Not Dead Yet

by Peter Menadue

CHAPTER 29

  Gary knew that, if he fell asleep on his hospital bed, Pringle might sneak in and administer a fatal dose of bullets. So he spent most of the night wandering around the hospital, dozing on spare beds. When he returned to his room the next morning, the nurses chided him for his absence.

  Just after 8 a.m., a nurse brought his clothes, freshly laundered, but with big light-purple stains and several tears. He showered and dressed. A nurse changed his bandages.

  Dr Elliott appeared just after 8.30 a.m., looking like he'd just killed a patient and was too tired to care. He gave Gary various prescriptions and a letter describing his condition, and told him to have the bandages changed every second day. "But you really should spend several more days in this hospital."

  "Don't worry, this is best for my health, believe me."

  "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "Yes I do. Good health isn't just about pills and treatment, you know."

  Gary said goodbye to the doctor and left the hospital. Once outside, he decided to pick up his car, still parked near the marina. He'd be taking a risk, because Pringle might have staked it out, but he needed transport.

  A taxi deposited him a block away from the marina. He walked up a side street, peered cautiously around a corner and saw his car about thirty metres away. After scanning the area and seeing nothing suspicious, he dashed over to the car, started the engine, stomped on the accelerator and zoomed down the street.

  Thirty minutes later, he knocked on the front door of Ray Boland's house in Cremorne.

  Ray opened it and his jaw went slack. "Christ, you look like hell. What happened?"

  "It's a long story. Anne home?"

  "Yes."

  "Then let's go around to the toolshed."

  Ray stepped outside and closed the door behind him. They walked down the side path to the toolshed. Once inside, Gary slumped onto a stool, leaned back against the metal wall and put his bandaged right hand on his lap.

  Ray said: "What's been going on?"

  "It's a long story."

  "Tell me everything."

  "OK." Gary told Ray everything that had happened to him during the last month. When he finished, 20 minutes later, Ray shook his head. "So Pringle blew up your apartment to stop you finding Trixie. That doesn't surprise me. I met the prick a few times. He even smelt evil."

  "Did you ever meet Moses Hapeta?"

  "Yes, several times. I can't believe you killed him. He looked like artillery shells would bounce off him."

  "He died hard, believe me."

  "What about your hand - does it hurt?"

  "Only when I'm awake."

  "What'll you do now?"

  "First I'll get well, then I'll get even."

  "You could call it quits."

  "And let Pringle get away with murdering Robyn and chopping off my finger? You must be kidding? Nope, he's gotta die. It's that simple."

  "He won't be easy to kill, particularly now he knows your coming."

  "Of course not. But failure isn't an option."

  Ray shrugged. "Then good luck. Anything I can do to help?"

  "Yes."

  "What?"

  Gary had considered asking the gun-dealer, Dragovic, for another pistol. But, if he did, Dragovic might shoot him. "Umm, I need a piece."

  Ray stared hard. "Why do you think I've got one?"

  "Because you're a cautious man who prepares for every contingency."

  Ray chewed over Gary's request for a long time and nodded reluctantly. "I've got a Smith & Wesson I souvenired from a crime scene. I don't think it can be traced."

  "Any ammo?"

  "Some."

  Ray stood on his workbench, opened a ceiling hatch and reached into the roof cavity. He extracted a square biscuit tin that he put on the bench and opened. Inside was a Smith & Wesson .357 automatic, a shoulder holster, two empty clips, three boxes of .357 hollowpoints and a small cleaning kit.

  Gary's eyes lit up. "God, it's beautiful. Have you got a bazooka as well?"

  "Afraid not."

  "You want it back?"

  "Not if you use it. In fact, keep it anyway. I probably should get rid of it."

  "Thanks. Does Anne know about it?"

  Ray looked very nervous. "Of course not, and you won't tell her, right?"

  "My lips are sealed. Let's treat this as a man thing."

  Gary had to lie low until his hand healed. After leaving Ray, he drove south for two hours to the steel city of Wollongong and checked into a cheap motel.

  He showered, swallowed a Percodan and flopped onto the bed. The pill knocked him out for twelve hours. He woke, took another pill and climbed back into his clothes.

  After breakfasting in the motel's cafe, he went to an ATM, withdrew some money and bought some new clothes. Then he went over to the casualty department of Wollongong Hospital and waited a couple of hours until a doctor examined his hand. The doctor said it was healing well and re-bandaged it.

  He drove further south until he reached the small fishing hamlet of Huskisson, on Jervis Bay. Autumn was stripping the trees and bringing cold ocean currents up from the south. The tourist season was almost over and it was easy to get a cheap motel room.

  For the next three weeks, while his hand healed, he did a lot of sleeping, strolled along the beach, fished off the wharf, read the newspapers and sank beers at the local RSL.

  Every second day he drove to the local hospital, where a nurse changed the bandages on his hand and checked the wound. As it healed, the pain lessened and he cut his Percodan consumption.

  It looked like Ray Boland kept the Smith & Wesson in good condition. But Gary had to be sure it was. So he opened the cleaning kit, took out a wire rod and put a patch on the end of it. Then he spent an hour cleaning and loading the .357.

  It would be a long time before he could shoot with his injured right hand, if at all. Until then, he had to use his left and hope for the best.

  To test his aim, he took the pistol into the Jervis Bay National Park and fired a couple of clips at some tin cans, missing plenty. Fortunately, Pringle was a much bigger target and a .357 hollow-point bullet always did a lot of damage.

  That night, Gary lay in bed and thought, for the first time in a long while, about his father's funeral. The NSW Police Force hijacked the ceremony and turned it into a full-dress extravaganza. An Australian flag was draped over the coffin. The heavily braided Police Commissioner eulogised his father's dedication to duty, courage and self-sacrifice. Then six cadets from the Goulburn Academy carried the coffin out of the church, through an honour guard, and slid it into the back of a waiting hearse.

  The whole time, Gary knew the ceremony was a farce, because his father was crooked and buried $300,000 in his back yard.

  Now, lying in bed, he wondered how corrupt his father had been. Would he, like Pringle, have killed to avoid detection? Gary realised that he didn't know, because he never really knew his father at all.

  Early the next morning, he checked out of the motel. The old guy at the reception desk said he hoped Gary enjoyed his stay.

  "Yes, very restful."

  "Where are you going?"

  "Back to Sydney."

  The old guy rolled his eyes. "Hah. People up there will kill you for a buck."

  Gary smiled. "Not if I kill them first."

  A chuckle. "Got a point. Good luck."

  He drove back towards Sydney, to play it out.