Hot Zone (Major Crimes Unit Book 2) (14 page)

'Thank you,' I say. I don't qualify it. I don't really want
to talk. In a roundabout way I'm thinking of how I'm going to greet my husband
when he gets into the airport. Meeting him in the arrivals area. Me, pissed and
hung-over at the same time, swaying in the midst of happy families waiting on
loved ones. He'll breeze in, kiss me on the cheek, trailing a suitcase on
wheels because he's never lifted anything heavy in his life, unless it's maybe
his bank balance.

Do I have a right to complain? I'm comfortable, aren't I?
Isn't that enough?

I wonder if I'd be just as happy alone with a bottle of
cider as alone in a too-big house with expensive wine.

Probably. I think that's as close to an answer as I can
get.

Probably.

'Terminal Four, love?'

'Thank you,' I say again.

When I get out of the taxi, I realise they're the only two
words I said to the taxi driver the whole trip.

IV.

It's one in the afternoon, so I go and sit on my own in the
airport bar and order a Tia Maria and Coke to sober up. The Coke bit, not the
Tia Maria. The alcohol's there so I don't start feeling tired. Or sober. Or
something.

Fuck it, though. It's Boxing Day, my husband's coming home.

I don't think I'm entirely happy or unhappy about it,
either way.

'Excuse me...do you mind...?'

I turn my head and there's a man around my age, maybe,
smiling with good teeth and kind of waving at the stool at the bar beside me.

Brilliant, I think. Some crap pick-up in an airport bar?

I could do worse, I think.

Then, sadly, another thought tags along.

I already have.

I nod, and notice he has a bit of trouble getting into the
seat. It's high, and there's something wrong with his leg.

'Do you need a hand?' I ask.

'Funny you should say that...I'm in a bit of trouble. To be
brutally honest...I'm desperate,' he says.

I look at him. I'm British. I don't run away when people
prove a little odd. We just kind of raise our eyebrows. I'm a public bar. There
are plenty of other people around.

'Go on,' I say, expecting some flaccid chat-up, or some
kind of begging sob-story about needing a ticket to New York to see his dying
mother or...

'I've got a kilo of drugs stuck to my balls and I can't get
the bag off...wouldn't have a pair of nail clippers or the like handy, would
you?'

To be honest, as chat up lines go...that's one of the
better ones. I wasn't walking, anyway. I laughed.

'That's good,' I say.

He smiles. 'Actually...I really do.'

V.

I'm pretty drunk, so it seems like a laugh. But it's not.

'Go on...I'm curious enough to wait for the punch line...you're
good so far,' I say, downing my drink and ordering another, which he pays for
along with a crap lager that he grimaces at when he drinks it.

'I swear, worst beer I ever tasted in this place.'

'Come here often?' I say.

'Hey, that's my line.'

He's got twinkling eyes, full of humour. Also, as I
mentioned, I'm drunk and very unsatisfied on the home front. I don't tell him
to piss off. At the very least, it's a good distraction.

'But, yes,' he says. 'Yes I do. Will you hear me out? I
really need help...I'm straight as I can be. I'm in so much shit...I just need
a hand.'

'A hand, eh?'

'Not like that...well...a little bit like that. But just a
pair of clippers or...' he shrugs. 'Honestly, I just thought a good-looking
woman like you might have something in her bag, like scissors or something.'

'You think I carry a pair of scissors around in case...I
want to cut my hair in the car?'

'Ah, no, then?'

'I've got a nail file.'

'That'll do.'

'It's blunt. Are you really carrying drugs strapped to your
balls?'

I ask him this out of pure curiosity, in a low voice, like
all of a sudden we're conspirators in some great airport game.

'I have. It's a long story and you won't believe me.'

'I might,' I say. 'I'm pretty drunk.'

As I say that, I realise it's true. Of course I'm drunk. If
I wasn't, I wouldn't be talking to a stranger about his balls in an airport
bar. It's not really my thing.

Not until today, I correct myself. Who knows what your
thing might be tomorrow?

'Earlier today, a man gave me a fake passport and a plane
ticket, told me he's got my sister in a house somewhere in London. He showed me
a photograph, so I'd know it was for real.'

As he says this, he's not smiling or twinkling. He looks
afraid.

'My god...'

