Katja from the Punk Band

by Simon Logan

  SIMON LOGAN

  ChiZine Publications

  Katja From The Punk Band

  FIRST EDITION

  Katja From the Punk Band © 2010 by Simon Logan

  Jacket design © 2010 by Erik Mohr

  All Rights Reserved.

  CIP data available upon request.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS

  Toronto, Canada

  www.chizinepub.com

  info@chizinepub.com

  Edited by Brett Alexander Savory

  Copyedited and proofread by Sandra Kasturi

  Converted to mobipocket and epub by Christine http://finding-free-ebooks.blogspot.com

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Part One: Katja From The Punk Band Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Part Two: Fucking Useless Junkie Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part Three: The Man Who Kidnapped Her Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part Four: Kohl Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part Five: Before Things Went Wrong Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Part Six: Katja Again Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Part Seven: Kohl Again Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Part Eight: A New Player Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Part Nine: Going After Kohl Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Part Ten: Getting Off The Island Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Part Eleven: Convergence Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  About The Author

  PART ONE

  KATJA FROM THE PUNK BAND

  CHAPTER ONE

  So she walks in, trying to look cool, trying to look like nothing has happened, like nothing has gone wrong, but it’s difficult because she still feels the ghost of the revolver’s handle pressed against her palm and the scent of gunpowder in her nostrils.

  Her liberty spikes are limp from the rain that battered her as she ran to the diner, her bruise-like makeup streaking her cheeks and angular jaw line. Water is collecting on the translucent plastic tube that sticks out of a hole in the middle of her neck, and dribbles from it as the door swings shut behind her, closing out the smog and the rumble of machinery.

  The place is quiet, the usual cases of human debris scattered amongst the booths lingering over bowls of soup or chili. Freya is taking an order from a group of men whose bags litter the floor by their feet. They are roaches, those whose have a permanent stink of peroxide and ammonia, whose job it is to crawl through empty factories and old chimney shafts, scraping out the chemical grime. Freya’s face is screwed up from the odour when she turns and notices Katja.

  Katja strides past the other woman, flips open the counter hatch and goes through a door into the kitchen beyond.

  There is the stench of old fat and new fat, of fried onions and sweat. She grabs a towel from a collection of them hanging from a bare nail spiked into one of the walls and begins to rub her shoulders and arms dry. She is about to reach into the pocket of her combats when the door swings open and Freya walks in. Katja’s hand freezes where it is, then finds something else to do. She rubs the short, shaved hair at the sides of her head.

  “You okay?” Freya asks. “You’re late.”

  She grabs some bowls from the stack on the preparation counter before her and lifts the lid off of a large black pot that steams when she opens it. Katja’s stomach turns at the meaty stench, her hand going to her mouth.

  “I’m fine,” she replies, taking an apron from the same nail the towel was hanging from.

  Freya slops some of the dark mess from the pot into the bowl. Katja dry-heaves again.

  “Your arm,” Freya says softly, without looking up. “Did he . . . ?

  And it is only then that Katja notices the welt that runs across her forearm, wrist to elbow, and the small cut at the centre of it. With the realization comes the pain.

  “It’s nothing,” she says distractedly and quickly busies herself putting on her apron so she can turn away from the other waitress. “Things got out of hand at the gig last night.”

  “I can stay a little bit longer if you need to — ”

  “No,” Katja says and immediately knows she was too harsh. She tongues her lip piercing. “You have to go. Get home. Do you want me to take those?”

  Freya shakes her head. “Never mind. I’ll do it myself.” She pushes her way out into the service area and, once she is gone, Katja looks down at the wound on her arm.

  Shit.

  She reaches into her pocket and pulls out the vial when she sees Freya putting the bowls of chili down through the service window for the roaches. The vial is about six inches long and mostly translucent save for the frosted watermark that identifies it as coming from Dracyev’s chemical labs. Inside it a thin, gold-tinged liquid moves, contained by a jet black rubber stopper. Katja opens a drawer stuffed with old, rusted utensils and places it carefully inside.

  Next she hears the ding of the entrance bell and her heart rate spikes. She peers through the service window and watches as a pale man with black hair hanging over his eyes enters. He glances around momentarily at the other customers then sits at the counter. He meets Katja’s eyes through the opening.

  “Be with you in a minute,” she tells the man.

  She closes the drawer, breathes.

  “You getting this one? Because I’m off now,” Freya says through the window.

  “Sure.”

