It had to happen! A small mining town like Horizon Deep still reeling with the shocking news of an impending mine shutdown, job losses and economic deprivation is just ripe for the plucking by unscrupulous conmen and smooth operators who prey on the worries and insecurities of panicked people..
But who is more cool and level headed than Parsons Matebane?
No-one and that’s why he was the perfect mark.
He didn’t even see it coming when some guy called Siphiwe who he knew from way back when blew into town and enticed him into the wonderful world of easy fortunes made on the Stock Exchange. It all seemed legit; Siphiwe was articulate, appeared knowledgeable with all the necessary documentation and jargon and delivered amazing profits perfectly. I mean who could resist? Ten grand invested today could yield twenty grand in a few days. Man this was the stairway to heaven.
Question is whose heaven? And on the other side of heaven, hell lurks.
I started getting this very uneasy feeling when all this was seemingly going down so smoothly and Parsons told his cynical father about how quickly he had turned a profit. Zeb was skeptical for about five minutes but when he started seeing dollar signs he quickly decided to invest fifty grand. The power of the mighty buck and the greed of mankind. It works every time, I tell you.
And of course, at the Deep few things can remain private. Nan told Len and swore him to secrecy, which lasted about three minutes. And before we knew it, Maggie had got wind of it from Len and she also decided to climb onto the bandwagon. She’s been stressing for ever about losing her borders at the ‘guesthouse’ as she likes to call it. Steve has toddled down to Cape Town for an indefinite period with luscious Luke and Vusi is now moving to the big mine manager’s house, which means Maggie is getting less income for rent and may soon be out of a job with the Rec Club on the skids.
All in all everyone with a few bucks would be keen to make a quick profit. Len and Maggie came forth with some hard earned thousands and Parsons, decided for his effort, he’d also be entitled to a commission. So all was hunky dory as he handed over a total of a hundred thousand big ones for investment. But as they say, unfortunately all good things come to an end, and Parsons started to get that cold grip of fear when Siphiwe didn’t show up for his profit payout meeting. On calling the numbers on the business card Siphiwe had flashed around, Parsons was met with the flat pre-recorded voice of a Telkom employee advising “that this number does not exist, please contact your directory.” Of course the directory indicated that the company did not exist either. So now Parsons is in the predicament of telling Maggie, Len and especially his father that they have all been scammed.
I can tell you, there’s a man whose shoes I wouldn’t like to be in.
Moral of the story; anytime something sounds too good to be true – it probably is.
Added to this little nightmare is one that I think could be far greater. Out of the blue another dude showed up with a major business proposal to the Matebane family. He seems to have identified them as possible partners to go into a housing development deal. The fact that Zeb and Ma Agnes know nothing about building houses does not seem to be a problem. This guy who maintains he is going to put in a million and a half has people available to handle all the technical stuff involved in actually designing and building houses.
Ma Agnes, in his view is an astute businesswoman with good organizational skills and Zeb is a man who has labour available. In addition and very importantly, they have money in the way of their life savings. It seems they have scrimped and saved and worked hard to build a nest egg, and it just so happens that their involvement in this would be lucrative house building scheme would cost around seven hundred thousand rand. Slap an extra thirty or so grand onto that, and hell man, they can actually own a one third share of this housing business.
So now you can see why Parson’s little investment opportunity seemed like a Godsend for Zeb who is already itching to have the extra cash in his hands.
Last night the Matebane’s signed the partnership deal. All that remains is for them to fork over a substantial amount of money as a guarantee when the tender goes in. I am hoping against hope that this is not another well crafted scam. I don’t think they could live with it and nor could I.
Orlando’s letter to the Scorpions has seen the arrival of a special agent called Alec Mathews. He comes under the guise of an investigative journalist and he has managed to be employed in Frank’s team. This was not something done willingly on Frank’s part. We all know Frank likes to be large and in charge, and has carte blanche on hiring and firing decisions. This one was forced on him by Rajesh who basically pulled rank on Frank and told him to allow this guy to be there, ostensibly to gain some experience for later use in Rajesh’s Mumbai operations.
Alec is investigating Barker Haines and the mysterious collapse of the Electra Dam and the huge amount of benefit that Barker reaped from it. It’s kind of weird though, because Lee who spilled her guts about the San Fernando coup to Harriet and her mother is also under suspicion from Alec but she has tried to appear very helpful in his efforts to get information on the Electra project. And Alec seems to have bought it. Of course there is an undeniable attraction between them which could mean he is not thinking with the right head at this point in time.
As for Rajesh, he and Lee are on a bit of a rollercoaster ride since her confession to him. On the one hand he was repelled, on the other hand he admitted to still being madly in love with her and physically aroused by her gutzpah. He had also managed to rationalize things by saying that Lee had no power to change things and that it was all Barker’s fault. But then Lee made the stunning revelation that she had not sought forgiveness nor atonement for her part in it, but wanted Rajesh to know that in some way she got a thrill and excitement from the manner in which the company was saved because of the coup, Rajesh has had to deal with the awful reality that Lee is Barker Haine’s daughter in many ways.
And while we are on the attraction front, Frank is almost panting as much as Tim was about Natasha. It started off with them bantering about Tim’s infatuation with her and now suddenly Frank is wanting to take it to the next level. He’s tried asking her for drinks and dinner but Natasha is very cautious. Clearly it’s because she shares a similar attraction towards him but is not able to deal with it that well.
Apparently Frank has a reputation of being somewhat of a ladies man, although to his credit, he has never been involved with anyone that we know of. Eventually he managed to get her to agree by suggesting a ‘working dinner.’ He bought the pizza and wine and a DVD to be studied for presentation ideas for her show. All this took place at her house and we got the first glimpse of Natasha’s teenage daughter. I hope daughter dear is not going to play a big part. Two scenes with her in it and I was already gritting my teeth. Maybe her acting skills will improve and the scriptwriter will give her better lines if they intend her to stay.
On a final note, Anthea still seems keen on Barker and wants to see him, much to Lee’s annoyance. But Lee has plans. She has managed to dig up a long lost cousin of her mother’s called Ray. Lee has decided her mother needs a break and wants her desperately to go to White River to spend time with this cousin who she hasn’t seen in twenty years. The lengths these Haines will go to, to get there own way. Anthea has flatly refused. I can’t say I blame her since being someone with a social disorder, being packed off to a relative stranger in White River must be daunting indeed.
The thing is, while Mummy’s away, Lee can play.
The question is who will she play with? Rajesh or yummy Alec?
I’ll let you know next week.
*** Catch Isidingo on SABC 3 at 18h30 on weekdays.
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