Left Luggage

by Andrew Christie

  After breakfast the punters started making for the sunlounges scattered along the beach to work on their tans, or to the pool to watch over their children. Some took snorkels and swam out along the coral reef just off the beach. Jeff went to his little office behind the dining room. He did have some actual work to do, going through the accounts and yesterday’s takings. They didn’t take much cash here, nearly everything was charged to the rooms, but a little bit of cash came through, particularly from the charter boats that were often moored in the bay for a few days at a time. Jeff was in the process of siphoning some of the cash off into his own safe. He didn’t really need the money, it was just habit. The feel and smell of cash was reassuring, and you never knew when you would have to pay some bastard off.

  With the books sorted, Jeff had run out of work for the day. Outside his window he could see Roland talking to a couple of blokes from the village, armed with shovels. There was some problem with the drains at one of the older bures. Roland was pointing at a hole in the ground and talking earnestly to the two men. He was interrupted by a message on the two-way radio that he always carried, and strode off towards the pool area. Always busy.

  Jeff locked the office and went back to his bure. The bed had been made and fresh flowers put on it. He scrunched up the hibiscus flowers and dropped them in the bin before he flopped onto the bed and picked up the book he was reading. He had set himself the task of working his way through all the novels that had been left on the shelves by previous guests. He was on his third Dan Brown.

  In the afternoon he sat on the veranda of the dining room with a rum and cola. A pair of terns were hunting along the shallow channel of water between the coral and the sand, wheeling and turning, their heads swivelling this way and that, looking for fish, stalling and diving, then pulling out at the last minute when their prey moved out of reach, climbing to start the search again. Hard work for a bloody fish. He wondered what their strike rate was like.

  On the beach below him the bikini girls walked back and forth from the water to their sunlounges. It was a good view and Jeff was glad that the young women were intent on ignoring all the health warnings about skin cancer.

  “Pretty girls.”

  Jeff looked up. It was Dannie or Annie, walking along the veranda towards him in an orange sarong, a bright blue cocktail in her hand. “Mind if I join you, Jeff?”

  “Please do.” Jeff smiled up at her, and nodded towards the beach “The girls seem to get prettier every year. Either that or I’m getting older.”

  “Yes, and the young blokes are getting fitter and tastier too.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Jeff said, watching her pull out a chair and sit down opposite him. About forty he thought, good figure, very tanned. “I didn’t ask where you were from,” he said.

  “No. We didn’t do much talking last night, did we? I’m from Melbourne, Frankston.”

  Jeff nodded. “Sydney,” he said. “Born and bred.”

  They watched a young woman in a fluoro-pink bikini writing something in the sand. Behind her a young man with lots of tattoos waited with a phone to photograph the message. The girls breasts threatened to overflow her bra as she leaned forwards to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.

  “That was fun last night,” said Dannie or Annie.

  “Yeah. It was ... memorable.” He looked away from the girl on the beach. “Sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up. I was down at the pool having an early swim.”

  “That’s okay, I thought it would be better to get back to my own room anyway.”

  “How long are you staying for?”

  “Not long enough. It’s so beautiful here, I’d like to stay on, but tonight is my last night. Work calls.”

  The girl in the fluoro-pink bikini stood back to let the boy photograph the message. He said something to her and she pushed him in the chest, then turned and ran along the beach with the boy in hot pursuit.

  “So much energy,” said Dannie or Annie, sipping her bright blue drink.

  “What the hell is that you’re drinking?”

  “Envy. It’s the cocktail of the day. Mostly rum and curaçao according to the barman. Enjoy responsibly,” she said, looking at him over her sunglasses and sucking the last of the cocktail up through the straw.

  The tattoo boy caught the fluoro-bikini girl and tackled her onto the sand. There was a lot of squealing and laughter, followed by quite a bit of kissing.

  “That’s the trouble with these young people,” said Jeff, “no sense of decorum.”

  “Oh, they should have their fun while they’re young,” she said. “While they’ve still got their looks.”

