The Killing Hour (23 page)

He stops thrashing the briefcase, swings his arm back and throws it high in the air. It hits the roof of the supermarket and doesn’t come back down. He leans over the bin and starts shaking it, pulling it from side to side, wrenching it back and forth until it tears from the bolts, leaving jagged holes in the bottom. He holds it high above his head for a few seconds, then throws it at the supermarket doors. It bounces off with a metallic thud, the dents in it stopping it from rolling away once it hits the ground. He picks it back up and throws it harder. This time the glass cracks. The third throw gets it through the glass doors. The alarms are instant.

He walks back, leans against the car and watches the supermarket.

I turn around and study the service alley gate. Three metres tall and made up from chain-link wire. I’m sure I can scale it without being heard over the alarm. I do just that, climbing it like a large spider. I follow the alley until it circles towards the back entrances of the shops in the mall. I scale another fence and hit the ground in some industrial section, perhaps a panel beater or wrecker —— it’s too dark to tell exactly. Then over another fence and into somebody’s backyard. I climb into a park, and start to circle my way back towards my car. By the time I get there two police cars are parked in the carpark but probably no Cyris. With thousands of dollars on the front seat I’m lucky not to be walking home right now. I guess it’s a school night for all those joyriders out there. I do a U-turn, pissed off that I let Cyris get ahead of me, but what could I do? Wait for him to stop breaking glass doors then run after his car?

I keep my foot on the accelerator, hovering between seventy and eighty. I can’t afford to be too late. Cyris already has ten minutes on me and I doubt he took his time driving to Frank’s. I also doubt there’s anywhere else in the world he’d be going right now.

I wonder if I’m already too late.

40

There’s no other traffic, no reason to stop at any red lights. Cyris sure wouldn’t have. He’s fuelled with rage just as I was fuelled with despair the other night. I’ve raced these lonely streets before, but the fuel that has me speeding is different from the mix that burned through my veins on Monday. I don’t get lost on my way to Frank’s house, not like Monday morning, and when I turn into the street the first thing I see is the silver Mercedes still parked on the side of the road. Maybe it’s purely for show.

I drive past Frank’s house and glance in. Lights are burning inside but I can’t see his Mercedes. It’s probably in the garage. I pull up two houses further down. Jo’s car isn’t here, at least not that I can see. Either Cyris has been and gone or he isn’t coming. I kill the engine, kill the lights, and wait. I look around the street for any signs of life but it seems like life in this expensive street has died since I was here earlier. I look at my watch. It’s nearly one o’clock.

I stroll over to the house, knowing that slow movement attracts less attention. I don’t pause at the cobblestone pathway, I stroll up it as if I live there. The front door is open. No signs of forced entry. Coming here is tearing open a recent memory.

No tyre iron, no shotgun and I left the stakes in the car, so with nothing to defend myself I step forward and stand on the threshold of the hallway. On the threshold of Monday’s memory. On the threshold of a new horror to come. I stand still and listen but there’s nothing, so I take a few more steps and repeat the same procedure and get the same result. I put my hands in my pockets where they’ll be safe from touching anything. You can tell, when you step into a house whether it’s empty or not, and this house has that feeling, even though I’m sure Frank is home. I could just turn away and read about it in tomorrow’s paper but I need to see this. I want to see this – to see what has been done to the man who orchestrated the deaths of two beautiful women.

The lights are glowing in the lounge and it’s here that I find him, lying on his stomach with his head twisted, his arms spread in front of him, the carpet beneath soaked in blood. My breath catches at this sight and I suddenly realise why. I have killed this man and the feeling doesn’t make me feel sick or guilty. I have killed him, not directly, but as surely as if the metal stake protruding from his chest was placed there by my hand. I step closer and kneel down. The anger I feel towards him hasn’t diminished at all just because he’d dead. If anything I actually feel like kicking him. I’m not sure what that says about me, and I’m not sure I really want to know.

Frank has that distinguished look you see in middle-aged doctors on TV. His wire-rimmed glasses have been knocked askew, his eyes are open and reveal irises that are more yellowish then green. He wears a grim look on his face that death is managing to hold in place, a look that tells me the end didn’t come easy. There is a thin line of blood and drool slipping from the corner of his slightly open mouth. The edge of a piece of paper is sticking from between his lips. I reach forward and grab hold of it, and when I pull, his mouth doesn’t even move, but his lower lip is dragged backwards, his suddenly revealed teeth giving him the smile of a skull. The hundred-dollar note is damp. I unscrew it, my fingers getting wet. I read the message I wrote across it earlier. ‘Come near me and I’ll have you killed.’

