I'm Dying Here

by Damien Broderick

  “Mauricio,” Juliet said through gritted teeth. “One of these days I’m going to—”

  “You know that mad bastard too, do you?” Share said. “I sup­pose you’re fucking him as well?”

  Juliet hammered a few words, watched the reply come up on the screen, and closed the computer down with a series of clicks. She said in a cold voice, then, “I’m not fucking either of them.”

  “She’s his sister,” I said.

  “Oh my god,” Sharon Lesser said. She threw herself back heav­ily on Cookie’s large bed and put both hands over her eyes. “Oh my god.”

  “They’ve decided to take their chances,” Jules told me. “Cookie’s not feeling well enough for a midnight dash. They’ll be all right, there’s a cop on patrol outside the house, evidently.”

  Something enormous was grinding its gears along the alley. Metal clashed on metal. For a moment I was frightened, but then I realized it was the trash collectors, come to collect the stinking garbage in the Dumpster.

  “Bit early for council workers,” I muttered. “Do the stores along here use contract cleaners, Animal?”

  The wall rocked with a deep, awful thud, and the door to the outside steps sprang open of its own accord. Sappho the cat leapt from the place she’d been hiding and streaked into Animal’s and Grime’s bedroom.

  “Fucking Mauricio,” I yelled, and bounded to the door. The Mack truck, or another just like it, was jammed into the park­ing space behind Vinnie’s shop. Its sides were stuck between the half-toppled Dumpster and Sharon Lesser’s dead husband’s pre­mier imported and steering-adapted Lincoln. The Dumpster had spilled rubbish into the darkness, and its stench rose to choke our nostrils. Somehow he’d missed the Cobra. The Lincoln’s passen­ger side was half stoved in, and when Share reached the door her scream rose to choke our ears.

  “You fucking brain-damaged dago bastard!”

  “What the hell are you doing up there, Share?” he hollered. “That is you isn’t it?”

  The big truck’s headlights and running lights had the place lit up like Christmas, or a crime scene in the movies, and the diesel engine roared.

  “I knew you had to be at the center of this, you lunatic,” I yelled, standing back from the door. Maeve had thought she was talking to him on the borrowed phone when she’d reported in with news of the gun and the Esky. I stayed near the edge of the door out of sight. I didn’t think he’d shoot his own brother-in-law, but you hear things about Sicilians.

  “What? Who’s there?

  “It’s Purdue, you fuckwit,” I yelled. “What bullshit is this?”

  “For Christ’s sake, are you in there too? Get the fuck out right now, Purdue. If little Annabelle’s there, take her with you.”

  “Bugger off, Mauricio, this is my father-in-law’s shop, and my daughter’s home. You have no right crashing in here on a Sunday night.”

  “Monday morning, Purdue. I had carefully laid plans, mate. I don’t suppose you have the Esky with you, do you?”

  “What Esky?”

  He crashed his gears again, gunned the enormous diesel, pulled back a couple of inches, moved forward a couple of inches plus a bit. The side of the old brick shop’s living quarters shook. A cup fell off the sink and broke.

  “You have loyalties and obligations, Purdue,” he shouted. Ani­mal was shouting, too, Share was hollering, I was making some noise. “Which family is more important to you, Purdue?”

  “I’ve only got a fake father left, your dad’s long dead, and your mother’s a religious nutter,” I said, wondering how long I could keep the madman talking, wondering as well if there was some way to call the nearest psychiatric center. The borrowed phone was smashed in a fireplace back in Williamstown. Share probably had one in working order, and so did Jules. Wait a minute, didn’t Share say she’d left hers in the Cobra? I was frantically gesturing the women toward the inside staircase, down through the shop and away to comparative safety in Sydney Road. They stared at me sullenly, angrily, and with crystalline intelligence. I nodded to the last of the three as Jules rounded up the other two and dra­gooned them through the door and downward into the darkness.

  “Don’t hurt him,” she said urgently.

  “Me? Hurt him? Jules, look what the maniac’s driving!”

  “We are very family-oriented, like he said,” she insisted from the dimness. “I saved his life once. I won’t have you hurting him.”

