Bring Back Cerberus

by Phillip Gwynne

  ‘That other dude, the one in the try-hard bandana, he looked sort of familiar,’ said Tristan.

  ‘Yeah, he gets around,’ I said.

  ‘So what now, squire?’ said Tristan.

  I was asking myself exactly the same question, but without the really quite annoying ‘squire’ reference.

  ‘We wait,’ I said.

  ‘Okay,’ said Tristan. ‘We wait.’

  While we waited, hiding behind some potted palms, Tristan asked me questions, question upon question upon question, like a four-year-old kid in their why-is-the-sky-blue? phase.

  Why did he arrange for the couriers?

  What was he after?

  Why didn’t I just tell the cops?

  My answers, quite creative in the beginning, became less and less so, until eventually I had no choice but to say, ‘Tristan, you really need to play the quiet game now.’

  ‘Just one more thing,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, just one more.’

  ‘That dude with the try-hard bandana,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere before.’

  ‘Maybe on some eighties TV show,’ I joked, but Tristan was having none of this.

  ‘I’m sure I’ve seen him,’ he said again.

  Finally the lift stopped, the doors slid open, and Guzman and Red Bandana, still holding the black attaché case, were standing there.

  I still didn’t have a plan except: keep out of their sight, follow them, wait for some sort of opportunity to present itself.

  Tristan took a couple of steps forward, out of the cover of the potted palms.

  ‘Get back!’ I hissed.

  ‘He’s the scumbag that shot at me!’ said Tristan, and he started running.

  Guzman and Red Bandana were making for the door but Tristan was behind them, rapidly catching up.

  His brain may have been rearranged but he’d lost none of his athletic prowess.

  When he was a couple of metres away he yelled, ‘Hey, you!’

  Both Guzman and Red Bandana stopped and looked around.

  ‘You so shot at me!’ said Tristan, and he launched himself at Red Bandana.

  I’m sure there was time for Red Bandana to get out of the way, but he just stood there, sort of mesmerised, as Tristan smashed into him.

  Both he and Tristan toppled to the floor.

  As they did, Red Bandana lost grip of the black attaché case and it slid along the floor, coming to rest at the feet of a security guard.

  By this time Tristan was on top of Red Bandana, pummelling him with his fists.

  ‘You shot at me!’ he kept saying. ‘You shot at me.’

  By this time I was out of the cover of the potted palms.

  By this time Guzman was looking straight at me.

  My first thought was: the black attaché case, I have to get it before he does.

  But when I looked at Guzman I could see that his eyes were not on the attaché case, his eyes were on the exit.

  Then it occurred to me: the black attaché case is a decoy.

  So when Guzman started running for the exit, I ran after him.

  Past the three security guards who were now trying to separate the pummelling Tristan from the pummelled Red Bandana, following Guzman onto the footpath.

  This was a busy street at a busy time of the day and there were people everywhere.

  Guzman was surprisingly fast, surprisingly agile, as he weaved through the crowd.

  I was gaining on him, though.

  In fact, I slowed down a bit.

  Because I still didn’t have a plan.

  Because I couldn’t imagine taking the Cerberus from Guzman against his will. I couldn’t imagine tackling him, or hitting him. Not in broad daylight.

  Eventually Guzman slowed down to a jog.

  Then a walk.

  He stopped.

  Face red, chest heaving: he was suffering, and now was the perfect time to take him out.

  ‘You idiot,’ he gasped. ‘You fell for it!’

  ‘Fell for what?’

  ‘The oldest trick in the book,’ he said. ‘Do you really think I’ve got it?’

  I thought of the black attaché case, how easy it would’ve been for me just to scoop it up.

  Was Guzman really that clever?

  Had I really fallen for the oldest trick in the book?

  Yes, he really was that clever but something, a sixth sense, an intuition, told me that he had the phone.

  But how to get it off him?

  It seemed to me that violence was the only way.

  There were fewer people around here and the Gold Coast was famously where people didn’t like to get involved.

