White Shoes, White Lines and Blackie

by Robert G. Barrett

  ‘There’s the keys to the boarding house, Muzz. The address, my address and phone number, plus where the Boulevarde is. I’ll ring you at six, Monday arvo, but if you need me, ring. I won’t be far.’ Les grinned. ‘You’ll like Mrs Llivac too. She’s a seppo, and she told me she makes the best deep-dish apple pie on the Gold Coast.’ Les gave his brother a slap on the shoulder. ‘She’d want to. This place is costing me a fortune. There’s also $300 in there for petrol and tucker too.’ Les looked evenly at his brother for a moment. ‘And I don’t know, Muzz, but I just got a feeling there might be a bit of an earn in this for you too.’

  Murray took the envelope and put it in his overalls. ‘Okay, mate,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in Surfers. If I need you I’ll get in touch.’ He held out his hand and looked his brother right in the eye. ‘Thanks for that bit of help, Les. You couldn’t have come along at a better time.’

  Les gripped his brother’s hand. ‘Don’t worry, Muzz. You’ll earn your keep tomorrow night. But we’ll be sweet. We mightn’t have those Mini-14s but we’ll have the two of us again.’

  Murray gave Les a wink. ‘You never know what we might have. See you tomorrow.’

  Les watched Murray wheel the SPATV out of the park and head towards home, then got in the car away from the mosquitoes, turned on the air-conditioning and gave him about five minutes while he wiped some of the sweat and dirt off with his spare T-shirt. He started the car, let it idle for a moment or two then headed off himself, knowing he still had an all-night drive in front of him.

  The restaurant was closed and there didn’t seem to be any people around, but the pub still appeared to be open and if Les wasn’t mistaken there was a small group of drunks standing out the front, staring up at some touches of orange still lingering in the sky towards Chinchilla. Well, why wouldn’t they, thought Les, taking a left at the post office. They were only about twenty or so kilometres away from us. He rejoined the road to St George and drove on into the night.

  Norton wasn’t tired, more mind-weary than anything else. It hadn’t been a bad quick trip home. How often do you get to shoot three blokes, watch an atomic bomb go off and blow up an old mine, all on top of huge feed of Spanish paella. The thought of food suddenly made him belch and the pleasant taste of garlic and prawns lingered across his tongue. Les was going to switch on the radio or a cassette but changed his mind. Besides trying to settle down after what he’d just been through he wanted to have a think. And despite the killings and the nuclear explosion, Norton’s thoughts kept turning to the overnight-bag on the seat next to him and the pages inside he’d torn out of that Spanish magazine. There was something there that definitely wasn’t kosher. What it was Les couldn’t quite figure out. He drove on into the night, turned right outside St George and kept thinking. But the more Les tried to add two and two together, the more it wouldn’t come up four. However, by the time he got to Goondi-windi and a lot more thinking about his present companions and the others he’d met in Surfers Paradise, two and two may not have been coming up four but it was coming up very close to the square root of sixteen. Very, very close indeed.

  Les found a truck-stop the other side of the quiet outback town, filled up again and got a couple of bars of chocolate. He was about eighty kilometres towards Inglewood when he saw the convoy of flashing blue lights approaching in the distance and slowed down. The first three cars were green RAAF Holdens followed by a black Chevrolet Biscayne; lights flashing, sirens howling as they roared past the Jaguar. Now I wonder where they might be heading? mused Les. Good one, Muzz. You’re a genius all right. How I let you talk me into things at times I’ll never know. I just hope to Christ you can make it to Surfers on time.

  With this now on his mind, as well as everything else, Norton howled on along the outback roads. He filled up again at Warwick, yawned a couple of times and found he was starting to get a bit tired. As he drove off, he turned the air-conditioner on full blast and dropped a cassette in the car stereo at just about full blast too. Of all things, the first track was ‘Six Days on the Road’ — George Thoro-good and the Destroyers. Christ! thought Norton, turning it down just a shade, if that didn’t wake you up, nothing would. Good one again, Benoit, he chuckled to himself.

