Jesus. Even I hadn’t known Alex’s and Sean’s middle names. I’d never even thought to ask.
‘Anyone can get got, as they say, inside of jail or out.
You’re in no position to argue with that.’ He looked me up and down and smirked at his own joke.
I was all out of smartarse comebacks. The sun had risen and the room was hot and stuffy, but I would have sweated even if it had been forty below. Emery said something to Watto, and Watto unsheathed his knife and then time started doing strange things, speeding up and slowing down. Seconds flashed, then slowly dripped and all the while my senses became clear and the drab room filled with sharp detail. I saw every ripple in the light blue tarp, smelled Watto’s chemical sweat and cigarette stench, and tasted metallic fear in my own dry mouth. I felt the hard edge of the chair bite the back of my bare legs and the sticky glue from the gaffer tape gum my wrists. The only sense that wasn’t working was sound. Why was that? Everything was muff led, like noise underwater. Emery Wade said something to Watto, then disappeared from the screen. Watto put the knife back in its sheath.
What the hell was going on? With the knife away my hearing returned and also the power of speech.
‘What’s happening?’
Watto sighed. ‘I fucked up the times. We’re half an hour behind Victoria and he’s gotta go to breakfast. Oh well. Gives me a chance for another hit.’
Half an hour behind? They must have taken Nick and me across the border into South Australia.
Watto left the room. In the distance I heard the low, love-the-smell-of-napalm-in-the-morning thwack of helicopter blades. Rod Thurlow, coming to collect his bounty. I struggled with my bonds, but Watto was back in no time with a six-pack of Wild Turkey and Coke stubbies and another wooden chair. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the pipe with the bulbous glass end and a little packet filled with clear crystals.
‘Wade wants to watch it live, you know.’
‘Oh,’ I said, stupidly.
The helicopter got louder as it landed, and the machine whined as the rotor blades shut down. I tried to think of a plan. Rod Thurlow was my best bet. He had it in for Nick, but I didn’t think he’d agree to the wholesale slaughter of yours truly. I’d really acted like I liked him at lunch. But how to get to him?
My mouth was dry as the landscape outside and I eyed Watto’s drink. ‘Can I have a sip?’
‘Huh?’
‘Your drink. I’m parched, mate.’ I did my best at chummy. ‘Even on death row they get a last meal.’
He looked amused and stalked over.
‘Don’t see why not.’ When he held the bottle up to my lips I tried not to think about cold sores and other diseases, then wondered why in hell I was worrying. He kept tipping and I gulped at it like a lamb sucking on a bottle, and in seconds I’d demolished at least half.
‘Fucken hell.’ He pulled it away. ‘Leave some for me.’
The Coke and booze fizzed down my arid throat and I could immediately feel myself getting a little sugar and bourbon buzz. I was still surreptitiously tugging at the gaffer tape, but didn’t have enough strength to break through the final strand.
Strength. I remembered what Nick had told me about Lachlan Elliot, and ice fiends in general, how being off their tits cranked up the adrenaline so bad it took a team of coppers or paramedics to bring them down. Then I wondered how long Watto had gone without sleep. Surely the crazed energy and uncanny reflexes would have to subside the longer you stayed awake. Everyone had to crash sometime.
Not that I thought Watto would fall asleep, exactly. He was just then inhaling another hit. But I’d done my fair share of drugs and I knew that the more you took the less effective they became. The first taste was the strongest, and then the high gradually diminished. Unfortunately for me, it probably wouldn’t come soon enough.
There was a knock on the door, and the skinny guy in leathers poked his head around.
‘Looks like it’s all here.’
‘Bring it in.’
He hefted a grey Samsonite case into the room, and avoided looking at me in a way I kind of understood. I was all for chowing down steak and lamb, but didn’t want to go to the slaughterhouse for a viewing.
The guy clicked open the suitcase and I glimpsed wads of bundled cash, more than I’d ever seen in one place.
‘Fucken bonus.’ Watto nodded his approval. ‘Let Thurlow at him. What’s he gonna do with the body?’
‘Chuck it out the copter in the middle of arsefuck nowhere.’
