Acts of Violence Page 4

  He didn’t wait.

  FIVE | MY SAVIOUR, MY KILLER

  I woke up feeling like I’d been trampled by horses and my brain used as a spinning top.

  It took nearly a minute for my memory to come back. When it did, the blackness and stuffy heat made sense. I had a hood over my head. At least it smelled clean. Carefully moving a little revealed that my hands were tied behind my back. Not cuffed, but tied. Some kind of plastic zip tie thing. Old fashioned, but quick and effective.

  I was sitting upright. Leant against something on the left. Something on the right kept lightly tapping the side of my knee.

  As more of my consciousness returned from wherever it went, I realised I was rocking and bumping. I was in a car. A car with wheels. The thing tapping me must be another passenger. I didn’t move any more, in case they wanted me unconscious. Better to lie still than be shocked again or bashed over the head.

  I tried to notice more of my situation. Other sensations. Sounds. Smells. All I could smell was the freshly washed hood. All I could hear was the rushing pounding of my own head, the road under us and the rain over us. I could feel one other thing, though. My feet were together, but my knees were apart. Put that together with the warm pulsing sensation in my ankles and I knew those were tied together too. Tightly. Perhaps with rope.

  A car with wheels. It hit me like a punch to the gut. I knew whose car this was. I knew where we were going. And I had a pretty good idea who was beside me.

  I’d been broken out of police custody for some painful retribution and murder.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr. Mason,’ Cole Webster said.

  I must have showed more signs of consciousness than I realised. A hand took hold of the top of the hood and pulled it off. Took some hair with it. My eyes snapped shut. Despite the rain and the grey, it was too bright.

  No one said anything more for a minute. They wanted my eyes to adjust so I could see just how much trouble I was in.

  Eventually I squinted into the front of the car. I saw the driver first. The bouncer from Webster’s club. So they hadn’t fired or killed him. A bandage wrapped at an angle around his head suggested he’d received some kind of punishment for his failure though.

  Beside him, the hood and my hair dangled from orange fingers. The man’s nose was flatter than when I last saw him. Under his eyes was all purple and black. He bared his teeth in a humourless smile.

  ‘You look different today, Dick. Is it the hair?’

  His eyes narrowed a little, but he kept up the smile.

  I looked at Webster senior. He was silver. Not grey. Wisps of white emphasised it. Why did only rich people go silver? Everyone else went grey. His face was fairly smooth, particularly around the thin lips, but still subtly lined with age. Like all rich people, again, he could afford to always look ten years younger than he was. His golden hands curled over the handle of a thin, elegant cane. The cane probably cost as much as the shiny grey suit and the elocution lessons.

  ‘Harem,’ Webster said, and looked out his window. I realised he was going to give me some kind of speech or monologue. ‘It’s a miserable place, isn’t it? No colour. And I don’t just mean the buildings. Have you ever noticed how there’s not a single alien in the city? Not a single human of African descent or Asian descent—’

  ‘No one without cream or paper-white skin. What about Little Dick here? He’s what? Part Oompa Loompa? I’m no geneticist – I’m not sure that’s even a thing – but you might want to check your facts on this.’

  ‘Fair enough. No visible descent then. My point is, Mr. Mason, that this city, miserable though it may be, is civilised.’ I wonder if he knew what the word meant. If he did, then ‘irony’ must have escaped his vocabulary. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I don’t dislike such people, particularly. They simply make better manual labourers than upstanding citizens. Would you rather buy your house, new car, or your groceries from a clean-looking, well-dressed white man, or someone who looks like they may rob you and—’

  ‘What about your barmaid? She wasn’t white.’ I had noticed the lack of colour. It was one reason I’d been near the girl last night.

  ‘An experiment,’ he dismissed. ‘You see, I have that power. To keep the city the way I like it. It is, to all intents and purposes, my city.’

  ‘You like misery?’

  ‘Miserable people work harder than happy ones, I’ve found. They can be more easily motivated. Misery serves a purpose. For example, when we reach our destination, your misery will motivate you to tell us what we want to know.’

