K Road

by Ted Dawe

  Ozzie backed slowly into his chair. The room seemed to be tilting and spinning. He had that sick feeling that comes when you’ve been kicked in the balls. It’s worse, so much worse than he had ever imagined. If only it had been kids smashing and spraying. Or those removalist burglars, who back up a truck and clear the place. If only he’d kept the thing in code. If only he’d put it in his floor safe. If only …

  25 GERONIMO’S LAST STAND: PART 1

  ‘Think it over, Te Pania.’

  Geronimo looked around the blank walls of the interview room. It had come to this. Ever since that night he’d been on the back foot. First from the fucking spook, and then from this dude. Hard to know who was worse.

  They sat at either ends of a little table. Willets’ face had the lined care-worn look of someone who never gave up. There was nothing there to appeal to, no humour, no warmth. None of the usual body stuff that said, ‘We’ll cut some sort of deal’ here.

  ‘That’s no deal, man.’

  ‘It’s a deal, it’s your only deal, you just got nothing to trade with now, that’s all.’

  It was true.

  Geronimo stood up as if to go. The other man stayed sprawled in his chair. ‘If I do this, how do I know you won’t come for me on the other thing later?’

  ‘You don’t.’

  ‘Your deal’s shit, man. I’m out of here.’

  The other man stood up. ‘You can go, but you got one day, then I pull you in and I tell you it won’t be arson, it’ll be murder.’

  Geronimo grunted and then walked out. There was a moment of slight confusion before he found his way out. No way he was going to be led out. On the front steps of Central he looked up and down, making sure there was no-one he knew hanging about, and then headed off back to Blade.

  In the short time Brett had run the club, Blade had reared up from a dying hang-out for posers and try-hards, to a place with a rope cordon and two tuxedo-wearing doormen. All it took were a few celebrity bashes and a press photographer, free drinks to the right people. Now look at it. TV people. Sports stars. High rollers from the money pages. Full every night. During the weekends there was that queue. Brett felt like paying them to stand there. Best advertisement he could ever want, those losers.

  How quickly it had all happened. Jamie, who had made him rich, was gone, eaten by the monster he had created in his little shed. When it happened, Brett’s first thought was this was going to ruin him. Big debts, owed heaps, cops breathing down his neck. But he was wrong. It turned out to be the right thing at the right time. In a strange way, it rescued him, just in time. The P task force had been closing in on him. He was a name, according to Evan, that was always popping up at Central. That guy Willets was obsessed with him. It had become a running joke among the drug squad. Some P shut down operation was about to happen – everyone waited for Willets to put Brett in the frame. Broken record. He would never let up. It was personal.

  Then he’d busted Ozzie wide open. Goes to show, take the pressure, hold your ground and eventually something will happen. That was the difference between him and other people. He always knew that. Go hard enough, long enough, you’ll crack it.

  The key had been to come out of the cold. Open up. Weird. That party he organised after Jamie’s funeral, God knows why he’d done that. Not his scene at all. Something changed after that. He reconnected with Evan and Ronnie and Jake. Things followed like clockwork after that. Ozzie decided to gift him Blade. Talk about the power of the written word. All it took was a key and a whisper about a book. A straightforward walk in, walk out snatch job. A conference with Vercoe and suddenly it was ‘Advance to Mayfair’, ‘Collect $200’, and maybe a ‘Get out of jail free’ thrown in.

  The next break through came when he stole Ronnie from Club Mandela on the K. What a coup! More than a coup. A coup de grâce. Ronnie who was so unmoveable. Who knows what lay behind that one? It’s like one day Ronnie’s saying he’s never gonna move, then next thing he’s almost begging for the job. Jake followed, because they were a team. Something had happened, but Ronnie wasn’t letting on and Brett didn’t ask. One thing’s for sure though, Ronnie sure gave K. Road a wide berth these days. Wouldn’t even go there on an errand.

  And then little Wilson, Cujo as he called himself now. Who would have thought that he had the brains, or the balls, to step up? To come out from Jake’s long shadow, and become an operator? He had really pulled himself together. From glue bag to dealer in just a few months. And he knew everybody too, that was the weird part. From street kids to Queen Street lawyers.

  To give himself credit, though, it had been Brett who had put the idea in Cujo’s head. Brett who thought up the franchise: what he called the chain letter. By using Cujo’s street kid contacts, to use their school kid contacts, to get other kids to buy Flutex. Straight from the chemist’s counter. All legit. No way of stopping it. Amazing how quickly it happened. So now, all over Auckland, and down the line, there were kids buying the pills, one box at a time, doubling their money, feeding the fire. All directed by Cujo, who was directed by him, Brett. Simple. Safe. Fool proof.

  Mind you, it was going to be tough keeping the little bastard in line. Behind the gold chains, the long coats, the swagger, he was a hungry little prick. Nothing like Jake. No honour. A liar too. The percentages he fed back to Brett had crept up, while the amount he was shifting had gone through the roof.

  Funny how they’d all moved on. Evan, Ronnie, Jake, Jamie. And Rabbit and Flash, the golden boys at school, now just surf bums.

