He knocked softly. “Louise?”
There was a soft sound of music, something out of place in the circumstances, yet familiar all the same. Ary Borroso’s old song ‘Aquarela do Brasil’. Jack pushed the door forward. Lying on top of the bed, apparently asleep, was Louise.
Strangely, her fish tank — the one with the seahorses — also sat in the room, on the table beside her. Jack could see half the water was missing. There were seahorses flipping about on the surface of the table proper, next to a pair of cat’s eye glasses. Louise’s head, hair and shoulders were wet, her face deathly pale.
As he embraced these details, Jack’s smile evaporated.
A R0SE BY ANY 0THER STA1N
#168
The woman felt like she’d throw up. “That’s it, then. Game over.”
“Stellar, this isn’t no game,” snapped Robert Kahn, the police officer seated to her left. He’d taken off his beige trench coat, had it draped on the back of the chair, and he slouched over, fiddling with a cigarette he refused to light.
“Depends on your perspective,” she said.
“Depends on a lot of things — but a game? No.”
On the reporter’s right, Pretty Amazonia quietly stared at the ceiling, ignoring the others. Finally dropping her chin, she surveyed the trampled foliage all about and suppressed a rising anger. “This is too much,” she hazarded. “This is despicable.”
The three sat together in the meeting area downstairs at Equalizers HQ, although they’d renounced the big round table in favour of more intimate placement on the settees. Even so, it felt like a mausoleum. Huddled amidst crushed yellow flowers, they spoke in low tones, scarcely able to fathom what had taken place here only an hour before.
Gypsie-Ann shivered. Maybe a lining on the stomach was required? How long had it been since she’d eaten something? “All this makes Melbourne feel like a tea party.”
“Where?” asked Kahn, placing the cigarette back inside its Camel box.
“Forget it. PA, what are we going to do?”
“We?”
“We.” Stellar worried about her sister. She’d never seen her this rattled.
Roughly pushing fingers through her hair, Pretty Amazonia peered back and sighed in loud fashion. “I’ll tell you what we need to do — we need to find Jack. In his state, God knows what he’ll do.”
“Agreed. How’s the Brick?”
“Touch and go — the damage was massive, and Polyfilla’s never going to be adequate. Mister B’s out of it now — I pumped him full of drugs I had to administer orally, since there was no way to get a needle through his thick hide, diluted them with whiskey so the bugger would drink up. Hate to tell you, but it looks like more of your blood is required.”
“Again?”
“We need the Brick back on his feet.”
“I’m beginning to suspect I picked the wrong power — I feel like a blood-bank.”
“Stop whining. As you like to badger people, at least you’re alive.” PA diverted her attention to the floor and started counting rose petals, before she told herself to stop. “Shit, I tried so hard. Really I did. CPR, adrenaline, AED — God, I so wanted to help her.”
“I know you did.” Stellar glanced at Kahn, who nodded as he opened a small, leather-bound notebook. “We know.”
“Screw your sympathy.”
“We were aiming at empathy. Misfire?”
“I’ll say. Either way, I don’t want that shit.” The Equalizer jumped up, acting edgy. “We need to clean this place. These flowers. Jesus.”
“Priorities, sweetheart. First we have to go get Jack. Any idea where he might’ve gone?”
“None at all. The Brick may be better at answering — they tended to hang out together. Turns out Jack pinched Mister B’s prize motorcycle, but I think I’ll skip telling him that part.”
“Jack can ride one?” the reporter muttered.
“The Brick gave him lessons.”
“Great.”
“But, before nicking the wheels, Jack was here when you arrived?” This was the cop speaking.
“Yeah. He’d just found her.”
Kahn glanced over his notebook. “What happened next?”
“Girl was laid out on his bed, flowers scattered all round, and some kind of evil attempt at romantic Latin jingles on the stereo. A howling success, that was.” PA closed her eyes. She didn’t want to venture back there.
“Go on.”
No choice. She knew the cop would hound her. “Jack was in the bedroom, as I say, but he also wasn’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”