impossible! My hands are tied behind my back. You need a photograph, there's no cameras. You need a statement, no pens! You need a finger print, no pads!

What is this place? You need a door open, it's locked! You need a door locked, it's open!

Well good for you, Jimmy! Show them what you're made of. You need a key, here's a key. You need a girl, then get a girl. If you need a road to the north, the road is good and long! Am I the only person in this town who believes that criminals should be locked up?

THE COMPANY sings:

EVERYONE KNOWS WHERE HE IS (IN THE SECRET SECRET SERVICE)

LULU: Everyone knows where he is

BONES: He's in her bed of course

LULU: Where else could he possibly be I've been planning this journey for him and for me But I can't make him stick to plan A, B or C Oh where could he possibly be?

Chorus:

He's in the service

The secret secret service

He's in the service

The secret secret service

LULU: Why do I love the wrong man?

Can it be true what they say?

He's a no good rotten sham

BIBI: … but a really classy lay!

BOKKIE: He's in her bed now, He's in the black whore's bed now

ALL: He's in her bed now He's in the black whore's bed now

LULU: He's impossible to hold He's impossible to know Tries to make me love him more

BIBI: … but he comes back to his whore!

JIMMY: A man of vision, He is a man of vision

ALL: A man of vision, He is a man of vision

LULU: Why does he drive me so wild?

Why does she keep us apart?

Why does he make me a child?

LULU sits silently on the bunk as JIMMY uses all his powers of persuasion.

JIMMY: Lulu, you must believe me. Bibi's nothing! She was my last fling, my last little flap of the old wing before I marry you! When I marry you I will be the happiest man alive. When I marry you, I am going to be the most faithful of men. How could you doubt me? Look at me and tell me you can't see a man who loves you! A man who adores you! A man who worships you! When I am married to you there will be no one who could be more faithful. It's true!

Lewis comes through the door, reciting some of JIMMY’ s poetry.

LEWIS: I am the river that flows through Africa!

I am the ancient source

I am memory and history

Past and future

I am the river that flow through Africa!

JIMMY: Comrade Lewis!

LEWIS: Comrade Jimmy!

JIMMY: Or should I say Mister Matome?

LEWIS: Jimmy, my brother.

JIMMY: What are you doing here? You're the last person I expected to see. You, the Chairman of the Bank. Me, the bank robber. What do you want, Mr. Matome?

LEWIS: Help me and I'll help you. You crossed the line, comrade.

JIMMY: Whose fucking line?

LEWIS: Be reasonable, Jimmy.

JIMMY: What you doing here? Sniffing for the truth! Who for? The Chief of Police? The President? The head of National Intelligence?

LEWIS: Did you rob the bank, Jimmy? Why did you rob the bank, Jimmy?

JIMMY: Listen Lewis, I don't have to answer to you, I answer to the people.

LEWIS: Cut the crap, Jimmy!

JIMMY: Why am I having to ask favours from you? We were in this thing together at the start. In the struggle! Right through the darkest days! Why didn't we finish together? Here you are right at the top of the dung hill. And I'm in the shit hole! I read in the paper, you're worth forty million.

LEWIS: Sure.

JIMMY: Why you? What did you do different to me? We were comrades! Cadres! We were brothers in arms!

LEWIS: You just don't get it, do you? Things changed. There's a new set of rules to play by now. I ran with the ball. You sat on your gat waiting for hand-outs. Then you get bitter and you rob my bank.

JIMMY: The problem with you lot at the top of the dung hill - you think you smell like roses. You come in here, you offer me a deal. I call it blackmail. Well maybe two can play that game. Either you help me, or I look elsewhere for help!

LEWIS: You got no cards left to play, Jimmy. You're in jail.

JIMMY: If I did rob your bank - and F m not saying I did - but if I did rob the bank, at least it was just a bank. You robbed the people.

LEWIS: Me? Me?

The Chief of Police, QUEENIE DLAMINI, ushers JIMMY ‘LONG LEGS’ MANGANE to centre stage. He is heavily chained in leg irons and handcuffs and is wearing an almost cartoon-like prisoner's outfit. In spite of this, he is still smiling charmingly.