  But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t king-hit Guzman. Or crash-tackle him the way Tristan had crash-tackled Red Bandana.

  I’m sure Guzman could sense my reluctance because his eyes were now darting all over the place, searching for an escape route.

  No, violence wasn’t my thing. Not like it was Hound’s thing.

  But as soon as I had that thought I had another contradictory one.

  Was violence really Hound’s thing? Yes, he’d caused my head to have its own ringtone, and yes, he was one scary-looking hombre, but I’d never seen him actually hurt anybody.

  It wasn’t violence that made him so formidable, it was the threat of violence.

  Armed with that insight, I took a step towards Guzman. Drawing myself up to my full Hound-like height, I dropped my voice to what I hoped was a Hound-like growl and said, ‘Give me the Cerberus, Guzman!’

  He took a step back, but not before I saw fear in his eyes.

  ‘Give it to me now or I’ll break every little birdie bone in your little birdie body,’ I said.

  Guzman winced, and his hand went into his pocket and came out with the Cerberus.

  Gleaming under the light, it looked so beautiful – tomorrow’s technology, the most desirable piece of technology in the world.

  I remembered what Miranda had said: was it a phone, or an encryption device, or some sort of sensing apparatus?

  It seemed that it could be all of these and much more.

  I took the phone from Guzman, and I took off. But as I did, it occurred to me: hadn’t that been a bit too easy?

  Why hadn’t he put up more of a fight?

  And when I heard him say, ‘You’re an idiot if you really think they’re going to let you keep that,’ I had the feeling, once again, that Guzman had put one over me, that he’d written my part for me and I’d played it exactly as he’d intended.

  And as I ran I wondered if his ‘they’ could possibly be the same ‘they’ as my ‘they’: The Debt.

  No, that didn’t make sense. But if ‘they’ weren’t The Debt, what ‘they’ were they?

  SATURDAY

  BRAIN REARRANGED

  Keep going, I told myself as I hurried back past Electric Bazaar, the Cerberus clutched to my chest. Tristan will be okay, just keep going.

  But obviously this message didn’t get to where it needed to go because I didn’t keep going.

  My feet, my legs, my whatevers, took me back into Electric Bazaar.

  Where Tristan was so not okay.

  He was handcuffed, as was Red Bandana, and they were surrounded by police officers.

  I knew I shouldn’t have shown my face here, but just as I was about to unshow it Tristan saw me.

  ‘That’s him!’ he yelled, trying to point – not that easy when you’re handcuffed. ‘That’s who I was with when this guy shot at me.’

  One of the police officers cocked a finger at me. Come here, laddie.

  I contemplated running, but quickly decided against turning myself into target practice.

  I’d had my chance to get away and I’d blown it. Now I’d have to deal with the consequences.

  ‘Yes?’ I said as I approached the policewoman.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she said.

  As I told her my name I noticed the taser on her hip.

  ‘How do you spe
ll you, surname?’ she said, jotting in a little notebook with the stub of a pencil.

  I told her how to spell my surname.

  ‘So you know Tristan?’ she said.

  ‘He was there when this man tried to shoot me,’ said Tristan.

  Red Bandana was standing with arms across his chest, lips pressed tight, eyes focused on the ceiling, obviously in total I’m-not-saying-anything, I-want-my-lawyer mode.

  ‘And where was this?’ said the policewoman.

  ‘Reverie Island,’ said Tristan. ‘My parents have got a house there.’

  The policewoman jotted this down in her little notebook as well.

  ‘And can you confirm this, Dominic?’ she asked. ‘Can you confirm that you were shot at by this gentleman?’

  This might be it, I thought. The point when Tristan got better again.

  All I had to do was say, ‘Yes.’

  The policewoman repeated her question.

  If I said ‘yes’ I knew what would happen: we’d all go down to the police station and there’d be statements and all sorts of crap we’d have to do.

  It was already midday and I had to get the Cerberus to Anna’s birthday party.

  ‘You know what?’ I said, taking my poor broken phone from my pocket. ‘I just came here to get my iPhone fixed.’

