Davo's Little Something (28 page)

‘Yeah,' replied Davo, trying not to sound too disinterested. ‘I hope you do. Even if it's only for Wayne's sake.'

‘Something will turn up mate,' said Detective Blackburn. ‘It always does. You'd be surprised.'

Davo nodded. ‘Yeah, something could turn up . . . you never know.' Davo felt like bursting out into maniacal laughter but he managed to keep his feelings bottled up inside him. Yeah, something'll turn up alright fellahs he thought. You can bet your life on that. ‘Anyway,' he said, tapping the side of his foot with his walking stick. ‘If it's all the same to you I might get going myself. This has brought back a lot of unpleasant memories today.' He offered the two detectives his hand.

‘Okay, Bob,' said Detective Blackburn, with a quick shake. ‘If ever you want to get in touch with us about anything, just give us a call. We're at Darlinghurst now too.'

‘Yeah. You know who to ask for,' said Detective Middleton.

‘Okay, thanks. I'll keep it in mind. Anyway, I appreciate your help. I'll see you again.'

‘Okay, Bob. Take care.'

The two detectives watched Davo hobble down the front steps of the courthouse through the glass doors and slowly cross busy Parramatta Road to his car.

‘Poor bastard,' said Detective Blackburn. ‘I still can't help but feel sorry for him.'

‘Yeah, I know what you mean,' replied his partner. ‘He doesn't seem like a bad bloke, does he?'

‘Hey what about that bloody cab driver,' chuckled Detective Blackburn.

‘Yeah.' Detective Middleton's face broke into a grin. ‘Didn't he like to tell it like it is. I thought for a minute there old Anesbury was going to piss his pants.'

‘Anyway. What do you reckon we ought to do now?'

Detective Middleton took in a deep breath. ‘I reckon a middy of Old would go down well.'

‘I reckon a schooner would go down even better.'

‘I reckon you're right.' Detective Middleton looked at his watch. ‘Why don't we have a steak at the Clock and be done with it.'

‘You've got me. I'm starving.

While the two detectives were enjoying their steaks and beers at the Clock Hotel in Surry Hills Davo was sitting in his kitchen, sullenly brooding over a cup of coffee. What he'd offhandedly said to the two detectives earlier, about the day bringing back unpleasant memories for him, didn't begin to sink in until he was driving home. He started stewing in the car and by the time he walked in the front door of his unit he was almost ropeable.

Death caused through an assault by person or persons unknown. Those last words from the magistrate kept echoing around inside his head and stuck in his throat, making him want to spit them out like they were a bad taste. And what did those two wombat coppers say. ‘We've got nothing yet—but something will turn up.' Yeah. Pig's arse. I'll have a beard down to my bloody knees before those two turn anything up he spat.

Davo scowled into his coffee and reflected on that Saturday he had come to in the hospital, and the excruciating almost unbelievable pain he was in like his head was going to burst open. And although the human mind doesn't retain the actual memory of the pain itself Davo knew how he had felt and how he screamed for the nurse. And he remembered how he felt when the doctor told him Wayne was dead; his emotions didn't show but inside he was burning up.

Poor bloody Wayne. Harmless goodlooking gay hairdresser, Wayne St Peters. Never done the wrong thing or said a bad word about anybody in his whole bloody life; probably done more favours for people than anyone else you could name. And what did he get for his troubles; kicked to death in a dirty shitty alley for doing someone another favour: shouting a friend to a rock concert. Jesus Christ.

Davo kept brooding sourly into his cup then shifted his gaze across to the loungeroom where he'd left the gloves sitting on the coffee table. He stared at them for a few moments and then back at his hands which he unconsciously formed into fists; a half smile began to tug at the corners of his mouth, a very thin and very bitter half smile.

Wednesday today. Thursday tomorrow. He shifted his eyes to a large Life Be In It calendar he had taped down one side of the fridge. Thursday tomorrow. Almost three months to the day since Wayne was killed and those goons had put him in hospital; and possibly, if it hadn't been for that cab driver pulling up, he could have finished up the same way. Davo's eyes went back to the gloves sitting on the coffee table. He looked thoughtfully at them for a few moments then got up, dropped his empty cup in the sink and moved across to the sliding glass window. He stood staring out at the park with his hands folded across his chest, the bitter half smile still tugging at the corners of his mouth.

