Hot Zone (Major Crimes Unit Book 2)

by Iain Rob Wright

  Probably.

  'Terminal Four, love?'

  'Thank you,' I say again.

  When I get out of the taxi, I realise they're the only two words I said to the taxi driver the whole trip.

  IV.

  It's one in the afternoon, so I go and sit on my own in the airport bar and order a Tia Maria and Coke to sober up. The Coke bit, not the Tia Maria. The alcohol's there so I don't start feeling tired. Or sober. Or something.

  Fuck it, though. It's Boxing Day, my husband's coming home.

  I don't think I'm entirely happy or unhappy about it, either way.

  'Excuse me...do you mind...?'

  I turn my head and there's a man around my age, maybe, smiling with good teeth and kind of waving at the stool at the bar beside me.

  Brilliant, I think. Some crap pick-up in an airport bar?

  I could do worse, I think.

  Then, sadly, another thought tags along.

  I already have.

  I nod, and notice he has a bit of trouble getting into the seat. It's high, and there's something wrong with his leg.

  'Do you need a hand?' I ask.

  'Funny you should say that...I'm in a bit of trouble. To be brutally honest...I'm desperate,' he says.

  I look at him. I'm British. I don't run away when people prove a little odd. We just kind of raise our eyebrows. I'm a public bar. There are plenty of other people around.

  'Go on,' I say, expecting some flaccid chat-up, or some kind of begging sob-story about needing a ticket to New York to see his dying mother or...

  'I've got a kilo of drugs stuck to my balls and I can't get the bag off...wouldn't have a pair of nail clippers or the like handy, would you?'

  To be honest, as chat up lines go...that's one of the better ones. I wasn't walking, anyway. I laughed.

  'That's good,' I say.

  He smiles. 'Actually...I really do.'

  V.

  I'm pretty drunk, so it seems like a laugh. But it's not.

  'Go on...I'm curious enough to wait for the punch line...you're good so far,' I say, downing my drink and ordering another, which he pays for along with a crap lager that he grimaces at when he drinks it.

  'I swear, worst beer I ever tasted in this place.'

  'Come here often?' I say.

  'Hey, that's my line.'

  He's got twinkling eyes, full of humour. Also, as I mentioned, I'm drunk and very unsatisfied on the home front. I don't tell him to piss off. At the very least, it's a good distraction.

  'But, yes,' he says. 'Yes I do. Will you hear me out? I really need help...I'm straight as I can be. I'm in so much shit...I just need a hand.'

  'A hand, eh?'

  'Not like that...well...a little bit like that. But just a pair of clippers or...' he shrugs. 'Honestly, I just thought a good-looking woman like you might have something in her bag, like scissors or something.'

  'You think I carry a pair of scissors around in case...I want to cut my hair in the car?'

  'Ah, no, then?'

  'I've got a nail file.'

  'That'll do.'

  'It's blunt. Are you really carrying drugs strapped to your balls?'

  I ask him this out of pure curiosity, in a low voice, like all of a sudden we're conspirators in some great airport game.

  'I have. It's a long story and you won't believe me.'

  'I might,' I say. 'I'm pretty drunk.'

  As I say that, I realise it's true. Of course I'm drunk. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be talking to a stranger about his balls in an airport bar. It's not really my thing.

  Not until today, I correct myself. Who knows what your thing might be tomorrow?

  'Earlier today, a man gave me a fake passport and a plane ticket, told me he's got my sister in a house somewhere in London. He showed me a photograph, so I'd know it was for real.'

  As he says this, he's not smiling or twinkling. He looks afraid.

  'My god...'

  'I know. He tells me I've got to take these drugs through customs...give them to a guy on the other side, who'll take them onto a plane. Then, I'm going to get a photo with my sister somewhere public, safe. I'm up to my neck in all kinds of shit...I can't go to the police...I'm worried they'll...hurt her.'

  'Can't you tell airport security or something?'

  'I don't think so...I wouldn't be surprised if I'm being watched...'

  'If you dump the drugs?'

