by Ron Elliott
The wind was making a weird moaning at the back where the rear window had been blown to bits. The bullet must have just missed Ned’s head as he’d dived in the back when Simon hauled arse. There was an interesting hole in the back strut where it went out again.
‘I got him. He came to the door and blam. Got ’im.’
Ned was pumped from the thing, but Ellis had that warm, dreamy feeling, like he’d just had some good soup with a big shot of rum. ‘Yeah. Pop, pop. Not so hard really, is it.’
‘Squeeze and blam.’
‘There’s not so many hitmen in Australia, you know. Well, maybe Mr Rent-A-Kill or whatever, in Sydney.’
‘And Chopper Read.’
‘No, I’m talking about professionals. Not a bunch of Melbourne guys just killing each other. That’s gang stuff. I mean men who you come to when you need it done.’
‘Yeah. Us.’
Ellis had been watching Simon, but getting nothing. ‘You’re riding with the genuine article, Simon.’
‘We don’t need him anymore. Job’s done now.’
‘Give us the gun.’
Ned handed it over the seat.
‘You dipped the lights back there to attract attention,’ said Ellis.
‘I told you what I was doing, and why.’ Simon only rasped a little.
‘Should I kill you?’
Simon seemed to have some problem thinking about it for a while before he said, ‘No.’
Ellis said, ‘Beg.’
Simon turned to look at him mostly with the grey eye and said, ‘No.’ He turned back to the highway. Cars were passing.
‘You’re not like I thought.’
‘No, I’ve been a pretty big disappointment to everyone, Ellis. And I promised so much.’
‘Ha,’ laughed Ellis, that Simon could keep surprising him. ‘This guy.’
Ned said, ‘We gotta shoot him, Ellis. Like you said, no witnesses.’
‘Except the woman, you mean,’ said Simon.
‘The one who ran down the side?’ Ellis shook his head. ‘She didn’t see anything.’
‘The other one,’ said Simon.
‘What other one?’
‘The one who was screaming. The tall guy screamed, then the woman screamed.’
‘That’s right,’ said Ellis, turning around to Ned. ‘I heard her too. Did you shoot her?’
Ned looked away. ‘I got the guy.’
‘The tall guy?’ asked Simon.
‘What? Why do you keep going “the tall guy”?’ asked Ellis mocking Simon’s gravelly way of saying it.
‘How tall’s Ned?’
‘What are you trying to do now?’
Ned said, ‘He’s trying to mix us up.’
‘I couldn’t see much but the guy looked a foot taller than Ned.’
‘I wasn’t scared,’ yelled Ned. He lashed out, punching Simon behind the ear.
Simon fell forward, going for the brake. The car pulled to the left as it lost speed, spilling Ellis back into the dash. He scrambled up onto the seat and turned the pistol to Simon, who was busy getting the taxi under control and looking out at the passing traffic.
Ellis turned in his seat again, ‘Ned, I swear to god, if you say another word, or touch anyone without my saying, I’ll fucking shoot you.’
Ned started to open his mouth.
Ellis thrust the gun over the back seat. ‘Go on. Do it. One word.’ When he could be sure Ned was going to behave he said, ‘Spit it out Simon.’
‘What?’
‘The tall guy?’
‘Yeah, well he looked pretty skinny, but he was the tallest jockey I ever saw.’
‘Fuck,’ said Ellis. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’ He turned the gun back at Ned, reaching it out as far as his arm would go.
Ned closed his eyes, scrunched up his face and waited to die.
‘You dumb prick. That wasn’t the jockey. Fuck.’
Ellis took a moment, centring himself. ‘A setback. I should have gone. Doing a hit is a bit more complicated than just “Go to this address. Get my bag.” Little more to it. Okay, turn around and we’ll go back.’
‘You got it,’ said Simon. He put the indicator on, getting ready for the next exit.
‘Wait. There’ll be cops.’ Ellis stared at Simon, distrustful again. ‘Quiet now, kids. Daddy needs to think.’
Simon drove. Some plastic in the back rattled in the wind from the missing rear window.
Ellis said, ‘Pull off the freeway. Find a phone. We’ll call Foster.’
