Winter Traffic
Page 34
‘Hurt?’
‘Not hurt enough. Fucken gumbies. One of them maybe rooted his neck. Peterson’s in charge of the canvas.’
‘Peterson. Don’t know him.’
‘Over there, skinny one. Knows what he’s doing.’
‘Anything useful?’
‘Just bits and pieces so far. Shoot that Channel Seven out of the sky would you, Georgie.’
‘Here it comes, Captain Fuckbucket.’
‘Daley?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why they call him that?’
‘You tell it.’
‘String of robberies on the Fairstar, right. The Funship. They sent fucken Cover Page here on a ten-day undercover to Fiji. Only thing he caught was venereal disease.’
‘Fuckbucket?’
‘That’s what staff call it. The boat. Total root-fest.’
‘Jammy prick…G’day Caron.’
‘Gents.’
‘Sergeant Daley! Sleuth of the Seas! What’s the mail?’
‘Got ourselves a live one, boys. What the fuck is that.’
‘That, my son, is a 1989 Scania 3-Series. We’re talking DS9 engine, four hundred HP, seats forty-four paying customers in the lap of Swedish luxury. Boosted last night from Kingsford Smith Renta Bus.’
‘Renta eyewitness would be nice.’
‘I’m glad you asked. We got two ladies deep into pension territory who tried to board—mistook it for the 291 to Balgowlah.’
‘Right. Well they sound suitably senile.’
‘Compos mentis if you ask me, your honour. They reckon it was standing quietly at the bus stop just outside the bank.’
‘Where the Armaguard usually stops?’
‘Where the Armaguard usually stops. But just enough space for the truck to get in as per. Constable? Constable? See that fucken cameraman? Move. Him. On. They can film from there and there. Not there.’
‘Channel Nine’s saying tear gas.’
‘The fuck they are.’
‘Any civs cop a lungful?’
‘Guards got the brunt—they’re riding to RNS in the ambo with our lot.’
‘Tear gas. Fuck me.’
‘These old birds—they get a squiz at faces?’
‘The driver opened the door and told them, Not in service, ladies. This is five, six minutes before the action. They describe him as, quote, small and ratty.’
‘Useful. Anyone else on board?’
‘Evidently. The Armaguard pulls up right in front, at which point steam starts pissing out of the Scania. Guards think nothing of it, go about their business. Guess what?’
‘It ain’t steam.’
‘Guards proceed to go down in screaming heap.’
‘At which point—what? Villains alight?’
‘Just the one. Balaclava, no gas mask.’
‘How does that work?’
‘I don’t know, detective—you’re the one who duxed at Rooty Hill High.’
‘So it’s just the one bloke conducting the robbery. We sure on that?’
‘Pretty fucken. Chinese shopkeeper two doors up, he sees the whole shebang. His English is dodgy but he’s the best bloody version by a yard.’
‘So—guards on the pavement. All three?’
‘Not to start with; just the two walkers.’
‘And the door of the Arma is open.’
‘Yep, but our friendly neighbourhood villain doesn’t enter. He relieves the walkers of package—chop, chop—then goes about his business.’
‘Does not go for the cash.’
‘Does not enter truck.’
‘So what’s the Armaguard wheelman doing?’
‘Come on, Boof—get the language right. Wheelman is the getaway driver. You’ve gotta be a villain to be the fucken wheelman.’
‘Excusez-moi.’
‘The proper term for your Armaguard wheelman would be Useless Fat Prick.’
‘Not that useless—China says he’s out by now, rounding street-side, drawing weapon.’
‘Only to be hit by gas.’
‘Only to be hit by villain. The balaclava is, quote, very sudden. He sudden man.’
‘That’s China’s description is it?’
‘Yep.’
‘He sudden! Wear baracrava!’
‘I still can’t work out how he’s strolling around with no fucken gas mask. What next? Villain gets back on bus, Ratty hits the pedal?’
‘Yep. Mounts the roundabout at speed, then gets to the top of the hill and—whoops—neglects to turn the steering wheel. Hence front-on smash into paved embankment.’
