Garry Disher - Kick Back

There was silence. Bauer stirred. He said deadeningly, ‘You talk too much.’

Yeah well, fuck you. Sugarfoot cornered the Customline and pulled up at the kerb. Calamity Jane’s resembled a western bordello, complete with a red clapboard facade and Wild West decor and writing. On summer nights the girls lounged on the iron lace balcony in saloon-style garters, ribbons and corsets, hooting invitations to passing men and insults at women. A number of signs were tacked to the wall near the front door: ‘Private Suites’, ‘Adult Movies’, ‘B amp;D’, ‘Waterbeds’. The word ‘Aids’ in ‘Sex Aids’ had been painted out and the word ‘Appliances’ substituted. Sugarfoot had an image of doing it with a Mixmaster.

They went in. There was nobody in the front room. Whenever he came here for a freebie, Sugarfoot tried to place the smells: cheap perfume, cleaning fluids, incense, no trouble there, but under it all was a faint, troubling smell he supposed was sex itself.

‘Yes, gentlemen?’

They turned around. A young Thai woman stood in the doorway of a room along the corridor. Then she recognised them and her professional expression disappeared and she looked afraid.

‘We want to see Ellie,’ Bauer said.

She went upstairs. Two minutes later a well-dressed, middle-aged woman came slowly down the stairs. She stopped on the last step, saw Bauer, and paled.

‘We want to talk to you,’ Bauer said.

She looked at them, nodded briefly, and turned to go up again. They followed her to a room at the back. It was furnished with a king-size waterbed, angled mirrors and a mohair rug. A small open door revealed an ensuite bathroom.

Bauer turned to Sugarfoot, said, ‘Do not speak. Do not interfere, just watch,’ and pushed the woman onto the bed.

Sugarfoot watched him take a thin nylon rope from his pocket. He bound the woman’s ankles and wrists, bent back her knees, and looped a noose around her neck. If she struggled or straightened her legs a fraction, the noose would tighten and slowly strangle her. Even as Sugarfoot watched, the woman began to choke. She struggled against it, which only increased the risk.

Bauer placed his face near hers. ‘You are dirt,’ he said. ‘You are nothing. You have been extracting a percentage for yourself each week, am I right?’

Sugarfoot gathered from the woman’s noises that she was assenting. He saw that she had wet herself.

‘We are short by seven thousand dollars,’ Bauer said. ‘You will repay that, with interest, yes?’

Again the woman gurgled.

‘You will work for it, here,’ Bauer went on. ‘Yes?’

The woman nodded her head, moved her legs, and blacked out.

‘Release her,’ Bauer said.

Sugarfoot bent down and fumbled at the knots, feeling oddly disturbed and excited by the coldness, the professionalism. Bauer was mad, no risk, but Jesus, he knew his stuff.

He heard taps being turned on in the ensuite bathroom. Bauer was washing his hands.

Pedersen arrived twenty minutes late. He came into Wyatt’s room at the Gatehouse bringing with him a smell of Chinese food and industrial toxins. He shook Wyatt’s hand, crossed immediately to the window, and prowled the perimeter of the room. Habit, Wyatt thought. Pedersen was thirty-five and had spent half his life in small spaces-cells and cheap rented rooms.

Pedersen finally sat on the edge of the bed and crossed one leg over the other. He wore an oiled black japara, jeans, thick socks and-a vain touch-expensive, soft ankle boots. A John Deere cap was pushed back on his head. Wyatt heard keys chime on a key-ring on his belt. Pedersen had the smallest mouth Wyatt had ever seen on anyone, and a plain, forgettable face, but he seemed to be harder and more alert than Wyatt remembered. Perhaps, like many ex-cons, Pedersen had built up his body in prison and maintained it when he got out.

‘Beer? Scotch?’ Wyatt said. He was drinking tea.

‘Got any mineral water? My guts.’

Wyatt tensed at that. He opened the little refrigerator. ‘Soda.’

‘That’ll do,’ Pedersen said.

He reached, and Wyatt grabbed the outstretched arm and pushed the sleeve up above the elbow.

Pedersen jerked back, tugging at the sleeve. ‘Fuck off, Wyatt. I went off it five years ago. Cold turkey. And I’ve gone off the booze.’

Wyatt held out the bottle of soda. Pedersen took it, his face tight. ‘Where’re the others?’ he asked.

‘On their way.’

Pedersen drained the little soda bottle. Wyatt said nothing, wondering what Pedersen would do. He never felt the strain of waiting, of long silences. Pedersen scowled, as though he knew he had to start sounding convincing and resented it. He’s fresh out of gaol, Wyatt thought, and if he’s working again already it’s because he needs the funds or he wants to prove to himself it was a fluke he got caught.

Pedersen looked at him sourly. ‘You got me here early’

‘Fill me in. The woman, the money, everything.’

‘She knows the money’s there,’ Pedersen said, his voice bored. ‘She can’t get at it, so she hires herself a pro.’

‘Like you.’

‘I’m good, Wyatt. Unlucky, that’s all.’

Wyatt nodded. It was true that Pedersen was good. And, like all the others, he explained everything in terms of good or bad luck. ‘What I’m getting at is, how come this classy female lawyer takes a pro aside and asks him to crack her partner’s safe?’

Pedersen shrugged. ‘Nothing surprises me.’

‘Try’

Pedersen breathed out heavily, as though bored. ‘She doesn’t seem bent,’ he said finally. ‘I’d say this is a one-off job for her.’

There was a knock on the door. ‘Damn,’ Wyatt said. He got up and opened it and stood back as Hobba and Anna Reid entered the room.

‘Nippy out,’ Hobba said, hunching his shoulders and rubbing his hands together. He seemed to be unsettled by the Reid woman’s proximity and luminous looks. After introducing her he sat in the chair in the corner of the room, his bulky frame consuming it.

Wyatt ignored him and watched Anna Reid. She examined the room and nodded briefly at Pedersen. Then, regarding Wyatt expressionlessly, she unbuttoned a bulky, broad-shouldered leather jacket. When she turned around, looking for somewhere to hang it, her black hair swung with the movement, gleaming with light. She smelt of shampoo and scented soap. She was tall, and Wyatt had an impression of physical and mental agility. Saying nothing, he took the jacket from her and draped it over the back of a chair. She nodded guardedly and sat far apart from Pedersen on the edge of the bed.

Hobba opened his tin and fumbled for a mint, then offered the tin. ‘Anyone? Anna?’

Her look said he had to be joking. She turned to Wyatt. ‘I had to cancel something to come here. I don’t know anything about you, but they say you’re good, so it looks like I’ve got no choice.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve put myself on the line, I’ve handed you a dream of a job, now it’s your turn.’

Her voice was low and deep, tinged with the impatience Wyatt had noticed that afternoon. Perhaps she was starting to regret this, was measuring him by his down-at-heel partners. He said, ‘Explain the job to me.’

‘Haven’t the others told you?’

‘I want to hear it from you.’

The voice was low and bitter. ‘I’m in trouble. I owe someone a lot of money, I can’t pay him, and he’s threatening me.’

Wyatt watched her. He could see a bleakness under the sleek exterior. ‘Tell me about the money,’ he said. ‘We don’t want cheques.’

‘Don’t worry, it’s cash,’ she said. ‘This isn’t the sort of deal Finn puts through his books.’