The Gilded Madonna

by Garrick Jones

  “Made it myself,” he said, laughing quietly. “Don’t get excited, Smith. It might have been loud enough to you up here, but down there where your mates are, it would have sounded just as if someone had stepped on a branch while they were fucking in the bushes.”

  I glanced down again at Mark, who’d been grunting occasionally while Kemeny and I had been talking. He had both hands pressed over the spot where he’d been shot, near the point of his shoulder. Even in the dim ambient light I could see blood seeping through his fingers.

  I ignored Kemeny’s earlier order to stay where I was and crouched down at Mark’s side. He was in a lot of pain, but otherwise seemed all right—shocked, as you’d expect, but clear-headed. “Don’t fuss, Clyde. I’m okay,” he said.

  He’d been shot at close range, so I hoped the bullet had gone right through. After gently removing Mark’s hands, I scrabbled in my pocket for my handkerchief and pressed it to his shoulder. It was soaked through very quickly. I glanced up at Kemeny. “Have you got another handkerchief?” I asked.

  Kemeny put his hand in his pocket and threw it to me. His gun didn’t waver for a second, still aimed at my head.

  “His gun,” Kemeny said, after I’d replaced my handkerchief with the one he’d thrown to me. “Easy as you go, Smith. Don’t do anything stupid either. Just pull it out of his holster and then throw it by the barrel into the bushes over there, where you threw yours. Slow and easy. The moment I see you get your fingers anywhere near the trigger, I’ll shoot your dick off.”

  His expression told me that’s just what he would do, so I flung it as far away as I could, even though my fingers were slippery with Mark’s blood.

  “What now?” I snarled. I’d be damned if I’d show him I was intimidated by him in the slightest. I’d been in far worse situations plenty of times. It was Mark I was concerned for.

  “Help him to his feet and follow that path over there on your right.” He waved the gun towards the western edge of the park.

  “No need to carry me, Clyde,” Mark said as I went to put my arm under his knees. “Just give me your shoulder. I’ll manage.”

  “He doesn’t moan much does he, for someone who’s been shot?” Kemeny said as we exited the scrub and stood in the sand at the edge of the empty-looking street. There were no houses anywhere nearby, the other side of the road was open scrubland with pockets of sand dunes. No wonder he’d been so brazen about leading us out into the open.

  “He’s used to pain,” I said. “He’s had worse than a slug in the shoulder.”

  “Haven’t we all, Smith. Pity the Krauts didn’t spend more time on you. I heard you never even cried out when they beat the shit out of you.”

  “I bet you did at Dr. Bagshaw’s, though,” I said, wondering if the bully trick Luka had mentioned might work.

  His self-satisfied smug grin turned to a guttural snarl through bared teeth. He cocked the trigger of his gun, aiming it at Mark once more. It seemed the bully strategy was not going to be an option.

  “Wrong thing to say, Smith. How about I shoot your mate in the guts, that might hurt a bit more than a bullet in the shoulder? Then we’d really hear some moaning out of him.”

  “Don’t shoot him, Kemeny. What’s the point? It’s me you’ve got the grudge with.”

  “My name is Edgar, Smith; not Kemeny.”

  “Johnny would be bloody disgusted to see—”

  He fired a round into the side of a dark green Bedford panel van parked just near where we’d exited the bushes.

  “Shut up, Smith. Don’t mention Johnny’s name unless I ask you to, you hear me? Put your copper mate in the back—it’s open. There’s a pair of handcuffs on the floor on the right-hand side, just inside the door. Put them on him, hands behind his back, nice and tight. Don’t do anything silly, either. I know all about your guerrilla training. Every time you make a false move, I’ll put a bullet somewhere in your friend here. Understood?”

  I did as he asked and then stood at the rear of the van. He threw another pair of cuffs onto the ground at my feet.

  “Your turn now, Smith. Hands behind your back, and let’s not be stupid, eh? Put one on your wrist and then turn around.”

  “You going to cuff me to the rear bumper and make me run behind you when you drive off, or drag me along the ground behind the van?” I wasn’t done with pressing his buttons. I didn’t take well to being immobilised, and I kept reminding myself that he had a gripe with me—he wasn’t going to kill me until he got off his chest whatever it was that made him hate me so much.

