Drawing Dead (8 page)

Is this broad telling the truth?

No chance. But you should see her, a fucking winner if ever there were one.

I could've guessed that Jack.

How so?

He looked out over the water and watched the waves crash ashore for a few seconds. I knew what he was gonna say, so who knew why I’d asked him all innocent and acted like I didn’t.

Come on Jack. We’ve had our pungent drunken talks about it before. You’re a sucker for damsels in distress. Even before whatever happened. You’re an asshole for it. You know that.

I sank the rest of the second beer. I knew I knew something. Deep, deep down I did. Whatever it was didn’t want admitting. So fuck the world my friend.

Oh please brother! Give me a break. Chenko you know me pal. They’re all a piece of ass and I don’t distinguish one from the other. What happened happened and I’ll be damn fucked if I can’t help thinking that it was sorta my fault, but the bitch is dead, and that’s that.

Inside I whooshed out over the large dark sea. Chenko lit me the subsequent cigar and I killed that sucker quicker than the first one. Not to mention the beer I was swilling.

All I’m saying Jack is don’t get yourself in a spot, you know, trying to fix things that are permanently busted.

Give me that third beer.

You’re drinking pretty hard aren’t you?

It’s either that beer or the bottle of vodka I got in the car.

He handed me the beer. I opened it and took a drink. Did a minute or two of my own watching the water with the sun full in my face. The salted wind making a further mess of my hair.

Do you want the fucking job Chenko?

Not sure. Do I really want to be a part of bullshit right now?

The money’s real pal. And fat.

Chenko sapped his first bottle, picked up a second and got started on it.

How do we start?

I took out the photos and handed them over to him. Not all of them of course.

I need the documents as soon as you can.

Chenko looked at the pictures a second.

By God, she’s a knockout.

Didn’t I say that already?

Yes, I have to say you did.

He looked at the photos some more. Then smoked a second. He spoke with the cigar still between his lips.

I’ll need five thousand if you want those papers quick, eight if you want them real quick.

He fixed his hat some and took another drink. I knew he wasn’t adding his own fee into that; he just wasn’t that kinda guy. It was only a pass-off for him, but there was risk involved, hell just being here now was a risk in itself.

I’ll give you ten now, and I’ll throw in another stack if you can get it done and back to me by tomorrow night.

He took the smoke from his mouth, said what I wanted to hear.

Sounds right…anything else?

I thought quickly scanning over the landscape interior and out.

I’ll need some syringes. I can get everything but that.

Chenko took a notepad from his jacket pocket and wrote it down.

I’ll have them for you when I give you the rest of it.

We discussed a couple of other details to do with Evie’s papers. Things that had to be decided on and Chenko wrote it all down. He was a meticulous cat and we covered all the angles. I also inquired as to if he’d heard about any wealth going missing. Evie had to have got it somewhere but Chenko said he’d heard nothing but would keep an ear to the grindstone. When done with that I handed him the ten and he left damn quick without really saying why. He had ten fingers in twenty pies so it didn’t surprise that he had to get. It wasn’t like I really wanted to shoot the shit with him anyway. Told me smiling to stop drink driving as he drove away. I replied with a hearty fuck you.

I got to work on my end then. I had to round up a bunch of shit required to pull this play off. I filled the car with petrol firstly and then started out to some obscure shopping centre where I figure no one would know me. South-east of the city and far, far away from Fremantle. When I’d gotten all I could from there I asked about the whereabouts of and then made it over to a hardware store. I stopped for some coffee first and even had a slice of cheesecake to go with it. I laid off the vodka awhile. Mostly because I didn’t want to forget anything and have to go back for it. Something like that could have sent me into a fit of self-loathing cursing and I didn’t want that happening in public, I had to keep a low profile.

After the hardware store it was about four in the afternoon. I had everything loaded in the boot and had stopped in a park to go over the entirety of it. It was all accounted for. The whole deal was in motion. I knew I could rely on Chenko and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t fuck things up myself. I was just hoping that Evie was doing what I’d told her to and wasn’t straying from the goddamned plan.

