Winter Traffic

by Stephen Greenall

  ‘Of course,’ says Simon.

  ‘This man?’

  ‘Yes.’ As an afterthought, Simon leafs through the folder.

  ‘It is strange, but the physical would be in poor taste. I would not feel…’

  ‘Comfortable.’

  ‘What do you call it when something dominates your thoughts. When you do not care what it costs or who you become.’

  ‘Obsession.’

  The crystal man stares at a place of mournful agreement. ‘Do you know Meyers?’

  ‘By reputation.’

  ‘And what is that.’

  ‘Useful.’

  ‘He’s dead. Coughlin too.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘The man is resourceful. He has a resourceful friend.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Please—the second folder.’

  Simon opens and sees the picture. Jamie. There is not much information, but it is interesting.

  ‘Like I said. It doesn’t matter.’

  27

  Close but feeling remote is the base maintained by navy. Ships ghost the outer roads of bay like ships from distant past, vessels ventured here and now by hex or dreadful accident. Radio towers misconstrue as spars, crosstrees.

  Sailors man the decks and glimpse its frailty, civilisation no more substantial than a string of lighted beads. It is that type of region grotesquely overcrowded for six weeks of the year, languid and drowsy through all the rest.

  —

  He throws on the dressing gown and walks bear-footed to the showers. In a single hand his toiletry bag, Blue Statros, the one Zo gave him at Easter. Towel, toothpaste, soap on a rope, a cool sensation of grass between toes and a hundred and eighty degrees of lilac. His mindless whistle for fifty-two seconds / baptismal wails when the heat shoots through. On the return leg he notices the office light blazing, grabs cash from the sock drawer and arrives still dripping.

  Val is a good old stick. Her and Don have run the place for twenty-seven years. ‘I told him you had the makings of a local.’

  Rawson grins. ‘That bugger think I was just a tourist?’

  ‘Don’t mind him—he reckons anyone who stays more than a week must be on the run.’

  ‘Smart fella.’

  ‘Don’t he know it. Hang on love, I’ll get you a receipt.’

  —

  Ten minutes later Sutton’s truck rolls in, Bobby Cobra sticking his head past the door / Be out in a tick. Bloke in the tray is a pale visitation, the god of coyotes summoned by spirit dance and glimpsed through smoke at the edge of frontier camp. He sees beyond the metal of the Millard belly, Rawson calling for his comb with warm Old Testament curses. He slaps on Brut / a little something for the ladies. Yahweh knows it’d be nice if there were some about.

  —

  They order the same as before, Chicken Parm for the tradie, Reef ’n’ Beef for the unit. The table on the balcony overlooks the inlet, a big-screen TV that orients their way. Rawson rises when they hear their number and he goes to collect the meals. By the time he returns with cutlery the Raiders have won the toss and kicked off, poor old Wests on the receiving.

  A wizened Salvo with collection box relieves them of their shrapnel and after that it’s the sheila from the Rotary Club, peddling tickets for the tray. Rawson gouges his sky rocket to liberate a lobster, Still got half a kilo of snags from the win last week. His smile is returned / he is already a favourite.

  The Big Ship watches her walk away, the compelling sashay of her RSL chassis, a precious prawn fed into grinding mandible. ‘Did you cop today’s Herald.’

  ‘I don’t read the Herald.’

  ‘That’s right—you’re above newspapers. Shame. The editorial was a rip-snorter.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘This week marks the second anniversary—what did I tell you—of an enduring stain on our body politic. Duncan loves a bit of body politic. It is extraordinary that a government elected on a law-and-order platform could so miserably fail to apprehend the killer or killers of Justice Angelus Koestler, but such is the predicament that we, as a community—’

  ‘You memorised it.’

  ‘Read it thoroughly, yeah. Got the fingerprints of that c-face Bercovitch all over it.’

  ‘C-face.’

  ‘I want to cut back on the profanity, be more like you.’

  ‘Worried?’

  ‘Nah. We got bigger fish to fry than a blitz on effing Koestler.’