He was certainly fit enough now, fitter and stronger than he'd ever been in his life and probably fitter than a lot of athletes and first grade footballers running around today. He'd proved he could fight by the devastating way he'd crushed those two fighters in town in one-on-one situations; and he'd also proved his tolerance to pain was high. Then there were his reflexes,
which by some strange twist due to the brain damage he'd sustained, were nothing short of phenomenal. And if that wasn't enough there were those gloves and he'd seen the almost horrifying damage they could do. What more did he need?

He turned, walked back into the loungeroom, picked the gloves up off the coffee table and put them on, then closed his fists and looked at them packed snugly into the deadly metal-studded leather. Before long the bitter smile on his face had turned into a diabolical evil grin. It was a Thursday night when Wayne had got killed and he was hospitalised. What better than to start his vendetta on a Thursday night. Yeah, why not. The sinister grin on his face broadened as once again the words of that old Doors song started echoing around his mind.

 

The time to hesitate is through.

No time to wallow in the mire.

Come on baby light my fire.

 

Yeah bugger it. Tomorrow night he and the gloves would get their first taste of blood. Tomorrow night it would start.

There was a smoky noisy congested surge of cars, buses and people all heading slowly through the neon haze towards Taylor Square when Davo pulled up for the traffic lights at South Dowling and Oxford Streets at 11.30 the following, still slightly humid, Thursday night. He stared expressionlessly out the windscreen at the traffic around him while he waited for the lights to change and when they did hung a sharp left luckily managing to find a parking spot just a few yards up from the old Greek theatre.

Davo had trained as usual in the morning but settled for a long head-clearing walk in the afternoon to steel himself for what he had to do that night rather than train in the afternoon. He rested till 9.30, then showered and changed into an almost wornout pair of dark blue, cotton training pants, running shoes and an old blue sweatshirt with the sleeves hacked out. He'd been tense most of the day, apprehensive, even a little frightened, but he'd managed to relax in the evening, even catching an hour or two's sleep after a light tea. Now, as he switched the
motor off and sat there alone in the surrounding darkness, the fear and apprehension began to trickle back. However, he'd trained like a demon ealier in the day and beneath the fluttering nervousness he was still extremely confident about what he was doing. He got out, locked the car and jogged in front of some oncoming traffic towards the Beauchamp Hotel; a reassuring pat felt the two lethal gloves tucked securely in the waistband of his cotton pants. He paused for a moment at the hotel corner then, not knowing at all what to expect or how long he was going to be, joined the boisterous bizarre throng heading towards Taylor Square.

Davo couldn't remember the last time he'd been down that area and he sure as hell had never been wandering around there alone at that hour on a Thursday night. The noise, the car fumes, the atmosphere of sheer intensity mixed with an undercurrent of danger and apprehension seemed to almost engulf him and the people he encountered made him feel as though he were a visitor from another planet. Deviating punks, anomalous new wave weirdos, vacant-looking junkies of both sexes in an array of either outrageous colours and styles or drab unkempt black and white. If Davo felt like he came from outer space the crowd around him certainly looked it and to his mind's eye he was convinced not one of them had been near a drycleaning shop or a laundromat since the day they left school. So far though, he hadn't noticed any skinheads.

He skirted around a knot of sourfaced androgynous oddballs, milling outside a nightclub, Toreadors, all arguing with a hardfaced doorman for refusing them admission because he claimed they were too drunk and too soapy. A couple of them looked away from the doorman and caught Davo's eye; he gave the gloves another pat as they glared at him and strode on.

A mob of louts and their equally obnoxious girlfriends in an old Ford swore at him and one spat on him from the rear window as he waited on a traffic island in the middle of Taylor Square. His adrenalin rising Davo watched their tail-lights disappear into the night traffic and then sprinted across the busy road to pause outside the Courthouse Hotel and wipe the spit from his sweatshirt.

