Authors: Ross Harrison
The second hood had
hesitated after the initial rush into the room. He had a round device in his
hand, which he put away as he headed for me. I guessed it was to short the
table’s computer and unlock the restraints. They were here for me.
‘Wait!’ I told him.
I didn’t know what he should wait for. I just didn’t want to get shocked yet
again.
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 “some
thing
”.’
‘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 holding 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?’