‘What about Nina, then? Why can’t I call her?’
‘Because she’s asleep.’ Seeing me glower at him, Reuben raised his eyebrows. ‘You won’t be popular if you wake her up. Especially if you’re too damn tired to make any sense.’
This struck me as a gross exaggeration. ‘I’m not that tired.’
‘Well, you look tired. And you smell worse. In fact you might wanna freshen up before Nina arrives.’
Sergio tried to smother a laugh, which came out through his nose instead of his mouth. Danny leered at me.
Though I tried not to blush, it was a failed attempt.
‘She’s not really my girlfriend!’ I protested. ‘I hardly know her!’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Danny.
‘It’s true!’
Danny didn’t reply. He just smirked as he staggered to his feet, crumpling an empty beer can before he tossed it onto the floor. Then he picked up his shotgun and headed for the stash in the fridge.
Reuben watched him, sour-faced.
‘Think you can handle guard duty?’ Reuben inquired. ‘Or do you wanna get completely stonkered instead?’
‘On five beers?’ Danny scoffed. ‘You must be mixing me up with some little fella.’
‘Just take it slow, all right? I’m serious.’
‘Y’reckon?’ Danny’s tone was scathing. ‘If you were really serious, mate, we’d be scraping a couple of scumbags off the walls by now. Kids or no kids,’ he insisted. ‘Don’t worry, though. I’ll play it your way. And if I nod off, then the dogs’ll wake me up. They don’t miss a thing.’
And that was that. Once Danny had raided the beer supply yet again, Reuben decided that any further discussion would be useless. So the meeting broke up. Reuben went to phone Estelle. Sergio made a sudden dash for the bathroom. He told me later that he was keen to get there before I did, since he hadn’t had a proper shower in ten months. ‘I didn’t want you to use up all the hot water,’ he confessed. ‘And anyway, you didn’t smell nearly as bad as me.’
He may have been right, but I was still feeling self-conscious. So I took off one of my T-shirts – the sweatiest, raggiest, innermost one – which I bundled into a ball and tossed into a kitchen cupboard. Then I waited for Sergio to finish in the bathroom.
I didn’t wait in the kitchen, though. Not while Danny Ruiz was there. I’d had my fill of Danny; when I saw him spitting beer into Psycho’s mouth, I decided that I needed a bit of peace. The living room was also out, because Reuben had taken his phone into it and collapsed onto the only remaining piece of furniture – which happened to be a busted futon. That’s why I retreated to one of the bedrooms. That’s why I ended up using a mattress on the floor. There weren’t any beds, see.
But I shouldn’t have gone near that mattress. Not because it was smelly, or because it made my skin crawl. Not because I felt uncomfortable, parked on the floor with my knees around my ears. The fact is, I shouldn’t have gone near any mattress, because I was far more tired than I realised. As soon as I sat down, I wanted to lie down.
I tried telling myself that the sheets stank of Gary – that I’d feel much better after taking a shower – that I had a whole lot to think about before I could spare the time for a nap. I tried to concentrate on Reuben’s plan; was it the best plan for me? Was Reuben trustworthy, or would it be better if I just grabbed a phone and called my mum?
For at least five minutes I managed to stay upright. Gradually, however, my thoughts became muddled. Reuben’s distant chatter began to sound blurred. I looked at the mattress and saw that it was blotched with stains. The sheets were all twisted. There was a scattering of crumbs on the pillow.
But I lay down anyway, reminding myself that I often did my best thinking in bed. How many hours had I spent staring at my bedroom ceiling, reviewing the events of the day and dreaming about the future? I just have to rest my body, not my brain, I decided – and that’s all I can remember.
I guess I must have fallen asleep.
When I woke up, I was hungry. I was also stiff, parched, hot, and desperate for a piss. The sun was blazing through the window, so I figured that it had to be early afternoon, at least. I couldn’t be sure, though, because I still didn’t have a watch.
Someone had dumped my shoes by the bed while I was sleeping. Obviously Lincoln hadn’t had time to throw them away. After pulling them on, I headed straight for the bathroom – which by now was unoccupied. Sergio had gone. He’d left a puddle of water on the floor and a damp towel hanging on the rail, but he didn’t answer when I called his name. That’s why I didn’t immediately duck into the shower myself, once I’d emptied my bladder. The all-pervading silence was already beginning to unnerve me.