  “Don’t give me ideas, Smith. Now put the other cuff on your other wrist and then lean forward with your legs apart.”

  With one hand he quickly checked the handcuffs were tight. One of them still had a few ratchet teeth not engaged, but he squeezed it shut.

  He put a knee in my arse and pushed me against the back of the vehicle. “Rest your chest and face against the floor of the van.”

  I did as he said and then heard the silencer being removed. He placed his knee between my legs and pushed my legs apart. “Nice,” he whispered. “Easy opener … just like I like them.”

  “Sick bastard—” I started to say and then felt the muzzle of his gun pressed hard into the small of my back.

  “I’m a nervous shooter, Smith. I wouldn’t want you to do anything rash. A bullet through the third lumbar vertebra … now let’s see, if you survived the internal injuries, you could say goodbye to your early morning runs around the beach, and you’d never get to have sex with your … what’s his name again? Oh, yes, Harry. Harry Jones.”

  “You fucking leave Harry out of this, you slimy piece of—”

  The sudden extra push of his pistol against my spine was enough to make me stop.

  “Now while you’re bent over like this, let me have a quick feel to see you’re not hiding anything anywhere else. Left leg up.” As awkward as it was with his knee between my legs and my face on the floor of the van, I stretched my leg sideways and put my foot on the rear bumper. He ran his hand over it, checking my sock. I could have done something then, but with the hammer cocked and a round in the chamber, any sudden movement, and with his finger on the trigger, I’d have been paralysed for life … or worse. “Right leg,” he said and then performed the same search. “Spread them, Clyde,” he said, withdrawing his knee from between my legs. It was difficult, face down with my arms restrained, but I shuffled my feet apart.

  “Wider!” he ordered.

  I didn’t flinch, even when he clasped my balls and fondled my dick, giving it a good squeeze. It was only when he roughly pushed his thumb against my anus through my trousers and underwear and began to twist it that I flinched. “No need for that, I’ll lie on my face and let you have a turn,” I said through gritted teeth. “Just leave Mark near a phone box and call an ambulance. It’s me you want, not him.”

  “Nice try, but no, Clyde,” he said, moving the gun up my spine to the base of my skull. He pushed my handcuffed arms up behind my back with the other hand and pressed himself against me, grinding a few times and chuckling at my reaction. He was hard. I felt sick, prevaricating whether to do something now or wait for a better opportunity. If whatever I did went wrong, I’d never find out where the Bishop children were, or what he wanted from me.

  “Maybe I’ll take advantage of your offer,” he said, thrusting against me once more. “I don’t trust you of course, but I can give you something that will make you not care what I do to you. You’ll be so out to it, I could ride your arse for a week and you still wouldn’t know what’s going on.”

  I was about to speak when he moved away from me suddenly. “Get in the back of the van,” he said. “We’re going for a little drive.”

  It was only when Kemeny slammed the doors shut of the panel van that I regretted arguing with Harry earlier that night, before I’d left home, telling him I didn’t need a third person watching out for me and that he should have dinner with his parents.

  The noise of the engine
and the fact we were driving over an unsealed road made it difficult to make conversation, but I rolled next to Mark and spoke into his ear.

  “Are you all right?”

  He nodded. “Don’t do anything stupid. Choose your moment, Clyde,” he said. His voice was strained. He was obviously in a lot of pain, but with my hands behind my back there was little I could do.

  “Are you still bleeding?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he grunted through clenched teeth. The van gave an almighty lurch and he groaned very loudly. A few seconds later it stopped. I heard the driver’s door open, the engine still running, and then a few minutes later Kemeny returned to the vehicle and we drove a short way. The sound of the engine was muffled. I guessed we’d driven into a garage or some other confined space, and when he’d got out of the van he’d gone to open its doors.

  The back of the van flew open. “Get out!” he ordered.

  “I can’t get up,” Mark said.

  “Pull him out by the legs, Smith.”

  “I’m handcuffed, in case you forgot.”

