Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 02 - Goons 'n' Roses (17 page)

It wasn’t till I got to the back street that I realised no one else had made it out. Apart from the clown and the orangutan I was all alone.

‘Shit,’ I said, turning back towards the club.

‘Are ya crazy?’ Crafty yelled, grabbing me by the arm. ‘We’re out of ammunition.’

‘That was it?’

‘I told him to put it on manual, but he loves the automatic firing. What can ya do?’

‘He didn’t even shoot at them.’

‘He hates blood. It makes him faint.’

I wanted to go back, but I knew the only thing I’d achieve if I did was my certain death.

‘Live to fight another day,’ Crafty said as he dragged me towards his little car. ‘Boo Boo, you’re in the back.’

‘Crap,’ I said, kicking the curb before hopping into the front. He was right. I felt like a traitor, but he was right. I couldn’t do them any good by being recaptured. I probably couldn’t do them any good alone either, but at least I could try.

Crafty jammed his foot onto the accelerator and we started to trundle up the street away from The Big Blue. Tears filled my eyes as I looked over my shoulder.

And then Crafty’s latest silent-but-deadly reached me. I gasped and covered my nose with my hands.

‘That was scary,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders.

I followed Boo Boo’s example and rolled down my window, poking my face out into the night air. It had the added benefit of them not being able to see the tears trickling down my cheeks. I don’t think Boo Boo was fooled though. A soft, hairy hand reached out to stroke the back of my head.

After a couple of minutes I wiped my face and turned my attention to the problem at hand. I knew the only way I was going to get them out alive was with help. I had to be smart, I had to be brave, I had to be ruthless.

I turned to Crafty and said, ‘So, about these friends of yours.’

Crafty pulled over on the side of the road and while I got out to momentarily escape the fog in the car, he made a few hurried phone calls. Boo Boo climbed out and wandered over to me, taking my hand in his big, soft one and staring silently into the night.

I was trying to maintain my new ruthless personality, but it was a bit hard to keep it up with the silent sympathy from the ape oozing over me. I wondered how much of what was going on he understood. Did he know I was going to put his and Crafty’s lives at risk for the sake of my family?

‘Chanel,’ Crafty barked from the car, ‘let’s lock and load.’

I climbed back in the front. ‘You know you have to have ammunition to do that don’t you?’

He looked slightly abashed before saying, ‘Yeah, just always wanted to say it.’

This man was putting his life on the line for me. I didn’t want him to, but I was going to let him. The least I could do was humour him. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘let’s lock and load.’

He pulled back out onto the road and headed towards the Stratosphere.

‘Banjo, Melvin, Ruffles, Sammy and The Rock are in.’

‘The Rock?’

‘World’s strongest man.’

‘That could be handy.’ I stared out the window for a minute while I thought about what we were going to do. ‘Do they know who we’re going up against? I mean the full extent of it?’ We were planning on raiding a stronghold populated by both the Italian and Russian Mafia. What were we thinking?

Crafty glanced sideways at me. ‘Yeah I told them.’

‘Did you tell them they could wind up dead?’ I drew the line at accepting help from people who didn’t know what they were getting into.

‘I rang those five for a reason. We all have personal vendettas against the Mafia.’

‘What happened?’

He let out a big sigh before saying, ‘The six of us owned a club. It was a small one, but we made good money. The Mafia decided they wanted it. We refused and they burned it to the ground.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Ruffles’ pet monkey was in there.’

I felt ill thinking about the poor monkey, alone in the club as the smoke spread and the flickering flames got closer. If that had happened to Cocoa I would want blood too.

It didn’t take long to reach the Stratosphere. Crafty pulled into the hotel car park and stopped the engine.

‘That’s it there,’ I said, pointing at the building across the road. Two black cars were parked out the front.

Within a few minutes another car turned into the car park and stopped next to us. Two clowns hopped out. They opened the trunk of their car and pulled out a unicycle and a pair of stilts.

‘This is Ruffles and Banjo,’ Crafty told me.

Banjo strapped his feet into the stilts and stood up, reaching back into the boot of the car for a baseball bat. He swung the bat from side to side like a player warming up.

Ruffles jumped onto the unicycle and rode over to us, balancing with ease on the single tyre. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said, bobbing his head at me.

A black car with flames painted down its bonnet raced across the car park and screeched to a halt. A tall, thin man in a flowing, black coat glided out of the driver’s seat. He reached back in and pulled out a thin cane and a top hat. He planted the hat on his head and then strode towards us.

‘Fair lady,’ he said, swooping into an elegant bow, ‘we thank you for the chance to seek revenge for past wrongs.’ He swept the hat off his head, plunged his hand into the opening, pulled out a bunch of colourful flowers and offered them to me. I stared at the flowers in horror; the last think I needed now was to start sneezing.

