"Taj cannot help you. I've been trying to help you, Lana."
I thanked the nervous waiter as he placed the burger in front of me and then backed away again like it was a bomb.
"Really?" I asked, taking a bite of the burger. "How have you been doing that, exactly? By taking me to see a UFO show?"
Louis pushed his chair back a little and gulped. "I needed to show you what Taj is really capable of doing to you," he said. "His intentions aren't good."
"Please. You're just jealous."
Louis took a few deep breaths. "Tell me you haven't told anyone else."
I hesitated, chewing slowly, before answering. "Only May."
There was practically steam coming from his nostrils. "You know what will happen to this town if the government of Australia finds out that the town is malfunctioning. The beach could literally just disappear, Lana. I mean...when I saw you face down in the sand that day, I knew something was terribly wrong."
"Yeah. I was dead."
"Besides that."
Cool, thanks.
"You shouldn't have been there. Not while you are still alive..."
Oh, really? "You don't say..."
"I was trying to protect you, Lana. No one wants to see their own dead body. I can imagine it would be a rather alarming experience."
Maybe I should have thanked him.
"You know you're going to have to pay for those journalists you killed." I kept my voice just low enough for people not to hear.
Louis's eyes were as wild as an Australian bushfire, the kind we never get in Tree Valley anymore. "I did that to protect every last person in this town. I will always do whatever it takes to protect the people of this town."
"Yeah, yeah." I put the burger down and brushed crumbs off my hands. "It's all for the greater good, isn't it."
I bit back the tears that had been threatening to spill for years. Ever since I'd found out that, as one of the lead engineers at the power plant, he'd been part of the scheme to dump the toxic waste at the railway reserve. He'd killed the old town and been paid off for it. But it was all okay, because Tree Valley was protected from the effects of the waste. Unless you didn't live inside the town boundaries. Unless you were one of the people thrown into exile by Louis himself.
So you can see why May still has that hot pink bridesmaid dress hanging in her closet, unworn.
Served me right for getting engaged to an engineer. And an Aries one at that.
"You have no idea how hard this past fortnight has been Lana..."
I raised my eyebrows and laughed.
"The blood kept coming back, and I kept having to wash it away." Louis shook his head and rubbed his temples. Poor dear had had a very difficult week. "All the money in lost beach revenue..."
"Why did the blood keep coming back," I said, feeling a little bit sick.
"A glitch in the program..." he muttered.
"But why...what went so wrong with the program? How can this have even happened?"
Louis looked like he was about to burst with frustration.
"Best guess? Some idiot must have hacked into it."
***
"I'm sorry I'm so late," I said contritely. "I got a bit confused about the appointment time." So confused I had to go and eat lunch and dessert and drink two coffees.
Rocco smiled at me in that polite way he was required to do even when people acted like complete idiots in his office. "Been a long time since we've seen you in here Lana. You've missed your last two appointments."
His beard had grown even longer since the last time I'd been there. It was now half way down his chest.
"Yeah, well, I was trying to work but there were some spanners thrown into the works."
Rocco frowned. "You've been earning money? You didn't declare that to the office."
"No." My answer was swift. "No one paid me anything, believe me."
He entered a few details into the computer. "And do you have any work coming up in the next week which you expect to get paid for?
"Um...well...." That would really depend on whether Gus paid me the money upfront or waited till after the performance. "Yes," I finally said. Maybe it was better to be honest. Hey, if I was about to die I'd better start racking up karma brownie points.
"And what work do you intend to do?"
"I'm going to sing tomorrow night. At the Pink Bird. Flat rate. Three hundred dollars."
It was difficult to see under the beard, but I could have sworn Rocco's face turned a little pink. "You're singing at the Pink Bird tomorrow night?"
"Yeah. I told you I was a singer."
"People say all kinds of things in here," Rocco replied. "What type of singer?"
"Jazz. You clearly don't remember me from X Factor then. That's okay, it was a long time ago."
"Oh," Rocco said, flatly, surprised, his fingers falling away from the keyboard. There was a strange tone to his voice like he was shocked but trying to hide it. He narrowed his eyes and rolled his chair backward a bit. "I don't recognize you." He let out a laugh and then stopped, cooly looking me up and down. "But I suppose that's no surprise. I didn't even watch any seasons of X Factor, apart from the one...."
My phone rang, interrupting him.
Gus.
Shoot.
"I'm sorry," I said standing up. "But it's about a potential job...so I have a right to take the call, right?" I didn't really care if I did -- I was still going to take the call.
Rocco opened his mouth to object but I was already out the door.
"Tell me you're still coming tomorrow night."
"You saw my dress in the dressing room right?"
"That doesn't mean anything, Lana. It's not even your dress. It's designer. Someone must have lent it to you."
I took a deep breath and turned away from Gun Employment. I was still hoping for more than one miracle. That I could magically sing tomorrow night, that my career would get back on track, that my life would magically get saved.
That we'd all be saved. All of us in this town that the world seemed to have abandoned.
"Just give me this chance," I whispered.