  ‘That’s not a pretty sight,’ said the policewoman. ‘So you don’t know Tristan here?’

  ‘Sure I know him. We go to the same school. But nobody ever shot at us.’

  The facsimile of a smile on Red Bandana’s face: he knew he was free now.

  ‘Okay, then,’ said the policewoman. ‘You better go get that phone seen to. We’ll sort this mess out.’

  I didn’t want to look at Tristan, but I couldn’t help myself.

  His face, once only capable of a single expression – the smirk – was now capable of a whole range of emotions.

  Like hurt. And hurt. And more hurt.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I mouthed, before I hurried away.

  I hadn’t got very far when I heard a scuffle behind me. I turned around to see Tristan launch himself, once again, at Red Bandana and the policewoman take out her taser and zap Tristan. Immediately he dropped to the ground.

  My first thought was: she’s killed him!

  But then the other policeman helped a stunned Tristan back to his feet.

  I noticed the policewoman was now looking in my direction. I couldn’t get involved; I took off again.

  SATURDAY

  JUJITSU

  ‘You having a good day?’ asked Luiz Antonio.

  I’d decided that the best, and safest, way to get to the café was with somebody I trusted.

  And who did I trust?

  Not many people, but Luiz Antonio was one of them.

  And he came with a taxi.

  ‘Amazing,’ I said.

  ‘Good for you, amigo,’ said Luiz Antonio.

  ‘Hey, can we listen to that music, you know, the bad head and sick feet song?’ I asked as we headed towards the city.

  ‘Sim,’ said Luiz Antonio, punching some buttons on the car stereo.

  The song started.

  Luiz sang along to it, and once again I was surprised at how tuneful his gravelly voice was. I provided some accompanying percussion, thrumming the dashboard with my fingers.

  ‘Seems like we have some company,’ said Luiz Antonio.

  That’s a strange lyric, I thought until I realised what he was talking about: alongside us was Hound’s Hummer.

  The passenger’s window was down, and one of the Lazarus brothers was making a pull over gesture.

  ‘You know them?’ said Luiz Antonio.

  ‘Unfortunately, yes,’ I said.

  ‘And you want me to pull over?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘Can you lose them?’

  Luiz Antonio jammed his foot down and the taxi responded by backfiring twice. Apart from that, however, it chugged along at pretty much the same pathetic speed.

  Losing them wasn’t going to be much of an option.

  I looked across at the Hummer.

  The Lazarus now had a gun in his hands, a big one. And it was pointed at us.

  ‘Maybe we better do what he said,’ I said.

  Luiz Antonio turned into a disused carpark, the Hummer on our tail. The broken concrete was tufted with grass. There were festering piles of rubbish. And the burnt-out shell of a car.

  We stopped. So did they. We got out. So did they.

  So far, so B-grade Hollywood action movie.

  Even the gun that the Lazarus had trained on us looked a bit like a prop.

  I was sure it wasn’t, though.

  Hound brought out his wallet, extracted a twenty-dollar note, waved it at Luiz Antonio and said, ‘Here’s your fare, driver. Keep the change and get the hell out of here.’

  Luiz Antonio didn’t move, just looked at Hound’s note as if it was a particularly ripe piece of doggy doo that he’d just stepped on.

  ‘I never leave a customer anywhere unless they want me to,’ he said, turning to me.

  I shook my head. Don’t leave me.

  ‘You hear what my man Hound said?’ said Lazarus, poking the gun in Luiz Antonio’s direction.

  ‘I did,’ said Luiz Antonio. ‘But you obviously didn’t hear what I said.’

  ‘Keep the gun on him,’ said Hound, turning his attention to me.

  He started patting his pockets as if he was missing something.

  ‘Oh no!’ he said. ‘Forgot my phone. Tell you what, let me borrow yours.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, taking out my old iPhone, holding it out.

  Now it was Hound who had the doggy doo look on his face.

  ‘You know what they call somebody like me, Youngblood? An “early adopter”. My first mobile phone was so big I got a sore arm from using it. So you think somebody like me is going to be happy using old technology like that?’

