When you’re in pain, you focus on details.
Details are a distraction. They give your mind something to latch onto, so it’s not spinning in circles going ‘oh jesus god fuck that really hurts’. And when every part of you is sensitive, when every part is searing, you notice the little things.
Last night, I spent a really long time looking at Marcus Anderson’s shirt.
Black buttons, a thick weave in the fabric, the tiny green alligator sewed on the breast pocket… I could draw that fucking shirt from memory now. It got to the point where I was hoping Ando would go home and change, just to give me some variety.
By that stage, though, we’d moved on from establishing that I knew Amie Blunt, that yes, her father was a cop, and yes, I had indeed first met her at Ouyen hospital (all true). We’d arrived at meatier subjects: how did she know the house, what had I told her, was I fucking her. At which point I headbutted Ando, snatched my phone out of his hand and smashed it on the bed frame, and if that wasn’t a confession of guilt, I dunno what else they needed.
Not much, as it turned out. That was around the time I became intimately acquainted with the carpet.
I honestly don’t know how long I was in Barry’s room. The carpet there is fucking awful, but. A hard-pile weave, full of lint and old dust. Terrible on your throat, inhaling all that dust. All I could think was, this revolting carpet is in my room too, and I just put up with it.
Reggie came in with a mugful of water at some hour – I gave him the eye to stay out of it, and Ando chucked him out anyway. Reggie looked remorseful, but there wasn’t nothing he could do. And none of this was his fault. How was he to know? I think he did his penance, anyway, listening to me groan through the walls while he was in the living room.
After a while, we ended up here. I dunno where here is, exactly, but I’ve had time to notice the details. The dirt on the floor is firm-packed, a nice shade of brown, and it smells of oil. It’s possible farming equipment was once stored here.
The walls are tin, and there’s a steel centre pole which I’ve become matey with. A pallet of concrete mix bags sits in the rear right corner. An old wooden desk occupies the other corner, and there was a wooden chair with a cane seat, but it didn’t prove up to the task of supporting the weight of one grown man pummelling another guy. Snowie broke the rest of it up for kindling.
The fire was a good distraction, but after a while I couldn’t look at it.
Now I got the fades. Normally, I’d fight it; lapsing in and out of consciousness can’t be great for your health. But it’s been nearly twenty-four hours, and I’m dry. My head’s still pounding – from that very first punch of Ando’s, I think – and my ears are ringing.
I don’t have the energy to deal with all the hurts, so I’ve turtled down inside myself. It’s what I used to do when I was a kid: find a refuge. A place you can go when everything on the surface of your skin and beyond is outside your control.
It’s an enduring place. It used to be a grey empty place as well, but I’ve discovered someone here with me now, someone I want to see. I’ve got all these memories of Amie’s face, the touch of her skin, the soft secret parts of her, the way she laughs… So there’s something to sustain me. The pain is just pain, it’ll come and it’ll go again. I can hold on. I can endure.
It still hurts. But I have the memory of Amie’s voice.
So when the reality of Amie’s voice appears somewhere outside, I have trouble distinguishing one from the other. Then I hear Ando speak, and realise I have to pay attention.
‘Turns out,’ Ando says, ‘that he’s the dog, but she’s the bitch.’
A scuffling sound, a gasp. The sound of feet spinning on the dirt. A grunt.
‘Touch me again,’ Amie says ferociously, ‘and I’ll kick you in the balls so hard you’ll be pissing blood for a week.’
I can imagine her saying it. Then I don’t have to imagine, she’s right here. Her face is right in front of me.
‘Oh Jesus, Harris…’ She kneels beside me, puts an arm behind my shoulders, straightens me up where I’m listing against the centre pole. ‘Goddamnit. Just…fucking goddamnit.’
You’re not real.
‘Oh, I’m real.’ She gives me a grim look. ‘I’m really real, and I’m really hacked off.’ She turns her head. ‘Give me some water. Yes, you, Snowie Geraldson. You should be bloody ashamed of yourself, and don’t give me that look, either. When your dad finds out –’
‘Dad’s not gonna –’ Snowie starts.
‘Snowie, shut your mouth,’ Ando interrupts. ‘And you, you little Paki shit –’
‘D’you want us alive for your boss or what?’ Amie sounds furious and wheedling at the same time. ‘Cos Harris is gonna peak from dehydration any minute now, then you’ll be the one fronting Leon –’
‘Ah, fuck,’ Ando says, his voice sullen.
There’s a bit of moving around. Something flomps down on the dirt beside me. Amie snatches it up. I hear plastic unscrewing.
