We got sicka hangin around so after a while we piled into Craigie's panel van and hit the Royal. My shout! I tell 'em and head for the bar. Wayne Preston, the half full-forward for the Gulls, is there. Great game, mate! I say, but the cunt just looks straight through me. Fuck him. We start drinkin and keep drinkin, getting really shitfaced and, just before closing time, Craigie says, Let's go and find a faggot. We all start poundin the table. Find a faggot!
Out the front of the pub there're cars revin and people yellin- fucken spastic! - but when we get to the park it's as quiet as a fucken grave. We creep up to the dunny and wait and pretty soon we hear footsteps. Craigie steps out of the shadows. He and the poofta just look at each other then the poof says, You lookin for something, mate? and there's the sound of him unzippin' his fly. Yeah, this, says Craigie and then it's on for young and old. Die, faggot! Die! yells Simmo.
He was strong - who would have thought a fag would be so strong - he fought like a fucken tiger and even when Craigie kicked his teeth in he didn't cry or moan. That'll teach the cunt a lesson and we hung a wheelie and took off outta there. He was all right when we left; just lyin there in a puddle of blood.
The next mornin the whole town's gotta hangover and I just stuff around feedin the dogs and watchin telly. I don't think nothin about it til Simmo rings me first thing Monday. Troy, Troy, have ya seen the paper, mate? 'Course I hadn't seen the friggin paper, but I go out for it 'cause he sounds cactus; he sounds really fucken scared, and there on the front page is the headline: 'Footy Hero Slain in Mystery Killing', and underneath in fucken black and white: Brett McKenna dead at the hand of person or persons unknown.
'This is it?' Gina gazed uneasily out the window.
'This is it, babe.' On the left-hand side, behind the dense banks of scrub that lined the road, the sea rolled in a sullen blue mass and looked nothing like a postcard. A few salt-stunted trees bravely defied the win, their tops flattened out by years of exposure to storms and squalls. I shivered. Graeme had said the place could be desolate but I hadn't expected it to be this bleak.
'Keep an eye out for the motel,' I told Gina as we came to the sign bearing the name of the town and, underneath, the number of friendly people who welcomed us. We drove along the main street, where harried-looking shoppers to and froed, heads bent down into the wind. A few people turned to stare at the Sharkmobile.
'There it is,' said Gina, pointing to a sign that flashed 'Four Seasons' in pink neon against the dark grey clouds, but the first and last letters were on their way out and blinked only intermittently. Our 'season' looked as though it was winter.
'Mrs Weatherall?' asked the young woman at the reception desk.
'Ms,' I replied, curtly.
'Miss,' she said, beaming benignly. 'Please sign here.' I signed, took the key and went outside to the car as my mobile rang.
'Lauri Weatherall.'
'It's Graeme, Lauri.'
I repressed a sigh. I was already regretting the impulse that had caused me to agree to his request at 5 a.m. yesterday morning. I'd been half-asleep when he'd rung, with Gina, warm and smelling of roses, curled up next to me. I was weak. I hadn't had breakfast. I said 'yes'.
'Let's meet at Café Pelican. It's not far from where you're staying and it's the only place in this dump where you can get soy milk lattes.'
Soy milk lattes, soy milk lattes, who gave a shit about soy milk lattes? But I said, yeah, sure, see you in fifteen. Gina had the bags out of the car and was standing in front of the door numbered '9'.
'Gotta dash, darl'. I'll see you later,' I said, after I'd parked the car and opened the door. On the way out I glanced longingly at the Sharkmobile but thought I'd do the right thing and walk. I couldn't see any pelicans but a few seagulls foraged on the nature strips, pale yellow eyes alert for suitable refuse. The café was a cheery, hippy looking place with a wooden replica of its namesake in the window and wooden tables and chairs painted in primary colours. Graeme cut a natty but slightly incongruous figure in a paisley vest, plain shirt and dark tie. We kissed and exchanged greetings and ordered.
'So, tell me about this dead footballer.'
It took me a while to get the whole story. He was scared and, even though the café was almost deserted, he kept looking around and lowering his voice but eventually it all came out. A 'family man' dead and found where he shouldn't be, a spate of violent bashings and people frightened and intimidated. As he spoke his hands clenched and unclenched and a dull flush mounted in his cheeks. I looked at him closely.
