by Vic Robbie
She was different, something out of kilter. It wasn’t just her outlandish looks, he’d never kept track of the latest fashions, but the way she carried herself and when she spoke the words echoed in his head as if several voices were speaking at once.
When he regained consciousness, she was in the alley and was having an altercation with the man who’d attacked him, but what had happened earlier? What if she was the killer, and the man had been trying to stop her? Perhaps she’d blamed him for the killing.
Even without her testimony, the cops would have singled him out because of his record. Once marked, it was impossible to eradicate the stain, and it reminded him of what he’d gone through after he’d killed Bulldog Benton in the ring. There was no doubt he was partly responsible, although they exonerated him. There was no criminal trial, but a trial by the Press and a hostile reception from other forms of media and public opinion. For those who supported him, twice as many wanted him to pay for his actions. And they were many. It would never go away. He’d always be a killer to some, and the victim’s family and friends wouldn’t let him forget. They pursued retribution through the civil courts, which they claimed would bring closure while all they wanted was money.
A peripatetic lifestyle was the only way to survive. He kept on the move. No phone, so no one could trace him. Every time he suspected he’d been recognised, he switched bases and now was sleeping in a motor home on a quiet beach out of town. Jobs were impossible to get and keep. Even though a boss might be fair-minded and prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, when faced with abuse from the public, they changed their opinion. It had already cost him his wife and four-year-old daughter Becky. As she’d be a target, it would have been too dangerous to be with him.
He had no way of telling the time as they’d relieved him of his wristwatch, and he wondered where Solo was now. She’d have been glad to get out and was now probably putting as much mileage as possible between her and the police station.
A boot on the door brought him back to the present, and his brother entered the room carrying a plastic bag of his belongings and threw it on the table.
‘Get dressed,’ He pulled out a chair but went over to the far side of the room, as if unable to sit across the table from him.
‘Don’t I get privacy?’
‘Seen it all before.’
As he dressed, the lieutenant observed him and took a new cigar from a tin, sticking it in the corner of his mouth. ‘When you getting your life back on track?’ he asked out the other corner.
With one leg in his pants, he paused. ‘When you guys stop harassing me. I’m innocent if you remember.’
The lieutenant wandered over to a metal filing cabinet and pulled open a drawer, rattling on its rollers, and searched through the files pushing them back one by one as though counting them. ‘You have the habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘I did nothing wrong.’
‘Maybe, Junior, but there’s a dead girl in the alley, and you were there.’
‘I was only trying to help. A woman was being attacked and I went to her rescue. Got whacked on the back of the head. If I did it, why would I call the cops?’
The lieutenant nodded considering that and studied a shelf of books, taking one down and blowing dust off its cover. ‘We gotta have witnesses. Can’t just take your word.’
‘Solo,’ he pointed to where she’d have been if she’d stayed, ‘saw what happened.’
The lieutenant’s eyes moved sideways to where he was pointing and shook his head. ‘You’ve had a crack on the head. You’re not thinking straight. Go home and relax. Anyway, you’re off the hook for the moment.’
‘Taken you long enough to work that out.’ But he was relieved. ‘So Solo told you the truth.’
The brother gave him another strange look. ‘You may be a lost cause, but you’re incapable of something like that. Had to check you out. Don’t want someone,’ he jerked a thumb at the squad room, ‘saying I gave you an easy ride because you’re my brother.’
‘What about the dead girl?’
‘Waiting for a full postmortem, but forensics have given us a few indicators.’ He paused and scanned the room. ‘For a start, it’s unlikely you killed her.’
‘Why?’
‘We did your bloods and found traces of a drug.’
‘Don’t do drugs.’ He leant forward in the chair.
‘Whatever, this wasn’t self-inflicted. It was a date rape drug.’
‘What?’ Then he remembered the blonde and was now convinced she’d poisoned him.
‘It would have knocked you for six, and you wouldn’t have been capable of anything. Whoever administered it could have done anything they wanted to you, and you’d have known nothing about it.’
A smirk suggested his brother was enjoying himself, and he felt uncomfortable and violated.
‘You sure keep some strange company.’ The lieutenant returned the book to the shelf and came and sat opposite. ‘And there’s another reason. She was drained of her blood.’
‘So, it should have been all over the alley?’
‘Yeah, but zilch.’
‘Which means?’
‘They killed her somewhere else and dumped her there.’
‘Unusual?’
‘Not as much as you might think. What’s unusual was she’d no injuries.’ He let it sink in. ‘Just a small puncture on her left arm. Forensics say it would have been a slow death.’
‘But why?’
‘Why do people kill? There are thousands of motives, some believable, others not so. Unfortunately, the result is always the same.’
The cigar moved to the other side of his mouth, and he leant forward, his expression set in warning mode. ‘Don’t go talking about her being drained, especially not to those Press guys who chase you.’ He shook his head in despair. ‘Unfortunately, she’s not the first. There have been three others. All girls, same age group. All untouched apart from their blood drained. Usually, he—’
‘Why are you sure it’s a man?’
Unsure about giving more details, his brother hesitated.
