Heller's Regret (33 page)

“Where’s Heller? How can I reach him?”

He didn’t even miss a beat. “You can’t reach
him. He’s out of contact range.”

“You didn’t answer my question, Clive. Where
is he?”

“How am I supposed to know? Nobody does.”

“Bullshit. I don’t believe you for one
second. You know exactly where he is and what he’s doing. Why won’t
you tell me? I need to speak to him.”

“I don’t know where he is,” he repeated in a
slow, patronising voice.

“I don’t believe you. You’re his right-hand
man. He tells you everything. Just let me know where he is,” I
reiterated, my anger building up a nice head of steam.

“I don’t know why you’re so convinced I know
where he is, because
I
–
don’t
–
know
. Is it
possible for that to sink into your brain this time? I’m tired of
this conversation.”

“Don’t be so condescending to me. If I find
out you’ve been lying, I’m going to go nuclear on your arse, and
that’s just for starters.”

“Ooh, I’m trembling in my jocks at the
thought.”

“Shove it, Clive.” I slammed down the phone,
a pointless gesture as I had to pick it up again to press the
end-call button.

Determined to push thoughts of Heller and him
from my mind, I returned to my computer. It had been a day since
I’d checked my email and I had a few straggling sympathy emails to
answer.

I also had five emails from Dixie, each
sharing equally lovey-dove pictures of her and “Mr Perfect”.
Perhaps she was too blinded with love to notice that Mr Perfect
didn’t quite have his full attention on her.

I didn’t want to talk to her at the moment.
I’d rung and emailed her to let her know about Dad’s funeral. I’d
thought she’d want to pay her respects because she’d known him
since high school, and he’d done his fair share of chauffeuring us
around everywhere when we were younger. I hadn’t reached her by
phone, so had left a voicemail that she’d never returned. I’d never
had a response to my emails either.

Not interested in her love life right now, I
deleted all the emails she’d sent me. Maybe Brian was right and a
good, hard dose of reality was what she needed to break through her
self-centred crust.

I had an email from Will as well, with
attached photos of his baby and one of his now very pregnant wife,
Penny. I took a quick squizz at the baby pics, unsuccessfully
scouring my memory for her name, before deleting the email without
answering. I really wasn’t in the mood to write positive emails to
anybody about anything, not to mention I wasn’t interested in
anything Will did anymore. I now felt my life was divided into BDD
(before Dad died) and ADD (after Dad died), and Will was a distant
part of my life BDD that I no longer cared about.

I fell asleep with tears on my cheeks and my
pillowcase, not sure if they were for Dad or Heller or for both of
them.

Chapter 24

Farrell waited patiently for me in the
security section. The men muted a bit when I stepped in the room,
so I guessed news about Dad had travelled around.
What a
surprise.
I followed Farrell silently down to the basement
where he managed to snare one of the newer fleet 4WDs, a smooth,
high-performance, deluxe ride much coveted by the men. Competition
was strong to not be the last team out on a job, because then you’d
be stuck with the old bone-rattler, the granddaddy and most
primitive and least desirable vehicle in the
Heller’s
fleet.
After a day driving in that beast you had to book your
physiotherapist for an extra long session of remedial massage. I’d
thought to myself a million times that surely it was due for
retirement, but I sometimes wondered if Heller spent good money
keeping it operational as an incentive to the men to not be late
leaving for a job.

“What did you think about this assignment
when Clive told you about it?” I asked Farrell.

“I’ve done weirder jobs. This one should be
tame.”

“That’s what you said about the jewellery
job,” I noted drily.

“No job ends up being tame when you’re
involved.”

I half-smiled. “Somehow I don’t think that’s
a compliment coming from you.”

“I like tame. It keeps me alive.”

“I like tame too. It just never seems to work
out that way.”

“Heard that you and Clive have had a few
barneys lately.”

“We don’t see eye-to-eye on things.”

“He’s trying to look out for you.”

I shot him A Look. “Sure he is. More like
he’s trying to control me.”

“That’s an impossible, thankless task.”

“Ha, ha, ha. You’re hilarious, Hugh.”