‘He’s properly fucked that DS9.’
‘Write off.’
‘Cunt panicked.’
‘Yep. Big time.’
‘So how come we’re not standing here with two prize collars? Squad car rounds the corner and—what? The villains alight, draw swords, hit him with paintball frenzy?’
‘Negative. Villains not armed at any point.’
‘So who or what shoots up the squaddie?’
‘That, my esteemed brother officer, is the question.’
‘Fuck me. Third party.’
‘Those paintball guns only got range to eighty metres. I remember from when me and Robbo went.’
‘So it’s coming from one of these apartments up the hill.’
‘Balcony job, ten to one on.’
‘With a modified rifle…Christ—fair job this.’
‘Two hundred yards, moving target, indifferent ammo…Take a look at the cruiser’s windscreen, boys. Blanket cover.’
‘Decent bloody shot.’
‘Decent? She’s a deadset fucken genius.’
‘She?’
‘Oh, I think we’re looking at some sophisticated lady bandits here, fellas. All the classic hallmarks.’
‘Third party works for me. Squeeze it from all angles. They boost the bus; that’s one. Used a south-facing flat as a platform; that’s two.’
‘Then there’s Ratty, so-called wheelman. He’s in the system for sure.’
‘Betting suspended.’
‘Only if you trust our ladies to pick him out. Get them in front of the book, pronto.’
‘Two steps ahead of you, Captain.’
‘Aw, fuck it—here we go.’
‘What’s up?’
‘Channel Seven, Lisa Barnard.’
‘Fucken Rottweiler.’
‘Never saw a rottie with legs like that.’
‘I fucked her. Back in the day.’
‘You did not.’
‘Nah, did.’
‘Half your flamin luck.’
‘I’m not hanging about if she’s here. I’ll hit RNS, talk to the guards. Maybe we can rustle up a better description than very sudden.’
‘He sudden man. Move rike rightning!’
‘Call if you get anything…Jesus, can you believe that bloke?’
‘The Wobbler.’
‘Fucks Lisa Barnard and lives to tell the tale.’
‘Drops it like it’s nothin. Like it’s a mistake.’
‘Bloody smart.’
‘Who, Daley?’
‘The job: paint cartridges means no trajectories.’
‘And no risk of cop-killing. Not unless they veer off the road and into a power pole, which the muppets pretty much did.’
‘Tell me a train was pulled up at the time. Tell me four hundred school kids with perfect eyesight are sitting in a station somewhere giving four hundred identical versions.’
‘He didn’t go for the cash. An open door to an Armaguard truck and he doesn’t even take a bo peep.’
‘Discipline.’
‘No one has successfully explained to me where Ratty and Balaclava get to after they total the getaway bus.’
‘Cos that’s the best bit. China says one was carrying the other, the driver out cold.’
‘Fucken Ratty’s had a blinder.’
‘Blood on the airbag?’
‘Dunno. Scientists’ll be done any minute.’
‘Yep—over the shoulder. Fireman carry.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Down to the highway I presume.’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘Up to Norman Street.’
‘Get the fuck out.’
‘Nobody goes uphill. Not a mess like this.’
‘No one except our guy. The member whose neck isn’t rooted is out of the car, scrambling up to the Scania. We’re talking forty, fifty seconds.’
‘And—wait for it—does not see which way they go.’
‘I need a drink.’
‘Hang on. You’re saying this prick’s covered a hundred metres uphill with a bloke over his shoulder and a lung full of tear gas. In forty-five seconds.’
‘That’s what I’m saying.’
‘That’s what we’re telling you.’
‘Then I’m saying back, this is an easy fucken solve.’
‘How so.’
‘Come on—there’s maybe eight, ten blokes in the country could do that.’
‘Yeah. And they all play first grade.’
‘Put the fucken Raiders on notice.’
‘Brad Clyde, you’re nicked.’
‘Clarke Kent.’
‘Someone go grab Lisa Barnard. You know, right on that perfect arse.’
‘I bravely volunteer.’
