Catch the Zolt

by Phillip Gwynne

  After another hour of driving we took the ferry from the mainland to Port Reverie, the main settlement on the island. While the Jazys went to the supermarket to buy supplies, I managed to persuade Imogen to go for a walk.

  What was once a bank was now the Bank Café.

  What was once the Post Office was now the Post Office Café.

  The whole place, it seemed, had been café-fied.

  ‘It’s such a pretty little town,’ said Imogen.

  ‘I’ll think you’ll find that technically it’s a village,’ I said.

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘Villages go on postcards, towns don’t,’ I said.

  Okay, it probably wasn’t the funniest joke I’d ever made, but it did exactly what it was meant to do; it made Imogen laugh. And I doubted whether Tristan’s hamstrings, no matter how flexible they were, could ever do that.

  We stopped in front of a lamppost.

  Taped to one side there was a poster advertising the Island All-Comers Mile Race, which was taking place next Saturday.

  And taped to the other side was a wanted poster. Concerned Citizens of Reverie Island (CCORI) was now offering a reward of thirty thousand dollars for information leading to the apprehension of Otto Zolton-Bander. Under his photo, the one taken by Hound de Villiers, was his description: Male Caucasian, 6' 5", with blue eyes, dark hair and fair complexion.

  Imogen took a photo of the poster with her iPhone.

  ‘Imagine, he could be just around the corner,’ she said.

  I loved to see Imogen excited like this, but I just wished it was about something else. Like me, for example.

  She was absolutely right – he could be just around the corner, because something told me that Otto Zolton-Bander had returned to this island.

  That was not what I wanted other people to think, though. The last thing I needed was an island full of trigger-happy rednecks looking for a trophy.

  So yesterday when I’d read a report on the internet that a petrol station attendant in Bundaberg was certain that he had served the Zolt, I’d known exactly what I had to do. I’d spent hour after hour posting this dubious piece of news in blogs, forums, ezines. I tweeted it, I texted it, I Facebooked it.

  And I knew I’d succeeded when Miranda had later said, ‘The Zolt’s in Bundaberg.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ I’d asked.

  ‘It’s all over the net.’

  On the way back to the supermarket to meet the Jazys, Imogen and I stopped at a gift shop so she could buy a few of those village-inspired postcards. And she wasn’t one of those people who could just grab the first few on the rack. No, she had to analyse every single one, make sure it met her exacting requirements.

  While she did this, I had a look around the shop. There was the usual crap, including some Fly Zolt Fly T-shirts. But what caught my eye was another T-shirt that said, Damn! We didn’t find Yamashita’s Treasure but we still found Gold on Reverie!

  The phrase Yamashita’s Treasure sounded vaguely familiar but I wasn’t sure how.

  ‘What exactly is Yamashita’s Treasure?’ I asked the shop assistant as she walked past.

  ‘Don’t ask me, I’m from the mainland,’ she said.

  But an old man who was standing nearby said, ‘It was the treasure looted from Asia by the Japanese Army occupying the Philippines during the Second World War.’

  ‘But what’s it got to do with Reverie Island?’ I said.

  ‘Well, there is one theory that somehow after the war a ship carrying the treasure ended up in this area.’

  ‘Sounds pretty far-fetched,’ I said.

  The old man smiled at me and said, ‘Stranger things have happened,’ before he walked away.

  By now Imogen had bought the best three postcards in the shop and we walked back to the supermarket.

  As soon as we left town and headed inland the landscape changed dramatically. There wasn’t much you’d want to put on a postcard here, that you’d want to turn into a cafe. The land was scrubby with the occasional prefab house set up on blocks. There were rusted-up vehicles, busted lawn furniture, and mongrel dogs that barked at the passing cars. For the first time on the whole drive Mr Jazy was quiet. I knew that the Zolt had been brought up in this area, and his mother and his younger sister still lived here.

  ‘There was a vibrant community here in the seventies,’ said Mrs Jazy. ‘I’m afraid this is all that’s left.’

  ‘Somebody should drop a bomb on them,’ said Tristan.

  ‘Or poison their water,’ said sweet little Briony.

