Catch the Zolt

by Phillip Gwynne

  But instead I was looking at the hot red of Otto and Zoe’s uncle’s Monaro, and his rat face. And in the passenger’s seat, Mrs Bander herself, a cigarette clamped between lipsticky lips.

  Then the sound of another car, more refined this time, and Cameron Jamison’s Ferrari was there too.

  He was driving, and there were three other men in the car. Two angry, sodden men, the Mattners. And another not-so-angry, not-so-sodden man.

  We all got out at the same time.

  A standoff, each group checking the other group out.

  I’m pretty sure they came to the same conclusion as I did: that there was an imbalance of power here. Because there were three groups, two guns. Somebody was missing out. Us. Zoe’s uncle was holding one of the guns, a battered shottie, and one of the Mattners was holding the other, an evil-looking AK47.

  Cameron Jamison was the first to speak.

  ‘Shoot them,’ he said, pointing to our group, the gunless group.

  At first, I didn’t get it: why would he want to shoot the Zolt, everybody’s meal ticket?

  But then I did get it: I was going to get shot, I was going to die right here and now.

  The man who wasn’t a Mattner brought out a video camera and pointed it at us.

  There’s relief and there’s relief, and then there’s what I was feeling: relief to the power of plenty.

  ‘We’re doing a doco,’ explained Cameron Jamison. ‘You can’t have too much content.’

  Once the man who wasn’t a Mattner had stopped filming, Cameron Jamison turned his attention to Mrs Bander and said, ‘We had a deal.’

  As soon as he said this, I realised what had happened: Mrs Bander had shopped her own son! Twice.

  She’d turned him in to Hound de Villiers. And she’d done a deal with Cameron Jamison.

  Zoe was onto it too.

  ‘Mum!’ she said. ‘How could you?’

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ said Mrs Bander. ‘You would’ve done exactly the same if you were in my shoes.’

  ‘As if I’d ever give birth to something like you!’ said Zoe.

  ‘Ungrateful brat!’ said Mrs Bander.

  Which brought Otto into the argument.

  ‘Leave her alone, Mum!’

  As they continued arguing I did a quick analysis of our situation.

  A shottie to our left, an AK-47 to our right – we were seriously outgunned.

  But what if, somehow, those guns cancelled each other out? Then it would be back to a level playing field.

  ‘Where’s the money?’ said Zoe’s uncle, waving the shottie at the Cameron Jamison group.

  ‘Don’t you point that thing at me, Maggot,’ said the Mattner with the AK47.

  ‘Don’t you call me that!’ said Zoe’s uncle.

  The Mattner brought the gun up to his shoulder.

  ‘Let’s bring this thing right down,’ said Cameron Jamison, and I have to admit there was something calming, something soothing, about his voice. ‘There’ll be plenty of money for everybody. Of course, you’ll have some of the front end. But it’s the back end where the serious bucks are made these days. Online. Games.’

  ‘I want me money,’ said Zoe’s uncle, the shottie twitchy in his hands.

  ‘Okay, you want your money,’ said Cameron Jamison, soothing, calming. ‘Exactly how much do you want?’

  I could see the naked greed in Zoe’s uncle’s eyes.

  ‘Five grand,’ he said. ‘No, make that ten grand!’

  ‘That’s a helluva lot of money,’ said Cameron Jamison.

  Yeah, sure, I thought. It was probably what he spent on a haircut, on making that hair so super-confident.

  ‘It’s my money!’ said Zoe’s uncle.

  ‘Okay, if you put that gun down I’ll get my chequebook from the car.’

  Zoe’s uncle lowered the shottie, and if ever there was an opening, this was it.

  ‘He told me he wasn’t going to pay you anything,’ I said loudly.

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘Yeah, he said a bogan like you deserves nothing.’

  ‘A bogan?’ he said, pointing the gun at me.

  ‘He called you that, not me,’ I said, pointing at Cameron Jamison.

  ‘That’s rubbish,’ said Cameron Jamison in that calming voice of his. ‘I’ll just get my chequebook.’

  Again that shining greed in Zoe’s uncle’s eyes. ‘Okay, you get that.’