  That cassette had finished and ‘Down the Road’ — Richard Clapton — was cutting out as Les went through completely empty Beaudesert and headed towards the coast. He switched the radio on and scanned around. No news or major news bulletins at that time of the morning; just country and western music from here and there and a bit of pop stuff. Norton left the radio on a Brisbane station and drove steadily through the winding, rising plains up into Tambourine Mountain.

  The sun was coming up and Norton was well and truly stuffed and sick of thinking about things when he pulled up outside Zapato Blanco Apartments just before six a.m. He got out of the car, stretched and yawned as another beautiful, sunny day in Surfers Paradise opened up around him. There was no sign of life from the flats, just a few cars going past, early morning joggers, cyclists, people walking dogs etc. As he opened the garage door, Les noticed the dust, mud and squashed insects all over the Jag. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll hose all that off before I go to bed. Yeah. Like fuckin’ hell I will. Norton put the car in the garage, slammed the door and dragged his arse upstairs. He took his Nikes and socks off and that was about all. Had a glass of water while he took in the magnificent, million-dollar view of the sun rising over the sparkling blue sea and across the beautiful white beach for about five seconds then crashed straight onto his bed — out like a light.

  Norton blinked his eyes open around midday and gazed up at the ceiling, more or less trying to figure out where he was, what had happened and how he got there. Then along with the sound of the waves rolling in through the window as they washed up along the beach it all began to sink in. Oh shit! He moaned to himself. Did that really happen last night? The memory of the nuclear blast and the torn and bloodied bodies of the six terrorists flashed across his mind and he jammed his eyes shut and sunk his head back into the pillows. Yeah. It bloody happened all right. Then it also dawned on him it was Monday and he had a fair bit on that day and the night too. Especially the night. He took a few deep breaths and got up.

  Oddly enough, Les didn’t feel too bad at all. His back and neck were a little stiff, but he’d had six hours of good, deep sleep and it was nothing at all like waking up with a hangover. Along with his body, his T-shirt and shorts stunk of sweat and grime; he got out of them and went into the en-suite, cleaned his teeth, then splashed a bit more water over his face. Norton’s rugged good looks staring back at him from the mirror were definitely a lot more rugged than good looking. The swelling in his nose had gone down a little and he’d stopped gobbing up congealed blood, but he still had two delightful black eyes and more colour round his face than a tank full of tropical fish. However, the gleam radiating from Norton’s brown, if rather blackened, eyes promised all this would be squared up tonight; with a bit of luck.

  He walked out to the kitchen, had a glass of orange juice and some fruit and made a cup of coffee, which he took out onto the back sundeck where he noticed the curtains were still drawn and there was no sign of life from next door. Les sipped his coffee and gazed out over the beach across the empty swimming pool in the backyard. Yeah, Les chuckled to himself. The good old empty swimming pool. Recently unserviced and completely ignored by Mermaid Pool Services. It was an absolute peach of a day. Hot, sunny, scarcely a cloud in the sky; a gentle surf rolling in and an equally gentle breeze from the south whispering across a fair smattering of people swimming or sitting along the beach. Definitely not the day for a stinking hot, gruelling run on the soft sand, with sweat pouring out of you in buckets, making you think you were going to dissolve, and wishing to Christ you were doing something else. Les grabbed a towel, his sweatband and sunglasses and did just that; because if anything would take the stiffness out of him and get the old grey matter going that, and a swim afterwards, would. He locked up the flat
and walked down to the beach. Les didn’t bother with any stretches, he just clamped the sweatband on and headed south for fifteen minutes then headed back.

  The run was just as punishing and miserable as the other one but it gave Norton plenty of time to think and plot things out. By the time he got back and had a nice long swim then a shower afterwards, he felt on top of the world, if not a little hungry. Also a plan of action, a nasty little scheme, and one or two other things he still wasn’t completely sure of had fallen into place. He got into another pair of shorts, his last clean, white Wilderness-Not-Woodchips T-shirt, and headed up to Peggy’s for breakfast, stopping to get a paper and sort a couple of other things out first.