QUEENIE: Citizens, comrades, ladies and gentlemen of the media and the press. As the Chief of Police, champion of law and order, it is my duty to announce the arrest of Jimmy ‘Long Legs’ Mangane - artist of the struggle, hero of the young lions - known to you all as the people's poet!

It with triumph that I deliver to you the man behind these terrible bank heists that have plagued our city!

He, who with booming voice and sweet sweet words, gave us courage in the darkest days, now stands before you arrested! Is it not a most bitter irony!

We have no doubt that he will, in flowing and elegant verse, protest his innocence, shout foul, and claim repeatedly that he is the victim of a conspiratorial plot!

However, we have irrefutable evidence that he is guilty!

Let this be a warning to all those who wish to subvert the new democracy of South Africa! No one is above the law! Evildoers will be pursued and punished!

Jimmy ‘Long Legs’ Mangane, in the name of the President of the new Democratic Republic of South Africa, in the name of our peace loving citizens, in the name of our beloved city of Johannesburg, I arrest you for dangerous and reckless behaviour - lack of respect for the lives and property of others - in short, for robbing a bank with two AK47s and a hand grenade, for the princely sum of Rl5 0000!

JIMMY: Madam Chief of Police, my beloved fellow South Africans, I am innocent! I protest my innocence to the stars!

Surely it is clear to all of you who know me, that I have been framed! I, who gave my all, I who suffered the greatest risk, I, who offered my life for our freedom, I, Jimmy ‘Long Legs’ Mangane, have been wronged!

You wonder what is going on? Believe this - all I did, I did with honour! All I did, I did for my country!

QUEENIE: Tell it to the Judge!

JIMMY: I will!

JIMMY and BIBI are making love under the sheets. BONES stands quietly at the door.

JIMMY: Oh Bibi, oh Bibi, give it to me baby! Yoo! Don't move, don't move, ooh, baby, move, move, move! No stay still, you got it, baby Mtanyam …

Ooh, ooh, you look like your mother when she was pregnant

with me!

Oh my baby, I love you! I'm gonna take you to my home, I'm gonna let you meet my mother and father! Oh baby don't move, don't move, I love you!

BIBI: Aaaah aaah aaah aaahmandla! Jimmy ‘Long Legs’! As JIMMY and BIBI reach their climax, BONES speaks. JIMMY, startled, snatches for the sheet and tries to hide his body. BIBI grabs the duvet. Enter QUEENIE, LULU and BOKKIE.

BONES: ‘Long Legs’ segat!

JIMMY: Ah, Papa Bones!

BONES: Papa Bones, my arse!

JIMMY: Ah, Bra Bones, let me explain!

BONES: Explain! Explain! I give you the key, the right key! What do you do? You open the bloody wrong door!

JIMMY: Bones, please …

BONES: My lewe is op die lyn (My life is on the line), and what you doing!!! You have given up your chance, because you can only smell women! U phatesitswe ka mpapa! (You are bewitched by vaginas!)

JIMMY: Ah Bones…

BONES: Do you think I click my fingers and prison doors all over Jo'burg spring open?! Is that what you think! Masipa antatwa man! (Shit, man!) I spent money! I pulled strings! I begged favours! So that you could dip your one-eyed wonder in that used up piece of street tart!

My dignity is rotting in daai squeeza (that girlfriend) you swimming in!

You smell a woman and you lose your mind! You're meant to be over the border! What happened to the plan?

LULU: Jimmy you fool, you could have had me. So long my darling, my sweetheart, my poet! I never want to see you again!

BOKKIE: You tell her my sweetie - Buafela! (Tell her!)

BONES: Let me tell you my boy - you gonna go to jail, and there, the only piece of arse you ever gonna get near is gonna have a cock attached to the front!

QUEENIE, triumphant, climbs on the bed.

BIBI is pacing up and down. She is dressed to the nines, a startlingly original creation. Fake leopard skin abounds.

