The Zombie Room (24 page)

‘That’s his place down on the left,’ Sadiq said, pointing across the mostly deserted parking lot to a store that read ‘Hamilton’s Veterinarians’.

‘How do you know him, Sadiq?’ Mangle asked, suspiciously. Sadiq didn’t much seem the type who’d be an animal lover.

‘We used to buy ketamine and some other stuff off of him,’ Sadiq said, and looked around at the worry-etched faces of the others. ‘He does patch-up work as well, for people injured during robberies and shit. Ted’s a good guy.’

This ringing endorsement did little to reassure the others in the car, who would soon be allowing this drug-dealing animal doctor to cut into their flesh.

‘Sadiq, you go, and take Tatiana,’ Tazeem instructed, turning fully in his seat so that she would be able to see what he said.

‘Mangle can go in after you are both done. I’ll go last. Call when he’s finished, and then go wait in the diner, or somewhere with good visibility of the exits, and watch everyone who comes in. Listen for your phones. If anything happens, get away as best you can.’

Sadiq got out of the car. Tatiana followed reluctantly, casting
nervous glances back towards Mangle as they walked across the lot. Tazeem backed up the car and pulled out onto the highway. Mangle watched out of the rear window as a blue Ford sedan that had just turned off the highway continued down the slip road and turned back onto it.

‘The car behind might be them,’ Mangle said. ‘I can’t see who’s inside.’

‘I’m watching it,’ Tazeem said, snatching glances at his rearview mirror every few seconds. He accelerated and pulled into a faster moving lane of traffic. The blue sedan was a few cars behind but it pulled out as well.

‘Surely they can’t be on us so quick,’ Mangle exclaimed. ‘It took a couple of hours for them to pinpoint us at the house.’

‘Yeah, but they might have waited that long so we’d be asleep and easier for them to move on.’

Mangle hadn’t thought of that. He swallowed and looked behind. The blue Ford wasn’t attempting to close the gap but it was still back there. Tazeem veered across two lanes taking the turning off the highway as late as he could. A chorus of car horns voiced motorists’ outrage at the manoeuvre. Mangle looked back anxiously, but whoever was driving the blue car hadn’t attempted to follow.

‘It mustn’t have been them,’ he said.

‘The sooner we get these things out of our arms, the sooner we can stop jumping at shadows,’ Tazeem said wearily.

He took the overpass and started back up the highway.

15

Sadiq introduced himself as a friend of Ted, to a sleepy looking receptionist who seemed barely old enough to be out of school. She put down her coffee and went through a door behind the counter to find him. The surgery had only been open for a few minutes when they arrived and the waiting room was still empty. A moment later the door opened again, fractionally, and Ted Hamilton poked his face around the edge. His initial smile melted when he saw who was waiting.

‘What are you doing here?’ he hissed at Sadiq, and looked nervously around in case someone might witness them together.

‘I need a favour, yeah?’

Ted beckoned and disappeared behind the door. Sadiq and Tatiana followed along a narrow corridor and into a vacant treatment room at the back of the building. Ted closed the door after risking another nervous glance down the hallway.

‘What do you want?’ he snapped, tightly folding his arms.

Sadiq rolled up his shirt sleeve, and pointing at his forearm did his best to explain what he needed doing, without giving too much information. Understandably, the veterinarian was sceptical, thinking Sadiq was either whacked out of his mind on a
cocktail of drugs, or had simply tipped over the precipice of insanity. Tatiana chipped in a couple of times to try and reinforce the believability of what Sadiq said, but he was talking so fast, it was hard for her to keep up with exactly what was being said.

‘So you turn up unannounced, and want me to cut into your arm to retrieve a microchip – just like that.’

‘No,’ Sadiq said, looking impatient, ‘you do me, then her and then there’ll be two others.’

Ted scratched his chin, pondering the easiest way to make the situation go away. Sadiq stood immoveable in front of him, and waited.

‘Even if you don’t believe us, please just do as we ask and I promise we will leave right after,’ Tatiana said calmly, to try and influence his decision-making process.

Ted Hamilton left the room without informing them of his intent either way. Tatiana and Sadiq exchanged looks, but both remained and stayed silent. A few minutes later Ted returned.

