Katja from the Punk Band (21 page)

The urgent tides are pressed up against the dock as the boat squeezes into its berth, a deep grinding sound echoing through its metal body as it comes to rest. Ropes are thrown from both the boat and the dock, a symbiotic exchange as the two industrial bodies become entwined with one another.

Two trucks move forward toward loading ramps driven into place, the wheels of the vehicles mere inches from the edge of the dock. On the boat, a couple of workers secure the ramps at their end, then wave to the drivers who put the trucks into reverse. The ramps slide across the roofs of the vehicles and finally crash to the ground in front of them, nestling neatly into indentations gouged in the concrete over time.

Forklifts emerge from the warehouses looming over the scene like ancient monster-gods and manoeuvre themselves around the cranes whose motorized engines flare to life. The whole place is like a battlefield.

Amidst these rusted beasts and the drone of their machinery, a man steps out of a battered old car, a cigarillo perched between thin, dark lips. He locks the car door, adjusts the collar on the high-neck black shirt he wears, straightens his jacket. As he walks into the light, he checks the suit more fully, brushes some flecks of dirt from it.

Under the glare, the suit’s red wine tone looks more like fresh blood.

Katja, she feels her eye closing up, the fractured cheek now swelling enough to block her vision, and she’s doing her best to ignore the pain in the hope that not acknowledging it will mean not being subject to its effects.

She sees the loading crews over the edge of the boat, but there’re too many thoughts running through her head for her to understand that she is practically on the mainland, that she is almost there. Almost there, but still so far away. Still with Kohl between her and whatever might come next.

Where the fuck is Nikolai?

She hasn’t seen him since they were split up by Dracyev; he could be anywhere. He could be watching them now, perhaps ready to make a move, and she doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not. Does she want him to make a move?

She tries to look over her shoulder on the chance that she might spot him or even Dracyev, whatever the fuck he was up to, but Kohl drags her along.

A few loaders are now on the deck, opening up the hatches that lead into the storage bays, barking instructions to one another. The mighty arm of one of the cranes sweeps overhead and more floodlights are turned on. Kohl flinches away from them, tightens his grip on Katja’s arm, and her instinct is to resist, to throw him off, but then she thinks of the vial and the deal and the mainland.

“Where is he? Do you see him?”

“Not yet.”

“Where are we supposed to go?”

“Januscz didn’t say,” she tells him.

“Perfect. We’re going to fucking miss him!”

“Calm down,” Katja snaps, smiles as some workers look at them. “He’ll be around somewhere, just be patient. We should probably just head to the loading ramps.”

Kohl seems hesitant, perhaps overly suspicious of her, but doesn’t let her get more than an arm’s length away from him before he is next to her once more.

“You want this as much as I do,” Kohl reminds her out of the corner of his mouth. “You try anything and all you’ll be doing is fucking yourself over.”

“I know that, you idiot.”

Kohl licks his upper lip to clear beads of sweat that have formed there, too anxious to notice the insult.

“Do you see him?”

They look down the ramps, past a steady flow of workers and out to the docks beyond. There are armed Policie officers stationed at regular intervals along the waterfront, automatic weapons slung over their Kevlar-coated shoulders.

“We can’t go down there,” Katja says. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves until we’ve found the man in red.”

“Well where the fuck
is
he?!” Kohl shouts, then immediately cringes like a dog that’s just barked and knows it will get in trouble. The workers glance at them, at their bloodied faces, then move on. Then, whispered this time, “Where is he? What if we should have made the drop on the boat? What if he was on board and now he’s gone?”

Katja chews her lip, looks back along the upper deck.

Goes cold.

Only six feet away, standing right there amidst the glare of the floodlights.

Kohl feels her go rigid and turns too, the lights sending spikes of pain into his eyes but he squints through it, sees the figure ahead of them.

“Is that him?” he asks.

The figure comes forward, out from the main spray of illumination. There’s a patch of red on his ragged T-shirt.

“I believe you have something for me,” the man says.

Kohl shields his eyes with his free hand, still holding Katja with his other.

“It’s him?” Kohl asks her.