Educating Grace
Grace was in a hot tub in Switzerland. Her long dark hair floated over her breasts, tickling a little, as she read Sophie’s World, through the steam.
She stopped when JJ came out of the hillside apartment, muscular and naked, carrying two drinks. He stood a moment blinking at the distant snow-topped mountains then shivered. ‘It’s cold.’
‘Do you think God is in everything?’
‘If you mean Foster, then yes I do. And I praise him for it.’ He put down the drinks, staggering a little.
Grace looked out past the wooden decking to fields below where cows munched in the thin sunshine. ‘Spinoza says we’re all part of everything, and everything is part of nature. So we can feel our little part of the whole universe and all eternity all at once.’
‘My little part is trying to crawl up inside me.’ JJ jumped into the tub, sending a wave of water rushing out the sides of the hot tub.
Grace stood as quickly as she could, holding the book high above the splash.
‘Hot,’ said JJ with a laugh, as he stood up out of the water.
Grace bent over to put the book safely up on a box of plants. She turned back to find JJ nodding appreciatively at her bare arse. She dropped back into the pool. ‘Have you heard of pantheism?’
JJ lowered himself back down into the tub, searching the edges for where he’d put the drinks. ‘I never heard of any of the things you’re coming out with, baby. It’s all like those French tapes you’re practising on – fuckin’ Greek to me.’
Grace smiled and when JJ reached his foot out and up to fit between her legs under the water, she giggled, going with the good feeling until she focused on something out in the world and asked, ‘Do you think animals have feelings?’
He followed her eyes to the cows in the meadow below. ‘Cows? Maybe. Sheep, no.’ JJ took his foot away and drifted himself over to his drink. ‘Horses sure got moods.’ He took a sip, admiring his mixing.
Grace stared at him, intent. ‘Would you ever not hurt a horse to not win a race?’
‘Do you know what that sentence means?’
Grace laughed, and glided herself to JJ. She leaned on his shoulder while she got her own drink. ‘Would you say, I’m not going to hurt this horse – I’m not going to use a battery or the whip or nothing that will hurt it. It’s just not right. Just some race and I’m not hurting this ... um...’
‘Horse?’
‘Living creature.’ She leaned in and kissed JJ.
He sucked the top of her lip. ‘Chlorine.’
‘Would you?’
‘If you asked me not to, then I wouldn’t do it, baby.’
Grace smiled, her face glowing from the warm water and her eyes darting from JJ’s left eye to his right and back, like a movie star in a closeup. Her lips moved towards JJ’s, opening slightly in anticipation.
Grace grimaced as she looked out the motel room window. There was an empty pool outside. It was above ground, empty and sagging next to some builder’s rubble. The round version of JJ pulled the thick curtains closed.
She punched him as hard as she could in the arm. ‘You hurt me.’
‘Accident. There were guns going off, baby.’
‘You ever hit me again...’
‘It wasn’t a hit. A little push. Anyway, they might have still been around. If they were, we had to lead them away. Not let anyone else get hurt.’
Grace looked at him.
JJ stared back, unblinking, rehearsed.
&
nbsp; She sat on one of the single beds, near the telephone on the table between. She felt for her phone, but remembered she’d given it to Luke on Lisa’s veranda. ‘I better ring and see how Tim is.’
‘Not now Grace. They might not understand ... call the cops or something.’
‘Tim looked bad. Really bad.’
‘I’ll call Foster.’ JJ patted his pockets looking for his phone.
‘No!’ Grace stood.
‘If there’s a misunderstanding.’
‘JJ, what do you think just happened?’
‘Why I have to promise him my lips are sealed. Make him understand.’
‘Promise me you won’t phone.’
JJ nodded. ‘I promise.’ He sat in a chair by the motel room door.
Grace sat back on the bed.
JJ said, ‘We don’t phone. Nobody phones nobody.’
Mr Foster
The taxi pulled into a parking bay in Kings Park, a big hill that overlooked the city and river. It was a good place for romantic couples and other assignations.
‘Turn off the engine and give me the keys.’
He did.
‘Ned. If either of you gets out of the car for any reason at all, I’ll kill you. Not even for a piss. You got it?’
