The Big Smoke. Jason Nahrung
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chap stood in the entrance, reeking of Brylcreem and cigarettes, in tight jeans and pointy shoes and a bowling shirt with a dancing skeleton on the chest, slicked back hair, sunglasses.
He stepped forward, silencing the door buzzer, and pulled a mighty big pistol from behind his back.
'You shouldn't be this side of the river, Slick,' Greaser said, voice quavering.
I just need the mechanic,' he said. 'I'm guessing that's you.' He pointed the handgun at Kevin.
Jen hunched against the wall, eyes wide. The two kids in the chair shrank down, arms around each other.
'No one needs to get hurt,' Slick said.
A man's voice from the back of the room: 'What the fuck's this?'
Slick's gun moved toward the interruption and Kevin drew, his action masked by Greaser. He pulled the girl to one side as he raised his automatic and just beat Slick to the trigger. The gun bucked, just the once. Slick went down, a splash of lumpy blood spraying the door. The trendy girl screamed, knees up, hands in front of her face. Her boyfriend stared, face flecked with gore, as he cowered, shouting, 'Don't shoot, don't shoot'.
Kevin pointed the gun at Greaser. 'You set me up?'
'No, not me. I just gotta take you to the Needle.'
'Hey,' said the tattooist again; pointing a shotgun at Kevin.
Ears ringing, nose filled with gunpowder and blood scent, muscles quivering, Kevin waited to see what the man would do.
'Fuck off, the both of you.'
'Out the back,' Greaser said.
The tattooist opened the counter so they could flee. He grabbed Greaser's arm, whirling her to face him. 'The Needle better make this right.'
'Sure — sure, Flash.'
The door buzzed as the young couple ran out.
The tattooist released Greaser and pulled a mobile phone from his pocket.
'Well, fuck off, then!'
Kevin followed Greaser into an alley at the rear of the shop. No one was around. He holstered the pistol and draped his coat across it. 'Which way?' and Greaser pointed, Down the end, then back into the Valley.'
'Lead the way, mate.'
They were maybe halfway down the alley when a vintage Caddy pulled into the far end, headlights on high beam. It charged toward them.
Kevin pulled Greaser behind a clutter of bins and boxes. 'Friends of yours?'
'Viscounts,' she said. 'Johnny Slick's mates. He was the fanger you just iced. They won't be happy.'
'Tell me quick: where do I find the Needle?'
'You don't. He finds you.'
Damn, but he had no choice. He pushed Greaser against the wall, reefed her collar aside and bit into her throat. She howled and kicked and punched.
'Get off, get off!' And then, 'Stop! Stop! God, please stop.'
Her blood poured into him, gout after gout as he sucked it down. Her life gushed through him, so hot, so fast: the Needle, elusive flashes, but Kevin couldn't focus, couldn't filter. His hunger was paramount, greed vanquishing all else. He had to stop.
Had.
To.
Stop.
'Hey,' someone shouted. Three rockabillies were pointing handguns at him.
'Sorry,' he told Greaser as she slumped, hands to the wound. 'I had no choice.' Keep telling yourself that, he thought. He eased her against the wall and slipped his sneakers off.
'You're comin' with us,' a rockabilly said, all Brylcreem and big lapels.
Kevin jumped to the wall. Fingers and toes found purchase in the cracks. He clung there for a heartbeat, like a frog, and then he scrambled jerkily up the bricks.
No one reacted until he was almost at the top, when a ganger shouted, 'Bring him down, you bloody morons,' and started firing.
Kevin hauled himself over the lip of the roof, bullets sparking around him. He lay there for a moment, checking that he hadn't been hit, his body sizzling with Greaser's blood.
'Where'd he go?' he heard the ganger ask.
'Where's Johnny?' another said, and the third told them not to worry about Johnny, 'the others are sorting it'.
A man shouted, 'Freeze! Freeze, the whole fucking lot of you. VS Security!'
Shouts followed, then running footsteps. Shots rang out. Doors slammed. Glass shattered. The Cadillac sped away.
The man swore, and this time, Kevin recognised the voice; Hunter. He didn't risk a look though.
Hunter said, 'Did you see which way the Snipe went?' and a woman said no, she hadn't. There were more shots and Hunter said, 'Now we're screwed.'
SEVEN
Kevin ran across the rooftops. There were sirens, but there had been sirens since he'd arrived in Brisbane. He didn't know if these were for him; he kept running. A lane separated the roofs, the gap a little more than a car-width wide. He jumped it easily enough, despite a moment's hesitation. The roofs ran out at the end of the block, a main road bustling with traffic, pedestrians oblivious as they waited at the lights or strolled along.
Kevin stopped, huddled behind a parapet, and vomited a sticky drool.
On the run with Taipan outside Rockhampton, he had killed a girl. Her name was Nicola. Taipan had fed her to him and he'd swallowed every drop. Her life — her experiences, her feelings — haunted him still. Before he left Cairns, he'd promised himself he'd never again take without asking. He'd never risk stealing another person's life. But tonight he'd done just that.
Greaser's memories swirled through him, a kaleidoscope of impressions mixed with his own visceral memory of having just shot a man through the head. But he'd seen the tell-tale flash of green in the gunman's eyes; there was little doubt that the vampire had been intent on harming Kevin, and that he would recover. It was little consolation. Taipan's words, having sunk like fishhooks into him, jagged at his conscience:
See, fella. You ain't that different
And here, on this first test, he had proven his maker to be correct.
And it had all been for nothing.
Greaser's blood provided only teasing information about the Needle, master tattooist to the vampire underworld and, Kevin gathered, a kind of saint to Brisbane's street kids. The man with the finger on the pulse of the city's nefarious operations and a spare bed for the dispossessed. Just the man Kevin needed to find if he was going to commit murder.
'Yeah,' he muttered to Taipan's memory as he rubbed at the stains on his lips and chin, 'I'm just like you.'
Kevin climbed down the rear wall of the building and walked barefoot, hunched inside his coat, taking care to conceal the weapons belt.
He kept to the quieter streets, a mishmash of flat-packed businesses and flats, and rundown houses waiting to be made into businesses and flats. There were few people on the streets: young, mostly; goths and hippies and suits, gabbing on their way to somewhere, or like him, huddled solo against the night.
He sifted the bloodmemories from the girl. The connection to the Needle was obvious. There was affection there, fatherly, but aloof. He got the impression of a Winnebago-type vehicle, covered in graffiti, but no idea of a location. Damn it.
And now he was hungry — hungrier. The blood, the adrenaline, had whetted his appetite. People moved away from him. Some even crossed the street when they saw him coming.
Maybe Danica had been right; maybe he had been stupid to come here. But what else could he do? Mira had killed his mother; he couldn't let that rest. He simply couldn't.
Finally,