  “Sappho!” Annabelle shrieked belatedly, and tried to push past Share on the narrow stairs and return to rescue her pet. Her com­panion animal. I shoved her back.

  “I’ll bring the cat,” I muttered. “I have no intention of hurting Uncle Morry. Just piss off and get hold of Vinnie and Maeve, I don’t think they should be left alone either.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a simple enough request,” Mauricio yelled, head out the driver’s window. “Give us the bloody Esky and we’ll get out of your hair.” He floored the accelerator again, luckily with the clutch out.

  “Go to that all nite IQ testing place the Scientologists run,” I said in a whisper. “I’ll get rid of this pest then come and pick you all up. Try not to sign up for anything while you’re there.”

  “We won’t all fit,” Animal said obliquely, then she was gone. I flicked off the kitchen light and went out on to the landing.

  §

  I’d put the knife down much earlier and was feeling fairly na­ked and exposed. The capsicum spray was in my pocket, useless against a man in a Mack truck. Anyway, I didn’t want to hurt Mauricio. Well, just a bit.

  “So why are you working with that scumbag anyway?” I called down to him.

  “What scumbag?”

  “You know what scumbag, you scumbag. Felix fucking Culpep­per. One minute you’re smacking his thugs around the head, the next you’re in bed with him.”

  The diesel engine roared, settled back. Mauricio was a bit toey. “Bullshit, mate. Me, I’m doing a job for the towel head, no middlemen.”

  I frowned into the darkness, and took the spray from my pocket. “You and Sheikh Abdul bin Sahal al Din. Thick as thieves, eh.”

  “Whatever his name is. He’s got the best breeding program in Saudi.”

  “You’re talking about his camels,” I said, “not his wives?” Mauricio brought out the coarseness in me.

  “Wouldn’t mind getting the leg over them either, mate. I hear they’re like animals under those hoods. Hey, speaking of ani­mals—”

  “She’s not here, Mauricio. I’m all alone. Me and the cat. Look, turn that damned noisy thing off and come upstairs. I’ll make you a cup of terrible coffee and we can discuss this like gentlemen. Like members of an extended family, if it comes to that.”

  The silence rang in my ears. He climbed down, slammed the door.

  “You got my phone?”

  I patted my pockets. “No, mate, must have left it somewhere. I’ll get you anothery.”

  “You fucking smashed it, din’t you, you clumsy shit.” His boots beat a tattoo up the stairs and he pushed past me into the darkness of the kitchen. “What are you doing here with the lights off, you poofter? Having a wank or something?”

  “I was taking a nap,” I said with dignity, flipping the light switch. My eyes dazzled briefly. “I cannot tell a lie, I did break your phone.”

  He shook his head in despair. “Mate, you are the clumsiest—”

  “But not before Mrs. Murphy and I had a little heart-to-heart.”

  He hesitated only for a moment. “Have they got anything to drink in this hell-hole except one percent milk and tap water?” He slammed the fridge door shut. “So Maeve mentioned her little cab trip out to Melton, then? Well, ’course she did, how else would you have known about the shotgun and the Esky?”

  “I went out there for a change of clothes,” I said. “You might recall knocking my house down.”

  “Christ, are you going to hold that against me forever? Anyway, it gave you a chance to fuck that Share Lesser bint, din’
t it? The thrill of falling masonry, the exciting escape, the drive through the night—”

  I was getting tired of these unsupported speculations about my sex life, especially since I didn’t currently have any. It seemed in­credible. Here I was, a large strapping heterosexual bloke in the prime of life, money in my pocket, and nobody was up for a good healthy life-affirming fuck. Not even my lawful wedded wife.

  Mauricio had found the whiskey and what looked like a lid of dope. He was rolling a joint and poking around in the cabinet for a couple of clean glasses. “The girls won’t mind, will they. We can take them out to a lash-up dinner some time.” He found matches, lit up, stopped talking for a bit, exhaled, handed me the roach. I took a quick hit, sipped some booze to be companionable and to give the girls as much time as possible to get as far from here as they could.

  “Anyway, they owe me. I got rid of their shotgun, didn’t I?”

