Drawing Dead (15 page)

She owes me twenty-five grand Larry, plus expenses. You must be going fucking insane if you think I’m not gonna try and collect. That bitch is mine baby.

It was a set-up Jack. You fucking said so yourself, right from the get-go that the broad was double-dealing. A notebook with your name and number on it. Wasn’t a fucking accident.

He was right and we both knew it but I stuck up for her for a minute or two more just on principle.

There are a variety of possibilities as to how that could’ve happened Chenko.

I couldn’t think of one. He must have though.

Perhaps, but skipping out with your cash only has the lone explanation. And now you can’t leave the State because you’re a murder suspect. She thought this thing through.

I think she got lucky. She ain’t as bright as you think.

I wasn’t entirely sure I believed what I saying but kept on talking anyway.

She tried to make it look like she was going to the airport last night. Not sure which one but it doesn’t matter anyway. She can’t go anywhere with that kind of money in tow. It just isn’t possible.

Chenko thought a moment. Gave that moustache a real good tweak.

You’re right. It isn’t.

That’s assuming she has the money that’s causing the stirring from Melbourne. I think we got a few days before she a makes a play. She’s holed up somewhere and we have to find her. You with me Chenko?

You already owe me two Jack.

I hadn’t bought the owe with me on account of the police incident this morning. It had slipped my mind completely. I swore and promised him another grand on top.

Make it two.

Lucky he was worth it.

Why not just bend me over the table huh? Just do it right here, right now… Check all the city hotels, the high end ones, for a Sophia Rousseau. That’s the new name on the documents you got her. You already knew that. I got a hunch she won’t be slumming it. She ain’t that kinda girl. You shoulda seen the look on her face when I put some cheap clothes on her last night. Like she’d been sneezed on by a homeless dope fiend. Nah, she ain’t slumming, start high and go from there.

I cut the second beer in half with a gulp. Killed it with another.

You got any cigars in your car?

He nodded and we got up to leave. I paid the bill and Chenko tipped his hat. You shoulda seen the get-up he was wearing. Full grey plaid suit, lusterless silver tie to match, sharkskin shoes shining, wearing that Stetson like a damned prohibition mobster. I couldn’t fault him, he looked good. Made me look like a bum, though that wasn’t hard. We smoked by the cars awhile. He gave me a couple more for the road. I laid off the beers. Neither of us said much, sometimes words lose their meaning on account of the gravity pummeling down on the confined space around you. The sea air came along on the wind now and then. Reminded me of being a kid. Reminiscence was about as useful to me right then as religion, or perhaps an asshole where one of my ears were.

Yeah, remember that jackpot I knew was waiting round the corner, well here I was living it, and it was just as much a motherfucker as I had expected.

Where you gonna go Jack?

The one place no asshole figures I’d be dumbass enough to.

The sun was still shining kids, wouldn’t do me the favour of exploding us all to oblivion in an inspired final fiery flash now though would it. Still I could dream it though, revel in it as I drove. I smoked my balls off the whole way over to the office.

More driving, another double bluff.

Come on God.

Get on with it huh.

Kill.

Me.

Now.

A few things struck me. Firstly, he didn’t ask about the money, only about Evie, that made me think that he was probably involved with her, maybe did the job with her, and that he, like me, had been double-crossed by her. Secondly, he was serious as shit, he was ready to beat me to soft pulp, and wouldn’t stop with it until I either talked or fainted. Third, was his foot again, and then again, and then again. I made a desperate play. I had to. I was getting my ass handed to me. It was a hit of my own, a boot heel, with all I had, direct to his shin. He reeled with it enough for a quick respite. I hauled up to my feet and made for the other room.

He was on me like a sprung trap. All I could do was grab for the pull-ties I’d left on my desk. It was a panicked snatch taken as he crunched a fist into the back of my head and sent me forward and over the furniture. It hurt real bad but gave me a second before he rounded the desk to carry on the sadistic battering.

I threw away the excess and connected one pull-tie at its furtherest click, shook my head like dog and snap gathered myself then stood sorta swaying with that wildebeest right there already waiting to destroy. He rushed me, clutching at my shirt and slamming me back into a filing cabinet that was mostly there just to make the office look more like an office. I had the circle of strong adjustable plastic in my right hand and when we crashed back together I whipped it over his head in the momentary standstill opportunity of impact. He froze for just a second, and in that second I pulled the thing tight with the same hand I’d put it on with. The zipping clicks made him drop his hands and as he did I put my left foot on his thigh and pulled that thing with as much as I could.

You just can’t fight without an air supply.

