Saxon groaned. Bronson had the belt undone but couldn’t pull it out because of the holster and the pouches on it. ‘Arch your back there, mate,’ he said to Saxon. ‘There you go.’ He yanked the belt free and started examining the contents of each pouch.
‘The Chinese Tao suggests that your mind shouldn’t dwell on right and wrong,’ he said, as he found a canister of pepper spray and slipped it in his pocket. ‘You can do your good-cop routine or your bad-cop, it doesn’t matter. You can try and stay away from the Yin and hang with the Yang, but it doesn’t work like that. One is in harmony with the other. There is no division between good and evil; they are inside all of us.’
He found a pair of handcuffs and a key, and held them up in triumph. Saxon was trying to sit up again, so Bronson held out a hand to him. Saxon eyed it suspiciously but decided to take it. Bronson pulled him up and then off the table onto his feet.
‘You alright there?’ he asked, holding the constable steady by his elbow. When Saxon nodded Bronson guided him across the room to stand beside his wife by the stove.
‘Sit down on the floor,’ said Bronson. Saxon looked confused until he saw Bronson open the handcuffs and thread them through the heavy steel handle on the oven door. He pulled on the handle to test its strength and said to Anna, ‘You too, sweetheart.’ She looked at her husband and he nodded. They sat down together, shoulder to shoulder, their backs against the stove, and raised a wrist each towards Bronson.
‘My Chinese friend here has taught me that wu-wei has an opposite,’ said Bronson, snapping the bracelets on their wrists. ‘The opposite of perfect calm is hopeless, heroic, random action. That sort of chaos has no prospect of success.’
Bronson checked the locks on the bracelets and, satisfied, directed his attention to Kavanagh. ‘You can get up now,’ he said.
She struggled to her feet, wincing in pain. ‘You’re going to leave a pregnant woman handcuffed?’ she said.
Bronson shrugged. ‘It’s only for a few hours until we’re out of here. Their sergeant will be back soon.’ He leaned over and took Saxon’s phone out of the front pocket of his uniform. ‘How long have you two been married?’
Saxon glared at him but didn’t answer. The Maori opened a cupboard door and found a large saucepan. He placed it on the floor between Saxon and his wife. ‘In case she gets desperate,’ he said. ‘You two aren’t shy of each other, right?’
Anna dropped her head and tried to hold back a sob. ‘You should be proud of your man,’ said Bronson. ‘He did alright. No shame in this. He’s never come up against anyone like us before.’
Ford stepped into the corridor and found Diane standing there, halfway to the front door, Grace still burying her face in her mother’s neck. He ruffled the girl’s hair. ‘All over now, princess,’ he whispered. ‘Nobody hurt. No damage done, just a few broken plates. Now what?’ he asked, looking at his wife.
She set Grace down on the floor and held her hand. Her daughter’s face was wracked with fear, her eyes red and wet. ‘We’re leaving,’ she said. ‘I can’t stay in Australia and wait for Alan or his men to catch up with me. I need to leave. You can come too.’
Kavanagh stepped between Ford and his wife and turned to Diane, her face getting close. ‘You made a promise to me to give up McCann.’
‘I did,’ said Diane. ‘I helped you find the gold. I brought you here to Marble Bar and you worked out the connection to Alan. When I get clear of here I’ll give you all the information I’ve found: the offshore accounts, shell companies, trust funds, everything.’
Kavanagh thought about that, looking at Bronson and Wu. She caught Ford watching her. ‘You can’t let her play us like this. What are you going to do?’ she asked.
Ford looked at his daughter holding her mother’s hand, and noticed his wife was biting her lip. Her eyes could do things to him without trying. He could see the danger but it seemed to him so much less than the promise of something better. ‘I’m going with them,’ he said.
Kavanagh had opened her mouth to speak when the noise of the explosion outside reached them. The floor shook and the windows rattled and there was a crash of breaking glass from the front of the house. They looked at one another quickly, panic in their eyes. Ford pushed past Diane and rushed down the corridor to the front door. He opened it a crack, then threw it open when he saw what was in the street.
