Stiff (24 page)

Gezen was the key. All this shit had started the moment Gezen had decided to make a clean breast of it. Double life Gezen. Timid little mop jockey Gezen, eyes that sucked you dry. What was it he had said? ‘I see everything.’ Maybe that was it. Maybe he had seen something he shouldn’t have. Maybe somebody thought he had dobbed them in. Maybe they thought he told me something he shouldn’t have.

Bayraktar could not have been working alone. The man could hardly even sign his own name, let along fabricate the contents of a tax declaration form. Was he just doing what he was told, someone else doing the thinking? Maybe it was all bullshit, Gezen’s confession, the whole standover story. Gezen had Ayisha convinced, that much was sure. Or was she in on it, too? That rushed and hushed burble of Turkish before Gezen had told his story, what had that been all about? No, Ayisha wouldn’t dud her pal Murray, would she? She liked me. Even though my head ached and I felt like shit, she liked me.

Why else would she be curled up beside me now, here on this rubbish tip, her rump tucked into the curve of my belly, her hair tickling my neck, the rhythm of her breathing rising and falling with mine? She wouldn’t lie, she whose mouth was finding mine, the rubbery flesh of her lips nuzzling mine, the wet rasp of her tongue mashing my cheek, a whine of desire rising from her throat.

I opened my eyes. A black dog with yellow teeth—a foul breathed, wet-mouthed, bow-legged roly-poly lump of an animal with an accordion button row of nipples down its belly—was slobbering over my face. I stumbled upright, throwing off the lino. My shoes squelched. My head felt as though it had been cast in some experimental material that would soon be recalled by the manufacturer. The sky was clear and bright and very high up. At the far horizon a few last cauliflowers of cloud raced ahead of the slight breeze. Through the broken glass of my watch I deciphered that it was just about to go one-thirty. Or had been when the watch stopped. I shook my head in disbelief, igniting fireworks behind my eyes. The searing jolt slowly subsided into mere pain.

Unbelievable. Run off the road, car wrecked, nearly drowned, swept away in a flood, and what do I do? I pass out like a baby, face down in a pile of compost for more than three hours. From somewhere up the hill came the fading sound of a car engine. The dog licked my hand and stuck its muzzle in my crotch. It wasn’t much, but I was grateful for the thought.

‘C’mon,’ I said. The vibration of my voice triggered another chain reaction in my skull. I began picking my way through the broken glass and builder’s rubble. Bile and old beer rose in my gullet. My trouser legs were rubbing the insides of my thighs raw. I shivered, that old spasm back again.

The double cyclone-gate at the top of the rise was locked, but there was enough slack on the chain to slip through the gate. The low row of brick workshops—a panel beater’s, a printery, a tiler’s yard—showed no light. Daytime places. In one direction the road curved away towards houses, in the other it ran back down towards the lake. I was a blinking neon of unpleasant sensation, sweating cold. The dog frolicked beside me, an imbecile.

‘Easy, lover girl,’ I urged, needing to hear my own voice. It was high-pitched, all edge. I wondered where the energy was coming from. The lake came into view, a ruffled nap of black velour. I kept on down the empty road, past the bolted roller door of the Lakeview Hotel’s drive-in bottle shop. The only sound now was the faint swish of the treetops.

No rescue squad. No nothing. Maybe, I thought, I’m still asleep. At the weir wall, a thin glaze of water curved gently over the culvert, no more turbulent than a blanket tucked in tight at the end of a well-made bed. Down the embankment, the weeds flattened by the upturned Renault’s progress were already springing upright. The gashes torn in the earth by the impact were no more than a random string of muddy ruts. From the path at the lake’s edge I peered into the water, willing the sunken car to reveal itself. Two grand worth of comprehensively uninsured frogmobile, vanished.

Not a single tangible sign existed that anything untoward had happened here. Maybe, I thought, I’m dead. Maybe I’m over there under the water watching myself, the sole witness to my own demise. The dog whined, clamped its teeth gently around my fingers and tugged. If I’m dead, I thought, who are you? Cerberus, watchdog of the nether world? ‘Not enough heads,’ I said out loud. ‘You need more heads.’ I tried to remember how many, but it made my own ache even more.

Across the road, behind mute front gardens, houses slept dumbly on, substantial and warm. I considered opening one of the front gates, knocking on the door. ‘Excuse me for waking you. Someone tried to kill me, but I went to sleep. Mind if I use your phone? You couldn’t spare a cup of coffee while I wait, could you?’ A crap-encrusted madman, mongrel dog in tow. Just the thought of it was enough to made my headache worse. I turned to the lake and vomited, beery dregs and diced carrots. Where did
they
come from? How come when you chuck there’s always diced carrots?

