by Ray Scott
Wallace smiled and shook his head, much of his unease dissipated. He had much sympathy with that sentiment. He could remember an office party at the Saturn Insurance Office where separate tables had been charged for the liquor they consumed, the table where Wallace had sat had come to over $190 at the end of the night. Considering there had only been six occupants of the table, and two were non drinkers, this was an incredible figure. It had been challenged by the chief clerk and the bill had been sulkily amended to $50.
‘They must live,’ Wallace commented, more for conversations sake.
‘Not off me!’ snapped Kalim. ‘I will go and check with him again.’
So saying he rose to his feet and disappeared in the direction of the bar. The waiter reappeared from a doorway by the bar, he and Kalim had an animated conversation but although the waiter was still holding the bill the conversation didn’t seem to be about that. The waitress appeared at Wallace’s elbow and began to clear the table, removing the salt and pepper, and giving him a flashing smile. As she moved off Wallace caught sight of Kalim who was standing near to the bar, he was on his mobile telephone, he was gesturing as he spoke and he didn’t looked pleased.
A cab had drawn up outside, Wallace was sufficiently cognisant to observe that there was an ambulance parked by the side of the street about ten yards away as they drove off. The cab travelled for about three streets before pulling up before a large apartment block, probably erected in the 1960s. There was an imposing entrance and the doorman saluted gravely as they entered. They entered the lift and it took off at a fast rate. Kalim seemed deep in thought as it reached the fifth floor and looked carefully up and down the corridor as they exited.
‘Come!’ he said. ‘Welcome to a little part of Indonesia.’
That was not a tactful remark, Wallace’s stomach nearly turned over at the thought. Kalim marched ahead and unlocked a door, bidding Wallace to enter. The room itself was a surprise, he had been expecting East Indian/Indonesian furnishings and decor, but as he looked around it there was even a footy print on one of the walls, and a couple of landscapes that were unmistakeably Australian, the tree trunks were quite striking gum trees.
‘Welcome, I hope you approve of the decor.’
‘Er, thank you,’ Wallace was not sure but unease had returned. It was almost as though he had walked into the apartment of an ex-pat Australian. Though they had talked much of Australia, Australian Rules football had never been mentioned. There was also a bottle of Australian brandy on the table with some glasses.
‘A drink? Here let us have a brandy.’
His enthusiasm was infectious, Wallace nodded and sat down. He looked at the clock, it was approaching midnight and Wallace had survived the night, apart from the excess of drink and the queasy feeling that was beginning to return. He definitely felt strange and was anxious to return to his own hotel room and turn in. He intended to make an early start in the morning, and also intended to ring McKay and his espionage friends and tell them to go to hell.
Kalim turned his back to Wallace as he poured the drinks and then excused himself. Clearly he had gone to the toilet as Wallace heard water hitting water. There was a small vase of flowers on the window sill so Wallace poured most of the brandy into that, leaving only a smidgin in the bottom of the glass. He didn’t much care for Australian brandy anyway.
He was back in his seat when Kalim returned; he raised his glass and said ‘Cheers!’
‘Cheers, all the best,’ Wallace acknowledged and downed what was left of the brandy, his hand was gripping around the glass so Kalim couldn’t have seen how little there was in it. It tasted odd as it landed on his tongue; it had a bitter taste similar to that in the coffee earlier. That had left an unpleasant aftertaste. Wallace took out his handkerchief and pretended to wipe his nose, but ran his tongue over the cloth to remove virtually all of that which he had just imbibed. He reflected that it was lucky he had despatched the vast majority of it into the vase and wondered how the flowers were faring.
‘Well, what are your plans now?’ Kalim asked him.
‘I’m off to the States in about ten days,’ Wallace replied, becoming aware that the room felt a little unsteady. ‘In the meantime I may visit some relatives.’
‘And where are they?’
His tone sounded a little peremptory, Wallace looked at him and he was not smiling. Further, he was growing hazy and far away. Wallace pressed the palm of his hand against his forehead, was he going to faint? Maybe he had drunk too much, certainly he felt queer.