‘Here,’ Amie whispers. ‘Just a little sip…’
God, that’s cold. I hiss in a breath, choke a bit on the water, swallow twice. I can feel the inside of my mouth for the first time in a while, but it isn’t much fun.
‘Hold on, Harris,’ Amie says.
Ando and Snowie are in discussion over near the doorway, but the conversation only comes in snatches, cos of my head. There’s a bit of, ‘…fucking mental? She’s the bloody sarge’s…’, and there’s a bit of, ‘…two birds with one stone, mate, Leon’ll be fucking rapt…’, and then Snowie’s voice says, ‘…give herself up like that? Her dad’ll be on the fucking warpath…’, and then Ando rumbles, ‘…easy. They both just disappear, all problems solved…’, and then I come back into my body, and realise this is not my imagination. Amie is here with me.
This can’t be happening. I try to get both eyes open. She looks solid. Strands of her hair have slid free of her ponytail, and her hands shake as she rips a piece of fabric off the bottom of her shirt. She’s sweating.
Oh fuck, this is bad. This is worse than this morning, and this morning was the pits. But even when I was screaming I knew she was safe.
‘A-Amie…’ My voice is a weird wheezing croak that stutters on her name. ‘What’re y’doing here?’
‘Don’t talk.’ She’s whispering, wiping my face with the water-moistened cloth. She’s not looking at my eyes, and her own eyes blink hard. ‘Don’t talk, just for a second. I can’t do this if you –’ She bites down on her bottom lip, blinks and blinks as she examines me. ‘Okay, I don’t think your nose is broken, but your cheekbone might be. The bruising on your neck is what’s making it hard to talk. Look at me – Harris, look at me for a sec.’
She takes my face in both her hands so I’m staring into her eyes.
‘You can’t be here,’ I wheeze. ‘You can’t be here, you gotta –’
‘Shut up. Harris, just shut up. You have a concussion.’ Her eyes well up as she releases my face to tear off more of her shirt, and starts checking down my front. ‘I think most of the blood is from your nose. Most of these cuts are superficial, but these other –’ Her jaw tightens as her voice hisses out. ‘These are burns. These are burns, and I’m going to fucking kill Marcus Anderson –’
‘Hey.’ I lean until my forehead touches hers, until my arms hurt from pulling against the pole I’m tied to. ‘Hey. Seriously, you shouldna come.’
She eases back to look at me, eyes wide. ‘Well, I wasn’t just going to let them take you.’
It’s the closest I’ve come to crying in the last twenty-four hours. She’s beautiful and she’s here, and I want to hold her, but I can’t.
‘I love you, y’know that?’ It just pops out.
She gives me a wobbly grin. ‘I want you to say that again, when you don’t have your hands tied.’ She cups my cheek, slides closer, her voice low. ‘Dad knows. Reggie’s got my phone.’
That’s all the news she can share, cos right then Ando stomps over and grabs her by the hair. Her hands lift, scratching and clawing, and I make a piss-poor scrabble to stand, sliding my hands up the pole behind me, although my ribs feel like they’re eating me alive.
‘This is your root then, is it?’ Ando pulls Amie up, but he’s glaring at me. He shakes her and she shrieks. ‘She’s a fucking firecracker, mate. You usually got shit taste in women, Harris, but this one, I like. Maybe if she’s real nice to me, I might –’
We never find out what he might, cos Amie reefs around and kicks him right in the nuts. It’s a good solid boot, and Ando drops her like a hot brick. She sprawls with a whoofing gasp, and Ando is doing some gasping of his own.
‘FUCK!’ He lets out a strangled moan.
Snowie steps forward tentatively. ‘Shit, mate, are you –’
‘Get the fuck away!’ Ando yells. He staggers, bent over, towards Amie. He kicks her viciously in the side and she curls into herself, coughing.
My legs shake and my vision’s red as blood. ‘You’re a dead man, Ando. You know that, right? A dead man walking –’
‘I like my chances better than yours, dickhead,’ Ando snarls. He flings around to Snowie. ‘Do something useful, why dontcha, and tie that fucking bitch up.’
Snowie scuttles for another length of the handy ole baling twine. Amie coughs some more as Snowie lashes her hands together in front. His eyes dart back towards Ando, who’s swearing and catching his breath at the shed entrance. Snowie’s forehead is beaded with sweat. I stopped feeling sorry for him a long while ago.
