The House of the Vegetable Page 10

  He wanted to stay behind the tree, rest for a little longer, but he knew if the car doubled back around the block he would immediately be spotted. No, he had to keep moving.

  Don pushed up and headed on, now in direction of the fat man’s.

  As Don trotted on down the street, maize bag tucked under his arm (intermittently alternating arms to balance out the weight), jacaranda flowers softly popping beneath the soles of his Cons, Don thought he began to feel a bit better. Maybe the short rest had helped. Or the puking? Or maybe he was getting that second wind?

  After not too far though the stitch returned. Don just kept reminding himself that things would be much worse if he was caught. He just had to endure this discomfort for a little longer and then he could go back to his sedentary lifestyle, eating bad and sleeping till late.

  Don reached the end of the block and stopped. The slope was now starting to level out and before him stretched a four-lane, normally busy, but now desolate, road that he needed to negotiate.

  Don took it in. Treeless and brightly lit, but thankfully, for the moment at least, quiet.

  If he was heading for Lesley’s, the best route would take him up the road for about half a kilometre. Don didn’t love the idea, but after that he was through into a maze of backways, with lots of places to hide, and that should then, just about, get him all the way to the fat man’s.

  He had two options now—take a slow walk and perhaps avoid looking like a suspicious to any law enforcement that might be in the area, or sprint it (as much as he could, at least) and try to minimise the amount of time he was out in the open.

  Don decided, mind partially made up just by the antsiness he currently felt, to sprint.

  Checking again there was no sign of any approaching vehicles, Don began the run.

  ◆◆◆

  Don set off, crossing the wide road, reaching the other side and continuing to pound on down the pavement. It wasn’t much of a sprint, maybe just a slightly faster jog, but at any rate, that small extra burst of speed really set his lungs on fire, his gorge rising again and the stitch returning with a vengeance, now spreading across most of his side.

  Push on.

  Seeing the corner in sight, nearing, Don’s heart sank as he picked up, to his right, a pool of yellow light on the tarmac.

  With the roar of his breath and pounding of his footfalls he had not heard the car approach. If it was a House car he was spotted. If it was another vehicle maybe it was best to slow down and try not look so damn suspicious.

  Don did his best to casually slow to a walk. He now heard the noise of the engine was right on his tail.

  If it was one of Thornapple’s cars, well what was the worst that could happen? They’d beat him up? Kick him out, take back the money, and then Lesley would take his literal pound of flesh.

  Don began idly wondering just how much the average kidney did weigh as he watched the beams of light on the tarmac to his right bounce and grow brighter. Above his still laboured breath, he listened as the sound of the engine drew nearer.

  Just pass, just pass.

  Don, not really sure why, didn’t want to turn. Maybe thinking if it wasn’t a House vehicle, turning would only make him look more suspicious, nervous.

  As the vehicle approached it sounded as if it were slowing. The car now almost seeming to keep pace with him, a few metres behind.

  Surely he was caught.

  But it didn’t sound like an old VW engine. Either Beetle or minivan. Otherwise what else? Some drunken yobs who wanted to pick a fight? Cops?

  Don pressed on, trying his best to look casual, like he had every reason to be out in taking a stroll in—for all appearances—pyjamas, with a huge bag of maize under his arm, in the early hours of the morning.

  Finally, unable to resist the pull—like Lot perhaps—Don turned to look.

  As soon as he did a blue light whooped and Don cursed his luck as the unmarked, white 3-series BMW accelerated forward and pulled up to a screeching stop alongside the pavement, about a car length ahead.

  Chapter 21

  The BMW sat idling, blue light flashing, coldly illuminating the night.

  After what seemed like some time, the passenger door finally, leisurely, opened and a skinny male, a couple of inches taller than Don, with a broken nose and wearing a SAPS uniform shirt, what looked like snow camouflage pants and casually toting a pistol in one hand, emerged.

