Faceless, page 7
Max felt paralysed. He should have expected that, with his years of experience on the other side of life, he should have known he’d be asked that very simple question, but his overriding concern for Billy had blotted out his memory of all the formalities needed in these circumstances. He wavered, unsure of whether he wanted to give that information, unsure of whether he was capable of it, as the sickliness of anxiety rose like a wave in his throat.
‘It’s not important,’ he said, dropping his eyes and walking off fast in the direction of home.
Bradley
This time, when he pulled up outside the deserted industrial building, his heart fluttered with an anticipation, a quickening. It was part nerves – he knew that, because he had to admit to himself it could still go wrong – but mostly it was the surge of adrenaline that went with knowing you were about to finish something, something big. This time he’d gone to the Big Red Shed at Sylvia Park to do his shopping, and this time it was mission accomplished. There had been no sudden attack of paranoid guilt, no looking over his shoulder in case someone recognised him. He was one of the faceless masses slavering over cheap goods in a huge store, so no one took any notice of him. He didn’t have to deal with some bored-looking checkout assistant avoiding eye contact as he’d used the self-service aisle. Normally he liked the human connection, even if it looked long-suffering, but today anonymity suited him just fine. In the car on the way over he’d listened to the news on the radio, stomach gripping in anticipation of a report of a missing young woman, but none came. The same weight of dread had overcome him this morning when he’d read through the Herald. His eyes had manically scanned the headlines, but there had been no mention of her. Would there ever be? Did she have family or friends who would report her missing? You’d think there would be someone who would realise something was amiss, but then maybe she was a street kid and he’d struck it lucky – no one would ever report her. Playing odds wasn’t his style, though, so he wasn’t about to take any chances. He grabbed up the bulging grey reusable bag, made a mental inventory of its contents. Black nylon trackpants with a stripe down the leg and a bit of red trim. They were elastic-waisted, in case he’d guessed her size wrong. When choosing a shirt he’d selected a plain, navy, long-sleeved T – she didn’t strike him as a pink kind of a girl. Pink was a colour he was all too familiar with. He hated that Ange insisted on dressing the girls in pink. It wasn’t like they could ever be mistaken for boys, they were as girly girl as you could get, with long hair and ponytails, and the prettiest of pretty faces. It wasn’t as if anyone needed clarification there. To him it lacked imagination and smacked of Barbie. Boys blue, girls pink. What was wrong with the rainbow of colours out there? Even purple would have been an improvement on the layer upon layer of pink inflicted on the girls. God help them if she made them wear it into their teenage years; everyone would assume they were ditzy and thick, like wearing the colour automatically wiped twenty points off your IQ. In some ways he hoped they’d go gothic on Ange – it would be the ultimate revenge. In protest he’d bought a green hoodie for the girl, with some nondescript music-themed graphic on the front. He had been going to get red, then he remembered some high-profile gangs wore red and black, and the last thing he wanted to do was get her into trouble on that front. It was better to be safe than sorry. He’d bought underpants and socks, but hadn’t bothered with a bra, that would have been a bit too attention-grabbing. What he was most pleased with himself about was he’d thought to buy wet wipes so she could clean herself up properly, and rubber gloves, because the way she smelt, it wasn’t going to be a pleasant job. He’d thought of everything, without the unwanted prompts from his wife, or a secretary, to procure the right things. Food and water had also been on his shopping list: chocolate bars, muesli bars, some potato crisps. It wasn’t what you’d call nutritious, but it was something to get her strength up so she could get moving and get the hell out of his life. He noticed with a lurch he’d need plastic bags to chuck her soiled clothes in, and then he’d have to get rid of them somewhere. So he hadn’t thought of everything after all, but then, it would have looked a little too suspicious in his mind if he’d chucked in some bin liners. There was a supply of reusable bags in the boot – he’d just have to sacrifice one of them. It was a testament to his heightened nervous state that it hadn’t occurred to him before.
Everything sounded loud to him – the clank of the metal door closing behind him, the echo of his footsteps across the cavernous workshop floor as he approached the room, the rustle and thunk from the shopping bags as he lowered them to the ground. He stood outside for a few moments, rehearsing what he was going to say, how he’d pitch it, and then he slid the key into the lock and opened the door.