'I know. He tells me I've got to take these drugs through
customs...give them to a guy on the other side, who'll take them onto a plane.
Then, I'm going to get a photo with my sister somewhere public, safe. I'm up to
my neck in all kinds of shit...I can't go to the police...I'm worried
they'll...hurt her.'

'Can't you tell airport security or something?'

'I don't think so...I wouldn't be surprised if I'm being
watched...'

'If you dump the drugs?'

'I thought about it...on the way to the airport. I even
picked up a bag of sugar on the way in. It's in my carry on. That's what I'm
planning on. I'm going to swap it. They can't see me in the toilets, right?'

'I'm confused,' I said, honestly. My head was swimming from
the drink (we ordered a third one) and I really, honestly, didn't get this
man's reasoning. His face, though...he looked earnest, honest, worried...almost
like he might cry with worry for his poor sister.

What was I going to do?

'If I can switch the bags,' he said. 'Then I can maybe
bargain...or...something. These Eastern European gangs...they sell women, you
know?'

'No?'

'Prostitution...that kind of thing...I...'

A tear leaks from his eye. 'I can't trust them...got to get
my sister out. She's...so innocent...'

'Switch, then...how are you going to bargain?' I'm in, I
realise. The thought of a woman used like that...

'Use the real drugs to get her back...swap...her, for the
drugs.'

'I'll help,' I say. 'Come on. There are toilets in
here...follow me.'

'I can't go in the ladies' toilets,' he says, like suddenly
he's shy.

'Then we'll use the men's. Come on.' I hiss the last two
words, but I'm pissed and probably shout them.

I'm drunk, so when the nail board doesn't work, like I knew
it wouldn't, I get down on my knees and use my teeth on the packing tape
wrapped around the poor man's blue balls.

VI.

When he takes down his trousers, his balls are actually blue
from having the circulation cut off. There really is a hefty bag strapped round
them with thick, tough tape, going right back to his hairy behind.

I hand him the nail board, and he winces, looking away from
me like a man probably does when he has a prostate exam. Men are pussies about
things like that.

He tries, bless him, standing there wincing while he tries
to get the board between tape and nuts, but the tape's tight and he's never
plucked errant hairs from his privates before, or had a Brazilian wax at the
hands of a sadistic beautician.

'Oh, give it here,' I say. My hands a bit shaky, and I'm a
bit rough.

'Fuck! Jesus!' he shouts and I get the nail board all
snapped off right there, somewhere between his balls and his arse. He's dancing
around, suddenly, and his trousers fall all the way to his ankles and I realise
he's actually hoping, rather than doing a weird jig.

No wonder he struggled to get to the barstool...he's got a
peg-leg.

'Oh,' I say. To be honest, I'm more shocked at the sight of
his wooden leg that I am at the sight of his blood-starved scrotum.

'Motorbike accident,' he says, bouncing from his good foot,
then back to the wooden one, trying to extricate the rough nail board from his
nut-sack.

I haven't got anything else, the man's disabled, his sister
is prisoner to some kind of Eastern European slave gang...and he's got a nail
board stuck somewhere extremely uncomfortable.

'Stand still,' I say, and get to my knees and use my teeth.

It's far from the worst thing I've ever done.

'Oh...Jesus,' he says while I'm nibbling away somewhere
around the back of his balls, and when the tape falls free I go to stand up and
his cock sticks in my ear.

'My...' I say.

'I'm so sorry,' he says. It's an impressive hard-on.
'Blood...sudden rush of blood...how embarrassing.'

If he thought I was going to do anything about it...he was
seriously wrong.

He tucked himself away, looking even more uncomfortable now
he's got a burning erection making a dent in the front of his trousers.

'This is so embarrassing...I can't...I can't apologise
enough.'

'As embarrassing as a woman having to take packing tape
from your balls with her teeth?'

'Yes,' he says. 'Good point.'

'Think of your mother, in the nude,' I said. Usually that
works.

'What? Shit...what?'

But the tent's going pretty damn fast.

'There,' I say, pointing. 'And...er...good luck?'

What's the appropriate parting remark to a stranger who had
their balls all over your face? Cheers?

'Thank you,' he says. 'Thank you so much.'

We part ways.

VII.

My husband isn't there, in arrivals. I wait. I don't get a
call. I call him, on his mobile phone, and I don't get an answer.

