Cross Off

by Peter Corris

  'I beg your pardon?' A woman standing nearby, dressed in the resort uniform for females of starched whites with blue piping, looked puzzled as Dunlop spoke.

  He smiled at her. 'Nothing. Touch of the sun.'

  She returned the smile. She was an attractive woman—slim, dark hair, deep tan—and in other circumstances Dunlop might have tried to build on the exchange. Proximity to Ava was making him feel something like randy. But not now. He bought a copy of Time at the stand in the lobby and settled down in a courtyard where he would see Ava as soon as she emerged from Bushmill's room. He found it hard to concentrate on the articles in the magazine. His head drooped.

  'Can I be of any help to you, sir?'

  It was the dark-haired woman again, bending over, smelling fresh and clean. Dunlop's pulse raced. He was randy.

  'I don't know,' Dunlop said, putting the magazine aside. 'What's your job here?'

  'Anything that comes along. D'you mind if I sit down?'

  She sat on the bench next to Dunlop, removed her sunglasses and looked at him almost accusingly. 'In fact, I'm on the security staff of the resort.'

  'Are you?'

  'Yes. Ann Torrielli.'

  'How do you do.'

  'Would you mind telling me why you're sitting here watching that room.'

  'I'm disappointed,' Dunlop said. 'I thought you might be interested in me.'

  'I'm interested in what you're doing.'

  Dunlop briefly debated the matter internally but he knew what he was going to do. Why should Ava have all the fun? 'Can you show me something to prove you're what you say you are, Ms Torrielli?'

  She opened her bag and showed him a laminated card with her photograph on it. The card carried the resort logo, several signatures and described Ann Torrielli as a 'security officer'. He saw a walkie-talkie and a .32 pistol in the bag. Soul mates.

  'I'm attached to the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation,' he said. 'The woman with me is a protected witness in a major criminal case.'

  'Same as you, I'd like to see some proof.'

  'I don't carry cards or badges. I could let you see my gun. It's in the golf bag here. But that wouldn't prove anything.'

  'You're right. It wouldn't.'

  'I can show you something in my room, but I can't leave this spot just now.'

  'When can you leave?'

  'When Mrs Browning goes back to her room to sleep off . . . the effects.'

  'I'll wait with you.'

  'Could you use the two-way to get us some coffee, Ann? I'm just about falling asleep here.'

  'Mrs Browning proving a handful?'

  'You could say that, yes.' Dunlop smiled, turning on the charm, partly to keep her on side, partly because he found her very easy to smile at. 'She's teamed up with one of your guests, a Mr Kenworthy Bushmill.'

  One of Ann Torrielli's thick, dark eyebrows shot up. 'You seem to give these people you look after a lot of rope.' She spoke briefly into the handset.

  'It's an important case.'

  'I don't think the management would be too happy about this arrangement.'

  'I'm hoping you won't tell them.' Dunlop leaned towards her intently. 'It's perfectly safe for your other guests. Nothing's going to happen. I think she'll get tired of the place in a few days and we'll be on our way.'

  Ann said nothing but continued to study Dunlop, who sat still—a picture of reliability. A waiter arrived with a coffee pot, cups, milk and sugar on a tray. Ann signed the chit. Dunlop poured.

  'Black with one,' Ann said. 'I'm a bit sleepy, too.'

  'Do you get much excitement in the job?'

  She shook her head. The shining dark hair bounced. 'No. The odd domestic. Some trouble with drunks. The occasional wallet lifted. That sort of thing.'

  They drank a cup of coffee each and chatted for several minutes. Dunlop learned that she was a university graduate whose qualifications for her present position were her looks and a certain proficiency in martial arts. She planned to keep the job for as long as it took to save enough money to travel for a year.

  'Where to?' Dunlop asked.

  'Asia. Look! Is that her?'

  Ava was leaving Bushmill's door. The departure entailed a long kiss.

  'Do you enjoy doing this?' Ann said.

  'No.'

  Dunlop shouldered his golf bag. They let Ava take the first turn towards Caribbean and followed at a distance.

  'She moves pretty well,' Ann said. 'Getting fat though. She should exercise.'

  'She gets plenty of exercise.'

  'I mean out of doors.'

  Ava walked past Dunlop's door and entered her room. Her shoulders drooped and she looked tired. Dunlop unlocked his door and ushered Ann inside. He parked his clubs against the wall, crossed to his overnight bag and unzipped an inside compartment. 'I've got an NBCI card. If you're still not happy you can send a fax to . . .'

