8 Hours to Die

by JR Carroll

  She turned away from him. He could feel the negative vibes coming off her. She was scared to death, not thinking straight.

  He turned his attention to the window again. The man was still there, large as life, presenting himself as a target.

  Markleigh? Who the fuck’s Markleigh?

  Of course the man may have been lying, but Tim thought he sounded genuine. He had years of experience distinguishing liars from truth-tellers in the dock. To Tim’s ear this guy fell into the second category. Why would he bother lying, anyway?

  And, if that was the case, if Markleigh wasn’t behind it, who was?

  ‘Tim, come on, talk to me!’ the man called. He was still out in the open. ‘If you don’t come out,’ he continued, ‘we’ll all bang your missus, you know, a few times each, and then kill you. How does that sound?’

  Tim raised the pistol, aimed carefully, and squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet hit the ground not far from the man’s feet. He jumped sideways, then scurried off as Tim shot a second round.

  ‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Holy fucking Christ, take it easy, man! This is a fucking truce, right? We’re negotiating, you arsehole!’

  ‘Negotiations are over,’ Tim told him. ‘Get off my property.’

  ‘Bad move, mate,’ the man said. ‘You force my hand. Extreme measures are now called for.’ He disappeared around the front of the house. Tim crossed the room and watched the man through the window as he walked around the Kluger and shot out all four tyres. The car settled down onto its rims. To finish off, he blew a hole in the radiator, scattering bits of metal and plastic.

  ‘Guess you won’t be going anywhere now,’ he shouted up to the window. ‘Not that you ever were!’ He raised the shotgun, pumped another shell into the chamber and fired. It all happened in a moment.

  Tim dived backwards as the window exploded.

  Shards of glass flew over the room.

  Amy screamed and covered her face.

  Tim realised he was bleeding. There was a piece of glass in his forehead; another in his cheek. He pulled them both out and checked to see if Amy was OK. She was pressed against a wall, arms tight across her chest. She glared at Tim with intense fear—and hatred.

  ‘You provoked him!’ she shouted. ‘Why’d you have to do that?’

  Tim noticed blood on his shirt. There were at least three pieces of glass in his chest. He pulled them all out.

  Now blood ran freely down his chest. Pain sucked the air from his lungs.

  He grabbed a pillow, ripped off the pillow case and pressed it against his body to staunch the flow but it quickly darkened as his blood spread through the fabric.

  There was a first aid kit downstairs, in the bathroom. He needed to have these wounds properly dressed, soon.

  ‘Amy, can you get some bandages from the bathroom?’

  Amy didn’t respond.

  ‘Please?’

  She left without a word.

  By the time she came back, Tim had removed his shirt. She applied the bandages expertly—she was trained in first aid—but with shaking hands. He watched her face as she swabbed the wounds with alcohol and cut lengths of bandage with surgical scissors.

  She ought not to be in such a state of shock and fear, he thought, given her history of infatuation with a vicious criminal. It was on the tip of his tongue to say something, but wisdom prevailed and he kept his mouth shut.

  Tim could never understand why educated, intelligent women from good families, his own wife included, would choose to throw in their lot with a criminal. Was it simply a personality defect, or an innate desire to nurture or rehabilitate?

  Perhaps a magnetic personality overrode education, intelligence and everything else.

  When Amy had finished, Tim put his shirt back on and returned to the shattered window. Peering out carefully, he could see nobody.

  Then he heard a chainsaw start up.

  He rushed to the other side of the house.

  There he was, the tall one in charge, brandishing the bigger of Tim’s two chainsaws. He had a big grin on his face.

  Next, there was a clattering sound from somewhere at the back of the house. Tim rushed to the adjoining room and looked out the attic window.

  One of them was climbing a ladder to the upstairs window. He was carrying what looked in the darkness like a sledgehammer.

  They were attacking on two fronts.

  29

  After Dingo had driven past a low wooden building with boarded-up windows—once an office—the Volvo’s headlights illuminated a large moving van with BADCOCK & SONS painted on its side. It was parked next to a red-brick structure that seemed to be a shed or truck bay. The shed had double doors that were wide open.

  No sign of Rafe yet. Or anyone.