Saxon’s police wagon was on fire, the doors blown open and the interior in flames. Down the street Bronson’s stolen ute was also on fire, the fuel cap hanging open.
‘Roth,’ said Ford.
Kavanagh appeared beside him. ‘I told you he was close.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
Bronson had the Glock in his hand when he reached the front door. He saw the burning vehicles and sprinted across the garden, vaulting the garden fence and running out into the street. He looked up and down the street but the way his shoulders dropped when he turned back to the house told Ford that Roth was nowhere to be seen. Diane carried Grace out of the front door and through the gate to join Bronson. Wu walked slowly behind and stepped up to the huddle in the street.They conferred in whispers and then set off towards the centre of town.
Ford and Kavanagh caught them at the end of the street, in the shadow of the squat tower at the end of the Government Buildings. They were looking down the main street towards the Ironclad. There were no cars moving in the street, nothing parked in the petrol station or outside the store. Dussell’s Land Rover was parked diagonally in front of the hotel, the only vehicle in sight.
‘I guess we should be grateful to the old man for getting that truck moving,’ said Bronson, and walked off towards the Ironclad. Wu carefully opened the umbrella. He held it above Diane and Grace and they set off. Kavanagh and Ford followed behind.
From a distance Ford could see that the door to the hotel was open. They paused in the shade of the verandah then Bronson led them into the cool interior, the Glock still in his hand, held close to the back of his thigh.
Reynard was standing behind the bar, cleaning glasses. Dussell and Muddy were sitting at the bar and turned to watch them come through the door.
‘I thought we were in lockdown,’ said Muddy.
‘It’s not much of a lockdown if you leave the bloody door open,’ said Dussell. ‘Where’s your man Curtis when you need him?’
Emily was stretched out on the couch, her eyes closed. She opened an eye, sighed to herself, and closed it again.
Bronson saw Reynard and smiled. He walked slowly over to the bar, stepping between Muddy and Dussell, and beckoned him closer. Reynard put down the glass and leaned on the bar. Bronson grabbed him by the collar and brought the gun from behind his back, smashing its butt into the landlord’s forehead. Reynard grunted and reeled backwards, a hand to his face. Then Bronson caught him by his shirt collar again, pulling him forward and holding on to him while he returned the pistol to his belt. With two hands on Reynard’s collar now, Bronson lifted him off the ground and dragged him across the bar, scattering glasses.
Muddy and Dussell hurried off their stools and backed away as Reynard’s feet came over the counter and Bronson dropped him sprawling on the floor. Reynard tried to sit up, taking his hand away from his face and seeing the blood on his fingers. Bronson leaned over and punched him twice in the face, then leaned across the bar and looked under the counter. He found the baseball bat but nothing else. He pointed the tip of the bat at Reynard’s face. ‘I told you not to make an enemy of me. Where’s that shotgun?’
Reynard groaned. ‘It’s not there.’
Bronson stood up and swung the bat at Reynard’s knees. There was the thump of solid wood as it connected with bone and Reynard cried out in pain.
‘Stop!’ yelled Kavanagh. Bronson spun around to face her, levelling the bat. ‘He doesn’t have it.’
‘He better not,’ said Bronson, pulling the Glock from his belt, the bat and the gun pointing at Kavanagh’s head. ‘Because the next person who points a gun at me, I’m going to shoot
three holes in their head and use it as a bowling ball.’
Kavanagh was cool. ‘Reynard gave the shotgun to me,’ she said. ‘Roth took it.’
Bronson looked confused, then a smile of comprehension spread across his face. He turned to Dussell. ‘Anyone else in the hotel?’
Dussell’s eyes moved across to the door behind the bar. ‘Just Charlie,’ he said. ‘He’s in the kitchen.’
‘Call him,’ said Bronson. ‘Get him in here.’
Dussell called the cook’s name. When he appeared he looked fearful. ‘You been hiding?’ asked Bronson.
