by J. M. Green
‘Lord and Lady Fuckhead can’t hold their horses.’ The Turk sighed, getting up. ‘Hold this for me.’ He picked up the screwdriver and stabbed my thigh. I screamed as the pain hit. ‘Keep it down, will ya? You’ll upset the neighbours.’ He hurried out, leaving the light on. A second later, the bolt slid shut.
37
BLOOD SEEPED around the screwdriver in my leg. The sharp pain replaced by an enervating ache arriving in waves like light through fog. I knew I had to get out, but mentally I was a mess, I couldn’t think. The gun on the bench? Impossible to get to.
Outside, The Turk, Enright, and another male voice — hostile, shouting.
Male: ‘Don’t fuck me around.’
The Turk, soothing: ‘Forget it, mate. The plan’s dead. It died with Ricky.’
Male: ‘No fucking way. We go on. I didn’t come this far —’
Turk: ‘Mate, we don’t even know where he stashed it all.’
Male: ‘It’s in the house.’
Turk: ‘Cops didn’t find shit. Ergo, shit ain’t there.’
Josie Enright: ‘Jacks don’t know where to look. It’s there.’
Turk: ‘Mate, okay. Say it’s there. We can’t just rock up, cops all over the joint.’
Male: ‘We thought so too, but I went up there, had a look around. Cops’ve gone.’
Turk: ‘Maybe not. Plain clothes in an unmarked car. Just a few days. Two days.’
The other voice was probably Ox Gorman.
Josie: ‘What about that problem?’
Turk: ‘Sorted. She’s in there and she’s not coming out. Relax, both of youse. Jeez, youse are uptight. Have a drink. I’ve got bourbon, vodka. Come in and calm down.’
Not coming out.
I sat there, dumbfounded. For how long, I don’t know. I just stared at nothing. Then I realised I was actually looking at the blowtorch. It took me another moment to comprehend that, possibly, it was within reach. I got low to the ground and extended both feet. Searing pain up my leg for my trouble. I tried again, sliding both legs out until I could hook the top of it with a big toe. I pulled it in but lost purchase. Legs out, my toe hooked the nozzle. Again I drew the can closer and again it slipped. But it was closer. My toe hooked it, and I drew my legs in. Close enough. I twisted around and felt behind me with my bound hands. Something smooth and cold, wrong end. I ran my hand to the top, but I was slippery with sweat. A finger touched the nozzle. I had it. I couldn’t see what I was doing, but I had it.
I felt around the mechanism, trying to find the regulator handle. The cable ties were tight around my wrists, and my fingers struggled to grip the nozzle. I manoeuvred it around until I could put my thumb and index finger on the regulator. Griping, turning, until I heard the magnificent hiss of gas. I moved to the handle and put a finger to the trigger. A click and the gas ignited.
I attempted to keep the trigger down, while holding the torch in the general area of the cable tie around my wrists. Without seeing what I was doing I couldn’t aim with any control. I was frying my own hands and after a short burst I had to have a break. I released the trigger but the torch stayed on, the mechanism was stuck. Now I could hold the nozzle at the top and direct the flame at the small gap between my wrists. Something burned — mostly me — and I stopped several times when the scorching became intolerable, but I smelled burning plastic, too. I held it there for as long as I could stand it. Then I dropped the can, pulled my arms hard apart, stretching the cable tie until it broke.
My hands were free. I wrapped my fingers tightly around the screwdriver handle, took a deep breath and dragged the thing out of my thigh. I took off my shirt and wrapped it round the wound.
Then I picked up the knife and cut the tie around my ankles.
The still-burning blowtorch had rolled to the side, and flame now lapped the concrete floor near the paperback book. I tried to kick the blowtorch away with my good leg, and sent it skittering away towards the motorbikes.
I stood, fell over, and hauled myself up against the stool. I searched the floor for my phone. It was lying near Jeff Vanderhoek’s body. I hobbled over, pulled the coverings over him, my head turned away. The phone screen was mostly intact, but the battery was low. I hit the keypad to call triple zero. It vibrated, a death rattle, and died trying.
