Dead Cat Bounce

by Peter Cotton

  Rolfe shuffled to the end of the mattresses, and the ginger cat climbed onto his lap and went to sleep. Then we waited to see if the food was drugged. The answer came about fifteen minutes later when Rolfe’s eyes closed and his head slumped forward. I checked his breathing. It was shallow but regular. And his pulse seemed normal.

  Then I realised that I hadn’t asked him if he snored. If Joe came in, expecting us to be dead, and found Rolfe snoring like a chainsaw, that would be the end of us. I slid the unconscious ginger cat onto the mattress. Then I leaned down and listened to Rolfe’s breathing again. It seemed normal, so I rolled him onto his side and spread my jacket over him. The jacket covered his head and his back, but I could still see the slight rise and fall of his chest. I pulled him upright again, removed his jacket, and laid him back down. Then I placed the two jackets loosely over him. Layered up like that, his breathing was barely visible.

  ‘It’s best now if we all look like we’re out of it,’ I said, as I settled back next to Jean.

  I slipped my hand under the top mattress and took hold of my club, and I was trying to tally how long we’d been locked away when the slot opened and I felt Joe’s eyes on me. I stayed as still as I could, and he closed the slot. A minute or so later, an engine started up on the other side of the wall. They revved it a few times and then let it idle. It had the throaty burble of a big unit — bigger than the one that had brought us here. Perhaps it was a van, or a small truck. I squeezed Jean’s leg. She moved her head back and forth across my shoulder. So here we were, and the gas was on the way. The most important question now became: how long would Joe leave the engine running?

  The ceiling cavity could accommodate lots of gas, but the seal we’d put on the vent was far from perfect, and we’d eventually get seepage from around the downlights. I figured we had about twenty minutes before a significant amount of carbon monoxide entered the room.

  Other than the muffled sound of the engine, the only other noise came from big tom. He sat in the corner with his head between his legs, snorting occasionally as he cleaned himself. Then two things occurred to me in quick succession.

  First, I remembered the old joke about why dogs lick themselves down there. Then I looked at the little black-and-white cat at the back of the room. It was unconscious, a victim of the pizza, like ginger and Rolfe. And I realised that the next time Joe looked in on us, he’d expect everything in the room to be dead and ready for disposal. And there’d be big tom licking his nuts. There was only one thing for it.

  I pulled the club from under the mattress, and Jean touched my arm and looked at me inquiringly.

  ‘When Joe comes in here,’ I said in an urgent whisper, ‘we’ve all got to look like we’re dead, right? So what’s he going to think if that cat’s still licking its nuts?’

  She looked at big tom, and the implications of what I’d said hit home. It had me wishing she’d eaten some pizza. At least then she wouldn’t have to witness what I was about to do. I patted her shoulder, pushed myself up, and confirmed that ginger was unconscious. Then I went to the back wall and confirmed that the little black-and-white cat was out to it, too.

  I rested the club on my shoulder and walked slowly towards the door, avoiding eye contact with big tom as I closed in on him. All the while, I was aware of the hum of the engine on the other side of the wall. When I was within a few metres of the cat, he got to his feet and puffed himself up, ready to run. I froze and stared at the door, watching him out of the corner of my eye. He stayed crouched for a while. Then, thinking the threat had passed, he settled back onto his haunches.

  There’s no right time to strike. The moment selects itself, as it did then. I stepped low towards big tom and swung, but he shot off as soon as I moved, and my club sliced through nothing but thick air.

  Then the cat’s luck out ran out because, as he raced past the mattresses, Jean suddenly sat up, and, sensing a trap, he hit his brakes and tried to change course. The move put him within range of my club again. I brought the blunt side of the weapon down hard on his back, and he gave a strangled squeal and slumped onto his side. Then his legs flicked the air a few times, and he was dead. I carried him back to the door and curled him up like he was asleep. When I looked over at Jean, her eyes were wide with shock.

  I knelt down next to her and slipped the club under the top mattress. When I sat down, she put her head on my shoulder and I gave her a comforting cuddle. Then I eased her off me and moved away from her a little.