It was all easy enough but you just never fucking knew. A man could know a plan like he did his own dick, didn’t mean the entire thing couldn’t turn into a colossal clusterfuck. I’d told her to go to motel on the highway out by the domestic airport. It was a shady stretch at best, frequented by drug dealers and whores and had high turnover rate of guests. One end of the highway was much worse than the other and I’d told her to pick a shitty hotel there and book her ass in. What was most important was that she was remembered. I’d said it would be best to pick one out with a guy at the front desk during the night shift, the younger the better; she could scout around a few if she had to because it was important. Then she should flirt with the asshole as flagrantly as she could. Like a whore trying to turn a trick. Dress up like she meant it and make him almost think he should go knock on her door when things get quiet later on that night. It was imperative that this joker be trying to get one more look at her ass when she came in on the night we made our play, in fact without it the whole thing was shot to less than shit.

I spent that night sleeping in the car like a fucking beggar. Sure I ate take-out Chinese and had my vodka to help me through but it sure was a one hell of a wretched collection of hours. Just real hard sonofabitching work.

I would have stayed in a hotel but I knew these guys had connects all over the place and would have gone around asking about me and for me and it was just too big of a risk now. You pick the wrong place and you’re in a jackpot and I just didn’t have that in me. I parked by the river and watched the city lights flicker atop it when I went for a long, long walk. The star almost sunk. People just living their lives like mine wasn’t in some severe sort of jeopardy. Going for a run, walking the dog, holding hands and the rest of it. Just real everyday bullshit. The machine was oiled well my friends. Spirits crushed and living in the horror. Me or them, take your pick.

All I ever really saw was the myriad glorious shapes of the girl’s swaggering hips and asses. That seemed like some portion of forever. That alone carried some sort of meaningful spiritual weight. The faultless lights shone bright over in the well thought-out city, reflected themselves brilliant on the fast flowing water. Sun strike fading into nothing but intoxicating iridescent blue. I just couldn’t figure on there being much else.

Nothing but their flesh ever seemed true.

Except maybe for a drink and a life that wasn’t this one. I could’ve done with a book in my hand though, maybe my man Louis-Ferdinand, or perhaps Fante, the son.

But who in hell knew. I never really had and probably never will.

I smiled at her as best as I could, a real bitching one, she thought about it for maybe three seconds and then swung it on open for me. It might have been the smile that helped, I put a lot into it, though more than likely it was the friendly reminder of her ass being on the line with yours truly. Either way I was in and following her down to the kitchen. She had on a next to nothing claret-coloured silk number. The kind where ass almost turned to thigh with each step and disappeared just the same. I could see a couple of the bruises she had mentioned on the backs of those never-ending pins.

You want coffee?

No I already had some. You got beer?

It’s eight in the morning.

That doesn’t answer my question now though does it Daisy?

I got up and went to the refrigerator and helped myself. I cracked the beer and took a good thorough swish then sat down at the table.

Come and sit down.

Fuck you Jack, what do you want already?

I need a favour.

I got no money.

It’s not money.

Well what then?

Sit down and I’ll tell your ass.

She did like I told her to that time. She wasn’t lying about it hurting her to sit either, you’d have thought she’d put her ass on a hotplate or something with the wincing she did. And I felt the electric shake run through me with that face she made. That grimace and squeal as her backside took the weight of the rest of her against the cushion atop the wood. Went straight where it always did. My dick so hard I coulda laid it between two chairs and done fifty pull-ups. I took another good pull on that beer then stared at her with what I imagine was fire in my pupils.

I need you to take this to them.

I threw a wad of five on the table. She watched it slide over to her and then made eyes back up at me. Her hair was a sexy mess. Her gaze had that early morning drugged look to it.

That’s it.

She seemed relieved. Reached over for it. I could see her nipples pushing against the silk of that thing. They’d done the very same thing the first time I’d seen her just the other night

That’s it baby.

Is it all for them?

Everybody’s got a fucking angle don’t they?

You take five hundred from it Daisy. And don’t skim any 'cause I’ll find out about it and I’ll make sure they do to.

She counted out the five right there in front of me. Folded it up and slid it under the pot-plant at the centre of the table. The light was starting to come through the windows and a slice of it hit her hair and glinted like it would all silver off a fish just below the water. She smiled at me and scratched her neck. She wasn’t the brightest spark but she sure did look the part.

Make sure you tell them I said I’m good for the rest. And say I’m sorry about what happened, tell them I said I was provoked. Can you do that, Daisy?

Yes.

And tell them I followed you home, that I threatened you, said if you didn’t do this for me that I'd smack you in the mouth or something, you don’t wanna be a part of this mess.