Tuesday 2.45 pm
Sally had just finished carrying the product of her shopping trip into the bedroom she shared with Lee, leaving the parcels in a careless pile on their bed.
The prizes were left in their respective packaging. She would return later and forage through and admire each of them. Like a Viking might do with his booty after the raping and drinking was done.
She sat down on the small available space at the corner of the bed and kicked off her shoes, then discarded her clothes before stepping naked to her bathroom to shower. After she’d dried herself, she paused in front of the large wall mirror with the oversized fluffy towel wrapped around her. She needed large towels, and this one suited her as it covered her body from the base of her throat to her knees. She inspected her chin, looking for the telltale signs of doubling by tilting her face upward toward the ceiling and slowly lowering it down again.
Finding that part of her seemingly in order, Sally held out her arms and viewed the muscle that ran from shoulder to elbow at the back of her arm. First one and then the other, giving each a little shake in order to test for firmness.
After lowering them back down to her sides, she moved her hands to the hem of the towel. It hung just below her knee caps, and clasping the hem she very slowly lifted it to expose her legs. As she did, she twisted her upper torso in order to inspect the rear of her evenly tanned and toned thighs.
Sally almost breathed a sigh of relief, when after close examination she discovered no sign of cellulite or burst capillaries. Standing full frontal to the mirror she dropped the hem of the towel and loosened the fold at its top. Allowing it to slowly fall away to reveal her upper body in centimetres, like a card player who inspects the set in hand one card at a time.
It was not that she was trying to tantalize herself. Her reason for slow revelation was due to her fear of discovering a blemish. Almost as if she would rather not look, but like a miser she was forced to uncover her treasure and count it for reassurance.
Sally feared aging, hated the invisible sadist whose signature of torture and torment was etched into the bodies of most of those around her.
There was evidence in the street, and she saw it through her window as people shuffled by. It didn’t matter which way on earth they went, these wrinkled sagging victims. They all travelled in the sadist’s direction and to the same ultimate destination.
His prowess was even displayed on the screen of her colour television set. On the faces of models and film stars who slowly progressed through their prime.
After some long moments she allowed the protective covering to fall, laying herself open to whatever mercy total exposure supplied.
Turning side on, she ran a caressing gaze from her hip to her shoulder and was reminded once again why men wanted to play out their fantasies with her.
Or rather on her, she corrected.
Having discovered nothing to cause her concern, she ran her hands down over her hips and finally her thighs. Feeling for natural desecration like burst capillaries, and upon finding no evidence she returned her attention to her breasts.
She held them gently in her two hands before giving each of her nipples a light tweak. They rose up to the point she preferred when she went braless under the soft caressing material of her favourite blouse. After releasing them she watched their proud stance before giving her body a little shake. Thrilling at the wobbling graceful dance they gave, as if they were glad to be able to perform for her.
Sally picked up the towel from the floor. Looking to the mirror as she bent over to take careful consideration of her buttocks, and then kept them under close scrutiny as she stood up straight again. She hated to take her clothes off for fear of finding fault, but by the same token she loved to be naked. Particularly after she’d carried out a thorough visual check and had passed inspection.
She loved her body, and as she stood before the mirror admiring it the telephone interrupted her, forcing her to drag her attention away from her firm form. With a feeling of disappointment, she turned to the doorway and walked across her bedroom to answer it.
Lifting the hand piece, she purred.
“Sally.”
It was the big man and she immediately felt uncomfortable.
“Dan, I asked you not to call me here on this phone. What if Tom were here and he answered it?”
“Please Sally don’t be hard on me. I really needed to hear your voice and I know that Lee isn’t there because I can see him over near his office here at the club.”
“Damn it Dan!” She began and changed her course and asked, “What’s he doing?”
“He’s busy talking to someone on his mobile. That’s why I took the opportunity to call. He’s had everyone busy all day running left, right and centre. Something’s going on. I’m not sure what. He’s calling in loans, moving stock and cranking up the meth lab’s production, like we’re preparing for a siege or something. But enough of that baby. How’re you going?”
Sally was still a bit edgy, but she answered him with the words she knew he wanted to hear.
“I’m good Dan my man. I’ve just had a shower and I’m standing here naked. My nipples are hard and I’ve put a light spray of perfume on my pussy’s bush. I’m a little hot and thinking about that big pussy tickler of yours.” She paused for some seconds before she added teasingly, “How are you going Dan?” She listened as Dan suddenly drew in breath and heard what sounded like a tongue moistening lips.
“Oh baby, my bloods pumping.”
She teased him again.