Gus cleared his throat. "Okay. But I've got the other guy's number ready to call if you flake."
"The other guy?"
"My back up," Gus said, chuckling deeply. "And he's kind of hoping you're a no show. He's keen to get back onto the stage and he's kind of ruthless about it."
For some reason, I was surprised to hear this other X Factor contestant was a male. "Who is this guy?" I asked, put out.
"Goes by the name MC Black Beard," Gus said. "I guess it's cos he kind of looks like a pirate."
Chapter Sixteen
My Swan Song.
I always knew my voice was going to kill me.
I just thought it would be because the throat nodules would leave me unable to earn a living and begging for money on the street in a town where homelessness is illegal, causing me to either starve to death in the gutter or to be arrested and ultimately killed in jail.
But no. My death was going to be at the hands of a jealous maniac.
I pulled on the glittery dress, an ocean of sequins, and took a deep breath while the low strum of Billy Holliday's Strange Fruit came through the walls.
"You can still back out," Gus had said. "We've got your understudy waiting in the wings...in fact, if your set runs under he's happy to step up and fill in as well."
"I bet he is," I whispered.
"Good luck Lana," I said to my red-lipsticked reflection. "You're gonna need it."
The crowd was already gathering and it was only 10pm, early in the jazz club world. Practically still breakfast time. Gus stopped me in the hallway on my way to the bar and handed me a glass of whiskey. I swallowed it down to numb the pain.
"Good luck Lana," Gus said, repeating my own words, looking at me like I was really going to need it. "And don't let me down."
Oh. I was definitely going to do that.
But at least I wasn't going to die.
***
For someone waiting in the wings, Rocco Wilson was remarkably hard to find.
Sorry, MC Black Beard. I'll stick to the rules of calling all near-utopias and all almost-killers by their preferred names.
I'd looked him up online, even though the internet had been heavily monitored and filtered after the hacking incident, which I was still hoping would never be traced back to me. He'd been on the series of X Factor two years after my season, long after I'd stopped watching it due to too many painful memories. Anyway, he looked completely different now with the beard.
He was a scat singer who'd been kicked off in the second round after fluffing the group audition and throwing a tantrum on camera, threatening to kill one of the judges.
How does he do it? I asked myself, wandering through the back corridors of the pink bird, Billy Holiday floating over me. I heard a noise and looked over my shoulder. Does he grab me now?
It had to happen before I went on stage.
A hand grabbed my wrist and I screamed, swinging my other hand right into...Taj Robinson's chest.
"Oww!" he said, though due to the size of him it can hardly have hurt him. His chest was like a mattress that absorbed the blow.
"Sorry." Though I actually wasn't that sorry. "What are you doing here?"
"Protecting you, you crazy woman."
"Get out of here Taj..."
"You can't sing, Lana. You can't be here..." Taj looked me up and down in my sparkly dress, speechless. "You look amazing. You don't look anything like you usually do."
"Thanks for that Taj. Now go."
"This is when it happens. Tonight."
"I know."
Taj shook his head in disbelief. "What are you going to do, just let yourself get killed?"
"No. I am going to stop that from happening. But you can't help me. You're being here won't help, Taj. It will do the opposite. May is in the audience for crying out loud." And they had still very much yet to kiss and make up. "It's a miracle she's here to support me at all."
Somehow we'd ended up backstage.
"Oh dear..." I said, looking up at the clock. It was almost time for me to go on stage.
Taj peeked behind the curtain. "But you're not actually planning on singing, are you?"
I smacked his hand away before May saw him. But I held the curtain back a little so that I could get a peek of my own. Where was Rocco?
"Oh my gosh...Grace is here as well," I said, dropping the curtain a bit so that she couldn't see me. "Oh, this ain't good. She's going to witness my humiliation as well when I step on stage and my voice is nothing but a croak."
I had to remind myself that I wasn't actually planning on singing.
...Was I?
It was kind of sweet that Grace had turned up.
My heart suddenly stopped beating.
"There he is..." I whispered.
"Who?" Taj asked.
That's when I saw the knife in his hand. Taj's hand.
"What are you doing with that, Taj?" I whispered, horrified, stepping away from him.
"It's my security. It's got Jyson's fingerprints all over it. If he doesn't turn Brent in, or get Brent to turn himself in, then..." But we both knew that Taj wouldn't make Jyson go to jail for a little crime like stabbing in self defence. "We can confront him tonight. He is here to see you sing, isn't he?"
Yes, he was, in the back row: I'd spotted his floppy hair earlier. That's what good, terrible friends do. They support you even when you're making a really terrible, stupid decision.
"Brent has gone," I hissed at him. "It's over, Taj."
"It's not all over."
Still holding the knife in one hand, Taj reached over and touched my bare shoulder with the other one. "Someone is going to kill you tonight."
I was a little sick of Taj telling me things I already knew. Though, to be fair, he'd also told me a lot of things that I didn't know and might eventually save my life.
I stepped away from the curtain and picked up the hem of my dress a little to stop it catching on my heels.
