Night Realm (2 page)

Returning his attention to the house
over the road, he saw nothing had changed. The curtains were drawn and he couldn’t see anything inside. Lights burned beyond those curtains.

Would there be any action tonight?
he mused as he sat there in darkness.

This was the third night in a row he’d staked out the man’s
residence. The first two nights had drawn a complete blank. Nothing had happened. Maybe he was being too obvious by parking right across the street, but he didn’t care.

Ryan rubbed fatigue from his eyes. He hated this part of his job. Working cheating spouse gigs w
as almost always tedious, dull and totally uneventful. More than fifty percent of the time it proved to be just wasted time on his part, and wasted money on the part of the concerned client.

This guy’s wife
, Julia, was a nurse. She currently worked the night shift at the Gold Coast Hospital in Southport. Suspicious that her husband may be engaged in extra-marital activities while she was away at nights, she’d called Ryan a few days ago, asking if he’d look into it for her so she could find out for sure one way or the other. Ryan detested these cases, but times were tough and he really needed the cash, so he’d reluctantly agreed to take it on.

His ‘person of interest’ was a forty-two year old named Brad Davis.
Why Julia suspected him of adultery, she couldn’t really tell Ryan when they’d met for coffee to discuss the case and his terms. Just a hunch, she’d said. Women’s intuition or some shit like that.

Ryan chewed tenaciously on his gum, still fantasizing about a nicotine hit.

“God, Brad,” he said to himself. “Don’t be so boring. Do something, anything, before I lose my mind here.”

He may
be bored to death, but at least he was getting paid to sit there and watch this guy, he reminded himself. It wasn’t a love job, a freebie. There was cash in the hand. And how he needed that right now. Business had never been so quiet before. The last few months were a financial killer. The
Global Financial Crisis
- or whatever spin the planet’s politicians wanted to put on it to cover their own inadequacies - seemed to be permeating every facet of life across the globe. Here in Australia it hadn’t been quite as bad as in some countries, but the land of Oz certainly hadn’t been spared, either.

Ryan checked his watch and saw that the
luminous hands were just ticking past nine o’clock. He sighed heavily, leaned back in his seat and arched his back to try and stretch it. He was only twenty-five, but sitting in the one spot for too long still gave him aches and pains and stiffness. Maybe he’d played too much football in high school? Too much sport in general. He’d been a bit of a sports junkie during his teenage years; rugby league, cricket, soccer, triathlons, abseiling, tennis and squash. The only physical activity he indulged in these days were regular gym workouts, and the very occasional game of squash with a mate.

Across the road the lights went out inside the house.

Ryan sighed heavily again. “Great! The boring bastard’s going to bed now.”

A moment later he heard a low rumbling sound. A sliver of light appeared beneath the automatic garage door as it started to open. A car engine fired to life. When the garage was fully open a white Toyota Camry Altise drove out and onto the street, the
garage door closing behind it. Finally Brad Davis was on his way to somewhere.

Ryan started his car and followed. He waited until his quarry
had turned right at the next corner before switching his headlights on. Keeping a respectable distance between them, Ryan tailed Brad onto the Gold Coast Highway, where they drove south toward the plethora of highrise buildings that made up the tourist metropolis of Surfers Paradise; the congested skyline resembling a giant bar graph. It also happened to be where Ryan lived.

Traffic was
heavier the closer they got to Surfers and it was slowing to a crawl. Brad’s Toyota was a few cars ahead. Ryan kept slightly to the right of the lane so he could keep an eye on it, a bulky behemoth of a four wheel drive directly in front of him obscuring his view. A taxi attempted to nose in front of him, but backed off when Ryan blasted his horn. It wedged in behind him instead. Two streets later and the four wheel drive exited left, leaving only a small hatchback between Ryan’s ageing black Ford Falcon XR6 and Brad’s Camry.

