The Stalk Club (29 page)

Nelson continued to slowly and methodically work through
the case file but before long was annoyed to see VanMerle arrive with his usual
morose visage and lack of vigour.  The only positive in seeing VanMerle was
that he made Nelson feel and look like a million dollars in comparison.  Nelson
shrunk a little at his desk in the hope that VanMerle wouldn’t notice him above
the partition that surrounded two sides of his desk, but it was to no avail. 
Within minutes, VanMerle spotted him and came to his desk.  Nelson saw him
coming out of the corner of his eye, closed the Fogliani case file and
pretended to have been working on his computer.

“How’s the Crenshaw case coming along Nelson?” he asked
while simultaneously and overtly eyeing an open email Nelson had on his screen.

“Yeah, good morning to you too.”  You cadaverous old
bastard.  “So far so good.  Forensics finished up with the house last night. 
Today we’ll help out the LAC boys interviewing the relatives and business
associates.  “There’s a bucketful of them so it’s going to be a long day but we
should do ok.”

The Detectives from the Kings Cross Local Area Command,
who the Homicide squad was assisting in the case, were known to Nelson and
although they had previously handled only a few murder investigations, were
capable enough.
 Nelson went on to explain that the early
evidence pointed to the possibility of an inside job.  VanMerle spent another
five minutes chatting with Nelson before growing tired of Nelson’s increasingly
monosyllabic answers.  Just as he headed back to his office, Robards and Bovis
arrived for work.  Nelson pushed aside the Fogliani case file with a sigh and
opened the Crenshaw file ready for work.

Manuel Torres left work at around nine p.m. Wednesday. 
He had been working late at the Tuff Street’n’Strip body shop in Lidcombe
because some hood with seemingly bottomless pockets - Manuel
thought that this was probably the result of a successful drug distribution business
- wanted a custom built street cruiser ready for a car show that was
only two months away.  Manuel had spent more than one hundred and twenty hours prepping
the cars body for painting in the previous two weeks alone and although he
admired it as a work of art, it would be happy days when the hood finally towed
it out of the workshop and out of his life.

As he reached his car which was parked on the street, a
man stepped out of the shadows, took aim and fired.  Two electrodes flew from
the Taser gun with a pop and in the blink of an eye, sliced through Manuel’s
jacket, hooked into his skin and sent fifty thousand volts of electricity
coursing through his body.  Manuel fell to the ground in silent screaming agony,
his muscles constricted violently and threatened to tear themselves off his
bones.  After what seemed like an eternity but was actually only five seconds
the pain stopped and was replaced by an even more terrifying numbness.  He lay
on the ground, semi-alert, but unable to move.  He knew he was in trouble.  Using
every ounce of strength he had, he tried to get to his feet but found that his body
no longer obeyed his commands.  A car pulled up beside him, the engine idling
quietly in the night.  Although he was in no shape to argue, a large foot was
placed in the middle of his back, pinning him to the ground while his two arms
were wrenched behind his back.  Manuel heard the zip as a pair of looped
plastic ties cruelly bit into his skin, binding his wrists tightly together.  The
two electrodes were torn from the skin of his back but he didn’t feel a thing. 
Two pairs of strong, rough hands pulled him to his feet, quickly frisked him
and emptied his pockets.  Those same hands threw him into the boot of the car and
slammed it shut on him, leaving him in near complete darkness.  It had only
taken thirty seconds.

Manuel felt the car accelerate away and was flung about
the boot as it sped around the corner.  In time he slowly regained his breath and
feeling in his body and was able to brace himself with his legs to stop further
collision with the confining boundaries of the boot. 

Manuel was completely alone and although the situation
wasn’t looking good, he knew he had one thing going for him.  He reached around
to the back of his jeans and carefully pulled out a knife.  It was a small
flick knife with a blade of just a couple of inches in length and a slim
handle.  He had chosen it specifically for its ability to be concealed and had hand-sewn
a small pocket on the inside of his jeans so that the knife rested neatly in the
crevice of his butt cheeks.  Despite still being on probation and risking the
chance of a return to prison if he was found in possession of a weapon, he
never left home without it.  He smiled grimly at the fact that his kidnappers
hadn’t noticed it during their quick and faulty search of him and hoped that it
would prove to be a costly mistake for them.   

