Bong guy shook his head.
‘Another couple of hours at least,’ he said.
What was he making, a pot roast?
Watto pushed me into one of the bedrooms. Wasn’t much there except a wooden chair in the centre of the room, and a laptop computer sitting open on an old school desk. The window was covered by a faded floral curtain, and a battered wardrobe stood at the back of the room next to a metal bed frame, no mattress. A bare hundred-watt bulb hung from the ceiling, attached to a frayed cord. What was really worrying was the blue tarpaulin spread out across the floor under the chair.
He pushed me onto the chair and gaffer-taped my ankles to the legs, but with only one layer this time. I flexed my wrists. The tape there was definitely looser. I tried to pull my wrists apart, but the tape hung on by a tough ligament of gluey thread. If I’d been stronger, if I’d exercised, lifted some weights in the last couple of months instead of sitting on my arse . . . I hadn’t even eaten anything in the past few days. When had my last meal been? My stomach felt hollow and acidic. I was weak as a kitten.
Watto was over by the laptop, fiddling with a webcam attached to the top of the screen and a couple of small speakers to either side. I remembered him attempting to video his aborted chainsaw attack. Was he doing a snuff movie? Trying to make a few extra bucks on the side?
He looked at his watch, hunched over the computer to type something in, punched enter and then stood aside, lighting another cigarette.
A Media Player screen filled the monitor, and on it a blurry face. As the image sharpened I finally realised why he was going to kill me.
T
he face on the computer screen had the same moustache and pale, grey-blue wolf eyes, but was thinner and paler. I’d always thought he looked like an actor playing a lawyer in a daytime soap; now he looked like an actor playing a lawyer who’d been in jail for almost a year. His hair was grey, the tennis tan had been replaced by a putty-coloured pallor, the pinstriped suit swapped for a loose cotton top. I could just make out the wrinkled bullet scar on his throat.
‘Good morning, Simone,’ said Emery Wade, the murdering bastard I’d helped put away.
It took me a few seconds to form words. ‘I thought you couldn’t speak. The bullet—’
‘I had an operation.’ The voice coming through the speakers was still deep, but with a hitch to it, like a scratch on a record.
‘You’re in jail.’
‘I am.’
‘You—you can’t have a computer on the inside.’
‘Indeed you can, if you’ve got a legitimate use for it, say, preparing your own or another’s defence. I’ve become quite the jailhouse lawyer in the last ten months. What you can’t have is internet access, but I’ve so many good friends in here it wasn’t too hard to smuggle in Wi-Fi. Mobile phones are also banned, although quite a few of my associates seem to use them regularly for business.’
‘Like Craig Murdoch?’
Wade smiled. ‘He’s my latest client. Imagine my surprise when I heard on the news that you’d gotten yourself involved in a little project of his.’
‘Real coincidence, but that’s Melbourne for you. Everyone knows everyone.’ I didn’t feel quite as brazen as I was trying to sound.
‘Serendipity.’
‘So, what, you guys teamed up and now you’re going to kill me so I can’t testify against you?’
‘That’s one reason. The other is that I’m going to derive a great deal of pleasure from your extended demise. I ordered Watto to draw it out from the beginning and I’m sure he scared you: the note, the slashed tyres, the mask. Knowing you were being watched, gradually realising that nowhere was safe. Did you really think you could fuck with me and get away with it? You stupid bitch.’ He shook his head.
Watto was standing back, smoking and scratching a scab on his arm, watching like we were a mildly interesting movie.
‘There’ll be other people to testify,’ I said. ‘A whole roomful of cops saw you try to kill me and there’s video of you basically admitting to murder.’
‘I’ll probably go down for attempted, but I can argue I was provoked by a rather unpopular and possibly mentally unstable inquiry agent, so I don’t think I’ll get more than a couple of years. As for the video, it was illegally obtained and is being struck from the evidence as we speak. And I have plans for the other witnesses—’ he looked down, as though to consult a document—‘most notably Alexander Nikolai Christakos and Sean Callan Shields.’
Jesus. Even I hadn’t known Alex’s and Sean’s middle names. I’d never even thought to ask.
‘Anyone can get got, as they say, inside of jail or out.
You’re in no position to argue with that.’ He looked me up and down and smirked at his own joke.
