Dead Cat Bounce

by Peter Cotton

  Her lights were out when I drove past her place, so I called James. He already had the GPS site up on his computer, and he quickly located Jean’s car: it was stationary near the corner of Tennant and Gladstone Streets in Fyshwick, he said. I thanked him for his help, and drove over to Fyshwick to see what she was up to.

  The street corner was occupied by a self-storage facility, and Jean’s car was parked under floodlights next to the security office that guarded the place. I stopped outside a mower shop ten doors up, and thought through my next move. In the end, I decided to give Jean half an hour. If she wasn’t out of there by then, I’d go in and look for her. The only obstacle to this plan was the young female guard hunched over her textbook in the security office.

  As I waited, two lots of people left the facility, and the guard barely raised her head as they walked past her. After half an hour, I walked into the light of the glassed-in security office, my library card up at eye level, hoping that she was habitually slack. She gave me a fleeting glance, and waved me through.

  The storage facility was essentially a large area of fenced-in bitumen with three long, squat buildings of brick and steel. Each building had what looked like about fifty storage units of various sizes running along each side. The door to each unit was numbered, and beside each door was a slot with a removable name tag. I worked my way along the first building, looking for light at the bottom of each door, and listening for movement and other sounds of effort.

  I’d reached the middle of the second building when a dull thud came from a unit just up ahead of me. Almost simultaneously, I heard Jean shout, ‘Shit.’ I slipped into the nearest doorway, fearing she was about to come out and spot me. When she didn’t materialise, I sidled up to what I figured was her unit. There was a strip of light at the bottom of the door, and I could hear her muttering to herself inside. She didn’t sound distressed — just frustrated. I took out my torch and read the name tag in the door slot. The unit belonged to Simon Rolfe.

  What was Jean doing in the storage unit of a man who’d mysteriously gone missing? Should I go in and see? She might not be alone; so, if I went in, I couldn’t afford to take any chances. I’d have my Glock out, and I’d be ready for anything. But with no warrant and no probable cause, that could open me up to another world of trouble. So, instead, I decided to stick close to her, without getting in her way. If she took anything from the unit, we could always recover it.

  The security girl nodded as I walked past her, but returned to her book in a trice. I got into my car and waited. When the cold became too much, I got out and paced back and forth. Within a quarter of an hour, Jean emerged into the light of the security office and walked to her car. She sat with the interior light on, reading something in her lap. Then she started the vehicle and drove back towards Kingston. I waited fifteen minutes, and rang James. It was four in the morning, Memphis time. ‘Sorry to get you up,’ I said. He managed a laugh and struggled to his computer.

  ‘She’s in a suburb called Red Hill,’ he said in a croak. ‘In a street called Roebuck. The car’s stationary. Close to a park that runs down to a Beagle Street. Funny name, that, for a street, isn’t it? Beagle Street?’

  ‘Par for the course around here, mate,’ I said. ‘Look, thanks again for all your help. It’s really been important to me. And next time I’m over, we’re having a big one out. On me. Okay?’

  I took the Monaro Highway out of Fyshwick. I knew Beagle Street, so I had no trouble finding the park that James had mentioned.

  I left the car on Beagle and walked up through the frost-covered park to a hedge of callistemons that separated the top of the park from Roebuck Street. I pushed through the hedge, saw Jean’s car parked under a streetlight ten metres away, and darted back into the foliage. When my breathing had settled, l listened for any movement and poked my head out again. I was still scanning the footpath on my side of the street when Jean’s voice cut through the air. She was stepping out onto a well-lit porch on the other side of the street, just a few doors along from where I was hiding. She had her back to me, so I couldn’t hear what she was saying.

  The door to the house eventually closed with a bang, and Jean walked down to the footpath, took out a small torch, and scribbled something into a notebook. Then she approached a neighbouring house built of 1960s pink brick. She pressed the doorbell, and an electronic fragment of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ played faintly inside the house. Jean waited a minute or so, and then she pressed the doorbell again, reprising the tune.

  Finally, an old woman in a dressing gown opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. They talked for a bit, and the old girl pointed across the street in my direction. They talked for a bit more, and she pointed the other way. Jean thanked her and returned to the footpath. Once again, she took out her torch and scribbled in her notebook.

  Over the next twenty minutes, she approached five more houses, and was answered at two of them. She engaged in a couple of brief chats, and after each she returned to the footpath and added to her notes. Finally, she got into her car, consulted her smart phone for a minute or so, and drove off.

  At the end of the street she turned right and disappeared down the hill, and I ran down through the park towards my car, wondering whether to bother James again. As I scurried down the steep bit of the slope where the park bordered Beagle Street, I heard a vehicle, and then saw it, heading down the street towards me. I slipped behind a tree as the car passed under a streetlight about twenty metres away. It was Jean’s VW. I dropped to the ground and crawled behind a clump of bushes, and she slowed and then stopped directly opposite me.