A car approached down the hill. I stiffened and hobbled into the shadow of the trees. A little Japanese number puttered down to the roundabout, turned, and disappeared between the houses, reeling its exhaust rattle in as it went. Paranoia, I thought. Proof of the existence of life. And why shouldn’t I have been paranoid? Where were the fucking cops when you needed them? I paid my taxes, didn’t I? Wasn’t I as entitled as the next person to venture forth on the streets without fear for life and property? Hadn’t the Gaming Squad got my message?

And what had become of the Good Samaritan, with his torch and his umbrella? What kind of person would see a car go hurtling into a lake, wander around in a storm searching for survivors, then pack up and go home without reporting it? Shit, maybe the police had already been. Come, found nothing and gone.

I felt my scalp, probing for hairline fractures, distrusting my memory. How could a man think in this state, beaten insensible, his head throbbing and surging? Tender lumps bulged at the nape of my neck. I vomited again, retching bile. I puke therefore I am.

Another car approached. It had a light on its roof. ‘Taxi,’ I croaked. The word hung in the air as if confirming my existence. I raised my hand and fumbled for the wad of notes and coins in my pants pocket. Five soggy dollars, ten, some change. Enough. I waved it above my head. The cab slowed. I saw myself reflected back in the driver’s stony glance. A wild-eyed derro, standing in a pool of chuck, waving crumpled bills, a dirty dog. The cab kept rolling, picking up speed. He might as well have got out and kicked me.

‘What’s the matter with this country?’ I asked the mutt. If the dog knew, she wasn’t saying. This bitch was turning into a liability. I sprayed a handful of gravel half-heartedly in her direction. ‘Garn, git.’ The dog skittered away, then cringed back, creeping forward on her belly. What have I done to deserve this? ‘True,’ I relented. ‘C’mon then.’

C’mon where? When I’d started down the hill towards the lake I imagined myself wrapped in blankets. A steaming cup of tea would be thrust into my hands. A lady sergeant with a clipboard would sit beside me in the back of the ambulance. Well, it was pretty clear that no such thing was going to happen. I thought of Red and a spasm of anxiety gripped my stomach. I must call home. Call home then call the police.

Past the roundabout and up the hill was a little strip of shops—chemist, a milk bar, an appliance repairer. And a phone booth. I began shambling along the footpath, the dog waddling alongside, forgiven and forgiving. The shivers were getting worse and my thighs were red raw. I was tempted to pee in my pants for thermal relief, like a surfer in his wetsuit. As we passed the neat front yards, their trees stripped of blossoms by the storm, I scanned the facades, wondering if I knew anyone hereabouts well enough to wake them up. The houses all but snored. No light showed, no television flickered behind the venetians. Were there no insomniacs left in suburbia? There had to be someone. This is my territory, after all. It wasn’t as though I was in a foreign country.

Fight the headache, fight the nausea, this was my mantra. Not far now. Think it through. Must call home, check on Red. Tell Ayisha. God, maybe whoever did this to me had also done something to Red. Calm down. They wouldn’t harm a child. Why would they do that? But why do anything they’d done? None of it made sense. The Falcon in the rain, it was the same one, wasn’t it? Visibility had been close to zero. There must be hundreds of big blue sedans on the road. Maybe it had just been a perfectly innocent accident. Ahead, a man on a horse tipped his hat at me. Marlboro man riding the range on the billboard wall of the milk bar. I gripped the coins in my pocket and turned the corner. In front of the phone box, nose to the kerb in the six-slot parking area, sat Bayraktar’s Falcon.

A sheet of heavy-duty transparent plastic had been stuck over the missing rear window with blue electrical tape. It was billowing softly in and out like a lung. I went rigid and pressed myself against the cowboy’s horse. Nothing else moved. Deep in the milk bar a row of bottles stood sentinel, back-lit in a refrigerated display. The Falcon was empty.

I grabbed the handle and threw the driver’s door open, not caring any more. Nothing. No perfidious Turk waiting to spring. Not even any litter. Just the key in the ignition and the ozone smell of freshly wiped vinyl. The dog fixed that, bounding past me onto the passenger seat.