‘I’ve told the receptionist to take the morning off and I’ve locked the front door,’ he said, and began scrubbing his hands at a sink in the corner. ‘Once I’ve confirmed this delusion by showing you there’s nothing in there, I expect you both to leave, and tell whatever idiot friends you have coming here to turn right around as well.’

Sadiq nodded. There was no point arguing; he would see soon enough that they were telling the truth. The veterinarian dropped a tray of hastily gathered instruments onto the table beside two glass bottles. He pulled across an overhead Amsco light and clicked it on, flooding the room with its brilliant white glare. Sadiq sat on a chair and presented his arm to Ted who swabbed the area with a cotton ball and medicinal alcohol from one of the bottles. He then took a small syringe, filled it from the other bottle and injected the liquid into Sadiq’s arm.

‘What’s that for?’ Sadiq asked.

‘It’s a local anaesthetic. You may feel sensations of movement after I make the incision but there should be no pain.’

‘Should be?’ he stammered.

‘I’m a veterinarian. I spend my time with cats and dogs and gerbils. I don’t generally work with patients this large that wear clothes, so I’m sure you’ll understand there is a margin for error.’

Sadiq averted his gaze and unconsciously gritted his teeth as he saw Ted pick up the scalpel.

‘Pick up the clamp and gauze and wipe away the blood,’ Ted told Tatiana. Sadiq repeated the instruction while looking right at her.

‘Right here?’ Ted asked as he held the blade over the small red blemish on Sadiq’s arm. Sadiq nodded.

Tatiana’s attention was rapidly switching between Ted’s now cold and professional demeanour, and the flashing surgical steel held in his hand. Ted made a small incision and put down the scalpel. Using forceps he pulled apart the wound and peered inside.

‘There’s actually something in there,’ he said incredulously, and bent over to get a closer look. Taking a pair of surgical tweezers, Ted removed the small capsule from within Sadiq’s arm. ‘What is it?’ he asked, holding it up to the light for closer inspection.

‘Never mind that,’ Sadiq said. ‘Stitch me up and then do her. The others will be here soon.’

Ted carefully placed the capsule into a small glass dish and sewed up the incision on Sadiq’s arm. Before he had finished, Sadiq was already calling Tazeem to tell him to head back.

Ted was finishing the sutures after Tatiana’s procedure when they heard banging on the glass door at the front of the surgery. Sadiq went cautiously to investigate and saw Mangle, hands cupped to shield the reflection from the morning sun, peering inside.

‘Where’s Tazeem?’ Sadiq asked as he opened the door and looked past him.

‘He’s going to drive around for a few more minutes and then double back. He sent me in to get done first.’

‘OK, go through to the back.’

Mangle went through the door behind reception and followed the sound of Tatiana’s voice. Sadiq stayed in the waiting area watching for Tazeem.

Tatiana rubbed at the bandaged, numbed area on her arm as the veterinarian performed the removal procedure for the third time. Mangle watched as Ted used the tweezers and dropped another of the capsules beside the first two. A thin film of blood pooled under them in the small dish.

‘I suppose you will tell me as little as your friend,’ Ted said, looking up at Mangle. He shrugged and said nothing.

Alan Bryson mumbled his thanks to the floral-scented woman who held the door open for him as he left the dry-cleaning store. The bright morning sunshine had done little to elevate his mood; he squinted through it, unimpressed, as he paced back towards his car. This wasn’t supposed to be how his life turned out, not the way he’d imagined his future as a youthful and optimistic cadet. He thought back along his timeline, trying to work out exactly when things started going bad. Had it been one wrong decision that changed everything, or a series of random events that led him to where he found himself today?

His wife did nothing to mask her feelings on his failure to satisfy in his role as provider and husband, and he more than half suspected her of cheating on him. Even when he started to bring in more money she still wasn’t happy, and spent it as quickly as he brought it home. Her upbringing had a lot to answer for. Her father had spoilt her relentlessly as a child and even now at 42 she acted like a teenage princess when she wanted her own way.

Bryson’s focus had switched, though, and he no longer cared what she thought and what she did, or who she did it with. He didn’t even care about his job, and didn’t put in the extra hours to strive for promotion like he once had. He’d begun to squirrel away money for his own future, one that would not include her, and for the time being he tolerated the relentless shit storm that
was his life. Still, he thought, it would be nice if he could catch a break once in a while.