  Early Monday afternoon in Surfers Paradise seemed just like any other day; people surging along the footpaths, spielers jumping out of doorways, traffic, tourist buses, the start of another week for the locals relieving the tourists of as much money as possible in as short a space of time. Norton found the paper shop on the main drag the other side of Cavill Avenue. A quick scan across the local and interstate headlines said nothing about strange lights in the sky or little green men landing in outback Queensland. It was mainly the usual bullshit from Canberra, some singer on the Gold Coast had allegedly faked her own kidnapping and the police wanted to allegedly break her neck, and more alleged corruption on the local council. The Telegraph-Mirror said on page three the US President would still be arriving in Australia. Les bought a copy, tucked it up under his arm and walked a few metres up the main drag to his next stop.

  The shoe store was roomy and bright and almost next to another arcade. There were heaps of everything, from training and aerobics shoes to Doc Martens to the full-on gleaming white Gold Coast specials. What wasn’t on display around the walls was laid out on tables in the middle, a lot of which were on special. Norton was in there about a minute before a smiling young girl in a white dress with dark hair came over.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked politely.

  Les returned her smile. ‘Have you got any R.M.Williams riding boots? Flat heel, elastic side?’

  ‘Should have,’ replied the girl. ‘What size?’

  ‘Ten. Brown if you could.’

  ‘Just a minute.’

  The girl returned with the boots and handed them to Les along with a pair of socks. Les tried them on, walking round the store a couple of times without bothering to check anything out in the mirror. They fitted perfectly, though as Les expected, being brand new they were a little slippery on the carpet.

  ‘They’ll do fine,’ said Norton, sitting back down and slipping them off. ‘Don’t worry about the carton. Just put them in a plastic bag for me, would you?’

  ‘Certainly sir.’

  Les put his Nikes back on, left the socks on the seat, then paid the girl cash, thanked her and left.

  What Norton was looking for next he found nestled away amongst the food shops, clothes shops, souvenirs and what have you in the arcade next to the shoe store. One of those Minit-Tipit stands, where they cut keys, resole trainers and vulcanise new heels and soles on leather shoes.

  ‘Yeah, mate?’ asked the spiky red-headed bloke in the red uniform, looking up from some keys he’d just cut.

  ‘Could you put some rubber soles on these for me?’ Les took the brand new R.M. Williams out of the plastic bag and laid them on the counter.

  The red-headed bloke ran his hands over the soles and around the boots. ‘Don’t feel like slippin’ on your arse, do you, mate?’ he said, with a bit of a cheeky grin.

  ‘No. I sure bloody don’t,’ answered Norton. He returned the bloke’s grin, though where the bloke’s was more cheeky there was definitely some evil in Norton’s.

  ‘Can you give us about an hour?’

  ‘Sure, mate. Good as gold.’ Les got his ticket and left the arcade.

  Norton then retraced his steps through the crowds along the footpath to the Hertz Car Rental office across Cavill Avenue and on the opposite side of the highway.

  ‘Yes sir?’ said the fair-haired young lady behind the counter. In her crisp black and yellow uniform and with the air-conditioning on, she looked quite fresh and attractive.

  ‘I’d like to hire a Ford LTD for about three days,’ said Norton.

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ replied the girl. She reached beneath the counter for a brochure and the appropriate papers. ‘I’ll just explain our rates to you and that. You know it’s a little extra with the insurance?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s okay,’ nodded Les.

  The girl fiddled around with some papers, punched something into a computer then got on the phone while she checked Norton’s driver’s licence and other ID. Rather than make a big splash by pulling out a wad of notes, Les paid with his Visa Card. There were a few things to sign, a couple more formalities and some chitchat about the weather and holidays while they brought the car around. The girl smiled and thanked Les as she handed him the keys, telling him the number and where it was, out the front a few metres up from the office. Les thanked the girl also and left.

  The LTD was dark blue with plush grey upholstery and smelled new inside. Ahh yes, mused Norton, having a bit of a fiddle with the radio, the air-conditioning and the power-windows. This should get me back to Sydney in exactly the style a gentleman of my calibre deserves. And rather swiftly too, if need be. The big V-8 motor hummed into life.