  'I thought about it...on the way to the airport. I even picked up a bag of sugar on the way in. It's in my carry on. That's what I'm planning on. I'm going to swap it. They can't see me in the toilets, right?'

  'I'm confused,' I said, honestly. My head was swimming from the drink (we ordered a third one) and I really, honestly, didn't get this man's reasoning. His face, though...he looked earnest, honest, worried...almost like he might cry with worry for his poor sister.

  What was I going to do?

  'If I can switch the bags,' he said. 'Then I can maybe bargain...or...something. These Eastern European gangs...they sell women, you know?'

  'No?'

  'Prostitution...that kind of thing...I...'

  A tear leaks from his eye. 'I can't trust them...got to get my sister out. She's...so innocent...'

  'Switch, then...how are you going to bargain?' I'm in, I realise. The thought of a woman used like that...

  'Use the real drugs to get her back...swap...her, for the drugs.'

  'I'll help,' I say. 'Come on. There are toilets in here...follow me.'

  'I can't go in the ladies' toilets,' he says, like suddenly he's shy.

  'Then we'll use the men's. Come on.' I hiss the last two words, but I'm pissed and probably shout them.

  I'm drunk, so when the nail board doesn't work, like I knew it wouldn't, I get down on my knees and use my teeth on the packing tape wrapped around the poor man's blue balls.

  VI.

  When he takes down his trousers, his balls are actually blue from having the circulation cut off. There really is a hefty bag strapped round them with thick, tough tape, going right back to his hairy behind.

  I hand him the nail board, and he winces, looking away from me like a man probably does when he has a prostate exam. Men are pussies about things like that.

  He tries, bless him, standing there wincing while he tries to get the board between tape and nuts, but the tape's tight and he's never plucked errant hairs from his privates before, or had a Brazilian wax at the hands of a sadistic beautician.

  'Oh, give it here,' I say. My hands a bit shaky, and I'm a bit rough.

  'Fuck! Jesus!' he shouts and I get the nail board all snapped off right there, somewhere between his balls and his arse. He's dancing around, suddenly, and his trousers fall all the way to his ankles and I realise he's actually hoping, rather than doing a weird jig.

  No wonder he struggled to get to the barstool...he's got a peg-leg.

  'Oh,' I say. To be honest, I'm more shocked at the sight of his wooden leg that I am at the sight of his blood-starved scrotum.

  'Motorbike accident,' he says, bouncing from his good foot, then back to the wooden one, trying to extricate the rough nail board from his nut-sack.

  I haven't got anything else, the man's disabled, his sister is prisoner to some kind of Eastern European slave gang...and he's got a nail board stuck somewhere extremely uncomfortable.

  'Stand still,' I say, and get to my knees and use my teeth.

  It's far from the worst thing I've ever done.

  'Oh...Jesus,' he says while I'm nibbling away somewhere around the back of his balls, and when the tape falls free I go to stand up and his cock sticks in my ear.

  'My...' I say.

  'I'm so sorry,' he says. It's an impressive hard-on. 'Blood...sudden rush of blood...how embarrassing.'

  If he thought I was going to do anything about it...he was seriously wrong.

  He tucked himself away, looking even more uncomfortable now he's got a burning erection making a dent in the front of his trousers.

 
'This is so embarrassing...I can't...I can't apologise enough.'

  'As embarrassing as a woman having to take packing tape from your balls with her teeth?'

  'Yes,' he says. 'Good point.'

  'Think of your mother, in the nude,' I said. Usually that works.

  'What? Shit...what?'

  But the tent's going pretty damn fast.

  'There,' I say, pointing. 'And...er...good luck?'

  What's the appropriate parting remark to a stranger who had their balls all over your face? Cheers?

  'Thank you,' he says. 'Thank you so much.'

  We part ways.

  VII.

  My husband isn't there, in arrivals. I wait. I don't get a call. I call him, on his mobile phone, and I don't get an answer.

  I think about the man with the peg-leg, idly wondering if that was the last stiff cock I'd see for the rest of my life.

  I wait in a small, uncomfortable seat for an hour.

  He's not coming, I tell myself finally when I see the last of the passengers pass through arrivals. People hug and kiss and smile.