  Jeff drained his rum and cola, “Yeah, you’re right. But they haven’t figured out yet that it’s dirty minds, not good looks, that you need in bed.”

  Dannie or Annie giggled. “Filthy minds you and I must have then.”

  Jeff grinned. “What do you say I grab a bottle of wine and we take a wander up the beach?”

  “Why, Jeff,” she laughed, “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Her name was Dannie. They had another memorable night together, and the next morning she stayed in his room while he went for his swim.

  When he came back she was asleep. He stripped off and lay down beside her, matching his body to hers, feeling her warmth, running his hands along her back. She woke slowly, arching her back, pressing her buttocks towards him.

  They ate breakfast on the veranda, overlooking the beach. It was her last day, and they promised to stay in touch. Jeff knew they wouldn’t but it was nice to pretend. She finished her coffee, gave him a smile and a kiss on the cheek and left to pack.

  He stood on the beach waving to her as she stepped onto the skiff. Behind him, Voli and three of the waitresses from the dining room sang Isa Lei, the farewell song.

  “Nice lady, that Dannie,” said Voli when the song finished.

  “Nice enough,” said Jeff.

  He found the rest of the day dragged by. After lunch he took up his usual position to check out the new arrivals. They were the typical collection: about half young people from Europe or Asia. There was an American family, and the rest were Aussies or Kiwis. No one he recognised.

  It was Roland and Margery’s day off so Jeff had to play host at happy hour and dinner that night. It wasn’t something he looked forward to, but at least he always had an excuse to move on if the conversation dried up. He nodded and g’day-ed his way around the bar with a can of Fiji Bitter in his hand. The English couple, the parents of the boys he’d watched in the pool the previous day, were there. The boys were still in the pool. “They only get out to eat,” their mother laughed, shaking her head and resting her hand on the father’s shoulder. Jeff could hear the boys squealing and shouting in the pool as the sun went down.

  The sky put on its expected lurid display, turning shades of yellow, orange and pink. All the cameras and phones in the resort came out to capture the moment. Jeff helped out, taking photos of couples and groups in front of the sunset. When the sun finally slid behind the ocean, conversations dried up for a moment, everyone just watching the fine high clouds turn blue and gold, before starting to talk again, quietly at first but soon breaking into laughter. Jeff didn’t blame them for being entranced, he still found the sunsets here extraordinary. Having spent his whole life on the east coast of Australia, the idea of the sun setting over the sea was still a novelty.

  At dinner he did a bit more greeting and hand shaking, helping new arrivals find their tables. While the punters ate, he sat at the bar with another beer, watching rugby on the television and talking to Rami, who didn’t think that the Wallabies would ever beat the All Blacks again. He was probably right.

  The American family were sitting close to the bar. They didn’t get a lot of Yanks staying – Coral Sands was too far out of the way or maybe just not up-market enough. Not that Jeff was complaining, he could do without them, although the staff would probably enjoy the tips Yanks would bring. These Americans we
ren’t the usual young family. The father looked to be in his sixties, shaved head, fit looking. Very tanned except for his upper lip – it was pale, as though he had just shaved off a moustache. He had brought a big silver laptop computer to the table. Jeff thought having free wifi was a bloody waste of money and as far as he was concerned, having this guy in his dining room proved the argument. All through dinner the guy barely moved his eyes from the screen, his face lit blue-white, chewing and swallowing, while he followed the progress of his investments. If someone spoke to him he would talk out the side of his mouth, around whatever he was chewing on, without taking his eyes off the screen. His wife fiddled nervously with her dyed blonde hair all through the meal. The wrong side of forty, Jeff reckoned, but trying to deny it. A time-fighter, with bolt-on breasts and pumped-up lips. She was obviously bored out of her brain while her bloke moved his markers around, ensuring that the money kept flowing. They had a daughter, a skinny little thing who never took her head out of her tablet computer all evening. Didn’t speak at all that Jeff saw. He hoped they weren’t staying long, he didn’t want to have to look at that guy talking with his mouth full every night.