  It hadn’t worked and I wasn’t sure what to do next, how to escalate the situation.

  ‘Uncle Doug, I didn’t want to tell you this because I knew how upset you’d be,’ said Zoe, ‘but he also said that anybody who drives a crapmobile like yours doesn’t deserve a red cent.’

  The effect was immediate.

  ‘HE CALLED MY CAR A CRAPMOBILE?’

  ‘He sure did,’ said the Zolt. ‘Several times.’

  ‘So you reckon that spick-machine’s any better?’ said Zoe’s uncle, raising the shottie, squeezing the trigger.

  There was an explosion and the windscreen of the Ferrari shattered. The Mattner raised his AK-47 and moved towards the Monaro.

  ‘Don’t!’ said Cameron Jamison, but it was too late.

  No empathy. No remorse. And very little brain. The psychopath sprayed the Monaro with bullets, turning it into something that would be just the thing for straining pasta.

  Zoe’s uncle pulled two more shotgun cartridges out of his pocket, inserted them, moved closer to the Ferrari and gave it both barrels.

  The man who wasn’t Mattner followed him, filming away: you can never have too much content.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said to the Zolt and Zoe, my voice low.

  The three of us shuffled backwards until we were close enough to make for the car. As soon as he was behind the wheel, Zolt touched the wires, the Mercedes kicking into life. He had it in gear and we were away in no time.

  I sunk low in my seat but when there was no sound, no whistling bullets, I snuck a look behind. There were two guns trained on us, a shottie and an AK-47.

  But I guess shooting up a car full of kids was very different to shooting up an empty car. Thank god.

  We roared away until they were out of sight, but the distant sound of a police siren caused Otto to pull up.

  ‘Let’s have a good think about this,’ he said.

  He didn’t think for long, maybe about twenty seconds, before he looked at his watch and said, ‘Next ferry gets in at four forty-seven, right, Sis?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘And it’ll probably be full of cops, but right now I’d say there’s only the usual two police cars on the island, right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Zoe.

  ‘Which means, being cops and all, they’ll have one covering the ferry and another one covering the airstrip.’

  ‘That sounds pretty cop-like to me,’ said Zoe.

  ‘You’ve got VoxMorph on your phone?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Zoe, sounding a bit insulted: I mean, what idiot doesn’t have VoxMorph on their phone?

  Otto held out his hand and Zoe passed him her phone.

  I watched as he started the VoxMorph app and thumbed a number.

  ‘Yes, hello,’ he said when somebody answered. ‘Yes, this is Jack from Jack’s Boatshed. One of our boats has just been stolen by Zolton-Bander.’

  More talking from the other end.

  ‘Yes, of course it’s him! You think I don’t know what he looks like?’

  More talking before Otto hung up.

  A minute later and there was the sound of a police siren, a sound that got softer and softer as the police car that was at the airport made for Jack’s boatshed.

  Now I was beginning to understand how the Zolt had eluded the cops for so long. And it wasn’t, as Cameron Jamison had claimed, because the cops were dumb. Rather, it was because the Zolt was smart.

  We continued, finally pulling up at the back of a hangar.

  ‘You’re okay to drive this?’ Otto said to his sister.<
br />
  ‘Sure,’ Zoe said.

  Reverie Island – a place where twelve year olds could drive – sure was a parallel universe to the one I knew.

  ‘But Otto …’ started Zoe.

  ‘This is where we say goodbye, Sis,’ said Otto.

  ‘I want to come.’

  ‘It’s too risky,’ he said. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t exactly nailed a landing yet.’

  Otto indicated me with a wave of his hand.

  ‘As for the bounty hunter here, it’s his call if he wants to come, or not.’

  The Zolt had stolen four planes, he’d had four crash landings. I’m no mathematician, but I’m pretty sure that was a one hundred per cent record.

  Surely his luck had to change soon. So basically I had a choice between losing my life or losing my leg to The Debt.

  ‘Well, bounty hunter,’ said the Zolt, ‘how much do you want that reward money?’

  I looked at Zoe.

  She shook her head: don’t go!

  The Zolt had stolen four planes, and he’d had four crash landings.

