CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Eamon was working at his computer when I knocked on his door. “Come in,” he called. “But I don’t want to know about the staff shower not working if that’s what you’re here for.”
I pushed the door open and slipped in. “Autumn found an all-night plumber who’s coming out to fix it,” he said, and Eamon took his glasses off and sighed.
“Thank God. You’re here to tell me about Ira’s rash, are you?”
I shook my head. “She went to a drug store and got eczema cream for it. No, I’m here to ask for an advance on my wages.”
Eamon raised an eyebrow. “Policy is that we’ll only advance you for work done, so I can pay you up to last Thursday night, that’s all.”
I nodded. I was still going to be short, but there wasn’t anything else I could do about it.
“Thanks for that,” I said, and Eamon made a shooing motion with his hand.
“Go back to work and leave me in peace,” he said.
***
Yuki made an obscene gesture at a passing motorist and tottered across the hotel forecourt in her high heels. Once she was inside, I pulled out into the traffic. It was time to head back to the brothel. I needed coffee and a bathroom break.
Answering my cell while driving was routine now, so I flicked on my indicators and changed lanes and hit the green button on my cell all at the same time.
“Jude!” Eamon’s voice said. “Clay’s in trouble. Get him out of there!”
“What sort of trouble?” I asked, turning my indicators on, then pulling into a laneway to reverse back out the way he had come. “Have you called the police?”
“Not yet. See what’s happened, and then call me back,” Eamon said.
“OK,” I said, and I dropped my phone and put my foot down. I had absolutely no intention of just passing the decision to call the cops onto Eamon, not if Clay was in trouble.
I had only dropped Clay off five minutes before Yuki, so I wasn’t far away, but it felt like far too long. My imagination was overactive at the best of times, and all I could think of was Clay was being hurt.
I pulled into the driveway of the house I had dropped Clay at and was out of the car and banging on the door in an instant.
There was no answer, and I pressed my ear against the door, hoping to be able to hear voices.
Nothing, so I pounded on the door with my fists, shouting out, “Open up! Right now!”
There was a muffled thud from inside, and I thought for a moment about calling Eamon for instructions, then I heard a murmur of a voice, and someone shouted.
Exigent circumstances was the phrase which sprung to mind, and I stepped back and crashed my shoulder into the door. I wouldn’t be able to open a deadlock, but if the door was only on an ordinary lock, it might just work.
There was a satisfying splinter and the door popped open and then caught immediately on the safety chain. Those things were useless, I knew, so I crashed my shoulder against the door again and the chain ripped out of the door frame.
The muffled voices were clear now, he could hear Clay screaming, and another male voice shouting, and there was thudding too.
I flung open the door to a bedroom and found a still-dressed man shouting obscenities and pounding on another door with his fists. I grabbed his shoulders and flung him across the room, calling out, “Clay! It’s Jude! Are you hurt?”
The man, middle-aged and portly and no physical match for me, launched himself back at me, fists flying. I pounded him once in the face, knocking him flying, then turned and shook the door handle to what was the bathroom. “Clay!” I called out again. “Open up!”
The man in the bedroom scrambled to his feet, hand pressed to his face, shouting, “Who the hell are you? Get out of my house!”
It occurred to me too late to worry about the man being armed, but I showed no sign of going for a drawer or his jacket, which draped across a chair.
“I’m just here to get Clay,” I said, holding my hands out to show I wasn’t armed either.
The bathroom door opened and Clay appeared, naked and blood-spattered, with a split lip and a hand pressed against his side.
“Jude, get me out of here.”
I nodded and said, “Grab your clothes, I’ll make sure Mr. John doesn’t do anything.”
Clay snatched up his clothes where they were on the floor, then bolted for the door. Once he was out of the room, I shook my head at the man, who had blood trickling down his face now, and followed Clay at a run.
I left the car unlocked, and Clay was clambering in, still naked and carrying his clothes, as I cleared the front door.
My heart was pounding from the adrenaline rush, and my hands were shaking now, but I threw myself behind the wheel, started the car then dropped the clutch, spinning the tires as he reversed out of the drive.
Clay was white when I glanced at him, and it pinched his face with pain, and I found his cell and called Eamon on the speed dial.
“House phone,” Eamon said, and he sounded panicked.
“I’ve got Clay,” I said. “He’s hurt, I will take him to an ER.”
“Don’t,” Eamon said. “Bring him here and I’ll call Dr. Wallace.”
“He’s hurt,” I said, becoming angry now the stark terror was over.
Clay said, his voice slurred by the hand pressed against his lip, blood dripping down his face, “No hospital, no police.”
“Are you sure?” I asked Clay. “Is that what you want? Because I think you need to go to an ER.”
Clay nodded, so I lifted his cell to his ear. “OK, we’re on our way back to the house, but you’d better get the doc there.”
Clay was still naked, in too much pain to pull his jeans on, so I pulled up at the back of the brothel and hit his horn.
People flooded out of the back door of the brothel, Eamon amongst them and I opened his car door and said, “Get Clay a blanket, someone.”
Ira disappeared back into the brothel, and Eamon knelt down beside Clay’s open car door. “Where’d he get you?” Eamon asked.
“Face and ribs,” Clay said, wincing. “He kicked me.”
Eamon nodded and handed in the blanket Ira had brought back, and Clay draped it across himself and eased himself out of the car.
Chloe and Eamon half-carried Clay back into the house and I leaned against my car. I was exhausted, now the adrenaline was gone. I was realizing things could have gone wrong. If the man had been armed, if there had been more than one person there, it would have ended. I’d been a stupid fool to just rush in.
Jarrod touched my arm, then pulled me into a hug. I hugged Jarrod back and pressed my face against Jarrod’s neck.
God, what if it had been Jarrod?
Chloe’s arms wrapped around me too, and she said, “Thank you, Jude, from all of us. Clay said you broke the door down and beat the guy up to get him out. It could have been any of us, we all know that.”
I slid an arm around Chloe’s waist. “How do you all do it?” I asked.
She shook her head. “We can’t afford to think about something like this. And we make sure our cells are always in reach, just like Clay did until the John smashed it.”
I nodded. I remembered now seeing shattered plastic and circuitry on the floor. I broken into someone’s home and assaulted them. It must be at least three different offenses I committed. Add in whatever offenses Clay had committed, and it made sense why Clay had said, “No police.”
I squeezed Chloe’s waist, realizing that, apart from whatever financial arrangements Eamon had negotiated with the Vice Squad, they were all outside of the safe lawful society I had always taken for granted.
Sure, I ’d grown plants in my time, and sold a little weed; but I now lived in a world where none of the rules applied.
Another car pulled up alongside mine at the back of the brothel, and Dr. Wallace got out and grabbed his medical kit from his back seat. I had met Dr. Wallace before, on the doc’s regular Thursday night visits, when he came to swab, scrape and bleed all the staff, and he’d seemed a nice enough man then, and none of the staff bitched about him, so he wasn’t rough on them.
Chloe said, “I will go see how Clay is,” and let go of me and followed the doc in.
Jarrod said, “I should too.”
I caught his arm as he went to leave. “Come home with me?” I said. I didn’t want to sleep alone with my imagination, not after what had happened.
Jarrod nodded, then headed indoors, leaving me alone in the tiny parking area behind the brothel.