The crowd had thickened considerably now and Davo could pick the nervous looking gays wandering around; some arm in arm, others with their hands thrust in the pockets of their baggy trousers as they pushed through the crowd. None of them remotely resembled Wayne or any of his friends. He started walking past the porn shops, foodbars and seedy looking upstairs nightclubs towards Crown Street—still not knowing where he was going, what he was actually going to do when he got there and why in the hell he'd chosen that particular part of town in the first place.

Then he saw them. Eight of them. All swarming menacingly around an old wooden fruit-barrow on the corner of Oxford and Crown Streets like they owned the place. As soon as he laid eyes on them a thin film of cold sweat formed on his forehead and he felt a knot in his stomach which quickly exploded into a violent surge of hatred and adrenalin reaching into every corner of his body. They were almost identical to the skinheads who had bashed him and Wayne in Barker Street that night, but something told Davo it wasn't them. They looked uncannily the same though. Faded, tattered jeans rolled up over calf length boots, ripped T-shirts and braces, only some had their braces hanging loosely down their side instead of supporting their jeans. They all had the same vicious faces and short hair with studded belts and studded leather bands round their wrists. Davo melded quietly into a bank doorway and checked out their boots just in case but none had swastikas daubed over them.

Davo stood there seething, he wanted to tear straight into them and smash them to bloody pulp but eight was too many and he was in a main street. He propped in the doorway quivering with frustration as he watched the skins cluster around the old barrow, mouthing off at the passers by and patted the gloves tucked in his waistband, wondering what to do as waves of loathing, anger and revenge swept through him. Unexpectedly, the skins went into a huddle for a minute then, as if by a miracle, they split up with six heading across Oxford Street to a bar called Paris's Tavern and the other two, after calling out something obscene to their mates, doubling back up Crown Street towards Surry Hills. Davo gave the two about five seconds
start then stealthily fell in behind.

Naturally Davo wasn't quite prepared for this sudden turn of events. He'd expected to be prowling around back alleys and lanes possibly for hours picking his mark and even then he could have missed out; however this unanticipated opportunity arose and it could not be ignored. With his nerves on edge now and his heart beating slightly faster than normal, Davo continued to follow the two skins as they sauntered bumptiously along Crown Street, their braces flapping provocatively behind them as they seemed to deliberately harass and intimidate the people passing by.

Unexpectedly the two skins turned sharp left at the small Gaslight Hotel and disappeared up a narrow dimly lit alley. Davo stopped in the shadows on the corner and watched quietly as they began walking up a bit of a rise about fifteen metres in front of him. Despite his nervousness and apprehension, Davo couldn't help but be curious as to why the two skins would be wandering up that alley on their own—probably going to a car or to have a piss he shrugged; but if ever there was a golden opportunity, this was it. He had a last check around him. There was quite a bit of traffic but no people. Then suddenly any fears or nervousness vanished and that familiar diabolical evil almost maniacal smile began to appear on his face. He eased the gloves out of his waistband and, like a tiger spreading its claws as it stalks its prey ready for the kill, slipped them over his hands and tightened them up.

After sprinting up and down the almost vertical steps behind Waverley Oval, the short dash up past the two skinheads was a breeze. A startled ‘hey shit' was all he heard as he zoomed around and stopped just a few feet in front of them, his hands enclosed in the deadly gloves dangling loosely by his side. There were a few cars parked facing up the lane next to some garbage tins and several overflowing boxes of rubbish. A couple of black and yellow detour signs with a small round lamp blinking on and off stood to his right; which no doubt added to the menace as he stood there bathed in the flickering yellow glow, that same fiendish grin on his face. The two skinheads stopped in their tracks at the sight of him.

‘Hello boys,' smiled Davo, his voice dripping with hatred.
‘What's doing?'

Despite their surprise the two skins were still arrogantly confident. Davo was on his own and they had their boots and studded belts.

‘Hey—what d'you want arsehole,' said the taller of the two standing at Davo's right. As he spoke his mate began loosening the thick studded belt around his waist.

‘What do I want?' replied Davo, bringing his hands up as he moved slowly forward. ‘How about a few pints of your blood—arsehole.'