by C. B. Harvey
Wilcox swung the Humvee to a halt, and McGuire stepped out and pulled the iron helmet over his head. Today, the helmet would be sufficient. Baxter emerged from a second Humvee, driven by Nancy.
It was a children’s play-park. Several motorcycles rested beside the park, polished chrome blinding in the morning sun. A gaggle of leather-jacketed men stood around them, smoking and laughing. A short distance away McGuire could see a boyish woman with spiky purple hair, dressed in leathers, head down, swaying on one of the children’s swings. Megan Kendall.
“What is this?” breathed McGuire. His eyes flitted between Meg and one of the men, a rotund guy with a goatee. He recognised him too.
“McGuire!” yelled Goatee, approaching with a wide smile. As he walked, he pushed his jacket aside so that his shoulder holster and automatic pistol were easily visible. The gaggle of men fell in behind him, grinning.
“The Kendalls,” growled McGuire, looking at Baxter. “What the fuck is this?”
“No, I promise,” said Baxter hurriedly. “They wanted to talk with you, Boss. That’s all.”
The man stopped some short distance from McGuire, his broad smile intact. “How you doin’, mate?” He gestured vaguely at McGuire’s helmet. “Nice look. Tell me, are you Ned Kelly the hero or Ned Kelly the villain?”
“I’m both,” McGuire said from within the mask. “It all depends on who you are.”
Bobby smirked. “Must be hot, though, wearing that thing...”
“I heard you’d left town, Bobby.”
“We did,” said Bobby Kendall. “Things got a little, uh, excitable here. Decided we needed to lie low for a while. Gather our thoughts, that kind of thing.”
McGuire nodded towards the woman on the swing. Her face was turned to the sky, wearing a distant grin. She seemed to be giggling to her herself. “How’s your sister? Still playing with her bow and arrow?”
“You know Meg. She always was a bit of an eccentric.”
“I’ll fuckin’ say,” said McGuire. “This is all fine and dandy, but you still haven’t explained what you’re doing on my turf, mate.”
Bobby laughed. “Yeah, I heard that, man. You control most of the fuckin’ city now, don’tcha? Not bad for a dead man.”
Without looking, McGuire knew that Wilcox and Nancy’s hands were resting on their weapons.
“I think you’ll find,” he said, “we control the whole city.”
Bobby laughed again, and raised his palms. “Of course. I didn’t mean no offence, Kelly.”
“What do you want, Bobby?”
Bobby nodded. “Okay. You know me, Kelly. I’m a businessman. I seize opportunities when they arise—”
“I’ve got things to do, mate. Enough of the spiel. Fuckin’ hurry up.”
Bobby’s smile vanished. “Okay. We want you to leave us alone.”
McGuire chuckled, turning to his own people. “So you come here to tell us that? Mate, you’re screwier than I thought.”
Bobby stared at him. “Yeah. Simple as that. We supply a lot of people with fuel. We want to carry on doing that.”
McGuire considered a moment. “Okay, I get that. How do you propose securing such an arrangement?”
Bobby nodded. “Yeah, well. Through information, Kelly. Specifically, regarding Jack Zircnosk.”
McGuire tensed. “Where is he?”
The smile had returned. “I’ll take you to him. I just need an assurance from you that you’ll leave us be. Forever.” He held out a stubby hand. “Okay?”
Now McGuire smiled, under the helmet. “Yeah, why not?” He reached out his scarred hand and clasped Bobby’s. He saw Bobby’s sister Meg gazing straight at him, head cocked curiously.
THEY MOVED IN convoy further into the city, the two Humvees flanked by the gang’s motorcycles. Meg rode pillion on Bobby’s bike, crossbow and quiver strapped to her back. Occasionally she came parallel with McGuire’s window, and seemed to stare straight at him, as though her eyesight could penetrate the tinted glass.
Bobby’s bike peeled off toward the River Yarra, and Wilcox followed. Above them rose the decaying towers of the Crown Entertainment Complex, their windows cracked, vast portions of the buildings scarred with fire and, as per usual, spidery, largely meaningless graffiti, much of it in red and black. McGuire struggled to make out the words Everlasting and Ceaseless. The great gas brigades that used to shoot enormous fireballs into the sky every evening had died when everything else had.