‘Tell ’em we’ll have a little package of our own.’
The guy frowned. ‘Dunno if Thurlow’s gonna like that. He’s here for Austin.’
‘I don’t give a fuck. By the time I’ve finished they won’t even know what’s in the bag.’
The other guy couldn’t get out of there fast enough, and a shiver rolled its way from my ankles to my elbows as I looked at the knife sheathed in his belt and anticipated intense pain. What would it be like? I’d been cut bad in the past, but not ripped to pieces, shredded, like Isabella had been. I remembered the sharp searing and multiplied it to the power of ten, imagined the blade slicing through skin and muscle and tendon, scraping bone. I saw the hooked, serrated tip grabbing looped innards and could practically smell the blood, bile and shit.
And then what, after the horror? Nothing, at best, or hellfire and brimstone, if Jenny was correct. Somehow the nothingness seemed worse, harder for the ego to cope with. I couldn’t let it happen. I didn’t have a death wish. Not anymore. Nick was wrong.
Watto sucked down another hit and sat back, eyes practically rolling. I waited until he came around before I spoke. ‘Watto, mate.’
‘Yeah?’
‘You know how up at Castlemaine you said I could have a hit on that pipe? Offer still stand?’
‘Huh?’
‘Can I have a go of that ice? You said it was like ten orgasms, all in a row, and I’ve never done it before. Shouldn’t a girl get to experience that if she’s only got half an hour to live?’
He twisted his mouth into a yellowed, gap-toothed grin. ‘You like to party. I knew it. All strippers like to party. Can’t believe you’ve never had this shit.’
‘Just speed and E’s,’ I said.
‘Speed’s nothing compared to this.’
‘So my friends tell me. Come on. Just one hit.’
Another thing I remembered from my misspent youth was that drug-fucked individuals, mostly, liked to share. It wasn’t nearly as much fun being out of it on your own.
I didn’t really think I had a chance of befriending him and talking him out of killing me, although the thought had crossed my mind. My main motivation was to buy a bit of time and energy. At that stage anything was worth a try.
He looked like he was debating it in his head for a bit as he squinted his eyes and silently moved his lips.
‘Yeah, okay,’ he said, finally. ‘You’re gonna love this.’
How about that? The guy who was about to rip my guts out was pleased for me, excited I was trying something new.
He scraped his chair over so he was sitting in front of me, shook a couple of clear crystal shards into the bowl of the pipe, then concentrated hard on keeping the lighter flame steady underneath so it didn’t touch the glass. When the crystals melted and started to smoke he took away the lighter and placed the stem against my lips.
‘Draw back. Slow and steady.’
I did as he said. The smoke tasted chemical and burned the back of my throat.
‘Keep going! You don’t want to miss any.’
I inhaled until I had no more breath. Elvis Mask took the pipe away, inhaled the last wisps himself then crouched in front of me, looking intently into my face.
‘Hold it,’ he said. ‘Hold it in.’
I did as he said, felt like I was suffocating, and finally had to exhale. Nothing happened for a few seconds, and just as I was wondering what other brilliant plans I could come up with I felt a kind of tingling bubble up
from my lungs and spread out everywhere: limbs, spine, head. My heart started thumping fast and heavy and I felt little fairies run their tiny fairy fingernails up and over my scalp. A deep, glorious shiver climbed my backbone and when it reached the base of my skull I had to tip my head back and close my eyes. Watto hadn’t been kidding about the ten orgasm thing, except that it was even better, a climax encompassing the body, brain, neurons and every microscopic cell.
I wasn’t sure how long my eyes had been closed for, but I was still rushing when I opened them, only it had changed from a blasting rocket to a smooth glide.
‘Holy shit,’ I said.
Watto’s hideous face was in front of me but it didn’t seem to matter so much. I was back, sharp, on top of the world, and felt like I could run the four minute mile if I had to. I’d get out of this, and if I didn’t? Shit. No comedown to worry about. I actually giggled.
‘Gimme some more of that fucking bourbon and a drag on your cig,’ I said.
