Gary had a backlog of court documents to serve on four people. He spent the afternoon dashing around the Eastern Suburbs serving them. Fortunately, his targets were all at the addresses he was given and none tried to flee.
That evening, he ate a Thai takeaway dinner in his unit. Then he drove over to the apartment building in Drummoyne where Patrick Arnott lived. It was dark when he arrived, just after 8pm. The 15-storey building seemed to lean over a small glittering cove with sailing boats and motor cruisers swinging at their moorings.
He used the swipe card that Madeline Arnott gave him to enter the building and catch a lift up to the tenth floor, where five front doors lined one side of the hallway. The door of Apartment 103 was in the middle. He gingerly knocked in case Patrick Arnott was now un-missing. No response. But he heard what sounded like a faint scream from somewhere. Did it come from inside the apartment? Was it even a scream? He wasn't sure.
Slightly puzzled, he unlocked the door, pushed it open and stepped into the apartment. Faint moonlight flowed over a balcony and created just enough lines and shadows to reveal a large living area. A soft breeze indicated the glass doors to the balcony must be open. Maybe Arnott forgot to close it when he left.
He took a couple of steps into the room and the ceiling light snapped on. Shit. His eyes quickly adjusted and he found himself staring at the muzzle of a big pistol a metre away. His nerves sizzled, particularly when he saw the guy holding it was a monstrosity, with massive sloping shoulders and a tiny bald head that looked hail-damaged. He looked like he could bench press a fridge. A permanent sneer was his most pleasant feature. Pulling the trigger, many times, would obviously give him great joy.
The guy stood in the middle of the room. So how did he turn on the light? Oh, shit.
A voice behind Gary said: "Don't fuckin' move."
Gary instinctively spun around and saw another guy with another big pistol. This one was taller and slimmer, with a hatchet face and matching sneer.
"I told you not to move. What're you doing here?"
Gary had to scrape the words off his tongue. "I-I could ask you the same question."
A give-me-your-wallet smile. "Yeah, but I'm holding a pistol, right? You're looking for Arnott, aren't you?"
Gary played for time while his brain digested current events. "Arnott?"
"Don't play games - Patrick Arnott, the dude who owns this apartment."
"Ah, yes, Patrick. Yes, I'm a friend; I just dropped in to see him."
"Bullshit, you're looking for him, aren't you?"
"No, I'm just a friend. I guess he's not here, so I'd better be going."
Hatchet-face chuckled. "Not so fast. Tell us who you're working for."
"I'm not working for anyone. I'm just a friend."
The guy raised his pistol and made Gary's heart race. "Tell me or I'll drop you now."
Baldy, behind Gary, sounded agitated. "Tony, we got no time for this. We gotta get out of here. Let me shoot him."
Gary's racing heart came to a screeching halt.
Hatchet-face pursed his lips. "No."
"Please."
A saturnine smile. "Nah, we'll leave him here. He can take the rap."
The rap for what? Gary was tempted to ask but didn't want to interfere with their plan to let him live.
A giggle behind him. "Yeah, good idea."
Gary heard a couple of steps and started to turn. His head exploded with pain and the room disappeared.
Gary floated in a dark void. A fuzzy blob hovered outside his brain and there was a wailing sound in the distance. What happened to him? Why was everything dark? Was he dead? Was he blind?
The fuzzy blob started drifting towards his brain and he realised it was pain. It attached itself to the back of his skull and ignited. He writhed in agony. Jesus Christ. But the pain meant he was alive, surely. Something must have knocked him out. But was he blind?
He forced open an eyelid. Light punched him in the eye. His blurry vision slowly sharpened and he saw, a few centimetres away, the zig-zag pattern of a carpet. Must be lying on his stomach. Where? He popped open his other eyelid and waited until his eyes co-ordinated. Then he lifted his rock-like head and saw he was in the living room of an apartment. How did he get here? Memories flooded back. This was Patrick Arnott's apartment. But, when he entered, a couple of thugs pointed pistols at him and asked a lot of questions. Then they decided to let him "… take the rap" for something and a brute knocked him out.
What rap?
The wailing noise got louder. Sounded like a siren. Christ, it was one. From an ambulance? Or a police car? The siren accused him of doing something bad. What? He had no idea and no desire to wait around and find out. Despite the pain, he had to move fast. He put his hand on the ridge of a couch and heaved himself to his feet. The top of his spine stabbed the base of his brain. Sparkling motes danced in front of his eyes.
He steadied himself and saw blood on the carpet in front of him. His? He wiped the back of his head and studied his palm. No blood. He examined his clothes. Still no blood. Must be someone else's. Whose?
He felt a cool breeze on his cheek again and saw the balcony doors were open. That was strange. Patrick Arnott wouldn't have left them open when he left the apartment. So the thugs must have opened them. Why? What were they doing out on the balcony? Maybe, if he went out there, he would learn why the siren was wailing.
Despite desperately wanting to flee, he stumbled across the room and through the doors. A large tabby cat sat nonchalantly on a corner of the balcony railing, staring at him, heedless of the precipice.
He looked over the railing. Between the building and the shoreline was a large floodlit swimming pool empty of water. A couple of people stood beside the pool, looking at a spreadeagled body in the bottom of the deep end. It was impossible to identify the body because, apart from being distant, it was face down. But he sensed, from its shape, that it was male.
Jesus. The guy must have plunged from this balcony. Maybe the thugs threw him off? Yes, that's what must have happened. That was why the evil bastards were so desperate to escape the apartment and leave him behind.
"He can take the rap."
Bloody hell. The sound of the siren was deafening. Panic squeezed the pain from his head.