contact.
Anna Reid answered on the first ring. Ive been trying to get hold of you. They said youd checked out.
Im still around, he said.
She was aggrieved and needed to unload some of it. I thought Id kissed goodbye to my five thousand.
Nope.
Youre supposed to keep in touch.
Here I am, checking in, Wyatt said.
Yeah, two days later. What exactly is going on?
Wyatt tired of it suddenly. Are you in this evening?
A pause. Yes.
Expect me.
He broke the connection. In Roma Street he found a cab rank, twenty cabs lined along the kerb. His driver tossed away a cigarette, fitted his right shoulder against the door, and drove one-handed through the city and onto Coronation Drive. He didnt speak. Riverside lights were reflected in the black water below. A dredge, squat and box-like, lay idle in the centre of the river. Wyatt told the driver to pull into a drive-in bottle shop. He bought a bottle of imported claret and realised that it had been a long time since hed last done this.
Anna Reids house backed into a hill. Wooden slats painted white concealed a large space under the house. Wyatt climbed the steps to a broad verandah. A couple of deckchairs sat outside the floor-to-ceiling windows on either side of the front door. Soft blue and yellow light spilled through the coloured glass surrounds and he saw it darken as he knocked and a shape moved on the other side of the door.
She stepped back to let him in. He glanced around curiously. It was a common Queensland house but hed never been in one like it before. A very short hallway opened onto a large room that took up most of the central part of the house. Doors to bedrooms and the kitchen opened off it. It was a high-ceilinged room, trimmed with wooden panels and arches. An armchair in front of each window, a dining table and chairs at the far end of the room.
She stared at him and he moved first, putting the bottle down and lifting her skirt, rucking it about her waist. Everything after that broke the strain they were feeling. It was necessary, like a cure. But even as he stripped Anna Reid, and bent to touch and taste her, a part of Wyatt was removed and working. Three months ago, when he almost but didnt kill her, shed been trying to steal a dealers cache of heroin and cocaine. He couldnt see track marks in her groin, between her toes, in the crook of her arms, and he supposed that that was a good thing.
Twenty
Nurse blinked awake by degrees. He badly needed to urinate. Hed heard knocking sounds but they had gone away after a while. Now strong sunlight was heating his face, penetrating his eyeballs. He turned his head away; it was like rolling a heavy iron ball on wet beach sand and still the sun bore down on his fleshy cheeks and neck. Lifting both hands to his face was no help; they were too heavy, too slack.
So he lay there. Then he thought about the unfamiliar bed, the room, the towel tangled around his legs, the sun at a high angle outside the window. These facts were the configuration of a messy life and he jerked upright. His watch was gone but the bedside clock winked 14:30 in red numerals and at once he knew that hed lost seventeen hours out of his life. Other realisations chased it. He staggered to the wardrobe. The briefcase was there but not precisely angled as hed left it and the top was open. He knew by its weight that the bag was empty but still he shook it and stuck his hand inside it.
And his wallet was missing.
And his cufflinks and chain.
That girl last night, Sonia, whatever her name was. It took Nurse some time to move beyond the notion that hed drunk and screwed himself into a seventeen-hour unconsciousness. Sure, hed had a couple of scotches, a drink at the bar when hed met this Sonia, then the martini shed made for him at nine oclock, but thats all. And he didnt remember screwing her, though theyd been working up to it. The more he thought about it the more convinced he became that the only action his cock had seen in the last seventeen hours was just now when it reminded him his bladder was full. So that meant the bitch had slipped something into his drink while hed been taking a shower.
Nurse let outrage carry him through the next few minutes in the bathroom. He came out feeling better physically, bladder eased, the sleep washed from his face, but then it hit him that he was in the middle of something nasty.
If the girl was working solo, shed struck luckybut how did he explain it to Lovell?
If the girl knew he had the stuff, then she was working for the people Lovell sold to, meaning Lovell had made himself some enemies.
Nurse preferred to go with this idea. It would take the heat off him for a while, distract Lovell from the key issuethat he, Nurse, had been careless and let someone pinch seventy-five thousand dollars worth of heroin.
Or had allowed it to happen. Nurse went cold, knowing thats how Lovell would see it. Lovell was in the sort of game where you expect the worst of everyone, where you suspect everyone of trying to rip you off or inform on you, so when something goes wrong you hit back and you make it hard and permanent.
Thats how Lovell would read the facts and it terrified Nurse. He put on his pants. Then he removed them and got into bed. With the covers to his chin he felt marginally more secure, but it was all relative: he couldnt stay here forever.
A red light blinked away the seconds on the bedside clock. Nurse was mesmerised. The numerals climbed to 14:59 and dead on three oclock the telephone rang.
Nurse went through the possibilities. Room service, wanting to know if maids could clean now. Unlikely. Lovell had a permanent arrangement here. This room, 212, wouldnt be touched until five.
Maybe one of the buyers. Nurse thought hed heard knocking earlier. Three dealers, itching to get back on the street and sell to the users, getting twitchy, more and more dangerous as they saw the weekend slipping away from them.
He could bluff it out. Sorry, youve got the wrong person, kind of thing. The handset seemed heavy and slick in his damp hand. Hello?
It was Lovell.
Nurse? What the fuck are you doing? Ive just had three very pissed-off messages on my answering machine. I thought you mustve cleared off on me.
Nurses mouth was dryfear, and a hangover from the drug. He coughed, tried to summon spit from somewhere. Something went wrong. I
Not on the phone. Stop there, Im coming up.
And the line went dead. This time Nurse dressed fully. He put on a tie. It made him feel more in control. When the knock came he stood near the door but didnt touch it. Yes?
Its me, arsehole. Open the door.
Nurse unlocked the door and it smacked into his shoulder as Lovell and a second man came into the room. The second man was small, quick and crouching: in five seconds he had checked the room, the bathroom, the wardrobe, under the bed. Clean, he said.
Lovell had been watching from the door, his hand on something in the side pocket of his jacket. Go down and help the others. You know the drill.
The man nodded and slipped away. Despite himself, Nurse had to know what was going on. Wheres he going?
You think Id go into a situation like this without backup and counter surveillance? So what happened? The drug squad get to you? Someone rip you off?
You could say that.
Lovell crossed the room and the blows were hard, stunning, the flat of his hands left, right, like the base of a frying pan across Nurses face. Nurse folded, contracting his limbs protectively, bobbing before the sinewy pilot as if in prayer.
Either you were ripped off or you werent, Lovell said. Dont muck around with me.
I didnt rip you off, I swear I didnt.
