Take Out (30 page)

Rough hands pulled her to her feet. She felt the stitches in her shoulder stretch then snap. A tide of warm blood rushed down her back. The hallway spun. She found herself half pushed, half carried down the passageway to Mrs Hardegan’s backroom.

The old woman looked up and let out a startled cry. The man hurled Stevie to the ground at her feet.

‘Bloody Japs! Bloody Japs!’
the parrot screamed.

The blast of a shotgun tore the cage apart, shattering the air around them. Stevie held her breath and waited for the second blast that never came. With her ears still ringing, she attempted to pull herself up from the floor and failed.

A cloud of smoke filled the room, sucking at the air. Stevie struggled for breath thinking she must have been hit. The pain in her shoulder was excruciating and felt far worse than the original injury. Bolts of light streaked across her eyes.

She sagged against the side of Mrs Hardegan’s armchair. Everything had happened so quickly, she was having trouble grasping quite what was going on. She became aware of a bony hand pressing at her undamaged shoulder—Lilly throwing her a lifeline, warning her to stay put.

The smoke cleared, Stevie finally found her focus. The man was tall and very good looking, which was a ridiculous thing to think under the circumstances. He wore a finely striped business shirt with no tie, sleeves rolled to the elbows revealing muscles thick as twisted rope. The shotgun held casually at his hip was pointed towards the middle of Stevie’s chest.

The Crow.

Jennifer Granger, aka the Mamasan, stood by his side. Stevie leaned against the chair, only a metre away from the woman’s shapely legs, small feet pressed into stilettos.

Stevie avoided looking at Granger’s face for as long as she could. Her gaze flitted to the shattered remains of the parrot’s cage. Somehow she found her voice through the dryness of her throat. ‘Good for us, bad for you; everyone in the street will have heard that racket. Better leave while you still can.’

‘It never worried them before, love,’ Granger said, picking a pale feather from her hair. She examined it between her manicured fingers, let it go and watched it flutter to the floor.

Stevie searched the woman’s plastic perfect face. ‘You mean when you shot Delia Pavel?’

Granger turned to The Crow. ‘See, what did I tell you, son, she knows far too much.’

The Crow looked at Stevie and licked his beautifully shaped lips.

‘What’s wrong with you, don’t you talk?’ Stevie demanded, relieved to hear no sign in her voice of the tremble that shook her from the inside out.

The Crow reached for the open bottle of brandy, took a long pull then wiped his bare arm across his mouth. He inspected the bottle, turning it over in his hand. When his eyes met those of his mother, Stevie was reminded of an animal looking to its trainer for instructions. Granger gave him a go-ahead nod.

He was going to smash the end off the bottle, cut her with it. Stevie tensed, looked at the sewing table and wondered if there was anything she could use as a shield or weapon. The objects on the table were still covered by the tapestry. She had trouble remembering what was there, let alone imagine how her dulled reflexes could dodge the jagged end of the bottle.

He took another swig of brandy; eyes never leaving hers. He wiped his mouth again, then trickled the rest of the brandy in a circle around the armchair. When he’d finished, he put the empty bottle carefully back on the table and picked up Stevie’s phone.

He wasn’t going to cut her after all, she thought as he crunched her phone under his boot. And then a thought drove the reality home. She remembered what Col had told her about The Crow. No, he wasn’t going to cut her.

It was worse than that.

She turned her head and risked a glimpse at Lilly who still sat rigid in her chair, one hand resting on Stevie’s undamaged shoulder. Stevie felt an energising jolt of anger. Some of the fogginess lifted. Lilly hadn’t come so far to die like this.

Hell, neither had she.

The Crow took a silver cigarette case from his shirt pocket, removed a cigarette and lit it. After a puff he squatted at the ring of brandy and put the glowing tip to the alcohol. Within seconds a blue ring of fire surrounded them.

Mrs Hardegan gasped. Stevie patted her hand. ‘It’s okay, he only wants to frighten us.’

The Crow smiled at her, cigarette hanging from his mouth like James Dean. He handed the shotgun to Granger and left the room.

‘Christmas pudding,’ Mrs Hardegan said as the last of the impotent blue flames petered out.

‘Why doesn’t he talk?’ Stevie asked, tipping her chin to the back door through which The Crow had disappeared.

‘Just a temporary problem according to the doc. Smoke inhalation from the last burning,’ Granger said. ‘He can’t resist the sizzle and smell of burning meat. Put his face too close to Pavel’s body and damaged his voice box.’