  ‘I’ll need room,’ I said in a whisper.

  She rolled towards Rolfe, and I edged away from her a bit more. Then I rolled over so that I was facing her. I slipped my hand under the mattress and gripped the club again, ready for the fight. I realised that I was puffing and sweating far too much for a man who was supposed to be half dead. I wiped my face with my shirt ends, got back into a ready position, and concentrated on deep breaths. Easy in, easy out. In, and out. Within a few minutes I was back to shallow, almost imperceptible, breathing.

  The engine on the other side of the wall continued to hum. Then it escalated through a scale of notes till it was pushing red. Just as suddenly, the revs dropped back to the low, steady hum. Then it revved up again. And again it dropped back. By my estimation, the engine had been running for about fifteen minutes. It meant that if we hadn’t disabled Joe’s delivery system, we would have already been unconscious and close to death. And that, no doubt, was how Joe would expect us to be — nearly gone. The thing was, we’d be okay if he kept the engine going for another five minutes or so. After that, I feared there’d be seepage. And if it went longer than ten minutes, we’d be in very big trouble.

  I was stuck on that thought when a headache came on. Was it dehydration, or had I got it from chasing the cat? It could be caffeine withdrawal. Or maybe it was the first stages of carbon monoxide poisoning. There could be more gas in this room than I figured. So what to do? The door was built like a battleship, and the ceiling was full of gas.

  I was working to squash these panicky thoughts when I noticed the silence. I held my breath. The engine had stopped. Was it out of petrol? Were they hitching the hose up to another vehicle? No. Why would they do that? Surely they must think it had done the job on us already. As if to confirm that thought, the exhaust fan in the ceiling began to whir.

  The fan was still whirring fifteen minutes later … twenty … and twenty-five. Then the door slot scraped open. I felt eyes scanning the room, and a palpable presence assessing us for signs of life.

  ‘They finished,’ said Joe, turning to someone out in the corridor. ‘You go now. I manage here. Yeah. See you.’

  He shut the slide, and his muffled voice receded and died as he and his accomplice moved away from the door. A few minutes later, there was the muted clanking of the roller door. A vehicle fired up and departed the garage, and the roller door descended. I remained frozen, my hand wrapped around the club. Would Joe come in now, or would he leave us for hours? If he left it much longer, I’d be too weak to be effective.

  The bolt on the door suddenly slid back with a clang and the door opened. A draft of air brushed my face. Someone lingered in the doorway for a few moments and then strode across the carpet towards me.

  27

  HAVING PLACED MYSELF closest to the door, I’d expected Joe to check on me first, and I was ready for him. But he walked straight past me. I opened my eyes to a slit, and through a veil of eyelashes I got the blurred image of a big, trim bloke moving lightly on his feet.

  He stopped at the other end of the mattresses and stood over Rolfe. He didn’t look tense, but the old-style revolver he held at his side showed that he was ready for anything. And the longer he stood there, the more it worried me. Sure, Rolfe was covered in jackets, but you wouldn’t have to look too closely at him to see that he was breathing. And Joe seemed to be staring at him. Maybe his eyesight was dodgy. Or maybe, because he assumed Rolf
e was dead, that was what he saw.

  These thoughts hit a wall when Joe suddenly leapt off the floor, karate-style, and kicked Rolfe in the guts. It sent a shockwave through the mattresses, and through me. I closed my eyes and my stomach churned. He was fit and he knew how to handle himself. This was going to be much tougher than I’d figured. I tightened my grip on the club.

  Then I was taken by a very worrying thought. Was Joe whacking Rolfe for the cheek he’d given him when the pizza was delivered? Was he so into payback that he’d beat up on someone who he thought was dead? I certainly hoped so, because otherwise, if we were all in for the same treatment, Jean was next. She’d managed to remain quiet while Rolfe copped it, but there was no way she’d stay ‘dead’ if Joe gave her a kicking.

