*
“ARE YOU PUTTIN’ on a show here or just pullin’ our dicks, Franco?”
The jarringly frank accent turned heads from all directions and Brett Hopkins’ athletic good looks held them there. He walked across the trampled enclosure with a wide grin on his clean-shaven mug, golden blonde hair brushed to the side and still damp like his mother had dressed him for a big day out. The shop-new canvas slacks, brown Rivers and smart casual chequered shirt only completed the look. Two more guys with him, dressed the same, but wildly different in their features, were Hopkins’ teammates, and similarly amused: a nuggetty half-caste named Oscar Clement, and a red-haired ruckman everyone called Tosh. Allyson cut a slight figure between the heavily-built men, a filly if not actually a foal among the racehorses. Beneath her dark, blonde-streaked hair, she flicked almond eyes at Flanagan in a move at once inquisitive yet strangely blank.
“Hopkins, you cunt,” Franco grinned and hopped down from his perch. “I thought one of these bastards had finally grown some balls.”
“Like this bloke?”
Hopkins was still grinning as he cocked a thumb Flanagan’s way, eyes glistening with amphetamines if not just a very large glass of Coke. Beneath the boyish good looks, an implacable skull-face grinned out through eye holes so dark it seemed like a trick of the light. If there was one thing Flanagan knew at that moment, they’d definitely cast the wrong person as the young Darth Vader.
“He gave it a go, don’t you reckon?” Carlo asked.
“He wiped the floor with Harry, I’m not arguin’ that,” the footballer grunted.
The other men moved through the gate, but Hopkins remained on the other side of the fence, one brown shoe up on the lower rail.
“Reckon you could give it a go with someone who kicks arse for a livin’?”
Flanagan licked his lips. “I thought you were a footballer?”
Carlo actually snorted, but Brett Hopkins’ face remained deathly still. He lifted blunt fingers and began to undo his shirt.
“I’m a two-time premiership-winning blue chip commodity, Mr Flanagan. I’m like a fuckin’ god in this town. When I point, people fuckin’ obey, and they do it ‘cos they know I’d fuckin’ annihilate ‘em. You keen to find out?”
“Sounds hard to refuse.”
“Good man,” Carlo said.
Roosveldt jogged up and handed Flanagan a plastic bank bag filled with hundred dollar bills. Flanagan squeezed his fist around the bundle and looked to left and right. RJ and the other security remained poised.
“Come on, Flanagan,” Hopkins jeered. “You’ve got a fuckin’ nerve, comin’ here like you think you can take Ally against her will. You gotta contend with me, mate, an’ like I said, if it weren’t for Charlie here, I’d be in charge o’ this fuckin’ town.”
It was a mutual admiration Flanagan wasn’t keen to interrupt. He looked at the girl instead. She cocked her head and puckered up like she was about to blow a kiss, but changed her mind, laughing at the game and wrapping herself around Hopkins’ now naked and muscular arm. Red-painted nails left a faint tracery of swirls across the skin surrounding his bandaged shoulder as Allyson made like any one of the girls she’d grown up looking at in magazines, swooning over the Adonis.
Flanagan swore under his breath.
“Bet again?”
“I’ll give you four-to-one against Brett,” Carlo said.
“Hear that, mate?” the footballer jeered. “You’re a loser.”
“Alright,” Flanagan said and held up the money bag before stuffing it into his pocket. “I’ve got nine grand here. If I lose, I’ll owe you four times that amount. That’s thirty-six kay.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Carlo replied.
“It does,” Flanagan said. “If I win, I’m taking the girl.”
After the initial surprise, Carlo started to laugh, and more quietly, RJ followed suit. Roosveldt joined in like a horny baboon. Only the footballer and his mates remained unimpressed. Flanagan’s expression matched theirs for gravitas, daring the legendary sportsman to back down. Brett Hopkins only sniffed, patting Allyson on the rear end. She wore a dark, expensive dress, but at the end of the day, she was still just a pretty girl in a short skirt. One of the other footballers, the tall redhead, opened the gate for her to exit the field.