  After most of the guests had finished eating and had drifted away to the bar where Manoa had cranked up the music, Jeff ate his dinner alone. The bar would soon be serving free watered-down vodka shots. Jeff hated this Saturday night tradition of turning the beachside bar into a disco, but the punters loved it. When he had finished his food, he took the plate back to the kitchen and said goodnight to the staff before walking back along the beach to his bure. He had a bottle of whisky and more Dan Brown waiting for him. On the beach, the hiss and thump of the dark waves rolling across the coral and folding onto the moon-white sand filtered out most of the music. The mast-top lights from the charter boats anchored in the bay shone across the water, yellower than the light from the moon and the stars.

  When he got to the end of the beach he washed the sand off his feet in the little foot bath at the bottom of the stairs and stepped onto the veranda. He had opened the door and was reaching for the light switch when something hit him in the middle of the back. He stumbled into the room. Another blow knocked him onto the bed. Jeff rolled onto his back and pulled his legs up, away from the figure silhouetted in the door. The man was dressed in a black wetsuit and was holding a familiar-looking knife.

  John kept the knife out in front, making sure Waters could see the gleam of the blade.

  Large Phil Waters looked up at him from the bed, taking in the knife and the black wetsuit. “Lawrence. This is this the real you, isn’t it? An assassin. Not the amateur builder you were pretending to be in Camperdown.” John didn’t reply. “I knew it. You always looked fucking dangerous.” He grunted and heaved himself up so he was sitting on the bed, leaning back against the pillows. “I presume you know what you’re doing with that knife.”

  When John didn’t respond he went on, “So what’s the plan? Cut my throat? Escape by submarine?”

  “Any number of ways I can kill you with this. Cutting your throat would be one of the quick ways.”

  “Oh, I believe you, mate.”

  Waters hadn’t changed his appearance much. He was tanned of course, with a scraggly grey beard, and he had lost a bit of weight. Not having black eyes and a face swollen from a beating made him look much healthier too. John was surprised that he hadn’t found a gun when he had searched the bure earlier. There were only two rooms: this bedroom and a bathroom at the back, with an open-air shower full of tropical plants. Everything he knew about Waters suggested he would have a gun somewhere, but it wasn’t in either of the rooms. He must be keeping it somewhere else in the resort.

  “So, what next?” said Waters.

  “First we talk. I want to know why Annette and my mother had to die.”

  “Who the hell is Annette?”

  “She was the woman you shot at my house. She is half the reason you are going to die tonight.”

  “Oh, her. Yeah, I thought it was you opening the door.” Waters shrugged. “Collateral, that’s what you guys call it, isn’t it?”

  John crossed to the bed before Waters could react, driving the knife into his thigh. The big man screamed as John twisted the knife and withdrew it then stepped back to the foot of the bed.

  Blood welled through Water’s fingers as he clamped them over the wound.

  “What about my mother?” John hissed. “What did she do to you?”

  “Fuck off.” Waters spat the words.

  John stepped towards him again.

  “No,” Large said. “It was an accident. Anyway she was old. We all have to die.”

  “You said that to me once before.”

  “Did I? Well, it’s true isn’t it? You know that as well as me.” He moved his leg and gasped from the pain. “I didn’t mean for her to be killed. I liked her. She had guts. I’ve looked her up since then. On the internet.”

  “Yeah?” John didn’t believe him.

  “Yeah, she was a bloody good photographer. I even bought that book about her. It’s on the shelf beside the door.”

  “Pity she’s dead then.”

  “You know it wasn’t me, don’t you? It was Pike that shot her. With the machine gun, spraying it all over the shop.”

  “He’s dead and you were the one who put her in that position. You were going to kill us both once you got the suitcase.”

