His eyelids began to droop.
No—no sleeping.
But in pitch darkness, it was natural to want to go to sleep. He knew that. It went back to the womb, that instinct. In darkness, one slept.
This womb, his tomb. Crash out here and he would never see daylight again.
Still his eyes wanted to close.
Time check: 2.45 am.
Now it was a full-scale battle to fight that demon, sleep. From deep within him there was a tremendous urge to simply curl up and call it quits. His head nodded, and when his chin touched his chest he sprang to, gasping, as if he’d been stabbed. He stood up, stretched, paced back and forth along the length of the box, back and forth, back and forth . . .
Just how he did in stir.
Now he wanted to scream. Why not? No-one would hear it. He gave a howl for the hell of it.
Time check: 3.10 am.
He’d been here nearly four hours. Shit, it seemed a lot longer than that.
He decided to stay on his feet for a while. Sleep was far too enticing.
But wait on—what was that? Not so much a noise as . . . the silence that follows when a car engine has been switched off.
He stood against the door and strained to listen. Very little in the way of clear sound penetrated these steel walls. From far away came the hefty chunk of a car door shutting, then later the crunching of a heavy man’s footsteps approaching on debris-strewn ground. So he was alone. Shaun braced himself: back against the door, the .32 in his right hand by his side. Now he was wide awake, coiled and ready, anxious, to cut loose. But then nothing happened for a long time, and he began to wonder if he’d imagined those noises.
Bang!
It was the sound of a bolt handle being struck with an open palm. The bolts, as Shaun and Wes had discovered, were stiff from lack of use. Which door would he open? Shaun listened: a hand was working another bolt, twisting and wrenching at it.
He was opening the right-side door.
Then . . . nothing.
‘Yeah?’ he heard dimly, distantly. It was Simmonds’ voice. Shit—someone with him? ‘I’m here now,’ he heard, ear pressed hard against the steel.
No—he was on the phone.
‘I’ll be there by eleven,’ Simmonds said.‘Before the punters turn up. We’ll have a powwow then. Leave the side door open.’
That was all. Then, after a short struggle, the second bolt was wrenched loose. Now he could hear Fat Man breathing heavily from exertion. The door came open, letting in some grey light. Shaun pressed hard against the left door, bringing the gun up next to his face. A powerful beam appeared, flooding the interior with bright light. He could see the flashlight, then the hand holding it—the left hand, indicating he had a gun in the right—then the shirtsleeve and jacket cuff . . .
He knew he had one shot at this. Had to be done exactly right, or Simmonds would gut him. One-on-one he’d be no match—the surprise factor was everything.
Out of the dark his right hand locked around Simmonds’ wrist. A split second later, he yanked him into the container, at the same time swinging his own body around to face his adversary and gain better leverage. Simmonds seemed to stumble on the threshold as he was propelled inside, pitched forward as Shaun used the weight and momentum to swing him around one-handed in a wide arc before slamming him into the wall: BANG. The whole box rocked from side to side on impact; the flashlight fell from his hand, extinguishing itself when it hit the floor at Shaun’s feet. From his other hand something heavy and metallic, presumably his gun, clanged and disappeared in the dark. It took about a second and a half for Simmonds to recover and get his wind, but before he could act Shaun punched him hard and fast in the mouth, twice. The intention was to inflict some damage and give him something extra to think about as he tried to grope around for Shaun. He felt teeth crunch both times as Simmonds’ head snapped back against the steel. Grunts and curses came in a rush from his bloodied mouth. Shaun stepped back and put the .32 squarely on the big man, who was wiping a hand across his face and realising he’d been hit right hard.
‘Fuckin’ low cunt—busted a tooth and cut my tongue,’ he said, and spat some blood and chips into his palm. Clearly he didn’t like what he saw, and nor did he seem at all bothered by the fact that someone was pointing a loaded weapon at his face.
‘It’s a real gun, Simmonds—not a replica. Give me any reason to and I’ll drop you with it.’
Simmonds lifted his face from his hand. Even in the poor light afforded by the open door Shaun could see the mess on his lips and chin. He stared at Shaun,not even noticing the pistol.