I was all out of smartarse comebacks. The sun had risen and the room was hot and stuffy, but I would have sweated even if it had been forty below. Emery said something to Watto, and Watto unsheathed his knife and then time started doing strange things, speeding up and slowing down. Seconds flashed, then slowly dripped and all the while my senses became clear and the drab room filled with sharp detail. I saw every ripple in the light blue tarp, smelled Watto’s chemical sweat and cigarette stench, and tasted metallic fear in my own dry mouth. I felt the hard edge of the chair bite the back of my bare legs and the sticky glue from the gaffer tape gum my wrists. The only sense that wasn’t working was sound. Why was that? Everything was muff led, like noise underwater. Emery Wade said something to Watto, then disappeared from the screen. Watto put the knife back in its sheath.
What the hell was going on? With the knife away my hearing returned and also the power of speech.
‘What’s happening?’
Watto sighed. ‘I fucked up the times. We’re half an hour behind Victoria and he’s gotta go to breakfast. Oh well. Gives me a chance for another hit.’
Half an hour behind? They must have taken Nick and me across the border into South Australia.
Watto left the room. In the distance I heard the low, love-the-smell-of-napalm-in-the-morning thwack of helicopter blades. Rod Thurlow, coming to collect his bounty. I struggled with my bonds, but Watto was back in no time with a six-pack of Wild Turkey and Coke stubbies and another wooden chair. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the pipe with the bulbous glass end and a little packet filled with clear crystals.
‘Wade wants to watch it live, you know.’
‘Oh,’ I said, stupidly.
The helicopter got louder as it landed, and the machine whined as the rotor blades shut down. I tried to think of a plan. Rod Thurlow was my best bet. He had it in for Nick, but I didn’t think he’d agree to the wholesale slaughter of yours truly. I’d really acted like I liked him at lunch. But how to get to him?
My mouth was dry as the landscape outside and I eyed Watto’s drink. ‘Can I have a sip?’
‘Huh?’
‘Your drink. I’m parched, mate.’ I did my best at chummy. ‘Even on death row they get a last meal.’
He looked amused and stalked over.
‘Don’t see why not.’ When he held the bottle up to my lips I tried not to think about cold sores and other diseases, then wondered why in hell I was worrying. He kept tipping and I gulped at it like a lamb sucking on a bottle, and in seconds I’d demolished at least half.
‘Fucken hell.’ He pulled it away. ‘Leave some for me.’
The Coke and booze fizzed down my arid throat and I could immediately feel myself getting a little sugar and bourbon buzz. I was still surreptitiously tugging at the gaffer tape, but didn’t have enough strength to break through the final strand.
Strength. I remembered what Nick had told me about Lachlan Elliot, and ice fiends in general, how being off their tits cranked up the adrenaline so bad it took a team of coppers or paramedics to bring them down. Then I wondered how long Watto had gone without sleep. Surely the crazed energy and uncanny reflexes would have to subside the longer you stayed awake. Everyone had to crash sometime.
Not that I thought Watto would fall asleep, exactly. He was just then inhaling another hit. But I’d done my fair share of drugs and I knew that the more you took the less effective they became. The first taste was the strongest, and then the high gradually diminished. Unfortunately for me, it probably wouldn’t come soon enough.
There was a knock on the door, and the skinny guy in leathers poked his head around.
‘Looks like it’s all here.’
‘Bring it in.’
He hefted a grey Samsonite case into the room, and avoided looking at me in a way I kind of understood. I was all for chowing down steak and lamb, but didn’t want to go to the slaughterhouse for a viewing.
The guy clicked open the suitcase and I glimpsed wads of bundled cash, more than I’d ever seen in one place.
‘Fucken bonus.’ Watto nodded his approval. ‘Let Thurlow at him. What’s he gonna do with the body?’
‘Chuck it out the copter in the middle of arsefuck nowhere.’
‘Tell ’em we’ll have a little package of our own.’
The guy frowned. ‘Dunno if Thurlow’s gonna like that. He’s here for Austin.’
‘I don’t give a fuck. By the time I’ve finished they won’t even know what’s in the bag.’
The other guy couldn’t get out of there fast enough, and a shiver rolled its way from my ankles to my elbows as I looked at the knife sheathed in his belt and anticipated intense pain. What would it be like? I’d been cut bad in the past, but not ripped to pieces, shredded, like Isabella had been. I remembered the sharp searing and multiplied it to the power of ten, imagined the blade slicing through skin and muscle and tendon, scraping bone. I saw the hooked, serrated tip grabbing looped innards and could practically smell the blood, bile and shit.