As he started choking and wrestling with it, realizing he couldn’t get a breath and also that the blood supply to his peanut brain was being cut off I let him have a few sweetly timed punches, damn balanced crackers they were, head and gut, yeah I picked him off as he was strangled into a vulnerable submission, face going red, spit dribbling down his caveman chin. He was on the floor, about to pass out in about a minute. I took his wallet out his pocket. Name was Roberto Bertilo.

Which meant shit to me.

You know Rob, I’ll tell you something, between you and me, you’re the fourth guy this week who’s tried to kick my ass in this office. It’s a shame, a damn shame. For everyone involved. And yeah I know Evie, good girl, real looker, well looker doesn’t do her justice does it, a fucking humdinger, there I said it, and I mean it too…next time try maybe not being such an asshole Rob, just try it, maybe if ya had you wouldn’t’ve ended up like the rest of’em. Now look at ya, on the floor, no air, bleeding and just waiting to get the shit kicked out ya some more. It’s embarrassing…I guess we just can’t all be winners though can we.

I gave him a nice hard boot after that part of my dialogue. Unadulterated pure joy.

Now I gotta make a like a Russian Rob, you know, fuckoffski, make yourself at home though buddy, and try not to bleed too much onto the carpet huh.

He somehow found the strength to curse at me, so I stomped his head into the ground.

Shut up.

I could see he didn’t have much left. So I kicked him again. Then went over to my desk and got the letter opener. I didn’t want a dead body on my hands. I showed it to him. He stuck out his hand the way a zombie would clambering after brains.

I’m gonna throw this outside Rob, and you can crawl and get it.

He tried to get up and failed. I went over and dragged his ass by the foot as best I could over to and out the door. Threw the thing, turned round and locked up. When I left he was half way across the car park moving in stunted fits of effort toward his emancipation. I was pretty sure he’d make it, I watched him a minute and made book on his chances, gave him odds of three to one right there on the spot then walked it on the double back to my car laughing my ass off all the way there.

I was a little banged up but I'd live. They were mostly body shots and that one zing to the back of the skull. I’d taken much worse and walked it off before. This was gonna be no different. I drove to a supermarket and bought painkillers. Dry swallowed a handful before paying. Got outside and wondered why I hadn’t bought a drink. Then more driving and more thinking.

What the fuck else was I gonna do.

I knew that this guy knew Evie, and I was convinced he knew her well, otherwise he woulda only wanted to know about the money. Some joker sent on a business retrieval job would have only wanted the cash. He seemed more concerned as to her whereabouts, and he had all the cocksureness of a man who’d probably fucked a girl like Evie, a bunch of times too, that would make you pretty damn proud of yourself wouldn’t it. It would me. But I’m getting off track. My gut said they had ripped off the money together and then Evie had ripped him off soon after. But it was only a hunch and I been wrong about most things for most of my life.

Anyway I was starving. I went the easiest option, which was drive-thru and downed two burgers and a large fries, also had a coke which helped wash those pills down that had felt stuck all stubborn to the side of my alcohol parched throat.

It was too early to call Chenko back to see if he had anything for me. So I thought fuck it, I just knew that bitch was out there somewhere, I was gonna try my luck. I stopped for petrol then drove on and into the city. Parked near the train station and then trawled the hotels on foot for about two hours. It was a fuckwit-a-thon for the most part. Waiting about, getting no straight dope, dealing with the menagerie of assholes running places nowadays. Long story short I hit nothing but dead ends. Finished up in a bar drinking Grey Goose vodka on ice and wishing I was dead.

Pretty standard afternoon for me.

In fact I said to myself let’s write the entire day off and walked back to the car and drove straight to the liquor store. A pall had come over me. These were hard as shit to shake. I sat in the car looking at the place awhile first. Before I strode in. Outwardly saying no but inwardly having already decided yes. I bought more vodka, and a load of cheap white wine. I didn’t even drive home but instead went to the park overlooking this entire torpid slut of a city and drank until I passed out in the backseat humming myself a little ditty.

Jacky takes it in the ass doo-da, doo-da.

Jacky takes it in the ass all the doo-da day.

When I woke up it was night and my head was heavy as a lead pipe but I actually didn’t feel as bad I thought I should have so I took a walk down to a payphone, took me about a fucking hour to find one, and called my boy Chenko. He picked up on the first ring as was his custom.

Chenko, it’s me, got anything for me?

Yeah.

Well, spill goddamnit.

She’s at the casino.

You kidding me?

Had to be didn’t he!

Nah Jack, she’s a real criminal mastermind this one.

Thicker than two planks it would seem.

You got a room number or something?

No, woulda cost too much. Information is becoming an extortionist’s game. But a young woman under that name is staying there. That’s the best I could get ya. Odds on it’s her. Happy hunting.

Thanks Chenko, if I ever said that moustache made you look like a pedophile I take it all back.

I hung up before he could reply.