The Big Smoke. Jason Nahrung
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the metal of the air conditioning unit. The head plopped on the ground. Bhagwan had had a few years on him. The decay accelerated, the body shrivelling in on itself, until the ropes fell slack and the corpse crumbled. By the time the sun had sunk to touch the mountains, there was nothing left but a pile of dust. It eddied in the faint breeze coming in off the river, a dry wind carrying the smell of brine and petrochemicals. Reece sheathed the sword, then rolled and lit a cigarette.
Felicity held a hand up against the sunset. Her mirrored shades reflected the out-of-kilter world, an out-of-kilter Reece.
'So what was the name he gave you?'
'Are you sure you want to know?'
'We're both in it, Reece. Unless Mira recovers and reinstates us, we're in the doghouse for the rest of our days.' She rubbed her throat, an instinctual act of longing or loss; the skin there was unmarked. She was no one's favourite now. 'And that might not be that long.'
'Bhagwan said the Needle told him about Jasmine.'
'Why would he do that?'
'More to the point, how did the Needle know? He's not part of the firm.'
'We've got a leak.'
'And I'm going to plug it. See if I can't get us back in the good books.'
'Nice of you to care, old man. You going looking for the Needle then?'
'In the proverbial.' He gestured to the city, lights sparkling in the descending dusk. He imagined he could see Thorn amid the towers clustered in the city centre.
'I can check the rota, see when he's due to tithe,' she said.
'Not for two weeks. No, I'll have to find him sooner than that. Which means finding a snitch of my own. What you can do is start tracing from the other end. Draw up a list of anyone and everyone who might've known about Jasmine's expansion into the bovine business.'
'Should be a reasonably small list. It was meant to be hush-hush.'
He gripped her arm. 'Do it quietly. We don't know if the leak was intentional or just careless. Either way, they'll be keen to keep it quiet.'
She pulled on her jacket. An object fell from the pocket and bounced off her shoe. She retrieved the MP3 player, rotating it in her hand as though she was reassuring herself it was the one she'd dropped. Something red flashed as she turned it. She rubbed a thumb over the piece of tape, smiled grimly, the player bringing back a bad memory perhaps.
'Is that new?' Reece asked.
'Souvenir.' She tucked the player away, adjusted her holsters. 'Don't worry, Reece. I've got your back. We might not be able to save the Strigoi, but we just might be able to save ourselves.'
To hear her say it, there with the sunset reflecting bloody on her shades, the set of her mouth, her hand squeezing his arm, he could almost believe it.
THREE
Fortitude Valley. It sounded all right — fortitude was just what he needed — but as Kevin stared at the crumpled map he'd bought at a servo, he found little comfort in the maze of meaningless names and streets, his forehead aching as the lines and titles morphed into a mess of doodles. He rubbed his eyes, tried to ignore the dryness in his mouth, a sensation in his gut that was empty and tight at the same time.
He needed to rest. A cheap motel? Maybe one of those boarding houses with the peeling paint and rusted roofs he'd driven past? No, the idea of sharing space with other people didn't appeal. It wasn't safe. For anyone.
Of one thing he was certain — he wasn't leaving the Monaro. Fuck that. He'd given up too much as it was. He wasn't letting the car go. Not until he had to.
He threw the wrinkled map on the passenger seat and fired up the car. The burble of the engine, the feeling of control as he steered out into the traffic, helped settle his nerves. A little. He had until dawn.
Driving slowly, letting the streetscape sink in, he noted the haphazard mix of rundown housing, new apartments, shops and offices. A mall opened, threatening with the flash of lights, clumps of shadowed figures, cops patrolling in gangs of four. There was an obviously Asian sector that, according to his map and the various signposts, was Chinatown. Hard to mistake the big wooden gate with the lion statues. Or were they dragons?
Didn't matter, there could be no shelter for him there.
So where could he hole up while he searched for the Needle? Afraid to park on the street, he'd spent the day under cover at the airport, just one of many in the long-term section. He'd slept in the boot. It had cost a fortune and he was low on cash. Hours passed as he drove around and around the Valley. Seedy and busy, it was a place close to Thorn where he could blend in, he hoped.
Like a meter for this confidence, the petrol gauge arrowed toward empty. The hollow space in his gut expanded, the pressure causing his temples to throb as dawn crept closer. His vision clouded, the iris of black contracting until all he could see was dead ends.
Kevin almost missed the shop and had to reverse to check it out.
It was on a quiet back street a few blocks from the Brunswick Street Mall, surrounded by tin sheds and sagging, decrepit houses. Boards covered the windows, spray-painted warnings of No Trespassing discernible under the tags and graffiti.
Hope flared. His vision cleared; the weight on his chest lifted. He could just read the faded Merle's Coffee sign fixed to the stained bricks of the front wall. At the rear, he found a lane and loading dock that suited perfectly. He used the tyre iron to break the chain. The metal door slid up with a rusty screech. Cobwebbed crates and bits of esoteric machinery cluttered the bay, but he had room to park the Monaro.
Bugs scuttled in the headlights. The smell of coffee lingered in a musty mix of dust and mildew that made his nose itch. This could be it — sanctuary.
A quick look around revealed a large, empty space backing on to the dock, and an office and reception at the front.
He crept up creaky wooden stairs. His eyes adjusted until he could see the webs and vermin shit.
Dirty water flowed from the tap in the kitchen, gradually running clear. The initial shriek of the pipes made him wince. He hadn't been aware of his ramped-up hearing scanning for any hint of danger, but he felt it retreat from the piercing noise, filtering back to a less painful level. He was ready for the scream and rattle when he tested the taps in the bathroom with its crusty shower-head, brown-stained bath and toilet. He could smell rotten wood; if he concentrated, he could hear the drip-drip-drip of the hidden leak, the scuttling of cockroaches and rats behind the walls, the munching of termites.
There was no hot water, no bulbs for him to test the lights. He imagined the power had long been cut off. But this place would do. Hell, yes, anything to get out of sight and out of the sun.
He returned to the car and nestled into the driver's seat. The night was almost spent. His energy drained away; finally, he could stop running, take stock, rest.
He checked his map once more. He'd made a list of tattoo parlours from a search at an internet café, leaving the coffee untouched but filling several pages of a notebook with addresses. It was a massive task, with more than fifty parlours just in the central city area. He'd marked the locations as accurately as he could on the map. One of them, he hoped, would lead him to the Needle; and the Needle would lead him to Mira. Hungry and impatient, he folded the map and fumbled with the tuner until he locked on to the strongest FM signal he could find. Talking Heads were singing about running away from a psycho killer. He laughed, the sound brittle and humourless. He settled back, closed his eyes, tried not to think of the odds against him succeeding.
He could understand Danica not wanting him to kill Mira: Dee was her biological mother, after all. But Kala?
Her words came back to him, the two of them arguing as he packed his duffel bag. 'Don't pretend this is about me,' she'd said. And he saw her again, fingering her ear lobe, the flesh smooth now, no sign of the hole left by Mira's savage removal of the silver earring.
It