34

MY FEET together, on my side. Engine drone. Jostled up and down, rolling. Green-apple fresh and oily odours and the sour smell of my fear. My abject terror. My forthcoming death, though not yet. Alive for now in this lurching car or van or something, something that moved down a second-rate stretch of road. Possibly dirt — the tyres didn’t hum, they crunched on the corrugations and pot holes.

Sudden breaking, waiting, and sharp turns sent me sliding across the seat. Fabric against my mouth and nose, a hood of some kind. I pushed my legs back and found the door, my feet were bare. I moved my hands, tried to, they were bound behind me. My eye adjusted and bits of light filtered in. I attempted a roll and lift to get myself upright, but my head hurt, enough pain to give up on that idea.

If I put my head at an angle, right on up the fabric, there was a narrow gap, a stitch hole, and I could see the back of his head. ‘Buster?’ I called.

Buster twisted in the seat. ‘What’d you call me?’

‘Bust Face, from the tattoo on your knuckles. Buster.’

No response.

‘What do they call you?’

He hesitated. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Where’re we headed, Buster?’

‘Fucking Woop Woop. They give me directions.’

I had dealt with unpredictable people. An aggressive, or drunk, client, who had to be cajoled. Any public transport user, any public library patron, anyone who’d ever left the safety of their home had had to deal with a wildling — free folk, who screamed ‘you bastards’ at a fire hydrant or sat staring at you while they wet their pants. And what had all that experience taught me? Stay calm, or try to. Minimal eye contact? Check. Keep the conversation friendly. Deep breaths, slow in, slow out. Eyes closed. ‘So,’ I said. ‘How’s your day been?’

He sniggered.

‘Mine’s been grand. Impromptu trip to the county. I often say I should get out of Melbourne more often. Get among nature.’

‘Got that right.’

‘Ha! You mean buried in it, right?’

Another snigger.

Heart rate soaring; sweating. Don’t panic, I repeated in my head. Calm. Slow and calm. Breathe.

‘Hey mate, can you take the hood off? If I suffocate, no fun of killing me, or whatever.’

For a moment nothing, then he hit the brakes and we skidded to a stop. I felt the car mount an embankment. A hand grabbed the hood from the back of my head, a handful of hair with it, and pulled. I was free and gasping. Plastic cable ties held my ankles, impossible to walk, let alone run. Only Buster and I in the car.

‘Thanks. Much better.’

‘No worries.’ He gunned it.

‘Whereabouts are we going, Buster? Is it someone’s house? I promise I won’t tell.’

He sighed, almost wistfully.

I lifted my head, and checked out the scenery. The volcanic plains of the outer western precincts. Low clouds rolled in over the developer’s dreams, the first-home-buyers’ only hope. I saw a multiple powerline, tall transmission towers. The edge of Tarneit, perhaps, between Werribee and Rockbank. My guess, we were heading towards Luigi Tacchini. The Turk.

At a lonely crossroad, Buster turned onto a road with open paddocks on either side that gave way to five-acre blocks with generic brick-veneer houses surrounded by rusted car bodies, half-arsed shedding, and derelict farm equipment. A pastoral ghetto, which would soon be sacrificed to the medium-density lifestyle, only thirty kilometres from the CBD.

Buster reduced his speed and lowered the window, anxiously checking each letterbox. I was glad of the fresh air. If my hands were free, I’d grab that cheap apple-scented air freshener that dangled from the rear-vision mirror and throw it out the window. He slammed on the brakes, checked his phone, sighed, made a call. ‘Yeah, I fucking am … It’s not here. But you said … Calm down? You fucking calm down … Fuck you, too.’

He drove on and stopped at a cream-brick place. A letterbox mounted on the fence said L. Tacchini. The not-so-secret hideout. In the middle of the driveway was a rusted kitchen chair, and a broken chest of drawers, particleboard festering in the elements.

Buster drove onto the lawn. I struggled when the door opened, but he dragged me out by my feet without fuss. A meaty arm lugged me upwards. My view as he carried me to the house was of several barking dogs in a miserable fenced-off side-yard. And the sun melting into the orange-mauve horizon.

He dropped me on the concrete porch and knocked.

The screen door flung open. A man stood, grinning at the sight of me. Trim, but small, he had a lot of forehead, and dark hair sprouted from his ears. No battle jacket for him, not the leather cut-off with the insignia of the Corpse Flowers. This killer was all for mingling with the normal folk, in the grey, zip-up jacket with a couple of biros in the sleeve pocket.

‘Turk. Lookee here.’

He nodded with gratification. ‘Round the back,’ he said. ‘That way.’

Buster grunted and shifted me to his shoulder in a firefighter’s lift. We followed the Turk as he waddled down a path beside the house, cluttered with white Styrofoam boxes with weeds growing out of them and rusting white goods. Behind the house was an American-style barn — not a tin shed, but a sturdy wooden building. Over the door was a sign: DUE TO THE RISING COST OF AMMO THERE WILL BE NO WARNING SHOT.

Security cameras, high windows, with bars on them. In my agrarian childhood, with all the visits to other people’s farms, I’d never seen a shed like it.

The Turk turned a key in the lock, reached in and flicked a switch. A row of lights blinked. This workspace would be a mechanic’s dream; it was spacious, and well-equipped. Except it looked like a teenager’s bedroom, an unholy jumble of junk. Three motorbikes, rested on their stands. Piles of sacks, stacks of crates, boxes scattered everywhere.

A nasty smell hung in the air — a mix of sump oil, mould, urine. And some other rotten substance.

Benches piled with open packaging. Tools, takeaway pizza boxes, newspapers, buckets, books, a stack of speakers. Dirty mugs and plates and glasses. Gym equipment lay in odd places, weights here, a pulley there. A tread mill was covered in boxes labelled Power Fitness Blaster and Killer Abs Twister. There was even a cappuccino machine, but it was broken and dirty. A double door, big enough for a tractor to pass through, was at the other end of the barn near a freezer and a pile of plumbing supplies: sinks, toilets, tapware.

‘Dump her there.’

‘There’ was a vinyl-covered kitchen stool.

Buster let me slide from his grip onto the stool, and I steadied myself upright. I took in the welding equipment, the block-and-tackle that dangled above me.

‘Off you fuck,’ he said to Buster.

‘I got me patch, right? I’m in now, right?’

‘Gorman handles that shit, mate, talk to him. Now piss off.’

Buster left and the Turk locked the barn door. Then he pulled out a phone and tapped. Soft music played somewhere. He adjusted the volume. A Human League dirge surrounded us from the speakers mounted on the wall. So, I thought, the torture begins.