BIBI: Ay Lolo, I bumped into George in Sandton as I was on my way to the cellphone shop. My cellphone is giving so much crap! Awuyazi nawe lama Nokia, aish (You know how these things [Nokias] are) … I must just get myself an Ericsson!

Anyway, so I bumped into George and he's got himself a new girlfriend - ithi ngikutshele (let me tell you).

JIMMY: A new girlfriend!

BIBI: I don't know where he picks them up! Fake jewellery, fake nails, fake teeth and the biggest pair of fake boobs I've ever seen!

So, anyway, George asked me if they've granted you bail and how much. As if he was gonna put up the money!

JIMMY: George!

BIBI: Yaz (Gee), some people bayathandu khubukisa (they like to show off), they just like to show off in front of their girlfriends! I'm sure he was just boasting that he knew you!

JIMMY: Ai, man!

BIBI: Bengidinwe (I was so irritated)\ Ai, I was so irritated, my God! So, I left there and next thing I don't even go to that cellphone shop. Next thing ngayafika (I end up at) iGucci, I see this bag that I must just own! Oh Jimmy, it's so beautiful. I wish ungiyaibona, ine snake skin, or … maybe iOstrich, nje the material lenaprints leshing … ngathi icathulo zika Vusi Khumalo (7 wish you could see it, it is made of snake skin, or maybe ostrich, like the material that has prints, like Vusi Khumalo's shoes). You know his shoes? The ones he loves to wear when he goes to the jazz clubs? So anyway, when the cashier said it was five thousand, I just paid for it without thinking twice. Now, Lolo, my darling, my problem, nje, is just the rent. I've got money but I'm a little short!

JIMMY: Exactly how little short are we talking here?

BIBI: Lolo, sthandwa sami, my love, yazi kutough outside now! They want to evict now, and those people be-fridge (furniture people) were there, I don't know. Uyaz?

JIMMY: Bibi! Ufuna? (How much?) How much? How much do you need?

The stage becomes very dark. A piercing light reveals BONES standing in the doorway. He talks directly to the audience.

BONES: Me.You wanna know about me? I am outraged! Gatvol! My heart is full of anger! Ke tlhaguna magala a mahibidu. Ke nkga masepa ka molomo. (7 chew red hot coal. I am so angry all that comes out of my mouth smells like shit.)

Who are these people? They lock their victims in meat fridges - suffocate them to death! They take hot irons and iron people's faces! They rape eighty-year-old ladies! Ba sule maikutlo. Dipelo di thatafetse. (Their feelings are dead. Their hearts have turned to stone.) Where is the honour, where is the style, what has happened to the profession? Full of riff raff and violent little boys!

In the old days, toeka se dae, we were proper gangsters, bo dimane. We had a set of rules, a code of conduct! Ons het die Capos, die kingpins geluister. (We listened to the chiefs, the kingpins.) There were certain ways and means we did things! We knew who we were robbing and why! We didn't want blood. Die moegoes is bloody vampires! (These fools are bloody vampires). We didn't want bullet holes through the head. We used reason! Everybody's too greedy now. Onse motto (our motto) was small amounts, pride and cleanliness in our work! And full amount of honour! Now, they just mad! These young boys. They kill for nothing! They like to hear the screaming! They're bloody vampires!

We went to church schools. We learnt respect. We fed our children, looked after our mothers.

Them! Their motto - gun, fast car, easy money and lots of poes! No school, no family, no God!

They dunno who they are! No balls, nothing inside! They gotta do all this stuff so they feel like men! Burning, suffocating, raping, shooting! Ek is vokken gatvol! (I am bloody fed up! Guts full!) So if you want to know about Jo'burg, kwa nyama ayipheli - kuphela amazinyo endoda, kwa nyama ayipheli - kuphela amazinyo endoda (lit: theres so much meat in Jo ‘burg that you cannot finish it - only the mans teeth will deteriorate; fig: lots to see and do in Jo ‘burg - you –11 never manage it all).