  The adjoining door flew open and Ava took two steps into the room. She was naked apart from shoes, stockings and a garter belt. She carried a bottle of champagne in one hand and a lighted cigarette in the other. Her belly bulged; her face and arms were pink from the sun. She stopped when she saw Ann, threw back her head and let out a raucous laugh. Flesh wobbled as she turned and went back into her room, slamming the door behind her.

  Ann barely glanced at the card in Dunlop's hand. 'I believe you,' she said.

  The kiss on the driving range told Tate everything he needed to know. It was his habit to assign nicknames, based on physical characteristics, to associates of his targets when he didn't know their real names. Slim was the boyfriend and Nuggetty was the minder. Tate would have preferred it the other way around—Slim looked less like trouble. He followed the party to the pro shop and up through the gardens to the hotel. Nuggetty was hanging back, which was encouraging, but when Tate saw him take up his position in the courtyard he knew that he was dealing with someone who knew his business. Tate fiddled with his camera. A woman in uniform approached and sat down next to Nuggetty. This was a turn-up. Tate was even more surprised when she produced some kind of ID card and spoke into a two-way. The job was looking tougher all the time.

  The target, whom Tate was already thinking of as 'the slut', went to her room in the Caribbean wing with Nuggetty and his coffee-drinking companion tagging along. At least he had the rooms pegged now. He waited a few minutes until the woman in uniform left. He followed her at a distance back to the lobby, where she entered a door marked 'Security'. Tate was surprised that the Federal cop, which was what he had to be, near enough, would confide in a member of the hotel staff. Insecure, that was. But perhaps he had no choice. She looked like a pretty smart and efficient woman, reminding Tate of the Eritrean freedom fighters he'd seen during a brief stint as an explosives adviser to the Ethiopian Dergue. He had no misapprehensions as to the fighting capacities of women.

  Tate bought a copy of Car and Driver at the newsstand and sat in the lobby to ponder his next move. Ten minutes later Nuggetty came into view, wearing fresh clothes and with his hair wet and slicked back. He glanced at the door leading to the security section but carried on to the part of the reception desk that handled tour bookings. Tate strolled across to stand nearby, thumbing through a collection of brochures.

  'Dunlop, Room 20, Caribbean. I'd like to book a trip to Cooktown for tomorrow, please.'

  'Yes, Mr Dunlop. Just for yourself?'

  'No, Mrs Browning as well.'

  'The morning ferry leaves at ten a.m. from the marina. A bus will pick you up here at nine-thirty. Or would you rather go in the afternoon?'

  'No, the morning,' Dunlop said. 'How long does the trip take?'

  'About an hour and a half. You have two hours in Cooktown to have lunch and a look around. The ferry leaves at about one-thirty. Be careful not to miss it or you'll have to wait for the afternoon service to return. That's not until six p.m. or so, and if it's fully booked you might have trouble getting back.'

  'Okay.'

  'Be sure to take a hat and plenty of b
lock-out. The cost of the trip goes on your bill, but you have to pay for your own drinks on the boat and for your lunch in Cooktown.'

  Dunlop accepted two vouchers and a brochure. 'Sure. Thank you.'

  'Thank you, Mr Dunlop.'

  Tate waited until Dunlop had moved away before approaching the desk and booking his own passage to Cooktown on the morning service. He paid for the trip on the spot, explaining that he'd be checking out in the morning. He discarded the brochures except the one he had been given about Cooktown. He glanced through it as he went back to his room. A hick town, one main street and bugger-all else. Scruffy-looking beach. Fishing port. Lots of Abos. The place was surrounded by promising-looking bush. Tate tested his blood sugar and found it was slightly too high, the result of a relatively inactive afternoon. He went out for a long walk to bring the level down before the evening meal. Tomorrow there'd be plenty of activity, and the adrenalin rush tended to force the blood sugar down anyway.

  Vance Belfante was shocked when Shelley gave him the news. He'd got her a prescription for the pill and she'd assured him that she'd followed the instructions exactly.

  'It can't fail,' Vance said. 'You must've fucked up somehow.'

  'Don't use that sort of language, Vance,' Shelley said firmly. Her pale hands were clenched into tight little fists. 'There's a small percentage of error and it looks like we're it.'