  I opened my eyes to a slit again. Joe was side-stepping along the mattresses towards me. I tensed up, ready to take him on, but he stopped in front of Jean and took a step into the space between me and her. He bent over and extended his free hand towards her face. I closed my eyes. Here was my best chance. Then I realised that even if I got the club up for a clean swing at him, he’d react to the movement and drill me before I could land a blow. Game, set, and minced meat. If only I’d converted the skirting into a short-range weapon like a shiv.

  I opened my eyes again. Joe’s leg was no more than a foot from my face. The bastard was stroking Jean’s cheek. In that pose, he was perfectly positioned for a scissor kick. I was visualising the move when he suddenly withdrew his hand and straightened up. Then he edged his front foot even further into the space between Jean and me. He reached for her face again. The revolver rested on his right thigh as he bent forward. Now!

  I swung my right leg up and drove my heel hard into his chest while my left knee smashed into his ankles. It was a picture-perfect scissor kick. His feet left the ground and he went backwards through the air. But as he flew, his hands shot out ready to break his fall, and he kept hold of his revolver as he went.

  Even so, I was on top of him as he hit the floor. I got a good grip on his wrists, but he rotated his hands, and my grip slipped. I grappled for his gun hand, but couldn’t get there before he pulled the trigger. The explosion was deafening, and hot residue scoured my face. I gripped his wrists again and leaned heavily on his gun hand as he pushed and lifted with the other side of his body. We rolled, and the momentum took us over until he was on top of me. Idiot that I was, I should have gone for the weapon and not the hand that held it.

  Joe threw all of his weight into the fight, while I tried to hold his wrists apart and away from me. But he was very strong. His line of fire was narrowing, and I knew that I couldn’t hold him out much longer.

  I put my feet flat on the floor and bucked a few times, trying to shake him off. But he wedged his feet underneath me and rode it out. I whacked his lower back with the tops of my thighs, trying to dislodge him that way, but he just laughed. My arms felt like hot jelly, and his gun was almost in line with my head.

  ‘Not so big man now, eh?’ he said. ‘Say goodnight, detective.’

  I waited for the flash that would kill me, but it didn’t come. Instead, there was a sound like a mallet whacking raw chicken. Joe froze. His eyes looked like they were going to pop. Then he jolted forward an inch and tried to turn his head, but he couldn’t seem to move it. Finally, he shuddered and suddenly went limp, and our faces collided as he collapsed on top of me.

  I rolled him off me, grabbed his revolver — an old .38 Special — and immediately swung it around to cover the door. When I glanced back at Joe, I saw my club embedded in the back of his head, and Jean standing behind him with her hands to her face.

  I kept the gun on the door while I felt Joe for a pulse. He didn’t have one. It was a brutal, sudden end to our struggle, and not a great outcome for our investigation, but I was sure even McHenry would agree that it was better to have Joe dead than me, with a bullet in my head.

  I put my arm around Jean. She was shaking, trying to hold her tears at bay. I desperately wanted to stay there with her, but Joe might have had mates outside. And I had to get to a phone.

  I checked Rolfe’s breathing and pulse. He was fine and, incredibly, he seemed to be stirring. I took my jacket off him, and hugged Jean again. I quickly thanked her for saving me, and we kissed before I edged away from her towards the open door, the revolver up two-handed in front of my eyes.

  The room where they’d held us was at the end of a long, well-lit corridor. Halfway along the corridor was a door that I assumed led to the garage. I dreaded being taken from behind, so I stepped up to the door, turned the handle, and gave it a push. I pressed myself into the wall and held my breath and listened, weapon at the ready. All I could hear was the sound of my own breathing and Jean speaking softly to Rolfe in the room behind me. I dropped to a low crouch and pivoted into the open doorway. Then I had an attack of the dizzies, and lost my balance and fell on my arse.

  I pushed up to a crouch again, raised the revolver to eye level, and traced a line across the room. It was the garage, and it looked empty, except for a dark-green van reversed up against the back wall. A length of silver ducting arced between the van’s exhaust pipe and a hole in the ceiling. Here was the weapon that had killed Wright and Proctor, and which had nearly done us in as well. I walked around it, peering in through the front and rear windows, making sure no one was in the cabin or the cargo bay.