Flanagan pulled off his unbuttoned shirt again and Carlo slapped him on the back.
“If you’re in debt to me, Mr Flanagan, you’d better be able to pay.”
Flanagan climbed over the railing and was still adjusting his footing when Hopkins lunged forward and sent his right fist slamming across Flanagan’s jaw. Surprisingly off guard, Flanagan staggered back and to the right and he felt the wood panel of the low fence in the small of his back an instant before he tipped over completely.
The landing was painful. Laying in a heap on the wrong side of the pen, the announcer picked up the PA and rang the bell, improvising some waffle about the Brownlow medallist and two-time flag winner. Flanagan didn’t rate a mention. Rather than Hopkins’ name, those who’d seen him clock Flanagan started shouting the name of his team, repeating it moronically until it seemed even Hopkins was annoyed. Not just annoyed, in fact, but visibly distressed.
As he pulled himself up the gate again, Flanagan instinctively checked for blood, relieved to find only a split lip. Like a tired rodeo clown, he clambered over the stile and stood in the dirt with a greater awareness of the danger he now faced. Hopkins laughed and pointed and clutched himself like about to double up, feigning hilarity and all the while retreating deeper into the pen, inviting Flanagan on.
Flanagan stretched his neck left and right as he followed, hands in loose fists at his sides. When the footballer broke left, circling and jabbing with boxing moves probably gained in the pre-season training when they threw everything from ballet to tai chi at the boys, Flanagan only slowly replied. From Hopkins’ perspective, Flanagan pitched drunkenly low and swept out with his left leg, though the other man danced quite safely back.
“What’s that shit?” Hopkins sneered. “Fight like a man, you fuckin’ homo.”
Flanagan brushed back his hair and doggedly followed the footballer around the ring, moving clear across to the other side and giving the gaudily dressed women that way there a bit of a thrill, Flanagan with his extra bulk, and Hopkins with his powerful physique making them resemble a pair of unemployed Manpower dancers ready to degrade each other for a little loose change.
Hopkins went Flanagan a few more times, priding himself on aggression and lack of fear. Each time, it turned into a slapfest, Hopkins unwilling to bring in his face and thus limiting his reach. Almost lazily, Flanagan turned away the punches and picked Hopkins’ clutching hands off his forearms, twice giving the footballer’s wrist a twist to keep him unbalanced as he quickly snatched the limb free.
“Have a go, you fuckin’ mug,” Hopkins leered.
Flanagan’s fist was so fast even an athlete of Brett Hopkins’ skill could do no more than blink. His head snapped back, and suddenly blood came from both nostrils, the flow heavy enough, Flanagan knew, to send even the most intrepid fighter into a panic. Hopkins went the other way once the blood started spattering his chest like an upturned sauce bottle. He threw himself forward and got an arm around Flanagan’s neck to pull him low, unsuccessfully prosecuting a series of knees to Mick’s low-drawn face.
Grunting, Flanagan slipped backward and away, crouched low, and sweeping with his boot to collapse Hopkins at the knees.
It was only instants before Hopkins was up again. Flanagan faded from the footballer’s wild punches, deflecting the first two on muscled forearms requiring all his strength. Then he melted like the jungle fighters had taught him. Suddenly, Hopkins was coming on with nowhere to strike, fists swinging in big, out-of-control haymakers, until Flanagan reinserted himself in the duel and landed a lightning series of stabs up the footballer’s ribs. Hopkins grunted, spat blood and staggered away. The crowd roared, a Grand Final in miniatu
re, and Flanagan knew as much by the look in Hopkins’ eye as cold logic that even a man who played games for a living hadn’t gone so far without enormous reserves of inner strength.
It didn’t surprise him when Hopkins abruptly leant over and puked. The move was so practised it would’ve made Flanagan wonder if Hopkins was bulimic, except he’d already seen SAS grunts throw up in training and carry on unfazed, mastering the body’s toxic shocks to quite literally soldier on.