Before JIMMY knows it, BONES SHIBAMBO is in the cell BONES is a large gangster of a man, in his late fifties. He wears a suit that comes straight out of Sophiatown.

BONES: Jimmy, my leitie! ﹛my youngster!)

JIMMY: Papa Bones!

The two men dance a ritual greeting.

BONES: Jimmy ‘Long Legs’ Mangane!

JIMMY: Papa Bones!

BONES: Jimmy, my tsotsi! ﹛my ganster!)Wh&Vs my motto, my leitie?

BONES AND JIMMY: … dom dink ﹛dumb thinking) and blunders is never my policy!

They chuckle.

BONES: In tooge se dai (In the old days) in the days of Saratoga where the birds flew backwards, brains and brawn?

JIMMY: They not buddies!

BONES: Dom dink and blunders?

JIMMY: Never, never my policy!

BONES: Kom, sit! (Come sit!)

BONES and JIMMY sit

BONES: What are you, a fool? What are you doing here? My slim sharp leities slaap nie in die tronk nie! (My smart youngsters don't sleep in jail!)

JIMMY: Baba Bones, you know I'm not guilty!

BONES: Guilty or not guilty - here you sit wearing a badge of prisoner! Is this what I taught you?

JIMMY: Bones …

BONES: I taught you honour, style, professionalism! And now! In die tronk! The top of the body stays the brain, below the navel, Emzanza Afrika, (Below Africa) you find the land of temptation and blunders!

JIMMY: This has nothing to do with my Sqeezas, Baba! (My girlfriends, Father)

BONES: Don't you call me Baba! Am I your flesh and blood? No! And now you just a moegoe! (stupid fool)

JIMMY: Sorry, Baba!

BONES: If you got a puppy, and it's got a worm, you take the worm out! Am I right?

JIMMY: Baba, you're right!

BONES: When you were a puppy, you got a sex worm, and I never managed to get it out!

JIMMY: DiBones, I've been framed!

BONES: Masipa, man! (Shit, man)

JIMMY: It's true!

BONES: Politics het gekom en het verby, die Luthulis, en die Jan Smuts, en al daa'ie kak. April’ 94 het gekom, Mandela het gekom, en die hele wereld het gedans.

BONES and BOKKIE sit on the pavement in the sun. Jackets off, ties pulled loose.

BONES and BOKKIE: Crime! Crime! Crime!

BOKKIE: So, the other day I'm in Joubert Park.

BONES: Ja?

BOKKIE: I'm standing at a robot, kinda day dreaming - I'm looking at this kid sniffing glue. He's got a face like an angel…

BONES: …and he's sniffing glue.

BOKKIE: So anyway, a guy kinda dances into the road in front of me, his arms flapping and his face grinning, dances around to my left window, you know, and he just catches me off guard!

BONES: Off guard!

BOKKIE: Now I know all the scams, but he catches me off guard, and I'm screaming - get away from the window! Get away from the window! And the guys on the pavement next to the glue sniffer are laughing, and this guy on the pavement catches my face, you know?

BONES: The fear…

BOKKIE: … and he makes like a gorilla and shouts at me ‘I'll kill you’, I ‘l l kill you’, and he's growling, and we're both laughing, kinda embarrassed, because we both caught with our pants down, if you know what I mean?

BONES: With your pants down!

BOKKIE: … and I grin and give him a thumbs up sign and then put my fukken foot down - the robot was green - you know what I mean?

BONES: So, what's crime, Boks?

BOKKIE: Things against the law.

BONES: Who's the law? What's the law, Who made the law? How sacred is the law? Who does this law protect? The innocent or the guilty? The criminal or the victim? Let me ask you? How old is crime?

BOKKIE: You asking me?

BONES: Crime is as young as your innocence, crime is as old as the missionaries of Satan. Crime is the first field of corn.

BOKKIE: Jo'burg is built on crime. From the first moment that they picked up the nugget of gold - crime!

BONES: The first factory?

BOKKIE: Crime!

BONES: The Johannesburg washer men, and the Johannesburg whores, the Johannesburg brick works?