  Behind them the subliminal chat of locals and primitive muzak of pokies. The Keno screens flash red and blue and the monitors are busy with races from Carrington, Meadowlands, Harold effing Park. Rawson’s eyes flick between the horses and the footy and the disappearing steak and there’s a trotter at Mackay called Hideout. The beast is possessed of a glittering onyx eye that he uses to fix the camera as the camera pans, the gold-strike jolt inside of Rawson that says Avagoyamug. His schooner sweats moisture into raffle tickets distinguished by bands of colour along one side, the purple obsession and black compulsion, the orange stripe of risk. No way / resist / you must wean yourself from poison. ‘The locals got a grudge match tomorrow,’ he says. ‘Takin on the mob from Kiama. Know what they’re called?’

  ‘The mob from Kiama?’

  ‘No, the locals. The Vincentia—?’

  ‘Sharks.’

  ‘Fuck-ya, Jamie—would I be telling this story if it was the Vincentia Sharks?’

  ‘Maybe. You tell some bad ones.’

  ‘Bullfuck. I’m a proper raconteur.’

  ‘The Vincentia Stingrays.’

  ‘The Vincentia Van Goghs. How do you like that!’

  ‘Fair,’ says Sutton. His rare smile.

  ‘Nothery?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bit early for the pub.’

  ‘Forget that,’ says Sutton. ‘Got something better.’

  Rawson shrugs and drains, wincing against his heartburn. Hideout pisses it in / pays fourteen to one.

  —

  ‘She’s a ripper,’ says the Big Ship. He stands in the carpark of Sutton’s motel, nodding approval at fifteen feet of considerable no-frills runabout. ‘Where’d you steal it?’

  ‘Bloke owed me on a job.’

  Rawson bends low to fill the dog’s eyeline. ‘Is that true, Bloke? You naughty fellow.’

  ‘The property developer. St Ives.’

  ‘Oh, right. So you knuckled him and took his boat.’

  Sutton looks at Rawson as Rawson peers into the vessel, enthusing like a child of Christmas morning. ‘She’s got the gear. Strike a light / is that an esky?’

  Rawson shakes the box and then prises to discover ice, beer, bait. The azure shine of his peerless eyes, brimming for a moment with plain sea pleasure.

  —

  ‘I was happy to wait,’ he says without warning, without preamble.

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘The St Ives job. Giving me the boat was his idea. I didn’t get heavy.’

  ‘Jesus, man. I’d never think that.’

  Sutton has rigged a couple of hand reels, their lines lost in the water where the moonlight gives out. It is hard to imagine what lies beneath, what crimes and capers fester in the dark marine.

  Rawson attaches a line to his big toe and reposes like a caricature of rustic life. He uses life jackets for pillows and every six or seven minutes the sound of him crushing a VB can will punctuate the still. Bloke lies against the inner hull, listening through metal for news of abyssal sea.

  ‘I’m gonna say it.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘I could get used to this.’

  ‘Now you’ve torn it.’

  ‘Look at that bloody sky. It’s like being at…what are those joints called?’

  ‘Planetariums.’

  ‘Exactly. I don’t miss the city one bit. You?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Shit, I do.’

  ‘It’s time we made a plan,’ says Sutton. ‘Talked about this job.’

  ‘Shoot
ing stars. Check ’em out, every thirty seconds. There’s one. Corker.’

  ‘Because you keep giving me hints like you think I’m gonna bite. So this is it. This is me biting.’

  ‘They make you think how there’s whole other worlds, whole other dramas. And a man is just nothing—a rock in space who moves along a line until bang. Atmosphere, Death.’

  ‘Profound.’

  ‘Are you asking if I’ve thought about it? Of course I have—long and hard. Beer me.’

  Sutton reaches into the esky and passes the anointed one forward to its Atmosphere, Death. At the same time he receives the folded husk of the prior victim and asks the essential question. ‘What do you want.’

  ‘To see my girls.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So how do I do it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Sutton. ‘You need to leave the country.’

  ‘Can’t. Not the way things stand.’

  Sutton reaches into his bag and brings out an envelope, sets it on the seat next to Rawson’s head. The giant rotates his melon to see the object better. ‘What the hell is that.’

  The boat rocks. ‘Plane ticket,’ says Sutton. ‘Bank cheque. Enough to live on for a while, couple of years if you’re careful.’