  Which set the Jazy children off on ways to rid Reverie Island of its less successful residents.

  Until Mrs Jazy said, ‘Kids, that’s enough!’

  By that time we were almost on the other side of the island and the landscape had become postcard-worthy again. Especially with the sun setting so spectacularly and the low clouds shot through with an array of extravagant colours.

  Mr Jazy had found his voice again. ‘That place in there,’ he said, pointing to an enormous stone wall, ‘was sold last week for eight point four. Had my chance, too, a few years ago when it was on the market.’

  ‘You really do have enough on your plate, dear,’ said Mrs Jazy.

  By the time we got to the Jazys’ holiday house it was dark. Beyond a high wall was … an enormous, rambling two-storey edifice. Immediately Imogen wanted to be shown where the Zolt had allegedly slept. It looked like a pretty normal bed to me, but to Imogen it was some sort of sacred site. She took photos with her phone. She knelt down next to it, eyes closed. And when Tristan suggested that she could lie on the bed she went into this crazy ‘me not worthy’ routine.

  Like I said before, you didn’t have to be any sort of pysch-anything to understand why Imogen adored the Zolt – him free, her not, that sort of thing – but her behaviour was starting to get pretty annoying.

  I could see, too, that despite everything, Tristan was no Zolt worshipper either. And suddenly I had a glimpse of the solution to a problem that had been bothering me ever since I’d agreed to come here.

  I didn’t see how I could find the Zolt without Tristan’s help. He knew this area, he had access to a boat. But – cardinal rule of The Debt – I couldn’t ask Tristan to help me find the Zolt.

  But what if – and this was the mother of all what-ifs – it was Tristan who asked me to help him find the Zolt?

  ‘And to think the Zolt’s probably still on the island somewhere,’ I said, momentarily buying into Imogen’s Zolt-love.

  Tristan wasn’t happy with this, though: ‘No way’s he’s still on the island.’

  ‘Way,’ I said. ‘In fact, I reckon I have a fair idea where he is.’

  I knew exactly what Tristan was thinking: You, you pathetic dude, are just trying to impress Imogen. But I also had the sense that I’d planted a seed.

  ‘Hey, Imogen,’ Tristan said, ‘let’s watch a movie.’

  I immediately agreed. ‘Let’s.’

  I got the thermonuclear look from Tristan – it was Imogen he wanted to get into a dark room, not me – but I wasn’t going to give up that easily. So it ended up with the three of us in the cinema. And if you think cinema’s an exaggeration, that’s because you haven’t been to the Jazys’ holiday house.

  It had THX, it had Dolby, it had Surround Screen. And Tristan had managed to get a copy of a Zipser Brothers movie that hadn’t even been released yet. I wasn’t sure it had even been made yet.

  I could see why he would do that: he, like me, knew that Imogen was a big Zipser Brothers fan. What he didn’t know but I did was that Imogen was a discerning Zipser Brothers fan; she only liked the fifty per cent of Zipser Brothers films that were any good. And this one – thank god – wasn’t one of those. In fact, it was terrible, and I could see that Imogen, despite THX, Dolby and Surround Screen, was quickly losing interest.

  So I took a punt and said, ‘You know what, I’m really tired. I might go to bed.’

  And, remembering thi
s thing I’d read once about yawning being contagious, I followed this statement with several prodigious yawns. It was a big risk, because if Imogen didn’t follow my lead then I’d have no choice but to detriangle, to leave the two of them alone in this dark room. Imogen and the Crotchgrabber.

  But she did!

  ‘Yeah, I might hit the sack, too,’ she said, standing up.

  Tristan had pile-drived me in the guts once, and if Imogen hadn’t been there I was quite sure he would’ve visited some more ultra-violence on my person, but she was there, so he couldn’t do anything except seethe.

  He was still seething when Mrs Jazy gave Imogen and me the choice of three bedrooms: the Goa Room, the Bali Room or the Morocco Room.

  ‘Do you mind if I have the Morocco Room?’ I asked Imogen.

  ‘Hicham El Guerrouj?’ she said.

  I nodded. As far as I knew, no runner from Bali or Goa had broken as many world records as he had.

