Draw the Brisbane Line (7 page)

At the end of the shopping strip she braked at a roundabout.  God knows why, there was nothing coming from the other direction, and it wasn’t like she was going to get a ticket for failing to pause at a give-way sign during all this madness.  A few cars came crawling up behind her, and she knew that at any second they would start honking their horns.  Queenslanders might be polite as pedestrians, but the moment you stick a steering wheel in their hands it’s like they have to drop their patience to keep hold of it. 
Let them honk
, she thought.  It felt good to stop, just for a moment.

She was about to drive on when someone knocked on the passenger-side window.  She jumped in her seat as far as it would let her, and swore loudly.  The kid who’d tried to break into her car not ten minutes earlier now crouched down and pleading with her to open the window, making the universal wind-down gesture with his hand while open-mouthing
open the window
.

The first horn honked behind her.

She lowered the window about two inches.

‘I’m not going to say it again.  You can’t steal my car today.  Look, I’m already in the driver’s seat.’

‘You’re in some shit, Miss Lucas,’ the kid said.

‘Well, duh,’ she said.  ‘Just wait until the reviews start coming in.’

He frowned.  ‘No, I mean … You’re in
danger
.  Potential for like, physical harm.’

She raised her eyebrows and waited, but the kid seemed to have gotten confused, thought it was her turn to speak.  ‘You’re not threatening me, are you?’ she said.

‘They’re gunna try for the Lexus, Miss Lucas.’

‘They?’

‘Sammo and his boys.’

‘Sammo and his boys want to steal my car?’  Like she knew who Sammo was.

He nodded.  ‘Jack it.’

There it was.  Apparently a car-jacking was still on the cards.  A pair of horns blasted from behind, and she could see the queue behind me was now about six cars long.

‘Look, can I get in?’

‘Fuck off!’ she blurted.  She could hear her PR agent Marcie in her ear saying,
Hollywood stars do not say fuck off, Jennifer
.

‘Look, I know where they’re waiting for you, just a few hundred metres from the highway, and in a few other places.  They really want this car, Miss Lucas.’

‘And what makes you think they can stop me?  Do you have any idea how fast this car can go?’

‘Nought to a hundred in less than four seconds?  That about right?’

Jenny realised she had no idea.  ‘Yeah, that’s about right.’

‘So are you willing to drive through a human wall, bust right through it like a big … flesh curtain?’

‘Urk, flesh curtain?  Really?’

‘Are you, though?  Because that’s what it’ll take.  They’re banking on you not being the type to mow down pedestrians.  Because of the bad publicity.’

‘Also because it’s wrong?  Evil?’

‘I can take you on a route which avoids them completely, if you’ll let me in.’

‘Why would you want to do that?  You tried to steal my car.’

He rubbed his hand over his face and into his boy-band hair.  ‘Only because Sammo pushed me into it.  He said they’d burn my house to the ground if I didn’t do it.  That was my mum’s house, Miss Lucas.  I couldn’t let them do that.’

God, that sincerity.  The damp eyes, the subtle tremble in his bottom lip, the worry lines cut into his beautiful face.  If the kid was lying, he could make a fortune on screen.

‘But what if someone sees you with me?  Won’t they carry through with their threat?’

He rubbed at the back of his head and scratched a half-smile onto his face.  ‘Yeah, probably.  But it’s funny how much your priorities can change in a couple of hours.  Right now I just want to get the fuck out of town.’

More horns now, and close to a dozen cars in a tailback a block long.

‘If you can get me as far as Brisbane,’ he said, ‘I have family there, an uncle.  He’s waiting for me before he leaves.  Look, I’m really sorry for trying to break into your car, but Sammo and his lot had me over a barrel.  I can help you.’

‘Step back from the car for a second,’ she said.

The groove of his smile slipped away from his mouth and resettled on his forehead in crooked furrows.  He thought she was going to drive away from him, but he stepped away anyway, resignation in his sloping shoulders.  She looked him up and down: pale blue t-shirt, white board shorts, green Havaianas on his feet.  She couldn’t see anywhere he might have a weapon stashed.  There was probably a back pocket on his shorts.

‘What’s in your pocket?’ I said.

He reached back and pulled out a thin neoprene wallet and an iPhone.

‘That’s all you’ve got with you, a phone and a wallet?’