No answer.

“Hello, Katja,” the man says.

“Katja?” Kohl asks, his eyes now thudding balls burrowing into his head, blurring his senses.

And Katja, she breathes once, hard, and she’s still as stiff as a board when she says, finally:

“Januscz.”

The guy’s name is Ludomir and he’s been due Januscz a favour ever since getting jumped by a psycho dealer’s crew a few months back after one of Katja’s gigs. Januscz had beaten them off with the business end of a mike stand, popping the eyeball of one of them before they had managed to escape.

So Ludomir, he gives Januscz the nod to be let on board the boat despite the fact he’s got a gunshot wound to his shoulder that’s bled out across his shirt as if it were trying to manifest the face of a god, a large curved blade clasped to his body. Januscz pulls himself into a storage cupboard filled with cleaning rags and spare uniforms, and slumps against it just as he feels the boat drifting out into the bay. His head is full of bright, sparkling air and his entire body shivers from the loss of blood and shock, but he’s come all this way, he won’t fail now.

He knows the bitch will be on board and this is confirmed a short time later when he has regained some of his composure and ventures out of the cupboard. He goes into what looks like one of the engine rooms and finds on the floor the battered remnants of a bass guitar. The strings are snapped, the body cracked, but he knows it’s hers.

Anger flares in him.

She’s here.

He picks up the guitar and turns it over in his hands, notices the blood smears, dried now — so he’s obviously not the only one who’s been caught up in her betrayal tonight. He still isn’t sure what exactly she is up to, whether it was a spur of the moment act brought on by their argument after he’d been forced to arrange for her to accompany him, or whether there was something bigger going on. But what he did know was that she wasn’t going to take his fucking vial, steal his opportunity to escape to the mainland. Dracyev had chosen him to be the mule because, he’d said, Januscz had shown himself to be a valuable asset to his organization.

He
was valuable — not Katja.

And Dracyev had promised him more work, better work, once he was on the mainland — to be a part of the real operations, not just the slave base on the island. Fuck her if she thought she could take that away from him.

So he drops the guitar and quickly checks the rest of the area for any signs of her, then climbs the steps back out onto the deck again. The final signal of the boat’s journey sounds and he knows this will be his opportunity. She’ll have to leave the boat now and she’ll be looking for the man in red to drop the deal. How she thinks she’ll explain Januscz’s absence he doesn’t know, but then if he can find her in time he won’t have to wait and find out.

He lurks behind a ventilation funnel until the boat docks, watches as the loading crews board, and just as he planned, catches sight of Katja. She’s with another man, the two of them almost entwined in one another, and a new, darker anger flares within Januscz.

His grip tightens around the blade; he holds it close to his leg as he walks toward them, and they’re looking for the man in red now. Januscz comes up behind them.

They have no fucking clue . . .

Katja turns and sees him but she doesn’t seem to realize just yet who he is.

“I believe you have something for me,” he says, loudly enough that they’ll hear him over the clatter of the loading crews at work.

The man with her, his face is bloodied down one side and there are tears streaming from his eyes as he squints through them. His hand is locked onto one of Katja’s arms and she’s in an even worse state than he is. Her left cheek is badly swollen, split at its thickest point like a little red mouth, and a line of glistening, fresh blood trails down to her chin and trach tube. Her eye is almost lost amongst the puffy tissue, and bruises are already developing.

“It’s him?” the other man asks her, shielding his eyes.

But Katja doesn’t answer. Her face is stony; she swallows and the trach tube moves in that rhythmical way it does.

“Hello, Katja,” Januscz says.

That look on her face almost makes all the pain he has been in since she shot him worthwhile.

“Katja?” the other man says confusedly.

And Katja, she breathes once, hard, and she’s still as stiff as a board when she says, finally:

“Januscz.”

“You look surprised to see me,” he says, letting the blade catch the light and flash across them both momentarily.

“I . . . I thought you were . . .”

“Dead. Yes, I could tell you were obviously concerned about me by the way you stole the vial and took off. You might at least have stayed long enough to check my pulse.”