  I took another toke and tried to swallow my outrage. “By put­ting it in with my stored stuff, you mongrel!” But that was water well and truly under the bridge, and besides I was pretty convinced the murderers or avengers or what they were had used a different weapon. Someone was trying to frighten Animal, that was all—or maybe frighten Vinnie and Maeve. It made my head spin, thinking about it. Maybe that wasn’t what was making my head spin.

  “Yeah, and then I went and got it back. Good shit,” Mauricio said. He didn’t give his approval easily.

  “Yeah. Hey.”

  “What.”

  “So you sent Wozza to cut out that tongue, right?”

  “Wozz is a smart man, he knew what to do once I had a word in his ear.” Mauricio gave an explosive laugh. “Don’t think Mut­tonhead would have helped him much, but....”

  I laughed too. “No, but then he—” Something hit me in the hip and sent me spinning. “What the fuck?”

  “Make sure he hasn’t got a weapon,” Culpepper’s goon Bull­dozer said, coming through the open doorway from the unlighted shop downstairs. The door vibrated where it had rebounded from my hip. I felt as if some major bone had broken. Mauricio was out the side door and headed down into the dark, judging from the clatter of boot heels. The second thug ignored the first, tearing off in pursuit. Well, I’d locked China and Bulldozer in Culpepper’s crypt after biffing them around a little. They weren’t likely to be well disposed to me. Action was called for. I took some. The cap­sicum spray shot out in a boiling jet that caught Bulldozer and splashed back on me. It’s not recommended for indoor use, and now I understood why.

  I wanted to throw up, and couldn’t breathe, and my eyes were burning and watering and mostly blind. Coughing and hacking and spluttering and wiping at our faces, Bulldozer and I stumbled back and forth in Animal’s kitchen and living room like antiwar demonstrators and cops writhing righteously in the street.

  A little bubble of the toke swelled in my burning brain and broke into a giggle. I raised the spray canister, wondering if there was any left.

  “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” I told him in a fatherly, regretful voice. I pressed the button, holding my breath, squeezing my eyes shut. More hissing. He vomited wetly. I peeled open one lacerated eyeball. Bulldozer had his head over the sink, face under the tap. “No, wait,” I said. “Actually it’s going to hurt you more.” I drew back my right leg to kick him savagely in the nuts the moment he turned to face me.

  Something ran between my legs, emitting an awful wailing. Oh shit. Poor Sappho. I took three fast steps after her through the door, paused at the top of the stairs, in the dark. I found my keys. Bulldozer turned, hair and face drenched, suit coat irreparable, and lunged at the edge of the closing door. I pulled it shut with a bang. I didn’t trap his fingers with it, worse luck, but I did get the key in while I held the doorknob pulled against my chest, and snicked the lock. I heard banging and gnashing of teeth, but that diminished as I stumbled down into the shipwright bric-a-brac and followed the wailing cat through the jemmied front door and out into Sydney Road. Wind was blowing from the south, pushing discarded food wrappings this way and that, and light rain was beginning to fall.

  Felix Culpepper opened the front passenger door of his parked limo. I banged into it, jerking blindly.

  “No need to weep, Purdue,” he told me. “Not just yet, anyway. Here, get in the back with your daughter.” I clawed at him, and he shut his front door smartly. I made a grab and the top of his smoky window purred down to half mast. “Look at you,” he said, “you’re a disgrace to your ignoble profession. Step inside like a good fellow and we’ll be on our way to Williamstown.” His driver, brimmed hat and all, ignored us both.

  PART 7

  The capsicum fumes had made me feel sick, and my hip still felt broken, but that really made me want to throw up. Nothing for it. I reached for the back door handle and climbed in next to Animal. Nobody else in the back. A heavy glass partition between the front seats and the rear compartment saved Culpepper from being im­mediately throttled.

  “Sorry, daddy,” she said.

  “Please tell me you haven’t signed up for a year of auditing.”

  Animal ignored that, perhaps because she didn’t understand it. A lot of my attempts at gallows’ humor get that reaction. “Ee-ew,” she said. “You stink.”

  I shooshed her with one hand, showed her a glimpse of the cap­sicum spray canister in the other. “It’s hot work,” I said, “beating up Mr. Culpepper’s henchmen.” I probed my pockets, hauled out a dubious handkerchief, dabbed at my weeping eyes. It felt as if someone had jabbed hot pokers into the sockets. My only satisfac­tion was that Bulldozer surely felt much worse after copping a raw faceful of the noxious stuff. “Where’s Juliet and Share?”

