by JR Carroll
‘Excuse me,’ he said, turning his head. ‘Anything in particular you need?’
The man raised his shades to the top of his head and gave Gus a look that was neither friendly nor hostile, somewhere in between. ‘I find it, you’ll be the first to know,’ he said in a strange, American-sounding drawl. He picked up and hefted a tomahawk.
‘Got any beer?’ the man at the counter, the tall one, said.
‘Sorry,’ Gus told him. ‘Not licensed to sell alcoholic beverages.’
‘Well, that’s a bloody shame. What’s the good of a joint out in the middle of nowhere if it doesn’t sell grog?’
‘Sorry,’ Gus repeated. ‘Nearest pub’s in Eden.’ He turned his head again, keeping an eye on the one with the axe in his hand. He was now among the tents and camping gear, still carrying the axe. Gus wished he’d put it down.
‘Eden?’ The man gave Gus a searching, quizzical look, as if trying to decide if he was having him on. ‘Fuck that. Well, you got any dope?’
The question surprised Gus so much that he laughed. ‘No, no dope. Only me.’
The man ignored his weak attempt at humour. ‘I hear they grow a lot of good shit around here.’
‘Not that I’m aware of,’ Gus said.
‘So you got no dope.’
‘Afraid not.’
The man in the black T-shirt approached the counter. Gus could see the shirt had MY ANGER MANAGEMENT GROUP EXPELLED ME written on it.
‘No grog and no dope.’
Gus shrugged his shoulders. ‘Seems I don’t have anything you boys want.’
‘Don’t be a clever dick, Gramps,’ the man said. Gus could see he was all muscle under that tee. ‘Take my word, you don’t want to stir up my friend here. I’m bad enough. When I was at school, they sent me to see the shrink. After the first session he says, “There’s nothing I can do for you, son—you are a sociopath.”’ He laughed out loud. ‘Sociopath, at fifteen! I had to go and look it up! But listen, I am a model citizen next to this man. He is a dead-set nutter.’
The nutter in question allowed himself a small smile in acknowledgement of the well-earned epithet.
‘I’m not stirring anybody up,’ Gus said. He was suddenly aware that the third man, the one wandering the store, was standing right behind him. He didn’t want to look down to see if he still had the axe. He had a very bad feeling about this crew, about how this night might end.
At that moment, with the American-sounding man breathing down the back of his neck and the tall, gangly one staring straight through him, Gus experienced a flash-forward: a small circle of mourners gathered around a cemetery plot as a casket was lowered into the ground. Gus knew instinctively it was his own casket, the way you understand an obscure segment in a dream, even if you can’t articulate it, because it is keyed into your subconscious.
Gus did not fear death—only what he might be forced to endure beforehand. Thoughts of his dead brother, Tyrone, of the suffering he must’ve experienced, stiffened his spine: damned if he was going to be brought low by scum. Gus was eighty-seven years old: he’d lived enough, if it came to that. He would not be humiliated.
He stared back at the man in front him, at the three- or four-day-old stubble on his face and the rings in his ears. A patch on his battered leather jacket had BMMC stitched into it.
‘Since there’s nothing I can do to help you gentlemen,’ he said without a hint of a tremor in his voice, ‘I’ll ask you to leave. I have to close now.’
The younger bloke exploded into laughter again, as if Gus had just said the funniest thing he’d ever heard. He had a habit of doing just that. The man behind Gus scraped something against his thigh, and Gus just knew it was the axe. His legs began to tremble, completely of their own accord.
When his laughter died down, the man said, ‘Have to close now, Gramps? Time for your soup and off to bed, huh?’
‘Wait a minute,’ the main man said, putting up a hand. ‘Maybe there’s a way you can help us after all. Then we’ll be out of your hair.’
Gus said nothing.
‘Our purpose in coming here is to visit a friend. But, stupid me, I left the directions at home. His name is Tim Fontaine, and he has a house somewhere down this road—the Pericoe Road. So we’ve called in hoping you’d be able to show us the way. I’d phone him, only there’s no mobile signal here. He’ll be real disappointed if we don’t show.’