'It happened to you, didn't it?'
He nodded miserably. 'The police said they'd look into it but I didn't hear from them again. You're my last hope, Lauri. I don't want anyone else to be killed.'
'How well did you know Brett McKenna?'
Graeme moved restlessly in his chair. 'Everybody 'knew' Brett McKenna. When you're a small-town footy hero, you're like God. But there were rumours. Word gets around among the queers in a place as small as this.'
I bet it did. I wondered if Brett McKenna had realised just how vulnerable he had been. I drummed my fingers on the table and thought about my commitments back in the Big Smoke. I thought about grief and guilt.
'Alright,' I said. 'I'll do it.'
I took a cheque from him and left some coins on the table. A gust of wind caught at my clothes as I stepped from Café Pelican. Across the street, an old derro swigged from a bottle in a brown paper bag. What a great place to be gay, I thought, where Saturday night entertainment probably meant Tabaret and Neil Diamond tribute bands and where men grew up to marry their best friend's sister. I shuddered and high-tailed it back to the motel where Gina had filled the spa bath, picked a rose from one of the ailing bushes outside the reception office, and floated petals on the water. I sank beneath it with relief. She'd done some research of her own.
'This is the place where the dolphins play.'
'Excuse me?' I nuzzled her neck.
'The dolphins. They come here to mate in the spring.'
I made diving movements with one of my hands. She giggled, took the hand, put it between her legs and moaned just as my mobile - which was sitting on the tiles near the bath - sounded. She groaned - a completely different sound - when I answered it, but there was no one there. Must have been a wrong number, so I went back to playing dolphins.
Next morning I made a call to the local police station and asked for the senior officer. I was told Sergeant Winston had an RDO and could anyone else help?
'What's Sergeant Winston's first name?'
'It's Wally. Hey, hang on…' but I'd already hung up.
'Winston, W' was listed in the phone book at an out-of-town address. I put the keys in the Sharkmobile and drove Gina and her credit cards a couple of blocks to the town centre - she was brought up a Catholic but her real religion was shopping - then consulted a map of the district.
As I took the road out of town my mobile rang but again there was no one there when I answered.
Wally Winston was a big man with a beer gut and very pale blue eyes. When I drove up he was standing in his front yard polishing a big white truck. I could see his face in the gleaming chrome metal. He took my proffered hand reluctantly and frowned when he saw my PI's licence.
'You're a long way from home.'
'I've been employed by someone local.' I tried for a pleasant smile.
'Oh, yeah? Well, you know what they say …' He smiled and the effect wasn't pleasant at all. 'You're a local only if you've been here thirty years.'
There didn't seem to be any reply to that so I pressed on with my real business. When I mentioned the bashings, he looked non-committal.
'We investigated those. We couldn't find anything to substantiate the allegations.'
'The allegations? One man was in hospital for three days!'
'We know why they go there.' He lent against the side of his truck. 'They've only got themselves to blame.'
I thought about Graeme, lonely and closeted in a small conservative communit
y and Brett McKenna, who had died because he lived a lie.
'Everyone has a right to justice.' The words came out sounding more pompous than I intended.
He looked at me and his eyes were very cold. 'They're just vermin. Disease-carrying vermin.'
As I drove down the driveway I glanced in the rear-view mirror. I'm a fit, very strong woman, but when I saw him standing there, hands on hips, watching me, I got a cold feeling at the base of my spine. My mobile went off again and this time I heard breathing.
I asked, 'Who is this?' but there was just the faint, shallow breathing. I threw the phone down and contemplated my next move. Clearly I was not going to get any further with the police. It was time to visit 'the wife'.
On Tuesday mornin, me'n Simmo took the dogs to the beach. They love it down there. We put 'em in Simmo's old station wagon and drove out of town to this quiet spot where we can run 'em up and down the sand with no idiots gettin in the road. I put their muzzles on because greyhounds are nervous animals and I did'n want 'em hurtin each other. Thimble, the grey one, started actin up and I put my hand on her head and said, Steady girl. The waves were crashin quietly and the sun had come up like a big friend egg as I got down one end of and back. Bullseye flies down the beach like a black arrow and I think how great dogs are because dogs aren't like people; dogs don't disappoint ya, dogs never let ya down.
