Thrill City (30 page)

‘Stop!’ Geddes hoisted the rif le to his shoulder and looked down the sight.

The figure halted and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

‘Who are you?’ Geddes called.

‘It’s the guy who killed Isabella,’ I shouted. ‘Shoot him!’

Geddes just stood there, looking through the gun sight. Elvis Mask inclined his head like a bird examining a worm and inched forward, dolly steps at first, becoming longer and faster each second Geddes failed to even cock the rif le. What the hell was wrong with him?

‘What are you waiting for?’ I screamed so loud my throat felt shredded. ‘He’ll kill us. Just fucking shoot him!’

As he closed in Geddes lifted the gun off his shoulder, held it like a baseball bat and took a swing. Elvis Mask had incredible reflexes: he ducked as the momentum swung Geddes around, then jumped up and rammed him in the shoulder so he lost the rif le and fell face first onto the ground. Elvis Mask leapt on his back, grabbed his hair by the ponytail and smashed his face repeatedly into the earth. Then he slipped the knife out of Geddes’ belt and crouched behind him.

Geddes struggled to his knees, bleeding from the forehead and mouth. I tried to yell at him to look out but I didn’t have time. Elvis Mask lunged and grabbed his throat from behind with one hand, forcing him to arch back. With the other hand he brought the knife around and plunged it into Geddes’ belly one, two, three times. Blood spurted from the wounds and flicked off the blade. Geddes didn’t scream, just made a sound like he’d been punched in the guts, and pitched forward.

chapter
forty-two

E
lvis Mask wiped the knife on the tail of Geddes’ shirt and chucked it behind him. I shuffled back until I hit the tree trunk, but he walked past me, sat on the step and removed the mask.

I thought I’d reached the absolute limits of terror, but as soon as I saw the gaunt face and hollow eyes with teardrop tattoos underneath, I realised I hadn’t been close. He’d let me see his face. I knew what that meant.

He picked up the long-neck of beer, guzzled it and frowned.

‘Fuck, warm as piss.’

Then he grinned. His teeth were terrible. The ones that weren’t missing were yellowed, chipped and broken, and his skin wasn’t much better. Deep creases rutted his cheeks, and a couple of sores had scabbed over like he’d been picking at them. His hair was light brown, receding at the front, longer at the back. The dog whimpered beneath the house. Since the stabbing, Geddes hadn’t moved or made a sound.

‘G’day, Simone. Didn’t get ta introduce myself last time. Name’s Watto. Told ya I’m a lucky cunt.’ He took off the tracksuit jacket and dug around in its pocket. Underneath he wore a blue singlet. Wasn’t a gram of fat on him. Jail tattoos and track marks traced up his sinewy arms.

He pulled out a glass bowl—an ice pipe, just like Tiara had been smoking from—tapped crystals out of a tiny plastic bag, sparked a lighter and inhaled until there was no more smoke. Leaning back on his hands, he closed his eyes and turned his face to the sky. It was more than a minute before he finally spoke.

‘Fuck yeah. That is the shit. That is the fucking shit.’ His whole body shuddered brief ly and he looked at me. ‘You ever done crystal?’

I didn’t answer.

‘It’s better than sex. Better than ten orgasms, all in a row. Want some?’ He proffered the pipe. ‘Last-time offer, act now. No? Well, fuck ya then.’

He rolled a cigarette using Geddes’ tobacco, got up and started pacing around the house, rubbing his hands together. I could see between the old crates and rusting tools underneath and glimpsed him stop at the woodpile. When he jerked the axe out of the stump I had a momentary spurt of adrenaline so pure that everything in my line of sight wavered for a second, but he chucked the axe to one side, lifting the stump instead. He carried it over and set it in front of me. What the hell?

The cigarette dangled from his mouth as he squatted behind the stump. He produced a small digital video camera from his pants pocket and balanced it on the wood, pressed record. A little red light blinked at me.

‘Say something,’ he said.

‘What?’ I croaked.

‘That’ll do.’

As he examined the screen I heard a shrill version of our voices play back. He reset the video, lit another cigarette off the butt of the old one, and strolled back to the woodpile humming a tune that sounded a lot like Bon Jovi’s ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’.