  The broken-nosed cop took in Don. Then, as if terribly underwhelmed by what he saw, holstered his pistol and approached.

  “Am I thankful to… gnnhh…” Don’s attempt at a nice, warm greeting was met by a bony, unceremonious punch to the gut.

  Don doubled over. Winded again for the second time tonight, he struggled to take in breath as the maize bag was yanked from his tight grip and tossed to the ground. Don was then roughly slammed up against the side of the car and patted down (his sap though surprisingly not discovered—although he did not think that that was going to be much of use now).

  The cop opened the back door of the BMW and roughly bundled Don onto the back seat, telling him to mind his head as it was mashed into the arch above the door.

  The cop then climbed back into the front passenger seat and Don heard the central locking thunk shut.

  Don took a few moments rubbing his both his forehead and stomach, not sure which one to give the most attention to.

  In the driver seat sat a female cop. Youngish, but, Don thought, looking like she had a good few years of alcohol abuse already under the belt. Shortish hair all sort of standing out at weird angles and in disarray, like she’d just woken up. She appeared to have on a full SAPS uniform although it looked wrinkled and in her hand a pistol that was now trained on Don in the gap between the two front seats.

  Don began to wonder if they were in fact cops or not—snow-camo pants and all. He had seen some stuff on the news recently about a bunch of cop impersonators.

  An unintelligible voice on crackled on the (presumably) police band radio. Well they had one of those anyway, Don thought. And a blue light. But how easy were those to get hold of? Don tried to weigh up the consequences—was it better or worse if they were or weren’t real police? Neither possibility wonderful for near future prospects.

  “Where’s the fucking fire?” the broken-nosed possible cop asked, he had retrieved the maize bag and now sat with it on his lap.

  The female possible cop still had her gun on Don and now shouted, specks of spittle hitting him on the cheek as she did, “Hey, answer the question!” Don idly noticed a large part of her front tooth was chipped and missing.

  Despite himself, a bit p’d off about being punched in the gut, that and not really knowing what to say to that, Don chose not to answer.

  “You must like pap?” the male possible cop said.

  Don rubbed his forehead.

  The male possible cop gave Don a long, dead-eyed, chilling stare, before turning to start working the knot of the maize bag loose.

  Don now realised he hadn’t actually looked in the maize bag himself to check if there was any money in there. He found himself wishing it was just a stack of torn up newspaper, love-letters, bills.

  Don couldn’t see much more than the side of the guy’s head from where he was sat, and didn’t have a good view of the bag, but the way the possible cop suddenly went still and silent made Don suspect it was more than just a bunch of torn up newspaper.

  “What?” the female possible cop asked. She’d been fidgeting continuously, checking and adjusting her review and side mirrors. She leaned over to look in the bag. Her next word was four-lettered and little above a whisper.

  “What do you want to do?” the broken-nosed possible cop finally asked, turning to his partner.

  She gave Don a brief glance, before turning back to the broken-nosed possible cop. “We dump him?”

  “Where’d he get it?” the male possible cop asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said.

  In the back seat,
Don began to feel like a third wheel.

  “Where then?”

  “I don’t know. Pan?”

  The male possible cop gave the impression of being uncertain. “Well, I’m not using my fucking service pistol again…”

  “We just…,” the female possible cop briefly turned to look at Don, turned back, her voice now a bit lowered said, “…smash his head in with a brick or something.”

  The male possible cop seemed to consider this for a few moments. “Stop at my place first we get gloves and a spade and kak.” He looked back down at the open bag. “Hee-hee!”

  Don made a slow move to try open the door.

  “It’s locked, asshole!” the male possible cop said, meeting Don’s gaze in the side mirror. “The best you can do now is make friends with God.” He turned to look at Don between the seats. “I’ll make you a deal, hey pinhead, look at me when I’m talking to you!”

  Don grudgingly looked at the guy.

  “We keep all of the money in the bag, kill you and dump your body.”