  Rawson says nothing, the only movement of his body the rhythm of his ankle as it pronates, keeping time to a song that is inside him only. He tortures a sigh to kill the silence. ‘Is there a word that means thank you and get fucked at the same time?’

  ‘Don’t reckon.’

  ‘In that case, thank you. And get fucked.’

  ‘You won’t take it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not.’

  ‘I don’t have to explain. Not to you.’

  ‘Fair cop.’

  ‘Which brings us to the next item on the agenda. Do you know what a Treasury Certificate is?’

  Sutton shrugs. ‘Some kind of bond.’

  ‘Precisely. Very convenient if you want to carry large sums around in your back pocket. You remember Les Prime?’

  ‘Just the name.’

  ‘Last of the knucklemen, bash artist made good via car yards and heroin. These days just the car yards.’

  ‘This is the bloke Keith Dean works for.’

  ‘The very same. Bopper got married over summer to this piece that dances at the Oxford, and Leslie’s wedding present is a job on some TCs if Bopper wants it.’

  ‘And does he.’

  ‘Not direct. He can vouch for himself okay, but not the fucken hamburgers he’d have to draft in.’

  ‘So he’s selling it on. To a hamburger like you.’

  ‘Yeah—for half a share.’

  ‘Steep. How’s it work?’

  ‘Bopper nominates a date, right, and the day before Les phones his broker, says he wants to collect some paper for a trip. Stipulates a branch for sign-over.’

  ‘How much we talking.’

  ‘Eight hundred grand…See, there’s no risk for Leslie—as long as the TCs get ripped off before he takes possession, he’s insured for the full amount.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like much of a risk for Bopper, either.’

  ‘At least he’s done some groundwork. It’s a matter of picking the right bank and not going for the cash. All we want is the little green packet with the roo and emu.’

  ‘We.’

  ‘You’re not interested in two hundred grand for a half-day’s work?’

  ‘Sometimes it takes longer,’ says Sutton. ‘Twenty years.’

  ‘I’ve worked these, Jem—a few where they pulled it off, a baker’s dozen where they didn’t. I know what makes the difference.’

  Sutton selects the moment for his daily cigarette. He lights and takes a drag, scepticism developing in his lungs. ‘You really picture yourself with a balaclava and sawn-off?’

  ‘Fuck that. We do it smart.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning I picture you with a balaclava and a sawn-off.’

  26

  Karen braves the prow of Lady Charlotte. Like all First Fleeters she is half aristocrat, half tug. She is carving the water in the face of rain, which the detective cheats by enclosing herself in a greatcoat. A Prussian wore it, beat the Somme. Trench foot. She thinks about handing it off to Scully for analysis, the stories it might tell via microscope and DNA.

  Fierce beauty, Karen just a pair of eyes absorbing the harbour lights and all the blackship watercolour. She pays a price, tears like acid rain, but no one else shelled out for the deck; the warm-lit interior is packed with wealthy second-class poets, their preferment of common sense and comfort. Every rider of the harbour makes an approach to poetry but the approach is usually makeshift, slipshod, not many have the craft.

  —

  On the march now, uphill to infiltrate East Balmain, a long campaign in challenging conditions. Karen was told to look for a dark Honda Prelude and there it stands, idling like they said. She doesn’t think twice / she just gets in.

  ‘Think of a number between one and ten,’ says the man behind the wheel. Not the man she expected. Eyes clenched shut, his concentration palpable. ‘Think of a number and hold it in your mind.’

  ‘Righto.’

  ‘Is it seven?’

  ‘Nup.’

  ‘Fuck.’ His intensity uncoils, a pneumatic pump giving up the ghost with a sigh. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Ah.’ Li nods slow, absorbing the lesson. ‘You took the ferry, Karen. That’s beautiful.’ He doesn’t mean the view, the quaintness of the mode. He means the symmetry.

  ‘Was hoping for the boss,’ she says. ‘But I guess he had more important things to do.’

  ‘Sorry—his schedule is crazy.’

  ‘I’m hurt.’

  ‘If you can’t be with the one you love, Detective Millar.’