‘It’s all I need,’ he said, the grin dipping a couple of toes in to test the water.

Fuck it
, she thought,
I could probably use the company
.  She unlocked the doors and said, ‘Go on then, get in.’

He jumped in the passenger seat with a full-beam smile, dimples and all.  She felt an urge to ruffle his blond hair, but she restrained herself.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Tait.  Tait Rosencrantz.’

She shook his hand, but its warmth did nothing for the chill now doing laps of her central nervous system. 
Rosencrantz
.  God, she hoped that wasn’t some kind of omen.  She couldn’t remember the role of the character in the play exactly, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t good.

She drove through the roundabout, backed by a chorus of honking and cheers.

Tait’s phone was going to overheat and explode, the way he was stabbing and swiping and clicking and swearing at it.

‘Fucking come on,’ he muttered every ten seconds or so, always followed by an apology.  ‘Sorry Miss Lucas.’

‘Just call me Jenny, please,’ she said after about the eighth time.  She was starting to feel like his teacher, being called Miss Lucas.

‘OK, Jenny.  Sorry about the language, it’s just this bloody mobile reception —’

‘And don’t apologise for fucking swearing.  You’re likely to hear much worse from me over the next couple of hours.’

‘I think it’s going to take more than a couple of hours to get to Brisbane in the traffic we’re about to hit.  We’ll be lucky to get there before dark.  Take a left here.’

They’d taken a few turns against the flow of traffic and headed back into the low sprawl of suburban Noosa.  It felt wrong to Jenny, not like the road out of town but the road to nowhere.  The houses soon began to thin the further they drove, before abruptly blossoming again as they turned into an entrance to a small golf course.  It was the kind of course created just to sell the property around it for a few hundred thousand more per plot.  Tait often played there, he said, and sometimes caddied.  He directed them to a small ring road which encircled the estate, separating it from the looming bushland like an optimistic firebreak.   They stopped at a metal gate.  The gate guarded a narrow road just barely wide enough to accommodate a car.   The road disappeared into dense bush, eucalyptus and paper bark and all manner of spiky scrub crowding around the thin ribbon of bitumen.  Tait hopped out of the car and swung the gate open and gestured for Jenny to drive through.

‘Access road,’ he said.  ‘Not too many people know about it.  Bit of a detour, but it’ll drop us right onto McKinnon Drive, and from there it’s a more or less straight run across to Cooroy.  We can hook up with the highway there.’

‘You realise if I hit a big enough pothole on this road, we’ll be utterly fucked.  This car might be pretty, but it possesses absolutely zero off-road handling.  I couldn’t even take it into the underground garage at the apartment because the angles on the ramp were too sharp.’

‘We’ll be fine, I drive these roads all the time.’

She gave him a quick glance.  ‘So where’s your car?’

‘Sammo took it.  Said he didn’t want me skipping town.’

‘Well, that sounds retarded.’

‘Yeah, he’s not the sharpest tool, but he’s a violent bastard.  Into some nasty shit, drugs and stuff.’

‘Taking them or selling them?’

‘Both.  Shit!  This
fucking
phone.’

‘I don’t think it’s your phone, it’s most likely the network.’

‘Have you tried your phone?’

‘Um.’ 

It was a good question.  Where was her phone?  It wasn’t in the front, and she usually kept close at all times like a diabetic with insulin.  In all the chaos of riot and departure, she had committed the modern sin of phone neglect.  ‘Must be in my bag,’ she said, though she couldn’t remember putting it in there.  She last had it when she was helping Kirsty load her car and trying to get through to Dave.  There had still been reception then, but he wasn’t picking up.

‘I need to call my uncle in Brisbane,’ Tait said.  ‘Let him know I’m on my way.’

‘I’m sure it’s just the network, overloaded.’

They rounded a bend and she almost stood on the brakes.  Tait lurched forward into his seatbelt with a strangled wheeze and spilled his phone on the floor.  A white Holden Ute was parked across the road, blocking the way completely. Three men stood around the tailgate, smoking and staring intently at them.

Blood filled Jenny’s head, rushing through her ears like an open gas valve.  ‘Tait?’ she said, forcing the words from her clenching jaw.  ‘What.  The. 
Fuck
?’

‘Christ,’ Tait said.  ‘It’s Sammo.’

