Read Online Velocity by Steve Worland - Free Book Online Page A

DeLorean, high-tailed it home and plated dinner —
     
    ‘Who the hell are you?’
     
    Tubby has pulled on a pair of Y-fronts, albeit back to front, and returned to the balcony to retrieve the half-full Corona from the railing. He glares at Judd. ‘What the hell you doing down there?’ The sentence is shouted in a toneless slur, like he’s speaking while listening to music on headphones.
     
    Judd glances back at Will’s balcony, hopes they didn’t hear enough over the music to prompt a trip onto the balcony. No one emerges. Thank God for the Doobie Brothers. He gets moving.
     
    Tubby doesn’t like it. ‘You’re trying to rob me!’ His voice is very loud.
     
    ‘I’m not robbing anyone.’ Judd keeps his low.
     
    ‘This man’s a-robbing me!’ Now the guy is shouting.
     
    ‘Shhh.’
     
    ‘Don’t shush me!’
     
    Judd keeps moving. There’s no greater waste of time than arguing with a drunk. You’ll never change their mind, and even if you do they won’t remember it in the morning.
     
    ‘Nobody shushes me!’ Tubby lunges at Judd, grabs a handful of collar. Judd karate chops his wrist and the guy lets out a yelp that’d make a schoolgirl blush. ‘Don’t let him get away!’ He shouts it as if to a crowd.
     
    Judd moves fast. He wants to put as much distance between himself and Tubby as quickly as possible. Unfortunately he can’t move too fast, the ground is slippery.
     
    ‘What going on?’ Christ, that’s Thompkins’ voice.
     
    ‘He’s robbing us!’
     
    Judd ups his pace, reaches the last balcony.
     
    ‘Call the police.’ Oh, man. That’s Rhonda. Her voice cuts through him like a knife. He instinctively ducks his head.
     
    ‘I’m on it.’ That’s Thompkins.
     
    ‘Fast, h-he’s getting away.’
     
    Judd shuffles along the last balcony. He’s ten steps from the camouflage of those big-leafed plants. Seven steps. Five. Almost there —
     
    He feels a sharp pain in the fleshy area where his neck meets his skull, then darkness envelops his vision and his legs give out from underneath him.
     
    ‘Nobody shushes me!’ is the last thing he hears.
     
    **
     
    Rhonda’s impressed. The drunk guy is almost too loaded to stand yet he throws the half-empty Corona bottle with pinpoint accuracy. It connects with the back of the robber’s head and he crumples to the ground, then begins a slow slide down the incline, head first. He travels a good twenty metres in this position then comes to a halt as his head conks into the large tree at the bottom of the slope. Quite clearly he should never have shushed the drunk guy in the back-to-front Y-fronts.
     
    Rhonda studies the man, then looks closer. Will walks onto the balcony, portable phone to his ear. ‘Cops. I’m on hold —’
     
    She takes the phone from him and hangs up.
     
    ‘What are you doing?’
     
    She doesn’t answer, just dials a number.
     
    Da Da Da - Da Da - Da Da Da - Da Da.
     
    The sound emanates from the man. It’s the theme from Terminator 2 , Judd’s favourite movie. She remembers the day he bought the ring tone. She hangs up and the theme cuts off. She stares at the man who is, in fact, her man. But is he? It’s like she doesn’t know him.
     
    ‘What’s going on?’
     
    Rhonda doesn’t look at Will. ‘It’s Judd.’
     
    ‘It’s - what?’
     
    She’s not embarrassed. She’s not even angry. She’s flabbergasted. She’s never liked the word, always felt it fake, made up, a word that didn’t represent a genuine emotion she’d ever experienced, but damn if she didn’t feel it now.
     
    **
     
    The sun has almost set, throws a pale-orange sheen across the garden and the unconscious Judson Bell. Rhonda kneels beside him, lightly pats his face. ‘Judd.’ He doesn’t rouse. She pats him a little harder. ‘Judd!’ Nothing.
     
    Flabbergast finally gives way to anger. ‘Wake up!’ She tees off and slaps him across the cheek. Judd’s eyes blink open. She won’t let herself be worried