  Dingo pulled up with the headlight beams illuminating the van. He switched off the motor, left the lights on, and jumped out. Sammy followed.

  ‘Rafe?’ Dingo shouted. There was nothing—pure silence. Only the crunching of gravel beneath their feet, and the ticking of the Volvo’s motor.

  ‘Rafe?’ Dingo called again. He checked the van’s cabin. Empty. Then he went inside the shed. ‘Where are you, you dozy bastard?’

  Sammy stood in front of the Volvo, its lights blazing. That bad feeling of his would not go away.

  When Dingo came back out of the shed, a man appeared from nowhere. Dingo saw him and stopped dead in his tracks. Sammy couldn’t see who it was because his view was mostly blocked by the van.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ Dingo said. ‘Where’s Rafe?’ His arms hung loose by his sides.

  The man emerged from behind the van. Sammy had a good view of him now. He was tall, with a long blond ponytail and worn leather jacket. Sammy thought he must’ve been in the back of the van.

  ‘Rafe couldn’t make it,’ the man said in a calm, deep voice. ‘I’m his replacement.’

  ‘And who the fuck are you?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter who the fuck I am,’ the man said evenly. He turned to Sammy. ‘You over there—get here!’

  That was when Sammy saw a sawn-off shotgun in the man’s right hand. He aimed it first at Dingo, then at Sammy.

  Sammy hustled. He wasn’t arguing with a shotgun.

  ‘Get over there next to your mate,’ the man said, waving the weapon. ‘Dingo, right?’

  ‘If you say so.’ Dingo was still standing loose, arms by his side. The pistol in his belt was not visible with his shirt hanging over it. He gave Sammy a quick glance: Don’t do nothin’. Let me handle this.

  The glance did not escape the man with the shotgun. Up close, Sammy could see that he wore a tattered bomber jacket with a Hells Angels insignia on the front and patches all over it.

  Fucking Hells Angel. Great.

  Far as Sammy knew, they got around in packs.

  ‘You can both put your hands over your heads,’ the man said, good-naturedly, as if they were all mates playing a game. ‘Like in the westerns. Keep ’em there till I say. And turn around. Come on, about-face.’

  Dingo and Sammy complied. The shotgun was thrust into Dingo’s back.

  ‘Move it,’ the man ordered. ‘Get in your rig. Turn it around, back her up to the van.’

  ‘Making a big mistake, my friend,’ Dingo said as he climbed into the Volvo and fired up the engine.

  ‘I’ll worry about that. You, shortarse—what’s your name, soldier?’

  ‘Sammy.’

  ‘OK, Sammy, move to one side. Over there where I can see you.’

  The man followed the Volvo, his shotgun aimed squarely at the driver’s window, as Dingo completed the manoeuvre.

  ‘That’s it. Good job. Now, Dingo, get outta there. Open the back.’

  Dingo expertly loosened the four vertical bolts that locked the container. Then he swung the two doors open.

  They stared at a pallet of shrink-wrapped cartons, nearly reaching to the roof. Sammy figured there had to be at least four or five more behind it. A shitload of booze.

 
‘Sammy,’ the man said. ‘Grab that hand truck over there, by the van. Bring it here.’

  Sammy did as instructed. His thoughts repeatedly came back to the gun in Dingo’s pants, and the knife in his back pocket. Between them they had a gun and a knife, against a shotgun. But they had to wait for an opportunity, which would surely come.

  ‘Dingo,’ the man said. ‘Rip that plastic open. You’re on the container; Sammy’s on the hand truck. Let’s get busy. We got a lot of work ahead of us before we go home tonight. If we go home.’

  Dingo climbed into the box and slashed the plastic shrink-wrap with a box-cutter from his pocket. He’d come prepared for this. He set down three cartons, which Sammy loaded onto the hand truck and wheeled to the back of the moving van.

  ‘Start stacking ’em right up the front,’ the biker said. ‘And get a wriggle on. No slacking in this outfit.’

  It was going to be a long night all right. Sammy went as hard as he could to keep up with Dingo; sometimes he’d come back to the container and there’d be six cartons waiting for him: Johnnie Walker Blue, Glenfiddich, Talisker, Isle of Islay, Laphroaig, and other unpronouncable brands. Nearly all single malt whisky—the best.