The dog was doing my thinking for me. Take the car and I could be home in ten minutes. I would know if Red was safe. If I called the police from the phone box, a prowl car might be twenty minutes arriving. Then would come the explanations, the questions, and more explanations. I would have to take them down the hill, show them the vanishing skid marks, convince them I wasn’t deranged. Fuck them. This was all their fault anyway. I’d call from home.

I walked around the car. I crouched, joints stiff, and peered underneath. I sprung the hood and peered into the oily pit of the motor. What was I looking for? A bundle of gelignite, a coil of wires, a ticking clock? The engine block was cold to the touch. I got in. The seat was too far forward, squeezing me against the steering wheel. The last person in this seat had been shorter. I bent forward and found the adjustment lever. A smear of drying mud covered the floor. The seat slid back and I turned the key. The big six cylinder purred into action. Fingerprints, I thought, shrugged and gripped the wheel. Let the cops figure it out.

Streetlights flashed past overhead, a stroboscope that woke the epileptic octopus in my skull, made it real mad. A nauseating sickly-sweet detergent smell came at me off the upholstery. Keeping to the main roads I made it home in fifteen minutes. I parked halfway along the street and left the key in the ignition. ‘Stay,’ I told the dog. Dognapping. What would it be next?

The only other cars parked in the street were familiar. No BMW’s. Ayisha’s Laser was parked out the front where she had left it. Down the side of the house a light showed dimly in the kitchen window. I was standing on the verandah, patting myself down and asking the toxic octopus where I had left my keys when the front door opened. Out of some swamp deep inside me came the croak of a frog. ‘Red,’ it said.

Ayisha appeared, immersed in a pool of light. She swam towards me out of her halo. Our Lady of the Muddle Headed. ‘Fuck,’ she said.

Then nothing. Nothing at all.

She had me on the bedroom floor and was pulling my trousers off. I felt a stirring in my underpants. Not now, I prayed, not now. Then I was under the covers, warm and dry. The octopus prised one eyelid open and Ayisha’s face came into focus. ‘Accountancy?’ I said, concentrating on getting my tongue to work.

‘Takes skills to get things done.’ She was humouring me. She felt my forehead, all the while gnawing away at her bottom lip. ‘Program budgeting skills, mainly.’ She dispensed the reassuring grimace that passes for a smile among the caring professions. I’d have preferred a cuddle. ‘Lie still while I phone a doctor.’

The wet clothes had been replaced by track pants and windcheater. No undies, I noticed. I levered myself upright and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My mouth still wasn’t working properly. ‘Pee,’ I made it say. Wee wees. Getting this much of me functioning made my head spin. Ayisha slipped a hand under my armpit. I shook her off, wanting to know how far gone I was. I was pretty far gone. At the door I turned not towards the bathroom but into Red’s bedroom. An angular jumble of knees and elbows was breathing rhythmically under a familiar blanket. ‘I let him watch telly until he flaked out,’ said Ayisha defensively. ‘That okay?’

She stood outside the toilet door the whole time. I sounded like a brewery horse pissing in a tin bucket. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.’ You’d think we had been married for years. I must have slept through the honeymoon. ‘You’re covered in bruises. It’s nearly 3 a.m. Your clothes are wet, torn to pieces. What happened, Murray? Tell me, for God’s sake.’

Even when the flush drowned out her voice, she didn’t shut up, bless her. As I opened the door she put her palm back on my forehead and rolled back first one eyelid, then the other. Confidently, like she knew what she was doing. ‘You should be looked at by a doctor,’ she diagnosed.

‘Look in the cupboard,’ I said, my mouth reluctantly responding to orders. ‘See if you can find some aspirin.’

She put two tablets on my tongue and lifted a glass of water to my lips. I felt like I’d just played three consecutive Grand Finals at centre half-forward and we’d lost them all. On the kitchen table the washing had been neatly folded in a laundry basket. The dishes had been done. I sensed the prospects of romance receding.

Ayisha fiddled with the kettle, poured tea. ‘I rang the hotel at eleven. They said you’d left. Can you remember what happened after that?’

The tentacles began mooching about irritably again, squeezing any stray brain cells they could find.

‘I thought maybe it had something to do with the storm, an accident or something. Jeeze, it was bad. All this water started coming through the roof.’ Through the lounge room I could see a row of saucepans lined up across the floor. ‘Anyhow, I rang around the hospitals, but nobody fitting your description had been admitted. I was beginning to think I’d better ring the police. Then I heard something out the front. It was you, collapsing on the doorstep. I thought you were dying, fair dinkum. Freaked me right out, you did.’