‘Sorry, George—this mission is for single men only. Off you go, Deano, tell her I’m ready for my close-up.’
07
Vespa drives the three of them to Hutchinson’s. Castle Hill, a shitty little lot, the cold sun shining into every grubby reach. They walk in through the back.
The old locksmith at his post, sawing keys. The mounting block, the anvil—place sounds like a dentist. He raises a hand in welcome at the shapes they are, the fierce light of worklamp bouncing off bifocals. He isn’t open yet / will stay shut till they leave.
Vespa hands out blue overalls, Hutchinson’s Locks embroidered on the pocket. They hear Hutch go out the front and smell him return. He walks among them, dispensing egg-and-bacon care parcels.
Perceval looks like he could eat about twenty. Dick Mountain watches the kid climb into the King Gees, a thick trunk encasing itself in tough blue bark. Mr Krakatoa. That body is heavy machinery but it doesn’t match the face, the face too baby to have earned it. They say the kid has talent and Dick believes, approves of the buzzcut that mirrors his own. Logan looks like one of those wrestlers, a Greco-Roman they’d send to Olympics expecting to actually win.
The men eat the rolls and drink cold juice. Dick Mountain hears the saw of keys abate. Hammering. Locksmiths are cobblers, always. Why? Dick can imagine being a maker of keys, but he wouldn’t touch shoes—no fucken. The tools are common to the trades, fair enough, but you don’t ask a fireman to water your lawn.
Vespa goes out front to talk to the old coot and Logan Perceval reties the laces on his boots until they’re tight, very tight. There’s something about that / Dick Mountain likes it. Logan says, ‘We taking the locksmith’s van?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I can drive.’
Dick Mountain stares vacant at the calendar on the wall. Beautiful girl, mostly naked. He nods in a way that carries no weight of assent. It is possible you will drive / it is possible you will not.
‘I mean, I get car sick if I don’t drive. That’s all.’
‘No worries,’ says Dick.
Miss May. Who is that girl. Where does she live? What does she think about men and life and calendars? What is it like to be in the world with such a body, such a face? Is it very hard or very easy?
Vespa returns and offers the keys to Dick, Dick nodding his head in Krakatoa’s direction. ‘Miss Daisy gets a cranky tum if she doesn’t get to drive.’
—
‘I’ll be glad to get out this fucken cabin, I’ll give you the tip.’ This from Vespa, crotchety and cold. ‘You fat cunts taking all the room.’
Dick Mountain impassive, Logan too. Packed in tight, no question, Vespa sandwiched nasty in the middle, the only body that cargoes any fat. Two men in the front of a tradie’s van is unremarkable, but three looks comic. They might as well be English / Irish / American walking into a bar.
No one smiles. The van sits in the carpark that adjoins the boat ramp and they watch a world they know nothing about. Yacht club, a place where vehicles are measured in feet, in millions. They speak a different language on the water and conform to strange rules. But even boats need locksmiths.
Don’t they?
The outline of a ferry in the offing, transecting the view, scouting the mouth of the cove but not coming in. A grumpy fisherman walks off pier with a bucket pinioned to his rod, his lance. He wears a southwester with matching hat and Dick winds down the window as he passes.
‘Biting?’
‘The only thing I caught was flu.’
The grump stops, turns, points to water, the world of un-hungry fish and take-it-or-leave-it marlin. Grey kingdom, utterly secret: a watcher would think him banging on about the tides, about the breaks that make landings possible and not. He says, ‘Walk to the end. At the second-last cross pier you chuck a right and she’s the third one along. Winter Traffic.’
‘Fuck me,’ says Vespa. ‘The two bloody things I hate most in the world.’
Richard Mountain leans nearer the window. ‘Movement?’
‘Nothing. Nothing since he got here and that was three a.m.’
‘Cheers, brother.’
The fishless man keeps walking / the world does not record his name.
—
Logan goes first.
Not powered by eagerness, by the nerves Dick Mountain half accused him of at the shop. No, the kid looks settled, calm, like an actual fucken locksmith. He took a random clipboard from the vehicle and now he scans it as he goes, consults a phantom requisitions form.