  ‘Clever segue. And what is that?’

  ‘I believe you dropped by my club last night. You took something that didn’t belong to you. Do you have anything to say about that, Mr. Mason?’

  I looked out the window. The rain blurred everything, but I could tell we were just leaving the city. The grey buildings gave way to grey landscape. There was a bit of grass here and there. The odd tree. Most of it was dirty grey mud. We were heading towards the lake.

  ‘I’d have to go with the fairly clichéd “I don’t know what you’re talking about”.’ He hadn’t mentioned what I’d done to his son. ‘Unless you’re talking about the girl. You threw me when you said “something”.’

  ‘I don’t give half a shit about the girl, Mr. Mason,’ Webster calmly explained. ‘I care that you stole from me. Are you going to make it easier and tell us about it?’

  I gave it due consideration. ‘No…no, I don’t think so.’

  ‘That’s a shame. For you, anyway. We have with us two gentlemen who have quite a grievance with you. I thought perhaps we could simply discuss the situation and then kill you quickly. But you’d prefer the more…old-fashioned way.’

  ‘It’s gone dawn and I left my pistol back in the police precinct your men just broke me out of. In the middle of the day…’ I was beginning to think Webster was pretty serious about theft.

  ‘Darrel, here, would like to speak to you, I believe, about the missing half of his ear. And the fingernails he misplaced.’ I started to feel a little carsick. If they’d pulled the bouncer’s fingernails and cut off half his ear just for getting knocked out… ‘And of course my son is deeply unhappy about the circumstances of your last meeting.’

  ‘He looks unhappy. Have you considered buying him a puppy? Or maybe you decided against that years ago, when the neighbourhood pets started turning up tortured and mutilated.’

  ‘Richard is about to become my new vice president. He was meant to be the fresh new face for the investors. What ever would they think if they saw his face now?’

  I shrugged. ‘I guess they’d laugh.’ Maybe they’d think some girl had finally hit back.

  ‘Do you know the cost of repairing Richard’s face? Not just the procedure itself, you understand. It’s the flight all the way to Orion and back, when he and the plane could be doing something useful. Making sure word doesn’t get out. The dip in our operations while he’s gone—’

  ‘Yeah, people don’t traffic themselves.’

  There was a tiny twitch in his eye, but he just smiled. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to go with the clichéd “I don’t know what you’re talking about”. And I know you don’t know what I’m talking about, because it involves something you don’t know much about: money. But believe me when I say there’s a lot of time and money involved in fixing this. All because you couldn’t mind your own business while my son worked out some kinks with the new serving girl.’

  ‘Well I’m sure you’ll be fine. I hear roaches can survive pretty much anything.’

  The car swung off the road. Forced me hard into the door. The ride was rougher now. I could just make out the scenery through the windshield. We were on a dirt track. The lake was about a mile ahead. I’d have rather had the injection.

  I considered my options. Webster wouldn’t pose much of a threat. He probably had a gun. But he probably had a fragile skull, too. The bouncer was too busy driving to do much about me. My problem was Little Dick. The hand not hol
ding the hood was hidden behind the seat back. Either he was holding a gun, or his hand was an inch away from one. Webster had the cane. If I went for Little Dick first, I’d eliminate the threat of getting shot, but then Webster would hit me with that metal handle.

  I’d have to wait. Maybe something would come up when we got there. Maybe it wouldn’t.

  ‘Last chance, Mr. Mason. Are you going to tell us?’

  ‘You know, I really wish you’d tell me what the hell you’re talking about. Then I could tell you to go fuck yourself with a little more conviction.’

  Webster smiled. Little Dick slapped me across the face with the hood. I hurt myself more lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Careful, Dick. I think you hurt my feelings.’

  The car reached the end of the dirt track and rolled out onto smooth ground. It swung around. This time I was pushed the other way. Webster kept me away from him with his cane and personality.

  Little Dick produced the pistol now. The engine died. The rain thundered in my ears as it pounded the roof. It was the same sound I’d sat and listened to for an hour the last time I was here. Before I finally made myself get out of the car and say a final goodbye to Lucy.