"The man who is going to kill me is in the audience. That's why I'm here Taj. So I can stop him before he does it. He--"
I heard Gus's voice on the other side of the curtain. "I'd like to welcome you all to the re-opening of the Pink Bird..."
"Oh shoot."
I stepped away again but I could hear him revving up to introduce me. "Since her first appearance on X Factor ten years ago..." I didn't see that Taj had disappeared. I was too busy panicking about what was going to happen when Gus pulled the curtain back.
Luckily -- or very unluckily -- I wasn't there to see his disappointed reaction.
Rocco's hand grabbed me and dragged me off the stage, his other one around my mouth so that I couldn't scream.
In Traralgon, no one can hear you scream.
I bit down on his fingers but he barely winced as he dragged me down the stairs and through the dark corridors till we reached the exit to the alleyway outside.
The cold hit me instantly -- I wasn't dressed for the chill of the night even if I was dressed for my death.
Rocco was dressed differently to his work gear, in a trilby hat and a blue button up shirt and shiny blue pants with matching shoes. Ridiculous. Blue is the world's worst colour, I'm borderline allergic to it.
"Stay out here..." Rocco growled, throwing me against the brick wall. I managed to hit it with the palms of my hands before my face did but I still winced in pain as the bricks scraped away a layer of skin.
He was heading back towards the door. "Sorry to keep you unemployed," he said. "But I need this more than you. I work for freaking Gun Employment for crying out loud."
Taj appeared out of the shadows and grabbed Rocco, dragging him back into the alleyway. "Taj, let him go!" I shouted. "It's really not worth it."
"He grabbed you and assaulted you!" Taj yelled back. "He doesn't get to be a pop star after that."
Rocco wriggled free from Taj's grip. He was a wriggly little bugger even though he was really pretty huge.
"Lana. You should be on stage tonight. Even if it is a disaster -- you deserve it more than this clown."
"No, she doesn't!" Rocco roared like a lion.
Rocco glanced down at the knife sticking out of Taj's belt and waiting for only a fraction of a second before grabbing it.
That was just...great.
All Rocco had planned on doing was locking me out of the club. But Taj had to go and bring a knife like he was freaking Crocodile Dundee, didn't he?
Taj is going to get you killed.
I should have known renewing my friendship with him wasn't going to end well.
Rocco held the knife up and walked towards me. It glinted in the moonlight as I took a wonky step backward.
This is it, this is how it happens.
There's no fighting it. I already know how it happens. It was inevitable. Everything has been leading up to this moment and there was never anything I could do to prevent it.
Save your own damn life, Lana.
"Are you going to stay off that stage, Lana?" Rocco whispered, the knife raised up to shoulder height now.
If I said yes, he might not stab me.
"No," I whispered.
Bad decision.
He brought the knife down and it seemed to move in slow motion as I watched it go down, headed towards the side of my torso. I watched it like it was a movie, like it was happening to somebody else.
The first stab, the knife got caught in the sequins of the side of my dress.
I looked down breathless. The knife hadn't pierced my flesh.
I had another chance.
The second time I ducked. I reached down onto the ground and picked up a rock and smashed it against Rocco's giant head. It did little more than daze him but it was enough for Taj to come up behind him and grab the knife off him.
I was barely cognisant of the two of them while I examined my body, speechless, looking for holes that Rocco had poked in
me, certain they must have been there.
There weren't any.
There was no pink blood.
I mean there was, on the inside, but that's where it was supposed to go.
I mean, you're not supposed to have pink blood inside you either. But you know what I mean.
Taj pinned Rocco's body to the ground, his knee to Rocco's chest, while I came and stood over him.
"What were you going to do when you killed me, Rocco? Dump my body at the beach?"
Rocco's face turned pink. Bingo.
I looked at Taj. And what about him? What was Rocco planning on doing with him?
If I'd never been killed the first time Taj wouldn't have been here this time.
Rocco might have dragged me straight to the beach and killed me without anyone ever seeing.
This is how it was supposed to end.
But I still couldn't figure out if Taj had saved me or caused my death.
Taj put the blade back into his pocket and yanked an incredibly remorseful Rocco to his feet.
"I'm sorry..." Rocco whispered desperately. "What are you going to do to me?"
Taj pushed him against the brick wall. "If you don't get out of Tree Valley I am going to turn you into the police. I've got your prints on this blade and a wound in my leg."
Terrified, Rocco looked first at Taj, then at me, before sprinting off into the night.
Taj reached out his hand for mine. "Are you going to come in and take to the stage?"
I shook my head, feeling tears well in my eyes. "No," I whispered. "That would be a very bad decision."
I took his hand anyway, though.
***
The sun was rising in pink and yellow over the stained glass water.
Taj handed me the beer he'd swiped from Gus's and handed it to me. I took a giant swig of it and handed it back. "I'm officially, officially unemployed now. Blacklisted from ever performing in this town now. And my employment provider is on the run." I patted the sand. "This is my home now."
"You can always come and live with me in the mud pit."
I'd have to think about that.
Pink Blooded: A Lana Pink Mystery Page 14