Byron cruised his Rexie past the Nader residence and took a quick tour of the bombsite. 'd.a.m.n,' he muttered.

Damien's house had been fenced off; signs proclaimed that entry was prohibited due to danger of collapse. He knew he should feel lucky he was supposed to have been in there when the place blew, and he should also have been at Riverstone by the time it was busted. But instead, he had a real bad feeling. He couldn't pin it down, but he was thinking that maybe it had started with that b.i.t.c.h walking out of Christian's closet the other day, scaring the f.u.c.k out of him. Everything was too close for comfort lately.

He pulled into a driveway a couple of doors up from what was left of Damo's house, turned the Rexie around, and headed back up to Nader's. He left the keys in the ignition and walked up to the front door. No c.u.n.t would steal a car parked out the front of the Nader joint.

'You're late,' said Kasem when he opened the door. He stepped straight out of the house and into Byron's chest, forcing him to back up quickly.

'Sorry, man. Where we going?' said Byron.

'Just get in the car,' said Kasem. 'No, f.u.c.kstick, you go around the other side. I'm driving.'

Aw, f.u.c.ken h.e.l.l, worried Byron. No one had ever driven the Rexie but him. She was a virgin that way. f.u.c.ken Nader. He climbed into the pa.s.senger seat, and couldn't help but admire the view inside his car from this angle. Sweet.

'So what are you so s.h.i.tty for, Kasem?' asked Byron when they screeched away from the house.

'Hmm, now, let's see. Why would I be s.h.i.tty?' said Kasem. 'Well, one of my labs exploded. There's that. And the other got raided. That's p.i.s.sing me off a bit. The cops got one of my best cooks, and probably half a million dollars worth of my drugs. Wouldn't that give you the s.h.i.ts a little, Byron?'

Nader took the next corner so fast that any other car would've lost it and rolled. Byron hurriedly plugged his seatbelt in, not sure whether to go with the anger he felt, or the awe that he had such a hot car. Either way, he had a hard-on. Take it easy, he wanted to say, but didn't. He knew that Kasem would only flog the car harder, and he might cop a backhander.

'So you and I, Byron, are going to make a bit of my money back today,' Nader continued. 'I've got a big sale with Worthington and he's expecting 800K worth of s.h.i.t.'

Byron whistled.

'And what I've got left because of this f.u.c.k around,' Nader slammed his hand down onto the steering wheel, 'is around 500K worth of s.h.i.t. But I need all of this p.r.i.c.k's money today to keep the supply chain rolling. You know what I'm saying, Byron?'

Byron nodded.

'You don't know what I'm saying, f.u.c.kstick, but that's okay,' said Nader. 'It's a business notion called the bullwhip effect. You see, if any part of the supply chain is stalled for even a while it has a flow-through effect on the whole system.'

'So you owe people the money,' said Byron.

'Well, there's that, too,' said Nader. 'So we're gonna meet with Worthington in half an hour and he's going to take the s.h.i.t I've got, give me all the cash, and I'll get him the rest very shortly.'

'And if he doesn't like that?'

'Then he won't like it. But that's what's going to happen today. I want you there to help him see reason if that needs to happen. You seemed to understand the business behind the deal well enough. You can help me explain it to him if needs be.'

'So I bash him if you tell me to?' said Byron.

Nader sighed. 'Yes, Byron. If I tell you to.'

Seren stood on the pavement and stared down into the car.

'What is she doing here?' she said when Christian reached across from the driver's seat and pushed the pa.s.senger door open for her.

'Come on, babe, get in. Ca.s.sie's going to help us with something before we go to lunch. It won't take long, promise,' said Christian.

Dismayed, Seren didn't move. I can't blackmail Christian with her here, she thought.

'Darling,' said Christian, 'please I'm in a no stopping zone.'

'I left you the front seat,' called Ca.s.sie from the back.

Seren folded herself into the sports car. This can't wait another day, she thought. I'll find some time alone with him.

'They're on the move,' said Gabriel, ending his call and handing Jill his mobile phone. The traffic had thinned considerably. He deactivated the siren. 'Can you answer next time it rings? It'll be Ajay, the techie. He's tracing Nader's phone and he said that he and Barnes are still together. He'll tell us where to head next.'

Jill took the phone and waited on the call.

'Who lives here, Kasem?' asked Byron as they pulled up at the front of a block of units in Merrylands.

'Plenty of people by the looks of it, Byron,' said Nader. 'It also happens to be where we'll be doing the Worthington deal.'

'Why here?'

'Why not? You don't need to know more than you need to know, Byron. You're the grunt. Now, hurry up. I want to get things set up before they get here.'

They climbed the stairs to the third floor of the block and Kasem unlocked the door to a flat. Byron took a walk around. Other than a dining table, a woggy-looking sofa and a few kitchen chairs, the place was pretty much empty. Not even a f.u.c.ken fridge. Byron flopped onto a chair in the lounge room and shrugged. No point asking what the f.u.c.k they were going to deal from this empty s.h.i.thole: apparently he didn't need to know.

Byron watched Kasem walk over to the linen cupboard built-into the wall. He opened it and pulled a box off a shelf. 'A hand here, Byron?' he said.

Byron walked over and peeked inside the box.

'f.u.c.k me,' he said.

'Thank you, I'll pa.s.s,' said Nader. 'Take them over to the table.'

The three boxes, which had apparently once contained 'Golden Bananas from the Sunshine State' now held a few hundred bags containing thousands of pills.

'How can you keep that much s.h.i.t in here, Kasem?' said Byron.

'Apparently you didn't inspect the door properly, Byron.'

Byron walked over to take a better look and saw that the front door was the newest thing in this place. And it looked pretty solid.