‘We aren’t. Some bodies were found lying in cemeteries with flowers and candles. As if it was a mark of respect, an attempt at giving them some kind of formal burial.’
‘Not this girl.’
‘Must have been a change of plan. Perhaps someone interrupted him, and he didn’t have time to dispose of the body.’
‘Vampires?’
‘Don’t you start,’ the lieutenant snorted. ‘Getting enough from the media with this other case.’
He recalled while breakfasting at a diner he’d watched a news report on television of the murder of two men the reporter had dubbed the Vampire Murders. ‘Are they connected to the killings of the girls?’
‘Nope.’ The lieutenant rubbed a finger across his moustache. ‘They’re completely different. They were victims of violent attacks. Bitten on the neck and bled out.’
‘You sure have an interesting job.’
The lieutenant guffawed and chucked the remains of the chewed cigar into a wastebasket in a corner.
‘Look, Junior.’ He raised both hands in apology. ‘I’d be grateful for any assistance you can give. Anything you remember, even the smallest detail. Go back to the alley. Spend some time and recreate the scene in your mind. Amazing what can come back to you. Your brain remembers more than you realise.’
Now fully dressed, he wanted to leave as soon as possible, so he nodded in agreement. ‘I’ll grab some breakfast and head over there. Who knows, it might work.’
The lieutenant pushed back the chair and stood up before yelling, ‘Rogers get this guy outa here.’
Chapter Eleven
Headlock needed to eat and take a shower. Even the half-eaten frankfurter left on a desk by the cop who’d recognised him looked appetising. Apart from black coffee as thick and revolting as treacle at police headquarters, he hadn’t eaten for some time. And the lack of food and slee
p and a bang to the head caused him to feel as if the ground was shifting beneath his feet. Synchronised jackhammers were beating a tattoo in his skull, and his gut was complaining. To return to the alley and confront the demons of the previous night required a clear head and a strong stomach.
He set out for the Winnebago, parked in a beach-side lot. Since his trouble in the ring, he’d lived on his toes. Bulldog’s family and friends were adept at tracking his location, and there seemed no escape.
As he climbed into a cab, he felt a weight in his pocket. He still had Solo’s phone. It was his only link to her, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to meet her again. And if he did, he would tell her what he thought of her walking out on him. Yet, he had to admit there was an attraction. He opened the phone which appeared to be an old flip-top, but there was no keyboard. Pressing each of the three buttons failed to activate it as happened earlier, but it didn’t surprise him as he hadn’t used one for several years. Development in phones was beyond his comprehension. Perhaps it had run out of battery.
He must have slipped into sleep because it seemed only minutes before the cab pulled up at the entrance to the lot. For the first time, he considered he might be concussed, recognising the symptoms he’d experienced several times in the ring.
‘Tough night?’ The cabby looked doubtful as he fumbled for cash.
‘When I’ve had a bad one, you wouldn’t want to know me.’
He’d parked the Winnebago at the farthest end of the lot. Instead of going straight to it, he wandered to the cliff edge and gulped in the brisk sea air, filling his lungs to drive out the pollution of a city blanketed by a cloud of smog that suffocated everything beneath it. The ocean perpetually rolling in like an invading army always raised his spirits, and reinvigorated, he headed for his temporary home.
An acrid smell assaulted his senses and, as he brought up a hand to cover a sneeze, a column of black smoke billowed from a corner of the plot. There wasn’t much left of the motor home. A fire still smouldered, and its innards spilled out like a gutted fish in a jumble of grey ash. He gingerly touched the door testing the temperature, but it was cool suggesting the fire had been burning while he was a guest of the police. He grasped the handle, and the door came off its hinges and collapsed at his feet.
Whatever he owned was gone; nothing could be salvaged. And kicking a pile of ash in frustration disturbed red embers still burning beneath.
There was no sign of life. In places like this, people had their own reasons for not wanting to be found. They kept their heads down, thankful it wasn’t their turn.
On the only part of the bodywork still intact, the arsonist had spray-painted NO HIDIN PLACE. This wasn’t the work of vandals.
He couldn’t think long term, only concentrate on getting through the next twenty-four hours, and he needed food and somewhere safe to sleep. An old wrestling friend owed him big time after he had rescued him in a tag match when he might have lost an eye. In gratitude, he’d given him a key to his small house to use whenever he needed a bolt hole. The friend was often on tour, and the house was empty for which he was thankful as he didn’t want to explain recent events.
All his benefactor asked was that he leave it in the condition he found it in and feed the feral cat, Felix. From his days of studying Latin, he remembered felix meant happy but never had a cat been so misnamed. If cats had an attitude, this had it in spades, and he was relieved it wasn’t about. A large creature with smooth grey fur, its frown like crumpled paper, and when it encountered him, it usually hissed, and he feared it would claw out his eyes.
His friend lived light. The most he could muster for breakfast were a couple of evil-smelling eggs, ham, days past its sell-by date and curling at the edges, and black coffee, degrees hotter and better than the cop shop’s. After eating, he gave in to fatigue and lay on a sofa, carefully placing a towel over his head to deter the cat. Sleep came quick and deep.