  I don't.

  I get a taxi and pay cash from a small purse I keep in my pocket for just that reason (I've been mugged for my handbag before. A good way to remember not to keep all my eggs in one basket) and go to a hotel, because I can't face another night alone in my stupidly large house.

  When I get to the hotel, I don't have any luggage, of course. I don't have much at all, but I have a credit card. I reach into my bag for find my credit cards to pay from the hotel. I find my credit cards where they should be, in my purse. But something else, too. A bag of drugs weighing, I should imagine, around a kilo.

  The 3rd Day of Christmas

  The Peg-Legged Man

  I.

  On the third day of Christmas, 27th of December, I feel much like most of the country, I suspect; stuck in that odd hinterland between Christmas festivities and New Year's celebrations. Plenty of people are probably drying out. I'm looking for something a bit more...moist. I drank my way through the hotel mini-bar in the room the night before. Now, nine in the morning, I head down the stairs to pay the tab with the barman/concierge. My head feels a little like one of those wobbly heads attached to a stick body, like you see on the dashboard of some cars. Mostly, I drink wine or spirits, sometimes something else...but I don't mix. My half-best-friend Mandy tells me all alcohol's the same, that it's psychological, thinking a certain kind of liquor has a certain effect. Like champagne makes you like horse racing, or Stella makes you beat your wife, or gin makes you want to cry and frig old men for a shilling in the 1700's or some such.

  Mandy's not much of a drinker, though. It's not psychological, this wobbly head. It's entirely the result of drinking gin, vodka, rum, scotch and brandy.

  Call me old fashioned, if you will, but it seemed like a damn fine way to get the taste of peg-leg's salty balls from my mouth.

  But, like a bad meal, it seems peg-leg is going to keep repeating on me for a while, because he's standing at the front desk as I hit the bottom step. He's talking on his phone, not looking my way, and I really don't want to see him. I'm not cripplingly shy...but you know how it is. The morning after...not so much as a box of chocolates waiting on the pillow...

  Instead of an awkward smile and a muttered 'good morning', I throw myself into a corner and knock my head on a giant plant pot with a rubber plant in it, made of rubber. The pot's not made of rubber. The rubber plant's made of rubber. The pot's really hard. There's a wickedly loud dinging sound, like I just prayed to a Tibetan god or something.

  Dazed, I scuttle into the corner, still vainly attempting to hide, and my head's spinning and my ears are ringing, so at first I'm not sure what I'm hearing as the man walks from the front desk, past my really ineffectual hiding place, to the door.

  'Yeah...you were right...fucking hell...didn't think anyone was that gullible.'

  There's a pause, filled by whoever's on the other end and the constant dinging that reverberates around my hollow head.

  Gullible? He's talking about me? What?

  Bag of drugs...Eastern European gangsters...?

  Who the hell would make something like that up? Why?

  'Yeah,' he says in response to a question. 'Just cheap shit. We can take the hit. Ketamine, but cut to fuck. No great loss.'

  The other person says something. Peg-leg laughs again.

  'Man,' he says as he reaches the door. 'Old bird had some teeth on her, though. Right under my sack...'

  He laughs on the way out of the hotel.

  There's a different ringing in my ears, this time. Like blood, pounding. At first, I'm not sure what it is. Then I realise. It's been so long, I've been so drunk, so god-damn miserable...I've forgotten what it feels like to be good and angry.

  Gullible...I fess up to that one.

  But 'Old bird?'

  My face must be bright red as I finally totter over to the front desk, and smile my best for the young lad behind the counter. He looks like he's a little bit afraid of the crazy, hung over, possibly still drunk, red-faced middle aged woman before him.

  I don't blame him.

  II.

  'Excuse me, young man,' I say. I think I'm slurring. I'm still a bit drunk, I think, and my head's spinning, too. I slump, half-over the counter, and he leans back...like he wants to escape, but politely.

  Old bird, I think.

  'That man...I just found his wallet, dropped over there?' I put a question on the end of the sentence, like young people do, hoping he'll understand English if I wrap it up in manageable chunks.