I hide it in one of my many pockets, then jam my hands into two of the others. I turn around, studying the room. Expensive furniture and expensive gadgetry and nice paintings … I guess it’s true when they say you can’t take it with you, even though at this point, with his arms spread, it sure looks like Frank’s giving it a go. I call out for Kathy but she doesn’t answer. I can’t feel her with me and I’ve suddenly never felt so alone.

‘You deserved worse,’ I say, and Frank doesn’t answer. He doesn’t concede the point, or argue it. He just lies there looking pissed off, and I guess I can’t blame him. There’s nothing more I can do now until tomorrow night, until my meeting at the pier.

Slowly I drive home. I’m in no hurry to be anywhere. I pray Cyris isn’t taking his disappointment out on Jo and figure he can’t afford to. He’s lost his payment from tonight and won’t risk losing the fifty grand he thinks he’s getting from me tomorrow.

I brace a chair beneath the handle of the back door in an attempt to lock it. It’s getting close to two o’clock. Looks like it’s going to be an early night. Tonight didn’t go to plan: the idea was to follow Cyris back to Jo. I should have gone to the police last night when I got back. Should have gone the moment we walked out of that paddock while Cyris was still lying on the ground. I stare out the window at the dark sky, and for once I will be asleep before seeing the purple light of the killing hour. Dawn will arrive and I won’t see it. Evil will be here and I’m yet to see his best work.

41

My cellphone pulls me from a world of dreams into a world of nightmares. I reach from beneath my blankets and walk my fingers over the nightstand until I find it. When I pick it up I don’t bother wasting any ‘hellos’. It can only be one person.

‘Hey, arsehole.’

Cyris isn’t a morning person. I think back to Frank’s body and decide that Cyris isn’t much of a night person either. ‘Yeah?’

‘You got the money?’

‘I got it.’

‘You better show up, otherwise I’ll …’

‘Yeah, I get the point. I’ll be there.’

‘It’s a hundred grand.’

‘What?’ I ask, sitting up. ‘What in the hell are you talking about?’

‘You heard me.’

‘No, because it sounded like you said one hundred grand. That wasn’t the deal.’

‘It’s the deal now, partner.’

‘I can’t get that sort of money.’

‘Get it.’

‘I’m not a bloody bank. We had a deal.’

‘So did I, with somebody else. Deals get broken, partner. Get used to it.’

‘That’s not my fault.’

‘No, but it’s your problem. Listen, I’m not an unreasonable man. You come with fifty grand tonight, and I give you an extra couple of days. It’s like layby. I’ll keep the goods while you keep on paying.’

I try to think how I could get that sort of money. If I actually had to. I try to sound as if I’m really struggling to come up with an idea but of course it isn’t a problem. Frank helped me out there. ‘I’ll take out another mortgage on the house,’ I lie. ‘I’ll get the hundred.’

‘See? No longer a problem.’ He hangs up and my cue to start the day has arrived.

I pull back the curtains to a typical summer morning. I have a fast breakfast containing nothing healthy before dumping the plastic bag of money onto the dining room table and counting it out. It takes me over thirty minutes and the final result is one hundred dollars short of one hundred grand. One hundred grand divided by two. That’s how much Kathy was worth. How much Luciana was worth.

I put the money back into the bag, walk to my bedroom and add another hundred dollars from my top drawer before hiding the bag in the ceiling. The rest of the money from my top drawer I stuff into my pockets along with the note I found in Frank’s mouth. I lock the house and make a mental note to ring somebody about the door as soon as I can.

It’s nearly midday, the sun already well on its way into a cloudless sky. A warm nor’west breeze blows across my face, suggesting the day will only get hotter. I have so much summer cheer it’s bleeding from my pores.