I think about the man with the peg-leg, idly wondering if
that was the last stiff cock I'd see for the rest of my life.

I wait in a small, uncomfortable seat for an hour.

He's not coming, I tell myself finally when I see the last
of the passengers pass through arrivals. People hug and kiss and smile.

I don't.

I get a taxi and pay cash from a small purse I keep in my
pocket for just that reason (I've been mugged for my handbag before. A good way
to remember not to keep all my eggs in one basket) and go to a hotel, because I
can't face another night alone in my stupidly large house.

When I get to the hotel, I don't have any luggage, of
course. I don't have much at all, but I have a credit card. I reach into my bag
for find my credit cards to pay from the hotel. I find my credit cards where
they should be, in my purse. But something else, too. A bag of drugs weighing,
I should imagine, around a kilo.

The 3rd
Day of Christmas

The
Peg-Legged Man

I.

On the third day of Christmas, 27th of December, I feel much
like most of the country, I suspect; stuck in that odd hinterland between
Christmas festivities and New Year's celebrations. Plenty of people are
probably drying out. I'm looking for something a bit more...moist. I drank my
way through the hotel mini-bar in the room the night before. Now, nine in the
morning, I head down the stairs to pay the tab with the barman/concierge. My
head feels a little like one of those wobbly heads attached to a stick body,
like you see on the dashboard of some cars. Mostly, I drink wine or spirits,
sometimes something else...but I don't mix. My half-best-friend Mandy tells me
all alcohol's the same, that it's psychological, thinking a certain kind of
liquor has a certain effect. Like champagne makes you like horse racing, or
Stella makes you beat your wife, or gin makes you want to cry and frig old men
for a shilling in the 1700's or some such.

Mandy's not much of a drinker, though. It's not
psychological, this wobbly head. It's entirely the result of drinking gin,
vodka, rum, scotch and brandy.

Call me old fashioned, if you will, but it seemed like a
damn fine way to get the taste of peg-leg's salty balls from my mouth.

But, like a bad meal, it seems peg-leg is going to keep
repeating on me for a while, because he's standing at the front desk as I hit
the bottom step. He's talking on his phone, not looking my way, and I really
don't want to see him. I'm not cripplingly shy...but you know how it is. The
morning after...not so much as a box of chocolates waiting on the pillow...

Instead of an awkward smile and a muttered 'good morning',
I throw myself into a corner and knock my head on a giant plant pot with a
rubber plant in it, made of rubber. The pot's not made of rubber. The rubber
plant's made of rubber. The pot's really hard. There's a wickedly loud dinging
sound, like I just prayed to a Tibetan god or something.

Dazed, I scuttle into the corner, still vainly attempting
to hide, and my head's spinning and my ears are ringing, so at first I'm not
sure what I'm hearing as the man walks from the front desk, past my really
ineffectual hiding place, to the door.

'Yeah...you were right...fucking hell...didn't think anyone
was that gullible.'

There's a pause, filled by whoever's on the other end and
the constant dinging that reverberates around my hollow head.

Gullible? He's talking about me? What?

Bag of drugs...Eastern European gangsters...?

Who the hell would make something like that up? Why?

'Yeah,' he says in response to a question. 'Just cheap
shit. We can take the hit. Ketamine, but cut to fuck. No great loss.'

The other person says something. Peg-leg laughs again.

'Man,' he says as he reaches the door. 'Old bird had some
teeth on her, though. Right under my sack...'

He laughs on the way out of the hotel.

There's a different ringing in my ears, this time. Like
blood, pounding. At first, I'm not sure what it is. Then I realise. It's been
so long, I've been so drunk, so god-damn miserable...I've forgotten what it
feels like to be good and angry.

Gullible...I fess up to that one.

But 'Old bird?'

My face must be bright red as I finally totter over to the
front desk, and smile my best for the young lad behind the counter. He looks
like he's a little bit afraid of the crazy, hung over, possibly still drunk,
red-faced middle aged woman before him.

I don't blame him.

II.

'Excuse me, young man,' I say. I think I'm slurring. I'm
still a bit drunk, I think, and my head's spinning, too. I slump, half-over the
counter, and he leans back...like he wants to escape, but politely.

Old bird, I think.