  Jean stayed in the car and consulted something on her lap. Then she went back to knocking on doors, starting with a two-storey place lit up like a national monument. The owner spoke to her from behind a security screen, but the contact was brief. Next she approached another pink-brick place, but no one was at home, so she walked a few doors along to a dark-brick house with a well-lit porch and garden. She pressed the doorbell, and scanned her notebook while she waited. The door opened, and she spoke to someone on the other side of the screen. Then the screen opened, and she went inside.

  Suddenly, all the lights went out in front of the house that Jean had entered. Were they motion-sensitive? They’d been burning brightly well before she went anywhere near them. I studied the place, and saw that not only had the lights gone off outside, but there seemed to be no lights inside either. It didn’t feel right. Why would they pitch their place into complete darkness when they’d just invited someone in?

  If my tail had been sanctioned, I would have called in a team right away and raided the place. But while that remained an option, I wasn’t going to exercise it immediately. Instead, I waited. Fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes. Thirty minutes. She’d been in there longer than she’d been on the street. I told myself that an interview could take half an hour or more. But time continued to tick away.

  After forty minutes, I seriously considered calling in a team. Jean would either be thankful that I’d gotten her out of a sticky situation, or she’d be very angry that I’d tailed her and disrupted her interview. But regardless of how she saw it, Brady would make sure that I was drummed out of the service just for being there. So I decided to scope the place out before doing anything self-destructive.

  I moved down to the footpath, my complete focus on the dark house twenty metres away on the other side of the road. Tree by tree, I went, pausing in the shadows, straining to detect any sound or movement as I closed in.

  When I reached a tree almost opposite the place, I stepped from the shadows and casually walked across the street as though I was a man out for a mid-evening stroll. I passed the house and the tall hedge that hid it from the house next door. Then I turned and made my way back. At the border of the two properties, I pressed myself into the hedge and strained to see if there were any lights on inside the place.

  Then something m
etallic banged hard into the back of my head, and from behind me came an accented voice that sounded more like a wheeze than a whisper.

  ‘Don’t turn,’ said the European. ‘Walk now.’

  He prodded me so hard that I stumbled forward.

  ‘Walk up to porch and stop,’ he said, his voice now an urgent croak.

  I did as he ordered. There was no letterbox to identify the place, and no house number that I could make out in the darkness. He prodded me with such force that I stumbled onto the porch, cursing my stupidity and knowing with utter certainty that my life was on the line.

  21

  BEFORE I COULD regain my balance, the European pressed his pistol hard into the back of my neck.

  ‘Stop!’ he said.

  I froze, and the front door swung open as if he’d willed it to.

  ‘Open screen,’ he said.

  I opened the security screen and crossed the threshold into a small hallway, with the pistol still pressed to my neck. The doors closed quietly behind me. A single downlight covered with dark-blue cellophane glowed dimly in the ceiling, above a corridor of polished floorboards that stretched off into a dark interior. The walls were white, and bare of any decoration.

  ‘Kneel,’ he said, prodding me with the weapon.

  The floorboards were hard on my knees, but the discomfort didn’t last long.

  ‘On your stomach. And face door.’

  I got down onto the floor and lay with my cheek against the polished boards. A stream of cold air from under the door played against my face.

  ‘Hands behind back.’

  He slipped a plastic tie over my hands and pulled it tight. Wide tape went over my eyes and mouth. Then a second person walked briskly down the corridor. From the sound that the heels made, rapping sharply on the boards, it was a woman. Her hands fussed around my wrists as she checked the tie, and tightened it a notch.

  The European pressed his weapon hard into my temple as his partner looped ties around my knees and ankles. She pulled them extra tight as well. Then she put a coarse rope through the ties and pulled it so that my feet rose behind me till they met my hands. I’d seen pictures of people who’d been hogtied. Within no time, I found out why they’d always been grimacing — the tension in the rope made the ties cut into my wrists and ankles. The only relief came from arching my back, but I couldn’t sustain that position for long. I alternated between pain and extreme discomfort, cursing myself for the bad decisions that had turned my world to shit.

  They searched my pockets, under my arms, and in my groin before they removed my gun and holster and put them into something hollow and plastic. It sounded like a bucket. My phone, cuffs, notebook, wallet, keys, torch, and pocketknife went into the bucket as well. The woman then walked, rat-tat rat-tat, back down the corridor. The European followed her almost noiselessly. I strained at the ties, but they cut into my wrists, so I lay still, saving my energy — a trussed turkey, waiting for their next move.

  The European and his mate were talking in low tones somewhere at the back of the house. I held my breath, but couldn’t hear a word they were saying. Then I remembered Jean. What had they done with her?

  They came back down the corridor, and the European gripped my jacket at the shoulders and grunted as he dragged me forward. I slid easily, if painfully, over the floorboards. He stopped after a few metres, adjusted his grip, and then pulled me further. A door opened next to my head, releasing a peculiar amalgam of smells — musty odours mixed with petroleum products. It had to be the garage. He pulled me through the doorway and across a cold, abrasive surface that was probably bare concrete. His partner rat-tatted past us and opened the door of a vehicle. They were taking me for a ride.