  On the far side of the van I found a small, home-made cage sitting up on a work bench. The cage had a spring-loaded door that was activated by a metal touch-plate built into its floor. There was still some cat food smeared on the plate. Ginger, tom, and the little black-and-white cat must have found that food irresistible.

  I stepped back into the corridor, tiptoed to the end of it, and stuck my head around the corner. In one direction was a short connecting space that opened out onto a lounge room where two couches sat either side of a fireplace. In the other direction was the front door. I went to the front door, deadlocked it, and chained it. Then I walked slowly into the lounge room.

  Apart from the couches, the only moveable objects in the room were three oil paintings hanging on the north-facing wall. They all featured far horizons and big skies. None of them were signed. With any luck, someone at the art school might know who painted them.

  A set of stairs filled an alcove at the back end of the room, and in front of me was a short corridor which led towards the front of the house. I made my way down the corridor and pushed through the set of swinging doors at the end of it. What I saw in the room beyond stopped me in my tracks. It was Jean, filling a glass from a tap over the kitchen sink.

  ‘How’d you get in here?’ I said, truly amazed by her stealth.

  ‘Rolfe was desperate for water,’ she said, and she pointed to a full glass beside the sink. ‘Here. This one’s for you.’

  My eyes darted between the glass of water and the phone sitting on the bench near the fridge. I dialled McHenry, sipping at the water while I waited for him to answer. A small pile of letters sat at the back of the bench. All of them were addressed to The Resident, 13 Rodway Street, Yarralumla, ACT, 2600.

  ‘Ah, McHenry,’ I said when he finally answered. ‘I bet you thought you were rid of me!’

  ‘Glass, it’s you!’ he said, as though he couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘We’re fine. Acheson and Rolfe are with me.’

  ‘They’re with you? Where? Tell me exactly where!’

  ‘I think we’re at number thirteen Rodway Street in Yarralumla, but I’ll leave this phone off the hook in case I’m wrong. Now I’ve gotta go. There might still be hostiles in this place. And, boss? Bring the full entourage when you come. This is the crime scene we’ve been looking for.’

  28

  THE FIRST ROOM at the top of the stairs contained a couple of single beds. The bed linen was clean, and the pill
ows and doonas were fluffed-up and ready for use. But there were no bedside tables, and the walls were bare. There wasn’t even a coat hanger in the built-in wardrobe.

  The second bedroom was much bigger, and the king-size bed that filled it looked like it had been slept in recently — the bottom sheet was creased and slightly discoloured, and the doona was bunched up against the wall. There were even some men’s clothes in the wardrobe, and an easel and a clean palette were stacked next to the bed, along with a box of brushes and tubes of paint.

  A damp towel hung behind the door in the ensuite bathroom, and a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste sat on a ledge above the sink. In the cupboard under the sink, I found a red plastic bucket containing everything that Joe had taken from me. I fished out my Glock and my phone. The Glock was loaded and ready for action, and I felt much more secure with it in my hands. I tried my phone, but the battery was dead. I pocketed Joe’s revolver and my phone, but left everything else in the bucket.

  Downstairs, I crossed the lounge room, unlocked one of a pair of glass doors that led outside, and stepped out onto a large paved area. I felt an instant lift just from standing in the late-afternoon sun, breathing in fresh air.

  The noise from dozens of police sirens was building in the distance. Then a cocky squawked nearby, and I was aware of everyday sounds coming at me from over the top of the siren noise. The unbroken drone of nearby traffic was probably Adelaide Avenue. Some kids were shouting a few houses away. Then someone fired up a leaf blower.

  How would these people react when they heard that they’d shared their street with a bunch of killers? For some, it would be a major jolt to their sense of personal security. It would make others worry about their family’s safety. And still others would fret about the value of their real estate. There’s nothing like a major crime scene in the street to depress property prices.