Going All The Way

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Travis walks out of the police station. Olsen had hit him with question after question. Like a front-row forward in a state-of-origin game, buttering up again and again. Travis took the hits with a no comment, then Lynch started in with the accusations.

‘You’re a thief. Cheating on your boss. A rat, stealing money from him. A girl is lying near dead. You need to say something.’

‘No comment.’

He needed a lawyer. Ahn could find him one. Pay for it too.

The truth is he is flat broke and needed the $120 to keep him going until payday. His list of bad habits almost always has him teetering on the brink of going under.

At the top of the stairs leading to the concrete of Fitzroy Gardens, his finds it a little hard to breathe. He stops and bends down. He can’t breathe, he struggles trying to catch some air. Sits down on his arse gasping for air. Embarrassed as f**k. Can’t catch a breath, he puts his hand across his chest, tries to suck in air, at last, a breath, a few more deep breaths. He kneels, stands. Holds his arm across his chest, breathes in deeply, then breathes out slowly, counting, one and two and three and four and five. Repeats it in the middle of the park twice more. His breathing back to normal. He sighs. Something he learnt from the New York Times online.

He walks slowly back to the Cross. Gavin, the night porter, does a sideline dealing in speed, and Travis needs some. Gavin will give him credit. He has to find three people. Katya had been with Perry when she rang. Asking for a free room for Ann. Travis saw dollar signs. Straight away he knew he would pocket the cash for the room for gambling and drinking money. Perry is bad news, a male crossdresser. Travis doesn’t properly know; doesn’t care. Perry is also a smack and speed dealer and worst of all, a pimp. Trading in misery. Katya adores Perry who in turn feeds her smack habit with free gear. Can they have known the attacker all along? Find Katya. Find Perry. Find the attacker. Because he doesn’t want the guy finding him. Maybe he was watching now. That knife concealed.

Travis hustles back across the square, past the El Alamein fountain, eyes darting left and right back up into the mess of The Cross. People buzzing, shooting all around him, in his space. It is freezing. He has his laptop, the laptop bag-strap across his chest, making him look like an office worker or geek or worse. Travis is from Melbourne. He is twenty-two. When he was nineteen, he was on the radar of all the AFL clubs, he was going to be drafted, a first-round pick for sure, top five, until the night before the draft when his world came tumbling down. He escaped to Sydney, got his Private Enquiry Agent license after doing a course in a function room above a motel in Kingsford. Told himself he was working in the crappy motel only until he could afford to be a PI full time. He could find people. He had a sort of rep for it. Only the jobs were spaced too far apart.

He snorts two lines in the back office of the Cross Motel. Takes two one-gram bags with him. Time to find these people. His car is parked in a car park on Ward Ave in an apartment building. The owner lets staff of the motel park there. He is a friend of Mick’s. He opens the door of his white Triumph Dolomite Sprint. This model of Triumph is fast. The previous owner had told him there was something extra too, under the hood, Travis knew nothing about engines, but he test drove it and it flew. It was old and clunky but fast; the Millennium Falcon on the streets of Sydney. He shot out of the driveway onto Ward Ave and drove fast as he could to Bondi.

Ahn opened the door wide, wearing a black dress, red lipstick, and nothing else.

‘You going to let me in?’

She stands to one side. He slowly brushes past her into the hallway. She closes the door and turns and put her arms round his neck, nuzzles her face against his shoulder then kisses him on the neck. He smiles and says, ‘Nice welcome,’ and leans down and kisses her on her red lips, and she kisses him back hard, passionately. He lifts her up, pushes her against the wall and she reaches for his shirt, undoing the buttons, pulling it out of his pants, ripping at the belt. It comes apart. She tears the button on his trousers off. The laptop bag-strap breaks and it thumps to the floor. She grabs his hard c**k, whispers in his ear, ‘f**k me now’. He feels her wetness under the dress and pushes inside her, her arse flat against the wall, his hands pinning hers to the wall. They f**k hard, and he almost slips, half laughs but keeps stroking in and out. Ahn pushing back against him, he thrusts harder, faster, dripping with sweat now, burning up. Ahn growling, he keeps thrusting harder, faster, she pumps back, and he comes inside her but stays hard, thrusting again and again so she can come. He lets her hands go and she grabs his hair, his face, groaning out loud, he grabs her small bum and scratches his fingernails into her skin, and she comes hard, and they both collapse in a heap in the hallway, and she says, ‘Oh, f**k that was good.’

Travis says nothing, gets his breath back. Stares straight ahead, the speed, running hard in his brain, all through his veins, almost electrified, but he knows what he has to do.

‘Ahn, give me the keys to Billy’s place. I need a week upfront into my bank account. I’ll text you the details. I need a lawyer by tomorrow. I’m sorry, I need to go. Need to find Katya.’

‘The prostitute. Why? What did she do?’

‘Best you don’t know anything. Three hundred a day. Tomorrow or tonight. First seven days in advance.’

He stands up, pulls his briefs up, still semi-hard, pulls up his pants, tucks himself in.

‘Ahn, keys to Billy’s place. I got to go.’

‘I haven’t seen you this scared, this worried, not since Melbourne.’

‘Keys, Ahn, for f**k’s sake.’

‘Alright.’ She stands up and walks quickly to her bedroom to get the keys.