White Dog (29 page)

‘I accept,’ I said.

He hacked to clear his throat. ‘You’ll let this business go? Forever and a fucking day?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s over. Forever.’

‘What kind of records you kept?’

‘Just some stuff in a file. Not much.’

‘Notes, that kind of thing?’

‘No, I don’t keep many notes.’

‘Where’s the file?’

‘Where I was staying.’ I said Linda’s address. ‘The key’s in my pocket. You can go back and get it.’

‘And this tape?’

‘It’s from Mickey’s lock-up.’

‘Huh?’

‘Mickey’s lock-up. Near the airport.’

‘How’d you know about that?’

‘Found out today. It was in Sophie Longmore’s name.’

A whistle. ‘Well, fuck. How’d we miss that? You’re a clever boy, Jack. Watched this tape?’

‘No, haven’t had a chance.’

‘That’s good, that’s good. What else you find?’

‘Nothing. There’s a Maserati, some paintings, few pieces of furniture.’

‘Right. So you’ll draw a line under this now?’

‘Yes. I will.’

‘You see, Jack,’ he said, ‘that’s how easy it could have been.’

‘It would be nice to have the handcuffs off.’

‘Jeez, sorry, forgot. Happy, get the cuffs off Jack.’

The fat man beside me pushed me forward, stuck a hand in, cursed, pulled at my right arm. My right hand came free, I brought my arms around my body, blissful relief.

‘What happened to Katelyn Feehan?’ I said, straightening my arms, elbows cracking, the cuffs dangling from my left hand.

‘An accident,’ Stedman said. ‘Bloke got carried away, hurt her. Tiny little whore, too small to be a whore, could pass for thirteen.’

‘The body was never found.’

‘Funny that,’ he said.

‘And Wayne?’

‘Gimme a smoke,’ Stedman said to the man beside him. A hand offered a cigarette, lit it with a lighter.

‘The fucking Dilthey,’ he said around the cigarette, oozing smoke. ‘Unreliable prick. Can’t have a cunt like that knowing anything you want quiet. Just outlived his usefulness.’

‘And he killed Janene?’

‘Put her in a hole, the dumb fuck said. Some fucking dog will go in and find her one day. Should’ve taken care of it myself but, busy night, can’t do everything.’

He didn’t know about Janene. She was safe.

‘I don’t understand about Mickey,’ I said.

‘Out of hand. Blow for breakfast, lunch and dinner but he wants in, he wants to play with the big boys. Then he threatens he’s got the goods. Exit visa that second. Date stamped. But not a bad bloke, Mickey, good head on him when he was straight, talk sense into arseholes. As at the fucking River Plaza that night. One minute the pricks are knocking back the Dom and sniffing the happy snow, then they’ve got a fucked-up whore problem, freeze like bunnies in the light.’

I had a clear picture of the whore, Katelyn Feehan, in the photograph Janene’s mother gave me, taken on the day of the excursion to Gippsland. I saw Wayne and Janene and Katelyn, the three of them, going down the highway in the Porsche. It must have been a good outing, an agent and his models, all doing nicely.

‘Why not just knock him?’ I said. ‘Why set Sarah Longmore up for it?’

‘Can’t just knock the cunt. Too many fucking questions, you just knock him.’

‘But Sarah’s trial was going to raise a lot of questions.’

Stedman glanced back at me. Even in the dim light I could see the contempt. ‘Mate, mate,’ he said, ‘you know fuck-all, don’t you? The bitch wasn’t ever going to trial.’

How stupid I’d been. Sarah was always doomed, we could never have saved her. The point of the whole business was to provide an explanation for Mickey’s death that could never be disproved.

We were slowing, Stedman turned off the highway, climbed a hill on a dirt road. My feeling of relief was gone.

‘So, can we do a deal?’ I said, trying to keep a whine out of my voice.

‘Deal’s done, mate,’ he said. ‘Just dropping in here to see about some business, take you home.’

We went up and down hills under a near-full moon, the road got worse, corrugations gave way to bumps and potholes that were too much even for the expensive vehicle’s suspension. The headlights gleamed on water in the holes, lit up the stringy trees on both sides.

A sick feeling was growing in me, acid rising. We rounded a corner.

‘Look for a fucking skull and crossbones,’ Stedman said. ‘From now. On the left.’

Inside a few hundred metres, the man next to him said, ‘There.’

I saw it in the lights as we turned, a tin sign nailed to a tree, crudely painted, white on black. It said:
NO ENTRANS KEEP OUT TRESPASERS DIE
. We drove along a pitted, wandering track, downhill for three or four kilometres, climbing for a few minutes, going to the right, then over a ridge and down steeply.

