Night's Favour (5 page)

“Sure.
 
I can feel that fifty already.”
 
Some excited clapping of shoulders came from the foot of the bench.
 

He unracked the bar, forearms trembling with the effort.
 
The muscles in his arms burned and his chest was on fire.
 
Val could feel the sweat pouring off his face.
 
The bench underneath him creaked and groaned, the metal squealing in protest as he pressed against the bar.
 
Val dragged in big gulps of air as the bar rose slowly to the top.
 
It was almost there when he started to falter.
 
The shaking in his arms was really bad and the bar starting to swing a little.

Then John was there by his ear.
 
“You can do it buddy.
 
You got this.
 
Just a little further.
 
It’s like an inch.
 
What’s an inch?”
 
He talked Val through it.
 
“See, that’s it.
 
Push it up.
 
Nice.
 
Rack it!”

The clank of the bar against the rests was loud inside the gym.

Val’s belly heaved, his breathing ragged.
 
John slaps his chest.
 
“Yeah!
 
That was…
 
That was some serious shit.”

Even in his exhausted state, Val noticed the silence.
 
The crowd at the foot of the bench were looking at each other.
 
Someone said, “That’s bullshit man.
 
Five fifty?
 
That’s not five fifty.
 
Bullshit.”

John brought out his megawatt smile.
 
“I think someone owes me fifty bucks.”

“I’d owe you fifty if that wasn’t bullshit.”

John looks surprised.
 
“Val, get up.”
 
He helped Val off the bench, the vinyl wet with sweat.
 
“If you think it’s not fifty, you hop in there and press it.
 
As you can see,”
 
and he tugged at his skin tight uniform, “There’s nothing up my sleeves.”

There was some chuckling, the tension bleeding out of the room.
 
“Nah, it’s ok man.
 
Here’s the fifty.”

John nodded to Val.
 
“Grab a drink, get your breathing back.
 
This last press is going to be killer.”
 
He started putting more plates on the bar.
 
Now he was upright, Val could see the bend in the middle of the bar, bowed by the plates on either side.
 
Someone in the crowd was videoing it with a phone.

Val looked at John.
 
“What’s all this about man?
 
Some clown over there is shooting video.”
 
He gestured down to the shirt stretched over his belly.
 
“I’m not exactly a figure for cinema right now.”

“It’s cool.
 
I’ll tell you in a bit.”
 
John tightened the clamps at the end of the bar.
 
“You’re good to go.
 
Hop in.”

Val lay on the bench again and wiped his hands on his shorts.
 
He needed to put some real effort into it this time as he cleared the rests and hoisted the bar above his chest.
 
It was already a bit unsteady, swaying a little to and fro before Val got it centred right.
 
There were a few excited intakes of breath from the crowd —
Christ, there’s like fifteen guys there now
— as they waited for him to drop it.

Down to his chest.
 
Exhale.

Once as a kid Val had lost a ball behind the family refrigerator.
 
It had escaped his grip, fleeing in asymmetric hops and bounces out of his clutching hands to hide behind the fridge.
 
He’d been six years old, give or take.
 
He’d tried to move that fridge to get the ball out, but the wall of iron and plastic of the old Frigidaire hadn’t budged.
 
This bar felt like that — no matter how hard he pressed, his arms trembling, it didn’t move.
 
Not an inch.

A snicker came from the foot of the bench, and white hot rage flared up.
 
It burned bright inside him.
 
The video would be on YouTube, just another gym wannabe failing in front of the world.

They jeer at us.

A yell of exertion came from him.
 
His hands gripping the bar as if they’d tear it in half.
 
Val powered the bar back to the ceiling in one smooth motion, racking it clean with a shudder and clang from the bench beneath him.
 
He breathed in great ragged gasps, the sweat pouring off him.

He sat up on the bench, leaned over sideways, and threw up on the ground.
 
The room spun around him as his heart thudded in his chest.
 
Christ, I’m going to die, I’m going to have a heart attack, Christ —

It started to seep in.
 
People slapped him on the back and wanted to shake his hand.
 
Water was pushed into one of his hands and someone —
John
— was handing him a towel.

The person with the phone was asking him something.

“What?”
 
He was still breathing hard and couldn’t hear right.

“I said what’s your name?”

John answered for him.
 
“This is my good buddy Val.
 
Valentine Everard.”
 
He winked at the phone’s tiny camera.
 
“If you’re watching from home, he could use a beer — come buy him one tonight.
 
Elephant Blues, say from six.”
 
He helped Val to his feet.

“What do you reckon?
 
Time for a beer?” said John.

Nothing had ever sounded so good, but — “Maybe a shower first.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Carlisle knocked on the door again.
 
“You sure this is the place?”

Elliot nodded.
 
“Yeah.
 
It’s on his sheet.
 
We can always stick with the plan and wait for him at the AA.”
 
The sound of cicadas was heavy on the air.
 

Carlisle looked around.
 
Come to think of it, Everard didn’t have a bad place.
 
It was a little small, but cheerfully painted and nestled in amongst the trees.
 
The driveway that led up to the house was the stark white of bleached concrete, and the sound of insects and birds was clear.
 
You wouldn’t have thought a place this alive was right on the doorstep of the city, just a short drive from the main business district.
 
“Nah.
 
I like being more proactive.
 
Besides, I can hear someone in there.”

The door opened a little, tethered by a chain.
 
Parts of a face — eyes, the side of a face, dark hair — were visible in the gap.