  Tristan was still seething when I said goodnight. Still seething when I saw Imogen to the door of the Bali Room.

  And as I got into my Moroccan bed, got between Moroccan sheets, got ready to have Moroccan dreams of winning Olympic gold, I knew that he was still out there, seething. So I got out of bed and made sure the door was locked.

  LIKE WOW! HIDEOUT

  I woke early, intending to go for a run, which would also serve nicely as a reconnoitre of the area.

  I picked up my iPhone but then put it down again – I sometimes preferred to run without it bouncing around in my pocket.

  When I descended the stairs, Tristan was lying in wait for me. And waiting was the right word – there was something predatory about the way he was crouched there at the bottom of the stairs, ready to pounce.

  ‘Let’s go for a spin in the boat,’ he said.

  I didn’t like the way his eyes were glinting, but I did like the idea of a spin in the boat because, as far as I could work out, that was the only way you could get to Gunbolt Bay.

  ‘Let’s,’ I said.

  We followed the path down to the pier, where a sailing boat, a metallic-red ski boat and various kayaks were tied up.

  My eyes followed the island’s shoreline as it folded continually back on itself, forming a series of bays and inlets.

  ‘Do you reckon your loser father could afford something like this?’ Tristan asked as he retrieved a key from its hiding place and we got into the speedboat, which had outboards that looked disproportionally large.

  ‘Probably not,’ I said, though now that I’d been to the Jazy holiday house I knew that ours was, in fact, bigger.

  Tristan untied the ropes and turned the ignition. The monster outboards kicked into life, the whole boat vibrating.

  Tristan put it into reverse, and when we were clear of the pier, he suddenly jammed his foot on the accelerator. The outboards roared, the boat lifted up, and I went flying backwards. If I hadn’t managed to grab a handhold, I would’ve ended up in the water.

  Tristan laughed and the thought crossed my mind that he wanted to kill me.

  Of course, it was a crazy thought, a ridiculous thought.

  Wasn’t it? When I thought about it, though, this was an ideal opportunity: two boys and an overpowered speedboat was an accident waiting to happen.

  For a second I thought about aborting the mission, telling Tristan I wanted to go back, but this was too good an opportunity – I had to keep going. Besides, I could imagine only too vividly Tristan’s reaction if I told him I wanted to go back: he’d never let me forget that one.

  I don’t think you can be a runner and not love speed, even speed like this that was totally dependent on the consumption of mega-litres of fossil fuel.

  Wind in my face, I couldn’t help smiling as the speedboat skimmed across the water’s surface.

  We followed the coastline, passing houses that seemed to get bigger and grander as we went. And Tristan, it appeared, knew who owned every one of them.

  ‘That’s Cameron Jamison’s property,’ he said, pointing to a gleaming white mansion. ‘He was number eighty-seven in this year’s BRW 100.’

  Maybe Mr Jazy had Tristan all wrong; maybe his nibs would end up in the same business as his father after all. Just without all that facial hair.

  There were no more houses now, just rainforest that tumbled down to the water.

  ‘Imogen’s pretty crazy about the Zolt, isn’t she?’ I said. ‘It’s like she thinks he’s invincible or something.’

  Tristan thought about this for a while. ‘So you seriously reckon you know where he is?’

  ‘I’ve got a fair idea,’ I said.

  ‘How come?’ he said, which was a pretty fair question: I mean, why would I, Dominic Silvagni, have a clue where the Zolt was when nobody else did?

  ‘I’ve done some research,’ I said.

  ‘How come?’ he said, and again it was a pretty fair question.

  I took out the folded wanted poster and handed it to him.

  ‘So what?’ he said.

  ‘Thirty grand? You call that “so what”?’ I said.

  ‘I thought you Silvagnis were supposed to be rolling in it.’

  ‘We are rolling in it,’ I said, because there was no use denying that. ‘But that’s my parents’ money, not mine.’

  Tristan handed me back the wanted poster and I thought that was it, I’d have to find another way to get where I needed to go.

  But then he said, ‘Okay, if we collar him, you can keep the money. But I’m the one who gets to bring him in, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ I agreed.

