She quails beside me.
‘Hey.’ I nudge her gently. ‘Chin up. We’ll get through.’
‘I thought we’d see the cavalry by now,’ she whispers back, shivering.
Have to admit, I’d been kind of thinking the same thing. Whatever happens here, we’ll be flying by the seat of our pants.
My heart hammers in my chest. I bend my head closer so I can brush Amie’s hair with my lips. ‘Stay behind me, and stay alert.’
Ando growls, pushes us forward. Whatever retort I was gonna make, I swallow it, because I’ve just seen Leon.
He looks weird, different, out of the confines of the Flamingos office. You can see the edges of him. In the office he seems to spill out to fill the whole space, it’s like you’re breathing him in. Here, he’s more defined. Cigarette in hand, greasy white shirt, an ugly sports jacket, the strange reptilian folds of his face. His trousers are baggy. He’s wearing black leather shoes.
His eyes look dead under the workshop lights.
Amie edges in behind me. Her fear is a live wire in my stomach. Mick the Leb looks up from his phone, stills in his chair. Leon scans from me to Amie, to Ando and Snowie.
‘What’s this?’ He exhales smoke. His eyes light on the baling twine around my wrists. There’s a pause. He drops his cigarette on the concrete, steps on it. Looks up. ‘You’ve all got about twenty seconds to tell me what the fuck is going on.’
Behind me I hear jostling. Snowie steps forward. He doesn’t seem so sure about standing in the limelight now.
‘Uh, Leon, hey,’ he says. ‘Gotta tell you something, mate.’
This cannot end well.
Snowie explains it all very simply. It takes less than twenty seconds. In that time, Ando seems to fade into the shadows near the wall. After the explanation there’s another pause, much longer this time.
Leon looks over at Mick the Leb, who shrugs. Then Leon turns back to look at me and Amie. Then he looks at Snowie.
‘Lemme clarify a sec. You’re telling me this bloke –’ Leon points straight at me. ‘This bloke is a police informant. And the girl beside him is his contact. Who also happens to be the daughter of a top-cop in Ouyen.’ Leon fixes Snowie with his gaze. ‘Is this what you’re telling me?’
‘Well, uh, yeah.’ Snowie jigs a bit. ‘That’s right. And I brought ’em here because I figured this was something you’d wanna know about, and you prob’ly wanna make your own decision about it.’
I can’t really fault his logic. Leon seems to disagree.
‘You brought ’em here,’ he says. He’s still staring at Snowie.
‘Uh, yeah,’ Snowie says. ‘I brought ’em here, cos like I said –’
‘Here,’ Leon says. ‘To this place. This facility.’
‘Yeah.’ Snowie blanches. ‘Oh. Yeah.’
Leon moves away from Snowie, takes two steps towards me and Amie. Takes a pistol out of the inside his jacket – he must be wearing a holster. Amie jerks and makes a little noise. I lean my shoulder in front of her. The expression on Leon’s face makes me shake. Even my breath is trembling.
‘And now,’ Leon continues, ‘I gotta figure out how to get rid of an informant and a cop’s daughter. Which – as you can imagine, Snowie – is a pain in my fucking arse.’
‘Oh,’ Snowie says. ‘Oh shit. Leon, I didn’t mean to cause you hassles, mate. I just figured you’d wanna –’
‘I do wanna,’ Leon says. ‘But, y’know, usually blokes tell me if there’s a little problem in their patch. Then we talk to people who can deal with it.’
‘Right,’ Snowie says. ‘Right.’
He flicks his eyes towards me, back to Leon. He looks petrified. I dunno why he’s looking at me. If he wanted me to help him out, he shouldna tied my hands together.
‘Most of my fellas, they’ve got the common sense to talk to me first,’ Leon says.
‘Oh. Yep. I just –’