Where was everyone?
Back in the hallway, I spotted a closed door. It was one of the bedroom doors, and it squeaked as I pushed it open. Behind it, Reuben didn’t even stir in his sleep. He was draped across a mattress like the one I’d used – a worn, grubby mattress that lay on the floor. His hair was wet and he smelled of soap. The shotgun had been placed beside him, within easy reach.
I wasn’t even tempted to pick up that shotgun. Sergio would have done it; in fact I was surprised that he hadn’t already. To me, however, it would have been like picking up a chunk of radioactive waste.
I slowly backed out of the room, then went to look for the others. There was no one in the kitchen. ‘Danny?’ I called. ‘Hey, Sergio?’ Still nothing. The table hadn’t been cleared. The dirty dishes hadn’t been washed. The rifle and the handgun were missing.
But Danny’s truck was still there, as was Lincoln’s sedan. I could see them when I peered out the window. I couldn’t see Reuben’s van, though, because he’d parked it in the shed. Unless someone had driven away in the van while I was asleep? That was possible. Unlikely, but possible.
I decided to go and check just in case. I wanted to make sure that Danny hadn’t gone off without me and Reuben – and I also didn’t want to look downstairs. I had a very bad feeling about those underground cells. I guess I just had a picture in my head: a picture of Danny and his dogs in the cells, tormenting our prisoners. The picture was so clear that it had set up a kind of force field, driving me away from the kitchen, out the back door.
‘Danny?’ I yelled. There was no reply. I moved towards the shed in a thick haze of heat. Stepping out of that house was like stepping into a blast furnace. Inside, the dim light and high ceilings had fooled me. It had been hot, but not unbearable. Outside, it was the middle of summer. The sun beat down on my head like a baseball bat. It poured into my eyes like molten lead.
Nevertheless, as I picked a path between the stacks of shredded tyres and rusty springs, I noticed movement on the horizon. Someone was walking around out there.
Squinting, I shaded my eyes. A small, dark figure was visible through shimmering waves of heat; I recognised Sergio because of his fuzzy hair and squat build. He was hovering at the edge of the pool, encircled by its lofty wire fence. The long, skinny shape in his hand was probably Danny’s rifle.
‘Hey! Sergio!’ I yelled.
Maybe he didn’t hear me – or maybe he didn’t want to hear me. For whatever reason, he didn’t react. I had to close the distance between us, trudging up the long, low, scrubby incline at the back of the house, towards the pool. It never crossed my mind that Sergio might actually be with someone. I assumed that he’d run off by himself, with Danny’s rifle, so he could practise shooting at things.
‘Hey!’ I shouted, beckoning to Sergio – who heard me, this time, and glanced over his shoulder. But he shook his head, then turned his attention back to the bottom of the pool. I saw him train his rifle on something down there, though not as if he felt very confident. The gun barrel wavered in his hands.
I wondered if he was aiming at the petrol drum.
‘Hey!’ I warned, ‘don’t do that! What if the bullets ricochet, or something?’
That’s when I heard raised voices. The sound was very faint, carried on a fitful br
eeze; even so, I identified the exchange as an ugly one. Somebody was threatening somebody else. And it was happening in the pool.
‘Oh, no,’ I breathed, before pumping up the volume. ‘Sergio! What are you doing? What’s going on?’
‘Shhh!’ he hissed.
‘Where’s Danny?’ It was a rhetorical question, because I already knew where Danny was. Sure enough, when I reached the fence, I looked down and saw him. He was dragging Lincoln through the hatch, using an armlock and a pistol to hurry things along. There was a growling dog stationed in each corner of the pool. As for Gary, he had been left kneeling by the drain, with a pillowcase over his head.
Sergio wasn’t aiming at the petrol drum at all. He was aiming at Gary.
‘Oh, no,’ I muttered. It was the pillowcase that really freaked me out. ‘No way. No way. This . . . this isn’t gunna happen. Sergio? You can’t do this.’
‘Shut up,’ he growled. Then Danny spoke.
‘Right!’ he said to Lincoln. ‘D’yiz reckanise this little spot? Eh?’
He was drunk. I could tell. I wouldn’t have described him as falling-down drunk, because there was nothing unsteady about the way he walked around. But his speech was slurred and his face was flushed.