  “This prick here was just parking his wankmobile outside Vinnie’s as we came out,” she said. “Some really big turd grabbed me and locked me in here.”

  “Mind your language, you ugly creature,” said Culpepper’s voice through an intercom. “Mr. Purdue, your stewardship of your daughter leaves a great deal to be desired.”

  I located the speaker, leaned back as far as I could in the leather upholstery, raised both knees, and kicked the shit out of it. Then I squirmed and squealed for a while and hugged my hip, which was obviously not broken after all but certainly still felt like it. The intercom was a state of the art Bose system, so my brutality didn’t kill it, but you could tell from the chicken scratching sounds that it was badly maimed.

  By this stage we were in fairly high-speed motion, ripping with­out a bump down the middle of empty early Monday morning

  Sydney Road toward the city. I saw a flicking of blue light, heard the blessed muezzin of a cop car pulling over an errant driver. For a moment Culpepper’s chauffeur pressed his foot to the floor, but through the shatterproof glass I saw his master snap sharply at him. We slowed, smoothly, as if this had always been our inten­tion, and pulled into the curb outside the Wonderland of Turkish Carpets showroom.

  “Quick, where is she? Jules?”

  “Got away. Kicked one of them in the knee, ran like fuck. He said to let her go, and to find you. Said he’s got her address any­way.”

  “Shit.” A uniformed policeman stood at the driver’s window, heavy flashlight poised. With a show of reluctance and long-suffer­ing, the chauffeur drew out his license and proffered it. Culpepper glanced back, showed me his eyes and his eye-teeth. Animal was banging at the door release, but the limo’s central locking was in good order. The cloudy, rain-spattered outside glass protected the cop from the sight of Animal gesturing. Apparently his attention was firmly focused on the front seat, and the excellent insulation must have muffled her shrieks. The cop stood back, then, nodding, and the driver reached again for his keys. Culpepper treated us to one disdainful glance of triumph before the cop stood aside and Detective Rebeiro took his place.

  “Oh, good,” I told my noisy, foul-mouthed offspring. “We’re saved!”

  I heard a muted click, and my door sprang open. Another uni­formed cop h
eld it wide, then took me by the arm.

  “Step out of the car.” Two police Fords were stationed at angles to the nose and tail of the limo. The blue light rolled over us from both directions. It would have come in handy during our vampire movie.

  “Hey, hang on—”

  “Hands where I can see them. Put that fucking thing down.”

  I dropped the mace can in the gutter. It was empty anyway. “An­nabelle,” I called. I could see her bald, metal-glittering head across the top of the limo, struggling with a policewoman and swearing like one. “They’re here to help us, take it easy, kiddo.”

  “Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Culpepper,” Rebeiro was saying. I looked around, blinked. Shit, what? He turned to me, face hard. “As for you, Purdue, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Rodolph Charlton Lesser. Don’t make any fuss and we’ll let your kid go home. Give me the slightest—”

  “You can’t be fucking serious!” He was, though. The cop with his hand on my arm, grimacing and blinking at the capsicum resi­due I was giving off, pulled a plastic restrainer from his belt and clamped it on my crossed wrists, snugging it tightly.

  Purring with automotive satisfaction, Culpepper’s limousine drew away, carefully skirting the heavy rubber bumper of the front Ford Fairlane. Red tail lights glistened in the wet road. Jaw dropped, I watched it maintain the speed limit into the distance. I shook my aching head. Surly Animal was still pulling her own cop around, but she gave up abruptly with a half-hearted snarl when she saw that I was well and truly nicked. The woman cop led her briskly to the nice fancy inlaid brickwork that Sydney Road shop­pers trod on these days.

  “Get going,” Rebeiro told her, and shooed her back toward Vinnie’s open door and the shop’s dark interior.

  “Just a minute, Rebeiro, there’s one of Culpepper’s goddamned heavies in there,” I said. “I hit him right in the face with pepper spray, he’s probably still breathing but you can’t send my daughter up to—”