The Deep by Kyle Perry

Author:Kyle Perry [Perry, Kyle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781760895723
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

CHAPTER 31

AHAB

It was late at night, and Ahab strolled along one of Shacktown’s beachside streets. Wearing a singlet and shorts, he was barefoot and could feel the she-oak needles beneath his feet. Wealthy houses rose either side of him, but they were interspersed by fibro shacks, and even a large empty block, which was home only to a few tethered goats.

Up ahead was a huge whitewashed house set in the middle of a large block. It belonged to Chips, although she didn’t seem to maintain it all that well – the walls were covered in moss, and the gutters needed clearing. But the yard itself was immaculate, the garden well tended.

He needed to speak to Chips about keeping Blackbeard from winning the loyalty of the crew. The more he sat with the thought, the more the danger of a drug war in Shacktown seemed to grow in his mind. The town wasn’t big enough to handle it – the whole community would break.

But as he approached Chips’s house, he could hear music coming from the backyard, and a burst of rowdy laughter. She had guests. Smoke from a fire pot was in the air, a glow trailing up it.

Whoever was with her, they were probably members of the Business. Would it be good if the crew saw him there?

Then he noticed the cars parked out the front. A Mustang and a Merc. Expensive cars were not that out of place in Shacktown, but their presence immediately put him on alert. Apart from those working senior roles at Dempsey Abalone, the crew knew not to flaunt their wealth – it always attracted the wrong attention. That meant these cars belonged to out-of-towners. Rich out-of-towners.

His mind went straight to Blackbeard.

Ahab hopped the front fence and slipped up the side of the yard. He spotted a sensor light mounted on the side of the house and hugged the wall, moving slowly underneath it to avoid setting it off. Once he was out of its range, he crouched and crept into the angular leaves of a squat white correa bush, sweet and heady, which afforded him a covert view of the backyard.

Chips had set the fire pot right in the middle of her overgrown yard. The smoke wafted across Ahab’s face, the smell of burning pine just like the Darling’s fireplace. She was in her familiar football jersey and baseball cap, but he didn’t recognise the two strangers who were with her. They looked like hard men, both of them huge and muscular. One of them had two gold chains around his neck, diamonds in his ears, and a black Nike beanie. The other was tall, with a pockmarked face and burning orange hair. They spoke in loud voices that carried across to Ahab as they fed pages into the fire.

‘. . . in that case, he won’t come for the kid,’ said the man with the gold chains.

‘Lucky Forest, I guess,’ said Chips. ‘Reckon Blackbeard would’ve gone through with it?’

‘He never backs out of his threats,’ said the tall one harshly.

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