“Maybe you’d better sit down Dan. By the time that organ of yours fills with blood you’re bound to feel a little light headed.” She chuckled down the phone to him and his ears welcomed the musical sound. He laughed out loud at her joke before she turned the conversation and steered it towards business.
“How’s your plan Dan?”
“I’ll probably be moving with it in the next day or so Sally. Things are nearly set, so it won’t be long before you’re free.”
Sally listened as she heard Dan’s name called out by someone in the back ground.
Dan answered it.
“Yes, Boss?”
Dan’s voice came back to her in cautious whispering tone.
“Got to go Sally, things are moving here. Love you.”
The connection broke before Sally could answer. She looked at the hand piece for a moment before she replaced it onto her dressing table. Deciding that now was a good time to go through her new trophies as she reckoned it would probably be some time before her husband came home.
Sally picked up a purchase bag and tipped its contents out onto the bed. As she did she wondered what it was that was going on in Tom’s business, and was it something that could possibly impact on her lifestyle. It certainly explained his restlessness over the last few days, and she decided it may be a good idea not to impress on him the cost of her shopping spree. He’d learn of it soon enough when the statement arrived in the mail and maybe by then his mood might have improved.
There was one other thing that Sally had learned in her life, and that was to not to push her luck too far. Survival depended on knowing where the line was drawn and if she was nothing else other than being a beautiful woman, Sally was a survivor.
Tuesday 2.55 pm
Tom Lee had indeed been on his phone.
It seemed to him that he’d had it to his ear for most of the morning, and he suspected it would be there again for a large segment of the afternoon. He had no sooner left Larry in the office, after interrupting him yet again, that the electronic device demanded his attention.
A lot had been happening and his troops in the field called often to find out who they were to visit next, and how much they were expected to collect. There were a lot of people who owed him money and his troops were instructed to collect. Lee understood that it would be easier to have had the information they required printed out, but he preferred word of mouth.
He trusted his troops as much as he tr
usted anybody, but the fact remained he didn’t trust anybody absolutely. Printed evidence of his business dealings in anyone’s hands was a temptation he could not afford.
Although he doubted his competitors or even the law would have any use for the information, he was a believer in the old saying about the forest for the trees, although he did view the saying from another angle.
In this case he could keep an eye on the printed information until it got to the trees, but once it got past that point and disappeared into the forest then he had no idea where it could end up. He’d been surprised just how much he relied on Larry, and had decided that he should not interrupt him again. The work the accountant was carrying out, in hiding his assets, was more important than the task that he performed.
Cash collection.
He noted quickly the caller’s number in the phones small window.
“Shane. What’s new?”
“Mr. Lee. That car, the one I told you about yesterday? Well it’s just driven in to the crate place. The two guys that got out of it flashed badges at the guy who spends all his time in the work shop. Then the work shop guy took them inside, probably to his Boss. Wait a second.”
Lee was forced to hold for a moment and while he did he listened to a voice in the background which sounded like Charlie’s as it issued a running commentary. It sounded to Lee like Charlie was doing the watching, and then relayed the events as they happened to Shane.
“Mr. Lee. The work shop guy has left the two other guys inside and is back in the yard again. Charlie says they’re definitely coppers, but he thinks they may be Federals and not just ordinary pigs. Charlie reckons they look a bit heavier than ordinary coppers.”
Lee had no comment to make and his long pause brought forth a question from Shane.
“Mr. Lee. Are you still there?”
Lee was still there, but his mind was on other things and he answered Shane without actually concentrating.
“Um, yes Shane. Just bear with me for a moment, will you?” Shane waited. The pause that followed seemed to be to him the longest he’d ever known Lee to make. He waited as long as his powers of concentration would allow before his hyperactive brain took charge.
“What’ll we do Mr. Lee?”
“Just sit tight Shane. Call me when they leave and then after that stay there until it’s safe for you to leave after dark. No earlier, you understand? You’ve done good work and worth a little extra cash, eh?” Lee broke off and folded his mobile as he looked up and across the bar room to where Dan the Man was standing. He called out to him and then watched as Dan walked across the bar room to stand in front of him. Lee noted as Dan halted, fine beads of perspiration which glistened under the artificial bar room lighting.
Lee looked up at the man who was a good four inches taller than himself and noted a shift in Dan’s normally steady gaze.
There was a lot going on around him to keep Lee’s mind occupied, but he put it all aside for a moment as he was struck with the gut feeling that something was not right with Dan. As he let the pause in his speech linger, he noticed a movement of Dan’s big feet which suggested to him nervousness.
