by Zane Lovitt
Troy doesn’t seem to see it. His head rests against the window and I’d say he was asleep if it weren’t for how no one could sleep like that. He might be pretending to be asleep.
The main street is well lit but empty. It isn’t quite a ghost town, though, because of the hospital at the far end that seems to be open. Or at least there are people coming and going and all the lights are on. It hulks over the shopfronts like a pitbull over kittens, seemingly airlifted out of the 1960s and dumped here because they needed somewhere along the river that could treat more than footrot. On the opposite side of the road is a town hall and a massive clock tower lit up by the hospital and it’s saying that it’s just gone ten.
We pass all this and suddenly we’ve left the town. The road tilts up a not-steep hill through more black, which I suppose is dried-up farmland, and there’s no sign of the orange headlights behind us. Suddenly in the blackness there’s a motel, graceful and long and flaunting a neon lamp that says VACANCY. The office lights are on. An oasis in outer space.
I pull into the driveway. Through a glass door that’s almost entirely papered over with warning signs, advertisements and credit card stickers, there’s the office lit deep yellow by two tired bulbs poking out of the ceiling. Behind the desk, itself another drift of notices and disclaimers, a heavy woman is perched on a high stool wearing a man’s striped shirt and glasses. They’re attached to a thick black rope that loops back around her neck and disappears into bushy hair, tinted with a loud brown to hide the grey.
Troy straightens and looks around at where we are. Ahead of us is a flat stretch of motel edifice, punctuated with fluorescent lights along the narrow path that runs past fourteen or fifteen closed doors. It’s too cold in the year for the flurry of bugs and lizards that would usually be attending those lights like they were trendy new bars in the city, but it’s not so cold that the windows are fogged over with the warmth of the people asleep inside. If there are people inside. Between the path and the road is a gravel carpark where no cars are parked. Opposite the motel, on the opposite side of the highway, is a solitary phone booth, lit blue by the fluoro inside. Beyond that is just nighttime.
Troy looks at me like I just flicked him with a lacker band. ‘Can’t we just drive through?’
‘I need a rest.’
He licks his lips, dry from the journey.
‘Fine then.’
I get out of the car. As I open the office door I hear the chime of an electronic bell in a distant room. The big woman is transfixed by a small television on the desk and she doesn’t look up, but her brow creases and I guess she’s not happy that I’ve intruded. The office smells intensely of roast beef, but there’s no sign of meals or used dinner plates or sandwiches, so the smell must come from her. She finally looks up to me and says, ‘G’day,’ but the last syllable trails off a little as she clocks the long scar across my head and comes to terms with it. We’ve been driving in the dark just long enough for me to forget it was there, and I take a second to come to terms with it myself. I’d wear a hat if it didn’t hurt so much.
I say, ‘Hello. We need one room, two beds.’
She shoots a glance through the glass at Troy, looks back at me over the thick-rimmed glasses, then removes a small blue card from a stack on a bulldog clip. She hands it to me along with half a biro. The other half has been chewed off.
‘It’s two hunge and twenny-five for the night,’ she rasps.
I’m about to fill in the form when I pause. Our eyes meet and she shakes her head, not scared of a confrontation, wobbling the loose skin beneath her jowls. ‘It’s the only way I can be open real late like this.’
My guess is that she thinks I’m here with my underage boyfriend and if I’m going to break the law in her motel then why shouldn’t she make some money out of it?
Past her, on a cluttered bench, I spot a bottle of cheap gin almost hidden behind another television and stacks of ringbinders and brochures. There’s only three or four fingers inside, but it must be the only thing to drink between here and the nurses’ station in the hospital.
‘You can make it two-fifty if you throw in that bottle.’
‘Not much in it.’
‘No, there isn’t.’
‘You want it or not?’
‘Yes, please.’
And she can see how badly. It’s in my sudden politeness. Her thumb and forefinger needlessly adjust her glasses. ‘Got to be three hundred, then.’
I point weakly, say, ‘You could buy a full bottle for thirty dollars.’
‘Yeah, but it’s me husband’s. For when he sits the night shift. I shouldn’t be selling his grog to just any bloke that come in here.’
I get it. Maybe the occasional car pulls into this place late at night, having reached the psychological milestone of the Murray River, but the real reason it’s open so late is the married couple who run it can’t bear to be around one another. Twelve-hour shifts keep them apart and maybe it wouldn’t matter if no one ever pulled in after dark. He drinks and she smells permanently of roast beef, and if that king-size shirt she’s wearing is her husband’s then it’s likely they can’t both fit in the bed at the same time anyway. Win-win.
I say, ‘Can you put it all on one receipt? Without itemising it?’
‘Sure. You got to pay now, but. Not check-out.’
She rings it up on the till and I pay in cash, clutch the bottle and the room key and leave. It’s suddenly cooler outside, or at least there’s a breeze I hadn’t noticed before.
‘We have separate rooms, right?’ Troy asks as I get into the car.