When we finished we put 'em back in the car then leant against it and had a smoke. What we gunna do? Simmo asks, and I know he's not talkin about the dogs. I take a deep drag of me smoke. No one saw us do nothin', I say, at last. We should just try not t'think about it, but I know that's easier said than done.
All through the week I have dreams about blood and slime and on Sunday night the phone rings and it's Craigie sayin some real butch type's been snoopin around, askin questions and makin a real fucken nuisance of herself. A real bulldyke, but when he starts tellin me what she looks like, I say, Yeah, yeah, 'cause I've seen her drivin round in her big fucken tank of a car; drivin round with the top down and her girlfriend sittin up beside her like king dick - not that she'd have one, ha ha! She wasn't bad lookin in a dark, woggy sort of way; the girlfriend's got long, wavy dark hair and norks out to here. I never seen any lezzos before except in porn mags; two sheilas goin at each other, real 'flash the gash' stuff. We could teach her a lesson, Craigie says, and I say, Hey, steady on, 'cause I know what Craigie's like; he can be a real mean bastard. His father us t'beat him with chains, and when his mum left home, she did'n take Craigie with her. We gotta keep a low profile, I tell 'im, and t'change the subject, I ask How do ya reckon lezzos do it? Probably use falsies, he says. Great big fucken rubber ones they buy at sex shops, and we fucken cack ourselves.
Chez McKenna was a large split-level brick veneer with a neat and tidy garden. The windows were shuttered with apricot-coloured Kosta blinds, which no doubt matched the interior. Karin McKenna was a slim, small-featured blonde wearing jeans and a crisp white shirt - everything clean and neat and nice. She was probably about 30 but today she looked older than her years. I'd rung and told her I was a reporter from a footy magazine - Marks and Matches - and wanted to do a profile on Brett that emphasised the community-building aspects of sport. She showed me into a lounge room with apricot-coloured walls and paler carpet. A blonde girl and boy smiled from framed photographs on the coffee table.
'Nice kids,' I said, after I'd given my condolences.'
'Sherrine and Jordan,' she said and for a moment her face relaxed. It was a good opening for an 'interview' and I took advantage. I learned that she and Brett had been high school sweethearts - her brother Gary was Brett's best mate - and that they'd married young. She told me - it was one of those weird ironies of life - that Brett had had offers from big city clubs but had decided to stay in the town because he and Karin thought it was a good place to bring up kids. Brett's job as a sales rep for a large agricultural fertiliser company had flexible hours and allowed plenty of time for training. They'd been happy.
'You didn't resent the time footy took him away from the family?'
She smiled. 'How could I, when it meant so much to him?'
I turned back to the photos. One showed Brett, blokey and handsome, wearing a football jumper. Who would have guessed he'd gone to public toilets to have sex with other men? Karin saw me looking and for a moment her face blazed with anger. Not just anger: it was the look of a woman betrayed. She'd known about his life but she could never tell anyone, not even herself. I thanked her, said I would send her a copy of the finished article and went outside to a day where the sun had finally decided to shine.
Two young boys stood inspecting the Sharkmobile. One was stroking a tail fin. 'Cool car,' he said, by way of greeting.
'Thanks.' As I opened the door I noticed someone up the street, watching me. An old guy, bundled in clothes against the sun, with a shuffling walk and ginger hair.
'Who's that old bloke?' I asked, pointing.
'That's just old Lou. Lou Chutney,' said one of the kids.
'Lou Chutney?'
'Yeah,' said the other. 'That's not his real name,' he added.
'I've seen him before.'
'He hangs around,' snickered the first. 'Usually in the pub or the park.'
'He's an alchie,' volunteered the second, cupping his hand and raising it to his mouth.
'He used to be a teacher,' said the first one. 'But then he started drinking. Big time.' He mimicked his friend's gesture. Now I remembered I'd seen the old man outside the café the day I'd arrived. So he liked to wander around. I gave a mental shrug.
