Blood Feud (41 page)

“I failed him,” Mr Krysztofiak sniffed, reaching for another tissue.

“You couldn’t help it if you had to go to hospital,” I consoled, patting his arm.

“I should have arranged for someone to stay with him. But to be honest, everyone in the family is now afraid of him. There was no one to ask. I told you earlier that we agreed it would be best for him to come to me, but the truth is nobody else in the family was willing to take him. Not even my nephew and his wife, his own parents. That saddened me. I figured since I’m old and have lived most of my life anyway, why not give the kid a chance. And like I said, I haven’t regretted it. He’s a nice, quiet kid. And as long as he takes his medication, everything’s fine.”

“What about Community Services?” the Sarge asked. “They might have been able to help.”

A sound of exasperation burst from his lips. “Sure, if I needed to go to hospital ten years from now they
might
have had a spare community carer to help me out. Any sooner than that, forget about it. I did try, Sergeant.”

“Mr Krysztofiak, did Dylan ever mention any favourite places to you? Somewhere he may have established a base for himself?” I asked.

“He was always fascinated by Mount Big. The size and cragginess of it impressed him. If he’s holed up, it’s probably on the mountain somewhere.”

The Sarge and I exchanged a glance over the top of his head. Mount Big was exactly that – big. Not to mention difficult, if not impossible, to traverse in many places. It would be a hopeless task trying to comb it for Dylan.

“Thanks for coming to us today, Mr Krysztofiak,” said the Sarge. “We’ll do everything we can to make sure Dylan receives the help he needs.”

“The poor kid. He’s a good boy, really,” Mr Krysztofiak repeated sadly, painfully hauling himself to his feet.

“I’ll drive you home and Senior Constable Fuller will drive your vehicle for you. You’ve had a terrible shock this morning. You shouldn’t be driving,” said the Sarge kindly. We helped him to the patrol car.

After we’d dropped him off and arranged for a neighbour to pop in regularly to help him out, we headed back to the station. The Sarge rang Big Town and not able to speak directly to Gil or Nathan, left a detailed message of what we’d discovered. We both agreed that there was no way they could possibly ignore what we were trying to tell them now.

“Should we issue an alert for Dylan?” I asked. “To warn townsfolk that he’s dangerous and they should stay away from him?”

“We better wait for the okay from Big Town first. We don’t want jeopardise the investigation by doing something like releasing his name without authorisation. We’re in enough deep shit with the Super as it is.”

I couldn’t argue with that, so turned instead to writing up my report on what Mr Krysztofiak had told me. I often thought how strange it was that as a frontline cop, I spent so much time on my computer doing paperwork.

We waited patiently for the rest of the day for some instructions from the Super or Gil and Nathan, but nobody contacted us. Confused, the Sarge rang the dee team and unable once again to speak to them directly, was forced to leave another detailed and urgent message about Dylan. Not sure what we were supposed to do about him, I plucked up my courage and rang the Super. But she was also unavailable, so I left her a brief message.

“I don’t think they want to know about us,” said the Sarge, shutting down his computer.

“It’s starting to feel that way,” I agreed.

“Nice to be popular.”

I laughed. “Is it? I wouldn’t know.”

Just as we were about to leave the station, bickering about what to have for dinner, the phone rang. He raised an eyebrow.

“All right, all right,” I grumbled. “Mount Big Town police station. Senior Constable Fuller speaking.”

“Hello, Tessie.”

Red Bycraft.

“What do you want?”

“I’m up for some partying tonight. Wanna join me? There’s already a party in my pants just thinking about you and me together tonight.”

“Where are you?”

He laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know, lovely? Let’s just say I’ve hit the big smoke.” A pause. “My, my. There’re lots of luscious girls around here tonight. Young too, just the way I like them.”

“You’re not in Big Town. Don’t bullshit me.”

“Why not? You fell for it last time,” he laughed again. I went to hang up. “Here, listen to this.”