He unlocked the car door and crammed the dry cleaning receipt into his pocket, looking disinterestedly around the sparsely occupied parking lot before he got in. If he hadn’t paused to light a cigarette he may not have noticed the silver Mercedes pull in just across from him, or had time to realise that the licence plate rang a bell. Bryson wound down his window a few inches and exhaled a cloud of smoke that was taken and dispersed by the wind. He tapped his lighter against the steering wheel thoughtfully, and willed his brain into higher gear. Bryson drank a lot of whisky at night, and cancelled it out with a lot of coffee during the day, but so far this morning his hangover fog hadn’t been fed enough caffeine to lift.

Mangle went back through to reception and saw Sadiq still looking out of the window. A maroon SUV had parked up in front of the surgery, obscuring their view of much of the car park.

‘He isn’t back yet?’ Mangle asked. ‘Your veterinarian friend is getting pretty impatient back there. I think he’s eager to get this over with.’

‘I’ll go and see if he’s coming,’ Sadiq said. He unbolted the door and went outside.

Tatiana and an agitated Ted Hamilton came back from the treatment room. He snapped on a fresh pair of surgical gloves in anticipation of the final procedure.

‘What’s taking so long?’ he asked Mangle.

Mangle saw Sadiq approaching the surgery, so ignored the question, hoping that Sadiq had seen Tazeem arriving.

‘He’s gone,’ Sadiq blustered.

‘What do you mean, “gone”?’ Mangle asked.

‘His car is there, he isn’t. So yeah, gone. He even left the keys in the ignition.’

Tatiana unconsciously covered her mouth with both hands, scrutinising the words described by their lips.

‘Where the hell has he gone then?’ Ted demanded. ‘I can’t wait around like this all day. I want you people out of here.’

‘We need to go now, and get rid of those chips,’ Mangle said.

‘What about Taz?’ Sadiq said, although he didn’t look as if he believed hanging around would be a better idea. Waiting no more than a second for an answer, Sadiq ran back into the treatment room and snatched up the bloody chips. Ted held open the door with one arm, and flapped the other, urging them to make haste. ‘Thanks Ted,’ Sadiq said. The door closed and was locked immediately after they departed.

‘What do we do, head out on foot?’ Mangle asked.

‘We take Tazeem’s car,’ Sadiq said, crouching behind the maroon SUV as he slid one of the chips as far up the exhaust pipe of the stationary vehicle as he could. Sadiq stood and hurried over to Tazeem’s Mercedes. The door was unlocked, and after stealing a nervous glance around the parking lot, he got in and started the engine. Mangle and Tatiana got into the back of the car.

Sadiq wound down the driver’s window, pulled forward, and dropped another of the chips into the back of a parked flat-bed truck.

‘How long before they realise we managed to dispose of those things?’ Tatiana asked Mangle.

‘Probably not very long.’

‘So where we go now?’ Sadiq snapped from the front. The tension, combining with his cocaine comedown, wasn’t doing his mood any favours.

‘Tazeem’s lock-up garage. Once we get rid of all of the chips it should be safe to go there, and we need to get Tatiana some clothes and shoes.’

Sadiq pulled out onto the highway, hung his arm out of the window and deftly tossed the last chip onto the back of a truck loaded with construction materials as it thundered past.

‘OK then, which way?’ he said.

*****

Mangle closed the door to the lock-up as Sadiq and Tatiana sat down in the office area, both looking as despondent as Mangle felt. As he walked over to sit in Tazeem’s swivel chair, Sadiq’s phone rang.

‘Yeah?’

‘I may have dialled the wrong phone. I’m looking for the one they call Mangle,’ the voice said in clearly articulated English. Sadiq shrugged, his eyes narrowed as he passed the phone to Mangle.

‘Hello?’

‘Do you recognise my voice?’

It was familiar but Mangle couldn’t immediately place it. The speaker didn’t wait for him to connect the dots, and spoke again.

‘You and your friends caused some trouble in my club last night,’ he said, and now Mangle did recognise the voice. It was Dyson Steiger. So the man he’d played at cards was the owner of The Club.

‘You have something that belongs to me, but now I also have something that belongs to you. In a situation such as this, I feel a trade would undoubtedly be mutually beneficial. Don’t you agree?’