by JR Carroll
No one stood up to greet him.
‘Corny,’ the man said, a false smile failing to conceal his apprehension.
‘Troy,’ Cornstalk said, toneless.
Baker put his shopping bags on the counter. He began to unpack his groceries as if everything was just fine; nothing unusual about people breaking into your house. ‘When did you guys get here?’
‘Oh, not long ago,’ Cornstalk said.
Baker was silent. Sammy could feel the waves of concern radiating from his body. He would be thinking: these guys haven’t come all this way for a social visit. They’ve come to take me down.
‘Where’s the missus?’ Cornstalk said.
‘Oh, she split months ago,’ Baker said. ‘We had … irreconcilable differences.’
‘Irreconcilable differences. There’s a bit of that going around.’
Baker laughed—an empty sound coming from a frightened man trying to please.
‘I see you’ve helped yourselves to the fridge,’ he said, pulling out a VB for himself.
‘Didn’t think you’d mind,’ Cornstalk said.
‘No way,’ Baker said. ‘Knock yourself out.’ He stood by the fridge, one hand on his hip, slugging his beer.
Silence in the room.
‘So, ah … who are your mates?’ Baker said.
‘Oh, they’re just a couple of ne’er-do-wells. Come for the ride,’ Cornstalk said.
Stav laughed. Sammy smiled. Troy Baker was starting to look sick.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s get to it. What can I do for you boys?’
Cornstalk said, ‘You can pay me a quarter-million dollars.’
Baker laughed—another hollow gesture.
‘Excuse me. Did I say something funny?’ Cornstalk said. He spread his hands, looking at his two offsiders.
‘Apparently,’ Stav said. ‘Troy thinks so.’ He got up and helped himself to another VB from the fridge.
Troy Baker cast an unfriendly look in Stav’s direction. ‘Yeah, just help yourself, mate. Who is this Yankee Doodle Dandy, anyhow, barging into my house and taking over? And what’s this shit about a quarter mill?’
‘Oh, shit, is it?’ Cornstalk said.
Sammy sat sprawled in his chair, fingers interlocked across his stomach, watching with fascination as Baker’s situation worsened, moment by moment.
‘Yeah, shit,’ Baker said. ‘And I don’t appreciate people coming in here, acting as if they own the place.’ Apparently he’d decided aggression was the way to go now. But he had this reedy, high-pitched voice that only made him sound ridiculous.
‘But you said we were welcome,’ Cornstalk said calmly.
‘I meant you are welcome. These guys, I don’t know, they’re strangers. I come home to find strangers in my house, and you rabbiting on about a quarter-million dollars. I don’t get it.’
‘Let me remind you,’ Cornstalk said. ‘We had a deal, you and me. You were going to sell me some grass for an agreed price, ninety-five thousand dollars. After selling to distributors, I calculated a net profit of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But then I find that you’ve sold the dope to someone else, for a higher price. I’ve been gazumped!’
‘It was the Italians. They came at me with an offer—’
‘What, an offer you couldn’t refuse?’
‘Something like that,’ Baker said. ‘Look, these guys live nearby, I can’t ignore ’em.’
‘Right,’ Cornstalk said. ‘And I live far away, so you can ignore me.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘Yes, it is. That’s exactly what you meant. You pulled the pin on our deal because you thought you were out of my reach. But you were wrong, Troy.’
‘It was just … business,’ Baker said. ‘Nothing personal. I’ll sell you my next crop. You can still make your quarter mill.’
‘You’re missing the point,’ Cornstalk said. ‘You owe me a quarter-million dollars. My friends and I have come all this way to collect on the debt.’
‘Look at this dump. Do I look as if I got that sort of dough?’
‘OK,’ Cornstalk said. ‘I’ve heard enough of this.’ He stood up and moved towards Baker. Baker’s eyes flickered, but he stood his ground.
Cornstalk began slapping Baker’s face—hard. Each blow echoed like a gunshot in the room. Baker tried to fend off the attack by blocking his face, but Cornstalk kept brushing his arms away with his free hand while slapping him, forehand and backhand, again and again, until it seemed he would never stop.