We waited for a red light to change, watching
the office workers crossing the road, hot cups of takeaway coffee
in one hand, mobile phone clamped to their ear with the other.

“Look at them, the poor buggers,” Farrell
opined. “Spending all day stuck behind a desk, dying of boredom and
killing themselves with inactivity.”

“Not your kind of job?”

“Nope. I like to be moving, using my body and
testing myself.” He eyed me speculatively. “And not your kind of
job either, unless I’m reading you wrong.”

“You aren’t. The only time I worked in an
office, I almost threw myself out of the window, I was so bored.
Staring at the computer all day drove me insane. And the gossip!
Unbelievable. People were telling me about who was sleeping with
who about five minutes after I started. Yuck!” I pondered for a
second. “Mind you, the gossip wasn’t as bad there as it is in the
security section. You guys are shocking. Especially when it comes
to gossip about me.”

“We’re a bunch of guys and we find you
interesting.”

“Interesting in what way?”

“You have boobs and the boss is hot for you.
What’s more interesting than that?”

“I refuse to even dignify that with a
response.” That raised the hint of a smile from him, which in
Farrell terms was almost a choking laughing fit.

When the light finally changed, he said, “I’m
really sorry about your father, Tilly. My sympathies to you and
your family.”

I looked down at my lap, willing away the
tears that sprang into my eyes. Was this how it would be from now
on whenever someone mentioned Dad to me? “Thank you, Farrell.”

“It’s all very raw for you now, but it does
get better in time, believe me. I lost my father about three years
ago from bowel cancer. It took him very quickly, so we didn’t have
much time to prepare for it. He was a fine man and a great loss to
my family and his community. I thought I’d never heal from that
because it happened around the same time my wife left me. A
terrible low point in my life. I started to believe I’d never be
able to scrabble out of that darkness.”

His eyes were hard to read behind his
sunglasses. “Farrell, I’m really sorry. That’s a tough double
whammy for anyone to face.”

He gave a dismissive gesture with his
shoulder. “That’s life. Kicks you harder in the nuts when you’re
down and out.”

“Yep,” I said. “I haven’t had much in my life
to smile about these last couple of months.”

“I’m sure things will be better for you when
Heller returns.”

I stared out the window. “Whenever that
is.”

“One thing that’s a hot topic for discussion
in the security section –”

“For gossip, you mean.”

“– is whether or not you know where Heller is
and if you’re in contact with him. I reckon you don’t and you’re
not.”

“You’re spot on then, because I haven’t got a
clue where he is. He doesn’t tell me anything. But I have strong
suspicions about Clive. I think he knows.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Heller and Clive are a tight team. Clive’s
with Heller for every dodgy thing he’s involved in. He’s like
Heller’s right hand man. Or his henchman.”

“I wouldn’t say that in Clive’s hearing.”

“Do you really think I’m that stupid?”

“No, but you do have a temper on you,
woman.”

“I might have a temper, but I don’t have a
death wish.”

Our conversation, such that it was, ended as
we turned into the familiar carpark of the convention centre. The
last time I’d been here really hadn’t been too much fun.

“Ready to meet the virgins?” I asked.

“I only hope they’re gentle with me,” he
replied, deadpan.

I snorted with laughter so loudly I drew the
startled attention of an unloading minibus of what I assumed were
conference attendees.

The organisers had booked one of the centre’s
cavernous halls for the conference. When we opened the doors, a
trio of officials, a man and two women, warmly welcomed us, smiling
broadly. It didn’t take long to realise the trio were permanently
upbeat.

Hmm, maybe I should have cherished my
virginity for much longer if it made you so chirpy with life. The
man and one of the women, Tom and Miriam, introduced themselves as
a married couple, “blissfully wedded for twelve glorious years”
according to Tom.

“You’re
married
?” I asked.

Miriam laughed. “That’s right. We’re not
virgins, but we’re born agains.”

“Born agains?” I asked. “Religious
people?”

“No, born again virgins,” Tom explained.
“People like us decide to relinquish sexual activity in their
lives. We’ve been abstinent for the last three years and we’re
loving it.”

“But you’re still married?”

