Authors: Ainslie Paton
“My split ends are shrieking in horror.”
She fumbled the sticking plaster, wasting a piece.
“My eyebrows are claiming brutality.”
She forced her voice to be level. “Stop it. Behave.”
He straightened up. “Right. Behaving. Being professional. Denying my eyelashes are moaning.” He unwound the towel and held his arm out from his side so she could bandage him. She hesitated; caught between wanting to laugh and knowing she had to touch him again. Oddly, knowing she was going to touch him gently felt far more intimate than shooting him full of steels pins had. She wrapped the gauze around his arm, making a thicker pad of it over the wound itself and taping it, trying to avoid brushing his skin as much as possible. Trying not to flinch or colour or be aware of his eyes watching her.
He grabbed her wrist. “It’s fine, Driver. I’ll live.”
She pulled her hand back. “That’s not…” There was no complete thought worth sharing. She started to pack up the first-aid kit. “I was going to say, you’ll sleep well tonight. Are you sure you want to start early?”
“The real question is, am I sure you’re going to be here in the morning?”
She snapped the lid on the first-aid kit closed and stepped away from him, but his eyes followed. “We made a deal. I took your money. You think I’m stupid enough to run out on you?”
“I think you’re smart enough to know I’m trouble. The issue is whether I’m more trouble than what else is going wrong with your life.”
“I’m not asking any questions. Remember I didn’t see anything. Particularly any saddlebags, or big bastard bikies with knives. And you’re not asking any questions either. That was the deal, right?”
He stood and the room was reduced to the size of a broom closet. “Okay, Driver. That’s the deal.” He was so underdressed. Did he have anything on under those trackpants? They sat on his hips just so, showing the muscle cut of his lower abdominals. Was now a good time to bring up the fully clothed at all times in the car rule?
“I…” He stood in front of her, easy breaths swelling his chest. Not hurt, not scared, or running, or cowering. Or even much concerned about whether she bolted—kind of like he was giving her permission to. Like he knew that’s what she wanted.
She picked up the kit. “I’ll see you in the morning.” She let herself out. Her last glimpse of him was sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands as though he wanted permission to bolt too.
“What have you done with my Statesman?”
Driver wore yesterday’s black trousers, a white t-shirt, her driver’s cap and a fury that reminded Fetch briefly of Wacker. She’d pounded on his door at 7am. He’d been waiting for her and now they were out in the drive with her car.
Expecting she’d feel this way wasn’t making it any easier to face her down. Knowing she’d tried to leave last night and he’d foiled her made it worse. There’d be no laughter today and that was a good thing.
The whole needing to be cared for thing had been a head spin and he hadn’t managed it well. That wound should’ve been stitched, but if Fetch showed up at a local hospital he’d be body bag fodder. Stud confirmed both Wacker’s crew and the Reds were watching for him. He should’ve waited for Stud to arrive. He could’ve call for a medic, but the blood loss was getting to be significant. He hadn’t really thought she’d staple him. Figured he’d have to give it a go himself. But she was game, no doubt about that. She’d handled a stand-off, a car chase, a virtual kidnap and radical field surgery in one six hour stretch.
It’d been a long time since he’d needed anyone for anything so personal. It’d chucked his balance out. You didn’t survive long undercover if you were needy. It didn’t belong on the job and could get you hurt or worse, get someone you cared about hurt. You became a shell; self-contained, hard, strong. In that shell you poured the skills you needed to fit the role you were assigned. The shell had nothing to do with who you really were. You took a holiday from whoever that was. You found a way to manipulate people for what you needed to get by. And you didn’t worry about how they felt, how they reacted. You couldn’t afford to. It wasn’t nice but it was efficient. It got the job done.
He’d slipped with Nikki, and he’d been so worried about how Driver was taking this he’d forgotten himself: wanting to acknowledge her, encourage her, comfort her, make her laugh.
Fuck, he’d wanted her to like him
.
And at his most unlikeable. It was banned substance personal. He really had been under too long. He’d started to craving normal.
