Now I could see Eastlake. He had collapsed on his backside. His hands tore at the garrotte around his neck. He sucked at the air and wiped his spit-flecked lips with the back of his hand. His palms went flat to the floor and he began to lever himself upright. His mouth was a smear of murderous intent. One swift kick and I’d be cactus.
‘Wait,’ I wheezed. If I could buy a few seconds, I might get my arm over the rail. ‘Fiona Lambert’s not worth killing me to protect. She’s just using you. She got a cut of the Szabo deal. Karlin was in her flat this afternoon, just before you. Making the pay off. She knew he was leaving the country and didn’t tell you.’
Eastlake was back on his feet, dusting off his pants. He took two steps towards me and raised his foot.
‘You wanted proof,’ I grunted, my knee finally finding the edge of the balcony. ‘Look in her flat. You’ll find a Karlcraft shoebox full of cash.’
‘Bullshit.’ Eastlake’s voice was a rasp. His heel came down hard on the knuckle of my right hand.
‘Arrgghh,’ I screamed and felt my fingers begin to loosen. Scrabbling to shift my balance onto my knee, I heard the sound of running feet. It was coming from below and behind. ‘The cops,’ I winced through gritted teeth, pain throbbing up my arm. ‘I told them I was coming here.’
It was no use trying to bluff him. Eastlake was beyond reason. His face was a blank mask. His eyes were empty. The sound of running footsteps became a high-pitched twittering. Bats, I thought. The squeaking wheel of a supermarket trolley. A choir of heavenly angels come to carry me aloft. The bells of hell.
I had, I realised, got it all horribly wrong. Eastlake wasn’t doing this to protect Fiona Lambert. He had his own reasons for wanting me dead. Austral was just as much his scam as Lambert’s. Maybe more so. It was he who had killed Taylor and Aubrey. And I was next on his list. That’s why he wanted me to meet him here. You stupid idiot, I thought. You’ve brought this on yourself. You deserve to get yourself killed.
Eastlake’s heel came down again. One. Two. Both hands. I was going to die. All I had left was a vindictive lie. ‘Your darling Fiona’s fucking Karlin, you know.’
‘Liar!’ He pressed the sole of his shoe flat against my chest. His hands curled around the guard rail. With a great heaving grunt, he pitched me backwards. The pipe slid from my faltering grip.
Once again, I plummeted into the abyss.
My whole life began to flash before my eyes. It’s true. It happens. A great soft tit filled my mouth. My mother stabbed me with a nappy pin. My first day at school. Sister Mary Innocent raised the yard-long blackboard ruler and brought it down with a mighty whack on the back of my bare legs. My knees buckled and gave out beneath me. I crumpled into a heap.
I was on a small platform of loose planks. It was the top of a mobile scaffold, the kind painters use to reach really high ceilings. Someone had pushed it beneath me while I was clinging to the railing above. That squealing noise was the rolling of castors. I had plummeted a grand total of perhaps four metres. From above came the sound of running feet. The scaffolding tower began to tremble and sway. Either we were having an earthquake or someone was climbing rapidly up the ladder braced to its side.
Adrenalin surged through my veins. My fight or flee reflex went into overdrive. There was nowhere to flee to. Rolling up into a crouch, I grabbed hold of the nearest cross-piece of scaffolding. Wincing at the jolt of pain in my fingers, I braced myself for action.
A hand closed around the top rung of the ladder. Then another. I saw a chunky gold pinky ring. Spider Webb was coming to finish me off.
Webb’s head appeared, sunglasses pushed up on top of his sleek hair. Bobbed down like a Cossack dancer, I kicked out at his head.
I missed. Spider put his forearm up and easily deflected the blow. ‘Fuckwit,’ he snarled. ‘Thought I told you to stay out of this.’ He cocked his head, motioning me to silence. Rapidly retreating footfalls reverberated off plywood walls. Eastlake was high-tailing along the access walkway. Spider’s head disappeared. He was clambering back down the ladder. It was all very hectic and not at all self-evident.
‘Wait,’ I blurted. Would somebody please tell me what the hell was going on? Creeping forward on hands and knees, I peered over the edge of the tower. Spider slithered to the floor. Weaving his way between drums of pre-mixed grouting, he sprinted towards a stairway leading to the upper concourse.
Whatever the hell was happening, I had no desire to be left alone. Not with Eastlake still rampaging around the joint. Not this far from terra firma. I swung myself down onto the rungs of the ladder and gingerly climbed to the ground.
The ground was good. I liked it a lot. I let its reassuring presence seep upwards through the soles of my shoes. I was shaking like a leaf. The memory of Sister Mary Innocent had always affected me that way. At the bottom of the stairs was a skip overflowing with carpenters’ off-cuts. As I went past, I grabbed myself a club-sized length of timber. It was only lightweight pine but it had some tremendously reassuring nails sticking out the end. Nobody was going to mess with me.
Nobody tried. The upper balcony was deserted, the whole site silent as a grave. I loped through the access walkway, headed for the exit. I took the dogleg corner wide, ready for anything. Nothing like being on the receiving end of an attempted homicide to get the old glands pumping.
Spider was in Little Collins Street. Pedestrians were coursing around him. He’d run hard and was doubled up, catching his breath. The back end of Eastlake’s Mercedes was barrelling through a green light at the far end of the block, past the flashing No Turns sign. ‘Shit,’ said Spider, standing erect and sliding his visor back down over his eyes.
I had no idea exactly where this big-eared lug fitted into the scheme of things. I no longer flattered myself that I had any grip at all on the scheme of things. The only thing I knew for sure was that Spider Webb had just saved my life. And that gets you a lot of points in my book. I nearly kissed him.
‘Fucking psycho,’ I said. ‘Your boss is a fucking psycho.’ Two approaching women, spotting the cudgel in my hand, veered to the other side of the street. A weapon was now probably superfluous. I tossed it back down the alley.
‘He is now,’ said Spider, like Eastlake’s behaviour was entirely my fault. ‘And Christ alone knows where he’s headed.’
Christ and yours truly. ‘Fiona Lambert’s place,’ I said. ‘Bet you anything.’
‘Why there?’ Spider didn’t find the idea by any means obvious. ‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him that his girlfriend’s been cheating.’ I was beginning to get a very bad feeling about having told Eastlake that. And the other bit. The bit about her and Karlin. I’d been thinking on my feet, so to speak. The lie hadn’t bought me any more time. But judging by the expression on Eastlake’s face when he stomped my knuckles, it had certainly hit home.
‘Shit,’ said Spider again. ‘No wonder he flipped out.’ His neck went up and his head radared about.
‘What’s going on, for Chrissake,’ I demanded. ‘Tell me.’ I was starting to sound like Claire.
‘Later.’ Spider took off up the street, head swivelling as he went, like he’d mislaid something. ‘Wait,’ I yelled, and headed after him.
The rush-hour traffic was beginning to ease, but Swanston Street was still busy. It was the main thoroughfare through the central business district and the route for all cross-town trams. A row of them was banked up at the traffic lights. I was three paces behind Spider and one step ahead of him. Given the rate the motor traffic was inching ahead, there was a better than even chance that a tram would beat a Mercedes to Domain Road. ‘Please, Noel,’ I pleaded. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’
Spider didn’t answer. He was too busy joining the crowd of pedestrians surging across Swanston Street, weaving through the gridlocked cars towards the green and yellow trams. The foremost was a Number 8. Toorak via Domain Rd, read the destination board.