I shoved it in my pocket and saw the blowtorch was burning close to an oil stain on the concrete. A second later the oil ignited into hot orange vapour. The flames spread along the floor to the motorbikes.
I wanted to run, but my right leg could take no weight. I hopped to the wall and used it for support.
Smoke poured from the nearest bike. There was no boom — more of a woof — as it was consumed. Rivers of flame were running on the oil leaks and petrol spills that covered the barn floor. I hauled myself along with the posts on the wall, headed for the double doors at the freezer end of the barn. These doors faced away from the Turk’s house, and if I could get them open I might be able to sneak away before they saw the fire and came looking for me.
I heard another woof and turned to see the other motorbike engulfed. Then it exploded. Pieces of metal flew, a cloud of heat followed. The air was now thick with smoke.
I made it to the doors. The deadbolt was locked. I tried to remember if he’d left the keys on the bench. I slumped to the floor, intending to crawl there. I was better off on the ground anyway. Fire had consumed the last of the motorbikes, and to my horror, it crept towards Jeff’s body. I limped to the bench, and hunted through the mess for a weapon. I had the knife, but I needed more. Then I heard the outside bolt slide back once more.
38
I MADE a lumbering dash for cover behind the freezer just as the door opened. The barn inhaled and the flames roared up.
‘Stella? Are you in here?’ A Vietnamese accent.
Cuong? What the actual heck? I bobbed up to get a visual through the smoke. ‘Over here.’
I hobbled over to him. He looked doubtful. ‘Can you run?’
‘I can move, sort of.’
He put an arm around my waist, half lifted me. I leaned some of my weight on his shoulder and we started towards the exit. Outside, a man’s voice cursed. We immediately changed direction, heading behind the door. I planted myself against the wall.
Other voices outside. Enright screeching: ‘Get the hose.’
‘I can’t see shit in this smoke,’ said a male voice.
‘How’d the door get open is my question,’ the Turk slurred. ‘Shit. The bikes.’
‘Got a fire extinguisher?’ The other man was taking charge.
‘No, I haven’t got a fucking fire extinguisher.’
‘Is she even in here?’
In our favour, they couldn’t see. Against us was not being able to breathe. ‘She’s not exactly fucking free to roam around,’ the Turk shouted.
‘Let it burn then. Unless you got flammable shit we should worry about?’
‘Nah. Oh, but there’s a tin of two-stroke somewhere,’ the Turk said.
A loud explosion followed by a metallic ting as the can hit the ceiling. We were shielded from the flash and the heat, but the smoke was becoming intolerable. Then the barn lights flickered and went off. Now there was only flames and smoke.
The two men were outside and screaming. ‘Stand still and I’ll hose you both.’ Enright’s voice — she was taking charge. ‘What a couple of babies. Singed hair, no biggie.’ A blast of water spray.
I felt Cuong’s hand grip mine hard, and pull me along. I followed his trajectory, and we rushed out in a swift circle, staying close to the wall. The exterior light was out and the yard was now in darkness. Josie and the Turk were arguing about putting out the fire.
We crawled alongside the barn, away from the house.
I gasped, drawing cool air into my lungs.
Behind the barn, it was a short distance to the line of trees
that marked the rear boundary, then open land. Crossing it seemed to take forever. The chained dogs were in a frenzy of barking.
We came to a wire fence. Cuong held open a gap in the wire, and I crawled through. This property was a tangle of straggly eucalypts and thick bracken undergrowth. We went on for a few more metres then stopped. I lay down on the cold ground and watched the barn burn.
‘Rest later,’ Cuong was saying. ‘Car’s that way. Let’s go.’
I struggled up on my good foot. He helped me through the vegetation and on to a narrow track. We came to a house. The Turk’s rear neighbour. We passed silently by. Lights on in the sitting room window. A family were eating dinner, plates balanced on their laps, eyes glued to the TV.
We made it to the road, a narrow line of bitumen with a solitary street light. Distant sirens screamed.