The footpaths were crowded with groups of young people heading towards the night club strip. Packs of alpha males, groups of scantily clad females, and some mixed groups all
on their way for a night of drunken bliss.

A drink and a smoke would be nice right now, Ryan thought as he indicated left
onto Beach Road. Up ahead Brad swung right and entered a car park. Ryan waited for several cars to pass in the opposite direction before cutting across the road and driving up to the ticket machine. He pressed the button and a ticket spat out. Tossing it onto the passenger seat he continued on, keeping a distance between himself and Brad. The car park was crowded and it took a bit of driving around before Brad located a free space. Ryan drove past him and found a vacant spot just out of sight in the next aisle. He quickly cut the motor and got out, not wanting to lose sight of his target now that some action was actually happening.

Ryan caught up with Brad out on the street, where it was easy enough to keep himself anonymous amid the crowds that populated the footpaths.
While they waited for a set of traffic lights to give them the
Walk
signal, Ryan kept an eye on Brad from a few metres behind.

He was
a shortish and somewhat chubby guy and didn’t appear to be too heavily into fitness. The man was well-dressed in tailored charcoal trousers, gleaming black leather belt and a long-sleeved, maroon button-up business shirt. He wore no tie and the night was far too warm for a jacket. Gleaming black dress shoes that matched his belt covered his small and stubby feet. He had a full head of black hair with flecks of grey through it.

Ryan himself wasn’t really dressed for a night
on the town, although he could get away with his outfit. He had on faded blue denim jeans that were fraying around the hems, a white T-shirt that was untucked, and his shoes were Colorado casuals of a cream and tan colour. Not exactly Mr Sharp Dressed Man, but it would have to do.

He took in some eye candy as he trailed Brad along Cavill Avenue and then down Orchid Avenue. The beat of dance music emanated from the various night clubs along the street. Interspersed between the clubs and hotels were restaurants and various eateries. Brad was making a beeline for somewhere in particular and he kept checking his watch as they walked, as if concerned about being late. Ryan checked his own watch and saw that it was twenty to ten. Maybe Brad’s rendezvous was supposed to be at nine-thirty.

At last the chubby man reached his destination. He’d stopped at a restaurant called
Roma Italia
. Using his amazing detective abilities, Ryan deduced that it must be an Italian restaurant. Ryan ducked between cars and moved across the one way street, where he took up a position on the other side, leaning casually against a concrete wall that divided the grounds of a resort from the street. From there he watched proceedings in the restaurant.

As was common in the warm climate that enveloped the Gold Coast strip, many
of the restaurants offered both indoor and al fresco dining, as did
Roma Italia
. Brad was shown to an outside table by the host, where he seated himself adjacent to a woman who appeared to be somewhat younger than him. With the distance between Ryan and the couple it wasn’t easy to tell, but his eyesight was pretty sharp and he was good with that sort of thing. She was blonde and looked attractive enough. Being seated, the table was covering much of her body, so Ryan couldn’t really determine what her figure was like. From what he could see of her upper body she seemed in reasonable shape.

So was Brad Davis having a sordid affair with this younger woman? Ryan mused. He
guessed he was probably about to find out.

Brad leaned over the table and kissed her on the cheek. Nothing too sordid so far.

Over
the next quarter of an hour the pair drank a glass of wine each and nibbled on some garlic bread. Nothing much was happening other than chit chat. Some guy beside Ryan was talking rather loudly on his mobile phone. In his free hand he held a smoldering cigarette. The smoke wafted Ryan’s way and the smell of it made him salivate. He had the overwhelming urge to ask the guy for a cigarette, but refrained. He’d been doing well so far. Besides that, he didn’t like sponging off people like some street feral.

Instead, he stepped away a few feet until the smell of smoke was less tempting, then withdrew a small
, compact point-and-shoot camera from his pocket. It had a 15X zoom function and HDR, which made it a handy tool in situations like this. When needing to be a little discreet in public places, this camera was a better option that his big and cumbersome DSLR. Sometimes he just used the camera on his iPhone, but the picture quality wasn’t as sharp and the zoom function nowhere near adequate for the most part.