  Katja hesitates at the door to the service area, a sudden rush of adrenaline surging through her as if she expects someone else to be waiting for her on the other side. She peers through the window.

  There is a lone girl stooped over a bowl of soup, letting the steam wash over her face as she stares down into it. A runaway, most likely.

  There is an older couple that don’t look at each other while they eat their sandwiches.

  There is a couple of truckers sitting by empty bowls and coffee cups, playing some sort of card game with one another. One of them looks up and catches Katja’s eye, smiles as he goes back to the cards.

  She thinks what was he smiling at?

  She thinks was he smiling at me?

  She thinks why was he smiling at
me? Does he know?

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “Hey.”

  And it’s Freya, scowling at her through the service opening.

  “What the fuck is up with you? Are you going to get to work or not?”

  Katja tongues her lip piercing, pushes one of her flopping liberty spikes away from the back of her neck. It feels like a dead snake, like the arm of a lecherous uncle. “I’m washing my hands.”

  This is what she says to Freya as the other woman comes into the kitchen and drops her apron, pulls on her jacket.

  She turns on the tap of one of the sinks and rinses her hands once, twice, then dries them off on the same towel she used on herself earlier. The fabric has become sticky with clots of the egg whites she uses to stiffen her spikes.

  “See you tomorrow,” Freya says as she pokes a cigarette into her mouth and leaves through the heavy steel door at the back entrance. Katja stares at it for several moments after the woman is gone, considering it.

  In the end she goes through the other door, the one that leads into the service area, wipes her sticky hands on her apron. “What can I get you?” she asks the young man with the floppy hair.

  He brushes aside a clump of it and she can tell straight away he’s a junkie, and a junkie who hasn’t had his fix recently. His eyes seem to sparkle, to vibrate, and one of them is delicately swollen.

  “Coffee,” he mumbles. “Black. Six sugars.”

  Katja pours him a cup from the grumbling machine behind her, takes her time as she turns back to survey the customers once more. They all look normal, genuine — but how could she be sure? What if one of them had . . . ?

  Stop it.

  She pushes the cup in front of the junkie and gives him a sugar bowl.

  “Knock yourself out,” she says.

  And she’s looking at the smiling trucker again because he’s looking at her.

  She turns away, grabs a cloth and cleans the same spot on the counter over and over.

  What now? What now?

  What the fuck had she gone to the diner for anyway? To pretend everything was normal? To whom?

  To whom?

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  But she has the vial, she has her ticket off the island.

  Not quite.

  She tries to slow her thoughts down, tries to grab a hold of them so she can focus on them properly.

  She has the vial, yes — but she doesn’t have Januscz, and those waiting for the vial would be expecting them both. So what now?

  There is laughter and she turns to the booth with the men playing cards. The trucker looks up at her once again but this time he isn’t smiling.

  He knows, she thinks, he knows. How can he know?

  Stop it. Stop it. He doesn’t know. If he did why wouldn’t he just go straight to her and take the vial?

  He doesn’t know.

  She needs to get out of there, Katja realizes. She went to the diner because she was already late for her shift and didn’t want to arouse any more suspicion, because she had panicked, but now she realizes she has to get out of there. The trucker probably doesn’t know what she’s done but it will only be a matter of time until someone comes along who does.

  Shit, they would know where she works, they would know where to come.

  Get out. Take the vial and get the fuck out of here.

  But she isn’t going to get anywhere without Januscz, and she doesn’t think it likely he will be turning up any time soon to help her.

  Not considering the state she had left him in.

  He goes up to the junkie and she says to him, “I need your help.”

  He doesn’t seem to register the request at first, then looks up. His eyes fix on her lip ring, sparkling in the harsh lighting. He seems transfixed by it.

  “Huh?”

  “Do you have a car?”

  “Huh?”

  “Do you have a car?”

  His fingernails are adorned with chipped nail polish and he wears thick leather straps around each wrist. “A car?”

  “Yes. Do you have a car?”

  He nods.

  “Then I need your help. I need you to drive me somewhere,” Katja tells him.

  “Drive?”

  He looks like he’s still catching up on her first question, still processing it.

  He chews on one of his fingernails.

  “I need to get to the docks. I’m meeting someone there. Will you drive me?”

  “Uhhh. The docks?”

  “Yes. I’m meeting somewhere there. Can you take me?”

  He looks around at the others in the diner and begins to say something but his tongue becomes wrapped around whatever substance he’s still riding and it’s nonsense that comes out. He takes a sip of his coffee and winces at its heat and/or sweetness. Chews his nail.