  Her mouth was a firm hard line and her jaw was set. Vance hadn't seen the determined side of Shelley before and he wasn't sure how to take it. He'd been disappointed when Ava had told him she couldn't have children, but he'd grown used to the idea. There were too many kids in the world anyway, although Ava should have told him before they were married. A man didn't like to be short-changed on anything. But having kids with your wife was one thing, having them with your girlfriend was another. He'd seen a lot of blokes get themselves into the shit that way—dirty, expensive divorces, paternity suits, maintenance payments, court orders.

  Vance put his arms around Shelley and stroked her narrow back. He liked the way her bony hips dug into him. He didn't want her swelling up, getting fat. That was Ava's department. 'Well, it can't be far along,' he said. 'It won't be a problem. It's routine nowadays. We'll go away for a weekend afterwards.'

  'After what?'

  'The abortion.'

  'No way! I'm not having an abortion. We're both Catholics. That's a deadly sin. You're going to have to marry me, Vance.'

  Standing in the living room of the Dover Heights flat, in broad daylight, at ten in the morning, Vance experienced something like a nightmare. He saw Ava mocking him when he asked for a divorce, taunting him with the details of their financial entanglement. He saw himself selling property at the bottom of the recession and going broke; business rivals laughing at him, loans being called in, enemies taking advantage. He saw Ava siding with Sammy Weiss, joining forces with that bastard Harvey Kinsela and even the Chinks . . . He realised for the first time how indissoluble his partnership with Ava was. He couldn't divorce Ava and he needed time to think. He did the only thing he could do.

  'All right, love,' he said. 'We'll get married.'

  Shelley was all smiles then. She was passionate, too, and with something to occupy her mind, she objected less to Vance's frequent absences. She continued to work in the florist shop and the pregnancy was slow to produce signs. She went constantly to the gynaecologist for advice and reassurance. She was told that she was perfectly healthy and that the baby was developing normally. Vance fretted, had difficulty getting it up on his rare nights with Ava, and was impotent with both women for the few days before and after his bigamous registry office marriage.

  Ava laughed and said, 'You must be getting too much elsewhere. Just be sure you gladwrap your dick.'

  'Never mind, darling,' Shelley said. 'I'm sure it'll be all right and we'll have to stop soon on account of the baby.'

  Vance stared miserably at the ceiling and didn't answer. But Shelley's next remark gave him the first surge of hope he'd experienced in weeks.

  'Vance,' Shelley said. 'I'd like to live in the country.'

  8

  Dunlop spent the evening quietly, eating in his room, drinking a couple of cans of light beer, reading Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs. Ava had not reappeared which did not surprise him when he entered her room to wake her at eight a.m. Two empty champagne bottles lay on the floor and the level was well down in a half bottle of Hennessy brandy. He brought her soda water and Panadols and left her to her misery. Twenty minutes later she joined him on his balcony. She wore a silk dressing gown in black and white stripes and dark glasses. She accepted orange juice.

  'Where's your woggy girlfriend?'

  Dunlop chewed his toast appreciatively. 'If you mean Ms Torrielli, I imagine she's at work. She's a member of the resort security staff. When you made your entrance we were having a professional discussion.'

  Ava giggled and winced as the sound bounced around inside her head. 'Ouch. Yeah, I really pick my shots, don't I?'

  'Did Kent disappoint you?'

  'No, he was fine. I was just in the mood for some more, that's all. I drowned my sorrows instead.'

  'So I saw.'

  'Hey, she doesn't know who I am, does she?'

  'Of course not. Not specifically. She knows you're a VIP.'

  Ava groaned. 'I feel like a used wettex.'

  'I've booked us on the ferry to Cooktown like you wanted. Are you up to it?'

  'How long've I got?'

  Dunlop glanced at his watch. 'An hour and a bit.'

  'Wait.' Ava disappeared in a swirl of black and white. She came back carrying the brandy bottle. 'Pour me a coffee, Luke baby. I'll be ready when the time comes.'

  Dunlop poured. Ava added a solid jolt of the brandy and emptied the cup in a couple of swallows. She gasped, 'Again.'

  Dunlop complied. 'You're amazing.'

  'Nothing. Know where I learned to drink?'

  'Cooktown?'

  Ava winked and sipped the second laced cup. 'You guessed it. Out the back of the pub with the Abos.'

  Dunlop studied her carefully. Drink was beginning to blur Ava's features, but her bone structure was unmistakably Caucasian. 'You're not an Aborigine.'