A sudden burst of automatic fire blossomed from one of the windows of the Crown Metropol Hotel, ricocheting off the roof of the Humvee.
“Fuck,” muttered Wilcox, turning the vehicle into a skid which momentarily lifted its left side in the air before it crunched back down. Wilcox slammed his foot on the accelerator as more bursts of gunfire raked the ground around them.
McGuire could see a laughing Bobby slaloming his bike to avoid gun shots. Meg had her crossbow in her hands and was shooting at the hotel, mouth wide with glee, laughing like a fucking kookaburra. The rest of the Kendall gang opened up with their submachine guns as well.
Bobby came to a halt beside the Yarra, a safe distance along from the Complex, the rest of his gang arriving right behind him. McGuire leapt out of his Humvee as soon as it stopped, and marched directly up to Bobby, heedless of the Kendalls’ weapon-wielding heavies.
“What gives, fuckwit?” he snarled, grabbing the chubby man by the shoulders of his leather jacket.
Bobby shook his head, half-laughing. “It’s him, mate. It’s Jack Zircnosk.”
“Like fuck it is.”
“I’m telling you. He came to us. Wanted to do a deal.”
“A deal,” breathed McGuire. “A deal to do what?”
Bobby grinned again. “To bring you down, mate.”
“You fucker,” growled McGuire. “Are you fucking with me?”
“No, mate. Honestly.” He raised his hands. “I’m telling you. Your man Baxter had put the word out. We were gonna hand him straight to you, but he ran when he realised what we were up to. We chased him here, but you can’t get near him. He’s holed up in a hotel room, got the whole fuckin’ place booby-trapped. The fucker’s mad, mate. He’s totally lost his mind.”
“I need him,” whispered McGuire.
“Yeah, well. Good luck. I’ve done my side of the bargain.” He motioned to his people to mount their bikes. “You gotta keep away from us now, Kelly. That was the deal, mate.”
“How do I know it’s him?”
“You know it’s him,” Meg said dreamily, long hands caressing her beloved crossbow. “You’re Dead Kelly. You know.”
“Good luck, man,” said Bobby, mounting his bike. Meg swung her legs over the pillion and leaned forward on the bike. Bobby turned in response to her touch and kissed her hard on the lips.
Bobby grinned at McGuire, then revved the bike and pulled away. The other bikers followed suit, throwing up a wave of dust and old newspapers in their wake.
McGuire pulled the iron helmet off, scowling. He turned to Nancy and Wilcox, handing them the mask. “Follow ’em,” he rumbled. “Take some people and wipe ’em out.”
Wilcox nodded. “We’re on it.”
McGuire placed a hand on Nancy’s shoulder, stopping her, his eyes playing on the cleaver strapped to her thigh. “I want evidence—you understand?”
“Sure thing, boss.”
As the Humvees pulled off in pursuit of the Kendall gang, Baxter looked to McGuire. “What next, boss?”
“Fuckin’ Zircnosk,” replied McGuire grimly.
MCGUIRE HELD UP his hand in warning, and Baxter came to a stop. They had approached the hotel from behind, taking cover from the carcasses of rusting vehicles and overturned street furniture, and come to a halt near the corner of the building. With luck, the awning over the ground floor of the hotel would hide their approach from Zircnosk’s overhead viewpoint, but it was still a risk; from the nearest cover to the edge of the awning—a length of about twenty metres—they would be out in
the open.
McGuire picked up a half-crumbled brick from the gutter, drew his arm back and launched the brick at a pile of rubble near the awning. The brick smashed into the rubble, sending debris skittering outward across the pavement. McGuire looked up, to where he remembered the automatic gunfire coming from. Midway up the wall, the reflection of the sun on one of the hotel’s windows rippled, barely perceptibly, but enough to catch his eye. McGuire nodded to himself. Halfway along the sixth floor. While it was clear that Zircnosk could hear, McGuire didn’t think he could see the approach. They would soon know for certain.
