Vodka Doesn't Freeze

by Leah Giarratano

  'I'm just thinking about my lover,' she spoke loudly over the music, while gesturing to one of the leather-clad bikies playing pool nearby. She laughed again as the man turned away immediately, hurrying back to his friends.

  After leaving the bathroom, Jill walked through the narrow alcove furthest from the bar. The corridor was quieter than the rest of the club, and seemed to be some sort of service access. A couple of busy staff members rushed by her on their way to the kitchen, and she leaned back against a fire hose mounted on the wall to let them past. She had made up her mind to at least go and check out the 'youth club' Honey had mentioned. Walking purposefully, and determined to get Honey to accompany her now she'd gone to all this trouble, she stepped out of the quiet corridor and straight into a leather-jacketed chest. The bikie from the tables outside pushed her back into the dark corridor.

  'What's a rat-fuck cop doing here?' He walked her backwards; she couldn't coordinate her feet. Adrenalin pumping, she struggled to regain some control over her movements, looked for a way around him. He filled the corridor, twice her size, and before she could recover her footing, he pushed her into the wall. Pinned by the man-mountain, Jill's back crushed into something sharp behind her. He leaned in over her, dwarfing her completely.

  She felt the familiar wave of panic when the breaths she took didn't seem to be deep enough; she couldn't get enough air. She struggled to position herself so that she could breathe, but just by leaning into her, this man had immobilised her arms and body.

  'You know, you sent four of my brothers to gaol, you bitch.' Exhaled bourbon fumes filled her nose and mouth.

  Her throat closed and she couldn't swallow. Dark spots danced in her vision. Keep it together, she thought. Do not have a panic attack in front of this pig. The thought of crying and gasping for air in front of him forced her to slow the panic.

  She was trying again to manoeuvre for surer footing, when the bikie suddenly moved his arm backwards. She felt his body tensing and, too late, realised what was about to happen. She tried to clench her stomach muscles, prepare herself. His huge fist smashed into her gut. The pain exploded in her stomach and her back, where whatever pushed into her had jammed hard into her spine. She would have dropped immediately but his weight kept her pinned there. She coughed, tasted blood on her lips.

  'You. Dumb. Fuckin'. Slut.' His lips skimmed hers as he breathed into her face. 'There's probably fifty of us in this place right now, and we sent word out that you're here for a good time. I'm gonna carry you out of here like you're wasted, and when you wake up you'll be in our clubhouse. You're gonna love how we party.'

  Just one blow had rendered Jill faint, but she knew that staying alert was her only hope. She'd rather die here than leave this place with him. She felt his weight shift as he moved his arm back again and, terrified, Jill was sure she wouldn't be conscious following the next blow – with her back pressed into the wall, her internal organs would absorb the full force of his punch. She had to get out of there. She tried to scream, but even she couldn't hear the moan she just managed. When his fist slammed into her stomach again, through the white-hot pain she felt ribs fracture.

  Jill's body buckled under the force of the next blow, but this time she felt no pain. She couldn't hear his voice either; it was replaced by a muffled sobbing sound that she did not recognise as her own. But with the pain and fear gone, Jill knew what to do. She closed her eyes and listened to her enemy. She heard his intake of breath as he prepared to pull his arm backwards to hit her again. She waited. One beat. Two. And with all the force she had, when his body was most open, ready to strike, she slammed her knee upwards into his crotch, full force. As his pupils were still dilating in agony, she struck the same place again, her knee moving before his hands could reach for his broken balls. He swayed, half-turned, and smacked face-first to the ground, his body filling the tight corridor.

  Bent double, Jill sucked in air, her vision blacking in and out. The pain in her ribs threatened to return and she knew she had to get out of that place. Think! She could not walk back into the club. They'd be waiting for her.

  Straight ahead lay the front door, but she'd have to traverse the dance floor to reach it, and she didn't feel up to getting past a drunken executive, let alone an angry biker or two. To her right were the toilets. She looked down the corridor and saw light spilling underneath double doors. The kitchen. There'd be a back route out of there. There was always a fire exit in a kitchen. There'd be a phone, staff, people to help her.

  Between Jill and the double doors, however, lay the giant, making animal sounds on the floor. To get past him, she'd have to step on his back. She considered a running jump, trying to clear his mass to reach the other side. But even if she could manage the leap with the pain in her ribs, the thought of him grabbing her ankle in mid-air and hauling her back down terrified her. She couldn't make herself seriously consider it as an option. That left straight ahead then. Could there be another fire exit somewhere?

  Fire exit. Fire. That's it, she thought, turning back into the corridor. She scanned the wall she'd been pinned against, and spotted the object that had dug into her spine. The fire hose. Next to it, a small perspex box housing the fire alarm button. She looked down; within sixty centimetres of the fire hose, the biker's meaty head rolled around the floor. Jill noted with revulsion that his cheek was lying in a pool of his own vomit.