‘What’s she going to do with them?’ Crafty said, knocking the man’s hand away. ‘She’s going into battle.’

‘Sorry,’ Crafty said to me, ‘Melvin gets a bit carried away.’

I looked at Melvin and said, ’You’re not a clown?’

Seemingly unoffended, Melvin shoved the flowers back into the hat. ‘Melvin the Marvellous at your disposal.’ He held his cape out to the side and executed another graceful bow. When he stood back up he said, ‘I’m a magician.’

A tiny car turned off the road and puttered towards us; one side of the undercarriage almost grazing the road. It stopped about twenty metres from us and the front passenger door flew open, causing the metal of the framework to creak.

The largest man I had ever seen sat in the passenger side. His head, tiny in comparison to the girth of his shoulders, popped out first. It was followed by one shoulder and then the other and then he appeared to become stuck.

The driver’s side door opened and a clown I was guessing was Sammy jumped out and ran around to the other side. ‘Get out you big lump,’ he yelled.

The six of us hurried over to the small car where The Rock was struggling to get free. He got first one leg and then the other out, but his body was still wedged in the door frame.

‘Don’t you hurt my car,’ Sammy yelled.

The Rock planted his feet firmly on the ground and stood up, the car hanging off his back like a tortoise’s shell.

‘Holy shit,’ I said.

‘Put it back down, back down,’ Sammy shrieked. He reached into a voluminous pocket in the side of his clown outfit and pulled out a wooden baton. ‘So help me I’ll beat some sense into you.’ Sammy swung the baton and smacked The Rock on his head. It sounded like a coconut being opened.

‘What the…’ I said, heading for Sammy.

Crafty grabbed my arm and shook his head. ‘He may be the World’s Strongest Man, but there’s not much in that head to damage,’ he said. ‘Just watch.’

‘Hurt,’ The Rock said slowly. He turned away from Sammy, the body of the car swooping towards us. I squealed and dodged out of the way of the bumper bar.

Sammy darted in again, this time clocking The Rock on his knee.

‘Owww,’ the huge man cried.

Sammy made one last pass, his baton a flurry of activity as it flicked and whipped and thwacked.

‘Ouchy,’ The Rock bellowed. He roared and pushed both his arms out through the door, reaching out to grab Sammy. His shoulders popped out of the doorframe and the car crashed to the ground, balancing precariously on two tyres before finally toppling down onto all four.

‘Works every time,’ Sammy said, shoving the baton back into his pocket.

‘You have to do that every time he gets out of the car?’ I asked.

Sammy nodded. ‘It makes finding parking spots difficult but hey,’ he shrugged his shoulders, ‘what are ya gunna do?’ He walked over to The Rock and gave him a hug.

‘Sammy love Rocky?’ The Rock asked.

‘Of course. Where would I be without my little bro?’ Sammy said, knuckle-rubbing Rocky’s head.

The wonder of watching the World’s Strongest Man in action had momentarily wiped our reason for being there out of my mind. Now it came flooding back.

‘All right,’ I said, ‘we need to get moving.’

‘What’s the plan?’ Crafty asked.

‘I’m working on the theory that they won’t think I’m stupid enough to come back alone. So I’m going to go in the back door and see if I can sneak everybody out.’

‘How will you find them?’ Sammy asked. He had the baton back out and was smacking it into the palm of his left hand. He looked keen for action.

‘I know where they’ll hold them.’

‘What do you want us to do?’ Ruffles asked. He was sitting on his unicycle, effortlessly rocking forwards and backwards.

‘Hopefully nothing, but if you hear anything that indicates they’ve caught me, it’s up to you to save the day.’ As my plans went, this one was pretty complex.

‘Fair lady, we wait with baited breath and hopeful hearts that you will need us to come to your rescue,’ Melvin said.

I smiled at him, but seeing as how
my
needing to be rescued meant
my
being caught first, I wasn’t so keen on him getting his wish.

‘Right let’s go,’ Crafty said. He took Boo Boo by the hand and started walking across the car park towards the building on the other side of the road.

Sammy was right behind and Rocky lumbered along beside him. Banjo followed, surprisingly nimble on his stilts, and Ruffles rode circles around the group.

‘After you, fair lady,’ Melvin said, sweeping an arm after them.

Geez Louise, what had I gotten these men into?

I sent up a prayer that we would all live through the night and then I hurried to catch up to my unlikely band of heroes.

***

The back door was locked. I couldn’t believe it. I turned the handle more viciously, willing it to open.

‘Move over,’ Crafty whispered, elbowing me out of the way. He pulled a small bag out of his pocket and selected a long thin tool. Then he pushed the tool into the lock and wiggled it around for a few moments before there was an audible click. He reached out and twisted the handle. This time the door opened.