‘You little
fuck
.’

‘It wasn’t me, I swear.  He must have guessed I’d take you around this way.’

‘Oh, so now he’s a criminal genius?  I suppose he set up the whole steal-the-Lexus gambit as part of a larger plan which led us here … so he could steal the Lexus.’

‘Jenny,’ Tait said, and placed a hand on her shoulder.  That should have infuriated her, but she found it oddly inoffensive, even calming.  His eyes were round and brown and utterly sincere.  ‘Sammo might not be a criminal genius, but he is a criminal.  No school smarts, but plenty of street smarts, yeah?  Don’t underestimate him.’

‘So I’m supposed to believe you didn’t lead me here, that this wasn’t part of the plan?’

‘Believe what you want, but I’m about thirty seconds away from a serious bashing.’

‘But —’

‘Rosie!’ one of the men shouted, big guy who looked like he had more than a bit of Maori or islander in him.  He was wearing board shorts and sneakers but no shirt, which gave Jenny a clear view of his ink-stained torso.  His head was shaved bald, and more tattoos swirled around his scalp in distorted and warped loops, as though they’d been penned when his skull was much smaller.  ‘Come on out, will ya?  We need a little chat.’

‘Sammo, I presume,’ Jenny said.

Tait nodded.

Jenny shifted into reverse, but just as she turned to look over her shoulder another car came up close behind them, a red Commodore HS.  They were penned in.

Tait sagged in his seat.  ‘I’m so sorry Jenny.  I should have thought they’d do this.  I was kind of hoping they’d bugged out with everyone else.’

‘Or were too busy looting the local businesses.’

‘Come on,’ Sammo called out.  ‘I’m not gunna hurt youse.’

‘Like hell,’ Jenny said.  ‘Do not get out of this car,’ she hissed at Tait.

‘They’ll drag me out if I don’t,’ he said.  ‘It’s better this way, trust me.  I’ll talk to them.’

Tait opened the door and the heat of the noon day bustled into the car like an over-affectionate Labrador.  They weren’t that far from the beach, but Jenny suspected the cooling sea breeze never made it this far.  He stepped onto the road and closed the door, and the air-conditioning quickly re-established dominance.

Tait stepped up to the three men, his hands held out by his side.  He spoke in a low voice, but she could still make out his words.

Jenny’s stomach performed a greasy backflip.

‘Guys,’ he said.  ‘What are you doing?  We’re just trying to evacuate, like the flyers said.’

Sammo responded by swinging a hard low right into Tait’s midsection.  Tait folded over, and he had to stick a hand out to stop from dropping to the road right there.  His other hand clutched at his belly.  Jenny could hear him wheezing as he struggled to get air into his lungs.

Sammo worked out, and judging by the abnormal proportions of biceps and chest and shoulders, Jenny assumed he was lifting weights with the help of some hormonal boosters, if not straight shots of high-dose testosterone.  Ten years spent around Hollywood stars in Hollywood gyms had opened her eyes to the reality of how built up a man could get while staying within the structure of his own genetic house. Extensions usually required outside help.

He stood over Tait, flexing his arms.  Jenny slammed the car horn and he jumped, a twitching ball of aggression.

He looked at Jenny, and a sharp grin settled on his face.  He punched down into Tait’s head, catching him on the back of the jaw.  This time he went down.

‘You cowardly fuck!’ she shouted, and the heat of the day washed over her.  She couldn’t recall making the decision to move, but she was suddenly out of the car with her fists clenched by her sides.

Sammo, still smiling, said, ‘Spaz, give Miss Lucas a bit of a cuddle, please.’

Calloused hands closed around her arms from behind.

Oh right.  The other car.

‘So,’ Sammo said.  ‘Is there anything I should know about my new car?  Bonus features?  Quirks?’

‘You are
not
getting my car,’ Jenny said.  Her arms were trembling, and not all of it with fear.

‘Oh,’ he said.  ‘I already have it, little miss Hollywood.  Look, it’s right here, delivered to me by our fair Rosie.’

Tait tried to say something, but he broke into a coughing fit.

‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘how many of those cars are in Australia?  How many of this particular edition?’

‘Just the one, as far as I know.  If the reporting in the Telegraph is accurate.  Don’t look so surprised. Yeah, I can read.’

