Mark Abernethy - Second Strike

They made into the dark of Hedges Avenue, the beachfront road where the millionaires lived, when they both heard something and stopped as Jen put her hand up. Below the breeze they could hear a girl’s voice, pleading, sobbing. It was almost ten-thirty pm as they stared into the dark driveway of an apartment block under construction. Mac followed Jen as she started walking down the driveway. The sobbing came up again, this time with a yelp.

‘Hello,’ yelled Jenny. ‘Are you okay?’

A plaintive, late-teens voice called, ‘Help me!’

Jenny sprinted into the dark, heading towards a small light behind the builders’ dumpsters at the end of the alley. Mac followed, breathing shallow, body and brain on high alert, his instincts wanting to tell Jenny not to go in there. Further into the dark, and then under a small service lamp at the end of the alley, they rounded the dumpster and stopped. George Bartolo smiled back at them from where he was crouched beside the bin, holding a young blonde woman by the hair.

Jenny shaped up to him as George stood and threw the girl aside, who almost fell over in her heels, the night breeze blowing her purple baby-doll dress up to her ribs.

The girl looked at Mac, sniffed. ‘Sorry – it wasn’t my idea.’

‘You shut your fucking mouth!’ yelled George as Jenny moved closer, her fi sts clenched.

Mac was putting his hand out to pull Jenny back when he felt cold, hard steel behind his left ear. Then there were three small clicks that could only come from one source. Slowly putting his hands out, Mac turned slightly to his left and saw the Thai at the other end of what looked like a silenced 9 mm handgun.

‘Jen,’ he shouted, but she didn’t hear him.

‘I’m sorry,’ cried the fl oozy – manic-eyed with fucked sinuses

– who was now panicking at the appearance of a gun.

‘ Jenny! ‘ yelled Mac.

She turned, froze and stared at Mac, who gave her the look, but she didn’t run as he’d hoped.

George moved in and stood too close to Jenny, hands on his hips.

She turned back to face him while he made a show of looking down her muslin shirt and letting his fat tongue run along his bottom lip.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘It’s our little oinker.’

As Jenny stood her ground, staring George in the eye, something welled in Mac. Pride and fear.

‘George is it?’ said Mac, keeping his hands where the Thai could see them, though he felt the silencer go in harder behind his ear.

‘What’s it to you, pig-lover?’ snarled George, not taking his eyes off Jenny.

‘Forget him, George. This is you and me,’ said Jen.

The cocaine skank muttered something and her hand went to her face. Blood fl owed freely down her wrist.

‘Those Dunns or Lamas?’ continued Mac, nodding down at George’s silver-tipped, red and black boots.

George fl inched for a split second, wanting to get vain about his fancy footwear but quickly snapping back to the hard-man.

‘Are you relating to me, eh, cop-fucker?’ George shifted his gaze to Mac, his bottom lip full and wet like a spoiled child’s. ‘Fuck’s sake, mate, I spent six years in fucking Woodford being related to every day

– now you’re a fucking shrink too?’

‘Leave him out of this, George,’ said Jen, but Mac wanted eye contact, wanted to goad George into a comment that would make his wife snap. It wasn’t entirely risk-free, but a simple diversion was all he had to work with.

‘Sorry,’ said Mac. ‘Didn’t mean to insult you with the Charlie Dunn thing. They’re Tony Lama, right? Couldn’t be anything else.’

George took his eyes off Jenny again, shifted his weight around her and eyeballed Mac. The drug lord’s eyes had that extreme paranoia that too much cocaine produces; he loved that someone had noticed his fi ve-thousand-dollar boots, but he suspected there was a piss-take in progress.

In slow motion, Mac watched George reach into his pants, coming out with a large stainless-steel clasp knife.

‘You think I’m a joke, eh, pig-fucker?’ said George, opening the knife.

‘Leave him, George,’ said Jenny fi rmly as the knife came round to her heaving chest.

‘Nah mate,’ winked Mac. ‘Just spotting the boots. Or maybe they’re those Korean knock-offs. Been to the Penang Markets lately?’

George’s eyes narrowed as Mac leaned forward slightly, hoping the Thai would lean with him, get him off-balance.

The Thai leaned.

‘So, oinker,’ George said to Jenny, his eyes now homicidal. ‘This must be little Rachel’s dad? Cheeky cunt, isn’t -‘

That’s all George got out before Jenny hit him in the mouth with a fast right hand. Mac swung up with his left hand, spun and pulled the Thai’s right gun-hand down, twisted it anti-clockwise. Whisking his right hand down, Mac grabbed the silencer and wrenched the handgun back on the Thai’s forearm as fast as he could, breaking the Thai’s fi nger and tearing his wrist tendons. The Thai dropped to his knees and, twisting the Thai’s gun-hand, Mac pushed the silencer right down past the forearm, put all his weight into it, breaking the Thai’s wrist joint and another fi nger as he went. The whole manoeuvre was over in two seconds and the Thai fell sideways, in shock.

Mac threw the gun over the rear fence and turned to see the clasp knife spinning through the air, Jenny throwing a side kick at George’s left knee joint and the knee collapsing inwards as Jen followed through with a right elbow across the bridge of George’s nose. Blood sprayed everywhere as George went down, Jenny kicking him in the balls before he hit the ground. As Mac reached her, Jen kicked the drug dealer’s chin, snapping it back. Jenny was going for another kick when Mac grabbed her around the waist, lifting her as her foot snapped out at a point two inches short of shattering George’s jaw.

‘That’s enough, mate,’ said Mac as he pulled her away, her arms and legs still fl ailing.

‘Fucking let go of me!’ she screeched. ‘Let go!’

Mac put her down as she swung a reverse-elbow at his head and turned on him. Eyes ablaze, nostrils fl aring, Jen tried to get around him to have another shot at George.

‘It’s over, Jen. Let’s move,’ he rasped, heaving for air.

Jenny looked into him as her breath came ragged and hoarse like a cornered animal. ‘Can’t threaten a girl’s family, Macca. Not how it works,’ she said, then turned and stomped into the night.

Mac surveyed the scene as he caught his breath. His training had different imperatives to Jen’s, like: don’t leave a trail, don’t get caught, don’t draw the cops, don’t give a government anything to go on.

He looked at the coke skank, blood smeared around her mouth and chin. She looked back at him with drugged blue eyes, shaking all over despite the warmth of the night.

Mac looked down at George, who was unconscious, and the Thai, who was weeping and writhing on his knees, his right arm mangled.

The girl pulled a weird narcotic smile. ‘Shit, man – that your wife?’

Mac shrugged, wondering if he should fi nd that gun and wipe it.

‘Fucking awesome,’ nodded the skank.

Mac walked the babysitter home, only half listening as she chattered on about which senior cert subjects she was taking, the uni entrance marks she needed, which university she wanted an offer from and what career she was hoping to follow – all the stuff they loaded onto seventeen-year-olds these days. At her door Mac slipped the girl two twenty-dollar notes, thanked her and went in search of the nearest bottle-o.

When he got back to their townhouse, Jenny was on the back balcony, slugging on a VB, staring out over the trees that fronted the roaring sea. ‘I spoke with Frank. He’s sorting it,’ she said softly, looking at him.