The Killing Hour

She doesn’t help me out. I force her into the boot and tie her feet back together. I feel exhausted. I also feel like that stranger is still living in my body. I’m watching my real self in this Real World and not enjoying the ride. With the suitcases in the car it feels like we’re going on holiday.

I wind down the window. The air is cooling down but still has a warm edge to it. It’s hard to imagine being in danger in the tranquillity of this night. I hear banging against the roof of the boot but try to shut it out. I want to be with that tranquillity, I want to feel it inside me, but that’s not possible. It may never be possible again. It was tranquil last night too, up to a point.

I rub my fingers across the bump on my head. It was just after Cyris, his breath on my sweating face, asked me if I wanted a piece of the action that I thrust my head forward and felt his nose explode beneath my forehead.

The windscreen of the car shimmers and I dig my fingers into the tears and wipe them away. From the back of the car Jo beats out a steady rhythm. I head to a nearby empty shopping mall and park next to an ATM. There’s nobody around to hear Jo’s thumping. I draw out my daily limit, disappointed because eight hundred dollars is far from enough to buy myself out of this mess.

We head west and pass through the central city. Monday nights have little traffic and even less foot traffic. Nobody can hear Jo making trunk music.

I pull into the carpark of the Skyline Motel. Its design is similar to other motels that have been built where traffic is heavy and land is cheap – just two long rectangles of concrete block running perpendicular to each other. It’s hard to tell in the light whether the paint on the walls has faded in areas from the sun or darkened in the opposite areas from exhaust fumes. In between, strips of brown grass run parallel with the footpath. The footpath is chipped on the edges and patches of grass bleed between the long cracks. The neon ‘K’ in Skyline has blown out. The rooms face away from the road. I count seven cars in the carpark and nobody around. I stop outside the office. It’s lit by harsh fluorescent lights. I leave the engine running and the stereo turned up loud with the window open to help mask Jo’s sounds.

Pamphlets on touristy things to do in Christchurch line one wall. Slipped in among them are leaflets from the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons and medical clinics in the area, all offering to save us from something. A strip of flypaper hangs in the corner covered in a variety of insects, a few of which are still twitching. An electric fan with a bent propeller circulates slowly, the tip of the blade pinging against the grille every half second.

I ring the bell and a man steps out from behind a greasy curtain with a piece of greasy chicken in his hands, and I’m grateful he’s wearing a black T-shirt instead of a fishnet singlet. The T-shirt has You can never have too much duct tape written across it. He has tiny pieces of toilet paper stuck to his neck from a recent attempt at shaving. He starts talking in short uncomplicated words either for his benefit or mine. He gives me the hourly charge for the rooms and I surprise him by saying I’m staying the night, and surprise him even more when I ask for a room with two single beds. I give him a false name and real cash because that’s all he’s expecting. He glances out at the car and doesn’t ask where the second person is.

I move the car up to the room and park between an old Toyota and an even older Ford. Both are painted white. The passenger window on the Toyota has a crack running across it, maybe from an accident, maybe from vandalism. I carry my suitcase inside then come back outside for Jo’s. I head back and, making sure nobody is looking, I open the boot. Jo doesn’t make it complicated for me to help get her out. I carry her inside and sit her down on the bed, then lock the door with the cheap deadbolt and slide the chain across.

She muffles something at me. I remove the gag.

‘Think about what you’re doing, Charlie. It’s not too late. You can take me back home and I won’t tell, I promise.’

‘I can’t do that, Jo. You’re in danger.’

‘Only from you.’

‘No, not from me.’

‘Calm down.’

‘I am calm. Listen, I just need you to spend a day with me so I can prove I’m not lying. Just a day. Then you can do what you want, okay?’

‘People don’t come back from the dead, Charlie.’

I picture Cyris. He’s a big guy. Then I think about the knife I stabbed him with. It’s long and sharp. In my mind I see him standing sideways. The blade is next to him. I figure it out like one of those old school science cartoons – ‘This is Joe’s homicide’. The knife goes in. The tip comes out the other side. I stabbed him but I didn’t finish the job. If I had, Kathy and Luciana wouldn’t be haunting me.