Watto looked delighted, clapped his hands and danced a little jig. He raced back to the computer and put a CD in the drive and while his back was turned I tried to force my wrists apart with all my might, which was considerably greater than it had been a few moments earlier. The tape didn’t break but it did stretch some more and I thought maybe I could try wiggling and pulling a hand out of the sticky restraints, but then the speakers started blasting more of his beloved cock rock: Poison, ‘Nothing But a Good Time’. I remembered it from pub strip shows and blue light discos years before. I started singing along and I couldn’t believe I knew the words, but the way I was feeling, I pretty much knew everything.
‘So, mate, how about you let me go and we really party?’ I asked.
‘Sorry, babe. Even if I was that fucking stupid my dick’s useless, all the shit I’ve been doing. Not bad stuff, huh?’
‘You’re telling me.’
Normally a speed rush settled, but this bastard kept going.
‘So, uh, tell me about yourself, Watto.’ I fought the urge to grind my teeth.
‘Whatcha wanna know?’
‘You’re working for Craig Murdoch and Emery Wade, yeah?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Where’d you meet?’
‘Wade I met inside. He got me off an armed rob charge. Craig I knew before. I’m an associate member of the Red Devils.’
‘And you’re, like, their enforcer?’
‘Yep. But I do other stuff too.’
‘Oh yeah?’ I acted interested, all the while wiggling my hands behind my back. But subtly, hoping he wouldn’t notice. ‘Like what?’
He leaned forward in his chair. ‘I’m a writer,’ he said proudly.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I’m a writer. I’ve written a fucking book.’
I tamped down the urge to laugh out loud. Jesus. Everyone was a fucking writer and I’d had enough of all of them.
‘No shit.’ I tried to look impressed. ‘What do you write?’
‘About my life. Like Chopper Read or that guy who wrote that book about breaking out of prison and going to India. Shanta-something.’
‘Shantaram?’
‘That’s the one. You read it?’
‘Yeah,’ I lied. I’d seen it in friends’ bookshelves, but the thing looked more like a doorstop than a book. ‘It was awesome.’
‘Fucken oath, and it sold a shit-load. Same with Chopper. That’s why I reckon I’ve got a bestseller on my hands.’
‘You’ve written a whole book?’
‘Yeah.’ He was getting defensive, like I didn’t believe him.
‘That’s great. I just don’t know where you’d find the time.’
‘I don’t sleep.’
‘Oh.’
He jumped up and collected his backpack from where it was sitting in the corner, unzipped it and showed me a sheaf of paper and about a dozen small notebooks, covered in scrawl.
‘You wrote about killing Isabella?’
‘Yep.’
‘You gonna write about me?’
‘Probably.’
‘Won’t that sort of, I dunno, incriminate you?’
He rolled his eyes as if I were dense. ‘I change the names.’
‘Of course. Sorry. So you enjoy offing people?’ I couldn’t believe we were having this chat.
‘If they’ve got it coming.’
‘Think I do?’
‘Shit yeah. Stupid bitches fuck with the wrong people. Dumb cunts. Like my mother. The cuntingest of all.’
Mother issues. Shit. I really didn’t want to go there.
‘Yeah. I know I was stupid, now.’
‘Fucken oath you were.’
‘Can you just tell me one thing before you kill me?’ I asked.
‘Depends.’
‘Oh, okay, don’t worry about it.’
‘What was it?’
‘Nah,’ I said. ‘You probably don’t know anyway.’
‘What? Fucken tell me.’
I sighed, like I was reluctant. ‘Well, I just wondered how Craig figured out Isabella knocked Lachlan. I mean, your boss must be a pretty smart guy. Smarter than me. I can’t work it out.’
Watto’s eyes lit up like a little kid. ‘It was me.’ He sat up straight in his chair.
‘Nooo, you’re fucking with me.’
‘It was!’ he practically squealed.
‘How?’
‘I read her book.’
‘You read Thrill City?’ I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice and he took offence.
‘I’m not a dumb cunt, I can fucken read. Fuck’s sake, I’ve written a fucken book.’ He pointed to his backpack.
