Forty Feet

 

FORTY FEET
The boy fool.
The next morning he still felt uneasy. He stood at the window, looking at the dump across the street. He’d been there the night before to meet a friend. She hadn’t turned up.
He talked to a girl with kind blue eyes. She looked exhausted, like she’d been working endless nights. He gave up waiting and walked toward the city. He met another friend with her boyfriend, said hello, and kept going. Bored, he went back to his room.
There was a message on his phone.
Sorry didn’t make it can you come around please.
He drove to her place. She’d been drinking. She wouldn’t say what was wrong. She was jumpy. Distracted. He slept on the couch. In the morning she looked better, so he drove home.
Toward lunchtime she rang asking for money. He sent a hundy and didn’t ask what it was for.
Later she came around. They walked downtown. It was peaceful. A car followed them for a short time. Two guys inside.
“It’s just my ex and his mate,” she said. “Sad fuck.”
She let him hold her hand. Her palm was sweaty.
They took the green path by the river to the harbour. Boats rocked at the wharf. She embraced him. She was thin. A little shaky.
“He’s got photos of me,” she said. “He wants me to sell or he’ll post them.”
His face burned.
“No,” she said. “You’ll just end up in prison. I told you because I trust you.”
He didn’t push.
He drove her home.
Then, without thinking, he drove west.
He parked near a block of shops and cut through the bush. From the edge of the clearing he could see into the kitchen. Her ex was tied to a chair. His mouth was taped. Blood soaked his singlet.
Four men stood around him.
They dragged him outside. Forty feet away. Close enough to hear the breath leave him.
They beat him. The bigger one stabbed him four or five times while the others held him down. Then they stepped back. He lay still. Blood soaked into the grass.
Someone looked toward the trees. He ran.
He drove straight to her place.
She stared at him when he told her.
“I told you to leave it,” she said.
“I didn’t do anything,” he said. “Someone else took care of it.”
“You’re an idiot,” she said. “He’ll come after you.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
She didn’t argue.
“You should stay away for a while,” she said.
She went into her bedroom. He sat at the table and heard her talking on the phone.
He parked around the corner from his place and walked home. He planned a quiet night. Keep his head down.
He couldn’t stop picturing the man who’d chased him down the road.
After dinner he decided to see some friends near the railway station. He drove through the outer suburbs. As he headed into the tunnel, he took the next off-ramp.
The car behind him indicated too.
Coincidence, he told himself.
At the lights he saw it was left-hand drive. The driver kept moving his head, avoiding his eye.
He felt stupid for being paranoid.
A van stalled in front of him. The car behind pulled into the other lane and sped past. He smelled the V8 fumes and felt relieved.
“Give yourself a break,” he said out loud.
Outside his friend’s apartment there were no lights on. He knocked. No answer.
As he walked back out, he saw the same car parked down the road with its lights on.
“Why are you following me?” he said, walking over.
A calm voice came from inside the car.
“Don’t be stupid. We have a vested interest in you.”
“What interest?”
“The only thing keeping you out of my car boot is someone you know. Be sensible. Don’t go to the cops.”
“Why?”
“Because they won’t believe you. And because we’re the cops.”
He laughed. “You’re full of shit.”
“We know everything you do,” the voice said. “Your phone. Your movements. When you take a shit. You do what you’re told and everything stays sweet.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you’ll be dead. Brown bread. Two in the head.”
There was a pause.
“If it were just me,” the voice said, “you’d already be dead. Your girlfriend’s one of us. That’s why you’re still here.”
He stood there too long. Then he got back in his car.
He drove to her place.
She was drunk. Stoned.
“What the fuck,” he said. “That was bullshit about your boyfriend. Tell me what’s going on.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
“Just play along,” she said. “I like you.”
“You let me walk into that,” he said. “You fucked my life.”
“You weren’t supposed to be a hero,” she said. “Now you know. Be a good boy and do what you’re told.”
“Why did they kill him?”
“They’re not all cops,” she said. “That’s all you need to know.”
She poured wine.
“Do you want some coke?”
She grabbed her jacket. “I’m going to the club. The president’s shouting.”
He stood up. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
She laughed, then went cold.
“Come near me again and you’re dead,” she said. “They’ll blood and bone you and in six months it’s like you never existed.”
He left without looking back.
Out on the road he looked both ways before getting into his car.
When he turned the ignition, the engine caught, then exploded.