I'm Dying Here

by Damien Broderick

  I took it all in fast, as the flashlight beam swung across the chamber. The crypt held a wall of small headstones. Apparently Culpeppers from the time of the First Fleet were interred here. Cookie was slouched, all tonne and a half of her, on a sagging camp bed. She hadn’t been sweeping the floor, but then she didn’t have a broom and pan. A handful of burnt-out candle stubs and a box of matches lay scattered on the floor, amid the remains of several fast food cartons. It occurred to me that I had solved the mystery of Cookie’s disappearance, or at least of her reappear­ance, with surprising ease. Risen from the grave. The Goth grrls should be impressed. Maybe, I thought, I should go back to being a private eye.

  “What are you doing with my step-daughter in here, Felix?” “Ms. Lesser is helping us with our enquiries.”

  A police phrase, doubly sardonic under the circumstances. I said, “What enquiries?” My nose wrinkled. Nasty smell, like stale piss. In a crypt? I wondered how long the poor grrl had been trapped down here. More than a day, if Animal’s guess was right.

  Radiance flashed into my face, away again. I blinked.

  “Into certain curious anomalies that have appeared recently in my family’s trust accounts.”

  “What fucking accounts?” Share was indignant. “Jonquil has only been helping out an old friend with his SP—”

  “Quite so. Accounts associated with the racing industry.” Clear­ly, Culpepper had attended Timbertop school, perhaps with Prince Charles as his fellow student, and he wanted us to hear it in his calm, modulated tones. “And other...associated activities.”

  Cookie shouted, “These arseholes have been rigging the camel export trade for the past ten years. Every poor sucker who ever wanted to get rich quick is into camel breeding, you must know that, Sharon. Buy Australian camels, guaranteed syphilis-free, blah blah blah. Win millions of OPEC dollars by owning half a hind leg of a prize racing camel in Jeddah blah blah blah. These goons and their Saudi mates have been taking everyone to the bloody cleaners—”

  “It’s a legitimate investment opportunity, Cookie.” Share sound­ed defensive, suddenly sensitive about her own association with the camel trade.

  “Pigshit it’s legitimate. Some of those bloody ships of the desert are owned five thousand percent. Others don’t even exist.”

  “Oh dear, what have you got yourself into now, Cookie?”

  Her step-daughter snorted, but said nothing. After a reflective moment, Culpepper’s mellow tones informed us that Ms. Lesser had been using her not inconsiderable computer skills to hack into certain accounts and databases held here and overseas with a view to relieving the account holders of certain points of a percentage of their wealth, a supposedly undetectable method widely advertised in so many blockbuster movies that nowadays even Steven Seagal would refuse to—

  “Jesus,” Share said to her recumbent, reeking step-daughter. “Your prick of a father raised you with more sense than that.”

  “Frankly,” Culpepper continued, “we admire Ms. Lesser’s skill and acumen—”

  “I can’t stand men, you idiot!”

  “Droll, Ms. Lesser, very droll.”

  “We’ll fucking do you for kidnapping and wrongful imprison­ment—”

  “In which event we would be obliged to ‘do you’ for fraud, larceny, invasion of privacy and sundry computer related malfea­sances.”

  Culpepper was surely armed, more than I could say for myself. Even if I overpowered the toad without being shot, how were we going to get Cookie out of here? There wasn’t a wheelchair within coo-ee. The maimed dead leave theirs at the hospital bedside. If she hadn’t been differently mobile, she might well have propelled herself through the air and killed him with her raw bulk. Poor girl, all she had for weaponry was her tongue.

  “Sod off, hairy legs,” she said.

  Plucky, I thought, but not really the fatal thrust.

  Culpepper’s imperturbable voice went on: “Jonquil, we admire your cyber skills. We would far prefer you to be with us than against us.”

  “You offering me a fucking job? After snatching me?”

  “Gainful employment might be in the offing.”

  “I wouldn’t work for you motherfu—”

  “And speaking of mothers,” he said sharply, “perhaps your stepmother and her friend might like to chat with you about your prospects. I shall take a turn around the necropolis.” Culpepper handed the flashlight to Share and made his way up to ground level without its aid; obviously he knew his way around the place. The door closed with an inaudible shock of air that hummed in my ears. I broke a minute’s silence in the crypt by asking, “How did he get you out of Animal’s place, Cookie?”