Lee had been a poker player for a long time. He made use of his poker player face to hide the suspicion that he might otherwise have shown before he issued Dan with instructions.
“Dan, I want you to drive over to Grey Street, Alexandria. You know the area? Well I own the building at number sixteen, and right now there are two coppers there. I want you to drive there with haste and then follow them to wherever they go. I need to know if they’re Federal coppers or just ordinary plain clothes. As soon as you find out, make sure that you call me straight away. You got that?”
Lee looked into the windows of Dan’s soul and the name Judas immediately sprang to mind as Dan avoided his gaze. Lee believing that if the suspicious knew that they were suspected, they were from that moment on more guarded. If on the other hand the suspicious believed that they were unsuspected, then they would take more rope with which to hang themselves. He decided he didn’t want Dan to know that he saw through him, so he tried to put him at ease.
“Come on Dan. You didn’t pick up a bug out at Bourke did you and come down with a case of to-Bourke-ulosis or something?” He laughed as he patted Dan on the shoulder and turned him towards the door.
Dan laughed as best as he was able.
“No Mr. Lee. I’ve just a bit of a headache, that’s all.”
Lee had to prevent himself from pushing Dan out the door and instead advised.
“A nice drive through the city might do you good. Get out of here for a while. Go and follow the bad guys, and when you get back we’ll knock the top off a few cold ones. How’s that sound, eh?”
As Dan walked down the ramp at the back of the club, Lee watched him go and felt a little disappointed as he thought to himself.
“You’re the last one I expected to spin around Dan and I wait with interest to see what made you turn.”
Tuesday 3.20 pm
Dan the Man arrived at Grey Street. The industrial roadway tested his car’s suspension as his tyres rode over an abundance of uneven pothole patches. He was reminded why it was he hated industrial areas, as he noted through his cars windows the drab visual environment. It presented itself in the form of oversized sheds in colours of galvanized iron, faded paint and rust. Each one of them with an office reception area that resembled a brothel madam’s mask of makeup ten years after forced retirement. Suggesting the original designer had realized that even though he faced over whelming odds in his battle against boring, he had to try something.
It may have worked with the first one Dan thought, but in trying to beat the odds, each of the succession of designers had only succeeded in adding another facet to boring.
He drove slowly past number sixteen and saw the car which had been described to him by Lee. Then he travelled through the street, onto an intersecting road and with the aid of his right turn indicator turned onto the vacant lot where Nibbles three lads had parked some days earlier. Dan pulled over and switched off his car. He was immediately presented with another dimension of industrial area dullness.
Quiet.
Not silence. One would still be able to hear a two-inch nail drop, but a quietness which to Dan’s inner city ears was akin to deafness. It was broken only by the sound of a passing vehicle, or sometimes occasional sudden sounds like a banging garage door or steel dropping on concrete. Dan’s idea of industrial deafness was not being able to hear the sounds of the inner city.
The traffic as it rolled on when the lights turned green and the occasional screech of brakes. A siren as it cried of danger or heartbreak. A moment’s music as one passed an open doorway of a record store, or even the thud as a wad of newspapers landed on the footpath beside a street vendor’s stall.
The ever changing sounds of the inner city were the vibrations that Dan’s ears lived for. He closed his driver’s side window and turned to the only other option available to him. His car’s radio waves saved him from the quiet and although it was soothing, it was yet another song which brought to mind Dan’s only regret in life. He’d been born too late and had missed the 1960’s.
His library of records, tapes and CD’s at his home held most of the songs of that era. He’d heard stories from many of those who had lived that time, and their proof he’d missed a historic period was in the fact that he’d not met one person who had a bad thing to say about it.
Except of course the odd person whom he’d come across who’d been a parent of a teenager during those times of change.
Other than that, the music and the stories were all he needed. Their foundation was enough to base a belief that he’d missed out on an ingredient necessary for a full and wholesome outlook on life. He’d missed out on the excitement which had been brought about by a clear 20/20 mental vision of a Shangri-La future, and the extreme optimism that the ‘all you need is love’ revolution would bring about a brave new world.
Dan sat with his eyes closed allowing the music to soothe him. Suddenly his mobile phone demanded his return from his longed for dreamtime of joy to the world, and be present again in this post 9/11 reality.
He fumbled for his phone and brought it before his face. Only then, when it was the last thing to do he opened his eyes and looked at its screen.
Dan’s disappointment at missing the end of the song was overcome by curiosity when he didn’t recognize the caller’s number.
A voice came to his ear.
“Dan Sanic?”
“Yes?”
“Two hours ago you called and requested a meeting with my employer?”