  Surely his luck had to change soon.

  Surely he was going to nail a landing this time.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said.

  TRAY TABLES UPRIGHT

  We were in the hangar, waiting. It was dark and it smelt of oil. Both of us were wearing overalls we’d found hanging up that suggested we were employees of ‘Reverie Air Services’. Otto had a beanie pulled down low so it covered his forehead. And he had persuaded me to give him my Asics – no pilot wore gumboots, he’d said – so I was the one left wearing the greasy gumboots.

  I was so nervous I couldn’t stop shaking.

  And Otto Zolton-Bander was telling me his goddamn life story.

  ‘When I was a kid my old man used to bring me over here,’ he said. ‘We’d spend the whole day just watching the planes landing and taking off. He could tell you what sort of plane it was before you could even see it. He was a genius, my old man.’

  The sound of a plane landing.

  ‘Twin engine,’ he said. ‘No good to us.’

  Then another.

  Otto looked out through the gap between the doors.

  ‘Cessna 152,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead in a thing like that.’

  I was thinking, Neither would I.

  ‘My old man would talk about getting on a jumbo one day and they’d make one of those announcements over the intercom, you know, “And your pilot today is Captain Otto Zolton-Bander.” And he’d say to the person next to him, “We’re in good hands today, that’s my son at the pointy end.”’

  I was just about to ask him about his dad, like how he’d died, when another plane landed and again Otto peered outside.

  ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘A Bonanza. You ready, bounty hunter?’

  ‘I’m ready,’ I said.

  ‘Okay. Let’s go.’

  He slid the door open and stepped out into the fading light of late afternoon.

  I kept changing my mind about Otto Zolton-Bander. Mostly I thought he was just another delinquent with a high-pitched voice. But at other times, like now, I was in awe of his daring. Because he just strolled out onto the tarmac in my Asics and nothing in his body language, in his bearing, suggested that he didn’t belong there. In fact, he had a sort of swagger, as if this was his rightful place.

  ‘Come on!’ he said.

  Inspired by his audacity, I followed him out of the cover of the hangar.

  The Bonanza had taxied to a stop and two men were getting out. Otto walked straight up to the pilot and said, ‘Have a smooth run?’

  ‘Smooth as a bucketful of snot,’ the pilot replied, barely giving Otto a second glance as he handed the keys over.

  As the men hurried off, Otto looked back at me and smiled.

  ‘Hop in,’ he said.

  I hesitated. The only planes I’d been in were the type where they insisted you keep your tray table upright on landing. This plane just didn’t look big enough, solid enough, to stay in the air. This plane didn’t even have tray tables.

  ‘Hurry,’ he said, indicating the two police 4WDs that had pulled up next to the hangar.

  The four forty-seven ferry had obviously arrived.

  I hopped in.

  Otto turned the ignition, the starter motor whirred, and the prop spun lazily.

  ‘Where’s the mixture lever on these things?’ he asked, feeling around with his right hand.

  The police 4WDs were speeding towards us, sirens blaring, headlights flashing.

  ‘Get out of that plane now!’ came a cop voice over a loudspeaker. ‘You are in violation of federal law. Get out of that plane now!’

  ‘Ah, here it is,’ said Otto.

  He adjusted something with his hand and the engine kicked in, the cabin filling with noise, the prop whirring.

  The 4WDs were almost alongside.

  Otto released the parking brake and increased the throttle, the plane gathering speed as we turned onto the runway.

  ‘You are in violation of federal law,’ repeated the cop over the loudspeaker.

  More throttle and we accelerated down the runway. When the speed reached two hundred and eighty kilometres an hour, he pulled back on the steering wheel, coaxing the plane into the air.

  After a minute or so of climbing, he eased off and the plane levelled out.

  ‘Wow, that was amazing!’ I yelled over the noise in the cabin.

  ‘Taking off is a cinch,’ he said. ‘It’s my landings that I need to work on.’

  As we flew over the strait that separated the island from the mainland and banked south, heading for the Gold Coast, I thought about what Otto had said. Hopefully I’d picked the perfect place for him to execute his first perfect landing.