By the time he did, Baker’s face was a bright blood-red; tears had burst from his eyes, and strings of snot trailed from his nose. He was a mess.
‘Jesus Christ!’ he blubbered in a high, whining voice. ‘Christ! Give it a rest, man! Shit a brick!’
Cornstalk was right there in his face, standing over him. ‘Quarter-million dollars, Troy,’ he said.
Baker gave him a wet-eyed stare. He began shaking his head. ‘I told you, I don’t have that much. But let me see what I got, maybe we can break the ice at least.’
‘OK,’ Cornstalk said. ‘Let’s see what you got.’ Dope growers always had wads of folding green, and other contraband, stashed somewhere in the house.
Baker reached into an overhead cupboard. But instead of producing cash, there was a black semiautomatic pistol in his hand. He swung it around, but Cornstalk was already onto him and gave Baker a belt on the side of the head before chopping at his wrist and forcing the gun from him.
It dropped with a loud clatter on the wooden floor.
Cornstalk shoved Baker hard up against the counter and delivered a barrage of stomach punches that had Baker on his knees. He stood over Baker, fists at the ready, but Baker was done for.
‘Not hospitable,’ Stav said, picking up the weapon. It was a Remington .32.
‘Definitely not,’ Cornstalk said. He kicked Baker in the back. ‘Hey, arsehole! That any way to treat visitors? We come all this way to visit you, and you want to shoot me?’
Stav put the gun next to Baker’s temple, pulled back the hammer.
Baker was bleating for his done-for hide.
Stav was set to pull the trigger when Cornstalk glanced through the kitchen window and saw a woman and a little girl right outside the house. Probably from the bus next door.
‘Wait,’ he told Stav.
Stav held the gun steady, first pressure already taken up on the trigger.
The woman and girl were still there. They showed no signs of leaving.
‘Too much noise,’ Cornstalk said. ‘Cool it with the gun.’
‘What, then?’ Stav said, easing down the hammer.
In an instant, Sammy grabbed a plastic shopping bag from the counter and pulled it down over Baker’s head. Baker was flat on his back trying to fight Sammy off. But Sammy had his knees on Baker’s shoulders while he held the bag tight around Baker’s throat. Baker tried desperately to get his hands free so he could try to pull Sammy’s powerful grip apart, but he had no hope—Sammy had him totally pinned. He watched Baker’s face through the bag as it passed through several stages on the way to the end. The eyes popped wide, the mouth sucked hard in a vain search for air until the bag itself was sucked into his mouth. Then his body convulsed for a second or two before collapsing and going totally slack.
Baker’s eyes still stared at Sammy through the opaque plastic, but there was no life in them.
After a few moments he loosened his grip on Baker’s throat.
The man was as dead as dead could be.
‘Fuckin’ A,’ Stav said.
‘Good one, Sammy,’ Cornstalk said, giving him a slap on the back.
Sammy was still sitting on Baker, pinning his lifeless shoulders with his knees.
‘Fuckin’ Christo, you genius!’ Stav said.
‘What’s Christo?’ Sammy said.
‘Christo is this artist. He wraps things in plastic. Bridges, buildings, whatever. That’s his thing—wrapping stuff in plastic. Just like you, man! You’re a f
ucking artist!’
‘Christo,’ Cornstalk said. ‘I like it.’
‘Christo it is,’ Stav said. ‘That’s your new moniker!’
Sammy was somewhat confused. An artist who wrapped things in plastic. How was that art? Made no sense. But he liked the name. Christo. It was better than Sammy, which was a bit of a girl’s name. Christo was more macho. He’d go with that.
Sammy Paxinos had made his bones. He finally had the respect he’d always wanted. Now he was a fully accredited member of Cornstalk’s inner circle. When the job really needed to get done, Christo was the go-to guy.
Cornstalk, Stav, Christo: three merry sociopaths; or, as Stav put it more than once, the three amigos.
*
They tossed the place, found cash and drugs and more weapons. After darkness fell, they bundled Troy Baker’s body into the Commodore’s trunk and drove into the bush, following little-used dirt tracks. The body was dumped next to a creek, covered with leaves and branches.