‘See, this time the shoe’s on the other foot,’ he continued, still addressing Lincoln. ‘This time, we’re gunna watch you fight to the death. And whoever wins gets to keep on breathing . . .’
‘Okay, wait. I get it,’ Lincoln interrupted. He sounded remarkably calm, even though he was damp with sweat, and his clothes were filthy, and there was a smear of blood on his walrus moustache, as if someone had punched him in the nose. ‘You’ve made your point, so what’s the deal?’ he said, in a voice that was only slightly hoarse. ‘Tell me what you want, and it’s done. We’ll do it.’
‘I just told ya,’ Danny replied, still holding his gun to Lincoln’s head. ‘I wanna see yiz put the boot in. Hard.’
‘You’ve no idea how much money I can access,’ Lincoln went on, in his rumbling drawl. ‘There’s half a million us dollars in my operational account, but you’d need the password to – oof!’ He grunted as Danny pushed him to his knees.
‘Don’t move. Not yet,’ Danny warned, edging away. ‘Or I’ll set me dogs on ya.’
‘Hey, Danny!’ I rattled the wire fence, causing him to squint up into the sun. ‘I’ll tell Reuben! Reuben won’t like this!’
His only response was a snort. It was Lincoln who answered me.
‘Kid, this guy’s psycho. Once he’s through with us, he’ll go after – ouch!’
Danny had kicked him.
‘Shuddup,’ said Danny. ‘One more word and I’ll blow your brains out.’ He whipped the pillowcase off Gary’s head, exposing a black eye and a split lip. ‘The rules are very simple: you wait till I’m outta the ring, then you rip each other apart. And if you don’t, me dogs’ll do it for ya.’
Gary mumbled something. He looked bad.
‘Danny!’ I shrilled.
‘Piss off.’
‘I’ll tell the police!’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ He was heading for the ladder, and displayed no interest in what I was saying. ‘Now, remember,’ he told his two captives, stumbling a little as he reached for the bottom rung, ‘Sergio’s up there with a ten-gauge, so if anyone starts making trouble . . .’ He didn’t bother to finish, wagging his automatic instead.
I bolted. Before he had even climbed out of the pool I was on my way to fetch Reuben, galloping back down the slope with my mouth agape and my eyes popping. I dodged a ditch. I tripped on a rock. I vaulted a fence and slammed into a screen door, which I nearly wrenched off its hinges.
‘Reuben!’ I bellowed, hurling myself over the kitchen threshold. For a second or two I couldn’t see; my eyes had trouble adjusting to the dimness inside the house. ‘Hey, Reuben!’ I called again.
He must have heard my voice – or the thud of my shoulder bouncing off a doorjamb – because he was standing up by the time I reached his bedroom. When I flung open the door, I was met by a pair of bleary green eyes blinking through a mop of tousled curls.
‘What?’ he croaked, staggering slightly. When someone’s that unsteady on his feet, the last thing you want to see is a gun in his hands. Reuben, however, was clutching that shotgun as if he couldn’t stay upright without it. ‘Whassa matter?’
‘It’s Danny!’ I cried. I was gasping for breath. ‘You’ve gotta come!’
‘Why?’
‘He’s drunk . . .’ I had to gulp down some air before continuing. ‘He’s at the pool with the dogs! He’s making Gary fight Lincoln!’
‘Oh, Christ.’ Reuben dashed past me before I could finish. Suddenly he was gone. Footsteps thumped down the hallway.
I followed him, still panting.
‘Sergio’s out there with the rifle!’ I added. ‘You’d better watch out!’
That’s when I heard the gunshot.
I knew what it was, even though I’d never heard one before. The echo made me think of certain movies I’d seen. Though faint, it was a sound that stopped me in my tracks like a bullet. I reeled and choked. My knees almost buckled.
I had to steady myself against a wall.
‘Oh, no,’ I said aloud. There was no response from Reuben – just the crash of a screen door slamming. When I reached the kitchen, he was already outside.
I have to admit that I didn’t rush after him. One part of me wanted to crawl under the table, while the other part was desperate to know what had happened. But the longer I hesitated, the more antsy I felt. In that silent room, with only the tick-tick-tick of a clock to keep me company, I began to imagine all kinds of horrible things – until at last the pictures in my head became scarier than any real-life scenario.