BIBI: Hi.

LULU: Hi.

BIBI: You're Lulu.

LULU: And you must be Bibi.

BIBI: Of course.

BIBI mutters under her breath.

LULU: Sorry?

BIBI: I was just saying, you're more beautiful than I ever thought you could be!

LULU: Well, you seem rather a handful yourself.

BIBI: Lulu Levine.

LULU: Bibi… Bibi…

BIBI: Khuswayo!

LULU: Funny, he never mentioned you.

BIBI: Awuzwe lesishwapha … (Listen to this piece of rag)

LULU: uThini? ﹛You said?)

BIBI: Nothing…

LULU: Don't you think Yeoville is still so interesting?

BIBI: Not really …

LULU: You know during the struggle we often used to meet in Yeoville.

BIBI: Well, the closest I've ever been to the struggle is trying to work out how to have sex with the whole of Pirates and Chiefs - before The Bold and the Beautiful!

LULU: Pathetic!

BIBI: Just kidding!

LULU: I think it's time to order.

BIBI: Yes.

LULU AND BIBI: Cappuccino!

LULU: Look, let's not beat around the bush. We have a problem. Jimmy's in jail, and we have to find a way to get him out.

BIBI: What do you think we can do together that I can't do by myself!

LULU: Look, I have lots of connections.

BIBI: And so?

LULU: Well, I think you have lots of skills.

BIBI: What do you mean?

LULU: Well. Do you know Lewis Matome?

BIBI: Of course! Lewis Matome, the new Chairman of the Bank!

LULU: Lewis is one of the most powerful men in the city.

BIBI: And so?

LULU: Well, I thought we could try and seduce him.

BIBI: What do you mean?

LULU: Well to be frank, I thought you could try and seduce him.

BIBI: Are you mad!

LULU is on the retreat.

LULU: Relax!

BIBI: He's sleeping with half the women in town already and no one gives a damn!

LULU: Oh…

BIBI: And you want to know who cares the least? His wife!

LULU: Well. Jiimmy, when I saw him, said I should contact a friend of his in Alex.

BIBI: Who?

LULU: Bones.

BIBI: Bones? Bones Shibambo, the old gangster?

LULU: Yes.

BIBI: Please, what could he do to help? He's past it! He's just a hasbeen!

LULU: Well, what have you got to offer?

BIBI: Maybe we can flood the courts? The comrades still love him.

A meeting - LEWIS MATOME, dashing, dangerous and businesslike; BOKKIE LEVINE, a Johannesburg Jewish business man in his fifties; and QUEENIE DLAMINI, a powerful graduate of the struggle.

LEWIS: Queenie Dlamini, new Chief of Police!

QUEENIE: Lewis Matome, new Chairman of the Bank!

LEWIS: I want you to meet Bokkie Levine, my co-chair in Business Fighting Crime!

QUEENIE: Lewis Matome, you certainly pick them! Bokkie Levine, maker of teargas for the old regime!

BOKKIE: Which the new regime is perfectly happy to buy! Queenie Dlamini, it's a pleasure to meet you!

QUEENIE: And you.

LEWIS: Bokkie is helping us enormously. He knows every little scam in the city!

QUEENIE: I'm sure he does. Your reputation precedes you, Bokkie 'Bubbles’ Levine!

BOKKIE: As does yours, Queenie, ‘Struggle Accounting’ Dlamini!

QUEENIE: Well, let's face it, Lewis, we need all the help we can get.

BOKKIE: Okay, let's not beat around the bush! We're here to plan a campaign.

LEWIS: We're right behind you, Comrade Bokkie!

QUEENIE: Well Lewis! Where once we gathered to plan a crime, now we gather to conquer crime! Not you, Bokkie, of course.

BOKKIE: If you're talking about crime, my sweetie - I've had my fair share!

LEWIS: Gentlemen, I'm already late for my next meeting! Can we begin?

QUEENIE: Sure. Ma-Gents, take a seat. The three sit in elegant metallic armchairs.