“Absolutely. We’re more in love than
ever.”

Farrell and I exchanged a discreet sceptical
glance. I’d never been married, or even had a relationship that
lasted twelve years, but perhaps couples became disinterested in
sex after all that time together. Sounded like a grim prospect. To
me, it was like stripping away one of the fun parts from a
marriage, leaving you with nothing behind but bills and
housework.

Tom and Miriam instructed us in our duties.
It was the usual routine for an assignment like this – checking
tickets, keeping out unwanted people, and generally maintaining
order. Tom clarified that while they didn’t expect any trouble with
the attendees, hecklers had interrupted the last conference.

“Can you believe people just turned up to
‘make fun of the virgins’?” Miriam asked heatedly.

Tom nodded. “There are a lot of people who
take this lifestyle choice seriously. It shouldn’t be the brunt of
crude jokes from layabouts.”

The second woman, Harriet, nodded her
agreement vigorously. She’d been born with a large head and long,
thin neck and I watched in fascination, worried her neck would snap
with the force of that movement.

“Anyone without a ticket will be turned away
at the door,” said Farrell. “If they disagree with us, we’ll
courteously escort them to the conference centre exit. If they
continue to make a fuss, we’ll call the police. That’s our standard
practice and we make every effort to be as unobtrusive as possible
when dealing with difficult people.”

“Excellent, excellent,” said Tom. “I knew
we’d made the right choice going with
Heller’s
, even though
it’s smaller and more expensive than other security businesses.”
Harriet nodded in agreement again.

“Heller only employs the best staff,” I threw
in helpfully.
Except for me
, I added in my mind, but they
didn’t need to know that. Farrell was worth two
Heller’s
men, so he was a good cover for me on any job.

Miriam decided to give me a tour of the
centre’s facilities, even though I tried to tell her I’d worked
here a number of times before and knew where the bathrooms and
emergency exits were located. Harriet trailed in her forceful wake,
nodding at everything she said, as if Miriam was some type of sage
guru dispensing sacred truths instead of someone telling me about
the leaking toilet in the third cubicle.

“Is the virgin movement a faith-based one?” I
asked.

“Oh, no, not necessarily,” Miriam assured,
Harriet shaking her head so hard her ponytail went flying all over
the place. “Naturally we do have a lot of religious members, but
they’re from many faiths, not just Christianity. And then, of
course, we have members who believe in the virgin movement for
other reasons. We welcome everybody to our movement.” Harriet made
a vague gesture with her arms that I think was meant to signify
their encompassing of all the virgins in the world.

“I noticed on your website that your
attendance numbers at this second conference are decidedly higher
than the first one.”

“Yes, isn’t that wonderful? We’re
so
thrilled. And of course, the benefit of that is we’ve been able to
attract some very prominent champions of the virgin movement to
sponsor our conference and even to speak to members. These are
very, very exciting times for us.” Harriet bobbed her head
enthusiastically in complete accord.

Miriam proudly brought me back to the foyer
outside the entrance of their hall to show me the ‘refreshment
station’. In reality, it was a couple of rickety collapsible
tables, covered with paper tablecloths and crowded with urns of hot
water, bowls of tea bags, sachets of weak coffee and sugar and
three jugs of milk helpfully labelled full-cream, lite and skim. A
carton of soymilk stood next to them. Foam cups and napkins were
stacked in neat towers next to the spoons. Plastic cups surrounded
a couple of pitchers of chilled water.

Attendees began to swarm into the foyer,
hesitant to be the first to approach the refreshment station until
someone else broke the ice. Miriam heartily told them to help
themselves. Harriet nodded, mimicking Miriam in extending her hand
out towards the tables in invitation. Miriam ushered Harriet to
another couple of folding tables where nametags for all attendees
were neatly set out in alphabetical order. I gave them a mental
tick for being organised.

Farrell joined me at the doors to the hall,
ready to check tickets. Attendees followed a predictable path,
drifting from the refreshment table over to Miriam and Harriet to
find their nametag, then over to us. When asked, most had to fumble
around to pull their conference ticket from their handbag, pocket
or wallet.