  Taking a deep breath that felt like swallowing crushed glass, Jill stepped within easy reach of the leviathan on the floor. She smashed the box with the heel of her hand, and instantly the fire alarm boomed unbearably loud from all sides.

  Crouched forwards, more from pain than to hide, Jill shuffled towards the front of the club. Someone killed the music and hit the lights. Some of the blinking patrons shielded their eyes, while others held their ears. They lurched to their feet, trying to figure out what to do. The alarm made it impossible to hear anything else. She had to get to the door before any panic started. She couldn't bear to be immobilised again. Her heart was a budgie bashing around in her chest.

  Staff in black aprons now moved through the crowd. Efficient and coordinated, they looked like they were herding cattle.

  A female staff member with a face full of piercings motioned the group nearest Jill towards the front of the club. Jill managed to slip between some low chairs and a cluster of staggering suits, all clutching Coronas. If she could just keep moving quickly, she could negotiate a fairly clear path to the exit. She tried to jog a couple of steps, and stifled a scream when her broken rib stabbed her insides. She hunched a little lower, one arm across her gut.

  Maybe thirty steps and she'd be out of here. The front of the club opened completely to the street now; the blare of the fire alarm and the lights and noises from the road merged at the doors, marking the threshold of safety.

  Twenty steps, ten. Right behind her, the mob from the club surged forwards, some laughing, others complaining about having to evacuate. Almost there.

  She stopped. Straight ahead, directly in her path, stood the speed dealer from Wollongong. The fresh-faced college fitness the girl had radiated just two years ago was long gone. Her arms were scrawny and marked with bruises; her eyes, locked with Jill's, were hooded with hate. She smiled coldly and looked to her left, showing Jill her fate. Three fat bikers leaned against the folded-back doors.

  Jill knew what she'd do if she was them. One blow would knock her out; the movement of the crowd would cover the action, and no-one would notice a doped-out mini-skirt being poured into a waiting car.

  She swayed where she stood, considering her options.

  'Not feelin' the best myself.' The suits had caught her up, and a short, dark-haired man was at her side, an arm snaking around her waist. Even over the fire alarm, Jill thought she could hear his shiny suit swoosh as he walked. What remained of his hair was slicked back, gold flashed at his neck and wrists.

  'I'll give ya a hand, luv.' He smiled at her. 'Let's get out of here and figure out where we're all g
oing next.'

  In the few seconds she'd stood immobile, the crowd had reached her. Jill looked around wildly, caught up in a wash of beer breath and cologne, heels and hairspray. The group carried her along, a human tide that spilled out the doors of the club. The wave swept her past the gorillas at the door and spilled onto the pavement, overflowing into the street.

  Car horns sounded and people yelled and whistled. A tubby girl, heels in hand, climbed on top of a traffic signal box, gyrating in green Lycra, while her hooting girlfriends tried to pull her back down. Jill looked to the right and saw a group of young men kicking water at each other in the El-Alamein fountain. She saw the white helmets of four mounted police riding up Darlinghurst Road. The sirens of the approaching fire brigade joined the cacophony.

  Jill walked left, away from what was fast becoming a street party, and within a hundred metres reached the front of the cab rank. She ignored the stares of the cabbies standing at the sides of their taxis, and got into the back seat of the first cab. When she sat down, her vision darkened as a bloom of pain burst in her chest. She put her head between her knees. She heard the cab door shut, and the world went blessedly quiet.

  'You have money?'

  She heard the cabbie from the front. She pulled a fifty from her purse and gave him her address, then let her head fall back onto the seat.

  'You no do spew in my cab.'

  Jill closed her eyes.

  17

  'HOW DO YOU KNOW Honey didn't set you up?' Scotty was sprawled full-length along one of Jill's chocolate leather sofas, his huge bare feet hanging over the edge, soles pointing towards the ocean.

  Jill made a noise of impatience. 'Why would she?' she said. 'No, Scott, it was just the wrong place, wrong time. I could tell by their faces that they were just as shocked to see me as I was to see them.'

  She was lying on the matching sofa, her feet pointed towards her kitchen. It was a damp Thursday afternoon; a warm drizzle rendered the Maroubra sands wet concrete.

  'What's Honey's real name anyway?' Scotty wiped orange fingers on his board shorts, dropping his empty Twisties packet on top of the Mars Bar wrapper on the coffee table. Jill had to look away to stop herself getting up to clean the mess.

  'She was born Matthew Hudson. Had a full sex change when she was eighteen, changed her name to Honey Delaney. She's now twenty-seven. Minor possession charges, solicitation, one assault charge.'

  'Assault?'

  'Yeah, a trick didn't pay. She put him in hospital. Broken jaw, fractured eye socket.'

  'Nice friends you have. Now she can add two broken ribs to her list.'