Gus swallowed hard. He hoped it wasn’t too obvious to them. Maintaining full eye contact with the main man, he said, ‘Sorry. I don’t know anyone by that name.’
‘Tim Fontaine. Think about it. He’s a big-time lawyer. Might’ve even called in here earlier today. Would’ve had the wife in tow, a lovely blonde, name of Amy. Ring any little bells?’
Gus shook his head vigorously. ‘Sorry.’
‘You say “sorry” too often, Gramps. You should make more of an effort to help travellers trying to find their way.’
‘Never heard of any Tim Fontaine,’ Gus said. He would never give up Tim to these thugs; he knew that with crystal clarity.
The one behind him whispered in his ear: ‘Lying old son of a bitch.’ Gus felt the axe’s blade sliding up and down the back of his thigh.
‘I’m trying to be reasonable,’ the main man said. ‘But you’re making it tough on yourself, Gramps. Give us the directions we need and we’re gone. If not …’ He shrugged. ‘Then we’re in no hurry to go anywhere. You get my drift?’
‘He gets it,’ the axe man said. ‘He’s a lying old cunt.’
Drawing together all his courage, Gus said, ‘If you people don’t leave right now, I’m going to call the police.’
The young man burst out laughing once again. He stopped abruptly, as if he suddenly thought better of it. ‘The police!’ he said, putting a hand over his mouth in mock horror. ‘Oh, my god!’
The leader seemed genuinely amused by his friend’s comic display. ‘And where would the police be, Gramps? They in Eden too?’
Truth was, in all the years he’d lived here, Gus never did have cause to ring the police. He didn’t know where they’d be coming from, or even their phone number.
‘And … how would you be calling the police, Gramps?’ the youngest said. ‘On this phone here?’ He turned towards the wall phone. One moment it was there, the next it wasn’t—just shards of plastic scattered all over the place, thanks to a roundhouse karate kick that registered only the merest blur in Gus’s startled vision. He had to blink twice to confirm that the phone was indeed gone from the wall.
‘Last chance, Gramps,’ the leader said. ‘Give us what we need, you’ll hear no more.’
Gus galvanised himself for the ordeal ahead. He was quite sure he was going to die tonight, and he was right. ‘Go to buggery,’ he said in a level voice. ‘You people get nothing from me. Not one damn thing.’
The tall man observed him through narrowed eyes. He shook his head sadly. ‘More guts than brains,’ he said. ‘Trouble is, you see, it’s your life on the line, not mine.’
The man behind Gus dragged him backwards by his collar and shoved him against a wall, through a rack of work clothes. The clothes all came tumbling down on top of him.
‘Brave but stupid,’ he said, quite calmly. He pulled Gus to his feet by his shirt. ‘Tell us where Fontaine lives, you old prick.’
‘Never.’
The man punched Gus in the mouth and let him drop. Gus gagged and groaned and coughed on the floor. The man pulled him onto his feet again. Gus grabbed onto the man’s arms for support, dug his nails in. The man covered Gus’s face with his hand and threw him against a bunch of kerosene lanterns, and down Gus went among the lanterns and other stuff. Then the man put the boot in—once, then again, then a third time. Gus, half buried in fallen work clothes, curled up, but it didn’t do much to protect him.
‘Go easy, Stav. If you kill him he won’t be able to tell us anything,’ the leader cautioned.
‘He isn’t anyway,’ Stav said. ‘I know these stubborn ol
d cunts. Men of principle.’ He kicked Gus again. ‘Aren’t you, pal? Man of fucking principle.’ He delivered a hefty kick with each word.
Stav paused a moment to catch his breath as Gus writhed and twisted, moaning softly. He turned onto his back, holding his gut, eyes clenched shut with pain. Stav lifted the axe above his head and brought it down on Gus. It slammed into his chest with such force Stav could not get it out again. He put his foot on Gus to gain extra purchase, pulled it out, and then swung it down again, again and again. Didn’t seem as if he’d ever stop. He was right in there; right in the zone. Off his face. Blood everywhere.
‘That’s enough,’ the main man shouted. ‘I think he gets the message.’