  The European put his hands under my shoulders and extended his fingers into my armpits. His accomplice looped her hands under my calves. Then they lifted me up and manoeuvred my torso onto a spongy surface, which I took to be the back seat of the vehicle. The woman cradled my legs while the European went around and opened the other door. Then he pulled me across the seat. When I was fully inside the vehicle, they threw some sort of plastic covering over me, and the doors slammed shut. Then someone started whimpering in the back of the vehicle. It had to be Jean. I made the only noise I could with my mouth taped up — a high-pitched bellow through my nose. Jean replied with a mournful wail, which stopped abruptly when the front doors of the vehicle opened and our captors got in.

  ‘Shut the fuck up back there,’ said the European.

  They buckled up, a roller door was activated, and they moved slowly out of the garage. They turned left onto Beagle, and left again at the end of the street. They drove without urgency, the vehicle moving smoothly through each turn. Fifty metres on, they turned right, probably onto Mugga Way, heading north. As we veered through a roundabout, it occurred to me that if they stayed on this road, we’d end up on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.

  Not the lake! Images of Wright and Proctor, dead-eyed and slack-jawed, cascaded through my brain. The idea that we’d soon end up like them brought on a panic, and I struggled against the ties, which really cut me this time. I shook my head and bit my lip. Get it together, you idiot! But to do what? What?

  The vehicle slowed and turned left, so maybe we weren’t going to the lake. At least not yet. We continued straight for a stretch, then we slowed and turned left again. After ten minutes, the vehicle slowed and stopped. Another roller door clanked, scraped, and was silent, and the vehicle inched forward and came to a halt.

  The roller door descended, and the European got out and opened the back of the vehicle. Jean let out a high-pitched squeal through her nose as the vehicle dipped and rose on its suspension.

  ‘Quiet or I throw you on floor,’ said the European.

  He grunted as he carried her from the garage. There was an echoing sound as metal slid on metal in the near distance. Then came a clicking noise, like a light being switched off and on a few times. A sliding sound of metal on metal again. And another sliding sound that ended with a loud clang.

  ‘Look here, is bad for you,’ said the European, his threat laced with contempt. ‘Stay at wall!’

  I was wondering about this wall business, and who he was talking to, when metal slid on metal again and clanged into place. Seconds later, the door next to my head opened, and hands gripped my jacket and pulled me forward. Then other hands looped around my knees and I was dragged out of the vehicle and quickly lowered onto cold concrete. They pulled me across the floor, through a doorway that banged my knees, and then down a passageway.

  Metal slid on metal again. The light switch clicked a few times. The European yelled, ‘Face wall!’ And then he let me go. Metal clanged, a door opened, and my senses were momentarily overwhelmed by the smell of a blocked toilet. The European dragged me through another doorway and across a carpeted floor. Then he released me and moved away. There were a few popping sounds, and, with each one, Jean grunted.

  ‘No move,’ said the European, presumably to Jean. It was more a threat than an order.

  He crouched beside me and pressed his pistol into my cheek while he cut the rope between my wrists and ankles. When my feet thumped into the carpet, he cut the ties on my hands and legs.

  ‘You count to ten, then you move,’ he said, his pistol gouging my cheek. ‘Rolfe knows rules. You disobey, you die.’

  When I got to three, the door slammed shut. I continued counting as the bolt slid into place. Then I heard someone running towards me. I ripped the tape from my eyes as I rolled over, my arms up, ready to defend myself.

  It was Rolfe. He dropped down next to Jean, put a protective arm around her shoulders, and helped ease the tape away from her eyes and mouth. Then he looked at me and shook his head, a tentative smile on his lips.

  ‘So Joe got you, too,’ he said, seeming far too upbeat for a man in his position.

 
; ‘Joe?’ I said, eyeing Jean, who looked completely stunned. ‘Is that his name?’

  ‘That’s what he calls himself,’ said Rolfe. ‘Anyway, we don’t have to worry about him now, do we? I assume your people are right behind you and that they’ll be bursting through that door any minute. Right?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ I said, taking in the blue-grey carpet that covered both the floor and the walls. ‘I’m on my own.’

  ‘You’re what?’ said Jean, open-mouthed with shock at this revelation.

  A roller door rumbled and clanged somewhere outside. It was a muted sound, but unmistakeable. I jumped up and raced over to the carpeted wall, and pushed my ear into it. A vehicle fired up on the other side of the wall, the rumbling stopped, and the vehicle moved off. Then the rumbling door came down again.

  Were both Joe and the woman going, or only one of them? If it was both — say, if one was dropping the other back at Beagle Street — it gave me about twenty minutes to scope this place. I ran over to the metal door and banged on it as hard as I could, and screamed at the top of my lungs. Then I put my ear to the door and waited.

  ‘You mean …?’ said Rolfe.

  ‘Shhh,’ I said, batting him away. ‘You’ve both got to be quiet now.’

  Thirty seconds passed, and no one came. The door had a horizontal viewing-slot set into the middle of it, about a metre-and-a-half off the ground. I pressed my thumbs against the slot and pushed it this way and that, desperately trying to move it, but it was shut tight. The door itself was made of sheet metal. It was hinged from the outside. I pushed and prodded at every corner of it, but it was immoveable, too.