'That man...I just found his wallet, dropped over there?' I
put a question on the end of the sentence, like young people do, hoping he'll
understand English if I wrap it up in manageable chunks.

'If you leave it with me, ma'am,' he pauses to smile with
nice, tidy teeth. 'I make sure he gets it when he comes back.'

Comes back? Hmm.

I imagine, in an instant, many scenarios. Not one way to
get the concierge to let me into peg-leg's room, or to find out his room
number, even. And if I could, I'd need the key card to get in...and...

He wasn't paying the bill if he's coming back...so...he was
dropping off the key card?

'If you leave it with me, ma'am?'

He sounds patient, as though I'm an imbecile. Apparently,
my thoughts are slower than I think. And maybe I am gullible and an idiot, too.
But I'm still good and angry.

'Just give me the key card!'

I think I'm speaking reasonably...but I shouted. I know
this because of the terrible pain in my drunken, bashed-up head, and the way
the lad looks terrified.

Ah...

'I'm so sorry...young man...it's the change...I used to use
tampons, now it's all HRT and Vaseline and vibrators.'

He goes pale. Perfect.

'Yes, been a long time since I've had a good seeing-to...my
room's...' I pause, look at my own key card theatrically, '731. I don't suppose
you'd consider giving me a little...room service?' I even wink. He's mortified.
I lean over the counter, showing him a fair amount of cleavage and possibly a
hint of nipple, too, as my bra bunches up.

He looks like he's going to bolt.

'I...ah...I...'

'Or, you could give me that nice man's room number and key
card,' I say, plucking his smart phone from where he left it on the counter.
'And I won't send...Macy...a picture of my tits. How's that?'

Fait-fucking-accompli. Men can be pretty dumb in the
full-beam of a pair of tits. Young lads are just men that haven't had the
practice at fumbling around for a decent line.

'You...wouldn't...'

He doesn't know I don't have a clue how to take a picture,
but I know well enough to read who the text he was sending was too, and I read
quickly enough to guess 'Macy' is his girlfriend. It's not Sherlock Holmes or
even Miss Marple...too many kisses, 'xxx', to be anything but in love or very,
very hopeful.

'Wouldn't I?'

'Third floor,' he says. 'I can't give you the...'

I point the phone at my boobs with one hand, and pull my
top down a little further with the other.

'Yes. Yes you can.'

He does. I take the elevator up to the third floor with the
key card in my purse. Turns out I'm staying a little longer than intended.

III.

Thinking all men are nothing but pubescent teenagers at the
mercy of a goodly cleavage could get me in serious trouble in peg-leg's company.
He's not a man like most others. He's a drug dealer, at the least. Maybe
something worse.

I wonder, as I slide the card into the electronic
lock...has he killed people?

Women?

Children?

Would a woman or a child make it worse than if he'd killed
men?

Why am I thinking about this?

In the elevator up, the hot-head left me, and the shivers
set in.

I've been done-up like a kipper. Mum would've said
that...probably will, soon, because I'll tell her this. I tell her stuff like
this. She's my mum.

Gullible...yep. A fool, too. A man made a fool of me. It
hurts, probably because I'm thinking of another man that's made a fool of me,
and the fact that if he'd been home like he was supposed to be none of this
ever happened.

So, he called me an old bird?

I can live with that. Now the anger's gone, I think I can
definitely live with that.

But for some reason, even though I'm thinking all of those
things, I realise that I'm in a closet, hunkered down, waiting for peg-leg.
I've got a bag of drugs in my handbag, last night's clothes on, and I need the
toilet.

IV.

What, I wonder, is the world record for a woman holding her
water?

I once held onto it for the entire flight to the
Philippines, on the way to Melbourne. I think that was near to fifteen hours.
World record?

Probably not.

Men would be surprised what a woman can do. It's not all
Tena lady and false eyelashes.

I don't wear a watch. I have a phone, but it beeps when I
turn it on. I never had reason to stop it doing so before. I think I manage a
couple of hours. My legs are cramped, my head hurts, I'm hung over and angry
and afraid, all of which are making me want to go more.

Finally, I give in...and as I make the choice, my pelvic
floor already sighing in anticipation, the room opens and peg-leg comes in. I
know it's him, because it's his room, but I can hear his awkward, clomping,
gait, too.