  ‘So where we headed?’

  ‘Gunbolt Bay,’ I said.

  ‘That’s miles away,’ he said.

  ‘What, there’s not enough fuel to get us there?’

  ‘Enough fuel in this bad boy to go to New Zealand if we wanted,’ he said. ‘Let’s go!’

  Of course, it occurred to me that Tristan had another very good reason to go so far from home. If that accident-waiting-to-happen did happen, then it would be easier to explain away.

  If we’d been going fast before, we were flying now; the boat’s hull didn’t even seem to be touching the surface of the water. We only passed a couple of boats: a fishing trawler with its boons extended, and a yacht, its sails hanging limply.

  Tristan seemed to know what he was doing, but I couldn’t help wondering what would happen if we hit something like a submerged log at this speed. How many times the boat would catapult in the air. How mangled our bodies would be. How much the sharks would enjoy their unexpected meal.

  So, despite my speedlove, it was actually a bit of a relief when he eased his foot from the accelerator.

  ‘That’s it over there,’ he said, pointing towards an arc of sand between two rocky headlands. ‘What should we do?’

  ‘Let’s go and have a look,’ I said.

  Tristan raised the outboards and we drifted into the beach.

  ‘Okay, throw out the anchor,’ said Tristan.

  I did as he said.

  Tristan took the key from the ignition and put it back into its hiding place. We got out of the boat and waded through knee-high water to the shore.

  It was so quiet, just the wash of the water on the sand, the swish of the wind in the trees.

  What if the Zolt was here? And what if, as the police seemed to think, he was heavily armed?

  We were – quack quack – sitting ducks.

  As soon as I had that thought I felt sort of ashamed of myself. After all my research, I felt as though I’d got to know Otto Zolton-Bander pretty well. Yes, he stole planes. And boats. And cars. And DVD players. And Xboxes. And mobile phones. And iPods. Okay, he’d stolen a whole lot of stuff. But he’d never hurt anybody.

  Like most people on his Facebook page I didn’t believe he was heavily armed. And even if he was, he would never shoot two defenceless kids.

  No, it wasn’t the Zolt I should be worried about, it was Tristan.

  He could pile-drive me in the guts, even bash m
y brains in with a rock, and nobody would know.

  ‘Come on, let’s do this thing!’ said Tristan, adopting a crouching fighter’s pose, karate chopping the air a few times.

  ‘Let’s do this thing’ was without doubt my least favourite phrase in the world, but I sensed now that we were close to the Zolt’s lair.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s do this thing.’

  We did this thing, walking from one end of the beach to the other, but we couldn’t see any tracks, any way into the thick rainforest.

  ‘Nice one, Silvagni,’ said Tristan. ‘You wouldn’t last one episode of Survivor.’

  The phrase from the lock-picking manual came to mind: Project your senses into the lock to receive a full picture of how it is responding to your manipulations.

  Okay, I wasn’t picking a lock, but the theory was sort of the same – stop looking at this place with your eyes, look at it with somebody else’s – namely the Zolt’s.

  There was no way somebody as clever as the Zolt, somebody who had eluded capture like he had, was going to signpost where his hideout was.

  I did another inspection of the beach, trying to look at it through the Zolt’s eyes.

  ‘You’re wasting our time,’ said Tristan, kicking at the sand.

  But I wasn’t: on the eastern headland there were worn-looking patches on the rocks that tumbled out of the rainforest.

  I started climbing, following these up, and it was soon obvious that they corresponded to footholds and handholds.

  I really had to stretch to reach some of them, though. But then I remembered – the Zolt was six foot five!

  ‘This way!’ I yelled at Tristan.

  He followed me as I scrambled up through the rainforest.

  ‘Out of my way!’ he said a little while later, and I had no choice but to stop and let him pass. Eventually I reached a level path that followed the line of an escarpment.

  ‘What took you so long?’ said Tristan.

  No waves, no wind – it was even quieter here, and the only sound was the crunch of leaf litter under our shoes. After five minutes of walking, we found ourselves in a small clearing.

  ‘Well?’ said Tristan. ‘Is this it?’