The youngest one laughed his head off.
*
After a while Stav came down from his high. He was pumping hard; way out of breath. Cornstalk examined the damage.
‘What a fuckin’ mess,’ he said. ‘Jesus.’
Christo gazed down at the dead man: horrified, enthralled.
They wrapped Gus’s body in a rug they found out the back in his living quarters, and concealed it as best they could among some clothes and other things. Stav rinsed the axe clean under a tap. He decided to hang on to it. In case it came in handy.
On the way out they switched off the lights and shut the door, after turning around the CLOSED sign so no one would come in, at least for a while.
When they were outside, Cornstalk said to Stav, ‘Well, that was a bit over the top.’
‘I hate those old bastards,’ Stav said. ‘The way they stand their ground no matter what. One of my old teachers was like that. Brother fucking Corrodus.’
‘Really?’ Cornstalk said. ‘Did you chop him up too?’
Inside his shiny black BMW X5 SUV, Cornstalk tapped the steering wheel a few times before inserting the key. Neither Stav nor Christo had anything to say. They sensed Corny was not that happy with them.
‘OK,’ Cornstalk said to Stav, sitting beside him, ‘where to now, genius?’
‘Just keep goin’,’ Stav said. ‘We know it’s down here someplace.’
‘Someplace,’ Cornstalk said. He switched on the motor and turned the lights on high beam. ‘Look at that, you Canuck dipstick,’ he said. ‘Black as the inside of a dog’s guts.’
‘We might come across someone else—a local hillbilly or something,’ Stav said lamely.
‘Oh, yeah? And then what—you do your slice and dice thing again?’
‘All right, all right,’ Stav said. ‘I lost it a bit. He annoyed the shit out of me. You gonna go on about it all night?’
‘He annoyed you,’ Cornstalk said.
‘Yeah, he annoyed me.’
‘Good job, I say,’ Christo said from the back seat. ‘Old prick had it coming.’
‘He had to go anyway,’ Stav said. ‘Else he could’ve identified us later.’
Cornstalk nodded agreement. That was true. But that wasn’t the issue. It was the eagerness, as if Stav couldn’t wait to use his new weapon of choice. As an experienced torturer, Cornstalk was pretty damn sure he could’ve persuaded the old bugger to give them directions before Stav removed him from the equation. It amounted to disrespecting Cornstalk’s rank, but in a way it was his own fault for not giving specific enough orders beforehand. Dieter Mankovicz, better known as ‘Cornstalk’ or simply Corny, a former Hells Angel, was president of a breakaway outfit called Black Mamba. It was a small but committed gang dedicated to all manner of violent crime, from drug rip-offs to extortion and beatings or even killings for hire. Few of its members rode or even owned motorcycles. Cornstalk had once stomped a man to death in front of the victim’s young son, in his own home, for refusing to pay a fine imposed over his failure to successfully broker a drug deal.
He glanced across at Stav. He had failed to anticipate the Canuck’s bloodlust. He should have. ‘You got blood on your dial, mate. And everywhere else.’
Stav wiped his face with his sleeve. Now there were red smears across his face.
Cornstalk was mightily pissed. According to their instructions, it was the last turn off from Pericoe Road. The Google map showed the road winding through the bush, but not the turn offs, which were just dirt tracks. Some of them you might not even notice in the dark. And how did you know when you got to the last turn off? It was not clear from the map. The road itself didn’t just stop all of a sudden; it petered out somewhere down the line in a series of dots. You could search all night without finding the right goddamned turn off.
Cornstalk moved off at slow speed, the lights still on high. ‘Keep your eyes peeled,’ he told his men. But for what? This was the real bush country, no light poles, nothing; no one in his right mind would actually live here. The chances of running into another car were not great. They’d burned their one and only chance.
As he drove, Cornstalk swigged from his litre bottle of Jim Beam before handing it over—a sort of peace offering to Stav. Might need the mad Canuck axeman onside later, if things got sticky. If they ever found this Tim fuckin’ Fontaine.