Kalim was still talking and his voice was becoming fainter and fainter, and so was Wallace. He meshed his fingers together and clenched them but they seemed to be at the ends of arms that had suddenly become three miles in length. He felt a spinning and a roaring and then darkness closed in.
Chapter 11
Wallace came round slowly, having several false starts. He appeared to be lying on the floor, and the room was spinning in several directions. It was in semi-darkness, and there were perpendicular and horizontal lines of light about three feet away. He could not hear any movement.
He was aware of two areas of discomfort. Firstly he was hot, very hot. Perspiration was saturating him from head to toe. He took off his jacket and left it on the floor. Further, his bladder was full, painfully so. He arose slowly, feeling very unsteady. As his eyes became accustomed to the light, or lack of it, he could see through a half open door to the right, lit up slightly by a window beyond it where there were stars twinkling.
He tried to walk in that direction, but his legs felt as if they were made of rubber and he fell back onto the floor again. As he crawled towards it he could dimly make out a wash hand basin, and then a toilet. He slid over onto his hands and knees and made his way over.
After reaching the bathroom, he levered himself to his feet, he was clinging onto the wash hand basin for support, so decided to use it illicitly. He unzipped his fly and urinated into the basin, turning on the cold tap to wash it down. Never had he experienced such bliss as he let it all go. He ran the water for a few minutes to clear it and then was suddenly assailed by nausea. He stumbled over to the toilet, luckily the seat was up and he thrust his head into the bowl and promptly threw up. Before this night it had been years since Wallace had vomited, now twice within a few hours! Everything came back; he was surprised there was anything left after the previous episode at the restaurant, and the smell and taste was vile, so much so that it brought about a fresh bout of retching and heaving.
He rose unsteadily to his feet, found the button and flushed the toilet. It refilled and he suddenly had another urge to vomit and brought up some more, and he flushed it again. He fumbled along the wall, found a light switch and turned it on and was able to see into the room he had left. It was a bedroom and Wallace was in the en suite. He found some Listerine in the bathroom cabinet and gargled with it. His mouth tasted strange, it was a vile taste, yet it was familiar, the mouth wash certainly dispelled some of it. He remembered now, the drinks at the restaurant had tasted like that, as had the brandy in the apartment. He opened the window to dispel the unpleasant smell, and peered out. He could see out dimly, it was several floors up, he remembered now that they had travelled up about five floors to Kalim’s apartment in the lift.
Kalim? What the hell had happened? Why was he here, why had he been dumped onto the floor in such an unceremonious manner? Clearly all was not well, something queer was going on and he remembered the unease he had experienced beforehand.
He decided to explore and walked back into the bedroom. He found he was shivering uncontrollably after his bouts of sickness, so he picked up his jacket, put it on again and opened the door. Then he heard noises, he could hear footsteps, presumably in the corridor outside the apartment and then heard a key in the door and the main door opened. Wallace had his hand on the handle of the sitting room door and was about to enter to say hallo to Kalim when he heard voices.
‘Put him down here, no over there.’
&nb
sp; Wallace had opened the door sufficiently to be able to peer through a narrow crack, he could see Kalim and two other men; with a sense of shock Wallace recognised all three. One of them was one of the two men who had been chasing him in Jakarta while the other was the moustachioed waiter from the restaurant. They were carrying another man, a man who was either unconscious or dead. They dumped him on the floor.
‘Sit him up in the chair,’ the waiter commanded, he seemed to be in charge of affairs.
The other man did so, while Kalim was busy tidying up the room. He picked up the brandy bottle and placed it in a leather brief case. Then he produced a fresh, nearly empty bottle, placed it on the table and poured an iota of liquor into the glasses and swilled them around before replacing the glasses on the table. He was wearing gloves.
Then Wallace heard a report, it took Wallace a few moments to realise what had happened. Then it hit him. A gun had been fired, presumably fitted with a silencer, at the luckless man they had been carrying, who beforehand was either dead or out cold. Whatever he was, he was clearly dead now.