'It's iron, Byron,' said Nader, 'bolted at twelve points into the brick walls and the concrete floor, all with the turn of one key. They'd have to pull the wall down to move that door. You're the soldier, remember, and I'm the . . .'

'Boss?' said Byron.

'General, f.u.c.kwit,' said Nader. 'General.'

Seren couldn't believe it. Another deal? And eight hundred grand? Christian had explained the drug buy on the way over to this ugly-looking block of units.

'It'll be just like last time, Seren,' Ca.s.sie had said from the back seat of the car.

Did she mean what that sounded like? Seren wondered. What did Ca.s.sie want out of her taping Christian buying drugs? Why did she have to get involved? This was turning into a big mess. Every time there was a crisis in her life, the blackmail plan seemed perfectly logical, rational and justified. And then when things calmed down and she put herself again into situations like this, it felt like complete lunacy.

Exhausted by the constant doubts, Seren decided to just go with the path of least resistance. She didn't need any more evidence against this idiot, but she might as well go the whole hog. It wasn't like she could put the ultimatum to Christian with Ca.s.sie here anyway.

A couple of kids who should have been at school, she couldn't help thinking chased each other across the soil that served as a lawn in the front of the building. She prayed that Marco would stay put in the hotel until she got back.

Byron jumped up when the doorbell sounded. Scared the f.u.c.k out of him.

'Byron, get the door please,' said Nader. 'Oh, but make sure it's him before you open it.'

He must think I'm a f.u.c.ken idiot, Byron thought, crossing the floor and peering through the peephole.

'It's him,' he said. And the supermodels. He opened the door.

Kasem jumped up and gave Byron a look that sent him stepping backwards out of fist-reach. What? he thought. How am I supposed to know who else you're expecting? I'm not meant to ask questions, remember?

'I'm sorry, ladies, I don't mean to be rude,' said Kasem. 'I thought, Christian, that we'd arranged for this to be just us? Why did you bring these women?'

'Yeah, what is it with you and these b.i.t.c.h . . . girls?' said Byron. 'Kasem, they're the chicks I told you about in the city.'

'Shut up, Byron,' said Kasem. 'Have we met?' he said, turning to the brunette.

'Yes, actually,' she said. 'My name's Ca.s.sie. I came to a gathering at your home, somewhere in this suburb, I believe it was.'

'Sorry, Kasem,' said Worthington. 'I didn't think you'd mind the girls have done this before. We're going out to lunch after this, and I didn't want to leave them in the car.'

'Actually, I'd have much preferred that you did,' said Kasem. 'I'm afraid I have a bit of a peculiarity when it comes to business deals like this. It's a little embarra.s.sing, I guess, and some people will not understand it.' He looked the blonde one in the eye. 'I don't do business like this with women. I happen to think it's beneath them.'

Byron wondered how this would go down. Everyone just stood in the entryway, a couple of steps inside the door.

'Well, we might have a problem, then,' said Worthington. 'You see, I have a certain way of doing business too. It's the lawyer in me. I don't make, ah, contracts without a witness.'

'We have Byron,' said Nader.

'He's yours,' said Christian.

'The problem remains,' said Nader. 'Maybe I haven't explained myself clearly enough. Do you like bacon, Mr Worthington?'

'Bacon?' said Christian.

'Yes. Bacon, spare ribs, sweet and sour pork?'

Christian stared.

Nader waited.

'A Muslim thing?' said Christian.

'A Muslim thing,' said Nader. 'The deal will not go ahead with the women present. I am sorry, ladies.'

'Well, what do we do here?' said Worthington.

'Well, we can't be here all f.u.c.king day,' Nader told him. 'Sorry. Pardon me, ladies. It seems we each want this deal to go ahead. Would it suit you if the women waited in the unit across the hall while you inspect the product and we talk?'

'The unit across the hall?' said Worthington.

'It's empty, much like this one,' said Nader.

Christian stared silently at the floor. Byron figured this whole thing had gone south and nothing good was going to happen today.

Finally Worthington spoke. 'Sounds all right,' he said.

Everyone in the room took a breath.

Nader cleared his throat. 'I hope I mentioned that this would be a cash transaction?' he said.

Christian stared. 'Oh, of course. The money. It's in the car. I didn't want to bring it in until I was sure you were here and everything was okay. It's a lot of money to just carry around.'

'It would've been better in your hands than out there, bro,' said Byron.

Worthington paled and left the room quickly. What a f.u.c.kwit, thought Byron. He couldn't understand how people that dumb got to be lawyers. No street smarts.

When Worthington returned he looked spooked.

'What?' said Nader.

'I think the girls should hang onto the money while I check out the product,' he said.

'You think I'm gonna f.u.c.k you up and take the money and the drugs?' said Nader.

'I just think the final transaction should happen in front of witnesses. That's the way I want to do this.'

Nader sighed. 'Whatever you want, Christian. If it was me, I wouldn't be letting that money out of my hands for anyone, but it's not like we'll be very long, anyway.'

'Oh, I trust Ca.s.sie and Seren,' said Christian. 'They know I know them and their families exceptionally well.'

'Very well,' said Nader. 'Let's get on with it, then.'

Byron stayed behind while Nader led Worthington and the girls out of the flat. He watched from the doorway as Nader unlocked the unit across the hall and let them in. How many places did this p.r.i.c.k have? He hoped that this deal would hurry the f.u.c.k along. He didn't like his Rexie sitting out there this long in this neighbourhood.

69.

Tuesday 16 April, midday.

'I can't believe it,' said Jill. 'This is where Jelly lives. Nader's only come here to visit Jelly.' They sat in Gabriel's car in a shopping centre car park across the road from the unit block. She felt disappointed. She'd been hoping to catch Nader doing something wrong. Anything. 'Does Ajay know which unit he's gone to?' she asked.