  'My mum lived with one, though. I've got a couple of boong half-brothers and sisters. One of the reasons I left the bloody place. One of them. It was no fun being treated like an Abo in Cooktown in the early 'sixties, let me tell you.'

  'I'm surprised you wanted to come back.'

  'So am I. I got raped here, bashed, knocked up, dose of the clap. Everything. But I still wanted to see the old place again. Funny, isn't it? Vance'd never bring me.'

  'You talked with him about coming up here?'

  'Yeah, a bit. Why?'

  Dunlop castigated himself again. 'Nothing, Ava. Nothing. Go and get dressed. And don't forget to bring the hat Kent-baby gave you.'

  The Barrier Reef Tours bus picked them up on time and called at a few other hotels on its way to the marina. The ferry was a giant catamaran, equipped with a bar, covered and exposed lounging areas, a small swimming pool and a TV room. Its capacity was seventy people and Dunlop judged that about forty were aboard so far. Japanese tourists, young and old, predominated, but there was a scattering of Europeans, Americans and Australians. Port Douglas harbour glimmered under a bright sun. The water was a deep blue and a light breeze kept the temperature down. Dunlop looked around for a shady spot, intending to settle down with his book. Ava made a beeline for the bar.

  Dunlop had read the brochure. 'It doesn't open till we leave.'

  'I wanna be ready.' Ava perched on a bar stool and took out a cigarette. She wore loose, knee-length cotton shorts, light blue with white turn-ups. Her scarlet toenails showed through white open-toe sandals. Over a pink halter top which showed a stretch of soft midriff she wore a long white silk shirt, buttoned here and there. She set the straw hat on the bar, dropped her light canvas shoulder bag at her feet and looked around at her travelling companions.
A number of men eyed her; one took a stool beside her and offered a light.

  Dunlop found a canvas chair in the shade. He took his book from the plastic shopping bag that also contained his swimming trunks, a towel, seasickness pills, sunburn cream and his gun. The ferry was not due to depart for ten minutes and people were still arriving at the marina and straggling on board. Dunlop planned to do a thorough tour of inspection when they got under way. For now, he settled down to read. He was enjoying the book. Hannibal Lector was a chilling character and, unusually for him with his maverick streak, Dunlop was firmly on the side of Clarice Starling and the FBI.

  Tate checked out of the hotel, drove to the marina and joined the last group to board the ferry. He wore large-lensed dark glasses and a long-billed baseball cap that kept his face in shadow. His .22 pistol was in the side pocket of the drill jacket he wore over a dark green T-shirt. The insulin, swabs and two syringes were in the buttoned breast pocket. Jeans and sneakers completed his outfit. His camera was around his neck. He carried his copy of Car and Driver and a map of Cooktown in his left hand. A thin-bladed knife was strapped to the inside of his left forearm, concealed by the long-sleeved jacket. He did a quick tour of the boat, noting the location of the toilets, the crew's quarters, possible hiding and stowing places. He saw Ava at the bar and Dunlop sitting reading in a chair not far from her.

  The target looked set to spend the whole trip in the one place which would make it impossible to get to her. If she went to the toilet the minder would certainly escort her there and back. It looked like Cooktown would be the place for the job. Tate hoped that disabling Dunlop would be sufficient. There was enough heat on generally without killing Federal cops, but he'd have to play it by ear. He settled down near the stern with his magazine. He took little pleasure in reading and was easily distracted from the printed page. But the photographs and specifications of the motor cars interested him and he was untroubled by the chatter of the tourists. The rigging up and baiting of the trawling line took his attention briefly, but Tate, a fly-and-lure freshwater fisherman, thought it a pretty crude affair.

  He tensed when he saw Dunlop begin his survey of the boat and passengers. There was no reason to be alarmed or for Dunlop to take any special interest in him. No reason to attract attention either. Tate had a trick of appearing to shrink his body. He hunched in his chair. His shoulders seemed to be narrower and his chest pinched. His feet were crossed at the ankles in an ungainly, unathletic fashion. He slightly lowered his head and concentrated on the picture of the Trans-Am. Dunlop barely glanced at him, but Tate noted the strength in Dunlop's arms and shoulders and his balanced walk on the slightly pitching deck. Tate correctly judged Dunlop to be a few years younger than himself and in good condition. He took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. They'd told him his vision would change. He wasn't aware of it yet but it was hard to be sure. He squinted against the strong sunlight as he looked astern. Although a considerable distance away now, he could still see the marina and the buoys marking the channels. He could see as much as he needed to.