“Yes.”
“Your request has been granted. Be in the front bar of the hotel which is on the corner just near your employer’s club at five o’clock today. You will be contacted there. Is that understood?”
“Yes, I understand.”
The caller disconnected, and Dan breathed in so deeply that the buttons of his shirt pulled at the ends of their button holes.
He held the breath for a short moment, before allowing the air to slowly be released through his slightly parted lips. At the same time, he let his whole body go limp, to the extent that he might dissolve into his car seat. With slowly opening eyes, he saw through the thin slits between his eyelids a large industrial shed on the corner of Grey Street.
Someone had painted a picture of Donald Duck, depicted in a moment in time bent over a manual air pump. Its air delivery hose led away from the painted pump to an actual air hose fitting which projected from the shed wall.
As Dan watched, a man came from within the shed and attached a length of hose to the outlet. An object dangled at the hose’s end before being clenched in the man’s hand. Suddenly a cloud of rust coloured dust announced the release of compressed air pressure as it ballooned from a trucks tyre rim.
His eyes were quickly torn away from the man in a reflex action. They became fixed with interest on the cloud of red dust. It swirled around the man and then away, to be collected and dispersed by the light outside breeze.
Dan blinked almost as if it were a cloud around his own eyes. Then once again he took a deep breath, letting it escape through pursed lips with a low whistle. He was not one to whom the feeling of uncertainty was usual, but he recognized its taste as it returned from where it had lain dormant for some time.
In a recess hidden away, as might be an article left unseen in an upstairs attic until rediscovered and then again remembered. He looked at the mobile phone where it lay prone, as if pretending innocence. Finally, he reached out to touch it as if to prove its existence.
“Yes,” he thought aloud, “I did make the call. There had come an answer to my call and it has brought to me uncertainty.” Dan’s young crime life had matured under the watchful eye of Tom Lee, and he knew that he owed him. If not for Lee he might have been jailed by this time, or worse, dead.
He’d learnt much from Lee. Had sometimes stepped close to the line that defined the limits of loyalty, but now, after he’d met with Eddie Paulini he would be stepping over that line.
Past the point of no return, heading down the road to where he would betray Lee and take over where Lee was destined to leave off. He’d known from the beginning that falling under Sally’s spell would lead to someone’s ruin.
It was often perceived to be an inevitable outcome for any triangle relationship. There was no doubt that the probability in this party was decidedly high.
The uncertainty he’d felt on his first secret meeting with Sally had caused him to be slow of the mark. She had seen the need to take the situation in hand, guide him to the threshold and then onwards toward his initial lesson in betrayal. That same uncertainty, being a mixture of the sense of betrayal and a fear of discovery had stayed with him on each of the occasions he’d returned to her for new and more advanced lessons.
The fear of discovery heightened his sexual satisfaction.
Like a rich kleptomaniac who shoplifts for the thrill and then becomes addicted, taking greater risks in an effort to enhance the thrills. Dan knew that his mischief would end in discovery at some stage. It added to his belief that it would be better for him if he went on the offensive, and then, while he held the upper hand, remove the shroud of secrecy.
On his own terms he could display the truth. Lay it out in the open at a time when it would be too late for Tom to retaliate.
It was a dangerous game he played, and the stakes were high.
His actions could cost him his life, but Sally, along with the speed and ecstasy distribution network was a worthy prize. There was also the fact that Sally should, in the event of Lee’s demise, be entitled to at least half of everything that he’d owned.
It was obvious to Dan that if he was going to strike, then now was the time. Apart from the prize, there was also the possibility that if Lee disappeared, then maybe these Federal coppers might lose interest and go sniff around in someone else’s backyard. He looked at his watch and noted the time. There was still time to back out and get away.
Not much time though he thought, because in less than two hours he would discuss possible outcomes with Eddie Paulini. After that, there was no turning back.
Eddie Paulini was the Italian side of town, and as Dan had no idea what kind of loyalty he could expect from Lee’s former employees immediately after his coup. He felt it would be good insurance to engage some form of back up.
It would surely cost him a percentage of the distribution networks income, but if, for that moderate cost he was assured an ultimate success then who was he to complain. In the end he would have more than he had now, with Sally and her real estate as cream on the cake.
Dan listened to the radio some more and was happy when the Stone’s Ruby Tuesday came on. Another classic, he thought. Toward the end of the song he saw the car which belonged to Lee’s suspected Federal Policemen leave through the engineer’s front gate. He watched it as it turned left and disappeared around the corner, before he started his own car and followed discreetly behind it.
CHAPTER 16