My body’s trembling. I inch back down the pole as Snowie drags Amie closer. Maybe he thinks she’s out for the count after getting booted in the ribs, because he doesn’t tie her to the pole. Amie gasps and shuffles until her shoulders are beside me and her head rests on my thigh. I lean over her, like I’m shielding her, which is pathetic – I can’t even brush her hair back off her face. But now our faces are close, and her warm breath fans me, and this is the best I’ve felt since yesterday afternoon.
‘I warned him.’ She clears her throat, wipes her eyes against my jeans. ‘I did warn him.’
I almost grin. ‘You did. Remind me not to take you on.’
‘Okay.’ She rubs her tied hands against my waist. ‘Rest now. You should rest. I don’t think we have much more time here.’
I don’t know about time. I don’t know about anything anymore, except this thing I’ve just worked out. Because these last twenty-four hours, these last twenty years of my life, it’s been all about enduring. I got through on a steady supply of anger and sheer stubbornness, and when that didn’t work, I phased out, took refuge in my head.
But I’ve got something to fight for now.
Snowie and Ando are back in conversation by the shed door. They think they’ve got me nailed. They think they’ve exploited my weakness, by bringing Amie here.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
*
The next move comes as the sun lowers herself into the crack in the world. Me and Amie get pulled apart, bundled up, shoved outside – I’d started to forget there was an outside, and I drink in the sight and smell of it. Dusk gives the air a blue tone and a biting cold. I wish I still had my hoodie. My hands are re-tied in front, which is good, cos my shoulders feel like they’re about to detach from my body.
In the rear seat of the Land Cruiser, I hold Amie in the circle of my shaking arms for the first time and we get about ten whole seconds unobserved.
She leans into my chest. ‘What do you think’s happening?’
‘Dunno. Stay by me, yeah? Whatever happens, stay close.’
Snowie gets into the front passenger seat before Ando. He looks like he’s found some new source of confidence. There’s definitely a swagger about him.
‘So what’s going on, buddy?’ I ask quietly.
He gives me a snarly grin. ‘Sortin’ it out, aren’t we? Delivering you two as a present. Leon’s gonna be rapt.’
‘Is he now?’
‘Sure he is.’ Snowie puffs out his chest. ‘Cheers, then beers. Not that I’m gonna take all the credit. But it was me who figured something was up, and Ando’s not a limelight kinda man.’
I dunno whether to laugh or cry. Snowie’s an idiot, sure, but using meth seems to have reduced his I.Q. by half again.
Ando bigs Snowie up all the way to the new location, which – no surprises – turns out to be the Nowheresville shed outside town where me and Mick the Leb met the van-man. It’s nearly full dark by the time we arrive, and the Land Cruiser isn’t the only car around. A white van is parked at the rear of the shed with its nose sticking out from the corner, and there’s another car, a dark grey Volvo.
Once we’ve pulled in near the Volvo, Ando twists around in the driver’s seat. ‘You two good there? Nice and comfy? Maybe you wanna have a last little snuggle before we take you inside, eh?’
‘Yeah, don’t mind us, we’ll sit here and watch,’ Snowie drawls.
‘Or you could take us out and shoot us now,’ I suggest. ‘Spare us the shit banter.’
Amie snorts. Ando makes a disgusted noise, opens his door.
The crack I made earns me a bit of manhandling: Ando yanks me out, shoves me against the side of the Cruiser, whacks my face against the door panel. My cheekbone yowls in protest. Exploding light-bulbs go off behind my eyelids, so I open them before I get the spews. I’m staring down at the side of the car and it’s like a really giant light-bulb goes off, right inside my brain.
‘Y’know, this car’s got big wheels.’ I say it like I’m remarking on the weather. ‘Seriously, Ando. These are, like, the biggest wheels I’ve ever seen.’
‘It’s a fucking Land Cruiser, you moron.’ Ando spins me round, pushes me against the car.
‘Good burn-outs, with tyres that big. They chew up the ground, though, don’t they. When you park on the verge, I bet they chew up the grass real bad…’
I hold his gaze, see something creep into him. Maybe I’m full of shit. Maybe I dunno what I’m talking about. But maybe – just maybe – I have a strong sudden memory of a house with blue trim, rosellas in the trees, a muddied patch of grass on the verge near the front fence…
And it all starts to come together in my mind.
Some idiot’s parked his big-wheeled car here and then burned off… Snowie at the bar with his cigarettes, the day before I went to Tulane Road – ‘Hey, you haven’t seen Ando about, have ya?’... Reggie waggling his eyebrows – ‘He thinks he’s King Shit…Your fella, Ando. That’s his work…’
How did I not figure this out sooner?
Just like that, I know. And Ando’s looking right at me, so now he knows. Before I can even open my mouth, he grabs me around the throat, muscles in and squeezes hard.