Ned nodded, picking up his knife and waving it like a sword so Ellis knew he was on this.
Ellis nodded and got out and headed a couple of cars along towards a black Statesman.
Simon said, ‘Ellis saying not even for a piss reminds me of something.’
‘Don’t talk.’
‘It’s about Ellis. Can I tell you, if it’s about Ellis?’
Ned looked at Simon’s ear where he’d whacked him. Simon didn’t turn around. Just sat, working his one hand at his throat, waiting.
Ned tensed a little with the knife, ready. Then he said, ‘Okay.’
‘This is about when he was at school. I’m just trying to explain to you Ned, why maybe Ellis doesn’t want to kill me. Because we go way back, you know. Ellis had another mate at school. Tall guy. Simmo. Had bets about fights. If they had a fight with someone and won, the one who didn’t fight had to give the other guy a dollar. Not so much a moneymaking venture as icing on the cake, I suppose.’
‘We did that. In prison. Packet of cigarettes. But then Ellis started not fighting them for a carton.’
‘Anyway, so the story went that Ellis fought this one kid, after school, in the sports change rooms I think it was. But that wasn’t the end of it. The kid apparently was begging him to stop hitting him and Ellis made him open his mouth and he shit in the guy’s mouth. Very disturbing ... full of all kinds of power and fear and also a primal disgust, but what always stuck in my mind was, if it was true, Ellis had some pretty amazing bowel control. I don’t think I could just poop on demand like that.’
‘I know,’ said Ned. ‘Ellis told me about that already. Ellis isn’t afraid to do anything.’
Ellis sat in the back seat of the Statesman. There was a guy with a ponytail and suit behind the driver’s wheel who never turned around but kept watching Ellis through the rear-vision mirror. It was this guy that was putting Ellis off a little, rather than Mr Foster talking disrespectfully.
Foster was dressed in a checked shirt and bathers, like he’d just come from the beach. He was turned around in the front passenger seat so he could look at Ellis and at the driver. ‘You said you could handle it.’
‘No one told me he’d be guarded.’
‘Guarded?’
‘There were at least two other men there, with guns. I took one of them down, but I’ll have to go back for the jockey.’
‘Only we don’t know where he is now, do we? All that shooting.’
‘Just a hiccup. You gotta understand that in my line of work, things don’t always go...’
‘Your line of work!’ interrupted Foster. ‘You’re a petty criminal who keeps being sent to prison because you’re a violent psychopath who gets caught. Don’t pretend you’re a CIA agent, for Christ’s sake.’
Ellis flicked his eyes to the man in the suit. He was still looking back. No smile, just watching. Ellis said, ‘You shouldn’t talk to me that way, Mr Foster. You wouldn’t have said that in prison.’
‘No. You would have hurt me in prison. And I wouldn’t talk that way if Bobby wasn’t here either. You’re a nasty bit of work, Ellis. And I have a very nasty job for you to do. This is killing a man. I have never killed a man. Never wanted to. Jesus, I paid him to have a holiday for two years so I wouldn’t have to.’ Foster panted, then looked up to Bobby and shrugged before refocusing on Ellis. ‘But I don’t want to go back to prison and be prey to the likes of you, and so I’ll do anything not to let that happen. But don’t be mistaken, Ellis. We’re out here in my world now.’
‘It’s my world too, Mr Foster. I just gotta work harder making it mine, that’s all.’
Ellis looked out the car window at the city lights down below. He never went in the city much. Finally he realised that no one was saying anything. ‘So what do you want me to do?’
‘We wait for JJ to call us.’
‘Call you?’
Mr Foster turned away, ‘Oh, yeah. He’ll do that. I’d say it was a sure thing.’
Bobby turned around in his seat to look at Ellis full on. ‘Then I’ll come with you and give you a hand.’ Simon was getting Ned to open up.
‘Do you know the story about Ellis’s mum in the sack?’ sneered Ned.
‘No,’ said Simon.
‘See, you don’t know everything.’
‘What kind of sack?’