Charlie didn’t answer. Bronson waved him around the bar with the bat and motioned for him to stand next to Dussell. ‘What we came in here for, old man,’ he said, ‘is the keys to your truck. It seems to be the only thing in this town that Henk Roth hasn’t fucked up.’
Dussell put his hand in his pocket and held the keys out at arm’s length. Bronson tucked the bat under his arm and took the keys, then turned and threw them across the room. Wu snatched them mid-air and put them in his pocket.
Bronson did a slow spin in the middle of the room, looking at each person in turn, winked at Ford, then walked to the door. He’d taken three steps through it when he stopped short. ‘Well, fuck me.’
Ford followed Bronson outside and found him looking up the street to where a man stood alone in the middle of the road. As they both watched, the tall figure started walking towards them. Even from that distance, Ford recognised Roth by his limp.
Bronson stepped out into the street directly in front of the hotel. Ford stayed under the shade of the verandah and waited. Kavanagh tried to step out of the hotel but Wu blocked the door. He was standing with his arms folded, the umbrella hooked over them.
Roth was wearing the same gun belt as before, but he had tucked his shirt beneath it, the holster strapped diagonally across his belly with the butt of the big automatic pointing towards his right hand. He stopped twenty metres from Bronson, looked at Ford and gave him a curt nod, then gave his full attention to the man facing him in the street.
‘What is this, High Noon?’ said Bronson.
Roth glanced up at the sun, then down at his watch. ‘A couple of hours yet,’ he said.
Ford looked at the Omega on his wrist and saw that it had stopped. He looked down the street at the temperature sign. It was coming up to ten o’clock and forty-two degrees. The sun was in the brazen sky and the men in the street cast no shadows.
‘Were you calling me out?’
‘I just wanted a chat.’
‘You’re wearing a gun.’
‘You’re carrying a police Glock,’ said Roth. ‘Look at you: an outlaw with a cop gun.’
Bronson looked at the pistol he had taken off Saxon, and the baseball bat.
‘I don’t like guns,’ said Bronson.
‘But you have one in your hand.’
‘One in my hand, and one in my pants,’ said Bronson, opening his jacket to show the Webley. ‘I should have thrown this old thing away. Too dangerous.’
‘It could blow your balls off.’
‘I’ve been told that. I started worrying that if it got any hotter it might explode the cartridges in the gun.’
‘You like playing with danger, that’s what I’ve heard,’ said Roth. ‘Well, the two most dangerous things in the world are rich people and crazy people. The Lau family are rich and are batshit crazy, or at least the children are. And the old man’s second wife.You don’t want to cross her.’
Bronson gave him a dull stare.
‘Tell me,’ said Roth, ‘if you went inside and got your Chinese boy, and tried to come back out into the street, what would we be fighting about?’
‘The Laus gave me a job to do while I was here, and that was to take you out of the equation.’
‘That’s not why you’re in Marble Bar.’
‘No, it’s just a bonus. We’re here to look after the lady. Make sure she does her job, gets her kid back and gets out. It seemed a good idea, if we saw you while we were here, to put you out of the picture. Kill two birds with one stone.’
‘But this bird isn’t dead.’
‘No, but we’re getting there.’
‘What have the Laus got against me?’ said Roth.
‘They’re not sure who you’re working for. Maybe you really are working for McCann, in which case you’re standing between him and the Laus. But maybe you’ve got your own thing, working your own angles. Either way, the family doesn’t trust you.’
‘The way you talk about the Lau family, you make it sound like they all speak with one voice. But this isn’t the family, this is one person giving you orders. Which side of the family are you working for?’
‘Does it matter? To you, right here, there’s not much difference which member of the family has put the hit on you.’
‘You like working for the Chinese? Their errand boy?’