But he was still Fetch until Stud said otherwise, and by his own wishes. Sure, he was the less stupid, more articulate and brutally calculating version of the brick dumb delivery boy, but he was still role playing, and that meant remaining aloof, detached and in control. So today, no jokes, no small talk. Definitely no being touched with cool, capable hands. All business, and that would suit her too. And it should be useful to get them past this particular complexity.
She was probably going to wake whoever was still sleeping in the motel. Even though she wasn’t yelling, she was deliciously angry. “You stole my keys.”
“I borrowed them.”
“You took them without my permission and you—what did you do to my Statesman?”
She was walking around her car, except she didn’t believe it was hers. It was navy blue for a start, instead of white, and had a spoiler on the rear and different numberplates.
He tossed her the keys. “Open her up.”
She caught the keys but pelted them straight back, her aim not a bit thrown by her fury. “I’m not touching that car.”
He pressed the fob and the locks flipped. He opened the driver’s side door for her. “It’s your car with some cosmetic enhancements.” He went to the boot and opened it, took out one of her old plates and held it up. “This keeps us safer.”
“You said I wasn’t in any danger.”
Anyone who’d been dozing still, behind those numbered doors—wide awake now, tuned in. This wasn’t your common garden variety ‘I thought
you
were buying the milk’ dispute. This was theft and danger three-star style. “I’m not talking about you.”
“Oh, so you’re in danger and I’m what, fly speck on your shoulder?”
“Something like that.”
“And I’m supposed to accept you cosmetically enhancing my personal property in the dead of night.”
It likely was her personal property. He’d had the Statesman checked out. One of the many things he’d done last night. One of the many reasons he was spoiling for a fight from lack of sleep. It was registered to a business name; Trusted Transit, with an address care of another company, Bartlett Limousines in Alexandria.
She was glaring at him, her body a straightjacket of tension making her shoulders lift and her chin tuck down.
He did not want Driver to be the reason he snapped, but he’d had about three hours sleep in two days and he hurt all over, and there were two gangs gagging to find him and do him more damage, so he needed her to get with the program real quick.
“It’ll be returned to its natural state when you get back to Sydney.”
“What if I decide this is a deal breaker and I want out right now.”
“Then you call the number on the business card in the glove box and it’ll happen.”
“Just like that.” Her voice was stiff with incredulity.
He slammed the boot lid. “Just like that.”
“And you’re just a delivery boy.”
“I’m just a fucking delivery boy. You’re a driver whose car and services I hired. So open the fucking door for me, get in the car and drive where I tell you to before I ask for my fucking money back.”
With her cap and glasses on and her head down, he couldn’t see her eyes, but her body was certainly fighting this. She’d tensed on the first curse and by the third she was steel girder rigid, ringing with anxiety. She’d looked in the open car door when he was at the boot, she knew it was her Statesman, but she’d not made a move to touch it.
He’d known she’d try to run last night but it was too soon to let her go back to whatever hell her own life was about. He couldn’t afford to do that until there was news from Stud about the big picture.
Last night the two of them had talked about putting her in a witness protection program. It’d cost more than what her chauffeur’s fee was and there was no guarantee she’d be accepted into it or, now that he knew what she was like, stay put. She was already running from something. As unorthodox as this was, it was preferable, and skating inside the edge Stud was prepared to sanction. But she had to get in the fucking car and drive.
She probably hadn’t slept much either. She’d waited a good two hours, until she thought he’d passed out, before she came down the stairs to the car only to find her keys missing. He’d watched her through dusty curtains from a third room across from his own, with Stud sitting behind him on the bed, on the phone, making arrangements for the car to be refitted, and giving him curry about the stapling.
She’d tipped the contents of her bag out on the ground hunting for her keys. She looked towards his room. She knew he took them. She was too embarrassed, too caught in the lie of running, after she said she’d stay, to knock on his door. He hadn’t enjoyed seeing fear and frustration war in her. Or the defeated way she went back to her own room. That’s why he didn’t mention it now. She didn’t need any more crap thrown at her.