He picked up the chainsaw and pulled the cord and when it didn’t start I let out the breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding. He rooted around under the shack, found a tin of petrol and poured some into the chainsaw. When he pulled the cord again the machine sputtered. I had a brief moment of hope before he tried again, and the chainsaw buzzed into life. He walked back, saw held high, and I realised I was as wet as if someone had just poured a bucket of water over me, sweating uncontrollably: forehead, underarms, every goddamn pore. I could hardly see and I didn’t know if it was from tears or perspiration.

I tried to speak, but my mind was blank, my tongue sandpaper. I knew I should move, but I was inert with terror. He tested the saw out against the veranda railing and it chewed right through the wood, chips flying, giving off a burnt smell. I imagined the searing pain of it eating into my arm, visualised bone flecks, arterial blood spray, dabs of my own mangled flesh hitting me in the face.

Something clicked in the connection between my mouth and my brain.

‘Help! Somebody help me!’ Even as I yelled I realised it was useless. No one was around, and if they were they wouldn’t hear anything over the rumble of the saw. Watto, aka Elvis Mask, turned and started coming towards me and I managed to get to my feet, but it was only for a second. I was hobbled; my ankles banged together, and I fell to my knees.

Watto was laughing like a madman, his small eyes black with pupil and the corners of his mouth clogged with dried-up spit. I squeezed my eyes shut, anticipating white-hot agony, but opened them when I heard a shout.

‘Hey—fucktard!’

Watto was blocking my view, so I couldn’t see who was yelling.

A gunshot fractured the air, the clang of a bullet striking metal, and I watched as the chainsaw arced out of Watto’s hands and fell towards me. I threw myself to the side and rolled as hard as I could. The saw hit the ground near my face, still roaring, digging up dirt and flinging it in my eyes. I rolled again and heard another shot. Watto sprinted into the bush as a guy wearing shorts and nothing else chased him as far as the edge of the clearing. The topless guy turned and walked towards me. He was thin, with bleached blond hair and a swatch of gauze taped to his side.

It was Nick Austin.

chapter
forty-three

N
ick switched off the saw and ran over to Geddes, tried to roll him and jerked his hands back in horror. They were covered in blood.

‘Oh Jesus. Oh fuck,’ he said.

‘I told him to shoot.’ My voice hitched up in my throat. ‘Why didn’t he shoot?’

Nick got up and stepped backwards from the body.

‘It’s a replica. I’ve got the only real gun.’ He turned and threw up into the dust.

I heard an engine; it sounded like a car coming down the drive. Nick heard it too. He looked like the dog had: tensed up, ready to bolt.

‘Untie me!’ I yelled.

He ran into the house instead.

I shimmied over to the knife Watto had used to kill Geddes, fumbled the blood-slicked handle with my bound hands and sawed through the tape around my ankles. I stood, nearly fell, and followed Nick into the shack.

‘Get this tape off my wrists.’

He didn’t respond. He’d chucked on a t-shirt and was stuffing things into a sports bag.

‘Please,’ I pleaded. ‘The car could be that psycho coming back.’

He zipped the bag, slung it over his shoulder and took the knife. He’d just started to cut when he looked over my shoulder and stopped.

‘Fuck.’ He threw the blade to the floor and spun me around, arm circling my waist, gun to my head. I looked out the dusty windows and saw why. A police car had pulled into the clearing, and a fat uniformed cop got out of the driver’s side, gun drawn, making a beeline for Geddes’ body. The passenger door opened and a woman with a brown bob emerged. Detective Talbot, talking into her radio. The uniform kneeled by the body, shaking his head. Talbot and the uniform squinted at the windows and pointed their guns.

‘Come out with your hands where we can see them!’ she yelled.

Nick dragged me onto the veranda.

Talbot’s eyes widened as she realised who we were.

‘Put down the gun, Nick,’ she said. ‘It’s all over.’

‘Back off or I’ll shoot her.’

‘Nick didn’t kill him.’ I pointed at Geddes with my tied-up hands and jabbered, trying to get it all out before it was too late.

‘The guy who murdered Isabella and stabbed Victoria Hitchens did. Crack addict. Five nine, receding brown hair, wiry build, hollowed-out face, teardrop tattoo under each eye.’

But all her attention was on Nick.

‘Put the gun down, mate. We know you didn’t do it. If you come in with us we can sort out the whole mess, yeah?’

Nick sagged for a second, and I thought he was going to surrender. Instead he moved his hand to the back of my head, grabbed my hair and cocked the gun. The click echoed in my ear. Were there any bullets left? He’d only fired off two shots so I didn’t see why not. Just how desperate was he?