  Waters grimaced. “I didn’t have a choice. Anyway, what the hell were the two of you doing importing machine guns? You get into that game you have to expect consequences. You two were waltzing around with a suitcase of guns, pretending everything was sweetness and light.”

  “We weren’t importing them.”

  “Bullshit. Anyway how did you get onto my scheme? You brought the suitcase in on my pipeline. Tried to piggyback it through customs. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

  “It was an accident, we didn’t even know about the suitcase.”

  “Oh, of course not.”

  John looked at the man on the bed. He should just kill him now, end it. It would only be a moment’s work. Kill him now, and be back in Sydney by tomorrow night. Get on with his life. But Waters had returned to the bure earlier than he had expected, it was still two hours before Joni’s boat would be back at the rendezvous. He’d have to wait with the body till it was time to swim out to the boat. Waiting while the man’s fluids decanted themselves out of his body, through the mattress and onto the floor. The man deserved to die, there was no doubt about that. His mother’s and Annette’s deaths were probably just the tip of the iceberg. This was a man who lived by hurting others, who sold guns to the gangs. But now, standing in front of Waters, John’s rage was cooling.

  Instead of killing him straight away, he told him about Rashid, about Palestinian terrorists in Paris in 1975, about his father. And about his mother and the forgotten suitcase.

  “What happened to it, by the way?” he asked after he had told the story.

  “The suitcase?” said Large. “Burned it. Sold the guns, burned the case. It was your dad’s?”

  “No. It belonged to the Algerian. Somehow it got stored with my father’s things. Mum just kept paying the storage bills.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Whole fucking thing was a cock-up then,” said Large.

  “Yeah, a cock-up. And you killed two innocent people because of it.” He would stick to the plan. Waters had to die tonight. Kill him and wait for the boat.

  He approached the bed. Waters said, “Wait, just wait, will you? I can pay, you know. I’ve got some money. You don’t need to kill me.”

  Waters was wrong, John did need to kill him. To finish it.

  A sound from the bathroom had John spinning and dropping into a crouch, at the same time as a man came through the front door. The man was big: broad shoulders, with a shaved head and a full grey beard. The gun in his right hand was big too, probably a .45, and the suppressor screwed onto the muzzle was even bigger. Thic
k, white chest hair sprouted at his neckline, above one of those loose singlets with huge armholes that people only wear on holidays. The image on the front was of a lurid sunset.

  Another man came from the bathroom. This one was younger, darker. He had a broken nose and fresh scar tissue around his eyes and mouth. He was holding a big cane knife. Like a machete, but with a long, double-handed wooden grip and a wide triangular blade with a nasty-looking hook on the end.

  “Evening, Large,” said the one with the beard.

  “Jesus, Mick. What are you doing here?”

  “You didn’t think we were going to let you just wander off into the sunset, did you? Not after killing Pike and taking our guns? You know that’s not the way things work.” The man swung the big gun slightly so it pointed at John’s centre of mass. “You, in the rubber wear, I don’t know what’s going on here but you better drop the knife.”

  John dropped his knife and kicked it across the floor.

  “Remember me?” said the young one to Large.

  “Yeah. I remember. You still owe me twenty grand.”

  “I owe you a fucking kicking,” the man shouted.

  The one Waters had called Mick looked across but the gun didn’t waver from John. “Will you shut up? Get over near the window and keep an eye out in case we get any visitors.” He turned back to Large and John. “I blame you, Large, for making me have to work with fuckwits like this. Now, I don’t know what bedtime games you two were about to get up to with the rubber gear and all, but you’ll have to wait. Ricky and I have a bit of unfinished business with Large.”

  “What’s it got to do with him?” said Waters.

  “For me, it’s personal,” Ricky said.

  “Yeah,” said Mick. “He owes you a beating, and there’s the fact that you killed his brother-in-law. There’s a lot of sympathy in the clubhouse for Ricky. Especially from Pike’s mob, and only because they haven’t had to work with him. But he’s been brought into the fold, made a prospect, being groomed for full membership.”