Cuong’s small Peugeot was about fifty metres away. I was hobbling as fast as I could. A series of cracking booms, like combat, like we were in a war, echoed in the night. He hit his keys, the lights flashed, and I fell in. Then we were flying down the empty road.
39
WE HEARD more sirens but didn’t see any other vehicles. The roads were dark but for the odd street light. After a few kilometres, Cuong slowed and drove steadily. We passed a shiny new train station in the middle of the windswept plains, near the edge of a new housing estate. Rows and rows of brand-new houses, in various stages of construction, stretching out to the horizon. He pulled over near to a hulking wooden skeleton. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked.
‘You rang my phone.’
‘Yes.’
‘The Turk answered.’
He nodded. ‘That’s how I guessed where you were. I drove straight there. Kept calling your phone.’
‘How is that possible? How is it that you know the Turk, let alone where he fucking lives?’
He didn’t answer.
‘I’m not unappreciative. I’m grateful you showed up. But I can’t figure it out. How do you, a decent person, a cousin to a cop, know the Turk?’
A slow shake of his head told me nothing.
Reality was so messed up right now, I genuinely wondered if he’d hypnotised me. But I was losing patience with his reserve. And I was fed up with Copeland, Phuong, and everyone telling me not to go to the police. ‘You’re driving to the nearest police station, right?’
‘How’s the leg?’
‘It hurts. So now we’re going to the police.’
‘No.’
I let out a howl. ‘Why? What the hell is going on?’
‘Fair enough. I’ll tell you.’ He hit the indicator and pulled out. ‘But first we have to hide the car.’
We drove until we hit wide roads and darkened factories. He took a series of turns and came to a dead-end street that ended at an industrial precinct. Concrete partitions of warehouses, workshops, and manufacturing works, all closed for the weekend. Cuong drove up to a building marked Pham’s Car Care and Auto Works. The roller door was up, and the interior was a cold cavern of darkness. A light was on in an office. A man in mechanic’s overalls was reading a paperback. Seeing us approach, he closed the book.
‘Come in,’ Cuong said to me. ‘You can use the restroom.’
I found a stinky staff toilet and sink. I used a damp paper towel to clean my face, and let the water run over my blackened hands. Under the dirt were the burns, and lesions where the cable ties had dug into my skin. I took the knife from my back pocket and cut the legs off my jeans. More paper towel, and I cleaned the stab wound.
Cuong was outside, sitting on the footpath. ‘I’m leaving my car with Mr Pham.’
I sat next to him and didn’t say anything.
He held out a can of Coke. ‘Taxi’s coming,’ he said.
I drank half the can in one go. ‘He shot Jeff Vanderhoek. I saw him. The Turk goes, “This is for Thailand,” and then he just … shot him.’
He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. ‘Try to forget it.’
Not a chance. I looked at him. ‘You’ve been to the Turk’s place before?’
‘I have. Yes.’ Cuong leaned forward, his fringe fell over his eyes. ‘I knew the back way is not secured, only plain wire.’
He hadn’t answered the question, but he was saying such a large number of words that I didn’t want to interrupt.
He paused.
I said, ‘I’m gonna ask that nice mechanic if I can use his phone to call the cops.’
‘I’m telling you.’ He took a drag, sighed. ‘They got me at Crown. I was playing baccarat. Losing. Two of them came up, very friendly, bought me a drink, and said they had a deal. They pay my debts if I gamble for them, launder their money — I keep some.’
Cuong and the Corpse Flowers. I pictured Phuong’s face hearing that. ‘When?’
‘Maybe six months. They control you. Your whole life. You can’t trust anyone, can’t go to the cops, can’t tell anyone. I’m trapped.’
Yeah, he looked like he’d been in hell. ‘You’ve met the Turk, you know his place.’
‘I went there. Once. They wanted my help with their finances, for their businesses.’
I waited for him to say more, but he disappeared in his thoughts. I finished the Coke and crushed the can. I decided to take a different approach with him. ‘Why was I in there, your best guess.’