‘One fucking word,’ he hisses, ‘and I’ll kill you where you stand. Leon be damned. D’you hear what I’m saying?’
He doesn’t wait for me to reply. When Snowie comes around, holding Amie by the shoulders, Ando jostles me off the side of the car. All together, we march and limp and stumble inside the shed.
Maybe in the city you’d have more luxurious premises to make your drugs in. But this is the boonies. The shed’s set over a concrete slab. Two rows of old tables, a mess of batching equipment – primus cookers, plastic jugs, flat baking trays, and I-dunno-what-else – sit over on the right. A generator squats on the floor behind that, to keep the whole place plugged in. I can’t see the cooks. Maybe they’ve already been paid off and gone home.
Workshop lights glow above the tables. On the left, a little picnic arrangement of plastic chairs. The whole place smells rank. I’d make a joke about Health & Safety regs but I don’t think anyone would get it except Amie.
She quails beside me.
‘Hey.’ I nudge her gently. ‘Chin up. We’ll get through.’
‘I thought we’d see the cavalry by now,’ she whispers back, shivering.
Have to admit, I’d been kind of thinking the same thing. Whatever happens here, we’ll be flying by the seat of our pants.
My heart hammers in my chest. I bend my head closer so I can brush Amie’s hair with my lips. ‘Stay behind me, and stay alert.’
Ando growls, pushes us forward. Whatever retort I was gonna make, I swallow it, because I’ve just seen Leon.
He looks weird, different, out of the confines of the Flamingos office. You can see the edges of him. In the office he seems to spill out to fill the whole space, it’s like you’re breathing him in. Here, he’s more defined. Cigarette in hand, greasy white shirt, an ugly sports jacket, the strange reptilian folds of his face. His trousers are baggy. He’s wearing black leather shoes.
His eyes look dead under the workshop lights.
Amie edges in behind me. Her fear is a live wire in my stomach. Mick the Leb looks up from his phone, stills in his chair. Leon scans from me to Amie, to Ando and Snowie.
‘What’s this?’ He exhales smoke. His eyes light on the baling twine around my wrists. There’s a pause. He drops his cigarette on the concrete, steps on it. Looks up. ‘You’ve all got about twenty seconds to tell me what the fuck is going on.’
Behind me I hear jostling. Snowie steps forward. He doesn’t seem so sure about standing in the limelight now.
‘Uh, Leon, hey,’ he says. ‘Gotta tell you something, mate.’
This cannot end well.
Snowie explains it all very simply. It takes less than twenty seconds. In that time, Ando seems to fade into the shadows near the wall. After the explanation there’s another pause, much longer this time.
Leon looks over at Mick the Leb, who shrugs. Then Leon turns back to look at me and Amie. Then he looks at Snowie.
‘Lemme clarify a sec. You’re telling me this bloke –’ Leon points straight at me. ‘This bloke is a police informant. And the girl beside him is his contact. Who also happens to be the daughter of a top-cop in Ouyen.’ Leon fixes Snowie with his gaze. ‘Is this what you’re telling me?’
‘Well, uh, yeah.’ Snowie jigs a bit. ‘That’s right. And I brought ’em here because I figured this was something you’d wanna know about, and you prob’ly wanna make your own decision about it.’
I can’t really fault his logic. Leon seems to disagree.
‘You brought ’em here,’ he says. He’s still staring at Snowie.
‘Uh, yeah,’ Snowie says. ‘I brought ’em here, cos like I said –’
‘Here,’ Leon says. ‘To this place. This facility.’
‘Yeah.’ Snowie blanches. ‘Oh. Yeah.’
Leon moves away from Snowie, takes two steps towards me and Amie. Takes a pistol out of the inside his jacket – he must be wearing a holster. Amie jerks and makes a little noise. I lean my shoulder in front of her. The expression on Leon’s face makes me shake. Even my breath is trembling.
‘And now,’ Leon continues, ‘I gotta figure out how to get rid of an informant and a cop’s daughter. Which – as you can imagine, Snowie – is a pain in my fucking arse.’
‘Oh,’ Snowie says. ‘Oh shit. Leon, I didn’t mean to cause you hassles, mate. I just figured you’d wanna –’
‘I do wanna,’ Leon says. ‘But, y’know, usually blokes tell me if there’s a little problem in their patch. Then we talk to people who can deal with it.’
‘Right,’ Snowie says. ‘Right.’
He flicks his eyes towards me, back to Leon. He looks petrified. I dunno why he’s looking at me. If he wanted me to help him out, he shouldna tied my hands together.