  “Move aside,” Kemeny said, and when I did so, he fired another shot into the back of the van. Mark yelled and then scrabbled out, falling onto the ground.”

  “Get on your feet, copper.”

  I felt impotent. There was nothing I could do to help, but, moaning with pain, Mark eased himself onto his knees and then used both fists on the bumper bar to help himself get on his feet.

  “Get outside, both of you,” Kemeny snapped.

  He’d driven the van into a flat–topped wooden garage. Behind it was a long wire fence, about eight feet tall, that ran down towards the ocean, stopping at the edge of a cliff, not fifty feet away. I instantly knew where we were, because we’d played there as kids. It was one of the old disused motor sheds at the back of the Malabar rifle range.

  “Stand back,” he ordered. “I’ll shoot you both in the legs if you try anything. Your lives and whatever pain you suffer are of little interest to me.” His voice was so devoid of emotion I instantly knew it to be his truth.

  We leaned against the fence while Kemeny closed and locked the garage doors. In the moonlight, I could see the dark stain of blood soaked into the left–hand side of Mark’s jacket—it glistened wetly.

  After unlocking a gate in the fence, Kemeny urged us to follow a narrow path that meandered through knee–high scrub down towards the cliff edge. Looming in the dark in front of us were the backs of the row of twelve–feet–tall concrete towers, used as targets for light artillery practice. I knew, from using the range myself as a teenager, that a line of rifle targets spread some one hundred yards across the length of the towers and about ten feet in front of them.

  “Stay where you are,” he said and then unlocked a metal door in the back of the tower nearest the sea. “Go down the stairs and move to the wall on the opposite side of the room.”

  As I helped Mark down the stairs, the dog ran past us. It sat at the bottom of the stairs and then quickly moved away when the metal door clanged shut behind us.

  We were in a concrete bunker. One of the dozens along the tops of the sandstone cliffs along Sydney’s eastern seaboard. I recognised the bare concrete walls that had been poured between sheets of plywood. We’d built huts and bunkers ourselves, using the same construction method, during the early years of the war. Although the bunker’s QF three–pounder, Hotchkiss cannon had been removed, its circular footing remained in the floor as did the opening through which the shells were fired. I could hear the sea.

  We were underground and near the water but a long way from Glebe Gully, where we’d concentrated our search efforts.

  “Sit,” he ordered.

  I squatted slowly. Mark’s knees seemed to give way when he was halfway down. He landed on his arse with a thump beside me.

  “I need to piss,” Kemeny said. “Don’t think of trying anything stupid, Smith, I can hold two weapons at the same time.”

  His stupid attempt at being witty merited no reply, so I ignored it and took my time inspecting the room while he stood at the toilet with the door open, pointing his gun at me and pissing noisily into the bowl at the same time. Once again, I noticed his aim was unerring. There was no question he was very used to using a weapon. We’d thought, because of the bullet trajectory when he’d shot the council man, that Kemeny was unskilled, or nervous. But now, I realised it was the combined length of the barrel and the long silencer used at such close range that had made it awkward, requiring Kemeny to bend his elbow way back and therefore make it hard to keep the gun steady when the trigger was pressed.

  The room had two doors. One was that of the lavatory, and the other, partially opened, revealed a dimly lit room that seemed to be where he relaxed—I could see the edge of an armchair and an ashtray stand. The room in which Mark and I were sitting on the floor had two pieces of furniture: a low table near the bottom of the stairs that led down from above, and an iron–framed, narrow hospital bed, the mattress of which was partially covered with a loosely draped sheet

  He’d just flushed the toilet and had buttoned up his flies when I heard three thumps against the iron door at the top of the stairs. A moment later it was followed by four and then, after another short pause, by another two thumps.

  “Didn’t think I’d risk this by myself now, did you, Smith?”

  I took a gamble. “Another of your pals from Mudgee, Kemeny?”

  He laughed and then spat in my face before kicking the side of my head. I saw stars.

  “You call me Kemeny once more, Smith, and I might take my time having fun with you. How much pain you think you can put up with, eh?”