‘Good!’ Wallace heard Kalim say. ‘Now get him back onto the floor, make sure he’s more or less in line with this chair here and where the bullet hit the wall. I think we are ready for our friend Wallace.’
‘Where is he now?’ the waiter asked.
‘We put him in the bedroom, best he was out of the way while we set the scene in here.’
‘He passed out when he got here did he?’ asked the waiter. ‘He should have been out like a light in the restaurant, we gave him enough of the stuff, how the hell did he manage to walk out?’
‘I have no idea, Juan. I can only assume that being an Australian he can hold liquor like a sponge.’
Wallace bridled at that, bloody cheek!
‘Liquor yes, but not what we were giving him,’ snapped the waiter, Juan.
‘I gave him some more while he was here. With the quantity in his system, I doubt he’ll survive the night.’
Wallace froze as the implications of the conversation sank in, he nearly puked with fear. He felt faintness starting to envelope him but angrily fought it off. Now was definitely NOT the time to pass out. He decided to head back for the bedroom to see if there was a way out.
‘Didn’t he suspect when you didn’t drink as well?’ it was another voice, probably one of the two Jakarta men.
‘I did drink!’ snarled Kalim. ‘What sort of a bloody fool do you take me for? Juan gave him Scotch whisky and doctored wine and supplied me with cold tea and lemonade. He consumed everything we gave him, we should have had to carry him out – that was the plan and we had the ambulance ready, but the bastard actually walked out.’
So that was it. That was how Kalim had managed to maintain his cool and sobriety and presumably placate his Muslim ethics. He had been stone cold sober, but even he had had to visit the urinal periodically as the vast quantities of cold tea and lemonade had passed through his system. Just as well for Wallace that he had, it had enabled him to get rid of most of the drink that had come his way, together with whatever Juan the waiter had been putting into it. It also explained the ambulance that had been sitting outside the restaurant.
‘Well, are we ready?’
‘Just as soon Tara returns.’
Wallace turned and prepared to tiptoe back to the bedroom. He was cold with horror. What were they going to do with him? And who were they? He suddenly remembered afresh the Jakarta trip and cursed Bramble and Major Lincoln. He hoped that bloody grenade on Lincoln’s desk would blow up!
He heard a knock at the front door to the apartment and arrested his move back to the bedroom to see who it was.
‘Tara’s here.’
‘About time too, tell him to hurry up.’
Wallace heard the front apartment door open and they admitted another man. It was the second Jakarta chaser.
‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ Kalim snarled; his tone of voice and vocabulary had undergone a marked change since Wallace last conversed with him.
‘Getting here without being seen,’ Tara replied with spirit, clearly he had had a rough trip and wasn’t in the mood for taking any old buck.
‘Come on then, let’s get the job done and get the hell out of here. Have you got the stuff?’
‘Yes, it’s here.’
‘Good, put it in the jacket pocket down here, hurry up man.’
Wallace saw them place some plastic packets in the dead man’s jacket pocket. He was still transfixed with horror and was nearly riveted to the spot. Any thoughts of making a dash for the main door into the corridor were negative; he was too unsteady on his legs to have got very far before being caught.
‘Well, let’s go and get Wallace,’ he heard Kalim say and Wallace hastily made his way back to the bedroom. As he returned to it commonsense percolated through and dispelled some of the panic.
He could not hide nor escape, even if he climbed through the bathroom window it was five storeys up. The only plan was to be what they thought he was, comatose. If they were intending to kill him there was nothing he could do about it, but he had the feeling that they thought they had already done that with whatever they had fed to him. Unpleasant though the nausea and sickness had been, possibly it had saved Wallace’s life. His actions in cutting down his consumption had made an overdose or possible fatal dose merely one of severe sickness.
Wallace realised he owed the vendor of that damned meat roll a vote of thanks, by upsetting his stomach he had probably saved Wallace’s life…so far! Whatever they had in store now he had to go along with it. He had one advantage, they thought he was unconscious, he had better continue with that.