‘Where did you learn that?’ I whispered.

‘Wasn’t always a clown.’ He winked at me before backing out of my way.

‘You stay here,’ I clarified, ‘unless you hear me screaming.’

I took a deep breath and then stepped through the back door of the building into a dimly lit kitchen. Dirty plates and cups sat on a table. I moved slowly through the kitchen to the far door which opened into a hallway. The ambient light coming through the kitchen window only reached part of the way down the hallway. I crept slowly, hoping my eyes would adjust to the dark, but for that to happen there needed to
be
some light to adjust to, and after the first five metres there was none.

I stopped and took a deep breath, trying to calm my heart which felt like it was going to fly out of my chest.

‘Next time I go on vacation,’ I thought, ‘I’m going to choose a nice, boring destination, where the most difficult thing I have to do is decide which cocktail I want next.’

I held onto the thought that there would
be
a next vacation as I walked into the darkness of the hallway. Running a hand along one wall, I placed my feet slowly, carefully in front of each other, making sure each foot was secure before placing my weight on it.

I was praying that
this
corridor was the one that opened up onto the area where the trap door was, because I didn’t want to use my torch until I was in the dungeon with the trap door hiding the light.

But it was so dark. And no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t stop my imagination. A floor board creaked underneath my foot and I froze, hot and cold ice slithering over my skin. The prickles had barely subsided when I heard a rustling sound coming from one of the rooms opening off the hall. What if there were someone in there? What if even now they crept towards me…

I tried to stop my mind, but it was racing with my heart, terror nipping at their heels.

A hand reaching out in the dark to grab my arm. No – it would clamp over my mouth to muffle my screams. And before I had a chance to fight, it would be over. It would be too easy,
way
too easy, to creep up behind me and slit my throat.

Would it hurt? Would I feel the pain as my blood drained out of my body? Would I even know it had happened?

I stopped in the hallway, panting coarsely as the memories came. Slowly, I slid down the wall and wrapped my arms over my head, trying to hide.

He would find me, he would. There was no way out. It was a dead end. If only I’d gone to the restaurant instead of coming up the alley. If only I’d stayed in Hickery.

Footsteps coming towards me, coming to find me, coming to end me.

I cowered against the wall with my eyes closed.

And then I remembered.

He was dead.

Roger was dead, and
I
had killed him.

He couldn’t get me.

He couldn’t hurt me.

He was dead.

I could feel my heart beat slowing. I took a deep breath and then another as I stilled my mind. And then suddenly, inexplicably, I felt calm flow over me.

‘Fuck you Roger,’ I whispered into the dark. And then slowly I opened my eyes.

I had only been back on my feet for a few moments when this time I really
did
hear someone coming down the hallway from the front of the building. I stayed very still where I was, praying they weren’t after a midnight snack.

‘How are we going to dispose of the bodies?’ Barney asked.

I was too late. Oh my God, I was too late!

If ve kill vone a night, it vill be much easier,’ Boris said.

I sagged against the wall in relief. They hadn’t killed them yet. I still had time.

The sound of their shoes changed and I realised they were going up the stairs. That was going to be the risky part. Unlocking the trap door and getting down the stairs without someone accidentally coming across me. I was hoping the Universe was going to give me a break. Surely at some stage it had to.

I waited till I heard them creaking across the floor above me and then I hurried the last few steps into the opening where I knew the door would be. Arms spread wide, I walked straight ahead until I felt the floor change and I was standing on the rug. As quietly as I could I dragged the rug to the side, feeling around for the large ring on the door’s surface. I twisted it and tugged on the door, sighing in relief as it lifted soundlessly. Then I crept down the stairs far enough to lower the door back over my head and switched on my torch.

The room was how I remembered it except for one small change – the fold-out chairs had been removed. I hurried to the first door and opened it, shining my torch inside. Martine sat with her back to the wall, Duct Tape over her mouth and cable ties around her hands and ankles. I couldn’t understand why her eyes were so wild until I realised that although I could see her in the beam of the light, she couldn’t see me.

‘It’s Chanel,’ I whispered.

Her body went limp as she sagged against the wall in relief.

‘Mmmm hmmm nnhhmmmm,’ she said.

‘Hang on,’ I said. I was going to enjoy this part. ‘There’s really no way to make this pretty,’ I said. ‘So I’m going to count to three. One, two…’ I grabbed the corner of the tape and ripped it off her face.

Her expression contorted in pain but she didn’t make a sound. She was a hell of a lot tougher than I was.

‘Are you crazy?’ Martine whispered when she had recovered. ‘Coming back here alone?’