A hiker found it weeks later, badly decomposed and partly eaten by the feral dogs that roamed the area. In the paper, homicide cops said they could not say how Troy Baker, a local man who was a former bikie with a long criminal history involving drugs, had died. They were appealing for witnesses, looking for a ‘dark-coloured car, possibly a Ford or Holden’, seen at the victim’s house at around the time of his death.
In other words, they had sweet FA.
The case soon faded from the press. Then it disappeared into the too-hard, who-cares basket. One more dirtbag had bitten the dust.
In the ensuing period Christo moved right on up the criminal chain. Cash rolled in, from drugs or extortion, occasional robberies from warehouses and factories where precursor chemicals were made and stored. Life was good.
Then he hit a major hurdle. One night he beat up a guy in a pub so savagely the victim bit off his tongue and had to have one of his testicles surgically removed.
Christo had to do eight months in Silverwater for that.
No problem. No one tried to fuck with him inside. His reputation had preceded him.
On the morning he came out, Cornstalk and Stav were there to meet him in Cornstalk’s new ride, a gleaming 5X BMW.
Christo had nowhere to live, but that didn’t matter. He could camp at Cornstalk’s place outside Captains Flat till he found something. That day, Friday, there was a barbecue planned for Cornstalk’s birthday. All the Black Mamba reprobates would be there. Cornstalk was turning fifty-two.
He was looking every minute of it.
The three amigos were back in business. Coming Saturday, Cornstalk told him en route to Captains Flat, there was a job on at a place called Pericoe. Christo had never heard of it. It was another road trip; another old farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere.
Piece of piss.
They’d be back in town by Sunday lunchtime.
34
Within a few minutes Christo knew it was a no go. Try as he may, concentrate as he may, nothing happened. Get up, you motherfucker.
No response. There was an insurmountable barrier between the spirit and the flesh.
Red-faced, he glared at Amy. He zipped up, stepped back from the bed. ‘She doesn’t do it for me.’
‘We can see that,’ Stav said, flashing a nasty grin.
‘Hey,’ Cornstalk said. ‘Come on, man. Prime beef on the hoof, and you’re a no show? Thought you were a team player.’
Stav gave a snicker.
‘Wouldn’t want to go after you two, anyway.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ Cornstalk said.
‘Yeah.’
‘Hey, Tim,’ Cornstalk said. ‘What d’you make of that? Pathetic or what? If I was you, I’d be insulted.’
Christo turned his hate-filled eyes to Tim. ‘I’ve had enough of this shit. Let’s waste ’em.’
‘He’s got a point,’ Cornstalk said. He pressed the .22 into Tim’s forehead. ‘The time has come, I’m afraid. Any last words?’
Through a blur, Tim watched Amy struggle to put her clothes back on. She was so distressed she hardly seemed aware of her circumstances.
Cornstalk cocked the hammer. Tim heard the cylinder rotate, click into place.
‘Get it over with!’ Christo cried.
Cornstalk’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Tim braced himself. He could see that Amy, now dressed again, was sitting on the side of the bed, her head in her hands, as if she had just woken from a nightmare. Then she looked up at Tim with a face so traumatised he hardly recognised her.
‘At least let my wife go,’ Tim said. ‘That should be worth fifty grand.’
Cornstalk seemed to think about that. Turning to Christo, he said, ‘Go and get the money from the car. See if you can do that, at least. Here, take this.’ He handed him his .45.
Stav laughed.
‘Fuck you,’ Christo said.
Stuffing the gun down his pants, Christo descended the stairs. He was happy to be out of the room. It would take some time to live his non-performance down, now. Maybe he never would.
He negotiated the rubble in the kitchen and picked his way through the remains of the smashed door. The Kluger was a sad and sorry sight. He opened the driver’s door, which had been left unlocked, and scanned the car’s interior.
No briefcase.
He went around the back, lifted the rear door. There it was.
Hauling it out, he opened the case and immediately saw the bundles of green banknotes. Easily fifty grand, he thought.