  NAIL THE LANDING

  Over the radio, the air traffic controller was freaking out, and I couldn’t really blame her: this was the sixth time we’d buzzed the beach. There were people gathered on the sand, waving at us. Obviously the word had got out: Fly Zolt Fly.

  ‘You need to bring that plane down now!’ she said.

  Otto hit the off button.

  ‘Panic merchant,’ he said dismissively.

  He banked the plane around and we looped inland.

  Below I recognised my school, the busy streets of Chevron Heights, and then Halcyon Grove, like some sort of protoplasm within its cellular walls.

  I couldn’t help myself.

  ‘That’s my house,’ I said, pointing.

  ‘Seriously?’ said the Zolt. ‘That’s some pool you’ve got there.’

  I wasn’t sure whether I should be proud or embarrassed.

  He seemed to think for a while before he said, ‘Reckon I can drop a coin in it?’

  ‘A coin?’ I said.

  Otto reached his hand into his pocket, but then he seemed to change his mind and the hand came out again. Empty.

  He tapped the fuel gauge lightly with the tip of his index finger.

  The needle twitched but settled back down to empty.

  ‘Probably time to land this bird,’ he said.

  ‘That might be a good idea,’ I said.

  ‘Got any suggestions?’ asked Otto. ‘One that doesn’t involve airports would be good.’

  ‘How about over there?’ I said, pointing to the rectangle of green to our left. ‘Ibbotson Reserve.’

  ‘There’s a strip there?’

  ‘Yeah, they built it during the war. It’s pretty rough, but I think it would work.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about it, bounty hunter,’ said Otto.

  I shrugged.

  ‘Ibbotson Reserve it is, then.’

  First he did a practice run over the park, skimming the trees, buzzing the lake, swooping low over the old landing strip.

  ‘Looks okay,’ he said as he banked the plane around. ‘Let’s land this baby!’

  Now I was nervous again.

  ‘How come landing’s so tricky anyway?’ I asked as he lined up the
strip and decreased the power.

  ‘Flight sim’s good, but you know you’re just sitting there in a chair.’

  As if to emphasise his point we hit a patch of turbulence and the plane shuddered violently, the chairs we were sitting in moving all over the place. My guts, too, now seemed to have no fixed position.

  As the ground came up to meet us, Otto talked to himself.

  Though weirdly enough, his voice seemed to have dropped several octaves.

  ‘Keep the nose level,’ he kept saying. ‘Keep the nose level.’

  I remembered the photo on the net of one of the planes he’d crashed, its nose buried in the earth.

  How he had walked away from that mess unharmed I wasn’t sure.

  But surely his luck has to change. Surely he will nail a landing.

  But surely his luck has to change. Surely somebody must die.

  The wheels hit the ground, and the Bonanza bounced high into the air.

  My guts were in my mouth, my heart was in my gumboots.

  This is it, the end of his luck, we’re both dead.

  Again we hit the ground. Again we bounced.

  My heart and my guts changed places.

  ‘Keep the nose level,’ the Zolt kept saying. ‘Keep the nose level.’

  The next time we hit the ground, that’s where we stayed, rattling along, the thick grass slowing us down.

  My heart and my guts returned to their customary positions and the immense relief I felt needed an immediate outlet.

  ‘Otto, you champion!’ I screamed at the top of my lungs. ‘You champion!’

  ‘Well, I nailed that one,’ he said proudly.

  I could hear sirens wailing in the distance.

  I wanted to go, run as fast as I could away from here.

  But I couldn’t. Though I’d brought the Zolt here I still wasn’t sure if I’d repaid the instalment. Besides, if I took off it would leave Otto to the trigger-happy cops.

  More sirens, and they were getting louder, getting closer, coming from all directions.

  We got out of the plane.

  Three black motorbikes were coming towards us, engines buzzing like mutant mosquitoes.

  On them, bikers in black leathers.

  The Debt. They had to be. But how did they find us? How did they know?

  As they pulled up next to us, Otto said, ‘Friends of yours?’ and there was a look on his face I hadn’t seen before: a little-boy look, as if I’d betrayed him.