‘Most of my fellas, they’ve got the common sense to talk to me first,’ Leon says.
‘Oh. Yep. I just –’
‘You don’t have a lot of common sense, do you, Snow?’
‘Oh,’ Snowie says. ‘I don’t, um. Leon, mate, I’m sorry, I –’
‘I gotta get rid of the bodies now,’ Leon says.
‘Leon –’
Leon turns around and shoots Snowie in the head.
The shot is incredibly loud inside the tin shed. Sound bounces off the concrete floor, off the metal walls, reverberates inside my skull. Even though I’d been bracing myself for it, it hits me like a migraine.
Amie has not been bracing herself. Maybe she’s watched enough TV to imagine how scenarios of this type usually end, but I don’t think she ever thought this sort of stuff could be real. The shot takes her completely by surprise. She makes a brief high scream, which cuts off abruptly as her breath leaves her. Her knees go out from under her – I have to turn and grab her arm with my tied hands.
Snowie is quite obviously dead. Apart from the way he tumbled boneless to the floor, we all saw the red spray come out the back of his head. I can only look at him lying there for one second before I have to close my eyes.
Leon engages the safety on the gun and pulls a crumpled handkerchief out of his trouser pocket. He starts wiping the gun off with the hanky. When he’s confident it’s fully clean, he passes the hanky-wrapped gun to Mick.
‘Get rid of that,’ he says. ‘Then make some calls. Release all the packets early. Everything slated for tomorrow goes out right now. Plus I want a clean-up crew here for the equipment.’
‘You could just torch the place, boss,’ Mick suggests.
And I hold my breath. This is the deciding moment. If Leon chooses to cut his losses, we’re fucked – Snowie is dead, and me and Amie will be next. Everything we are will be reduced to a headline: three bodies in a burnt-out shed in the back of beyond.
It seems particularly shit because I’ve got something to live for now. If I’d been in the firing line even a few months back, I might not have minded. But the last week or so has made anything seem possible, even life. I don’t want to go now. Things have only just started getting nice.
Leon stands incredibly still for the space of three of my tortured breaths. Then he turns and walks closer to me. Rakes me up and down with his eyes.
‘You had potential,’ he says.
I don’t know what to say. Saying anything could be bad. I just nod.
Amie is beside me, weeping silently, shuddering. I lift my hands and tuck her into the circle of my arms and chest. Leon looks at us, sighs out his nose.
‘I don’t want these two done on any property connected to the club,’ he says to Mick, over his shoulder. ‘And a fire will only draw attention. Just get the crew here. And get the tarp out of the van.’
I try not to let my exhale escape too loudly.
Mick disappears through a door in the back of the shed, his phone pressed to his ear. He returns with a folded blue tarp which he dumps beside Snowie’s body.
Leon turns to the left-hand wall, and it’s like I’d forgotten Ando even existed.
‘Boss –’ Ando starts.
‘Spare me.’ Leon pulls his smokes out of his jacket pocket. ‘The load in the van goes to Melbourne. Put the body in the back. Put the whole fucking lot of ’em in the back. You follow behind the van. When you get to the saltworks, take a left and you can do ’em there, then get back on the road. I’ll give instructions to the driver about the pit-stop.’
That’s our death sentence, right there, and he’s ordered it like he’d order a pizza. But it’s bought us some time.
Ando wets his lips, steps forward. ‘I want the girl.’
‘No.’ My head whips to face him.
‘You don’t get to say no,’ Ando grinds out.
‘I get to say no,’ Amie says. She slips out of my arms, slides around behind me.
I raise my tied fists. ‘You touch her and I’ll fucking –’
My hot speech is cut off by the feel of something cold. Leon has a gun pressed to my temple. Amie is clutching my arm. Ando is grinning with sharp white teeth.
‘Turn around,’ Leon says.
I turn. Now the muzzle is pressed to my forehead and I can see Leon’s face. His expression is blank. Amie is whimpering.
‘You deceived me, Harris,’ Leon says. ‘You screwed with me.’
My throat is too dry to do anything but whisper. ‘Yes.’
‘Yes,’ Leon echoes. His eyes are dark, and full of my terror. ‘You like this girl?’
I don’t want to reply. I can’t. Any reply I make will be wrong.
But if I’m gonna die anyway, only one reply will be true.
‘Yes,’ I croak out.
Leon looks at me for a long moment. I was off the mark when I said he was soulless. He has the soul of the devil.
‘Payback’s a bitch,’ he whispers. He looks at Ando. ‘Take the girl.’