He brought down the door and turned to go back inside. He had not quite reached the doorway when something struck him so hard he did not have the opportunity to make a sound. His head exploded, turning into a cosmos of swirling stars, millions of them, and then the stars went out and a total darkness engulfed him.
*
From his cover behind the generator shed, Jimmy Raines had watched Christo approach the Kluger. This was the chance he’d been sweating on. Waiting for Christo to turn his back, Jimmy emerged from the shadows and in an instant struck him once, hard, at the junction of his neck and shoulder. It was a blow powerful enough to fell a horse.
He quickly searched the unconscious man, turning him over onto his back and discovering the pistol in his belt.
Jimmy took the gun, a .45 semiautomatic to his expert eye, and silently worked the slide to find there was a round in the chamber.
He flicked off safety and approached the house, the weapon held by his side.
There were voices upstairs. Jimmy stepped quietly through the wreckage of the doorway into the kitchen. Debris littered the floor. To his left was an upside-down dining table. There was the smell of burning kerosene from the lanterns that were placed at various strategic points in the house, including upstairs in the master bedroom.
That was where the voices were coming from.
He took the first step. His heart was thumping. You have to have a plan, he told himself.
He had the element of surprise, and the gun. He had to be prepared to use it, without hesitation.
Halfway up the spiral staircase, he paused to think it through.
Far as he knew, four people were in the room: two good guys, two bad guys. He assumed the bad guys were in charge. Problem was, he didn’t know the configuration in there. Would he get a clear shot at one of the bad guys? He would only have a nanosecond to size up the situation, make his decision. If he didn’t shoot straight away, the bad guys certainly would. Then it would be curtains for Jimmy.
But if there wasn’t a clear shot, if his aim was just slightly off, he ran a real risk of hitting Tim or Amy. In the chaos and confusion of that moment, anything could happen.
Steeling his resolve, he continued upwards, one careful step at a time. The journey felt interminable.
Near the top of the staircase, he stopped. Took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. From inside the bedroom, a male voice said: ‘Where is that fucker?’
‘Want me to go see?’ an American voice replied.
‘Give it another minute,’ the other man told him. ‘And, if this fifty grand turns out to be a fairy story, get ready to chew some bullets, counsellor.’
On the landing, Jimmy stole a glance into the room.
One of the bad guys, the tall one with a ponytail, was looking straight at him.
Jimmy pulled his head in. He didn’t know whether he’d been spotted or not. The man had actually been looking in his direction, not at him. Probably waiting for the other guy, expecting him to show any second, with that fifty grand from Tim’s car. That must’ve been what was in the briefcase.
Tim was trying to buy his life. Amy’s life.
With his back to the wall, Jimmy raised the tip of the .45 to his chin, prescribed two-handed grip, shut his eyes, took another deep breath, let it out—
And sprang from the wall, bursting into the room in the same movement, both arms extended in front of him.
‘Tim! Amy! Hit the floor!’
35
In the instant he’d finished shouting those words, Jimmy opened fire.
The tall one, Ponytail, was his primary target.
He got off three quick shots.
Ponytail spun to his right; a bullet had struck him somewhere near his neck. Blood immediately sprayed the white wall. Jimmy was pretty sure he’d hit him a second time, too. Where, he couldn’t be sure.
Jimmy switched his aim to the second bad guy; he saw in his peripheral vision that Tim had lunged at Ponytail, who was screaming blue murder. No sign of Amy anywhere.
Jimmy got off another two shots, but then Ponytail, despite everything, began returning fire. Even from his doubled-over position, with Tim all over him, he’d managed to draw his weapon, aim it in Jimmy’s general direction and let fly. Jimmy caught a glimpse of a large, chrome-plated handgun.
Bullets were zapping to and fro across the room, smashing holes in walls. Jimmy heard—felt—one of them snap past his left ear.
That gave him pause.
In the meantime, the second bad guy tore a bedside lamp from its socket and hurled it at him. It crashed into his face, knocking him off balance. His next shot went astray as he took several steps backwards. Then his back foot seemed to go from under him. Without knowing, he’d retreated all the way to the top step of the staircase. There was no purchase under that rear foot, only fresh air.