  Li, not big but sculpted: strict diet, impressive definition, every muscle group standing clear as though targeted, fed like a favoured pet. He’s waxed to within an inch of his life and the haircut looks pricey. ‘You know where I met him? I met him at yoga.’

  Karen shakes her head. ‘Some biker you are.’

  ‘I’m just the office boy. Vespa Kline wouldn’t know me from Adam.’

  ‘Strange outfit.’

  ‘We do what we can. Myrmidon calls us asymmetric.’

  ‘Your file reckons you started out in corporate litigation. AAR, proper day job.’

  ‘I have a file? You made my day.’

  ‘It’s not real thick. What—Murders and Acquisitions didn’t do it for you?’

  ‘This is better. More honest.’

  ‘Yeah, Slane peddled that line.’

  ‘Maybe authentic is the word…He liked meeting you. Was it mutual?’

  ‘I enjoyed the evidence.’

  ‘But now you want more.’

  Li looks at the darkened house across the street. Koestler’s place. Everywhere is a crime scene if you go back far enough. ‘I say this crap all day, detective, so forgive me if it comes out stale. The thing you want is expensive—and we don’t know if you can pay.’

  She has never been inside. The estate sold it after a decent interval, a CFO in the metals sector. Young family—they converted the study to a nursery. Gutsy decision, letting your baby sleep in a room with ghosts like that. ‘After he gave me the book, Chris said That’s enough for now. Like maybe he had more to give.’

  ‘Myrmidon,’ says Li. ‘Ever check in with them?’

  ‘They’re a bit busy at the moment. Some bodies cropped up in Illawarra.’

  Li grins like a lynx, conniving in the dark. ‘I told him you were worthwhile.’

  ‘They’ll go public in a day or two, after the formal ID. But they’re already thinking internal purge.’

  ‘Yawn.’

  ‘Media’ll love it. Thug-on-thug sells papers.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Li. ‘There’s no moral downside. Think of a number between one and fifty.’

  ‘Not this again.’

>   ‘Come on; I need the practice.’

  ‘Practice?’

  ‘And you’re a good subject.’ Li puts fingers to his temples, forming a circuit. Conduct the vibe / read the lightning. ‘Thirty-three.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Warm?’

  ‘One. Again.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  Li is boat people. Four years old, a mother who didn’t survive the trip. Raised by foster carers plus an older sister he doesn’t talk to anymore. She is bakery folk in a different city, the rival far to south. How does a kid from Cabramatta get a day job at AAR? ‘I don’t want war,’ says Karen.

  ‘Good. We like you.’

  ‘You’re Myrmidon’s problem and you can stay that way. But I want everything Slane’s got. Everything that went on inside the house the day Koestler died.’

  ‘The chess set. Worked it out?’

  ‘I won’t haggle.’

  ‘Chris said we should work out a price.’

  ‘Did you hear what I just said?’

  ‘Chill—I know where you’re coming from. I can tell from your numbers.’

  Karen shakes her head; it’s gonna make for great listening. ‘This really how you run things? Palms and tea leaves?’

  ‘I don’t read palms,’ says Li. ‘I read people. As for the decisions, well, Chris makes those…I wish you could see the way he handles them—it’s fucken masterclass. He doesn’t even ride a bike.’

  ‘Jesus, Li. You’re supposed to be in it for the money.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean.’

  ‘You, mate—you’re in love with the boss.’

  ‘I know, it’s tragic.’ He laughs and looks into her face. ‘Hurts, doesn’t it?’

  Karen climbs out of the car, out of the street, out of the suburb. Balmain is hell for cabbages / there’s no through traffic. At Darling Street she sheds the greatcoat, unworthy of its protection, shivers through the long dark walk that follows.

  25

  The bay is commanded by an awkward tide the boat cannot accommodate. They twist constantly to aft, presenting the hull for another coarse slap, a rocking so severe that neither Bloke nor Rawson can settle. No one has his sea legs / they are none of them seamen.

  ‘Gonna spew.’

  Sutton fires the outboard and they head upriver, piercing a morning delta the colour of deep-sea cod. In time the water scales to brown, a speckled trout with zero chance of rainbow. ‘Catch some flattie,’ says Sutton, both prophecy and command.