He cut through his plastic cuffs and massaged some life
and blood back into his wrists and hands.  As the car stopped at a traffic
light, the brake lights of the car illuminated the boot space within.  He noted
that the cable that operated the boot locking mechanism had been completely
enclosed with sheet metal so that it couldn’t be accessed from inside the
boot.  His kidnappers had done this sort of work before.  He tried jamming the
knife blade into the part of the boot lock that was visible in an effort to pop
it open, but only succeeded in snapping off the knife’s tip.  He cursed quietly
and gave up on his escape attempts for the time being.  He calmly reasoned that
the knife was his only chance of escape and the he should wait for a time when
he could use it to better effect.

He thought of Kylie while he waited to reach what might be
his final destination.  He thought of her scent, her pretty face and her slim,
tight body.  He knew he had something to live for, something worth fighting for
and it gave him strength and callous resolve to survive.

After fifteen minutes, the car pulled to a stop, the
engine remained idling.  Manuel heard a car door open and one of his kidnappers
walk around to the front of the car.  He heard the squealing of a garage door being
rolled up.  The car slid forward through the door then stopped.  The engine was
turned off and the garage door closed behind the car.

Manuel readied himself for action.  He decided to attack
first and ask questions later while he still had the element of surprise and
hoped that wherever he was there were only the two men who had picked him up
and not another half a dozen waiting in the wings.  He knew that if the latter
was the case, it would be a very short fight indeed.  Footsteps approached the
car boot as he waited ready and tensed.

The boot popped open and Manuel squinted his eyes against
the light and quickly took in his kidnappers.  One man was very tall, six foot
four plus, dressed in a brown leather jacket and slacks.  His grey hair and
lined face was proof of a man in his early fifties.  The other man was shorter,
younger and bald.  Manuel noted his strong build, and his small blue eyes which
were flat and devoid of any emotion. 

“Come on sunshine,” said the bald man.  “We’ve got some questions
for you.”

Manuel decided to strike at him first.  He lay on his
side with his hands holding his knife behind his back to give the impression
that he was still bound. 

“What do you want with me?  I haven’t done nuthin!” he
responded, trying to show fear on his face in an effort to put his kidnappers momentarily
off guard.

As those same rough hands grabbed him to pull him out of
the boot he lashed out savagely with his knife, slashing the bald man deeply across
his neck.  He kicked out viciously at the tall man, striking him in the chest
and knocking him on his backside.  Manuel leapt out of the boot, ignored the bald
man who was busy trying to hold his neck together with his hands and
concentrated on the tall grey haired man who was quickly regaining his senses. 
As the man reached inside his coat pocket Manuel instinctively dived full
length on top of him and used his momentum to try and drive his knife into his
chest.  The tall man half blocked the blow and the short blade got caught up in
the folds of his thick leather jacket.  The narrow handle twisted in Manuel’s
hand and broke free. 

Manuel quickly realised his kidnapper outweighed him by
more than twenty kilograms.  He wrestled the man’s hands away from his pocket
but was rolled over onto his back by the bigger man who then butted his
forehead down violently, connecting with the bridge of Manuel’s nose.  Manuel
felt excruciating pain burst through his head and his sight blackened for a few
seconds.  He fought the darkness off and as his vision cleared he brought his
knee up with all his strength and caught the man’s unprotected groin in a
sickening blow.  The man grunted loudly and although he tried to keep fighting,
Manuel felt the strength ebbing out of his arms.  He managed to roll the big
man off him and hit him with a flurry of wild punches to his head.  The big man
rolled away and gamely got to his feet, but by that time Manuel had recovered
his knife and plunged it savagely and repeatedly into his chest.  The man
groaned and slowly slumped to the floor with a groan and deep wheezing
exhalation of breath.