And then what, after the horror? Nothing, at best, or hellfire and brimstone, if Jenny was correct. Somehow the nothingness seemed worse, harder for the ego to cope with. I couldn’t let it happen. I didn’t have a death wish. Not anymore. Nick was wrong.
Watto sucked down another hit and sat back, eyes practically rolling. I waited until he came around before I spoke. ‘Watto, mate.’
‘Yeah?’
‘You know how up at Castlemaine you said I could have a hit on that pipe? Offer still stand?’
‘Huh?’
‘Can I have a go of that ice? You said it was like ten orgasms, all in a row, and I’ve never done it before. Shouldn’t a girl get to experience that if she’s only got half an hour to live?’
He twisted his mouth into a yellowed, gap-toothed grin. ‘You like to party. I knew it. All strippers like to party. Can’t believe you’ve never had this shit.’
‘Just speed and E’s,’ I said.
‘Speed’s nothing compared to this.’
‘So my friends tell me. Come on. Just one hit.’
Another thing I remembered from my misspent youth was that drug-fucked individuals, mostly, liked to share. It wasn’t nearly as much fun being out of it on your own.
I didn’t really think I had a chance of befriending him and talking him out of killing me, although the thought had crossed my mind. My main motivation was to buy a bit of time and energy. At that stage anything was worth a try.
He looked like he was debating it in his head for a bit as he squinted his eyes and silently moved his lips.
‘Yeah, okay,’ he said, finally. ‘You’re gonna love this.’
How about that? The guy who was about to rip my guts out was pleased for me, excited I was trying something new.
He scraped his chair over so he was sitting in front of me, shook a couple of clear crystal shards into the bowl of the pipe, then concentrated hard on keeping the lighter flame steady underneath so it didn’t touch the glass. When the crystals melted and started to smoke he took away the lighter and placed the stem against my lips.
‘Draw back. Slow and steady.’
I did as he said. The smoke tasted chemical and burned the back of my throat.
‘Keep going! You don’t want to miss any.’
I inhaled until I had no more breath. Elvis Mask took the pipe away, inhaled the last wisps himself then crouched in front of me, looking intently into my face.
‘Hold it,’ he said. ‘Hold it in.’
I did as he said, felt like I was suffocating, and finally had to exhale. Nothing happened for a few seconds, and just as I was wondering what other brilliant plans I could come up with I felt a kind of tingling bubble up from my lungs and spread out everywhere: limbs, spine, head. My heart started thumping fast and heavy and I felt little fairies run their tiny fairy fingernails up and over my scalp. A deep, glorious shiver climbed my backbone and when it reached the base of my skull I had to tip my head back and close my eyes. Watto hadn’t been kidding about the ten orgasm thing, except that it was even better, a climax encompassing the body, brain, neurons and every microscopic cell.
I wasn’t sure how long my eyes had been closed for, but I was still rushing when I opened them, only it had changed from a blasting rocket to a smooth glide.
‘Holy shit,’ I said.
Watto’s hideous face was in front of me but it didn’t seem to matter so much. I was back, sharp, on top of the world, and felt like I could run the four minute mile if I had to. I’d get out of this, and if I didn’t? Shit. No comedown to worry about. I actually giggled.
‘Gimme some more of that fucking bourbon and a drag on your cig,’ I said.
Watto looked delighted, clapped his hands and danced a little jig. He raced back to the computer and put a CD in the drive and while his back was turned I tried to force my wrists apart with all my might, which was considerably greater than it had been a few moments earlier. The tape didn’t break but it did stretch some more and I thought maybe I could try wiggling and pulling a hand out of the sticky restraints, but then the speakers started blasting more of his beloved cock rock: Poison, ‘Nothing But a Good Time’. I remembered it from pub strip shows and blue light discos years before. I started singing along and I couldn’t believe I knew the words, but the way I was feeling, I pretty much knew everything.
‘So, mate, how about you let me go and we really party?’ I asked.
‘Sorry, babe. Even if I was that fucking stupid my dick’s useless, all the shit I’ve been doing. Not bad stuff, huh?’