  The bouncer was the first one out of the car. As he pulled my door open, Webster gave a shove with the cane. I fell out into the mud. In accordance with my luck, a big stone sat right where my face landed. I hit it with my eyebrow. Another centimetre and I’d have been blinded. Not that it would have been a problem for long. They hadn’t brought me out here to teach me to fish. They’d be doing the fishing. I’d be the worm.

  I was lifted to my feet by the same hand I’d felt on my shoulder last night. The bouncer’s dark eyes showed an eagerness. He couldn’t take revenge on the people who’d caused his pain and suffering. But he could take revenge on the man who’d caused them to cause it. His left hand was bandaged up as well as his head. They’d left his right hand untouched. He appeared to be right handed, so that was thoughtful of them.

  ‘I’m afraid you won’t make your appointment with the executioner, Mr. Mason,’ Webster called from inside the car. I could barely hear him over the rain. ‘But I hope my men will be a satisfactory substitute. They’re better at the job, you see, because they enjoy it. Goodbye, Mr. Mason.’

  It was a nice car. Long and elegant-looking. The dark green paintwork glistened. The bouncer shut the door. Little Dick was already out on the other side, still pointing the pistol at me.

  ‘Do we all get one of those?’ My nerves were holding for now.

  The bouncer cut the rope off my ankles. Then I was shoved around the back of the car. I spotted another man now. He walked towards us from the lake. He’d been preparing the crane.

  The lake was about two miles by three. Most of the edges were marshland, but part of this side had been built up into a little dock. The lake once held a lot of fish. Alien fish sold for a lot on Orion, so that had been what started Harem. That and people desperate for a life on another world. Idiots. The fish were all gone now, but the dock remained. So did the old crane that used to haul cages up from the boats.

  The bouncer pushed me forward. The three of us set off through the mud. There was paving somewhere under that mud. It showed through here and there. The look on the new guy’s face as he passed told me he was used to this scene. Behind, I heard him get into the car. The engine started up again and it purred away back up the dirt track.

  ‘I told you you’d signed your death warrant last night,’ Little Dick said. He sounded happy.

  ‘I don’t think you did. I’m pretty sure you told me I’d signed my “death wah”. Then you took a nap.’

  I think it was the pistol that cracked the back of my head. Whatever it was, I went down again. I must have been unconscious for a few seconds, because suddenly I was being dragged through the mud. Then the mud wasn’t there anymore. The paved area became sloped as it neared the short jetty. The rain had washed the mud away into the lake. The flow of water rushed into my trousers. It was lukewarm.

  The bouncer lifted me up once again and shoved me the rest of the way to the jetty. The crane loomed at the end, glinting in the rain. I saw a brand new chain welded to the dangling hook.

  ‘We learned the hard way not to just hook people up,’ Little Dick explained with a grin. ‘Some guy got loose and we had to shoot him before we’d finished with him. Lucky him, I guess. This way, you don’t get free until your legs rot away.’

  He hit me with the pistol again. It was to make sure I couldn’t struggle much while the bouncer picked me up and dangled me by my feet. He held me high with ease while Little Dick fastened the chains around my ankles.

  That done, the bouncer wiped his dirty hands on my trousers.

  The cracks to the head didn’t help my capacity to spot a way out.

  The bouncer plodded back to the other end of the jetty, where the thick chain holding the hook was fastened to a pulley and lever. Little Dick stayed. He pulled a five-credit chip from his pocket. Slid it into my mouth.

  ‘For the suit.’ He’d probably been waiting for that all morning. ‘Now, are you going to tell us where it is?’

  ‘Where wha—’

  I was confident Little Dick surmised the rest of my sentence. His fist slammed into my solar plexus. Made me spit out the chip.

  ‘Could you pick that up?’ I forced out through the pain. ‘Dry cleaners don’t work for free.’