‘That fuckin’ weasel,’ he said. ‘I’ll turn him inside out— after I’ve fixed your liver, McCreadie. I’ll haul his slippery arse through his—’
‘Shut it!’
As a precaution Shaun took an extra step back, but the gun didn’t waver from the imagined bull’s-eye in the middle of Simmonds’huge,boar-shaped head.Impossible to miss from here.
‘You’ve blown it, Simmonds. You’re doing nothing to anyone. It’s over for you. It all ends here.’
Simmonds straightened right up to his full size, placing his hands flat against the wall at his sides as he locked eyes with Shaun.
‘Get on your knees, bastard,’ Shaun said. ‘Do it!
’ Simmonds did not reply. Instead he launched himself off the wall and straight into Shaun with a speed that was astonishing for such a big man. It was over and done in a blur. With his head down he charged into Shaun’s chest, sending him reeling back into the wall and then off it again; in the process the pistol flew from his hand and a massive paw grabbed his throat. A triumphant roar from Fat Man filled the box as he closed his fingers around Shaun’s neck and applied full pressure. Shaun knew instantly he was in a death hold and had to break it soon or go the way of Johnny Wu. Simmonds could’ve used two hands, but apparently didn’t feel it necessary as he continued to exert pressure, his arm trembling mightily, while at the same time slowly lifting Shaun off his feet. With his eyes popping and a fuzzy sensation already filling his blood-starved brain he could just make out Fat Man’s face: he was out of it, wide-eyed, bloody-mouthed and delirious with rapture as he watched the life slowly, inevitably drain from his opponent. A bullet between the eyes could not have stopped him now. Shaun’s feet were not touching ground and his tongue was a huge, dry gag in his mouth. He spluttered; the lights were going out; he had no time left. Johnny Wu thrashed around in the air before his sphincter opened, but Shaun had longer arms than Johnny Wu. With his fingers spread he galvanized what strength he had left and thrust them into Simmonds’ face, the wide madman’s eyes an open invitation. The steel rods of his fingers buried themselves in their twin targets, precipitating an appalling, ungodly howl of a different kind from Fat Man. Still Shaun gouged and twisted the fingers in corkscrew fashion, then pulled them out as the grip around his throat loosened. When he extracted his fingers they were dripping, but he couldn’t quite see if it was just blood or something else too . . .
With his face buried in his hands Simmonds doubled over, giving Shaun time to get some breath back and regain strength. Blinded he might be, but even a blind Simmonds was not to be undersold. Shaun scrabbled around on the floor, located the heavy-duty, police-issue flashlight and brought it down two-handed on Simmonds’ head and shoulders with all the power in his body—once, twice, three times. As it smashed into him on the last occasion the flashlight exploded, bits and pieces and loose batteries flying in every direction. All he had in his hand then was the hollow shell. He tossed it away and searched for his or Simmonds’ gun, but couldn’t see either weapon anywhere. Simmonds was down on all fours, groaning and bleeding all over his clothes from the open head wounds.
‘It’s over for you,’ Shaun rasped again.‘Should’ve been a long time ago.’
Reaching down he wiped his wet fingers on Simmonds’ trousers. He remembered his own flashlight then, in his back pocket, but when he tried to switch it on nothing happened. Damn
thing must’ve been damaged when he hit the wall. Then he saw the glass was broken. He put it back in his pocket and conducted a systematic search for the .32. Wouldn’t do to leave it here possibly bearing prints that might identify him. More often than not prints left on guns were smudged and useless partials, but it was a chance he wouldn’t take. In a little while he discovered both weapons. Simmonds’ was a standard-issue .38 revolver. He left it where it lay and put the .32 in his jacket. Simmonds was face down, moving slightly and moaning like a gut-shot grizzly. Shaun searched his pants pockets until he found the gate keys, then conducted a general search of his person to see if anything useful turned up. There was no notepad or scrap of paper that might connect him or Wes Ford to Simmonds. In his wallet there was a hefty wad of cash, but it was too dark to see what else was in there. He replaced it in Simmonds’pocket and stood over him for a few moments, trying to decide how he felt. Sore and traumatised, pumped, still blowing hard and too fast, but not filled with remorse the way he was after doing over Turner. His only regret was that he’d not had the chance to extract any information from Simmonds. Who was he speaking with on the phone, for instance? Where was he going for a powwow at eleven in the morning?
