G'Day USA (31 page)

I couldn’t see her face so I couldn’t tell if she was kidding or delusional. But I wasn’t going to argue the point. ‘Thank you very much. I owe you my life.’

‘
I’ve been bored lately anyway. You’ve added a bit of spice to my life.’

‘
You’re better than this, you know that, right?’

I heard her sigh and adjust herself. ‘It’s just too hard to try and keep it on an even keel. I gave up a couple of years ago.’

‘
Surely you have friends or family who can help you.’

She didn’t reply. I heard a sniffle and then nothing.

‘
You okay?’

Nothing.

It was going to be a long night. And it was starting to cool off. Wind blew sheets of rain against the side of the metal container, sounding like nails against the metal sides.

I felt around on the floor for my jeans. I heard a thunk as I picked them up. ‘Shit. My phones.’ I pulled the wet pants on my wet legs. Better than nothing. Body heat would help them dry. I felt around until I found the phones. The pre-pays were flip phones. I couldn’t tell in the dark which was which. I turned them both on and check the call records and turned the busy one off and left the new one on. The light from the display was weak, but it allowed me to see the inside of the container. Shelves lined the far end. Blankets, burlap sacks and other scraps of cloth lined the half the floor they were on. The other half was bare metal, empty food containers scattered around the floor.

‘
It’s not going to work in here.’

She was awake. ‘Excuse me?’

‘
It’s a metal building. The signal in here is too weak. It’s not going to work in here.’

She was right. I was flickering between no service and a single bar. I stood and moved toward the door. ‘I’ll have to go outside then.’

‘
It’s pouring out. You’ll get drenched.’

‘
I’m already wet, Ann. It’s not going to make any difference.’ I cracked open the door and quickly closed it behind me and ducked around to the lee side of the container. I needed to talk to a friend.

I leaned against the wall and hugged myself. I dialed Cathy’s number from memory. This meant she’d have my number now, but frankly I didn’t care. I was cold, wet, alone and some jerk-wad had just tried to kill me. And I was hanging with a lady who all of a sudden wouldn’t let me fucking swear.

She answered almost before it rang.

‘
Is this...?’

‘
Cathy, Ellie here. Thanks for answering. I needed to hear a friendly voice. I’ve had a hell of a day.’

‘
Where are you? I’ll come and get you. We can hang in that Super-8 we shared a room in a lifetime ago.’

I smiled. Good memories. ‘I can’t get you wrapped up in this. I just needed to hear a friendly voice. You been hassled by the cops much?’

‘
Not really. They’ve come by a couple of times. Perkins and his kid partner. Reminds me of Josh Hartnett.’

‘
Perkins?’

‘
His partner. Bernie ever pushes my last button I may track this cop down and make him an offer he can’t refuse.’

I laughed. I could hear Bernie yelling something in the background. ‘Why wait?’ A clatter of rain drowned out the conversation for a second as a gust swept through from the ocean.

‘
Are you out in this? Ellie, you’ve got to get under cover. This is a hell of a storm and it’s just going to get worse.’

Good old Cathy, mother-hen from the first time I met her. ‘I’m cool. Got a place I can go to get out of this mess. Just standing outside right now so I don’t disturb my roommate while she sleeps.’ I sniffed. ‘It’s getting cold.’

‘
Are you okay? You don’t sound okay.’

‘
Well, aside from the fact I’ve been framed for killing someone I wanted dead, been threatened myself and not half an hour ago fought off some asshole who tried to drown me, yeah, I’m peachy.’

‘
So you’re still near the beach. Someone try to pick you up and got a bit too aggressive?’

‘
No. The same guy who killed Sweeney tried to get me.’

‘
Shit.’

‘
Exactly.’

‘
Did you get my voicemail?’

I was momentarily confused. ‘You didn’t have this number. How did you get it?’

‘
I called in the last number I knew. You must have just changed it.’

‘
I was getting too many creepy messages and now apparently the cops have it. Marty was arrested for not cooperating with the police and they, I guess, got the number from his phone.’

‘
So what now?’

The thought of a warm hotel room, a pizza and a couple of beer with my best friend was very tempting. ‘You’re wearing me down.’

‘
Tell me where you are and I’ll be there as fast as I can.’

‘
I can’t. Really. Look, this is coming to a head. The whack-job tried to drown me and he’ll be looking for me to finish me off. I’ve got to get him and the cops in the same room and end this once and for all.’

‘
Did you get my voicemail?’

‘
You asked that already. I didn’t know the prepay had voicemail. So no. What was it?’

‘
I called the station - sorry, I tried to call the station. Bernie called the station and asked to talk to Stevie. We wanted to find out what they knew.’

I closed my eyes and swore. ‘Jesus, Cathy. You’re going to get yourself in serious trouble. I appreciate the thought, but don’t help, okay? This is serious stuff.’

‘
No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. There is no Stevie there, in the records room or the evidence locker or anywhere else. Not a female Stevie, anyway.’

I stood up straight. ‘You called the right station?’

‘
Devonshire.’

‘
Yeah. That’s the one.’ I twirled some hair. Some nervous tics held on from my early teen years. ‘Kent must have got the name wrong. Or maybe she’s in a different station and has contacts in Devonshire.’

‘
Or maybe Kent’s full of shit.’

‘
What would he gain from that?’

‘
Trying to get into your pants, maybe? You known him long?’

‘
Since we filmed
Beast of Bondi
in Australia some four years ago. No. He’s never shown any interest in anything like that.’

Cathy laughed. ‘You are a blind girl when it comes to the opposite sex, honey. He could be crawling all over you and you wouldn’t get it.’