  Though maybe they were all surfers. The waves he rode were made of blood and money, and once you caught one there was no baling out. The waves roll on forever and the party never ends.

  26 THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS

  After a week there were more than thoughts, there was a tingle. Whenever she was resting, or lying in bed before getting up in the morning, even when she was sitting reading the paper. It crept through her body on tiny mouse feet making her think of it again. Making her think of them.

  This was getting bad. When they first met, her body had been a benign, sleeping thing. She had resigned herself to the fact that this was going to be the way it was from now on. But she was wrong. What happened that night hadn’t been an isolated or irrational event. It had been like a match to dry grass.

  Then the baby came. Surely that would be the end of it. And for some time, it was: the tingles and the fiery hunger had gone. Given way to the needs of her little colonist. Given way to exhaustion. To the reinvention of her reason for being.

  But she had been wrong. After the fanfare of congratulations had died down she found that she had joined a new club. Its members prowled the streets with huge wheeled prams and met over coffee to swap recipes. Her body told her it wasn’t enough. Without warning, the hunger returned. And then day by day, it grew.

  There was one bonus from this early phase of motherhood. It was Mandy. At first she was someone to compare notes with; later she was someone to cover for her. There was a pay back though. She had to toss Mandy morsels of vicarious excitement, personal things leeched from her stolen moments with him. She also had to endure endless accounts of Oliver’s drinking.

  At first she hadn’t noticed the gap but after five days she began to worry. She left a message on his answerphone. It was the sort of desperate act she swore she’d never carry out. It took two days for him to respond. The secret ring came through in the evening. Right on dinner time. One ring and then it stopped. He was home! She left Tony feeding Kezia and took the cordless into the bathroom. Behind the cover of a noisily running bath, they arranged an assignation.

  When she rejoined the evening meal she found the grumpiness that had clouded over her for days now magically lifted. Tony noticed it too and was pleased. Later, as she put Kezia down, she had a thought that made her laugh out loud. ‘Old Testament Prozac.’

  All her available headspace was centred around making arrangements. The choreography of deception. Plausible reasons for doing things. Harmless i
f pointless missions which bought her an hour or two in his bed. Golden hours.

  But time was not her friend. The days between meetings limped by or towered before her like unclimable peaks. The clock watching and date checking were endless. So was the search to find something, anything, to make the passage of time less painfully slow. But deep down she knew that this was part of it: the slow pain made their meetings so intense. The needle in the vein of their rough collisions. Of being locked together while the hours slipped by in a blink. And then, all too soon, leaving her cast up, gasping and desperate for more.

  Why had she said K. Road? Where had that idea come from? Then she remembered. Wentworth. Tony was meeting Wentworth on K. Road. It had been all he had talked about for days. It was as if he hoped that this meeting was going to change his life.

  She remembered Wentworth differently. Not as the scholar-prince that Tony had made him into, but as the lecher. The cabbage breath. The lover of the killer retort, the one that shut down any further discussion.

  She remembered the last time, in that student pub, just days before their final term ended. How his eyes were all over her. The moment Tony’s back was turned he always found some excuse to touch. To touch her shoulder, tap her thigh reassuringly or brush against her breasts reaching for something. The moment Tony re-entered, the men’s badinage would continue and she could have been a thousand miles away.

  She checked her watch again. Six. Time to get ready. A cold shower to calm her body. The clothes carefully chosen: only his intense gaze could measure the difference. She drew on the knickers from the pocket of her coat, unwashed since last time. And the special perfume he’d given her after that first time: that could only go on in the car.

  In the hour from six till seven her excitement turned to rage. Tony must know. He must be punishing her. He was never this late. Her handbag was ready with her special things. The things she slipped on in the car. The spike heels. The earrings. The little chain. The device. Where was he?

  She had fed Kezia early, hurriedly, straining all the while for the return of the car. Now the baby had colic. The familiar red face, the ear shattering yells.

  Then the door opened. He was home.

  By the time she reached K. Road, it was getting dark. She drove the length of the street to find the coffee bar he’d mentioned. Every 50 metres there was a woman, or what looked like a woman, hovering. Acting as if any minute she would be met by someone and they would be off. Looking restless, but ready. ‘What a life,’ she thought.

  The place was easy to spot, with its nightmarish Polynesian decor and little tables on the footpath. She risked the loading zone nearby. A ticket would be unlikely at this time and there was no way she was going into that parking building.

  She chose an outside table so she could watch the car, and see him coming. A woman with tattooed arms and a shaven head appeared with a menu. All the items had a cannibal theme. Even the short black she ordered was called the Pigmy.

  After a few moments she relaxed a little. Sitting in the apron of light she felt protected, less alien, as if now temporarily, she was one of Cannibal Jack’s. Further down the street, a bunch of street kids milled around a guitarist. His clear strong voice sang of pirate ships and redemption. She noticed for the first time in hours her fingers had stopped shaking.

  Then she saw him.