'Thanks, fellas.'
'Check ya.' The first one raised his hand magisterially as he and his mate moved off. Lou Chutney had disappeared. I stood by the car, dazed by the unexpected warmth and trying to order my thoughts. I had run up against a wall of silence and no one was going to help me. What next? A languid cappuccino with my darling appealed but I needed to clear my head: a solitary walk was required. The beach was on the other side of the caravan park just a few streets away. I would get the car on the way back. This walking was getting to be a bad habit, I thought, as I set off.
The caravan park had the usual kiosk and phone box as well as a few people making the most of the sun. A section of natural vegetation had been left at the rear of the park; you reached the sand and water by means of track that cut through the scrub. As I started down the track my mobile rang. There was the same rapid, shallow breathing, then a faint voice.
'We have to meet.'
'Why?'
'I know things.'
'Where?'
'Just keep walking. I'll meet you on the beach.' The caller hung up. The sun went behind a cloud and I suddenly realised how quiet it was. A twig snapping made me start and, although I couldn't see anyone when I looked about, I quickened my pace towards the dull thud of the waves. There was another sound, closer this time and the hair on the back of my neck rose. I've learned never to distrust these primeval reactions; I was certain I was being followed. I stopped and turned.
'Who's there?' There was only silence. Fragments of sunlight reached me through a black lattice of branches as I broke into a jog. Had Wally Winston disliked me enough to want to hurt me? The caller must have rung from the caravan park: perhaps I was being set up by an unknown psychopath. Or a murderer. There was the sound of someone crashing through scrub and I ran. The waves were louder now but so were the footsteps behind me. An arm went round my throat and I saw red before my eyes as I tried to struggle free. A voice shouted something and then the world fell on me.
I woke up in a hospital bed, with a little ginger-haired man sitting next to it.
I get the phone call and it's the dyke sayin, Meet me in the aquarium. What the fuck? I nearly decide not to show but want t'see what she knows so I go down to the beach to the big fucken pile of rocks where the aquarium is. It's underground, real fucken dark and creepy. There's water in puddles on the floor and a drip, drip, drip that's the only sound. I check out the fish whi
le I wait, little stripy black and yella ones, big old crays, and an octopus crawlin around on the bottom of its tank. I knock on the glass and when it waves an arm at me I wave back. In the biggest tank there's this shark. It's only a little shark but you can see its real mean teeth and its real mean eyes, cold as the sea in winter. I stand there watchin it swim around and around but I don't want t'go any closer.
I'm getting bored, getting ready to go, then I feel someone behind me and when I turn around, there she is. Watchin. G'day, I'm… Yeah, I know who you are, she says, real snotty like. Bitch. There's glass at the top of the aquarium to let in the light and it makes weird stripes on the stone floor like the stripes on the fucken fish while she looks at me from behind her dark glasses and doesn't say nothin.
Why d'ya pick this place? I say at last. To look at the fish, and she gives me this weird fucken little smile and starts ravin on about her car; how it's a shark, it's her Sharkmobile, and she likes cruisin in it. I think about that good-lookin chick of hers and say somethin about the back seat havin a lotta room, and she laughs and says, Yeah, it does. We talk about fucken buzz and she says, Yeah, it would be.
We talk a bit more and I'm startin to think she's alright for a lezzo, then right outta the fucken blue she asks me about Brett McKenna. Did I know 'im? Did I know anythin about the murder, and where was I that night? I play it real dumb and say, I was at the pub with everyone else til closin time, then I went home.
That's not what I've heard, she says, and I give her a big shit-eating grin and say she musta heard wrong. She just looks at me from behind the shades and doesn't say nothin, while the shark swims around and around, bumpin its nose against the glass. She looks at it real thoughtful and mutters something about Predators and victims.
Can I go now, miss? I ask, cheeky as though I'm talkin to Miss Johnson, the old bag who use t'give me the cuts in primary school, and she just gives me this vacant sorta nod, not lookin at me, as though she's got something on her mind. Hey, Troy! she calls after me as I head towards the steps. A man always kills the thing he loves and she gives this weird fucken funny little laugh and I get outta there. Fast.
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