  Les took a left on Cavill Avenue, came round and parked in the street facing the flats about halfway up. Now, isn’t life strange? Norton half joked to himself. Here I am, just about back where I started half an hour ago. He sat listening to the radio for a few moments and noticed there was still no sign of life round the flats — reporters or otherwise. Still, this isn’t getting my stomach filled. Norton locked the car, gave it a last, satisfied look as he jangled the keys into his pocket then walked round to Peggy’s for a late breakfast.

  Well, I don’t know about that song ‘Breakfast at Sweethearts’ but breakfast at Peggy’s wasn’t too bad. Les had a contented smile on his face. He’d finished the paper and a second cup of coffee, plus the usual pile of food, only this time with extra fruit. He’d noticed Jimmy Martin across the road, not all that hard at work amongst the people on the beach, but didn’t bother going over to say hello; he was quite happy to sit there a little incognito in his cap and sunglasses while he enjoyed his breakfast. Norton glanced at his watch. Well, I reckon my boots should be just about ready by now. But I’ve got one more stop on the way. He paid his bill and left.

  The Boulevarde in Begonia Street was open for the lunchtime trade; Les checked it out for a few moments from in front of the health food shop across the road. Outside it was one long, flat bar on street level, set in amongst the other buildings. The entrance was on the left, two small open-air balconies came out into the footpath, surrounded by stained glass and leadlight windows with a full-length stained-glass window where the building ended next to the wall of some other club or disco. It had a laid back, kind of upmarket style about it, definitely not your house-music-disco-rip-the-kids-off scene. Les waited for a break in the traffic then jogged across the road straight inside the front door to the left.

  There was quite a number of casually dressed punters standing or sitting around, either having a meal or a drink. Les didn’t bother to take off his sunglasses as he moved easily around, making out he was in there looking for someone while he checked the place out. It was all very nice. Soft lighting from old-fashioned lightshades, oak panelling, more stained-glass and mirrors round the walls, and vines in baskets hanging off the ceiling. There was an empty DJ’s booth and vacant dancefloor to your left as you walked in and a long bar in the first room with white German-style beer pullers with wooden handles and empty glasses hanging upside down from wooden racks above. The barmaids were fit and efficient-looking in black minis, white shirts and cute paisley vests. The male bar staff wore white shirts and ties as they drifted around the stools and tables, picking up glasses or whatever.

  Norton cruised around t
he first room, through a kind of folding glass door into what he figured must be the back bar. This room wasn’t quite as big as the other with a small bar on your left as you entered, a short hallway that led to the toilets and a food servery with another, slightly bigger bar, next to the open-air balcony on the opposite side of the room. There were stools and tables scattered around, a cigarette machine in the corner and a full-length mirror running above a small wooden bench from it to the stained-glass window in the opposite corner that Les had noticed from across the road. The bar on the left was closed, but there were a few punters sitting around the one next to the balcony and the window in the corner. It was a smaller version of the one in the other room with the German beer pullers and the glasses racked upside down.

  Very, very nice, Norton half nodded to himself. He glanced over at the full-length mirror. I imagine that’s where Jasper and his mates should be drinking tonight. A nice quiet spot to do a bit of plotting and scheming. Very nice indeed. I reckon me and Murray should be able to wreck this joint in about five minutes tonight. Maybe a minute or two longer. Les placed his hands under one of the stools in the middle of the room and gently lifted it a little off the floor. Yes, I should be able to swing one of these around without too much trouble. Les had another glance around the bar, giving it all a slight nod of approval. So this is the scene of tonight’s events eh? I like it. He half smiled at one of the barmaids as he walked out, leaving as unobtrusively as he entered, had a quick look at his watch and strolled round to the Minit-Tipit man.

  ‘There you go, mate,’ said the bloke in the red uniform, quite pleased with himself as he laid Norton’s boots on the counter. ‘They ought to last you a bit longer now.’

  Les ran his hand along where the bloke had done a good, solid job, vulcanising a thin, hard rubber sole along the bottom. ‘Yeah, they sure will,’ answered Norton. ‘How much do I owe you, mate?’