BOKKIE: Look - let's cut through the crap! The City is on its knees, the Rand's in the sewers, the criminals are running vilt (wild), and we're trying to do business here!

LEWIS: We have to have a plan!

QUEENIE: Before we make a plan, we have to know what we fighting! Who we fighting, what we fighting for!

BOKKIE: What you mean ‘for’? We're fighting against! Against! Against!

LEWIS: Calm down, Bokkie - calm down!

BOKKIE [shouting]: I'm calm - I'm calm - I'm calm!

QUEENIE: Gentlemen, please! We have big questions! How can we tackle crime when there is so much poverty?

BOKKIE: Come on! It's not the people in poverty, it's the guys with education doing the crime!

LEWIS: The syndicates are full of Harvard MB As!

BOKKIE: Ja, it's the guys with training in MK doing all the stuff.

The CHIEF OF POLICE ushers JIMMY ‘LONG LEGS’ MANGANE to centre stage. Once again, he is heavily chained in leg irons and handcuffs. In spite of this, he is still smiling charmingly.

QUEENIE: Jimmy ‘Long Legs’ Mangane, you have a life sentence! Before you are taken to maximum security to rot, sealed up in a cell until you die, do you have anything to say? This is your last chance!

JIMMY takes centre stage

JIMMY: Should I stand up here, begging for forgiveness?

QUEENIE: Take him to jail to rot! There is a triumphant musical call from THE COMPANY.

LEWIS enters carrying a long fax.

LEWIS: Wait! Wait! Wait! Silence! I bring news, important news, from the President's office. [He unrolls the document.﹜ Hear this, hear this, all South Africans! On the occasion of the inauguration of the third President of the Democratic Republic of South Africa - given that none of us knows what's right and wrong, given that we put our brutal past behind us, given that only a few pass through the narrow gates of heaven, and given that reconciliation has so perfectly been achieved - there will be, with immediate effect, for all gangsters, politicians, criminals and businessmen, a general amnesty!

THE COMPANY rises in a slow motion, silent, cheer

LEWIS: The new President of this great democracy declares a general amnesty for all! Jimmy ‘Long Legs’ Mangane - you are free! There is a second triumphant musical call from THE COMPANY.

JIMMY praises the gods.

THE COMPANY [turns to the audience and sings]:

RESTORE ALL TO ORDER (IN PERFECT HARMONY)

There is a reprieve, a general amnesty For who is to say who is right and who is wrong

QUEENIE sits. JIMMY stands, handcuffed and chained.

QUEENIE: What do you want to see me for, Jimmy?

JIMMY: Come on Queenie, we're old friends.

QUEENIE: You know it's difficult for me.

JIMMY: What do you mean?

QUEENIE: How do you think it looks if I'm seen fraternising with the accused?

JIMMY: Queenie, let's cut the crap. Let's make a deal.

QUEENIE: What can you offer me, Jimmy?

JIMMY: What do you need, Queenie?

QUEENIE: Okay. Let's say I need to know who's crossed the line.

JIMMY: What do mean?

QUEENIE: Which of our comrades, have crossed the line!

JIMMY: What you mean, Queenie, crossed the line?

QUEENIE: You know what I mean!

JIMMY: Do you mean taking a bribe … taking some land cheap … selling off a game park … employing your girlfriend/boyfriend?

QUEENIE: I want to know, which of our soldiers is doing the bank heists.

JIMMY: How would I know?

QUEENIE: Oh come on, Jimmy!

JIMMY: If I do know - and I'm not saying I do know - but if I do know and I tell you, what are you going to do for me, Madame

Chief of Police?

QUEENIE: Here's the deal, Jimmy. Get me stuff I can use and I'll get you a lighter sentence.

JIMMY: Fuck your lighter sentence! I'm out of here or no deal!

QUEENIE: You've got no cards to play, Jimmy.

Silence

JIMMY: You want the secret, I'll tell you the secret. The President can't trust the secret service.

QUEENIE: What do you mean?

JIMMY: You know as well as I do.