Vespa stays in the van but his words do not. They come for the ride, an irascible wisp on the shoulders, a ghost that nudges the ribs to remind, advise, solicit.
You know who’s on that boat?
Dick nodded to hear the question. Gravely.
‘So no lairisin,’ said Vesp. ‘Hear that, Logan?’
‘No lairisin.’
‘Good boy. The two of you got history?’ Vespa meant Dick and the bloke on the boat, Dick nodding again. ‘Good,’ said Vespa.
‘Paspaley. What’s his go.’
This from Logan, his single question for the day. You’re entitled to one. Dick Mountain looked portside, at the disco shimmy of trees in winter. Naked and spindly, deranged with warning. Strange, but he couldn’t shake the memory of Miss May, the imprint of her sleek lines against the long exploded capillaries in his eyes. He rubbed his goatee and close widow’s peak, all his beauties faded / nothing left now but experience.
‘The Pardoner,’ said Dick Mountain. ‘Fucken elite.’
06
Sutton douses himself in ocean to wash away the morning. He lies belly down on heated sand, lets the pain in his lungs find a quantum of healing. For a time he passes out, sleeping or unconscious not possible to say. When he wakes it is to sunlight and salt, dazed like a wretch redeemed from shipwreck.
Sole survivor. The first thing he sees is a sign put up by council, Be careful / There are thieves.
—
He combs his hair into submission with a ninety-cent comb purchased from the K-Mart at Bondi Junction. The habitual act of an older man, a young one in earlier times. At the mall he passes through a food court, mounted screens all stuffed with footage: stricken coach, smashed embankment. The squad car is like a Mardi Gras float, paintballed to within an inch. Fully off road. Awkward stuff, embarrassing for all involved.
He descends into the interchange, to the underworld of trains. The blue line ferries him to Central. Six names, six stations, an arc that carves the east of the city like a sickle. The blade
is made of contrasting metals.
Backtracking. Time killing.
—
At dusk he joins the 312, takes a seat in the rear left corner. New clothes, new Volleys. The bus muddles through the cold George Street evening and he thinks about a stolen burnt-out car in bushland far away.
Thirty minutes to Paddington Town Hall. He could have walked as the crow flies in roughly the same but the feeling of being passengered is good. In a bus you are safe from jacks, the horde in uniform massed and hunting.
He ghosts past the Imperial, past the sign at Arthur’s Pizza. At Paddington Inn he jinks and weaves into the suburb’s gravitational heart. She won’t be there / he tells himself to expect it. She is far to the west where the satellite dishes whisper and revolve. When he turns into her street he sees the lights of sirens washing across its surfaces.
Blue-light disco, the coppers out in force: coldness slips inside him like an incubus. A detective and two uniforms, the trio back-and-forthing between house and vehicles, Sutton watching to gauge their vibration. He feels that he has entered a dreamworld, a world of inversions: the transit was complex and he lost true north, wandered back to the scene of his crime. Disaster, catastrophe, a slavish follow of imperfect stars.
Maybe it’s mirage, a final test. Maybe Bopper sold them out. Sutton walks towards the house of his Susan and goes cold again all over.
05
Rawson beers at the Hollywood because he likes it there, because other police do not. He sits in a corner smashing schooners and even he has never known such thirst. No dedicated title for that hit sensation, roof-of-mouth versus freezing jar, but a contact so singular deserves a name. Largey Rawson names it now / he brands it Kristy. Refreshing, fatal in excess, the thing most golden he has known.
No beer in prison. Fuck that. He thinks about the people he has sent away, the sad-eyed army / the convict horde.
—
The Hollywood is bereft of TV. Good. The six o’clock trumpet will be coming on mute, decorating pubs with footage of the scene. His brethren as they walk it: point, gaze, inquire, conject. No thanks. When he senses company he swivels very slow, finds Angelo de Souza in close attendance.
‘I found you.’
‘You did.’ The Big Ship sighs, swallows. ‘Must be a better bloody detective than I thought.’
‘You better come with me.’