‘
Am not.’ God it felt good talking to a friend. ‘This is nice. I’m glad I called. I’ve got to get going, though. I need to get inside before the jack-hole finds me.’

‘
You need to talk to the police about this. He’s going to kill you.’

I shook my head. ’No fucking way. He got the drop on me and he had no success. I’m not going to be that stupid again. I know he’s coming after me and he won’t catch me by surprise. Don’t worry about me. I’m a lot tougher than I look. And whoever he is, he’s going to find that out once and for all.’

‘
You’re not going to go looking for him in this weather are you?’

‘
I’m not crazy. No, I’ll hole up where I can keep my back covered tonight. Tomorrow I’ll finish him once and for all. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Cath. And fingers crossed I’ll be clear of this shit.’

‘
Be careful. I feel like I should be helping you.’

‘
I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’ I hung up and walked out from behind the container. The rain was pelting down, in waves. Global warming, my ass. I was freezing. I slipped into the container, careful not to disturb Ann. I closed the door behind me and sat against the wall, an old blanket around my shoulders.

I couldn’t sleep. A few things Cathy said kept running through my head. I didn’t know these prepay cards had voicemail. I had a couple of missed calls earlier from her and one from the person who had been threatening me. His voice mail, if he left one, might shed some additional light on what was going on.

Other than the light from my phone, though, it was pitch black in the container. I fished my old pre-pay phone from my pocket. Hopefully it hadn’t been damaged in all the crap I’d just gone through.

I cycled the power on the phone and when it came back up I had no service. I was inside this metal box. I had to go outside again. Shit. And I was just starting to warm up.

I slipped out, pounded by the weather and scooted to the relative calm of the lee side of the box. The phone vibrated with four new messages: Cathy’s missed call and assumed voice mail, two missed calls from Marty’s phone and one indicating an unheard voice message.

The pre-pay phones were with the same provider as my iPhone so I dialed the same retrieval number and got through to a recording informing me I had four messages.

The newest one was from Perkins. He must have used Marty’s phone to call me, expecting me to pick up.

“
Miss Bourke, I’m calling again in the hope you listen to this and take yourself to the nearest police station, for your own safety. I understand you believe this to be some sort of trick. It’s not. You would be well advised to follow these instructions as soon as you hear this message.”

Blah, blah, blah.

The messages were in reverse chronological order. The next one was also from Perkins:

“
Miss Bourke, Sergeant Perkins calling you from your manager’s phone. He is currently in custody for resisting arrest, harboring a fugitive and obstructing justice. Do him and yourself a favor and contact me as quickly as possible and let us help you sort this problem out.”

I smiled. Marty in jail would be a treat to listen to. Ann wouldn’t like it. Marty had some of the most colorful swearing I’ve ever heard a non-Australian use.

The third message was from Cathy:

“
Ellie, it’s just me. Call me when it’s safe. Tried to get reach Kent’s contact at the police station, Stevie. There is no Stevie there in any job. How well do you know Kent? Watch your back, Ellie. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

She sounded more concerned on that call than she did while I was talking to her.

The fourth message was brief. It was from the asshole trying to kill me, or at least scare me. There was a lot of background noise on the message and at the end the voice was faint, like the phone was held a distance from his head. There was the whoop of a police siren and then some words. The voice was vaguely familiar.

The rain beating against the metal box behind me didn’t help any. I shivered and turned the volume all the way up and replayed the message as I pressed the phone hard to my ear and plugged the other one. The first few words were in his bad Batman imitation:

“
Hey bitch, you think you can hide - ”

And then it stopped. I could hear the police siren. It almost blew my eardrum out. Then his voice, un-Batmanned:

“
Oh, fuck. Fucking cops.”

Shit. Four words. I had to be sure. I played it back again, eyes squeezed shut in concentration, listening to those four words. I recognized the voice.

But it couldn’t be.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Rain pelted the beach as the Killer sat under the Venice Fish Pier and weathered the storm. He felt his nose and winced. The bleeding had stopped, and it was very tender and swollen, but he didn’t think it was broken. The cut under his left eye had stopped bleeding, probably because of the amount of sand packed in it.

He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths through his mouth. His heart was pounding. He rolled on to his knees and crawled out from under the top end of the pier. Sheets of rain, ocean spray and blown wet sand covered him almost immediately. He shoved his hands in his pockets and tucked his head and quickly walked up the beach.

He stopped on the pedestrian walkway on the 24th and took his bearings. He turned in a full circle, almost losing his balance and landing on his ass. ‘Oops.’ He sniffed, and tilted his head, closed one eye and tried to remember where he had punched the bag lady.

‘
In the face, of course.’ He giggled. ‘But where the fuck was I?’

He turned right at the next lane and headed south. Exhaustion robbed him of what little coherent thought he still had. He remembered it was on this street. He remembered the door was a little off the street and opened to a storage room. He had no idea which building it was in. He walked south, holding his face and pushing on doors as he passed them. A couple of yells from inside spurred him on. They weren’t the correct doors. He’d know it when he saw it. He had perfect memory.

He hoped.

Almost two blocks down the road and the door appeared in front of him as if by magic. He gave it a push and stood back as it slowly swung open. ‘Hey bitches. You in here?’

He peered around the corner, walked around the door jamb and into the room. ‘Yeah, this is the place.’

The two mattresses looked untouched. This may have been the place, but they weren’t here now.

He sniffed. ‘Stinks in here. But not enough.’

He lowered his fly and urinated on both mattresses and the floor between them. ‘Where. The fuck. Are you?’