The stench was, of course, worse. Even though he’d anticipated it, he felt sickened and even disgusted by it, by her. She cringed into the corner, trying to hide her face from the sudden influx of daylight. Light. Damn, that was another thing he had forgotten. The power was off in the building – why pay for a connection no one was using? It did mean he couldn’t close the door behind him, to prevent her from bolting. It meant a slight rethink, and of course, it all depended on her. Always her. There was no point prolonging the agony, for either of them.
‘I have a proposition for you,’ he said. His voice was amplified by the small room and its hard surfaces, the tremor in his words made more apparent by the reverberation. It smacked of weakness, and he worked hard to continue on without the quiver. ‘This is a fucked-up situation I never meant to happen.’ He just about uttered those socially conditioned words, ‘I’m sorry’, but somehow held them back, the ghosts of many TV lawyers past echoing the words ‘never apologise’ in his head. ‘I have no intention of hurting you, and I have a way we can both walk away from this.’ He watched as her head began to turn towards him, as her eyes tracked up towards his. It took an age, and when they finally made contact the intensity of the fear and exhaustion in them created a hollow in the pit of his stomach.
He waited for her to say something, but she remained silent. The huge orbs of her dark eyes staring began to disconcert him, and he looked away, felt his hands start to shake more. The bags with the clothes and food in it were on the floor, so he bent over and grabbed them, swinging them slightly to hide the trembling, then walked properly into the room and placed them on the small table that had for some reason been left behind in the room. ‘I have clean clothes for you, and stuff to clean you up.’ Then he swung the bag on his back around and held it up for her to see – the bag with the money. When she didn’t react, he opened it, pulled out a wad of notes and fanned them with his thumb. ‘Here’s the deal. I have twenty grand in cash, right here in the bag. For the twenty grand you go away, you do whatever you want with it, I don’t care. You can blow it on booze or drugs, I don’t give a shit. But you don’t go to the police, and you never tell anyone about all this, about me.’
He caught a glimmer of something on her face – was it hope? Was this going to work after all? ‘Like I said, I don’t want to do you any harm, I just want this whole awful episode to go away. Jesus, I want you to go away, and I’ll pay you to do it. But believe me, if you ever betray me, if you ever go to the police or turn up again in my life one day demanding more, I will kill you. Pure and simple. You do not want to fuck me about, because I will do it, I swear, because I am this close to the edge. Do I make myself clear?’
She nodded her head, and the cascade of relief that flooded through his body nearly made him stagger forward. But he had to make sure.
‘Do we have a deal?’
She nodded again, but he wanted more, he needed to hear her say it.
‘Do we have a deal?’ he yelled, the sound detonating like an explosion in the tiny room.
She flinched, and he could see her throat bob up and down as she tried to say the word.
‘Yes.’ It was small and hoarse, but it was enough.
Billy
She sees his hands are shaking and his voice, his voice, so loud in the confined space of her prison, it quakes, and she sees he is as scared as she is, and as his words filter through the dehydrated murk of her brain, her heart leaps in a glimmer of hope.
‘Like I said, I don’t want to do you any harm, I want this whole awful episode to go away. Jesus, I want you to go away, and I’ll pay you to do it. But believe me, if you ever betray me, if you ever go to the police, or turn up again in my life demanding more, I will kill you. Pure and simple. You do not want to fuck me about, because I will do it. I swear. Do I make myself clear?’
He doesn’t want to harm me. She feels a burst of elation. The money is a mind-blowing figure for her, but it’s not about the money, the money is incidental, it’s about getting out alive, and she realises, He wants to survive this as much as I do. The thought repeats a mantra in her head. She hears his threat, delivered with a quivering voice, and she knows it is purely that, it’s hollow, a facade of strong words because he is scared, he is shit-scared. But he doesn’t need to worry, doesn’t need to worry at all because she will take his money, she will take his money and she will run and she will get the hell away from this place, from Auckland, from her life, from this hell, and he doesn’t need to worry about her coming back and demanding more because, above all else, he is the last person on earth she wants to ever see again.
‘Do we have a deal?’