‘Here fucking somewhere,’ said Stedman, and the headlights picked up a parked vehicle, an old Dodge truck. There was also a white Valiant, rust patches on the boot. Stedman parked between them, lights on a corrugated iron building. He hooted, two sharp blasts.

Two men appeared, one short and broad, wearing a beanie, the other tall and thin, stooped, hair to his shoulders. The short one had a full beard.

‘Chokka and Jimbo,’ said Stedman. ‘Ferals. Fucking animals. Jimbo’s the proof that fathers shouldn’t root their daughters.’

He got out, stood with the door open, cold coming in, the sound of dogs barking. ‘Where’s the fucking stuff?’ he said, no greeting.

Jimbo turned and went from sight. Chokka walked over. He was wearing denims near-black with dirt, a filthy upper garment. Bits of dried food were stuck to his beard.

‘G’day,’ he said. He smiled. Tooth stumps.

Stedman closed the door. He walked away with Chokka, around the Dodge, out of view. I breathed out. This was just business, dodgy business, drug business almost certainly, but it didn’t involve me. The three of us sat in silence.

Jimbo appeared in the lights, carrying a bag, half-full, yellow, an agricultural-looking bag, fertiliser, poultry feed. He looked around. Stedman and Chokka came out from behind the truck. The threesome walked towards us, went behind the vehicle. The rear door opened, I heard the bag going in, the door thunked down.

Stedman got back in. ‘Totally scrambled, Jack,’ he said. ‘Apes would be fucking insulted to be related to these idiots.’

He engaged reverse. ‘Let’s go home,’ he said.

I breathed out, a full breath. It was going to be all right, there was going to be a way out of this.

My door opened, two hands grabbed my head, pulled me, I had no resistance, went sideways, fell to the ground, hands dragged me away from the vehicle, I felt a huge weight on my chest, someone sitting on me.

‘This is the end of this crap,’ said Stedman. ‘Fucking circle closed. Look in his pockets, Chokka. Keys.’

Hands groped me, found Linda’s keys.

I couldn’t breathe, I tried to fight, the weight was overwhelming, schoolyard bully weight.

‘Cheers, Jack,’ said Stedman. ‘The boys’ll look after you. Great tradition of hospitality out here, not so, boys?’

The men made spitty, guttural noises.

‘Don’t fuck him without foreplay,’ said Stedman. ‘Grease him up with the WD40.’

‘Bagga fucker,’ said Chokka.

They pulled a bag over my head, my shoulders, dragged me by my feet, twenty, thirty metres over hard-packed dirt, through a doorway, handcuffed me to something.

‘Have a sleep,’ said Chokka. He pulled the bag off me. ‘Getting up fuckin early, right, Jimbo?’

Jimbo laughed, a high-pitched nasal sound, somehow both childlike and chilling.

They left, slammed a tin door. Jimbo was still laughing and the dogs were still barking. I didn’t move for a while, lying on my back, hands held behind my head, elbows at eye level, fear and self-pity pushing everything out of mind, shutting down my brain. Then I began to feel the cold – fierce cold, the ground beneath me, the air.

Suit pants and a cotton shirt, thin socks. I would die of cold before any other fate could befall me.

I could see my breath. There was light from a small window, just four panes, smeared, cobwebs moving.

Light from where?

Moonlight, it was just off full moon. You didn’t always notice the moon in the city, it wasn’t a city thing, the moon, superfluous to city requirements.

What were they going to do to me?

Kill me.

I felt the thing I was handcuffed to. The leg of something, I could make it out, a bench of some kind, steel pipe legs. I wriggled away until I could slide the cuffs down to the ground. If I could lift the bench …

The leg didn’t terminate. It curved. The legs were one length of pipe, bent upwards to meet the top. I wriggled back and ran my hands up. There was a flange: the pipe was bolted to the top, two bolt heads.

I wasn’t going to escape. I was going to freeze to death or I was going to live until they came for me and killed me.

No.

I got my palms under the benchtop, pushed, I didn’t know what I was trying to do, I was trying, that was all that mattered.

I could not move the benchtop a single millimetre.

What else?

I squirmed around and tried to get my legs under the bench, use the strength of my legs to do I knew not what. I couldn’t. There was something in the way.

Think.

I thought.

I tried things, hopeless, pointless, stupid things, my wrists were painful, I thought I could see blood staining my shirt-sleeves. I ached everywhere.

At length, I stopped trying to free myself, lay, shivering, teeth clicking. A kind of numb peace came upon me and I slept, dreamed I was lying on the ground and someone was kicking me in the side. I tried to sit up and couldn’t.