‘Step the fuck away from the cop car and throw your guns over here.’

‘We can’t, Nick.’

‘Just fucking do it!’

They stood there, pointing their guns at him, while he pressed his pistol into my temple.

‘I said, throw down the guns or I’ll blow her fucking brains out!’

Uniform looked at Talbot. Talbot waved her hand as if to say, stay where you are. Nick breathed heavy, pulling my hair out by the roots.

‘Nick,’ she said.

He let out a sigh, shifted behind me and jerked the gun. There was a blast of hot air and a bang so loud it altered the pressure in my left ear and I thought I’d been shot until I saw the uniformed cop crumple to the ground, a dark stain spreading on his navy trousers.

‘Shit,’ the cop said. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

Talbot threw her gun towards Nick, ran to the moaning copper and tossed his gun over too, before taking off her jacket and holding it to his leg. Nick marched me down the stairs, forced me to pick up the guns and pushed me towards the police car.

I turned to Talbot. ‘There’s an injured dog under the house!’

Nick shoved me into the passenger seat, grabbed the cop’s revolvers out of my hands and slammed the door. He slid into the driver’s seat, thrust the weapons in his bag and chucked it on the floor. After a jerky three-point turn, he tore up the driveway, bumping over rocks and ruts in the road. The radio babbled. Nick shut it off. Finally he spoke.

‘How’d you get here?’

‘Huh?’

‘You drive? Got a car?’

‘Yeah. Fire trail, five hundred metres up.’

I half expected to run into a phalanx of cop cars when we emerged on Collers Road, but it was deserted. Wouldn’t be long. Nick found the fire trail and parked the police car next to my Ford. We got out. Nick was so jumped up he looked like he’d had a hit of the crack pipe himself. He stood at the driver’s side.

‘Gimme your keys.’

I dug in my pocket and used them to open the passenger door first.

‘You’re not coming,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘There’s some shit I’ve got to take care of. It’s dangerous. Nothing to do with you.’

Everything hit me then. The chainsaw, Sean, my father’s brush-off and Mum refusing police protection and telling me I was evil. A righteous anger seemed to spring from the earth and stream through the soles of my feet. I tingled with it, felt like I was going to spontaneously combust.

‘Nothing to do with me?’ I yelled. ‘My whole life turned to shit since you walked into my office and I don’t know why. I lost my job, my flat, my boyfriend and almost my life. That fucking psycho has been after me and my family—’ ‘Your family?’ Nick frowned, confused.

‘And you, you fucking cocksucker, say it’s
nothing to do with
me
? Either you tell me everything that’s going on, right now, and take me with you, or I chuck these fucking keys as far as I can and leave you to shoot it out with the police!’

Even though he was holding three handguns, Nick had the freaked-out look guys got when a formerly compliant woman went ballistic. Nice guys, at least. Not-so-nice guys tended to smack you in the face.

‘Okay, get in the car.’

‘It’s my car and I’m fucking driving.’

‘Alright. But can we leave, now?’

We swapped places and I slid into the driver’s seat, reversed down to the road, did a U-turn.

‘I can’t believe you brought this car.’ He looked around, disgusted. ‘What real-life PI drives such a conspicuous car? We’re gonna have to ditch it. It’s ridiculous.’

I shifted into drive.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ I said.

chapter
forty-four

N
ick directed me out of town and back down the Calder, which I didn’t think was such a good idea—wouldn’t be long before the highway was swarming with cops. He sat up straight, like he was looking for something, and when a service station appeared he told me to pull over before we reached it.

‘What the hell are we doing?’

‘Don’t want them to see the car, but I do want us to go in there and smile for candid camera. Makes us look like we’re on our way to Melbourne.’

‘Aren’t we?’

‘No. Adelaide. You got a mobile phone?’

‘Why?’

‘You’ll see. Put it on silent and give it here.’

I did as he said, handing him the phone.

Inside the store he clutched my upper arm while we walked around picking up energy drinks and plastic-wrapped sandwiches. I attempted to wriggle out of his grip, but he held on tight.

‘I’m not going to run away,’ I said.

His voice rasped in my ear: ‘Makes you look kidnapped instead of an accessory. I shot a cop, they’re gonna come down like a ton of bricks.’