But if she didn’t get with the program and right now, it’d be a different story. He’d rain such shit down on her she’d wish she walked back to the city in the dead of night. His undercover self wasn’t a nice guy—unless it suited him to get something done. And today, it simply didn’t suit him.
“When you’re fucking ready, Driver.”
“What’s in the cake tin?” She so wasn’t ready.
“Cake.”
They’d be having a staring competition if she’d meet his eyes. She kept her gaze down on the oil-stained driveway. “Is anything you say the truth?”
“No. I’m the liar of the year. But you already know that. I don’t see that it makes much difference. A liar’s money is as good as anyone else’s in the bank.”
They did the non-staring thing. Her eyes on Rorschach blots on the cement, his on her tension-filled frame.
“Catch.” He tossed the keys high. She could get in the car and run, and Stud would pick her up and pull official police business on her, or she could make some sign she was going to co-operate. “I’m going to pack up.” He left her standing there with the keys in her hand, expecting to hear the engine come to life while his back was turned.
He heard the car door close. He heard the locks engage. He stuffed yesterday’s bloodstained clothing in one of the plastic shopping bags. He sat on the edge of the bed to wrestle his boots on. It was quiet out there: distant traffic, the TV in the next room, a kid wailing, someone on the stairs. She wasn’t driving away. She was going back to her room. He rolled back on the bed and closed his eyes. That was all the fight he had left in him. Now he needed breakfast, the bank and to get out of here.
In six hours they’d be in Leeton. The day after—Mildura. When they were a thousand or more clicks away from the city, he could take a deep breath again. If he was lucky no one would be looking for Fetch that far out of the city. Driver would be safe. If she ditched him in Mildura and it took her another two days to drive home, she’d have been out of the scene for four full days. Her trail would be cold. With her Statesman so well camouflaged and that business card leading back to Stud, she’d be in the safe zone.
He lay on the bed till he heard her on the stairs again. Then he got up and pulled a t-shirt on. He knew he made her uncomfortable when he wasn’t fully dressed. Fair enough. And he’d meant what he said about not going to her room. This was a business proposition and a police matter, not a two-bit driving holiday with a reluctant girlfriend. He was her client. She was his driver. That’s it. That was clean, easy, decent. And safe.
Now his only issue was making sure she didn’t leave him till Mildura, or maybe even Port Augusta.
When he picked up the new duffle bag and stepped out of the room she was waiting by the car, the boot open, the back door open. She gave him a salute, all insolence and disrespect. It made him smile. She didn’t frighten easily and her controlled anger was fascinating to watch.
“Yeah, all right. You’ve made your point.”
“Whatever can you mean, sir?”
He tossed his bag in the boot and slammed the lid. “Cut it out.”
“As you wish, sir.”
“Fuck me.”
Yeah, she had no response to that, but then it was hardly witty repartee, so she’d spoken eloquently by saying nothing after all. Fuck again. He went the reception and settled their accounts. He got in the back seat of the car. She got in the driver’s seat and waited. That’s how she was going to play it. She’d make him give her instructions. Make him feel like a bloody bully. She’d have to try harder than that.
“I saw a cafe on the way to the shopping centre last night. Let’s go there for breakfast. Do you want to visit the bank?”
Sunglass eyes to him in the rear-view. “Yes, please.”
At least she’d left the ‘sir’ off. And she was intending to bank the money. She’d have made him nervous if she’d decided to skip the deposit queue.
“Right. I need to get new sunnies. Then we drive to Leeton, that’s about six hours. I don’t mind if we stop either side of the town for the night. I want to be in Mildura tomorrow night. Does that work for you?”
“Yes. I’d like to discuss the rules for the engagement over breakfast.”
“Fine. But whatever they are, so long as they’re about the professional provision of your services, you won’t find me disagreeing with you.”
She started the car. “Would you like the radio on? Any particular station?”
“Sure, whatever you prefer.”
She picked a news station, something commercial with music. He hadn’t listened to morning radio for years. He didn’t recognise the announcers, or any of the songs. The Pariahs listened to a steady diet of old AC/DC and new heavy metal played at decibels designed to make the fillings in the neighbourhood’s collective teeth conduct electricity.