‘Poor baby,’ Stevie said.

Lilly chuckled.

‘I wouldn’t be thinking that was so funny if I was you, Senior Sergeant Stephanie Hooper.’

Stevie stared unwavering at the woman before her. ‘How long have you known who I was?’

‘From the moment you reserved that DVD: name, address the works. After a quick word with that tall, blabbermouth cop, I figured out what was behind all them questions of yours; you weren’t the painter you were pretending to be, you were some bitch of a cop.’

‘And you killed Skye?’

‘He did.’ With the shotgun, Granger pointed in the direction her son had gone. ‘Nice girl; often picked up takeaway from us. He heard her phoning you outside the deli, knew she must have found something out from the old dear. Well whaddaya know—we thought she only spoke gobbledegook.’

Mrs Hardegan stiffened in her chair.

‘And he had a go at me in Freo, too.’ Stevie deliberately omitted Fowler’s name, even though she had a feeling he would be next on their list. ‘Was it The Crow who gave my daughter the magazine?’

‘Just one of his little jokes, always had a great sense of humour.’

Using the side of the chair Stevie hauled herself to her feet. Granger didn’t try to stop her, although she did keep the shotgun barrel pointing steadily at her chest. Stevie staggered as another wave of dizziness swept through her, forcing her to reach for the arm of the chair. When she looked down, she noticed the front of her shirt saturated with blood.

The Crow entered the room through the back door with a sloshing can of fuel.

Something cold rolled down Stevie’s spine. ‘You’ve been using Pavel’s car—where’ve you kept it hidden?’ she said, desperately bidding for time.

‘Just at the deli garage, love; changed the plates, only use it at night.’ Granger paused and looked to her son as he circled Mrs Hardegan’s chair with the fuel, the same way he’d done with the brandy. ‘You’d have liked to have used that car more often—wouldn’t you, son? We can have it painted when this business is over with, then you can use it whenever you like.’ To Stevie she explained, ‘The Crow loves the finer things in life. Lucky our delis pay so well.’

A horrible rasping sound escaped through the sneer of her son’s mouth. Eva seemed to understand what he was saying, though Stevie hadn’t a clue.

‘You bought that deli so you could keep an eye on the Pavels?’ Stevie asked.

‘One of many small businesses.’

‘A handy way of laundering money. And I guess you staff them with ignorant teenagers like Leila who wouldn’t think to ask too many questions.’

‘But more than anything, The Crow likes the sound of cooking meat.’ Granger was clearly keener to terrorise them with tales about her son than to explain her business practices. ‘Nothing like the sizzle and pop of the eyeballs as they explode like overcooked eggs—isn’t that right, son?’

The Crow smiled, revealing a row of perfect, bone-white teeth. He finished pouring the circle of petrol, grabbed Mrs Hardegan’s telephone and yanked out the cord. He looked toward his mother. This time it was he giving the silent instructions. These two didn’t seem to need words. With an eerie sense of wonder Stevie marvelled at the bond between them.

‘Grab the cop’s stuff first,’ Granger said. ‘We may as well take it with us and get rid of it—it’ll make identifying her body that bit harder.’

The Crow pulled Stevie’s wallet from her jeans pocket and put it in her bag from the coffee table along with the pieces of her crushed phone. He placed the bag by the door to collect on their way out.

Mamasan gave Stevie two sharp prods to the stomach. Stevie doubled up, making the pain appear worse than it was and collapsed across the sewing table. As she lay there, her heart thumping wildly against her ribs, she thought, I only have one chance. Reach under the tapestry into the open sewing basket and grab the sewing scissors. Leap at the skanky bitch before she gives the shotgun back to her son. No mercy, rip right into her.

The scissors felt cold in her hot, blood-sticky fingers. Still bent over the table she made a play at gathering her breath, poking the small pair of scissors up the open cuff of her shirt, blades pointing towards her wrist. She pushed her palms against the table and readied herself for the spring.

And slipped on a pool of her own blood. Chin-first she hit the table hard.

She groaned, more from frustration than pain. Another vicious prod of the gun barrel made her pull back and she found herself crammed next to Lilly on the armchair.

The Crow wrapped the telephone cord around them. The old-style cord, a knotted rope of wires, only just reached and he had to use all his strength to pull it tight. Stevie felt the old lady next to her straining against the cord, wheezing as she struggled for breath.