I climb into the rented Holden and push my thumb in on the cigarette lighter. I back out of my driveway and pause outside my house. I realise I haven’t even checked my mail for the last few days so I still don’t know what that kid jammed into my letterbox on Monday. There’s a whole bunch of other stuff in there now. Bills, probably. Perhaps some junk mail, crap like pizza vouchers and shop brochures. The cigarette lighter pops back out. I hold it against the hundred-dollar note. It starts to melt and I hold it out the side of the car as it shrivels away, surrounded by black smoke. Then I drop it on the road and run it over.

For the entire drive into town I contemplate the value of life. Jo is going to cost me a hundred grand, exactly what Kathy and Luciana cost Frank. Saving a life is twice as expensive as ending one. It’s all about supply and demand. Economics. You get what you pay for.

I get a park directly outside the gun store recommended by the army surplus guy with the flabby upper arms. When I approach the shop I keep glancing around the street to see if anybody is watching me. I don’t know who I’m looking for. Cyris, maybe. Or a cop. Another Landry. I swing open the door and step inside. A buzzer goes off somewhere letting staff know I’ve entered the premises. There are rows and rows of guns that look impressive, as though they could solve a lot of problems in this world. The air-conditioning is turned on full, the motor humming in the background. There are no customers, just one man behind the counter reading a newspaper with news in it that I helped to make.

I approach him but he doesn’t look up from his paper until I reach the counter. He looks around forty years old, a tall man with a joined eyebrow that makes the bridge of his thick glasses look like they’re growing a beard. His smile disappears when he sees the working over I’ve been given.

‘Morning, sir. What can I do for you today?’ He manages to sound both polite and unhelpful. His finger is holding the place where he’d been reading. He obviously wants to get straight back to it.

I ask for the name the five hundred dollars bought me.

‘I’m Arthur,’ he tells me, but he doesn’t sound excited about it, and looking at his eyebrow I don’t blame him.

‘I want to purchase a firearm.’

‘Oh? For hunting?’ His smile brightens at the prospect of a sale but his finger doesn’t move from the paper. It will brighten further when he sees what I have in mind.

‘Something like that. But I want something lightweight. Something I can carry easily.’

‘Well, we have a few nice weapons over in the cabinet here that might be ideal. We’ve got the Blaser R-93 bolt-action rifle, takes a three-shot magazine.’

‘I need something smaller.’

‘Well, sir, it depends on what you’re hunting. There isn’t a lot below forty inches. The reason for that …’

I stop him there. ‘Listen. Floyd sent me.’

He pauses for a second, then finally moves his hand away from the newspaper. He adjusts his glasses and through the lenses his eyes narrow. ‘Floyd? You’re the man he spoke to yesterday?’

‘Don’t I fit the description he gave you?’

‘What is it you want, mister?’

I point to a picture of a pistol on the wall. In the picture it is stripped down. The parts are labelled. I can make out a few of the words. Firing pin. Slide. Breech block. Safety mechanism. If he gave me that exact pistol in that condition I’d be screwed.

The salesman turns and looks at the picture.

‘That’s a Colt Combat Elite,’ he says, not quoting from the poster. ‘Fine pistol. Not available here. Never available to anyone without a licence.’

‘Floyd gave me a licence.’

He gives me a funny look. Scrolls his eyes over me. Up and down, slowly, taking in the beatings I’ve had this week. ‘What kind of trouble are you in, mister?’

I shrug. ‘No trouble. I just want a pistol for home. For self-defence.’

‘They’re illegal to use anywhere but a firing range.’

Again I shrug. ‘I’m prepared to pay for quality.’

I leave it at that. Let him make up his own mind.

‘You say you’ve got a licence?’

‘Right here in my pocket.’ I pat the side of my jacket.

‘Can I see it?’

I pull some money out and slowly flick through the notes like a card dealer showing off. His eyes never leave it. I put the entire amount on the counter and split the deck. I leave half there and the other half I hold onto. I can hear him getting ready to drool.

‘You get the rest of the licence after we’ve made a deal.’

‘How much is that?’

‘Ten grand in total. Floyd told me that’s what you’d charge.’

Arthur looks from left to right. His eyes hold on the door for a few seconds as if he’s mentally trying to lock it, then he looks out the windows with the iron bars running down them. Nobody around. He swings his eyes back on me. I say nothing as he fights with his temptation. Greed wins out. It always will with a guy like this. Without breaking eye contact, he sweeps the money into his pocket. He’s decided I’m no cop. Cops don’t have this sort of money to play with.