A face like the sphinx.
‘No theories? My initial thought was Mortimer. Because of my cack-handed enquiries. But, no, the Turk wanted info on Ricky Peck. Like I know anything about that guy.’
A flick of his wrist shook the ash from his cigarette. That was the extent of his reply.
‘Ricky Peck,’ I said again. ‘Any thoughts?’
The stone heads of Rapa Nui had more to say.
I blew on the sore spot on my leg. My face hurt where I’d been punched. Bust face, manifestly. I touched my cheek: a fat lump. There’d be an eye-catching shiner tomorrow, one of those colourful bruises that go from blue to green to yellow.
He took my hand away to inspect my face. Then he checked my wrists, holding both hands and turning them over. He looked at me. ‘So,’ he said. ‘How’s your day been?’
I laughed, or maybe I cried, it was hard to tell the difference, there were tears and shaking and noises.
‘Mine’s been great. Went to Derby Day. That’s why I rang, to tell you about it.’
I was genuinely touched. ‘Who won?’
‘Ghostbuster.’
‘Was that your horse?’
He shook his head. ‘Bad name.’
‘Of course.’
The cab arrived. ‘Sunshine hospital,’ Cuong said.
The driver drove without a word. Speech was at serious risk of becoming redundant.
40
AS CUONG and I were leaving the hospital, I asked a nurse for the time. He said it was coming up to three. That sounded about right. We made our way to the taxi rank. A warm night, my pain killers kicking in, and the world was a little less threatening.
The tired-looking doctor who’d treated me had appraised my injuries impassively. The burns were superficial, she told me, easily seen to with cream and a plaster. Well, fancy that, because they hurt like all get out. I expected some awkward questions about the stab wound. Instead, she talked about sutures, and like a sadistic monster, injected a local anaesthetic directly in the cut. Three stitches and a tetanus injection later, I was handed a prescription for antibiotics and a brochure about domestic violence.
I touched my pocket to make sure the knife and the screwdriver were still there. Now would be a bad time for a cop to decide to frisk me. I might be up on charges of going equipped to steal.
Cuong leaned against the railing, pulled out the ubiquitous packet of cigarettes, and looked down the road for a taxi. He lit the smoke with shaking hands. ‘I can’t go home.’
&
nbsp; ‘They didn’t see you.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
He reminded me of a skittish wild animal. I could chat with him, but ask a tricky question or get too close and an exotic defence system would spring up, like a frill of neck skin or a jet of ink in my eye, before he flapped his tentacles and fled. I decided to have one more shot at him — from the side, an oblique attack: ‘Ever been to Burma?’
Cuong brushed his fringe back, didn’t answer.
‘Kengtung — what does that mean to you?’
‘Opium.’
Good Lord! A proper answer. ‘I thought the Burmese opium trade was finished.’
‘Poppies are in the hills again. In Shan, many places.’
I had a bite. A nibble. ‘What’s your part in that?’
He dragged on the smoke.
‘You’re silent like the ‘b’ in ‘tomb’, you’re silent like a holy night, but Cuong, you have vocal chords, a voice box, other anatomy things that might shrivel up if you don’t use them. Not to mention there’s a section of your brain just for language, it’s a shame not to use a perfectly good part of your brain. And —’
‘Nineteen hours by car from Hà Nội to Kengtung. Across Laos. Slow driving. Mountain roads. Gorman has business in Kengtung.’
I shuddered. How deeply involved was Cuong? ‘Why would you do that?’
He turned away. ‘To pay back the money I owe him.’
Not far away, a B-double on the ring road used its air brakes, shuddering groans.
‘Aren’t you scared?’
‘I’ll have bribes for anyone who stops me: army, gangs, police, rebel groups.’
‘The Corpse Flowers trust you on your own?’
‘The orange-hair one, he comes with me.’
Bust Face would make a terrible travelling companion. Poor Cuong. ‘They’ve got you, haven’t they? One minute you’re a humble economist, and the next you’re the middle man in the opium trade.’
‘Not only opium. Heroin and meth.’