The Crow reached into his pocket. It wasn’t a lighter he pulled out this time; it was a small metal tube.

‘This is one cremation we won’t stick around for, son,’ Granger said. To Stevie she added, ‘We need to reach the other cop before he hears about your death and goes to ground. If we play this right, he’ll cark it at about the same time as you.’

Stevie stared hard at the small tube The Crow held up in his hand. It looked like the homemade timer bomb Aubin said had been used to destroy her house.

‘An incendiary device,’ Granger read her mind. ‘By the time this acid mixture eats through the cork and reaches the fuel, we’ll be long gone.’

Stevie craned her neck around the side of the chair. She remembered Paul Aubin saying ‘cocky to the point of stupidity’. But these people weren’t stupid. They were confident. They thought they were in control.

The Crow placed the tube upside down at the circle of fuel behind them, where they hadn’t a chance of knocking it away with their feet.

With a rush of panic, Stevie twisted at her bonds. The scissors dug into the flesh of her good arm. There was slight room for movement but pain from her damaged shoulder prevented her from twisting far enough to reach them. Lilly seemed to be aware of what she was trying to do and attempted to reach them herself. Like Stevie she managed to move a few centimetres but had to give up, her arms pinned too tight.

Stevie wondered at what rate the acid was eating through the cork. They might have five minutes; they might have half an hour. The Crow and Granger didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry despite their plan to visit Fowler next.

‘It’ll be all too easy for the cops to tell this wasn’t an accident,’ Stevie said, craning her head back towards Granger, now rooting through the drawers of Lilly’s oak dresser.

‘Couldn’t care less, love, it won’t be traced back to us. And besides, if things do start to get a little er, hot, we’ll just move on like we always do.’ To her son, rifling the drawers next to her, she said, ‘Turn the drawers out, make it look like robbery.’

Stevie discovered she could see what was going on behind them in the reflection of the TV without having to strain her neck. Granger pulled open the cutlery drawer and dumped the contents on the floor. She picked up a knife. ‘Silver plate,’ she said to her son. ‘Shame to waste it but I can’t risk it being traced.’

‘Cheap picnic set,’ Lilly said under her breath.

Stevie turned to look over the top of the armchair. A thin spiral of smoke rose from the metal tube behind them.

Granger saw it too. ‘C’mon son, we’d best get going.’

About to sweep the contents of the sideboard to the floor, The Crow came across the picture of Lilly’s husband in the silver photo frame. He held it up for his mother to see. Granger brought the frame to her mouth and tested it with her teeth. ‘Solid, but leave it, son, we can’t bother with this kinda junk.’

Stevie felt Lilly stiffen beside her and made hushing sounds at the old lady. She’d just managed to shake the scissors free from her sleeve and didn’t want Lilly drawing their attention. She prayed the mother and son couldn’t see what was going on behind the chair, hear her sawing through the tough cord with the scissor’s blades.

‘Hold on, Lilly,’ she whispered as the cord snapped. Instant relief. ‘Stay still, they’ll be gone soon and then we can get away.’

In the reflection of the TV they saw The Crow punch the photo from the frame and grind it under his heel. Lilly flinched as if she too had been punched. Muttering to herself, she reached for something down the side of her chair. Stevie plucked at Lilly’s dress and tried to pull her back, but the old lady shook herself free and climbed unsteadily to her feet.

The Crow and Granger were still busy at the sideboard when Lilly crept up behind them. Stevie attempted to move, but found herself riveted to the spot with shock.

Lilly rushed at The Crow.

‘Bloody Japs!’ Lilly screamed, wielding the Samurai sword like a hockey stick. The Crow turned, but too late to save himself. Lilly slashed at his middle and a silent scream uncurled from his mouth. He dropped the shotgun, clutched at his ripped stomach, and crumpled to the floor.

Stevie and Granger lunged for the gun at the same time. Granger was closer and reached it first, but Stevie landed on top of the smaller woman, knocking the air from her. The gun went off with a deafening crash and the fuel around the armchair flared. Heat seared Stevie’s face as she struggled with the woman on the floor, at last pinning Granger’s hands behind her with the telephone cord. Any minute now the fire would ignite the bomb and the chemicals would erupt into an inferno. She risked an upward glance and saw Lilly prodding the metal tube with the sword, trying to push it away from the flames.