His watch alarm awoke him with a start, and it took several minutes to work out where he was. But memories of the previous night flooded back. He must go back to the alley. As though responsible for the poor child, he was determined to find something that might lead to her killer.
But he wasn’t alone. He held his breath. A rustling like an intruder taking care to conceal their movements. He rebuked himself for being jumpy, then he heard it again. A dragging sound. He picked up a heavy marble ashtray from a coffee table and got to his feet. Someone was in the kitchen. He pushed open the door, and their eyes met. The body lay on the kitchen floor, its head half hanging off.
A disturbed Felix opened its mouth but still held the dead rat by one paw and stared at him, its hackles raised, daring him to challenge for the kill. Relief washed through him and, as he relaxed, he stepped further into the room. That was a mistake. In a flurry of grey fur, the cat attacked him, leaping up onto the kitchen table and using it as a springboard to wrap itself around his head. A spitting, hissing, clawing apparition raked his face and bit him on the hand, and he had a close-up glimpse of evil yellow eyes before he pulled it off. With a low growl, it jumped up onto a windowsill and escaped.
An examination in the bathroom mirror showed the damage to be superficial, but if dogs could carry rabies, what about cats?
The all-embracing greyness of pollution ate into his bones, and it was almost as if he could reach up and grab clumps of cloud like candy floss. But he clung to the belief that a visit to the alley could bring some order to the conflicting images and thoughts flashing through his mind. And what of Solo, had he stumbled on her by chance or were there other, more sinister reasons for her presence?
In the morning light, the alley was not so intimidating, more a seedy blot on Fisherman’s Quay. He tore away the blue and white police tape and took a deep breath before entering. The featureless red brick walls were blackened in parts by ages of pollution, and there were no doors, gates, windows or openings. Over the years, many things must have happened here, most of them best forgotten, and now it was a dumping ground for lazy people’s rubbish.
He tried to rewind his memory to the night before. Solo’s frightened voice calling for help. Going to her rescue. The pain of the blow to the back of his head. Finding the girl’s body. He retraced his steps as best he could, ran a hand along the rough wall, dropped to his knees and closed his eyes, but nothing more emerged.
His head throbbed, and he reckoned a cold beer might lubricate the thought processes. Since the banishment from the ring, daily beers were the norm instead of hours spent in the gym. The main reason for abandoning the previously strict fitness regime was an appearance in a gym would get out on the grapevine and bring his enemies running.
On the way out of the alley, a memory pricked his consciousness, and he turned back to check it out. Behind him, a car screeched to a halt in the lot. He hesitated, listening, thinking the cops were after him again. Another car pulled up. He tensed. One door opened, then another, and another and another. Four of them.
He turned slowly.
Four men were lined up like desperados from a western B movie, and they had one aim—to cause him serious injury or even death.
The leading man wasn’t much more than twenty, wearing a Grateful Dead tee-shirt and dirty jeans torn at the knees. On his feet were Doc Martins obviously used for more than walking. Eager to hit something, he hefted a baseball bat between his hands. His partner in his late twenties was similarly dressed and carried a machete with a cruel curve of a blade. And eyes bright with excitement, they exuded hatred.
Two older men with grey shaven heads and ill-fitting suits flanked them. One carried a shotgun, the other a pistol, and their expressions were non-committal, almost bored. They were the professionals, the hired help.
‘You’re a hard man to track down, Headlock,’ the youth with the baseball bat said.
There was no way out behind him, and they blocked the exit. Unless someone came to his aid, this was it. But any bystander with sense would put his head down and shuffle away convinc
ing himself it was none of his business. Even if he overcame the younger men, the professionals were the backstop and would step in. They’d let the younger men, presumably friends or family of Bulldog, have their fun, bludgeoning and carving him and probably killing him. If he attempted to make a run for it before they exacted their vengeance, they’d shoot him.
Custer’s last stand.
Few were a match for him in a fair fight, but this would never be fair. All he could do was as much damage as possible in the short time left.
Chapter Twelve
Bursts of children’s high-pitched laughter drifted through the morning air tugging at her consciousness as Solo sat on a bench beneath a voluminous jacaranda tree. It provided adequate cover from the sun’s heat, but what she needed more was protection from Ottomon’s thugs. For now, they couldn’t track her through the phone, but if Headlock had it, he would be in danger, and she had to warn him. It was her problem, not his.
Her microchip was a more pressing problem. Although they would require permission and assistance from State agencies to use it to track her, it wouldn’t take long to get it, especially with Ottomon’s connections. And then she’d be bait in a trap. Every time a child cried, she raised her head and smiled when she saw they were having fun and hadn’t come to harm.
She didn’t know why Ottomon’s men were searching for her, and many times she recalled visiting the house. He’d taken drugs, but a man of his influence wasn’t worried about that. As far as she remembered, he’d done nothing to incriminate himself, and neither had she. The State had informers everywhere, and anyone who made controversial comments could disappear in the blink of an eye. Did he think she worked for the State? When he collapsed, she went for help, and the alarms went off.
Perhaps she was being paranoid and misunderstood his interest in her. But she wasn’t going to risk putting her head above the parapet to find out.