‘I’m not prejudiced,’ said Bronson. ‘You walk around with a face like mine, you get kinda used to all the abuse. The only reason I got a gig at the casino was because they thought that as a hak gwai there’d be no way I could be linked to the brotherhoods. They like me because they know I have no loyalty except to the guy that pays the most, and the Laus always pay the most. The Chinese love money because it has no history.’
‘You’re here for the little girl,’ said Roth. ‘Whatever that woman told you, her first priority is the girl.’
‘I know that.’
‘You could take the girl any time you like. Ford isn’t in a position to stop you. You could brush him aside.’
‘The woman, she’s got ideas about him. Made us promise not to hurt him in front of the kid, and I for one don’t want to argue with her.’
‘You getting pushed around by a woman?’
‘That one only needs two things to keep her happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, the other is to let her have it.’
‘I know all about her. I looked after her in Macau, remember?’
‘Then you’ll know how she is. The only thing shorter than a Chinaman’s dick is a redhead’s temper. Ain’t that true, Ford?’
Neither man had turned to look at him, so Ford didn’t answer. He didn’t want to be part of what was going to happen.
‘What if I don’t want Diane to leave?’ said Roth.
‘I figured we’d be better trying to settle this here, rather than taking it back to Macau.’
‘Only one of us is leaving this town,’ said Roth.
‘I’d always imagined doing this hand to hand. I had pictures in my head of my hands around your throat.’ He looked at the baseball bat, swinging it casually.
Roth held up his hand and showed Bronson where the fingers were missing. He took three steps down the road to show him the limp. ‘You’ve got size and you look mean enough, but I think you lack desire,’ he said. ‘I think you’re so used to being the biggest man in Macau that you’ve got slow and lazy.’
‘What about you, that leg slow you down any?’
‘I won’t be needing to run.’
‘So I’ve got to shoot you?’
‘I can’t think of any other way.’
Now Bronson looked down at the Glock. He kept the gun in his hand, letting his arm hang loose, making sure not to make any sudden movement with it, aware that Roth’s eyes were on it. ‘I already got my gun in my hand,’ he said. ‘You got to get to that holster. All I got to do is raise my hand and fire.’
‘It’s never how quick you are on the draw,’ said Roth, ‘it’s whether you have the cool to raise and aim and hit your target. You just think you can raise that thing and shoot without sighting? Or are you going to shoot from the hip?’
‘You’ll find out soon enough.’
‘There comes a time when you have to follow through. You can only tell a man one time what you’re going to do to him. Tell him twice and he knows you’re full of shit.’
‘So it’s just a proper spaghetti western showdown, Clint Ea
stwood style?’
Roth smiled now. ‘I always preferred Lee Van Cleef. Good Dutch name. When I was a kid watching those movies, I used to think maybe he could have been an Afrikaner.’
‘That why you got your gun strapped across your belly like that?’
Roth shrugged. He planted one foot in front of the other, turning sideways to Bronson, his hand held loosely at his side, waiting.
‘How do we do this?’ said Bronson. ‘I’m betting you got one of those pocket watches with the musical chimes, waiting your whole life for an opportunity like this.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ said Roth. ‘You just start when you’re ready.’
‘Maybe we could get Ford here to count to three.’
‘Now you’re overthinking it.’
‘I’m getting my balls knotted waiting.’
Bronson raised the Glock and fired, snatching at it. The bullet flew wide of Roth and he heard it pass. Roth’s hand went to his gun in a practised movement. He drew it out from the holster, leaned his weight onto his front foot and raised both hands in a textbook stance. Bronson squeezed off another round, holding the gun in one hand, legs wide apart to steady himself, the bullet missing again. Roth took slow aim at Bronson and fired two rounds into his chest. Bronson grunted and his gun arm sagged.
Roth took aim at Bronson’s head but he had already dropped the gun and slumped to one knee, propping himself on the baseball bat and clutching his side. Roth walked slowly towards him, his gun still aimed at the Maori’s head, but he could hear the sucking sound from where the lung was punctured and knew he wouldn’t last long. By the time Roth was standing next to him, Bronson was lying on his back, his eyes open.
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