It was a funeral with grieving friends and distant relatives, sandwiches in one hand, cups of tea in the other. It wasn’t as if I could make a fuss. I put my hands in my pockets and stared Murray down, and shook my head — once. He stayed where he was — by the door. He nodded. His goons left his side, pushed through the crowd quietly excusing themselves, their eyes never leaving me as they executed a classic pincer move to circle in behind me. Something hard jabbed my back. ‘Nice to see you again. The boss wants a word,’ one of them whispered The hard thing jabbed me again in my left kidney. It hurt. I stepped forward, one foot in front of the other — slowly. I was relying on them to stay close behind me. I needed them to be touching me as we progressed as one unit across the room, people moved aside, puzzled glances followed us.
I waited until we were standing in front of Murray before I flicked the caps off the needles I had prepared earlier. Palming two syringes, I took my hands out of my pockets. Murray must have thought I was going to shake his hand and raised his in response, sneering at me as he did. He saw the surprise on his goon’s faces as I thrust backwards, and the needles pierced trousers — then skin — then muscle. I pressed the plungers — hard.
Wildnil is one hundred times more potent than your basic fentanyl. As are all drugs, it’s available on the dark web, delivery syringes included in the price. Primarily wildnil is used to sedate large animals, elephants, grizzly bears and the like. At the right dose it will keep a full-grown grizzly knocked out for between twenty and twenty-five minutes. It’s not the safest drug for humans. It works the same as it does for bears but more so, respiratory depression being common and sadly a lethal side effect. I might have over-estimated how much the goons weighed when I was calculating the dose, because they dropped like boulders off a cliff. Time enough for me to grab Murray, twirl him around and shove him on top of the men piled behind me. Time enough for me to yell, ‘Call an Ambulance’ as I ran out of the door around the back of St Luke’s Church through the graveyard, bypassing trees and houses to reach the intersection of Atawhai Lane and St Luke’s Road where I jumped into the taxi, which I had stationed there for just that moment. I had been expecting Murray and planned accordingly. What I hadn’t expected was Jess getting in the back of my taxi, before the driver had pulled away from the kerb.
‘Can I drop you anywhere?’ I asked sarcastically. Her reply was pre-empted by the wailing of an ambulance travelling at full speed in the opposite direction.
‘We need to talk,’ she said.
‘Okay, but not here. No disrespect,’ I said to the driver.
‘None taken,’ he replied keeping his eyes on the road ahead. ‘Where to?’
‘Your call Jess. I insist we drop you off first.’
‘The apartment will be fine,’ she said cool as a cucumber.
I gave the driver the address and handed him an extra twenty when we pulled up half an hour later. ‘No need to tell anyone where you dropped us.’ As he took the twenty, he saluted.
The apartment was dim and airless when we got out of the elevator. I must have wrinkled my nose, because Jess turned on me, like a cornered cat.
‘It’s like this because I have to keep the windows closed and the curtains drawn to stop people taking photos. Someone told them where I lived.’
‘Don’t look at me. It was common knowledge this was Andrew’s apartment.’ I yanked at my tie and undid the top button of my shirt. ‘Can we turn on the air-con?’
‘Costs too much. I got the lawyer’s bill this week. Sit down.’ She pointed to a chair
and sat opposite me.
‘No drink?’
She ignored me. ‘What did you do to those men?’
‘Tranquilliser darts. They’ll be okay when the paramedics give them the antidote.’
‘What if they don’t?’
‘Not so good.’
‘You don’t care, do you?’
‘Considering what they were planning to do to me, no, I don’t.’
‘Don’t you think it’s time you told me what’s going on?’
I almost did. I almost told her everything. Why not? Things couldn’t get any worse and I was exhausted. I’d been hiding out in a shitty motel, eating shitty food, not getting any shitty sleep. Part of me wanted to dump the whole sorry business on the table and leave it to her to sort out. Part of me wanted her to listen, to tell me it wasn’t my fault and that she was sorry for taking Andrew. I wanted her to tell me she understood. Part of me wanted her to help me. The other part of me, the realistic part, told me what a total fuck-up I was and that it was too late. We were both doomed. That part told me, it was every man or woman for themselves and to get out — now. That was the part I listened to — I left.