McGuire turned to Baxter and placed his index finger on his lips; Baxter nodded. McGuire, rifle in hand, ran into the sweltering sunshine, dodging silently along the edge of the building to the awning. Then he turned back and motioned to Baxter. Baxter sprinted to his side, his face a mask of sweaty determination, Uzi clutched to his chest.
The entrance was barricaded; working as quietly as they could, McGuire and Baxter had to heft aside filing cabinets, sink units, and wardrobes. Beyond these obstructions stood two sets of jammed revolving doors, their frames bowed out of shape and much of the glass fractured or missing. Baxter went to climb through the jagged glass, but McGuire held out his arm.
“Carefully,” he whispered, and Baxter nodded dumbly. Why had so little effort been made to block the doors? Clearly Zircnosk—or whoever else was in the building—had other defences further inside the building.
Baxter followed him through the wreckage of the doors. The foyer beyond was covered in rubble and dust, where parts of the high, arching ceiling had collapsed. Bullet holes scarred the walls, the marble-tiled floor, and even the huge teak desks that populated the reception area. A foul stench hit them as they entered. McGuire looked about and spotted the remnants of a human body protruding from a set of half-open lift doors. It looked like an arm and a head, although the extent of the decomposition made it difficult to say for certain.
McGuire wordlessly gestured to the staircase and Baxter nodded. Amidst fallen masonry they came across more corpses, or more accurately parts of corpses, blood and entrails coating the steps and rendering the climb slippery. Unlike the body decaying in the lift, these bodies were mostly fresh. He wondered whether there was something in the building worth taking, or whether they’d just been seeking refuge. As they ascended, McGuire saw blood trailing up the walls, as though bodies or portions of bodies had somehow been dragged upward. McGuire peered up, and saw something yellow and plastic dangling down the stairwell several storeys above them.
McGuire stopped suddenly as they rounded the corner, reaching out a hand to grab Baxter. Perched on the very next step was a row of odd-shaped green plastic devices. There were more on the next step, and so on, travelling all the way up this flight. The bloodstained walls were festooned with cracks and craters, while tiny flecks of ripped human gristle and bone dotted the staircase.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“What are they, boss?” asked Baxter.
“Butterfly mines. Fuck. One probably wouldn’t kill you, but all these together...”
“What do we do, Boss?”
McGuire clicked his tongue, then pointed. “Up there.”
“The banister?” Baxter blinked. McGuire watched him scanning the narrow handrail, then saw his eyes flicker to the landmines. “Really, Boss?”
“Any other suggestions warmly fuckin’ received.”
“’Kay,” replied Baxter slowly. An extended pause ensued, then eventually, “No, sorry, Boss. No ideas.”
McGuire flashed him a withering glance. “Me first,” he said, and grabbed hold of the banister, placing a booted foot on it and hoisting himself up. The banister creaked under his weight. Raised mosaics in the wall afforded him sporadic purchase. Painfully slow, the banister protesting with each footstep, he began to edge up and past the landmines. Then the banister groaned even more loudly, and he looked around in horror to see Baxter placing a foot on it.
“Wait until I’m across, you fuckwit,” he spat.
Baxter, wide-eyed, nodded, and took his boot away. McGuire continued to pull himself upward, until eventually, awkwardly, he stepped off the banister on to the next clear flight. He looked to Baxter, and gestured impatiently.
“Now,” he said through gritted teeth.
Baxter began his own ascent. Under McGuire’s weight, the rivets supporting the banister had already begun to bend. Fortunately Baxter was a smaller man than McGuire, and he didn’t hang about. Only as he was nearing the safety of McGuire’s flight did he slip, his flailing foot inches from grazing one of the tiny landmines.
There was little sentimentality in McGuire’s next act. He knew that at this distance, he would himself be consumed in the blast if Baxter fell. He reached out, grabbed Baxter with one arm and lifted him back onto the banister. Baxter wobbled before reasserting his balance and edging the final half-metre or so to safety.
He stared at McGuire, sweat dripping from his pronounced brow, and panted. McGuire said nothing, instead turning and resuming the ascent up the stairs.