Shaun had a pretty fair idea on the second count at least.
He stomped on Simmonds’ tiny silver phone until it was in shards.
Then he stepped over the heaving, slobbering bear shape and exited the black box. He shut the door and rammed home the two vertical bolts. All around him were derelict, rusted out containers. Without prior knowledge the chances of locating the right one were slim. It was a vast block, and there were so many boxes it would be easy to get lost in the maze.
He walked between rows of boxes until he came to the space where Simmonds had parked. He knew the keys were in it because they were not in the cop’s pockets. It was a near-new Statesman, not a police car, in black or midnight blue. After pulling on the woollen gloves he started it up, reversed, and burbled towards the front gate with the lights off. Using Simmonds’ keys he opened the padlocks, and as he did so he noticed several business-sized cards on the ground. One of them was folded over, as if it had been wedged between the two gates and dislodged when Simmonds, or maybe Wes, opened them. He put one of the cards into his pocket and drove out, then locked the gates again. There was no sign of life in the street—not even a howling dog—and just a handful of parked vehicles in the vicinity along with the Land Rover. He drove the Statesmen for several blocks, then pulled in and parked outside a die-setting factory that had a For Sale sign on its cyclone wire fence. After locking and alarming the Statesman he made his way back towards the Rover, pausing to toss the Statesman and padlock keys high onto a factory roof.
As he drove carefully back to East Melbourne,ever watchful for late-night police patrols, he pondered Bill Simmonds’ chances. They were not wonderful. In his condition he would be helpless to do anything much. Even if he pounded the walls and bellowed until his strength finally gave out no-one would hear zip. Eventually he would give up and go to sleep. In time the rotten smell of a decomposed cadaver would attract attention. If he managed to find his gun, however, he might choose to shoot himself. It was hard to call—this was a man who had believed himself indestructible for many decades.
But it was all over for him now.
When he reached home—what he now thought of as home—it was nearly four. He drove in the back, parked and alarmed the Rover, and let himself into the house. He’d decided against calling Jo in case she was asleep. On top of that he was shaken up, and did not want her to hear him in that state. His throat still hurt from Simmonds’ iron grip. For around ten minutes he sat at the kitchen table slowly sipping a glass of orange juice and listening to the clock ticking in time with the drumbeat in his chest. He was way too wired to sleep. Above all he couldn’t get over how soon he’d gone stir crazy, despite being an experienced convict. He’d truly thought he’d do it on a break, but no. How Simmonds would cope, boxed in and blind—doubly blind—and with a gun at his disposal, made Shaun wonder how long he could’ve stood it before turning the weapon on himself. Not too much longer, he suspected. It was a tough thing to find out.
Remembering the business card in his pocket, he took it out and studied it in the kitchen light. Printed on it were the words SKYLINE SECURITY, beneath a graphic of an eye watching over a metropolis of skyscrapers. There were phone and fax numbers, along with a dotcom address.
When he felt ready he mounted the staircase and, as quietly as he could, undressed and climbed into bed next to Jo’s motionless form. She appeared to be asleep, but the absence of audible breathing told him she was not. In the dark he turned her face towards him, and sure enough her eyes were wide open. He began to speak, but before the first word was out she pressed a finger to his lips.
‘You’re back,’ she whispered. ‘That’s all I care about right now. Tell me the rest later.’
He held her tight. Her hair fell over his face and chest. She rustled around until her warm body aligned perfectly with his. Within minutes, to his amazement, the soft flutter of her exhalations told him she had gone under.
By seven, when he arose, he was feeling ragged from the night’s drama and lack of sleep. Whenever his eyes had closed all he’d done was twitch and jump, as if he’d been hit with a cattle prod. Now his body was a jangle of warring nerves made worse by the insistent flashing into his mind of Bill Simmonds’ mad-eyed face when he tried to choke him to death. Jo offered him a tranquillizer, which he declined on the grounds that he needed to stay on his toes for some time to come. Couple or three things to do, and soon.
First off, a call to Wes Ford.