  'If you leave it with me, ma'am,' he pauses to smile with nice, tidy teeth. 'I make sure he gets it when he comes back.'

  Comes back? Hmm.

  I imagine, in an instant, many scenarios. Not one way to get the concierge to let me into peg-leg's room, or to find out his room number, even. And if I could, I'd need the key card to get in...and...

  He wasn't paying the bill if he's coming back...so...he was dropping off the key card?

  'If you leave it with me, ma'am?'

  He sounds patient, as though I'm an imbecile. Apparently, my thoughts are slower than I think. And maybe I am gullible and an idiot, too. But I'm still good and angry.

  'Just give me the key card!'

  I think I'm speaking reasonably...but I shouted. I know this because of the terrible pain in my drunken, bashed-up head, and the way the lad looks terrified.

  Ah...

  'I'm so sorry...young man...it's the change...I used to use tampons, now it's all HRT and Vaseline and vibrators.'

  He goes pale. Perfect.

  'Yes, been a long time since I've had a good seeing-to...my room's...' I pause, look at my own key card theatrically, '731. I don't suppose you'd consider giving me a little...room service?' I even wink. He's mortified. I lean over the counter, showing him a fair amount of cleavage and possibly a hint of nipple, too, as my bra bunches up.

  He looks like he's going to bolt.

  'I...ah...I...'

  'Or, you could give me that nice man's room number and key card,' I say, plucking his smart phone from where he left it on the counter. 'And I won't send...Macy...a picture of my tits. How's that?'

  Fait-fucking-accompli. Men can be pretty dumb in the full-beam of a pair of tits. Young lads are just men that haven't had the practice at fumbling around for a decent line.

  'You...wouldn't...'

  He doesn't know I don't have a clue how to take a picture, but I know well enough to read who the text he was sending was too, and I read quickly enough to guess 'Macy' is his girlfriend. It's not Sherlock Holmes or even Miss Marple...too many kisses, 'xxx', to be anything but in love or very, very hopeful.

  'Wouldn't I?'

  'Third floor,' he says. 'I can't give you the...'

  I point the phone at my boobs with one hand, and pull my top down a little further with the other.

  'Yes. Yes you can.'

  He does. I take the elevator up to the third floor w
ith the key card in my purse. Turns out I'm staying a little longer than intended.

  III.

  Thinking all men are nothing but pubescent teenagers at the mercy of a goodly cleavage could get me in serious trouble in peg-leg's company. He's not a man like most others. He's a drug dealer, at the least. Maybe something worse.

  I wonder, as I slide the card into the electronic lock...has he killed people?

  Women?

  Children?

  Would a woman or a child make it worse than if he'd killed men?

  Why am I thinking about this?

  In the elevator up, the hot-head left me, and the shivers set in.

  I've been done-up like a kipper. Mum would've said that...probably will, soon, because I'll tell her this. I tell her stuff like this. She's my mum.

  Gullible...yep. A fool, too. A man made a fool of me. It hurts, probably because I'm thinking of another man that's made a fool of me, and the fact that if he'd been home like he was supposed to be none of this ever happened.

  So, he called me an old bird?

  I can live with that. Now the anger's gone, I think I can definitely live with that.

  But for some reason, even though I'm thinking all of those things, I realise that I'm in a closet, hunkered down, waiting for peg-leg. I've got a bag of drugs in my handbag, last night's clothes on, and I need the toilet.

  IV.

  What, I wonder, is the world record for a woman holding her water?

  I once held onto it for the entire flight to the Philippines, on the way to Melbourne. I think that was near to fifteen hours. World record?

  Probably not.

  Men would be surprised what a woman can do. It's not all Tena lady and false eyelashes.

  I don't wear a watch. I have a phone, but it beeps when I turn it on. I never had reason to stop it doing so before. I think I manage a couple of hours. My legs are cramped, my head hurts, I'm hung over and angry and afraid, all of which are making me want to go more.

  Finally, I give in...and as I make the choice, my pelvic floor already sighing in anticipation, the room opens and peg-leg comes in. I know it's him, because it's his room, but I can hear his awkward, clomping, gait, too.