  I spat on the floor, tasting blood. “There’s nothing you can do the Krauts didn’t. The only thing they didn’t do was kill me.”

  “Good to know,” he snarled. “At least that leaves me an option. Now, I’m fed up with you—you talk far too much, Smith. I’m not stupid, I can tell you’re trying to get into my mind, trying to make me angry enough to do something foolish. But that’s not going to happen. You know why?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me … Kemeny.”

  His eyes glowed and he punched me hard, right on the bridge of my nose, causing my head to bang against the wall. I felt a trickle of blood running down from my nostril and over my lip. I licked it away and then grinned at him. I guess that made him even angrier because he socked me again and then grabbed a handful of my hair, almost spitting into my mouth as he yelled into my face.

  “From now on, you don’t get to say a word, only the copper does.” He produced his razor from his pocket, flicking it open, like a Geisha with her fan. “Every time you open your mouth, I’ll cut you somewhere different, and deeper each time. Understood?”

  I glared at him.

  “I’ll take that as a yes, shall I?” The pounding started at the door again, using the same sequence. I crossed my ankles, in case he decided to kick me in the balls, and then spat again as he turned and went up the stairs.

  “Remember what Luka said, Mark,” I whispered as soon as I saw his feet disappear out of view.

  “Be careful, Clyde.”

  “I’m all right. It’s you I’m worried for. I’ve been in these situations lots before, I know what might happen. It doesn’t make me any less frightened, but at least I know what to expect.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “He’ll probably tie me to that bed and force himself upon me and then cut my throat when he ejaculates, the same as his murder victims. Why else do you think I’m here?”

  “Jesus! How can you be so calm about it? Why am I here then?”

  “It’s obvious, Mark. It’s just like Luka said—you’re the witness. He intends to kill me, but he wants you to tell the story. No fame, no gain. Shh …!”

  He’d opened the door at the top of the stairs and was talking to whoever it was up there. Had it not been for the concrete–sided narrow staircase, I’d have heard nothing. But I did hear snatches of conversation as it e
choed down to us.

  “Get everything?” Kemeny asked.

  “Yes, but I need to get moving.”

  “Help me with these two first …” And then there was indistinct speech for a minute or two.

  “I need money. They need stuff.”

  “I’ll give you a tenner, that’s all I’ve got. Before you go … passbook … signed withdrawal slips …” More mumbling.

  “See you at Bishop’s later then?”

  “Yeah. Just lay low and I’ll …”

  And then their voices became indistinct for one or two more sentences before they started coming down the stairs.

  When he came into view, I saw Kemeny’s mate was just as lanky as he was, but somehow crooked. There was something about his stance and the angle of his arms that made me think he’d been seriously injured at some stage. “Cop or Smith first?” he asked.

  “The dangerous one, Freckles. Feet first.”

  Kemeny sat on my knees facing me, his cut–throat razor sliding gently across my throat. I held my breath while “Freckles” tied up my feet with a rope.

  “Normally, I give my men a bit of tongue, but somehow, Smith, I think you’d bite it off,” Kemeny said.

  Before I could react, the man who’d tied up my feet stood and then, for no apparent reason, grabbed a handful of my hair and banged my head against the wall. This time it really hurt and my ears began to ring.

  Kemeny took the opportunity to tie a cloth he’d pulled from his pocket around my mouth, gagging me. As my vision cleared, I looked up to see Freckles pull the small table across the room and then place the overnight bag he’d brought with him on it. He laid a few things out on the table, but it was only when I saw him hold up a small bottle and begin to draw some of its contents into a syringe that I really began to get frightened.

  “Four hours?” he asked Kemeny.

  “Make it eight. I’m tired and I need some sleep.”

  I started to struggle and to yell through my gag, but when Kemeny held his razor to Mark’s neck and said I had a choice, I resisted very little, raising my arse from the floor as Freckles undid my belt, unbuttoned my trousers, and pulled them and my underpants down to my ankles, on top of the rope that bound them. I flinched as the needle went into a vein in my calf, but then as the room began to grow dim, I heard Dennis Kemeny’s soft, “Toodle–oo, Smith. See you on the other side …”