  She was silent for another long minute, and I suppose she was blushing furiously. Or biting her lip. “I got conned. Net sex’s all I’ve ever been...good for.”

  Christ, I thought. Poor woman.

  “Male or female?” I asked.

  “None of your beeswax,” said Grime Grrl’s younger sister.

  “I’m not prying, Cookie. I’m trying to find out—”

  “They said they wanted to meet up in RL,” she said. RL? Real life? “I told them I couldn’t get around easily. They said they’d come and get me. So I left the door open and made sure Animal and Grime were out.”

  “You foolish child,” Share said. “Sorry,” she added immedi­ately, “that wasn’t a helpful thing to say.”

  “No it bloody wasn’t. Anyway, here I am. No net sex, just two fucking male bruisers lugging me down to a hearse and your friend Culpepper sneering at me. Now he wants me to fucking work for him. Christ, I need to take a dump.”

  Another silence.

  Eventually I said, “Anybody have any idea why I’m here?” “Felix asked me to bring you,” Share said.

  “Felix.” I let his name sit there like a turd on the doorstep. “Why would he want you to do that?”

  “I imagine he also wants to offer you a job.”

  “I wouldn’t work for those mother—”

  “You’ve got no more choice than Cookie here. He could do you for sundry malfeasances as well.”

  “I’ve got to have a shit,” Cookie said. “I’ve been holding it all day.”

  “What malfeasances?”

  “I’m serious,” Cookie said desperately. “I had to piss in those McDonalds’ cartons. I spilled some of it.”

  “Obviously we can’t do anything about that, Jonquil, but you have our sympathy. Well, just for starters, there was the little incident with Nile Fever this morning. It might be argued in a court of law that attempting to defraud a prospective buyer by artificially increasing a camel’s running speed—”

  “It was a mad idea anyway. You can’t fool a wily old sheikh of the desert by just bunging some sugar into a poor beast’s neck, Share. And now the creature’s dead and it was all for nothing.” Dead and mutilated by X Files aliens, I wanted to say. Anything to get a mordant laugh out of this writhing mess. Suddenly I didn’t feel at all like laughing. “That was Culpepper’s idea? He put you up to it?” I felt stupid. That whole stunt had been some sort of entrapment caper? Not aimed at me, certainly, I was smaller fry than they’d bother with.

  “Not Culpepper.” Share sounded affronted.

  “Good Christ, the sheikh was in on it?”

  The room filled with a horrible smell, and I saw Cookie’s shad­ow fall back against the wall. I hoped it was just a ripe take-out fart and not loss of her bowel control.

  “Really, don’t be a cretin. Let the scales drop from your eyes, Purdue. Think technology. Think twenty-first century. Be thankful that you’ve fallen amongst friends.”

  “Amongst scumbags,” Cookie said.

  I still had no idea what she was talking about, unless it really was fertile ova from the hyped-up animal. In which case the sugar wouldn’t be an issue, just a device to give the beast an Extreme Makeover for ten minutes. So there’d never been any plan to ex­port it or smuggle it out in a padded shipping container fitted with camel chow
and a water supply, and run it in Jeddah. I wondered exactly what kind of mutilation had been performed. Weren’t the aliens supposed to carve out the anus and the sexual organs? But that was just the National Enquirer, surely.

  “Mind you,” Share mused, “the helicopter was unscripted.”

  I shook my head in the darkness, giving it all up as a bad job. We had more urgent problems. Getting out of durance vile, for starters.

  “Suppose Cookie and I accept Culpepper’s deal,” I said. What­ever the fuck it was. “Then what?”

  “‘Accept’, bullshit. Speak for yourself,” Cookie told me, but she was just enjoying a sulk. I had the strong impression that she knew the score as well as I did. The pair of us would sign on in the camel corps whether we liked it or not.

  “If you don’t get me out of this fucking hell hole right now,” Cookie shrieked at Share, “I’ll put rat poison in your Harvey Wallbanger.”

  I took the flashlight from Share’s hand, flashed it high and low. No other exit, unless it was concealed. I shook my head. “This joint’s got lousy feng shui,” I said. “No wonder all the inmates are dead.”