  I swung gently back and forth. Everything looked different upside down. Over to my left…or maybe my right – it was surprisingly hard to tell. A hundred metres or so to one side was the skeleton of a wooden rowboat. It was the boat I’d used ten years ago. It was this boat I’d filled with rocks to put in Lucy’s clothes. It was from this boat that I’d kissed her cold lips one last time and slid her into the water. She’d never learned to swim.

  Little Dick glanced at the bouncer. The sudden cold and thump on the top of my head were shocking. The cold running in behind my face and seemingly into my brain was worse.

  Like an idiot, I breathed out. Big bubbles of air fought their way through the water and broke free, leaving me alone in the dark. I’d never been much good at holding my breath. Never had much call to, being a land mammal. I was already beginning to lose the fight against my body’s instinct to breathe in.

  My heart thumped against my ribs. Harder and harder. It spread into my brain. My whole head pounded. My throat pulsated. Swelled up. My jaw began to ache. I was unable to keep my eyes closed. The strain of holding my breath – or lack of it – caused them to snap open. Felt like they would pop out. My whole body was writhing without my permission.

  As sudden as the cold, I felt a warm sucking sensation on my legs. Then my torso. Finally, my head emerged from the pale green water.

  My eyes and nose stung from the water that ran up my nostrils, but I was surprised at how easily my lungs were satisfied. I guessed they were used to the city air. Real oxygen was a luxury to them. I coughed up most of the water, but I could still feel some sitting somewhere at the top of my nose.

  I was winched up until I was at just the right height for Little Dick’s fists again. The next time I was dunked, I’d be under for longer. They’d known I wouldn’t be prepared for it the first time. They’d pulled me up before I drowned. But next time, I’d know to take a deep breath. So they’d leave me under for longer.

  ‘I’m meant to be out of the suit when you clean it,’ I told Little Dick. My voice sounded strange. Like I had a peg on my nose.

  He responded with a sniff and a punch to the stomach. I saw red with white dots. The rest of the water was ejected from my nostrils. I swung back and forth. Little Dick’s mud-encrusted shoes got larger, then smaller. I tried to keep my eyes on his face, though. I had to be ready for his next glance at the bouncer.

  ‘Where is it, Jack?’

  I was beginning to think that perhaps I’d misjudged the situation. Little Dick might be using the time for some payback, but that wasn’t what all this was about. Co
le Webster hadn’t broken me out of police custody just to punish me. He was serious about whatever he thought I’d stolen. And it definitely wasn’t the girl.

  ‘Things might go a little smoother, Dick, if someone would just tell me what this popular “it” is.’

  ‘We don’t have time for your shit. You came into our club and just happened to walk out with that bitch. But you try to tell us it’s just coincidence?’ Why did people like this always do that? Did they feel like they were accepting what they thought were lies by explaining what they were talking about.

  ‘I’m trying to tell you I don’t know what the fuck you’re babbling about, you stupid little dipshit!’

  There is was. The glance.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes just in time. The cold wasn’t so shocking this time. The thump of the water on my head still hurt my neck though.

  I didn’t have long. They’d pull me up again soon. The more times Little Dick punched me in the stomach and the bouncer dunked me, the shorter time I’d be able to hold my breath. Especially under strain. It was now or never, as they say.

  This wasn’t some poorly thought through action film. The hook wouldn’t have a sharp point for me to cut through my bonds with. It was thick and rounded. I didn’t even try it.

  I pulled my hands apart as hard as I could. Behind my back, I didn’t have the strength. It just hurt my shoulders and caused me to breathe out half my air. I felt my body begin to fight me again. It wanted to breathe in.

  Maybe the hook would help after all.

  I pulled myself into an upside down crouched position. Slid the zip tie restraints down – or up, actually – over my ankles. Finally over the hook itself. Once it was over the main bulge of the hook, I pushed with my legs.

  The thin plastic cut into my skin. I felt the lock slip a groove or two. Not enough. The rest of my air rushed out of my nose and mouth in a blinding torrent of white bubbles.

  Panic and desperation spurred me on. I had no air left and I was moments away from sucking in the foggy water. I had my eyes open, but I couldn’t see anything other than white stars. The ringing in my ears was deafening.