He re-entered the bedroom and realised the en suite light was still on. He lurched over and switched it off, then reeled back to the spot where he’d been lying on the floor and lay down again, trying to remember how he had been lying when he woke up.
The door opened and light flooded in from the hallway. He saw the silhouettes of three men and hastily closed his eyes, remembering not to screw them up which was his first instinct. He was seized roughly, so roughly he fell to the floor again; it took all of his self control not to instinctively try to cushion the fall.
‘Watch it you clumsy fuckwit!’ Juan muttered and Wallace heard Tara answer in a language that was unfamiliar, though his enunciation and tone left no doubt as to his sentiments.
They hit Wallace’s head on the doorpost as they carried him out; he began to wonder if death was preferable. He managed to loll lifelessly in their grip as they half carried and half dragged him along the hallway and into the sitting room.
‘Be bloody careful,’ he heard Kalim hiss furiously as one of Wallace’s knees hit the doorpost. It was so painful that Wallace nearly gave the game away. ‘If you break any bones now you’ll ruin everything.’
It was quite incredible how much a man’s voice and aura could change in such a short period of time. Wallace dared not open his eyes to observe him though he was sorely tempted, he hung limp and lifeless, inwardly flinching as he waited for another part of his anatomy to come into violent contact with another item of furniture, or else be dropped from a great height.
He was pleasantly surprised to find himself lowered into an armchair as he had been half expecting to be flung onto the floor. His legs were straightened out, a relief as his testicles had caught between his thighs when he was initially put down and it was agonising, but he dared not make any movement to adjust matters.
He heard the sound of furniture being shifted around and then nearly jumped in the air as he felt something being pressed into his hand; in his hysterical state the first thought that occurred to him was that it was a snake. But it was hard, his fingers were pressed all over it, it felt like a handgun.
‘I think that’s about it,’ Kalim said.
‘Where do we leave the cash?’
‘On the bureau over there.’
Something was placed noisily on the bureau.
‘Do we gi
ve him another shot?’
‘No point. He’s had enough already to kill a horse, and we don’t want any needle marks on him. He’s supposed to have been sniffing drugs with our friend here, and then he shot him when he got as high as a kite,’ Wallace heard Juan say.
‘He had a fair amount of the brandy I gave him,’ Kalim said. ‘He was stashing it away like a Trojan all night.’
‘Yes, I managed to lace one or two when I was serving drinks, he’ll be all right,’ said Juan. ‘Nobody could survive what we pushed into him, but he might survive long enough to be incoherent when the police arrive.’
Wallace had a feeling that Kalim was confusing his metaphors; did Trojans have a reputation for drinking heavily? But he had more serious matters to consider. One point was now clear, what he should have imbibed was enough to render a horse unconscious and eventually kill, it sounded as though they expected the police to find him dead when they arrived. Wallace wondered what state the potted plant in the restaurant was in, and also the vase of flowers in the apartment. Of the prescribed dosage he had to imbibe for their plan, he must have taken less than 10% of it, if that. This would probably have been enough to knock him out but the intervening and unpredictable factor was that meat roll which had caused him to throw it all back up.
‘Who is he, anyway?’
‘Nobody of any importance,’ Wallace heard Kalim say. ‘An ASIO stooge who got in the way in Jakarta, it suits our plan in that it will divert attention. It’s almost a quid pro quo, he smuggled some information out of Jakarta some months ago. He’s paid a heavy price for his ASIO gold!’
Wallace felt a sensation of indignation. What the hell did he mean? Nobody of any importance! He also recalled Bramble’s words…”easy isn’t it?”…that he had uttered in that snide patronising manner of his as he had first suggested that Jakarta caper. And as for gold…Christ! Bloody pennies more like!
‘OK! Time we went – do we leave the light on?’
‘What do you think you bloody fool?’ Juan rasped furiously and Tara muttered something that could have been anything.