In and out quickly. They wouldn’t be expecting me to come back to my office, not at night and alone.
I found an illegal park a hundred metres down the street and was in the office inside a minute, didn’t put on the light, had the envelope in my hands in thirty seconds. Out the front door, turned the key in the deadlock.
Rain like mist, tarmac shining. Light on across the way in McCoy’s studio, some artistic atrocity being committed. On the pavement, a steel rubbish skip. How did McCoy decide which of his efforts to throw away? Toss a coin?
I looked down the street towards the Lotus. Half a block beyond it, I could see the dark bulk of a four-wheel-drive parked outside the back doors of the old chutney factory.
Mr Pigtail the warehouse developer having a late inspection, gloating over the profits to come.
I was ten metres from the car, walking in the street, when two blocks down a car turned the corner, came towards me, turned right into St David Street.
Two men in the four-wheel-drive, slumped in the front seats, just the tops of their heads caught for an instant in the headlights of the car behind them.
Warehouse converters?
No. I knew who they were.
I stopped, froze.
Run for the Lotus?
A movement in the driver’s seat of the big vehicle. The driver sitting upright.
Get to the Lotus, unlock the door, get in, get it started.
It was an unfamiliar car. It would take me seconds to find the ignition.
No. Too late.
Run for it. Run back. Run for Carrigan’s Lane and Smith Street.
The four-wheel-drive started up, headlights came on.
Run.
I hadn’t gone five paces when I knew I’d never get to Carrigan’s Lane, never get to Smith Street.
Look back. The big vehicle pulling out from the kerb, squeal of fat tyres.
Run. Run for what? Never get my office door open in time, two locks to open.
Running, hearing the vehicle behind me, look back, headlights fifty-sixty metres away.
Running. Run for McCoy’s door, could be open.
Look back. Never get to McCoy’s door.
Head, shoulder and arm leaning out of the vehicle, out of the window behind the driver. Something in the hand.
Oh Jesus, I’m dead.
McCoy’s rubbish skip. Get behind the skip.
Flat sound, not loud, whine of lead off the tarmac in front of me.
Oh Christ.
The skip. Nearly there.
I could hear the engine roaring. Close.
I dived for the steel box, bounced on the cobblestones, landed on my elbow, my right hip, pain shooting through my whole body.
Huge bang next to my head. Bullet hit the skip.
Crawl, crawl behind the skip.
Behind it.
The sound of McCoy at work on his tree trunk. He wouldn’t hear anything above his own din.
The four-wheel-drive went into reverse. Back ten metres. Brake. See the brakelights red as blood.
Trying to get a clear shot at me. Legs not good enough.
Forward. Savage left turn. Brake. Reverse lights.
As the vehicle backed onto the pavement, I crawled around to the other side of the bin, the narrow side. Breathless, little involuntary fear noises in my throat.
Scream of the engine, right turn, forward, looking for me.
I tried to crawl back. My right leg seemed to be paralysed.
Crawl. Drag yourself.
Too late. Too late.
I looked up into the face of a man in the back seat of the four-wheel-drive. A fat face, bald head, mouth open. He looked like a white seal. A happy white seal with a pistol, silencer on the end.
He steadied both forearms on the windowsill, sighted down the barrel, not in a hurry. On my chest. Getting it right.
I felt nothing. Fear gone. Not even despair. Just a thought about my daughter. I didn’t write often enough. Didn’t tell her I loved her often enough.
To die in the rain, in the gutter, next to a rubbish skip. Not right.
Here it comes. I closed my eyes.
McCoy’s front door crashed open, bucket of light thrown over me. Roaring chainsaw noise.
McCoy. In the doorway. Plastic face shield pushed back on the huge head. Chainsaw in his right hand, running, roaring chainsaw, blade pointed at the ground.
The gunman raised his pistol instinctively, fired at McCoy without aiming. A chunk of wood came away from the doorpost centimetres from McCoy’s head.
‘FUUUCK!!!’
Bellow of McCoy outrage. All in one fluid movement, he brought his left arm over, picked up the roaring chainsaw in both hands, weightless. Raised it to head height.
Threw the running chainsaw.
Threw it like a dart.
Threw it at the man who had fired at him.
Across the space. The heavy cutting machine, carbide-steel cutting teeth on a chain, flying across the space.
Into the man’s face.
The man falling back. Going back with the running chainsaw.
The scream. One terrible piercing blood-red expulsion of sound.
The vehicle shot forward, tyres howling, swung into Carrigan’s Lane, went over the kerb, right front fender hit the brick wall, back came around, grinding along the wall, fountain of red and white sparks. Down the lane, engine screaming in first gear.
Alive.
In the rain, in the gutter, next to a rubbish skip.
Alive.
McCoy and I looked at each other.
‘Shit,’ he said, rubbing his beard stubble. ‘Fucking Stihl chainsaw. Next to new. Four hundred bucks.’
I swallowed. Strange taste in the mouth. Like iodine. Who knows what iodine tastes like?
‘Maybe he’ll bring it back,’ I said and I looked at my right hand. It was twitching, little jerks. It was like looking at someone else’s hand. I got up, grasped my right hand with my left.
McCoy eyed me. ‘One of your old clients,’ he said. ‘Passing by, thought he’d say hello.’
I was limping away, feeling my arm. Over my shoulder, I said, ‘Some bloke bought one of your paintings. Seriously disturbed to do that, looking at it makes him much worse.’