  §

  My phone rang. I opened it very carefully, handing the flashlight back. The signal was patchy. Marble, six feet at least of good dry earth, solid steel to put a bounce in it.

  “—and pick me up at the Moreland Arms. Or has the bint still got your Cobra?”

  “Mauricio, you’re breaking up,” I said.

  There was some garble. “—reaking up? You’ve only just met.”

  “I’m locked in a vault,” I said.

  “You’re in a bank? The banks are shut at this hour of a Satur—”

  “A crypt. A mausoleum.”

  “Ah, that’d be the Culpepper place in Fawkner.”

  “Good god,” I said. “Can you come and get us out, seeing you’re so familiar with the location, location.”

  Some more cryptic garble, suitably enough I suppose, and then he was saying, “—in for a lube. Look, I’ll get a fuckin cab, but those buggers have to report what they see to the cops, you know.”

  “Bring Chook with you.”

  “Give me that.” Share took the phone out of my hand as I started to return it to my pocket. “Why the hell didn’t you say you had a cell—” The mouthpiece fell off it. Cursing, she bent to retrieve it and so did I, flashlight bobbing, and my heel crushed it into the marble.

  “You knew I had one. You just called me, for Christ’s sake. Where’s yours, anyway?”

  “I left it in the car, you smug prick.”

  After a rather long, dismal, somewhat acrimonious time, light opened above our heads. The heavy vault door swung outward like a slo-mo shot of Mohammed Ali’s fist fired into Frazier’s chest. Culpepper stood at the top of the stairs with a portable fluoro. He stepped aside to allow two thugs in undertaker black to descend ahead of him. Lit from above and below, their broken noses and crooked brows, not to mention the muscle heaving un­der their suit jackets, detracted a bit from the general Tobin Bros undertaker look.

  “G’day, Bulldozer,” I said.

  He squinted in the gloom. “G’day, Tom. You know China?” “Only by repute, mate. You were robbed in the eleventh round.” Dozer shook his head sadly. “Fuckin ref. On the take, mate.”

  “It’s criminal,” I said.

  “Get the young woman back upstairs,” Felix Culpepper said. “You two wait down here for a moment, I have a proposal that you’ll wish to hear.”

  Share was saying quite a lot at the top of her voice, but nobody was interested. Cookie added some commentary, and lashed out with her beefy arms when China bent to hoist her bulk off the sag­ging camp bed. I admired the expert way he pinned her limbs and avoided her snapping jaws.

  “Ward nurse,” I said, speculating.

  “Ten years at Fairfield Psychiatric,” he said, breathing hard. “Criminally insane.” It wasn’t clear whether that meant his charges or his cause of dismissal. Dozer had her thick legs. They crabbed up the stairs as she shouted her fury.

  “Sorry, love,” China said, and tapped her on the side of the head with the wall. In the silence, I realized that Share had stopped yelling. She stood with her back to the entombed Culpeppers, teeth bared, flashlight raised over her head ready to be used as a club. She looked a little like a really riled Statue of Liberty.

  “You’re taking her out in the coffin,” I said.

  “Less conspicuous, I think you’ll agree,” Felix Culpepper said. “She needs to go to the toilet, you bastard. You can’t leave her in a closed casket.”

  “Only for a short while. Your associate’s step-daughter remains of some interest to us, but we mean her no harm if she cooperates.

  She’ll be accorded all the conveniences as soon as—” His phone rang. Frowning, he put it to his ear, murmuring. I thought of rush­ing him, but what was the point. I hadn’t gone around armed since my short stint as a PI, and there was no way Share and I would get past the two gorillas. “Oh, very well,” Culpepper said in vexation. “I’m waiting for the limo, I’ll collect you once it arrives and we can discuss matters further on the way to the airport.” He clicked it shut. “Change of plans. Up the steps, if you please.”

  “You wouldn’t like us to tidy the place up first?”

  Culpepper wasn’t listening to me; he had his eyes warily on Sharon Lesser, who seemed on the verge of cracking up and fling­ing herself at him with the flashlight, something stepmotherly and fairly pointless. I took the flashlight from her.

  “Come on, Share. The prick won’t hurt her unless we get him really angry.”