She nods her head, her eyes unwavering from his, she wants out, she wants out as fast as she can, she doesn’t give a damn about anything else, as long as she can feel the sun on her skin, breathe in the sharp, salt sea air, just get the hell away.
‘Do we have a deal?’ His shout makes her flinch, and she knows he needs to hear her, because his fear is as livid as hers, but her throat is so dry, so very dry and she tries to force out the words, to scavenge up a trace of moisture to lubricate her vocal chords, help her find her voice, but it won’t come and all she manages is a crackled ‘es’, but it is enough, she can see from his face, it is enough. She can see from the way his shoulders slump forward and he nearly stumbles, it is enough.
‘I’m going to trust you now,’ he says, ‘I’m going to cut your hands free so you can clean yourself up, but if you do anything stupid, anything at all, the deal’s off, and I’ll tie you back up and leave you here to rot in hell. Do you understand?’
She nods.
He moves towards her then, warily, like she is a ticking time bomb of indeterminate fuse, and he fumbles slightly with the multi-tool he draws from his pocket before he selects a fine blade. He is next to her now, and she sees in his screwed-up face his revulsion as he is assaulted by the full strength of her stench. She can’t watch as he slips the blade between her skin and the plastic of the left tie. She cringes at the stab of pain from the dragging pressure as he pulls the blade up; feels the physical and mental relief as the tie cedes to steel and the cut band drops free to the floor. He steps away from her then, towards the door, and she understands with an ache of shame that it is to breathe fresher air – she is that putrid, that repugnant.
‘Let me get you some water now.’
She feels a swell of gratitude that again threatens to overwhelm her, feels her body lurch with the arid gasps that would be sobs. She tries to rub at the insulted skin of her freed left hand with her still bound right one, but only succeeds in stinging, not soothing. He passes her the water bottle and steps back, and it is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen, the light from the outside glinting off the curves of the plastic. He’s left the plastic cap on and she tries to flick it off with her left thumb, but it won’t budge, so she brings it across to her right hand, but the cap is stuck tight and she groans with the frustration. Without warning the bottle is snatched away and, as her head whips around to follow its path, she sees him pull off the cap with ease, she sees him pull up the sealed sipper and even as his hand moves it back towards her, she is up on her knees, reaching out for it, like the devout at prayer appealing to God, all inhibition gone for the sake of that blessed liquid, and she grabs it and lifts it to her lips and she slumps back onto her heels with relief as wetness bursts into her craving mouth, the spring of cool water gushing down her throat, its reassuring weight hits her stomach and she groans with the absolute pleasure of it, then sucks deeply on the bottle again, and again. But something is wrong, her eyes open wide with shock as she feels the intense spasm grip her stomach, instantly rues her greed and, as her stomach clenches in violent protest, she is horror-stricken and hopeless to resist as her body rejects and ejects a stream of liquid, hot and hurried, up out of her throat, out of her nose and all over his suit-clad legs.
Max
He was right, the first wave of ladies were out on the streets, plying their trade. Max walked further down the road until he reached the spot Billy favoured when she was on that game. He recognised the two women whose territory was closest. One of them was older – well, she looked to be in her forties with a face like a weathered hag and dyed black hair that just made her look all the more severe. Her body was lean, junkie lean, and she emphasised what few curves she did have with a satin-look bustier, a black mini that was borderline obscene and standard-issue fishnets and stilettos. There was nothing subtle about her approach, either. Max couldn’t help wonder what magic she could perform to keep a steady stream of dedicated clients. The girl – and she was a girl – was dyed blonde, again with the standard mini and tights, but this one was a little more adventurous with colour. As he got closer he corrected himself: the girl wasn’t dyed blonde, she was wearing a wig, and she was Asian. He liked to think she looked younger than she was, but it was an unfortunate fact that there were many underage girls in the trade. He walked up, near to where the hag was stubbing out a cigarette with her shoe and waited until she noticed him. She glanced at him, and then returned to her task.
‘No way, fuck off mate, I don’t do the likes of you,’ she said, her voice gravelled by years of smoking. ‘Even I’ve got standards.’
The young one stood there chewing her gum like a cow on the cud and gave him a look of abject disgust.
‘I’m not buying,’ he said.