‘Ha,’ said Ned, pushing the edge of the knife just a little further into Simon’s throat. He wasn’t cutting, but he had his left hand on Simon’s left shoulder, and his right over and around Simon’s other shoulder, with the knife under his chin.
‘The knife, Ned. It’s starting to cut.’
Ned eased if off a little.
Simon looked to the car doorhandle and to the bush beyond.
‘You don’t know what kind of sack it was, do you, Ned?’
Ned’s hand tightened again but then eased. ‘It was hessian. A big potato sack. Big enough to get their mother in.’
‘Ellis?’
‘And his brothers. She’d get drunk and nag them. They grabbed her one day and pushed her in the hessian sack.’
‘They drowned her?’
‘No. See, you don’t know nothing about Ellis. Anyway, it’s a funny story, the way Ellis tells it.’
‘Right.’
‘They took the manhole cover into the roof off and they got a rope and tied it around a rafter and they hauled her up in the sack a metre and told her they wouldn’t let her down unless she stopped nagging. And they pushed the sack a bit and smacked her on the arse a few times because she started yelling and screaming a fair bit. I think one of the brothers got a stick or something.’
‘Would you do that to your mum?’
‘No,’ said Ned quickly. Then he said, ‘I don’t know. I was fostered.’ They were quiet a while, then Ned said, ‘They left her in the sack for a few days. She pissed herself and that and their dad made them take her down cos of the smell and he wanted some dinner. But after that any time she started nagging the boys they’d say, “Shut up, or we’ll give you the sack.” See. That’s the funniest part. They’d give her the sack.’
‘You’re right, Ned. I didn’t know that one.’
Ned loosened his grip on the knife for a moment.
Grace put the bedside phone down.
A key turned in the lock of the motel room door.
Grace sat on the end of the bed, facing away from the phone.
JJ came in carrying a couple of cans of Coke. ‘You want a drink?’ he asked, brightly, closing the door on the courtyard of other motel rooms and cars.
Grace went to the minibar and opened it, revealing little spirit bottles, beers and soft drinks.
‘Oh, I didn’t see the fridge.’
‘Why did you lock me
in?’
‘Did I? Force of habit from all the hotels we been living in.’
Grace went to the little bathroom and got two glasses.
JJ opened the minibar again and took out a little bottle of scotch and a little bottle of Jim Beam.
When Grace put the glasses on top of the fridge next to the kettle, she asked, ‘Was there a phone? Near the soft drink machine?’
‘What? How would I know? I wasn’t looking.’ JJ pulled the top off the Coke and poured.
Simon’s hand rested on the door hand. There were a lot of trees and bush outside the car, lots of dark garden to jump into. Ned still had the knife under his chin, but loose.
Simon said, ‘You wondering why Ellis has been so long?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t think he’s in trouble. Not like with that guy in the caravan park. I was thinking he might be trying to protect you. Trying to explain to Mr Foster that how it happened was like an accident, or something.’
Ned started to ease back a little more as he turned to try to see to the Statesman. Then he tightened his grip again. ‘They’re coming.’
‘Oh.’
Ellis opened the back door of the taxi and said to Ned, ‘Get in the front.’
Simon caught a glimpse of a guy in a suit. Could hear him brushing broken bits of glass off the back seat before he sat down.
Ellis got in the other side and tossed the keys onto Simon’s lap. ‘Middle Swan Motor Inn.’
Simon said, ‘I’m going to have to get some petrol.’ He started the car.
The new guy said, ‘We need to ditch this and get something less conspicuous. Something with a back window.’
‘Bobby doesn’t like your taxi, Simon.’
Bobby leaned forward and looked at the taxi meter. It showed six hundred and seventy-three dollars. ‘This guy is the actual driver?’
Simon backed out and turned into the tree-lined road leading down the hill and out of Kings Park.
Ned said, ‘Ellis and Simon went to school together.’
‘Our very own driver, Bobby,’ said Ellis.
Bobby looked at the bruise on Simon’s head and the spot of blood on his arm. He said, ‘Simon, this bush track up here. Can you pull in? I need a leak.’
Simon nodded, sadly. He pulled off the road and into one of the fire tracks that crisscrossed the bush park, stopping at a gate.