‘Yeah, I know. Sorry. I just didn’t think it’d be your sort of thing.’
‘Wasn’t. I didn’t read all of it. Picked it up mainly ’cause she looked hot on the cover and pics of hot chicks are hard to get hold of inside. Anyway, I was bored and flippin’ through it in me cell and there’s this bit, right, where this banker dude gets brained by a fucking miniature replica Harley. And when I was readin’ it I was thinkin’, I know that house, I know that replica and I know that banker cunt. Elliot. I was there when Craig gave him the fucken Harley for a present. So I went and showed Craig.’
‘How’d you get hold of the novel?’ I asked, although I think by that stage I already knew.
‘When that rich cunt Rod Thurlow came to Port and did a writing class. He brought in a whole bunch of books for the prison library.’
chapter fifty-six
Poison segued into Joan Jett, ‘I Hate Myself for Loving You’. Now I knew. Craig had put the hit on Isabella because of what she’d written. And Rod had an unintentional hand in it, by off loading her novel at the jail.
‘Craig just wanted his money back, and to send a message that you don’t fuck with us. He’s in prison because of them.’
‘I thought he was in prison for trying to blow up another clubhouse and nearly killing the head of the Assassins.’
‘That’s ’cause he caught them selling our shit. Our E’s were the only ones in the country with that stamp. The cook checked and they were all the same chemicals and that.’
‘And Craig thought Lachlan Elliot had split and sold the stuff off?’
‘Until I read the book in jail and then his body was found.’
‘Did you torture Isabella for information?’
‘Not much. Just cut off her finger and she told me everything I wanted to know. Said the pro on the radio—Desiree or whatever—came up with the idea, the black bastard off loaded the shit, and Austin and that hot writer chick . . .’
‘Victoria Hitchens?’
‘Yeah. Said it was her and Austin knocked Elliot. Said that’s how she got the idea for the book and knew about the Harley and that—through them.’
‘She was lying. Victoria didn’t have anything to do with it.’
‘Thought she might be. Kept telling me she was innocent. Didn’t know what to believe so I decided to knock them both.’
&
nbsp; Christ. If only I could let Rod know what had really happened, that he had the wrong man. I had to do something. Only problem was, I was tied to the fucking chair.
My mind was racing.
Joan was singing.
Watto screwed up his nose. ‘Ain’t my CD,’ he said. ‘Bitches can’t rock. I’m gonna fast forward.’ He approached the computer.
His back was to me and the music was loud. I strained and flexed what little muscle I had left, felt my head almost pop, and my shoulder nearly dislocate, but it worked. I wrenched one sticky wrist free without him hearing. I leaned forward and ripped the gaff off my ankles while Watto was hunched over the laptop, fiddling with the mouse, looking through the song list. He seemed to settle on something, left clicked and straightened, and there was a brief moment of silence. Didn’t matter. By that time I was behind him, holding the chair above my head. As he turned I brought it down full force.
The thing broke and he went down, but only for a second before he flipped and grabbed my ankle. I fell on my back, lifted my head and saw him reach for his knife. I was still holding a section of chair frame and reacted fast, smacking him hard in the temple and then once more on the back of his head. That did it. Finally the prick was still. I got up off the floor, still holding the splintered piece of wood, breathing hard and all lathered up like a racehorse. My heart was racing and my mouth was dry, so I grabbed another bourbon from the six-pack and nicked one of Watto’s durries, flicking the lighter and drawing back hard.
I was so hyped up I was feeling kind of addled and like I ought to come up with a solid plan, but hundreds of thoughts crowded my mind and it was hard to settle on one. I realised that Joan Jett had just saved my life and went to the computer to put ‘I Hate Myself for Loving You’ back on, keeping an eye on Watto the whole time.
Perhaps I should have staved his head in then and there, but I wasn’t real keen on murdering people, no matter how much better off the world would be without them. I’d already killed one person in my life, and even though it had been self-defence it still made me lie awake at night feeling like I would either go straight to hell or get reincarnated as something hideous, a tapeworm hanging out of the arse of a mangy mutt.
Thrill City Page 32