6
When Sammy Paxinos came into the world in 1975, his mother, Voula, like all Greek mothers, believed her son to be nothing less than a god, an infant Adonis; the most handsome of any son born before or after him, anywhere on the planet.
He was indeed a beautiful child: thick mop of dark brown hair; large brown eyes as beautiful as a girl’s; a heart-shaped mouth. When he gazed into her loving eyes, Voula would weep silent tears of joy that she could have produced such a magnificent infant. The future was his, she was sure of it.
When he cried, which was frequently, and often for reasons that were not obvious, she rushed to his cot at the very first squawk, or even a mere snuffle of discomfort, no matter what the time of day or night. Sometimes she would spend hours with him, gently rocking and singing him back to sleep while her husband snored alone in their bed. Nothing was too much trouble when it came to her little Adonis.
Whenever her husband, also named Sam, accused her of mollycoddling the child, she would scowl at him and fire off such a barrage of hot-tempered abuse that he would leave the house and sit in the backyard in the shade of his grapevines. There, at least, was peace and quiet.
As the boy grew, he became even more handsome, if that were possible. His mother had framed photographs of Sammy all over the house. His two older sisters, by comparison, were barely on display anywhere, except in family snaps. But then, they were only girls.
By the time Sammy was ten, he had put on a deal of puppy fat, no doubt brought on by the fact that his mother was forever pushing food down his throat. If her husband had the temerity to chastise her for overfeeding him, she would turn on him with her volcanic temper: ‘Do you wish your only son to starve to death?’ Sam senior would retreat to the sanctity of his vines and a glass of home-made claret.
When Sammy reached the age of thirteen, it was clear the young Adonis was not going to grow much taller than his father, who was five-seven on the old scale, and pot-bellied. In fact, to her great chagrin, Voula was starting to notice numerous physical similarities between father and son. As far as she was concerned, Sam senior was anything but an Adonis. He was an ignorant, pudgy little man, a peasant from dirt-poor country stock who got drunk and snored all night and was useless in the sack. Not that she wanted him heaving and panting on top of her any more, but now and then her need became greater than her dislike of his coarse hands, his sweaty, hairy body and alcoholic breath.
*
The Paxinos family lived in Mount Druitt in the far west of Sydney, a historic settlement that had its beginnings in the time of Governor Macquarie, back in the 1840s. It had come a long way since then. By the 1980s it was one of Sydney’s fastest-growing suburbs.
Sam Paxinos senior had a hand in that period of rapid growth. He was a concreter by trade, with his own cement-mixing business and a couple dozen or so employees. He made a good living, having poured foundations and paved driveways throughout the west and southwest of Sy
dney during the boom. Council and state government contracts came his way as a matter of course. When schools, civic buildings, public housing or office blocks were going up in Blacktown, Rooty Hill, Oxley Park or even Macquarie Fields, or roads were being built in newly developed residential areas, more often than not the concreter was Sam Paxinos.
‘The streets of western Sydney are paved with the sweat of my brow,’ he was fond of saying to his family, or anyone else.
The Paxinos family wanted for nothing. Sam drove a mint-condition white 1969 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, which he washed and polished every Sunday. He seemed to love that car more than anything in the world, his family included. He also had a caravan that was kept in the backyard. Every summer the family would head off to the same caravan park in Ballina, on the New South Wales north coast. To young Sammy, it was the most boring place on earth.
Sammy went to the local Mount Druitt high school along with his sisters, who were much better at schoolwork than him. Sam’s reports always said the same thing: he never completed projects; had a poor attention span; was a disruptive influence in class; and was rude and sometimes abusive towards his teachers when they told him to behave.
At a parent–teacher night when young Sam was in primary school, his father told his form teacher that if the boy was ever troublesome, the teacher had Sam’s permission to give the boy a thorough belting. The teacher replied that corporal punishment was no longer practised at school. In fact, it was illegal.
Not according to Sam. He gave his son a cuff over the ear in front of the shocked teacher for speaking out of turn. He also criticised his wife for spoiling Sam since he was a baby.
‘Look what you’ve produced!’ he shouted at her. ‘He has never learned the value of work! He has learned nothing! He is a brat!’