As if on cue, Carlisle and Elliot both manufactured smiles.
 
Carlisle showed her ID to the gap in the door.
 
“Good morning, ma’am.
 
Detective Melissa Carlisle.”
 
She nodded to Elliot with a tip of her head, putting away her ID in a practised motion.
 
“Detective Vincent Elliot.
 
We’re here to speak with, uh, a Mr. Valentine Everard.”

Elliot nodded cheerfully at the woman.
 
No response, just those eyes looking back and forth between the two of them.

“Uh.
 
Ma’am.
 
Is this Mr. Everard’s address?”

“Meestar Balentine not home.”
 
The Filipino accent was clean and clear, first generation but softened by time away.
 
She made to shut the door.

Elliot put his hand on the door, still smiling.
 
“Ma’am.
 
Do you mind if we ask you some questions?
 
About, Mr, uh, Everard?”

“What queestions?
 
Poleece queestions?
 
I hab no poleece answers.
 
I clean for meestar Balentine.”

“Clean?
 
So you’re not his wife?”
 
Carlisle’s smile remained firmly in place.
 
Sotto voce to Elliot she said, “Put your damn arm down.”

“Wife!
 
Meestar Balentine always bery proper!”
 
She tossed her head, the motion visible through the crack in the door.

“Ma’am, I didn’t mean to suggest —”

“But you deed.
 
As eeb I am
puta
!
 
Anak ka ng puta
yourseelf!”

Carlisle had seen enough bad movies to know when she was being insulted in a foreign language.
 
Ignore it and move on, Melissa
.
 
“Ma’am.
 
We believe Mr. Everard may be in some trouble.
 
We’re trying to get to the bottom of it, hoping he might be able to help with our enquiries.
 
It would be tremendously helpful for Mr. Everard if you could answer a few questions for us.”

The other woman’s suspicion was starting to wane.
 
After all, police didn’t lie to you, did they?
 
Not in this country, anyway — it wasn’t like the Philippines.
 
She nodded, just once, and unlatched the chain to open the door wider.
 
She had a mop in one hand, an obvious if unromantic weapon if they’d turned out to be mother rapists or whatever she else had imagined them to be — which was probably fair enough, if her knowledge of police corruption in the Philippines was close to being true.
 
It’d take some time to get over that natural distrust.
 
Her cleaner’s apron was well worn, but spotlessly clean.
 
Maybe Carlisle should get her details to clean her place?
 
Good cleaners were hard to find and Lord knew it’d been many years since it’d seen a professional touch.

“Thank you ma’am.
 
We do appreciate it.
 
Maybe if it’s not too much to ask, we could get acquainted.
 
As I said, I’m Melissa Carlisle.
 
Here’s my card.
 
And this is Vincent Elliot.
 
We’re with the Police, working on an investigation.”
 
The offered slip of white card was taken, scrutinised and then whisked away to a pocket under the apron.

“I eem Baitan.”
 
And then she put her suspicion away, tidied out of sight as if it had never existed.
 
Smiling a signature Colgate smile, she led them through the small house chatting over her shoulder at them.
 
Carlisle made encouraging noises in all the right places, taking note of the photos on the walls.
 
There were only a few of them — what was presumably Everard with a woman, pretty in a youthful way, dark curls and an impish grin.
 
He was definitely a reacher, batting outside his league on looks alone.
 
Carlisle was never quite sure how plain guys with no obvious physique managed it — her father had always told her to have standards.

The inside of the house was cool without being cold, the heat of the day left behind with the cicadas outside.
 
The place had plenty of windows, light from the surrounding trees brought in and diffused with softer greens.
 
Those photos on the wall looked slightly faded, exposed to the light of years — they hadn’t been updated to change with the times.
 
Everard’s life had stopped, time marching right on by a couple years back.
 
Probably after the accident.

She snorted to herself.
 
Accident.
 
She hated how they had to describe things without attribution of blame, as if accidents just happened.
 
In Carlisle’s experience, there were no accidents.
 
Just a series of actions with consequences.
 
Mostly stupid actions, or stupid people, and bad consequences, to an unlucky few.

Elliot was writing in his notebook with a black pen, attentive to Baitan’s words.
 

They arrived in a small living room of sorts, a couple of couches pushed up against the walls huddled around a too-large TV.
 
Some DVDs were lying around the TV on top of some red Netflix envelopes.
 
A garbage bag sat on the ground next to a vacuum cleaner, likely evidence of Baitan’s industrious efforts to make it look habitable.
 
Chinese takeout containers vied for space with beer bottles in the bag.
 
There wasn’t a lot else.
 
The cleaner had thrown the windows open to get some air in the place, but it still smelled musty.

Baitan was sparing them no detail now she’d decided to open up to them.
 
She continued to bustle about the room, tidying here and cleaning there, occasionally disappearing into an adjoining galley-style kitchen.
 
Where the lounge was messy, the kitchen was positively austere, not a utensil out of place — Everard probably never used the thing.
 
Baitan cleaned every surface anyway, but spent some special attention on the microwave.
 
It reminded Carlisle of her dorm room days; she’d ignored the cafeteria, living on take-out and beer.
 
The only kitchen necessity was a microwave, the only tool needed a fork.
 
She’d managed almost an entire semester on frozen dinners until her parents had come to visit, her mother almost passing out with the shock.
 
No daughter of hers was going to live that way, and at that point she’d had regular weekly home visits to inject some real food into her diet.