  How does he know? I wondered. But not for long. Of course he knew. He’d known all along.

  He’d just let me do all the hard work, all the heavy lifting.

  Hot on the heels of this realisation came another one: Hound had nothing at all to do with The Debt, of course he didn’t.

  Because they, The Debt, had found out about the Cerberus at exactly the same time as I had. Zoe had been right: I was so owned, so bugged.

  But right then wasn’t the time to consider the implications of this, because Hound and his Lazarus and his gun were going to take my Cerberus.

  I could run for it, I thought.

  And I had no doubt that I could outrun both Hound and Lazarus. They had lots of muscles but not runner’s muscles.

  But a speeding bullet?

  Superman I wasn’t.

  Besides, it wasn’t just me: there was Luiz Antonio to think of as well.

  What choice did I have?

  I took out the Cerberus, held it out on my palm. Gleaming under the Gold Coast sun, it looked so beautiful – tomorrow’s technology, the most desirable piece of technology in the world.

  Both Hound and Lazarus moved towards it.

  Hound went to grab it, but in what was almost a reflex motion my arm jerked back.

  ‘Give it to him,’ said Lazarus, aiming the gun directly at me, at my heart.

  Luiz Antonio stepped in front of me.

  What the hell’s he doing? He’s going to get himself killed.

  ‘Get out of my way!’ barked Lazarus.

  Get out of his way.

  Luiz Antonio moved slowly and purposefully towards Lazarus, towards the gun.

  In a move straight out of UFC, he suddenly dropped to his haunches, while sweeping out his leg and hooking it around Lazarus’s calf.

  Lazarus fell and the gun clattered to the ground.

  Luiz Antonio picked up the gun.

  It happened so quickly, so unexpectedly, I’m sure we were all – except for Luiz Antonio – in shock.

  Hound was the first to recover.

  ‘Now old-timer,�
� he said, his voice soft, reassuring, ‘what say you give me the gun before somebody gets hurt?’

  Both hands on the barrel, Luiz Antonio brought the gun down hard on the ground, snapping it in half.

  He tossed the two pieces into a pile of rubbish.

  Hound and Lazarus, who was now back on his feet, exchanged looks: what an idiot.

  I tended to agree.

  Lazarus moved towards Luiz Antonio, shaping up like a boxer, fists held high.

  He tried a couple of jabs.

  Head weaving, Luiz Antonio easily avoided them.

  And then he slipped through the other man’s guard, moving in close, bringing his knee into Lazarus’s groin.

  There were a few sounds: the first was of hard bone against soft flesh, the second was a whoosh sound as the air was expelled from Lazarus’s body, the third was Lazarus collapsing onto the concrete, and the final sound was harder to describe: it was a cross between a scream and a moan, maybe we should call it a scroam, but whatever it was, it was the most terrible sound I’d ever heard come out of another human being.

  Hound looked at the pile of scroaming Lazarus and then at the man responsible for it.

  ‘So you know a bit of kung-fu, do you?’ he said.

  ‘Brazilian jujitsu,’ said Luiz Antonio. ‘It’s called Brazilian jujitsu.’

  I could see Hound’s hand reaching for his side.

  ‘Watch out!’ I said. ‘He’s going for his Mace.’

  Luiz Antonio danced into action again.

  A spin, a kick, and Hound, too, was kissing concrete.

  On the way to the café I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. There was too much to digest.

  Eventually, when we pulled up outside, I found some words.

  ‘Who are you?’

  Luiz Antonio indicated the taxi licence, the one where he looked like he was in that cheesy band my mum likes, the Eagles.

  ‘No, who are you really?’ I asked.

  ‘Just a taxi driver who likes to make sure his customers get to their destinations.’

  As far as explanations went, it was hardly adequate.

  Right then, it’d do, though.

  I had other things to think about – like how to get to a party I hadn’t been invited to, at a time and place I didn’t know.

  SATURDAY

  SPARTEE