Hopkins wiped gory spittle from his chin and moved closer. Flanagan went into a slow pencak silat kata, alternate feet stepping forward before he danced away, the moves unpredictable, any sense of a trajectory or line of attack nearly impossible to discern until Flanagan broke forward, failed to capture Hopkins’ wrist with his hand, and opportunistically rammed his palm up into the other man’s jaw instead. Half-blinded by the move, Hopkins grabbed Flanagan by the hair and the skin of his shoulder and tried to throw him around. Instead, Flanagan put a foot into the footballer’s hip and scaled him like going for a mark, ramming a knee with all his might into Hopkins’ face. The other brawler half-blocked the blow, his lower lip forfeit, and dropped back relinquishing any intention to grapple.
Flanagan kept close. He’d done jiu jitsu in the course of his work and he turned side-on and kicked at mid- and upper levels, landing blows to Hopkins’ chest and arms. When Hopkins managed to grab the offending foot in both hands, Flanagan threw himself around, kicking across his body and taking the footballer above the ear with the other boot. They both fell, but Hopkins dropped to the ground like he’d been shot and was long moments starting to push himself up.
Blood pounded in Flanagan’s ears as he stood, hands spastic with adrenalin, and Hopkins’ two teammates on him effectively unawares. Tosh’s king hit was aided and abetted by the crowd, not a single person screaming a warning, not even Allyson, whom Flanagan had come there to champion. Flanagan collapsed to the ground without even bending his knees and then Clement laid in the boot for good measure. Flanagan awkwardly caught the foot on its fourth trip in and sent his attacker staggering, but he got no more than halfway up before the bigger ruckman landed another fist to his cheek.
Flanagan toppled to the ground.
Hopkins was up by then, and he closed with acerbic vengeance, tight skull face smeared with drying blood. It was only RJ who allowed Flanagan to tumble into unconsciousness without more to complain about than a few broken ribs and some abrasions. As Flanagan tried to tilt and turn his head, he saw Hopkins snarling like a wild animal with the big Welshman’s arm bisecting his torso.
Next came the darkness.
SIXTEEN
IN THE DREAM, Flanagan was back in a jungle hut. Yazid was there, standing over him on the bare warped boards.
The scrawny old Muslim always had a favourite saying, one he saved for speaking English. Flanagan was in the old position, kneeling on the floor with his hands forward while his mentor loomed with the cane.
“I have perfect special method for teach you,” Yazid said.
“It called the hard way.”
When he opened his eyes, it made no sense that someone was gently stroking his forehead. He had the sense memory of sore knuckles, Yazid’s reaction training enough to last him a lifetime. Then the rest of his body started to flare, including his swollen mouth, the lips parting like a parchment torn apart as he struggled to rise.
He tasted blood and dirt. The afternoon was in full swing around him and it took Flanagan a moment to remind himself where his last adventure ended. From long practice on the Oak Lawn at UWA, he knew he was lying in a woman’s lap. The female perfume permeated even the dust caking his bloody nostrils as he looked around, the flat, expressionless earth unchanged, and then turned to look closely at Allyson staring back at him with her green cat’s eyes. Carlo Franco’s warehouse framed the girl’s tentative, lip-biting look of concern. He glanced past the teenager and saw people still coming and going from the old cattle sheds.
“You prefer being called Ally?” Flanagan asked hoarsely.
He winced, made a noise, and wiped a hairy forearm across his own grimace. Allyson had a large black leather purse open beside her and she started wetting a stained handkerchief with bottled water.
“It’s something Brett says,” she said. “He abbreviates everything.”
Her voice betrayed her age. Flanagan scowled, but didn’t move as she looked past his eyes to daub the wet hanky at his mouth and nose.
“What are you doing here?”
Allyson laughed. “Shouldn’t you ask what you’re doing here?”
“No,” he replied slowly. “I was asking myself that before, when you stood there smiling and watched those pricks beat the shit out of me.”
“What did you want me to do?”
“A ‘look out behind you’ would’ve been nice,” he sniffed and looked away, snatching the handkerchief from her hand and finishing the job more roughly.
“I know why I’m here,” he grunted. “I guess this is how far they dragged me before they got sick of the weight.”
“Yeah.” She sounded deflated.