QUEENIE: No I don't.

JIMMY: What does the President do when he needs quality information? Information he can believe?

QUEENIE: What do you mean?

JIMMY: Well. Say guns are running from Mozambique to KwaZulu- Natal. Who's running the guns from Mozambique to KwaZulu- Natal? Explosives taken to Cape Town? Who's taking explosives to Cape Town? Someone's bombing the police stations. Who's bombing the police stations?

QUEENIE: It's my job to know this stuff!

JIMMY: And do you know it, Queenie?

Silence

JIMMY: My point exactly. So, what does the President do? The President sets up a secret secret service.

QUEENIE: What?

JIMMY: A secret service inside the secret service.

QUEENIE: You've lost me, Jimmy.

LULU is circling BOKKIE, who is sitting hunched with his back to us in his armchair. LULU throws various photographs, letters and post cards into his lap.

LULU: This is Freda Gildenstein. You had a love affair with her from 1966 to 1969. You used to meet at a Fox Street hotel! While you were gefuffeling in the back streets of Jo'burg, mummy was pregnant with me! And this is Toodles Shakanovski. You met her at the Cafe Wien in Hillbrow before it became Hillbrow. She had a fake French accent! You only found out in 1972 that she came from Rosettenville! This is a post card from Cookie Lazarus, who writes here, T look forward passionately to being the second mother of your darling child!'. And this is a photograph of Blossom Nicolby-Smith. You used to spend dirty weekends with her at the Four Seasons Hotel in Durban!

BOKKIE: Rubbish!

LULU: And we won't mention the ongoing liaison with Dinky Cohen, your young secretary.

BOKKIE: How did you find all this out?

LULU: Mom put a private detective on you years ago.

BOKKIE: Oh my baby, I never knew you knew!

LULU: Well now you know!

BOKKIE: My little baby girl, my princess, I was trying to protect you!

LULU: I don't need protection!

BOKKIE: Your mother was cold beyond cold! An ice maiden! And a man is a man!

LULU: Pathetic!

BOKKIE: How can I make it up to you! What must I do? What do you want?

LULU: I want Jimmy ‘Long Legs’ Mangane free!

BOKKIE rises, faces the audience, and sings.

WHY IS A CITY ALWAYS A WOMAN?

At the desk LEWIS is leaning over QUEENIE as he gives her the news.

LEWIS: Queenie Dlamini, I'm sorry to tell you, Your job is on the line, you broke all the rules You planned Jimmy ‘Long Legs's escape from jail, You just can't do all that stuff, you fool!

QUEENIE: What are you telling me, what do you mean? I had nothing to do with him running free. I was fighting dark and dastardly crimes, Don't you try pinning his escape on me!

LEWIS: The New South Africa has to save face, The action you took was totally against the law. Too bad. The constitution sits in place, Chief of Police takes the rap. You know the score.

QUEENIE: The legal route! Have you gone crazy? Play by the rules, we'll be dead, we'll be hounded!

LEWIS: You did something real silly! Going for corruption wherever you found it.

QUEENIE: What you mean, don't give me that shit! I tried to get their dirty fingers out the purse!

LEWIS: You tried to put a Senior Man behind bars,

QUEENIE: Stealing the country blind! He was a curse!

LEWIS: So what if he had his hand in the till, He was loyal to the President.

QUEENIE: This job's impossible, the country's full of crime, Every gangster's rights mean so much more than mine. Criminals do what they like - you expect me to toe the line!

LEWIS: Use the police force properly!

QUEENIE: The police! My police don't give a damn!

LEWIS: Justice must be done and seen!

QUEENIE: It seems that being crooked is the only plan.

LEWIS: Yes, well, being crooked gets you further than being clean!

QUEENIE: Justice must be done and seen!

LEWIS: Don't worry, you're getting a golden handshake - nine hundred thousand Rand!

QUEENIE: I think I'll buy a town house in Cape Town, next to yours! Right on the strand!

QUEENIE breaks out into a wildly celebratory religious song.

THE COMPANY changes the set.