On the trip here, I’d had the horrified thought it would be missing. That Sergio would have stolen it and I’d wear myself out breaking down the door before I confronted him.
And I am going to confront him. None of this, ‘let’s observe him and see if he contacts anybody’ nonsense. If a motorcycle gang is involved, then I expect my sorry excuse for a boss to tell me how.
He’ll have however long it takes for Baxter’s men to alert him to my presence to plead his case. If he has one.
I hope our years of working together count for something. Hope it’s more than giving him an insight into my weaknesses if he decides instead to attack.
“Hey, kitty,” I say to the neighbour’s cat as it meows at me from the safety of their porch. Its bedraggled fur tells me they’ve gone out for the evening and forgotten to unlock the cat door.
Around here there are so many strays you can’t leave them open for any tom to stroll through. The posh option is to have them respond to only your pet’s microchip but the cheap option—vastly preferred—is to only open it when you know they’re the one outside waiting to enter. Pretty much the same option as not having the door at all.
“I know,” I whisper to him as he winds between my legs. “It’s a disgusting night to be out without an umbrella. I’d offer you mine but as you can see, I’ve left it behind.”
Soon enough he takes off, deciding that another house nearby might offer better shelter, better company, or just a better porch to crawl under to wait out the rain. Once my procrastination method’s taken flight, I turn back to my bedsit.
The door is swollen from the dampness. In Christchurch rain is more of a theory than a reality. We can space out one day’s heavy downfall on the West Coast into a full year’s worth of precipitation.
It opens with a squeak, powered by enough force that it cavorts into the opposite wall before bouncing back towards me. I enter and have to put my back into closing it again, not bothering to flick the deadbolt that would lock it.
“Hey, Sergio. You around?”
No use acting like I don’t know he’s here. Tonight, I’m sick of pretence. Sick of overthinking and second guessing and all the other games my overwrought mind likes to play.
There’s no answer and I turn on the kitchen lights, filling the kettle and putting it on to boil. The pot hasn’t been used since I was last here, the remnant tea leaves still adhering inside its bulbous clay belly. A sniff test tells me they’ve turned mouldy but a quick rinse under the cold tap washes most of that away.
“You want a cuppa?” I ask the room at large since my rude houseguest hasn’t yet bothered to answer. Again, no response, so I set about making one just for myself. When it’s ready, I take it through to my tiny lounge slash dining room slash bedroom-when-the-sofa-bed’s-rolled-out and sit with a grateful sigh.
Sergio is flat against the wall but, given his rotund shape, that isn’t very flat at all.
“They know you’re here,” I tell him after taking a sip. “They’ve known for days.”
“You have to help me,” he blurts. An inauspicious start doomed to fail considering the last time I saw this man was when he drove into the back of my car. “I swear I didn’t know it was Balabanov’s girl. Cross my heart.”
He moves towards me, and I raise a hand. “Stay back if you don’t mind. I’ve had quite the day already.”
His eyes go to the injured side of my face, wincing. Since he has to view his ugly mug every time he goes near a mirror, that doesn’t bode well.
“Who organised the drop?” I ask, choosing innocuous words so I don’t give too much away.
My expressive face is usually my downfall but there’s finally a silver lining to the pulsating ache that is the right side of my head. Good luck reading my thoughts when half the image is distorted into a horror show.
“I don’t know anything.”
“Sure,” I say with a snort, then clasp my hand to my face when it erupts with a new pain. Angling my teacup at the opposite side, I take another sip but it’s not hitting the spot. “There’s a bottle in the cabinet behind you.”
Sergio turns, opening the door and pulling out the last of my scotch. “Don’t recognise this brand,” he scoffs. “Any good?”
“Grab a glass and find out.”
He reaches back into the cabinet, withdrawing a tumbler. When he raises his eyebrows my way, I hold out my tea, and he pours in a generous dollop. Too late, I remember I can’t drink it. Not yet. Not until I know if I’m carrying a little Baxter around with me. I pretend to sip and place it on the floor.
“What did Andrej want?” I ask, even the question making my stomach hurt at the thought of what he’d do to me just for asking.
Sergio flinches, then swallows the rest of his glass and pours another. “He stopped by to check that we had room to add a few hundred k next month. Nothing to do with the… package.”
Sophia’s bouncy curls pop into my mind.Package.My lip curls but I bury my nose into my teacup to distract me. “When did the highway mob enter the picture?”
“We collected from them, that’s all I know.” Sergio raises his free hand like he’s swearing on the bible and looks miserable enough to be telling the truth. “Something went wrong somewhere, and I saw the opportunity to earn some brownie points, that’s all. Hold onto something for a few hours, then it’d be collected by the next point on the chain.”