  Even from this distance, in this poor light, she knew it was him. Something about his walk, light footed and athletic. Like those pacing leopards at the zoo. She waved as he waited to cross the road. He raised his hand in a distracted way and then jogged between the gaps in the cars.

  The moment he appeared in the café’s lights she knew that something was wrong. He was thinking of something, and it wasn’t what she was thinking. He sank into a chair next to her.

  ‘Sorry I’m late.’ Then he pecked her on the lips.

  It was all wrong. They had this policy: they never apologised. And the kiss. It was a Tony kiss. She felt her heart pound but she said nothing. She dared say nothing.

  He sat back and looked at her. Something had gone from the look. It was as if she was just anyone across that table. A colleague, perhaps, or a client.

  ‘I find I’m often late these days, and the odd thing is I don’t really care,’ he continued.

  She still said nothing.

  ‘Do you want to know why?’

  She ignored the question. ‘Are you going to get a coffee?’ Her voice sharp.

  He looked as if the idea had never occurred to him and then shook his head. ‘I’ll get a water.’

  He sprang up and helped himself from a water jug and a group of glasses on the bar. She saw him exchange pleasantries with the bald-headed woman behind the bar and for a moment she wanted to kill him.

  When he came back he seemed sombre and composed. He leaned forward on the table and held his glass in both hands.

  ‘I’m glad you suggested we meet here on this street. It’s sort of freaky really…’ he gave this humorous, paranoid, eye darting expression and then continued, ‘almost makes you believe in a higher being.’

  She leaned back in her chair. Something told her it was all bad from here on in.

  ‘Something happened here, Monday the twenty-third. Everything has changed now.’

  ‘You’ve met someone…’ she couldn’t stop herself.

  He reached out and put his hands on her shoulders; smilingly said, ‘No. No.’ He shook his head.

  She recoiled. Something about the action reminded her of her father, and of being six years old.

  ‘It’s nothing like that.’ He paused, searching for the words. ‘On that Monday my life changed its direction. Something happened out of the blue and I knew straight away that nothing would ever be the same again. Ever since then I have been operating differently. Imagine learning to walk again.’ There was a joyfulness that smacked of religion.

  ‘So what is it?’ she asked. There was no point in drawing this out.

  ‘That day I came face to face with my own mortality. It’s hard to describe but every day after that has been new. Like a surprise. I realised what a narrow, blinkered existence I’d been living. I tell you what, Helen, I’m thinking of selling my place and moving in with other people. Quitting my job, maybe. Joining the army. Doing something crazy.’

  She looked around angrily, then turned back to him.

  ‘Your own mortality.’

  ‘It’s one of those things that you can’t really describe to other people. They had to be there … in fact they had to be you.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I was driving to work. I came around that corner,’ he pointed to the intersection of Queen and K., ‘and I saw an accident over there.’ He pointed to the other end of the road. ‘I didn’t actually see it happen, I just saw the body. It was lying there. There was only one thought in my head, Helen. That’s me down there. Dead on the road. The shell of my earthly existence. Yeah, I know it sounds corny – I’ve been reading everything I can find about it.’

  Helen glanced away, involuntarily rolling her eyes.

  ‘In some ways I feel I’ve been privileged. I’ve been given a second chance.’

  He smiled.

  She felt a tightness in her chest.

  She became aware of music again. The guitarist. ‘Tears in Heaven’.

  She stood up, teetering dizzily against the flimsy table. She looked down at him, his smug face swimming in her watery eyes. Then she turned and walked back quickly towards her car. She couldn’t look back at him now, she knew that, it would be the end of her. The car seemed further away than before and she could hear him calling something. After a few more steps, all other sound was swallowed up by the music so she paused for a while among the knot of street kids and listened. She wasn’t afraid of them any more, in fact she almost felt part of them. From her wallet she took her last 20 dollar note and threw it into the open case. All eyes fixed on it. Then, as an afterthought, she snapped the locket from around her neck and th
rew that in too.

  The guitarist looked at her and squeezed ‘Thanks lady’ into the middle of a line, the melody adjusted effortlessly to accommodate it.

  As soon as the car fired she surged out into the street, half hoping to damage one of the stream of curb crawlers. As she flashed past she was able to glimpse him out the corner of her eye. He was sitting there still, unchanged, as though nothing had happened. Up ahead the lights stayed green so she powered on through.

  27 GERONIMO’S LAST STAND: PART 2

  As it happened Brett was prepared for the visit. He’d been tipped off by a phone call from Evan. Something was about to go down. It was all tied to that fire. The big one near K. Road. Looked like there would be a few more people burned before that baby went out. Now Willets was organising a sting. Operation Blade Runner. Evan wasn’t in on it of course, too many black marks, but he’d seen Ronnie in the interview room.

  Be ready.

  That night Geronimo came to see him.

  ‘What’s up, Ronnie?’

  ‘Got this business proposition.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Need cash up front, get it to run.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Twenty grand, bro.’

  ‘That’s a figure.’

  ‘Get it back in two weeks … plus another ten.’

  ‘It’s gotta be P.’

  ‘Don’t go there.’