  There was no end to it.

  In no time Sammy had worked up a sweat. He’d drawn the rough end of the deal: the donkey work. But he wasn’t complaining. He was thinking—thinking of ways and means.

  An hour gone by, he was wondering when Dingo was going to make his play. Occasionally when he fronted up to the truck for the next batch of cartons, Dingo would throw him a quick look: Stay cool. Don’t do anything to tip this ponytailed rip-off merchant that I’m packing. We have surprise on our side.

  All very well, but just the same Sammy considered other options: making a break for it through the base out to the back. The guy couldn’t see him when he was behind the van; he couldn’t control two people when they were far apart like that. Sammy could easily leg it.

  But then … There were too many buts. He was highly likely to run into a fence, for one; end up bailed up, nowhere to go, like a prisoner trying to escape from a concentration camp. Also, where the hell could he run? They were out in the fucking bush, several or maybe even ten kilometres from anywhere, in the dead of night. He’d be running through the bush, trying to find a road. Fuck that for an option.

  But there was a more important, overriding consideration: Sammy Paxinos did not run from a fight. Not now, not ever. Added to which, if Dingo did manage to turn the tables, and Sammy had run for it, he’d be nothing but a shit smear forever.

  Regardless, he couldn’t just abandon Dingo. That was not on. When the time came, when Dingo made his call, Sammy would take on this son of a bitch, Hells Angel or not, and make him eat his own shit. Cut off his balls, make him eat them too.

  Sammy wasn’t scared, shotgun or no shotgun. Had to be careful, was all.

  The van was all but full when Sammy jumped down, grabbed the hand truck and headed back for what had to be the last of the Scotch. They’d been going at it for an hour and three-quarters.

  He was wheeling the truck alongside the van when it happened.

  Dingo climbed down from the container, his back turned to the shotgun-wielding biker. Then he swung around fast, the pistol extended in his right hand. Sammy heard click, and then another click.

  ‘Fuck!’ Dingo yelled. He fiddled with the gun, trying to work the slide to get a round into the chamber. He’d forgotten to cock the fucking weapon. But before he could manage it, an almighty blast ripped through the still night air.

  Dingo was lifted clear off his feet; he flew backwards, arms outspread, against the back of the truck; then he slid down onto the ground into a sitting position, head on his chest.

  He wasn’t moving. Dingo was dead meat.

  It was all over in a second.

  Sammy was out in the open, standing still, holding the hand truck, when the biker turned, put the shotgun right on him.

  ‘Keep coming, Sammy,’ he said. ‘Not quite done yet.’ He was one cool bastard.

  Sammy approached, wheeling the hand truck.

  ‘Stop right there, soldier,’ the man said. ‘Make sure you got your mind set straight. I got one more just like that for you, any time you want it.’

  Sammy froze up. No way did he want his guts spread over the dirt like Dingo’s. No amount of Scotch was worth that.

  *

  Strange how events can turn around, Sammy was thinking, in ways you couldn’t predict. Right now he was behind the wheel of a Badcock & Sons moving van; presumably stolen, carrying a cargo of expensive contraband. Next to him sat a ponytailed biker, aged forty-odd, the sawn-off shotgun cradled across his legs, pointing in Sammy’s general direction.

  They were on their way back to Sydney. It was 3.30am.

  There wasn’t much in the way of conversation. Sammy was deep in thought, wondering about his situation, how it might pan out. The gunman was staring at him with this loose, devil-may-care grin on his face.

  ‘Case you’re wondering,’ the man said after a while, ‘I put an extra load in. So don’t get too many bright ideas.’

  ‘No chance,’ Sammy said.

  ‘Smart lad,’ the man said. He seemed to relax a little as they hummed along the highway. ‘That Dingo,’ he said. ‘Was he a good mate of yours?’

  ‘Only just met him,’ Sammy said.

  ‘Well … he was one dumb motherfucker. There’s a golden rule, Sammy. You never take on a shotgun. You just don’t.’

  Sammy didn’t say anything. His mind was in overdrive, trying to see a way clear of his current situation. The guy seemed happy to chat, so that might be a way to go.

  ‘What’s your name, anyway?’ Sammy said.