That’s what drove me outside. It wasn’t courage; it was sheer cowardice.
Meanwhile, certain events were unfolding back at the pool. Surrounded by slavering dogs, with two guns pointed straight at him, Lincoln must have realised that he wouldn’t be able to talk himself out of the arena. So he’d thrown a few punches at Gary – who had fought back with a couple of wild swings, one of which had made contact with Lincoln’s jaw.
If it hadn’t been a punishing blow, I don’t think that Danny would have been fooled. Put it this way: I’m pretty sure that Lincoln must have gone down for real. But knocked out? I don’t think so. I find it hard to believe that someone lying unconscious on the ground would suddenly wake up at the exact moment his sworn enemy was leaning over him. And even if that did happen, it’s pretty near impossible to believe that the person on the ground would be alert enough, after sustaining a serious head injury, to make a lightning-fast grab for the nearest handgun.
To me, it seems obvious that Lincoln must have faked the whole blackout just to lure Danny back into the pool. And I suppose you could say that the plan worked, up to a point. While Lincoln and Danny were wrestling, Sergio wasn’t able to fire his shotgun; if he had, he might have hit Danny. (That’s what Sergio told me afterwards, anyway.) As for the dogs – well, they had been told to keep Gary pinned down, in case he tried to launch an attack while Danny was busy examining Lincoln. But during the struggle between Danny and Lincoln, Danny’s pistol discharged into the air. And that noise must have confused the dogs just long enough to make them relax their guard a little. I guess they were torn between their desire to obey Danny and their desire to protect him.
With the dogs’ attention diverted, Gary seized his chance. Even as Reuben and I were charging towards the pool, Gary was flying towards its open hatch – which could be bolted shut from inside the tunnel. Though Mutt did manage to bite his calf, Gary gave the dog such a kick that it immediately fell back. That’s when Sergio fired his shotgun. I heard it roar and ducked automatically, despite the fact that I wasn’t in any danger. Maybe Gary ducked too – or maybe Sergio was a lousy shot. Either way, Sergio missed. And Gary reached the hatch just in time to slam it in Psycho’s face.
‘Quick! Go get ’im!’ D
anny yelled. He had custody of the pistol by then, because at least two of his dogs were hanging off Lincoln’s shirtsleeves. Sergio, however, faltered at the edge of the pool, as though wondering what Danny had meant.
‘Don’t just stand there!’ Danny screamed at him, pressing Lincoln’s skull into the tiled floor. ‘He’ll take his car, ya drongo!’
‘Oh!’ Sergio suddenly realised that Gary was making for the house. So he began to run, though he hadn’t gone far before he bumped into Reuben. They stood together for a moment, breathlessly talking and waving their arms. Then they both raced towards me.
‘What is it?’ I cried. ‘What happened?’
Reuben skidded to a halt, loose gravel sliding and tumbling from beneath his boots. ‘One of ’em’s in the tunnel!’ he barked. ‘We gotta head ’im off at the house!’
‘Oh, man . . .’
‘That bloody fool didn’t lock up the cells!’ Reuben added, before shooting off again. He didn’t explain who the ‘bloody fool’ was. I assumed it was Danny.
As for Sergio, he didn’t even bother to stop. He pelted straight past, legs pumping, eyes staring. I followed him. We were moving downhill at a pretty good clip, despite the fact that Sergio was wearing Lincoln’s shoes. But we weren’t fast enough. Before we’d even hurdled the fence, Gary had popped out of the kitchen door. We saw him racing towards the sedan.
‘Jesus!’ Reuben yelped. His pace eased off as he began to fidget with his shotgun. I couldn’t help overtaking him; my momentum almost hurled me into the back of the shed, which I dodged at the very last moment. Sergio was lagging behind because his legs were so short – and because his rifle was weighing him down. But he caught up at the fence.
bang!
Another shot. It nearly deafened me. I looked back and saw Reuben aiming his gun. A wisp of smoke dissolved into the super-heated air.
Then the sedan’s ignition fired. Chugga-chugga-chugga-vrrromm! My head snapped around. The sedan was moving – slowly, at first. Its driver’s door was still standing open. But Gary pulled the door shut while I was swinging my legs, one by one, over a rusty strand of fence wire.