  From the sounds upstairs, they seemed to be having some trouble fitting the orca into her casket. Felix Culpepper edged up the steps ahead of us, stood aside to let us through the vault door, fell down suddenly and dropped his fluoro. It rolled across the marble floor, throwing crazy patches of light. Both the gorillas were sitting beside the casket, looking dazed. I bundled the reel­ing undertaker muscle down the steps, and swung the vault door shut behind them both. Mauricio’s brothers stood nervously at the nearly-closed front steel door to the mausoleum, fingering their heavy knouts. The room stank. Poor unconscious Cookie had shat herself.

  “G’day Chook,” I said. “Dago, Woggo.”

  “Tom.” There was a definite lack of cordiality in their voices, they deplored the way I had led their brother astray, not to men­tion their sister. Mauricio, their ancient mother told me tearfully whenever I got dragged around for a meal with his extended clan, had been meant for the priesthood, as his sister had been intended for the nunnery. Fat fucking chance in either case. It grieved her that her son had fallen among villains. The brothers set about their task without enthusiasm.

  “Can’t we have a bit of bloody light?”

  “Sorry boys,” I said, “if we open the front door every Tom, Dick and Harry—”

  “Well, Tom’s already in here,” said Woggo, the wit of the pair. Their sister Juliet, of course, outshone them both like a lighthouse.

  Dago reached up behind him in the gloom and flipped a switch. Soft light suffused the entrance to the crypt from recessed lamps. Dago was the Einstein of the pair.

  “Well bugger me,” Share said, and sank the tip of her shoe into the groaning member of the Melbourne Club lying in a heap next to the coffin. “Psychological warfare, Felix, is that it? Keep the poor sods in the dark and off balance?” Her toe clipped his jaw, and she nearly lost her own balance.

  Woggo was in cantankerous mood. “I’m not moving her until she’s had a bloody good wash. Someone should take to her with a hose.” He must have seen Share’s sharp glance. “That’s not what I mean. Wash her down, you know. She’s on the nose.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” said Share, and I added: “Gentleman, this poor child has been treated very badly. Show a bit of respect for her suffering.”

  “—fuckin Lebos,” Mauricio was muttering.

  “No, Sunshine, this was the establishment’s work.” Share crouched
beside her step-daughter, feeling her skull. No blood, nothing broken. She averted her face, nostrils pinched. “C’mon, Tom, help me out with her. These oafs are too—”

  Dago lifted Sharon aside with one effortless, biceps-bulging move, bent, had the young torpid whale under the arms. His brother took the feet. They had her out of the casket in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

  “Put this cunt in,” Share said, kicking Culpepper again to make certain they knew which cunt she had in mind. “And close the lid.”

  The lights were now on down in the vault, too, presumably. It was satisfying to know they’d go off when we left. I could hear a dull thudding from below, quite faintly actually. You had to be listening. “We should take Felix the fixer with us,” I said.

  “We will. In the casket. Let him breathe the fumes for a few minutes.”

  Mauricio and I got him in, cinched the top shut, heaved the casket to the door. The brothers were stumbling amid clumpy, untended grass to the back of their dirt encrusted white van. It looked as if they’d just got back from a six month outback safari, kangaroo shooting. I doubted it. Urban cowboys, these two. Three, counting Mauricio, the most urban of the lot. It was in their genes. Their ancestors had loitered, malice aforethought, with the bawds and pickpockets on the Spanish Stairs in Rome for centuries, or some equivalent den of iniquity in Sicily. I was never very good at geography in school. They swung the orca into the back, returned to help us with the casket. I was sitting on it, looking at the gleaming black vehicle. Of course it was a hearse. A hearse is a hearse, of course, of course, I found myself thinking absurdly, dazed by confusion and anger. On a venture, I went back inside the crypt and brought Culpepper’s Esky out with me, popped it on top of the coffin.

  “Give the lads your address, Share,” I said. “I’d rather not have my daughter involved in this.”

  “What about fuckface here?” She couldn’t keep her feet away from him, the toe whacked a silver cross on the grained casket. Some vandal had punched a handful of holes in the side and top, not very large holes but it ruined the melancholy Six Feet Under shine of the thing.

  “He’s provided us with luxury transport,” I said. “C’mon, fellas, put your backs into it and we’ll have him laid to rest in a flash.”