  The man thought about it. ‘You can call me Corny,’ he said. ‘That’ll have to do for now.’

  ‘OK, Corny,’ Sammy said. ‘You want to point that thing somewhere else? I go over a bump or something, hit a wombat, it might go off accidentally.’

  The man named Corny grinned and nodded, and moved the weapon.

  ‘What happened to Rafe?’ Sammy said after a few more minutes.

  ‘Rafe went mouthing off in the wrong pub,’ Corny said. ‘Word got to me that two lads had this job on; I made inquiries. Then I paid him a visit: I needed more detailed intelligence. Rafe was brave for about ten minutes. When I lit the blowtorch he changed his mind real fast. I couldn’t shut him up after that.’

  Sammy drove in silence, but his mind was racing. Seems everyone I get mixed up with comes to grief. First Zed, then Dingo and Rafe.

  ‘How is he?’ he enquired, fearing the worst. ‘Rafe.’

  ‘Not that bad. Busted up a bit is all,’ Corny said. ‘He’ll be right as rain after a stint in hospital. He got off light, considering. But that’s the price you pay for loyalty—and having loose lips.’

  *

  Corny directed him to a garage in Petersham, in an industrial backstreet. A body shop. When they arrived, Corny jumped out and lifted the roller door and waved Sammy through.

  It was a big space, not that many cars waiting to be fixed. Corny disappeared near an office and suddenly the place was flooded with light.

  ‘OK,’ he said, clapping his hands. ‘That’s it. We’re done. Time to celebrate.’

  He opened the back of the van, and in no time had dug out a bottle of Talisker. Then he pulled up a couple of chairs, cracked the seal and took the first swig. There was no sign of the shotgun.

  ‘Fucking great stuff,’ he said, passing the bottle. ‘Liquid gold.’

  Sammy studied the label for a moment before putting the bottle to his lips. It was indeed superior. Up close, in the light, he figured this Corny dude for about forty, forty-five; he had a worn and ravaged face that made him look older than his years, probably. And the Hells Angels bomber jacket was in a bad state of disrepair. Looked as if it’d been savaged by wild dogs. Sammy handed back the bottle.

  ‘So you’re a Hells Angel, right?’ he said by way of conversation.<
br />
  ‘Used to be,’ Corny said, giving him a look. ‘We had a … difference of opinion. Went separate ways.’ He slugged on the bottle before handing it over.

  ‘That explains it,’ Sammy said, accepting the bottle.

  ‘Explains what?’

  ‘Why you didn’t have a crew tonight,’ Sammy said and returned the bottle. ‘Bikers hang out in gangs.’

  ‘Matter of fact,’ Corny said, ‘I’m in the process of putting a new crew together.’

  ‘Biker crew?’

  ‘Along those lines, yeah.’ He took a deep swig from the Talisker. It was about half empty now. Sammy was feeling a little whacked, what with the night’s events, but the alcohol didn’t seem to have any effect on Corny.

  ‘Sorry I had to shoot your mate,’ Corny said after a bit. ‘Didn’t intend for that to happen. No way. He brought it on himself. He made a bad choice. After that, it was him or me.’

  Sammy didn’t reply. He was thinking what a weird night it had turned out to be. He’d gone out on a job with one partner and come back with another. Dingo—he didn’t really know how he felt about that. They weren’t really mates. But sitting here chewing the fat and knocking back top-shelf whisky with this dude Corny, Dingo’s killer, it was as if they were mates.

  One thing did piss Sammy off, mightily: it’d all been for nothing. He wouldn’t get a cut now. He was lucky to get out of it in one piece.

  Shit happens, he thought.

  They drank and chatted for a time longer. The night was drawing to a close—Sammy could feel it, a new day seeping into his bones. When he looked at his watch it was quarter to six. Suddenly he was dog tired—too tired to pull his knife on Corny even if he wanted to.

  ‘Think I’ll fuck off,’ he said. ‘I’m beat.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Corny said. ‘Same same.’

  Sammy was free to go.

  It was one strange night, for sure. He opened the Judas gate and they both stepped out into the cold air. Sammy didn’t know if he’d find a taxi around here.

  ‘Come on,’ Corny said. ‘I’ll run you up to the cab rank.’