Through the phone I heard the distinctive discordant jangling of the chimes of the old town clock situated in the middle of the main open shopping mall in Big Town. The clock always ran late no matter how many times it was corrected and its awful and shockingly loud booming harmonies every hour frequently startled takeaway coffee cups out of unsuspecting tourists’ hands.

There was no replicating that sound. Red Bycraft was definitely in Big Town for a night of hunting.

“You’re a cold bastard.”

“Cold? Tell that to the hot rod in my pants.” The clock kept chiming as he spoke so I knew it hadn’t been some kind of recording to trick me.

“You’re sick.”

“You have no idea how much. The girl I choose tonight will find out though. She is going to suffer and it’s all your fault. I want you to remember that for the rest of your life, Tessie. It’s your fault what happens to her tonight.”

“
Where are you, you sick bastard?
” I shouted into the receiver.

He laughed, more assured now that I was losing my cool. “Come nightclubbing with me, lovely. I’ll be waiting for you.”

I hung up on him and rang Jake, violently jabbing his numbers into the phone.

“I’ve been waiting all day for you to ring me to apologise for –”

“Jake, ring Red now and ask him where he’ll be tonight. But be casual about it. Don’t let him know I’m the one asking.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Do it!”

“I can’t. I don’t know his number.”

“Do it! He’s going to attack a woman tonight.”

“I told you, I don’t –”

I hung up on him and turned to the Sarge. “We have to ring the Super. Red’s in Big Town. He’s going to hit the nightclubs.”

“Tessie, he’s punking you again.”

“No, he’s not, Sarge. I heard that horrible clock chiming even while he was talking. He couldn’t fake that. Ring the Super.”

“She’s not going to want to know about it.”

“I don’t care. Ring her.”

He tapped in her number and waited impatiently for her to answer. He had more luck reaching her than I had, but their conversation was brief, terse and entirely unhappy from his point of view.

“She’s not interested,” he told me when he hung up. “And that’s putting it politely.”

I snatched up the desk phone again and punched in her number.

“What the fuck?” she answered. “Is this a Tweedledumbarse and Tweedledumbshit tandem routine? I already told Maguire I’m not wasting one more cent on your hairy, wet dreams about Red Bycraft. So stop letting him get on your tits. I thought you were smarter than that.”

“Ma’am! He’s there –” A clunking noise, then nothing but dial tone.

I slammed the phone down. “She’s not going to help us. We have to go to Big Town now.”

“What? That’s crazy. Without backup, we don’t have the resources to do anything useful there.”

“Sarge, he’s going to attack a woman. We have to try. Please.”

“We don’t even know where he is.”

“He’ll be at the nightclub district,” I said, grateful that he hadn’t immediately blown me off like the Super.

I explained how Big Town’s ‘nightclub district’ in fact consisted of precisely two nightclubs – Carouzel and Industrie – located directly across from each other on Bay Road, the main stretch of town. By day, each was nothing but an inconspicuous closed double door and the casual passerby who was sharp enough to even notice them would have assumed they led upstairs to office suites. But in reality they led downstairs to claustrophobic, time-altering, windowless caverns. By night, they were neon-lit beacons to the town’s party-goers, blaring dance music so loud that it made the concrete footpaths out front vibrate.

I’d first encountered Jake again on my return back to Little Town in Industrie. He’d been on a night out with his two best mates and I’d been with a group of Big Town female cops for another hen’s party. It hadn’t quite been love at first sight for me, but Jake was very persuasive (and persistent) and had eventually won me over despite the huge, undeniable barrier of him being a member of the Bycraft family.

The nightclubs were openly bitter rivals, regularly competing against each other in newspaper and radio ads, and yet were oddly collusive in their entry and drink prices. This came as no surprise to those who knew that they were in fact owned by the same shady and mysterious business man, who also owned the Saucy Sirens Gentlemen’s Club, the illegal brothel that was the bane of my life. The Big Town vice squad (consisting of one overworked detective sergeant on the verge of packing it in for her successful cupcake-making hobby, and her clock-watching, near retirement constable offsider), also suspected he owned an illegal gambling club. It was one of those advertised only through word-of-mouth and moved from premise to premise so regularly that it couldn’t ever be accurately pinpointed and raided.