I opened my eyes, felt another kick, higher, in the ribs.

‘Fuckin wakie wakie,’ said Chokka. ‘Bag him.’

Jimbo lifted my head by the hair, pulled a plastic bag down to my shoulders. I panicked, shouted, inhaled, exhaled, smelled my stale breath.

The handcuff was off my right hand.

‘Geddup, fucker,’ said Chokka. ‘Gotta shotgun here, any shit I blow your fuckin balls off.’

I stood up, my hands were cuffed again, behind me, someone pushed me. I walked, collided with something, the door probably, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible, feeling the plastic being sucked in, moist air in the bag, something jammed against my spine, a gun muzzle. I walked, stumbled on something, a hand pushed me sideways, changed my direction, no idea of distance covered.

My collar was gripped from behind, stopping me, the bag pulled off my head.

Air. So sweet, so clean.

Dogs barking, close, metres away.

The muzzle in my back.

‘Said to just fuckin shoot ya, bleed ya, crush ya in the stampmill, chuck ya bits in the acid,’ said Chokka. ‘Gotta acid bath here.’

‘How much,’ I said, ‘to let me go?’

He laughed, a choking sound, ending in coughing, hawking, spitting. ‘Howsabout fifty?’ he said.

‘Fifty’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll go to fifty grand.’

The terrible ruined laugh again. ‘Nah, mate,’ he said. ‘Fifty fuckin million, mate, how’s that? Go to that, fucker?’

I was seeing now, the moon, cloudless sky, was it near dawn? It was freezing, my whole body seemed to be shaking. We were on a level surface, concrete, between sheds, a dark hill opposite. The ground sloped away sharply. A machine to the right, the height of a truck. This was a mine perhaps, long ago.

Jimbo came around the corner to my left, two dogs on short leashes. One was big, white, it could eat from a kitchen counter, the other was below knee-height, brindle, broad, round head, low centre of gravity, some kind of pitbull cross. The dogs pulled away from Jimbo, came back, collided, the big one snarled, I saw teeth.

‘Big boy’s not blooded proper,’ said Chokka. ‘Just roos. Little fucker’s the killer. Bought him off a fuckin slope, killed so many dogs the other slopes won’t let him fight anymore. Turns out he’s also a fuckin tracker, gets a scent, nose fuckin down, he’s off. Go anywhere too. Run up a tree after a possum, straight fuckin up like he’s goin up stairs, the fuckin poss looks back, big fuckin eyes. Bang. They fall out of the tree, he’s got it.’

Jimbo brought the dogs up, let the small one sniff my legs, held the big one back. It bared its teeth at me, widely spaced fangs like a fish trap. I stepped back, felt the muzzle press.

Jimbo laughed, the deranged child sound.

‘Happy, boy?’ said Chokka, the voice of a father. ‘More fun than the girl he brung, hey? Whadya reckon, Jimbo?’

Jimbo dropped his head shyly, long strands of filthy hair covered his face. When he raised his chin, threw back his hair, he was looking sideways, embarrassed. Snot was running from his nostrils and he put out a long reptilian tongue and licked it into his mouth.

I felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature, cold in the core of my body.

‘Was the girl still alive when he brought her?’ I said.

Jimbo looked at me, head tilted. I could see the whites of his eyes.

He was smiling. He nodded. ‘Smelt nice,’ he said.

My arms were pulled back by the handcuffs. I heard the snick, they were free.

‘Run, fucker,’ said Chokka.

I didn’t know what to do.

‘Five minutes’ start,’ he said. ‘Howzat? See if you kin run faster’n these fuckin dogs. Fair go, hey, mate?’

Jimbo squealed with sexual pleasure.

Chokka kicked me in the base of my spine. The shock went into my skull. I stumbled a few paces, fell to my knees.

‘Go, fucker!’ Jimbo screamed. ‘Go! Go!’

I got up and ran into the dark, downhill, down the bare slope, there was a path, slippery, leather-soled shoes, I fell, got up, slipped, fell, rose, ran, got off the path, there was grass beside it, it was less slippery, a terrible pain in my left knee, it was of no consequence whatsoever.

The dogs wouldn’t kill me. They would maul me. I would be alive when Chokka and Jimbo arrived.

So it wouldn’t be over.

Only that part of the entertainment would be over. I would be alive.

Like Katelyn.

Get off the path, idiot.

I veered right, into the scrub, the moon was gone, ran over roots, ran into something, a tree, stunted thing, hit it with my right shoulder, spun around, fell over, got up.