  “It doesn’t…” Don coughed.

  “Huh? Speak up.” the male possible cop said.

  “It doesn’t sound win win,” Don said.

  The male possible cop laughed.

  The female possible cop shifted the car into gear, then returned it to neutral. Still appearing preoccupied with something in the review mirror, she said, “Who the fuck is that though?”

  Both Don and the broken-nosed possible cop turned to look.

  Out through the back window down the street about a hundred metres or so were a set of headlights, one slightly dimmer than the other, not moving.

  “They been fucking sitting there since we got here. Did they see him get in?” the female possible cop said.

  The three occupants of the BMW now watched in silence as the two headlights pulled out into the street and the vehicle began approaching slowly.

  As the lights drew nearer Don recognised the distinctive red and white VW campervan—the one that had been parked in the House of the Vegetable’s garage all week.

  Its engine, a distinctive lumpy sound, grew louder as the vehicle drew closer. Getting to a couple of car spaces behind the BMW the van finally slowed, pulling to a stop in the middle of the road.

  Despite light bouncing off the camper van’s dusty windows, Don could make out three familiar faces—Acacia in the driver’s seat, Kratom upfront next to him and Mandrake in the back. Kratom’s window open, behind Mandrake seemingly struggling to open hers.

  “Who the fuck are these clowns?” the broken-nosed possible cop said.

  His partner, who still had her pistol out, lifted the weapon and tapped it against the driver side window, to show she was armed.

  “Friends of yours?” the male possible cop said.

  The female possible cop, still casting back, glaring at the VW, seemingly getting no response, pressed a button on the door panel.

  The window began to hum open. It had only made it partway down when, accompanied by an embarrassingly high-pitched shriek from the male possible cop and a loud crack from somewhere by the campervan, it blew inward in a spray of tiny glass fragments. At the same time the back of the female possible cop’s head disintegrated in a mess of blood and unidentifiable head matter, gore filling up much of the front cabin, the front windscreen crazing around a point.

  In the stunned moment of silence following, the female possible cop fell to her left, her head slapping down wetly on to her partner’s bare short-sleeved arm.

  The broken-nosed possible cop let out another castrato yell and began frantically grappling for something down to his left. Clearly the door handle, as a second later the passenger door swung open and the man spilled out on to the pavement.

  Don, feeling like he was moving through sludge and not really managing to process all of it, turned back for another look out the rear window.

  Leaning out the passenger window, Kratom was holding and aiming a spacey-looking pistol.

  It took a second, but Don recognised it as a BB pistol. He’d wanted one just like it, he remembered, maybe when he was around ten. There was a knife shop in a nearby mall that had one on display, which he’d returned to view whenever passing. His grandmother had unfortunately made clear that as long as he was under her roof no such weapon would ever be forthcoming.

  The thought now though of Kratom blowing out the window and the female possible cop’s head with one of those guns now seemed so odd and dream-like to Don as to be difficult to compute.

  It was only when he turned his attention to Mandrake, and saw in her tiny grasp an old-time. mostly wood rifle, that things coalesced into some kind of (relatively) logical sense.

  Don stared stupidly, blankly, as the girl pulled back the bolt on the weapon and now dropped the bead on Don.

  Realising that the action he had been viewing was not—as it had been for much of his life—confined to a screen, Don ducked just as he heard the slug punch through the rear windscreen above.

  Don flattened on to the seat. He was not sure that the shell of the boot and wood and plastic of the back seat would do much to stop a rifle bullet, but it at least for now got him out of sight.

  Don heard different sounding shots now. Rapid fire, one, two, three. Coming from closer—near the back of the BM. The male possible cop getting into it. At the same time, over in the direction of the campervan, sounds of more glass shattering, plink sounds of lead punching its way through 70’s sheet metal. Then a scream from direction of the VW, broken by a pause and then the screaming continued.

  Another blast of the rifle.