Manuel removed a gun from the tall man’s inside coat
pocket.  He walked up to the short bald man he had slashed in the neck with his
knife who was on his knees, still trying to staunch the blood that was flowing profusely
from his neck wound and creating a pool on the ground around him. 

“Why did you do this?” Manuel growled as he stood over
the man, but the only response he received sounded like a wet cough.  “Who told
you to do this?”

The bald man tried to reach out weakly for Manuel’s leg
as Manuel put the gun to his head and fired once.

Manuel surveyed his surroundings for the first time.  It
appeared to be a small warehouse of about twenty metres by thirty metres in
size and was half full with crates of furniture, piles of packing materials, food
stuffs and also three large shipping containers.  There were two offices
partitioned off from the rest of warehouse and Manuel was relieved that there wasn’t
anyone else around.  Although the fight had been short and he was ultimately
victorious, he felt exhausted from the primal exertion.  He looked at the
bodies lying on the ground and tried to regather his breath.  Blood dripped freely
from his nose and he pinched the bridge in an effort to stop the flow. 

When he had caught his breath and the worst of the
bleeding had stopped, he searched the bodies and removed their keys and
wallets.  As he was searching the big man he removed something from his pants pocket
that astonished him.  It was a photograph of Manuel and worst of all, judging
by its background appeared to have been taken shortly after he shot Emilio
Fogliani.

He stared dumbly at it for almost two minutes, wondering
how such an impossible thing could exist and yet there was no mistaking the
likeness.  He wondered who could have taken the photograph and from where.  He
held the photograph up at eye level and tried to position himself back at the
warehouse that night.  He judged that the photographer must have been hidden in
the garden bed at the rear of the warehouse, concealed by the dense bushes.  It
seemed unlikely that someone passing by had chanced upon the meeting carrying a
high quality camera or video camera and managed to capture images of the actual
murder taking place.  There were too many maybes for that to be a realistic possibility. 

“But who then?” he wondered aloud, and was answered by a
slight echo from the empty warehouse.  Although he didn’t want to accept it, he
already knew what the most likely answer was.  As far as he knew, there were
only three people, including himself, who knew when and where Emilio Fogliani
was going to be punished for his sins. 

He put the thoughts to the back of his mind for the time
being and forced himself to concentrate on the problems that immediately
confronted him.  He looked down at his clothes and noted the blood on them,
probably from him and his assailants.  And he knew that his blood, his DNA, had
been dripped all over the concrete floor of the warehouse, his assailants and possibly
the car as well.

Manuel knew the cops had a sample of his DNA on their databases
and the thought of it worried him.  If they found his DNA it would only be a
matter of time before they caught up with him and the thought of returning to
prison after just a few months of pure naked freedom sickened him to his core. 
He quickly considered his next move, knowing that it would be crucial.  He thought
about moving the bodies and cleaning up the mess but thought it would be too
time consuming and risky, and besides, he hated cleaning, so he decided to
leave them where they were.  He walked outside the warehouse in an attempt to
get his bearings and noticed for the first time he had strained his left calf
muscle during the fight.  Fortunately the area where the warehouse was located,
which was comprised mostly of decrepit corrugated iron clad warehouses, appeared
to be deserted. 

He went back inside and briefly massaged his calf as it
rapidly tightened.  He looked longingly at the car, but decided it would have
to stay in the warehouse.  Using every ounce of his remaining strength, Manuel
dragged the bodies inside the car.  He tore a sleeve off the big man’s shirt,
removed the petrol tank cap and fed it down into the petrol tank, leaving a bit
hanging out.  He lit the end of it with matches he had found on bald hood and limped
as fast as he could out the door and away from the warehouse.  Within twenty
seconds a large explosion cracked the night air, percussioning violently on his
ear drums.  Manuel took a quick look back and saw that the explosion had set
fire to most of the contents of the warehouse.  Orange flames were already
leaping up towards the windows high up on the walls.  He smiled grimly and moved
away into the night secure in the knowledge that whatever DNA that wasn’t
destroyed by the fire would be destroyed by the Firefighters who would no doubt
drench the place with their hoses.