‘Then fuck off, because you’re bad for business.’ She looked up the street over his shoulder and gave a little incline of her head. He turned his head to follow her gaze and saw movement in the shadow of a doorway, a large movement. Shit, he knew what that meant, he had to be quick.
‘Look, I’m just wondering if you’ve seen Billy at all – you know, the short Fijian girl, the tomboy one? She’s gone missing. Have you seen her in the last few days?’
A massive hand whumped down onto his shoulder, he felt his neck crick under the sudden weight, and a voice charged with menace and wafting the scent of stale fish sounded in his ear.
‘You’re not troubling the ladies, are you?’ The voice belonged to an Island guy – he was a good half-foot taller than Max and three times his size at least. This was what he’d been worried about. The pimps didn’t tend towards mercy when it came to anyone interfering with trade. The only reason Billy had gotten away with it for so long was that she flitted on the fringe of their territory and was infrequent enough that they didn’t bother. They had tried their methods of persuasion to get her into their stable, as it were, on a number of occasions, but to her credit, she had fended them off.
‘No, look, I’m not bothering them, I just wanted to ask them a question about someone.’ The hand squeezed even harder on his shoulder, and Max waited in horrified anticipation for the crack of bone giving in to pressure.
‘Fuck, you stink, get the hell out of here.’ He shoved Max down the footpath, away from the women, away from his chance for some information. The force of the shove knocked him to his hands and knees, and he felt the sting of skin abrading against footpath. The chorus of aches in his body complained as he scrambled back to his feet. He rubbed his hands against his trousers to wipe off the grit embedded in his skin, and then tested his shoulder, relieved it was still intact. It was so tempting to walk away, but he couldn’t give up that easy. Billy had been gone two nights. Time was the enemy at this stage – any snippet could be vital, and the ladies might have seen something. He turned back around to have one more try at the questions.
‘Hey, look,’ he said, bloodied palms up in supplication, ‘I just want to know if anyone’s seen Billy, you know, the little—’ He didn’t get to finish the sentence as a fist barrelled into his stomach. The force lifted him off the ground and threw him to the pavement. His head smacked back and the crack of it hitting the concrete launched a flash of pyrotechnic stars. Through the burst of pain, self-preservation kicked in and he flipped over and started crawling away, trying to put distance between him and the punishment, but he wasn’t fast enough, and the excruciating pain of a boot up his arse ripped like a rocket up his spine. Still he crawled, waiting for the next blow, but it didn’t come: objectivity lesson of the day had been dished out; as far as they were concerned the threat had been dealt with. He crawled onwards and around the sanctuary of a corner to the accompaniment of deep rumbling laughter and a witchy cackle cutting through the air.
Bradley
Fuck. He had just about told her to slow down, to take it easy after so many days without water, but the immense guilt of knowing he was the cause of her desperate thirst had made him hold his tongue. But now, as the feeling of dampness soaked through his trousers and touched his skin, the guilt was replaced by a surge of anger and revulsion and, without conscious thought, his hand had drawn back and then slapped her across the face, hard. The sharp echo of the slap that resonated around the room, the screech of the dropped bottle as it scraped across the floor and the look of wide-eyed shock on her face sent him reeling back a step. A burst of confused feelings coursed through his body, and he backed out of the room, slammed the door behind him and then spun around, leaning his back against its solidity, his eyes closed, heart racing, breath gasping. He had lashed out again in anger, and it was precisely that destructive explosion of anger that had got him into this shit in the first place. He couldn’t believe he’d done it again. How could he be so bloody stupid, so impulsive? He was never like that with anyone else. He’d never hit a woman before this in his life, never even come close. So why was it different with her? God knows, Ange had riled him enough in their time together, but he’d always bitten back the anger, swallowed it down and forced himself to stay calm. What was it about this girl that seemed to bring out the worst in him? Shit, he’d hit her not once, but twice now. What shook his mind and his heart more was that this time it had been different. He flexed the fingers of his right hand, which still stung with the shock of the slap. It was that difference that scared him the most. He screwed his eyes up, chanted to himself, ‘no, no, no, no,’ all in a pointless effort to distract his mind from what it was trying to tell him, and what he didn’t want to admit. But he couldn’t, he had to face the truth: this time it had felt good. It had felt so very good.