I feel stupid and afraid and stupid and in about one minute
my 'revenge' is going to culminate in me pissing myself in his closet.

V.

He clomps into the bathroom. He runs water from the tap.
That helps with the battle against pissing myself, really.

I hate this man.

He comes back and it seems he filled the small cheap white
plastic kettle, because immediately I hear the angry sounds of cheap plastic
expanding.

Then he mutters to himself.

'Right...time for a nice, big shit.'

Really? Men tell themselves it's time for a shit?

But that's good, right? Men shit for hours. Men shit longer
than women shower.

My legs are numb, I don't know if I can make it from here
to the kettle or if he's going to read or do the crossword, perhaps he'll play
a hand of Minecraft, or slap his pickled gherkin around or whatever, maybe
while he's thinking about this old bird's teeth on his nut sack.

And bam, I'm angry again.

The door to the bathroom stays unlocked when he goes in,
but he shuts the door at least.

Now...

There's not going to be a better chance.

I push open the door carefully, concentrating on holding in
a drunken middle-aged wee, and fall straight onto his bed when my numb legs
refuse to do anything.

Fuck. Fuck.

Fucking fuck.

My legs are entirely dead.

The kettle's not far. I drag myself, desperately listening
for the sound of his plop, but the kettle's masking the noise of me flailing
about and the splash I'm waiting for that will say time's up far less
eloquently than I'd like.

I've had a long time to think, stuck in the closet.

I know what ketamine is. What I don't know is how much to
give peg-leg. I never really thought about it before getting in his closet. I
never really thought about much. I was being a bit of a knob, as Mandy would
have said. But then she's not much of a drinker, she's got three kids and looks
perfectly, beautifully tired all the time. I love her, just as much as my other
half-best-friend Nicola, but they don't get me. Not all the way.

I'm tired of being dumped on.

There's a plop, at last, as the kettle clicks off. I pour
the entire contents of the bag into the kettle, my legs are burning like they're
full of hot pins, I'm thinking about just giving it all up and pissing on his
bed and to hell with it.

But that thing that Mandy and Nicola don't get won't let me
do that.

I close the kettle lid with a snick, the equivalent of a
bag of sugar filling it, but it's not sugar. I thud to the floor and roll under
the bed.

VI.

Shit on a stick.

When the man comes out of the bathroom, the smell wafting
and him kind of humming, too, it seems he didn't bother with trousers. His
foot, with a sock on, is there, as is the hairy leg that fills it. But only
one. The other leg consists of a wooden foot attached to the end of a false
wooden leg. He sits on the bed, inches from my head (and I hope he left his
underwear on, at least...the thought of the bastard's balls anywhere near my
face again...ug...), then proceeds to remove the foot part from his peg-leg. He
leaves the foot on the floor, so he really is now a peg-leg. But he's not a
pirate.

Pirates don't hide guns in their wooden feet.

I'd put my hand over my mouth, but I can't move.

I try to convince myself to be gullible just once more.
That's some kind of metal attachment for the peg bit to go into the foot bit...

Right?

No. No it isn't. Doesn't matter what I tell myself, the gun
is there, dull steel, right in front of me. The man carries it, hidden, in his
wooden foot.

Now, I'm worried not about pissing myself, but shitting,
too.

He's going to know there's something wrong...I put a bloody
great bag of drugs in the kettle...it'll be heavier, it'll look wrong...the
water won't even pour...it...

I hear a splash as he pours from the kettle over a sachet
of instant coffee. He carries right on humming.

He drinks his coffee black, because he starts to
slurp...just one more reason to hate him.

He smacks his lips.

'Shit...that's good for hotel coffee...that's ain't
Nescafe, is it?'

I hear him rustle as he checks the empty packet.

Then he falls straight forward and plants his nose with a
horrible crack straight into the cheap carpet.

VII.

He doesn't move.

I've killed him, I think.

Part of me is horrified. Part is hopeful.

The gun's there in front of my face. The way he's fallen,
too, legs slightly splayed, I can see almost half-way up his arse.

I feel sick. But he doesn't move.

Revenge is one thing...being an idiot...that's something
else. Something...idiotic.

I'm not thinking entirely straight, but there's no doubt
about it. He's out for the count.

I crawl, slowly, from under the bed.