His eyes challenged her for a comeback, winking, almost smiling.  He stepped away from Tait, moved towards her with measured and deliberate steps.

‘Report
age
,’ she said, her mouth too quick for her brain.

‘Hollywood starlet Jennifer Lucas extended her glamour to the roads with the newest edition of Lexus’s LFA super-car, currently one-of-a-kind in the country.  That’s what the article said.  That was a couple of weeks ago though.  So what?’

‘So what?’ she said.  ‘Anyone with half a clue about
what
it is will probably also know
whose
it is.  The cops are certainly going to know.  Who do you think is going to be stupid enough to buy it?’

The smile left those dark eyes of his.

Crap.

‘You want to keep it, don’t you?’

He stepped up close enough for Jenny to smell sour sweat layered on his skin like a protective coating.  His eyes made exaggerated passes up and down her body, from face to thigh.  She suddenly felt very naked in t-shirt and shorts.

‘What,’ he said, ‘you think the cops are going to track your car down, kick off a manhunt?  Didn’t you get the memo?  We’re at fucken
war
, yeah?  Rule book’s been thrown out the window, love.  We’re back to survival of the fittest.’

Oh crap, Jenny thought.  This moron believed the fliers.

His breath hit her in the face.  It smelled of beer and cigarettes.  She turned her head to the side and he laughed.  He must have thought she’d moved in fear.

‘Do you remember the eviction riots in LA a couple of years ago?’ she said, turning back to face him, looking him in the eye.  ‘I was there at the time.  A lot of people thought they could get away with pretty much anything as soon as the bricks started going through the shop windows on Rodeo Drive.  They thought the big eye in the sky was looking away, or maybe it was closed.  It wasn’t though.  Sure, they had their fun for a few days of anarchy and looting, but when the fires burned down and the smoke cleared, it turned out that big eye had been watching the whole time — and it was
pissed
.’

‘Do you see any cameras out here?  Any big eyes?  Big brother don’t go bush.’

‘Believe what you want.  Doesn’t change the fact that you will be caught.’

‘What if I keep you with me?’ he said, and trailed a finger down her arm.  She flinched.  ‘That wouldn’t be theft then, would it?’

‘No, that would be kidnapping.’

He laughed.  ‘Maybe it would be a rescue.  I reckon I could sell that.  Well, Miss Lucas had fainted in the heat, stuck out on some back road in her car and obviously lost.  So I abandoned my own vehicle and drove Miss Lucas out of the danger zone.’

‘Yeah, like I’m going to back
that
story up.’

He leaned in closer and lowered his voice, and an adolescent glee shimmered in his eye.  ‘Unfortunately,’ he whispered, ‘one night when we were getting some rest by the roadside, she wandering off into the bush, just so she could have some privacy to pee.  I told her I’d go, and she could stay near the car to do it, but she insisted.  God, she was so stubborn.  She never came back from her pee.  I spent the next two days searching for her, but all I found was one of her shoes, crawling with bull-ants.  I keep thinking she’s going to turn up one of these days, bush-dirty and missing a shoe, but part of me knows the truth. I don’t think I’ll ever know what happened to Jenny Lucas.’

She gathered what spit she could muster and sent it across the short distance to his face.  She landed the bubbly goo right in the eyes.  He took a step back and wiped it away with the back of his hand.

‘You fucking cunt!’ he shouted, then charged back up to her, the tip of his nose flicking her own.  His eyes were wide and bugging, close enough so that she could make out the tiny flecks of yellow in his brown irises.  ‘Do that again,’ he said.  ‘I fucking dare you, do that again.’

She wasn’t going to spit in his face again.  She thought,
I’ll do better than that, I’m a fucking Hollywood star
.  She reached deep into herself and thought of raw mussels, of spattering sausages and tuna casserole.  She thought about stuffing a turkey.  She thought of all the times, against her better judgement, she’d agreed to just one more tequila shot.  She thought of her parents engaged in freaky and wet sex.

It wasn’t hard.  Good actors have an arsenal of human emotion at hand, enabling them to shed tears and cry, to laugh with real humour, to scream with a rage of the unjustly wronged.  Jenny was a good actor, and she had another weapon in her arsenal now.  She had morning sickness.  She drew on all her years of experience and skill, all her lessons and training, and she vomited into Sammo’s face.