During peak evening time, the doors of both nightclubs were flanked by a pair of enormous, aggressive bouncers. They wore headsets with mikes and earphones like they were in the secret service, and looked as though they’d snap your neck if you glanced at them the wrong way twice. It wasn’t always the same two men, but they were all so identical in appearance and size that the Super insisted they were popped from moulds and shipped to Big Town directly from the laboratories of Big Swinging Dicks Pty Ltd. She also called them the Trogs, because they were so prehistoric in their demeanour, attitude and language skills.

Any woman who wanted to enter either nightclub had to first run the gauntlet of their insolent up-and-down assessments and inappropriate comments. Pretty girls, and those who weren’t so pretty but who flashed plenty of firm flesh, were waved to the front of the queue. After an invasive visual inspection, they were then let inside ahead of other more patient, modest and less attractive patrons, their butts well-patted as they went. Unfair sexism, I agreed, but that was how it was. Any woman in Big Town who liked to frequent the nightclubs knew that if she wanted to slip inside the club and start partying earlier, she had to pretty herself up as much as possible.

“So Sarge, you’ll come with me?” I asked.

He sighed heavily. “This is not going to end well, I just know it.”

“Thank you.” I was glad not to have to go there by myself.

“We’re not going to be able to bring our belts. They won’t let us in with guns and OC spray.”

“I’m not giving up my knife.”

“You might have to. We’re not going to try to tackle him ourselves, Tess. We spot him, we call for backup. Agreed?”

“Yep, agreed.”

The Sarge found a parking spot on a street one block away from Bay Road that met his strict criteria for abandoning his prized car.

“What’s the plan?” he asked, suppressing a yawn. Neither of us had slept particularly well the previous evening, so the last thing we needed tonight was a showdown with Red Bycraft.

Him yawning set me off yawning too, which only set him off again. We both rubbed our eyes.

“We’ll each take a nightclub, keep our eyes open until one of us spots him. Then we’ll reconvene and follow him if he leaves.”

It was a good plan – simple and easy to implement. He couldn’t fault it.

He swung open his door and stepped onto the road. I followed and we locked glances over the top of the car.

“I’ll take Carouzel, you take Industrie. I’ll wait for you to get inside before I go inside myself.” He gave a humourless laugh. “Have you realised that you’ll never get inside dressed like that?”

I looked down at myself.
Damn!
We’d hastily changed before we drove here and I’d naturally chosen my usual jeans, t-shirt, hooded jacket and runners. As much as I hated to say it, he was right. I’d never be admitted into either nightclub dressed in these casual clothes. There was nothing for it but to get in on my credentials.

“I’m going to identify myself first,” I said calmly, as if I hadn’t just decided on that path.

“Is that wise? Those guys aren’t exactly friends with the Big Town cops.”

I shrugged casually. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

“Not to mention that we’re not here in any kind of official capacity. Don’t forget that, because the Super’s not going to when she finds out what we’re up to this time.”

“We’re chasing a dangerous fugitive, Sarge,” I insisted stubbornly. “And hopefully saving some poor girl from a terrible attack tonight. That’s about as official as it gets in my books and I don’t care what the Super says.”

I stalked off towards Bay Road and he had to scarper after me to catch up. We didn’t speak the entire block and parted silently when I crossed the road to where a queue for entry to Industrie snaked twenty metres down the footpath. Tonight was half-price drinks night, which always drew a crowd despite the fact that it was a weekday and the drinks were always watered down.

With one glance back at the Sarge over my shoulder and with his dark eyes watching me, I approached the front of the queue with a confidence I was definitely not feeling. A chorus of protests rose from the queuers when I walked up to the two Trogs on duty this evening.