  “I think some people might be after me,” Katja adds to see if it will spur him on. “I think I might be in danger.”

  “Uhhh . . . yeah. Uhhh. Yeah.”

  He takes another sip of his coffee, looks around once more.

  “Hey,” Katja snaps. “Are you listening to me?”

  “Mmmm,” the man says. “Yeah . . . you want me to drive you.”

  “Yes.”

  “To the docks.”

  “Yes.”

  And she’s beginning to think perhaps she should have asked someone else.

  Anyone else.

  “Okay,” he says. This fucked-up druggie says. “Sure.”

  “Good. Can you take me now? I need to get there now.”

  “Uhhh, sure. Uhhh, yeah.”

  Katja looks across at the truckers and now they’re all staring back at her. The one that smiled at her before, he isn’t smiling any more. She sees his jaw muscles working.

  “I’m going to go out the back way. Wait a minute then go out the front. There’s an alley that leads up the side of the building. Meet me there. Okay?” The man nods and Katja goes back through into the kitchen. She reaches into the drawer and for some reason panics that the vial won’t be there anymore but it is, it is there. She picks it up and puts it back in her pocket. Takes off her apron and stuffs the garment into the pot of chili. She’s about to walk out when she hears the junkie shout, “Hey.”

  Her heart rate raises again and she pokes her head through the service window. The junkie is leaning over the counter slightly, conspiratorially.

  “What?” Katja asks.

  And he whispers loudly, “How much is it for the coffee?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  She’s watching beads of sweat like glass balls tumbling from his brow and he’s leaving smears of wet handprints on the steering wheel as he constantly adjusts his grip. The car is a battered old thing and looks about as secure as the man who is driving it but she has no other choice. She doesn’t even know what a clutch does.

  It’s still raining outside and it’s starting to get dark too. In one hand she’s holding the vial she took out of her pocket when she climbed into the car in case it cracked or split. Even if she had anywhere else to put it, she is too preoccupied to bother hiding it from the man. She notices him glance at it then look away several times.

  Finally she says, “This is what I’ve to take to the docks.” She uncurls her palm and lets the vial roll along her fingers. First joint. Second joint. Third. The liquid inside sparkles.

  He seems too disinterested to not be interested.

  And it only occurs to her now as she sits spinning it around and around in her palm that she could have made a mistake in picking a junkie to help her. He chews on a nail as he considers the vial.

  But he doesn’t ask what it is.

  “I need to pick up some stuff first,” she says. “I need to get my stuff.”

  She gives him directions to her squat and looks over her shoulder, watches the headlights behind them to see if they are being followed. The rain batters against the hood of the car, a hundred little explosions of light and water and she finds herself thinking of a similar wet burst that
had come from Januscz.

  And then, in the silence, the junkie says, “You’re from that punk band aren’t you? The Stumps. You played at King Tut’s last week?”

  Katja doesn’t say anything, feeling a little exposed.

  “I remember you because of your . . .”

  His eyes trail across the plastic tube sticking out of her throat. His words drift.

  “You were good,” he says instead.

  “It’s a tracheostomy tube,” she tells him, ignoring the compliment. “My name’s Katja.”

  And she thinks shit, should have made a name up, but it’s too late now and does it really matter anyway?

  “Nikolai,” he says.

  “Nice to meet you, Nikolai.”

  He swings the car around a bend, past the garish neon glow of porn signage and in the paranormal lighting women stalk with gazelle legs and heavy coats wrapped around themselves. They are only a few blocks away from the squat now and she finds herself hoping it’s either very busy or very quiet there.

  “I have something to confess, Nikolai,” Katja says. “I need you to help me out a little more than just driving me to the docks.”

  Nikolai doesn’t take his eyes from the road ahead and she isn’t even sure if he registered what she said. “Huh.”

  Should she tell him? She has to tell him. There is no point in her risking involving him as she already has if she isn’t going to go all the way through with it.

  “This vial, there’s a man waiting for it on a boat going to the mainland tonight.”

  “The mainland?”

  The mainland. Which meant that whatever was happening definitely wasn’t legal.

  “You want to get off this fucking shit-tip island, Nikolai?”

  “I . . .”

  “’Course you do. Everybody does. That’s why they work so hard to keep us all here. That’s why the only boats that come to and from the island are either bringing shit or taking it. But I can get you off the island, Nikolai. Tonight. Do you have any friends or family?”