The man with the cigarette moved on, leaving the air clear and fresh, enabling Ryan to keep his mind on the job, rather than dwelling on the loss of a bad habit. He made out like he was a tourist taking snapshots of the scenery - if you could call concrete and pavement ‘scenery’. While he appeared to be randomly focusing on things via the live view on back on the camera, he aimed the
lens across the street and zoomed in on Brad and the mystery blonde. At the moment they were busily dining on their main course, another round of wines resting on the table in front of them. Ryan took several shots, then panned to the left and pretended to photograph the busy street in general. After that he put the camera away until the couple had finished their food. If they were indeed having an affair, he figured they may start canoodling after dinner. That didn’t happen. Instead, Brad Davis went over to the counter and fixed up the bill. The blonde rose from her seat and waited for Brad outside the portable barriers that hemmed in the outdoor dining area of
Roma Italia
. Brad took her hand when he joined her and together they strolled slowly down Orchid Avenue back towards Cavill Avenue.

Ryan waited until they were a good twenty metres or so down the road before he darted across the street, whipping the camera out of his pocket as he
went. He wanted to get a shot of them from behind holding hands. He manually set the camera’s ISO level high so there was less chance of the images being blurry; which often tended to happen when taking photos on the move. Ryan snapped off five shots, hoping one would be reasonably clear. He quickly scrolled through the previews and decided they were good enough.

The couple went left into Cavill Mall. Ryan had expected them to turn right and
make for the car park, heading back to either his or her place for a sexual romp. Instead, they were walking towards the beach. Sand and sex didn’t go well together, so he figured a couple of their age wouldn’t be planning to get it on down by the water’s edge. Besides, too many police patrolled the sands at night time looking for exactly that kind of activity. On top of that, drinking was banned out on the streets and on the beach. It was a Saturday night and uniformed cops were everywhere.

The mall was crowded. Earlier in the evening there would have been families milling about watching street performers. As the night wore on and the scene got considerably uglier, the families were quickly replaced with swelling groups of revellers. At the end of the mall on the left was one of Australia’s busiest
McDonald’s
stores. Within the store people lined up to purchase some gourmet fast food.

A narrow road divided the city from the beach. Across the other side of The Esplanade stood an arched sign made of stainless steel. The sign simply said:
Surfers Paradise
. Ryan reckoned it had to be one of the most photographed signs, not only in Australia, but in the world. Every tourist coming through town either took a photo of it, or had someone else take a photo of them with it. Hell, Ryan was a local and he’d even had himself photographed standing beneath it!

Brad and his date turned right when they arrived at the end of the mall and ascended some concrete stairs. They appeared to be heading up to a night club called
Bliss
. It was a new club and Ryan had yet to go there. He trailed them up, hoping the bouncers on the door considered him well enough attired to enter.

He deliberately hung back and waited until Brad and the woman were ushered inside, then he casually scaled the remainder of the stairs and stood
eye to eye with the bulky, all-dressed-in-black security guy guarding the door. Pulsing techno music came from within, the subwoofer vibrating the very ground Ryan stood on. The bouncer, who looked to be of Polynesian descent - as was common in Gold Coast clubs - scanned Ryan from head to toe with his keen dark eyes. He hesitated a moment, gave Ryan the once over again, and then nodded towards a counter just inside the door.

“Ten dollar cover charge,” the man grunted.

“But I’m a local,” Ryan protested.

“Ten dollars or you don’t go in.”

Ryan decided not to push the issue, although he usually refused to pay to get into local clubs. Tonight he had an agenda that he didn’t want to blow, so he succumbed, stepped inside, withdrew a tenner from his wallet and handed it to the pretty young woman manning the counter. She stamped his wrist and he went on through.