  Jill shifted, and winced with the movement. 'I told you I think I was just unlucky running into them. I saw the dealer recognise me.'

  Scotty yawned and stretched, then propped himself up on his elbow, face serious. 'What are we gonna do about these arseholes anyway? I know you said you don't want to go after them, but we can't just leave it like this.'

  He had been furious when Jill had told him that morning what had happened at the club. He was on his feet and half out the door to find the offenders, and she'd had to beg him to stop. How would she explain to the squad where she'd been and what she'd been doing there? She didn't want the inspector knowing she was out at night with Honey Delaney, and she didn't want Elvis to find out about any of it. Not that he probably didn't know already. She didn't believe Elvis's brother was the only member of his family connected to the bike crew.

  Jill grimaced as she forced herself to sit up. Her ribs were taped. The doctor had told her there was little else they could do. She was not to run, ride or exercise, and he'd given her the week off. But it was time to work.

  'So what's for lunch?' Scotty rubbed his stomach. He blocked the cushion she threw at his head.

  Although Scotty had tried to put it off, Jill had insisted they travel out to talk to Detectives Richard Harris and John Jardine about the Rocla and Manzi murders. An hour later saw them bumper to bumper in traffic on Anzac Parade.

  Harris and Jardine were plain-clothed detectives at Central police station. They'd written up the deaths of these men, and Jill had called them to let them know she and Scotty were coming out to talk. Jardine sounded as pleased as Scotty was about the meeting. He and Harris drank with Elvis. Jill had had to hold Scotty back at a work function one night when the three of them, pissed, had eyeballed each other across the room.

  Scotty was scowling behind the wheel. Jill sat straight in her seat for once, her face white. She'd taken one of the tablets the doctor had given her for pain, and she felt muffled, dull. Scotty didn't seem in the mood to talk either, so Jill closed her eyes, relaxed into the seat a little. She slept.

  Back in the basement. The little girl with white eyes was screaming again. The one with the big hands was burning her. When Jill had been kidnapped, and the pain and the fear had become unbearable, part of her had somehow shut off, or maybe separated. Suddenly it was like there were two girls in the basement – the white-eyed girl who took the pain, and a secret, hidden girl, who watched in muffled silence.

  In the car with Scotty, Jill moaned in her sleep, trying to swim up through the waves of the drug, to wake up, break the nightmare, get out of the basement. Her thoughts were syrupy, her head too heavy. She couldn't rupture the dream. Resignedly, she looked around the basement. The perspective seemed different. She wasn't watching from the ceiling this time. For the first time she thought she could see the big one's face.

  If I just move closer, she thought, get closer to the little girl.

  Don't look at what he's doing, don't look down there.

  His face. I think I can see his face.

  Red eyes burned into her own. Jill stared into the horned face of the devil. She screamed.

  Scotty pulled over on Cleveland Street. 'You okay?' He was smoothing her hair. She pushed him away and almost threw up with the pain.

  'Sorry,' she croaked, her head in her hands. 'Nightmare.'

  'No kidding,' he said, immobile behind the wheel.

  'Why are we stopped?' she asked.

  'I should take you home, Jill. You shouldn't be working today.'

  Her tongue was furry. Even with all the drugs, her head still ached.

  'I'm fine. Let's go,' she looked at Scotty. 'I just need another coffee.'

  The meeting with Harris and Jardine had been brief. Scotty, perhaps realising that Jill was not up to coping with aggression, led the conversation with the two detectives in a cordial manner. There was little discussed about the murdered men that Scotty and Jill did not already know. When the meeting finished, they left their car parked under the station and walked the couple of blocks down to Chinatown for lunch. Jill took it slowly, but she found the walk cleared her head a little.

  They took a seat at an outdoor table in a small restaurant. The shopfronts provided some shade. The mall was full of office workers, locals and tourists.

  Jill started summarising the case as soon as they sat down. She put her spiral bound notebook on the small table between them.

  'Right. Let's run through the names we've got connected to these guys.' Scotty poured them each a green tea from the pot their waitress had brought over. He took a sip. 'Okay. Manzi was bashed to death by a claw hammer in the company of Jamaal Mahmoud.'

  'And Mahmoud works for Alejandro Sebastian, who's been selling kids for at least ten years, and is number one on our hit list so far.' Jill circled his name in the notepad.

  'According to Honey.' Scotty drank more tea.

  'What's your point?'

  'Well, you're putting a lot of faith in her version of events,' Scotty replied casually, his sunglasses reflecting back the red of a Chinese New Year flag hanging in a doorway next to their table.

  Jill fidgeted with a menu. It was true that Honey had not always been completely straight up with her.

  'Look,' she said finally. 'Sebastian's a squirrel. And I guarantee we're going to find he knows both these men.'

  'So let's go talk to him,'
Scotty was still looking at the menu. 'What do you reckon about Peking Duck?'