‘Did I wake you up?’ he said when a bleary-sounding voice answered. It was twenty after seven, and Shaun was on his third coffee.
‘Uh—not exactly,’ Wes said, but yawned anyway.
‘It’s all cool,’ Shaun said. ‘You don’t have to do anything.’
‘Right.’ Wes’s senses gradually came to. ‘Ah . . . Simmonds is in the box?’
‘Yep.’
Silence. ‘Man,’ Wes said. The enormity of what must have transpired was dawning on him. ‘Shit.’
‘Yeah. Shit.’
‘Rat’s in his own trap.’
‘He is. And far from happy about it.’
‘Wow.’ Down the phone line Shaun sensed conflicting sentiments: initially relief, satisfaction, but then, in the subsequent thoughtful silence, a growing realisation that he had no-one to bat for him when his day in court came.
Shaun said, ‘Listen, Wes. Might be a good idea if you moved out of home for a while. Got anywhere you can go on short notice?’
‘Move out? Why?’
‘Just as a precaution, that’s all. It ain’t over yet, buddy. Not for you, or me.’
‘Uh . . . okay,’ Wes said. ‘Got the fistful of dirty dollars, don’t I? Guess I can splash it on a ritzy hotel.’
Shaun had a sudden vision of Wes dropping his towel in front of a chambermaid. ‘Do that. Call me later, when you’re settled. And Wes?’
‘What?’
‘Keep a low profile—if you understand my meaning.’
Wes sounded offended. ‘Who, me? What?’
‘Never mind. Just stay zipped up. Keep everything in check.’
‘Uh-huh. Got the message. So, what’s on your plate?’
‘Gonna see a man in a pub.’
‘Tough. Catch you later then.’
Shaun suddenly remembered a detail that had been nagging at him.
‘Wes—wait on. Still there?’
‘Still here, man.’
‘Listen, when you went to the container place with Simmonds, did he go straight to it, you know, as if it was prearranged? Or not?’
Wes thought about it. Shaun could hear him scratching his hair. ‘Hold on. We got out of his car . . . I followed him, between these rows of containers . . . uh, he stopped a couple of times, shone the flashlight on a box, tried to open it up. Three times maybe he di
d that, but couldn’t open ’em ’cause the bolts were rusted tight. They hadn’t been used in so long, he couldn’t budge ’em. So, we went on in this vein until he found this one, the one with the serial number I told you, and he could shift the bolts on it. Then he kind of scanned around with the flashlight, as if checking the location, and then he said,“This is it”, or “This is the one”, something like that. So, in answer to your question, I would say that the container was definitely not pre-selected. That any help?’
‘Big help, Wes. Thanks—I mean, for everything.’
After he’d disconnected, Shaun wondered if maybe he ought to have apologised to Wes for doubting him back in the container.
What he really needed now was to hit the cot. His stinging eyes—every part of him—cried out for a decent sleep, but there was none on the horizon. The next best option was a session in the jacuzzi, which at least softened the tightly knotted muscles and sinews and quieted the nerves. It wasn’t long before his lids began to twitch and close, lights flashing weirdly behind them—like a flashlight beam spinning around in a dark space— and then his head gradually succumbed to gravity, as it had done in the box. Soon enough he descended into an uneasy slumber and subsided into the froth, surfacing only when the scented water began to lap into his open mouth. More caffeine and a shot of Benzedrine from Jo’s store of pharmaceuticals and he was good for another twenty-four hours. Now there was shopping to be done. With Jo at the wheel of the Rover they headed into the city, a Dick Smith electronics superstore being the object of the visit.
21
The Unicorn Hotel was a sad, soot- and grit-encrusted pub that had long been a favoured venue for railroad workers who, when they came off shift at the North Melbourne or Dynon yards, trudged with their Gladstone bags to the nearest watering hole and drank as much of their pay packets as they could before weaving home to the ball and chain. More than anything it was its convenient location—easy walking distance for an army of willing boozers—that kept the Unicorn’s cash registers ringing even in more recent years, when the old blue-collar traditions had begun to fade. An unusual, wedge-shaped building, it was located on a hill, adjacent to a railroad bridge, which accounted for its heavy coat of soot, dust and grit that had accumulated for over a century, going right back to the age of steam.
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