“So answer my question.”
“Don’t you want to get going? I don’t think they exactly declared an amnesty.”
“An ‘amnesty’?” Flanagan tilted his head and laughed for the first time, weakly, the sound like a crow throwing up.
Allyson dusted off her knees, standing and offering Flanagan her hand. He took it begrudgingly, her slim weight no real help. Standing, the girl only came to his shoulder. Although she was curvy, Allyson was smaller framed than her sister and probably struggled to weigh fifty kilos.
“You figure I’m some high school drop out?” Allyson raised a dark eyebrow. “I might be ditching school, but I’m no ignoramus. I was an A student.”
“Then why stop?”
He felt through his pockets and sighed, guessing his winnings were gone. Pain shot through his ribs and he lifted up his chin and gasped. With an effort, Flanagan pulled the cell phone from its place and checked the signal, which could’ve been better. Allyson drew a stylish flip-top silver number and did the same, entranced for a moment as she checked her texts.
“Allyson?”
She tucked the phone back into her bag and slung it over one elbow. The other hand she put around his waist, as if she might actually stabilise him if he fell.
“Why should I stay in school? It’s bullshit,” she said. “The teachers are all losers who couldn’t get better jobs and chickened out once they realised. Not one of them’s there because they actually give two flying fucks about our education.”
She snorted and Flanagan found himself walking beside her down the dusty chalk road, dizziness and the heat conspiring to render him more legless than he would’ve liked. At the merest surge against her, Allyson pressed in her supporting weight and shook her head.
“We better order a cab.”
“They took my money,” Flanagan said.
Allyson tutted condescendingly. “Poor baby. You’re not much of a private investigator, are you? I’ll pay.”
Flanagan pulled away in annoyance.
“I’m not a private investigator, little girl. I’m a friend of your sister’s.”
“Teneille?” She made a face. “God. Nice to know she cares.”
“She does. Her and Lord are worried. Your parents are. . . .” He found himself reviewing his one and only encounter with Allyson’s dad, and after a moment to blanch, stupidly found himself laughing.
“What is it?”
“Well, let’s just say they’re worried,” Flanagan snorted. “Maybe not enough to actually hire that private eye you were expecting. Did your dad really tell you that, or is that just more of the bullshit you’ve been spinning Carlo and Hopkins and the others, Miss James?”
“Jacobsen makes me sound like a Jew,” she sniffed.
“Jesus.”
“So what? Those guys are arseholes. No one’s ever put themselves on the line for me like you did.
Your name’s Flanagan, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So if you’re not a PI,” she asked, “what are you?”
He studied her down the length of his jaw for a long moment before finally dusting off the same story that no longer really sounded like a lie.
“Corporate security,” he said. “I guess you could say it’s like private investigation, but I don’t have the licence.”
“Security?”
“Yeah.”
“Well you kicked Brett’s arse, I know that.”
Flanagan glanced off in the direction of the road he could hear but not see.
“Yeah I did, didn’t I?”
A car appeared off to the north and drove seemingly suspended, hovering on a layer of haze as it crossed their vision. Flanagan motioned on ahead and started walking like someone broken, hand cradling his side and leaving Allyson to jog to catch up.
*
THE WHITE FALCON pulled in at the end of the chalk road with a brief spinning of wheels. The driver was a big bloke with the moustache of an 80s cricketer. With the window unwound already, he thumped the side of the door with an arm gone the colour of steak left too long on a barbecue.
“G’day buddy. You’re Flanagan?”
Flanagan moved very slowly to stand from the spot where he and Allyson had settled, the first of the departing VIPs roaring past them without a care or backward glance. The temptation to just lie there, baking in the sun and passed out, was more than just strong. He was almost grateful to Allyson’s on-and-off chatter for keeping him from a coma.
“Yeah,” Flanagan answered, finding it hard to straighten up. “It’s me.”
“You look a bit banged up, bloke.”
“Yeah,” he said again. “Can we get in?”
“Is that your daughter?” the cabbie asked.
Flanagan glanced briefly at Allyson, who made a face.
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