  Almost on auto pilot, brain not really formulating a clear plan, keeping low, Don pushed forward into the front seat. To get behind the wheel he was forced to slide over the now (he was fairly sure) corpse of the female possible cop, and wedge himself between her legs in the driver’s seat.

  Another rifle blast, by its sound Don guessed, this one had blown again through the rear window, and judging by the thud he felt at his back, the projectile possibly coming to rest in the body he was sitting on top of.

  A blood-curdling, terrified wailing was still coming from the minibus.

  Don grabbed the ignition key and turned, the vehicle screeched and choked. Christ. The thing was still on.

  Passenger door still hanging open, Don, clutch in, mashed the lever into first and punched hard down on the accelerator as he heard another bark from the rifle.

  The “Be My Wife” took off with a squeal, back fishtailing as the passenger door banged shut with the momentum.

  Tearing down the street, with the front windscreen cracked and covered in blood and Don half ducked down, he struggled to see exactly where he was going, but at the moment just wanting to put as much distance between him and campervan as possible.

  Getting maybe fifty metres or so down the road, Don started to raise up a bit, trying to get a better view out through the clear bit of the windscreen at the road ahead.

  From back down the street another shot boomed and at about the same instant (or maybe even before?) Don heard an insectile whizzing at his right ear as another hole materialised in the front windscreen (unfortunately cracking up the clear bit of glass he’d been trying to look through).

  Don ducked back down. Now not seeing at all where he was going, and not really having the presence of mind to ease up on the gas—his foot locked hard down on the accelerator—he hadn’t gone much further, before the entry-level luxury German sedan came to bone-jarring, teeth-clacking halt. Don’s skull whipped back and forth, his already tender forehead bashing down hard on one of the horn buttons, bleating the car once loudly, before all returned to quiet.

  Chapter 22

  As the scene before him swam back into focus, Don became aware of a cool, rather pleasant, breeze wafting in through the BMW’s battered windows.

  Out through the cracked and bloody front windscreen he saw, sprouting out at a sharp angle from the crumpled, steaming bonnet, a streetlight pole with a
poster for something like Childline affixed to it. A sad-eyed kid was looking in at him.

  Other than the hiss of steam escaping and the ticking of the engine cooling (and maybe a slight ringing in his ears), in contrast to very recent explosion of noise, all was now eerily quiet.

  Nothing except for, maybe, further back down the street, the lumpy rattle of the House of the Vegetable’s VW campervan.

  Don slowly and cautiously lifted his head and turned to look out between the seats, through the undamaged section of the also cracked up (but at least unbloodied) back windscreen.

  Maybe half a block or so back, in the middle of the road, the red and white Volkswagen sat, a cloud of blue-white exhaust billowing out at the back.

  Off to the right, on the pavement, Don could make out only the legs of the broken-nosed possible cop. The top half of his body was wedged awkwardly into a hedge. Maybe there was some movement from him, maybe not.

  Don tried to see what was going on in the van, but from his distance and with light reflecting off the front windscreen it was impossible for him to get a good look inside. Judging from the screams he’d heard earlier, Don guessed, at least one in the VW had been hit. Maybe they were busy trying to administer first aid? Maybe trying to work out what to do next?

  Don did a quick inventory of his own body. The spot where he’d hit his head on the steering wheel felt tender, otherwise, aside from the injuries he’d sustained in the earlier part of the evening, he thought he might be doing okay.

  He began though, as his heart slowed, to become aware of a heat radiating from his right ear. He lifted a hand to it and where he’d felt an earlobe a thousand times before now his fingers just closed on empty space. Don frantically patted at rest of his ear, checking to see what was left and the extent of the damage, wincing at the pain the touch caused.

  Wet with blood and stinging, the ear was still mostly there (and head, Jesus be praised, intact); only the earlobe was missing.

  Don wiped his bloody hand on the leg of his pants. He’d have to worry about it later, for now he just needed to stay focused, keep moving.