CHAPTER TEN
THE SIXTH FLOOR. McGuire and Baxter emerged from the stairwell and into the corridor. As they’d progressed, they’d encountered more of the mines, presumably appropriated from some stolen or otherwise mislaid military shipment. McGuire dimly remembered hearing about how the Soviets had used them in Afghanistan, of how they’d eventually been banned because children thought they were toys. Even by his flexible moral standards, these were nasty fucking devices. They were often deployed out of helicopters; someone could have happily dropped them down the staircase, replenishing them once they’d detonated. The higher they went, the fewer body parts they encountered. Clearly only the most intrepid, careful intruders had managed to sneak up to the higher levels, until finally their luck or skill had deserted them.
The pair paused momentarily while McGuire, intrigued, examined the yellow plastic object he’d seen from below. It seemed to be a modified cleaner’s bucket, its top half hinged, the lip crudely cut into jagged teeth. The bucket was suspended from a pulley made from the fire-hose reel, the makeshift guide rope wrapped securely around the banister several times. He gingerly lifted the jawed lid of the bucket and was greeted by a horrific stench. Scraps of human entrails and blood slopped in the bottom of the bin. Clearly the claw was used to grab body parts following encounters with the mines. Fuck knew why.
McGuire let the lid snap shut and turned toward the corridor. Motes of dust whirled in the occasional shafts of sunlight through missing or smashed doors. After the stairwell he was still cautious, although the hallway looked pretty innocuous. McGuire couldn’t see any rubble from exploding mines, nor indeed bodies or bits of bodies. There were, however, huge blood stains across many of the walls, which looked as though they’d been scrubbed. It seemed someone was making a concerted attempt to keep this part of the building clean and tidy, as far as was humanly possible.
McGuire stopped suddenly. Baxter looked to him questioningly, and he raised his free hand to his ear. Baxter frowned and listened, and a look of wonder crossed his face as he, too, heard the music.
The lyrics were crackly but distinct nevertheless: ‘...shooting arrows in the blue...’ McGuire recognised the tune from when he was a kid. It was called ‘Little Arrows,’ but he couldn’t recall who sang it. An American bloke, he knew that much, probably in the late ’sixties. As a child he remembered stumbling, bleary-eyed into the lounge late at night, hearing the song as he approached, watching as his parents swayed to it. They would feign outrage as he entered, before one or other—or sometimes both—would laughingly scoop him up, and return him to bed with a soothing lullaby and good-night kiss. Then they’d close the door and he’d hear another easy-listening classic saunter into life, before falling into a contented slumber.
The memory had brought tears to his eyes. They were good parents, Lucy and Joe, despite what they gave him, despite what they did to him. Looking back, he often wondered
whether, if things had turned out differently and he hadn’t hacked them to death with that axe, they might have made good grandparents. Probably. Still, as his dear old Papa was wont to say, if wishes were horses then beggars would ride.
The song had come to an end, giving way to hissing nothingness. The door was ajar, and he could hear someone shambling across the floor and the sound of the needle on an old record player being lifted. McGuire had readied his weapon, and now pushed the door open with his foot before stepping through.
A gangling woman of about fifty with a misshapen bob of a haircut and a heavily-powdered face stood by a table upon which sat an ancient wind-up gramophone. She carried a cigarette in an old-fashioned holder, and looked thoroughly bemused. On the other side of the room, an elderly man sat in an armchair, a shotgun levelled directly at McGuire’s chest. He leered at McGuire. A pair of false teeth sat on the scuffed metal cabinet beside him.
Baxter stayed out of view, listening.
“I’m looking for a policeman,” said McGuire.
The woman looked to her companion, a smile cracking her lipsticked mouth, before drawing on her cigarette. She and the man began to laugh.
“Bit late for that, boyo,” said the man in the armchair. “I think the situation’s a bit beyond the plods, if you take my meaning.”
McGuire’s eyes flickered around the room. Another door led off. An assault rifle was propped on a tripod at the window. Unused cartridges and magazines littered the floor.