“You don’t understand,” she says, and her eyes motion toward her arm, where the man is holding her.

His fingers are sunk into Katja’s stringy, tattooed arm. In his other hand is what looks like the vial.

“Fuck,” the man with the runny eyes says. “What’s going on?”

“I was about to ask the same thing,” Januscz says, raises an eyebrow toward Katja.

Now both of them are waiting for her explanation.

“Listen, his name is Kohl. He works for Szerynski,” she says.

“Vladimir Szerynski?”

She nods. “Or he did until he killed him this evening.”

Kohl. “What the fuck? How did you . . . ? I didn’t kill him!”

“He killed Szerynski, Januscz,” she continues, ignoring Kohl even as he tightens his grip on her. “I saw it with my own eyes. He shot him just as he shot you.”

Kohl: “What?”

Januscz: “
You
shot me, Katja.”

“What? Don’t be fucking stupid, I tried to stop him! Don’t you remember? He broke in as we were getting ready to leave. He shot you and stole the vial, but he needed me to make the drop because the man in red was expecting both of us. He was going to force me to . . . to say that he was you, to drop the deal.”

Kohl: “Shut your mouth!”

He pulls her toward him, wraps his other arm around her, one going to her neck and instinctively Januscz moves forward.

“You stay where the fuck you are,” Kohl warns him. “I don’t know what the fuck she’s talking about. She’s making all this shit up.”

“Does it look like I’m making all this up?” Katja snaps back. “Look what he did to my fucking face when I tried to get away! I was trying to get back to you . . .”

“I did that because you stole my vial!” Kohl protests, looking at Januscz, not Katja.

“
My
vial,” Januscz says. “And I recognize you now. You run The Digital Drive-by. You work for Szerynski.”

“So . . . so fucking what?”

“So are you telling me she’s lying?”

“Of course she’s lying!”

Katja: “For fuck’s sake, Januscz! Look at us! Does it look like I had any choice but to come here?!”

Januscz’s anger wavers, he adjusts his stance. His head is pounding, his arm ice cold and it feels like he’s going to faint again. He is certain it was Katja who shot him but when he tries to retrieve the memory, there’s nothing there. He remembers her catching him trying to do the deal without telling her; he remembers her forcing him to phone the man in red and let him know that she would be coming; he remembers . . . what else does he remember?

Think.

Think!

And he must have zoned out for a second because the next thing he knows Kohl is on him, the man’s fingers poking into the gunshot wound and causing new blossoms of pain to explode within him. Januscz cries out and they fall to the ground, slam into the metal wall of the deck. Kohl punches him once, twice, reaches back for a third attempt, and that’s when Januscz lashes out with the blade, and for a moment it’s as if a pause button has been pressed because they both just linger there.

Then the blood appears on Kohl’s throat; his eyes widen and so does a gap in his neck.

Januscz gives him a shove and the man topples backward, a wet gurgling noise coming from him, and suddenly there is blood everywhere. Januscz drags himself away from the body and looks up at Katja, and she looks back down at him, sprayed with Kohl’s fresh blood. She turns to run at the exact same moment Januscz sees it in her eyes.

He grabs her ankle and pulls her to the ground, pulls her toward him through the growing puddle of Kohl’s blood. Shocked workers jump away from the mess but they don’t say anything and they keep their heads down. A few of them have heard that Dracyev was on board, which meant something big would be going down and that in turn meant they should stay well clear.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he demands of her, showing her the knife.

“I . . . I thought you were going to kill me.”

Januscz smiles, wipes blood from his face. “For a minute I was,” he tells her. “But the man in red is expecting both of us, remember?”

He leans across and takes the vial from Kohl’s hand and it too is now covered in blood, swaps it for the knife. He wipes the vial on his T-shirt, then rubs it until it gleams.

“Up,” he tells her.

Katja stands slowly, watching him all the way. “He forced me here, Januscz,” she says. “I swear.”

Januscz rolls his tongue around his mouth, regards her as a rapist might his victim. “Later. We figure all that out later. Once we’ve made the drop and we’re on the mainland and home free. Got it?”