‘One room, two beds.’
He hangs his head, doesn’t say anything. I motor the car forward, park on the worn gravel outside room five. When we left Sydney I planned to find a motel like this and park behind it, so the car wasn’t visible from the highway. There’s no point in that now.
The room is bigger than I expected. The two beds are both doubles and there’s a writing desk with plastic flowers arranged across it and two ceiling fans. Troy slumps onto the first bed and lies still with his eyes closed. The crusty cream walls look like you could chip into them with your fists and the floor is an arrangement of bright orange tiles that maybe were supposed to fade over time but never did. So, like any motel, it’s decorated in a way that even a mad person couldn’t stand for more than a week. I go to the bathroom at the far end and that’s big too. There’s a deep porcelain bathtub and a picture of flying ducks hanging next to the toilet. The only light is a weak bulb on the wall, diffused by an opaque plastic dome spotted with the silhouettes of bugs that long ago crawled in there to die.
I piss and flush and when I come out of the bathroom Troy’s still lying on the bed. His eyes are open now, peeking out past the hair that conceals the rest of his face in what has become more or less his signature pose.
I say, ‘I’m going to the phone booth outside to make a call. I’ll be watching the door so don’t try to leave, and the window in the bathroom doesn’t open so I wouldn’t bother there either.’
He says nothing, keeps staring. He might be dead but for the long, healthy breaths he’s drawing. I leave him like that, close the door and lock it, cross the white gravel and the black tar of the highway and glance back: in the motel office she’s still gazing at the television, dispassionate, like it’s a propaganda film she’s already been forced to sit through over and over for days. I screw the cap off and sip gently from the seventy-five-dollar bottle of her husband’s backwash. I have to save some for after this phone call, when I may be required to think more precisely about what I’m taking Troy back to.
The phone booth is the old-fashioned kind, with a door and full protection from the elements. They got rid of these in Melbourne years ago because they couldn’t have homeless people finding actual shelter at night. Corrosion eats at the bottom half of this one but the interior is well maintained or else it’s just never used. The handset is green under the blue fluoro and it’s cool like it’s been ref
rigerated. As I press it to my ear I feel the cold seep into my brain and down into my shoulders. I shiver.
A phone rings in Melbourne. She answers after eight of them.
‘Hello.’
‘It’s John Dorn. I’ve got Troy. We’re in a motel on the Murray.’
A hand goes over the receiver. Voices. When she comes back on the phone there’s sleep and whisky in her voice.
‘Bloody hell, that was fast. Any sign of…you-know-who?’
‘He’s around, though we’re yet to be formally introduced. And on that subject, Troy told me a secret tonight.’
There’s a long silence. I listen to the wind whistle through the booth.
She says, ‘Don’t…Don’t say it over the phone. We don’t know who might be listening.’ Her voice is full of that earnest victimhood she’s mastered after a thousand press conferences.
‘But you understand what I’m talking about?’
‘I think so.’
‘Demetri doesn’t know?’
‘Ummmm…No.’
‘Lying to him seemed like the best course of action to you?’
‘Wait, no…we thought it was better—’
‘If he knew, he could have told you that they’ll probably get an adjournment if Troy’s not there. He’s central to their case now, so if no one can find him, the judge will put the hearing off until they do.’
‘I know, it’s just…Look, Mr Dorn…John…I’d rather not talk about it like this. Just bring Troy back and we’ll chat about it then, okay?’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘But you better hope Leo Spaske doesn’t find us before then. Because I’m not going to lift a finger to stop him serving Troy with that subpoena.’
Wide orange headlights appear over the hill, as if, by the speaking of his name, he has been summoned. They cut mercilessly through the white haze that emanates from the hospital on the other side of the hill, approaching.
Speaking very slowly, Belinda says, ‘I never said you should stop him. That would be illegal.’
‘It would be illegal,’ I echo her words and her tone. ‘And yet it’s what I’ve been doing since I found Troy. This phone call is to let you know that I won’t be doing that anymore. See you tomorrow.’
‘Wait…’ Her voice breaks as she speaks. ‘I’ll…’ She’s searching for a solution, almost as if she can feel the car’s headlights as they pierce the dark.
She says, ‘Where are you?’
‘We’re at the Yarindarra Motor Inn on the Hume Highway.’
‘Okay. We’ll come. We’ll come there right now. You just wait there.’
‘If that’s what you want. We’re in room five.’
‘I want my son home safe.’
‘I’m sure you do.’
‘Just stay there and don’t…do anything. We’ll be as fast as we can.’
‘All right. But you better hurry. Something tells me Leo is just around the corner.’
I hang up.
Through the immediate quiet comes the sound of the Valiant closing in, engine grinding, all four tyres properly inflated. The headlights loom in the dark like an alien invasion and I step out of the phone booth, linger on the dirt verge this side of the road, watch the car reach the soft brown light thrown by the motel onto the highway.
The blue Valiant flicks by at a startling speed, too fast for me to glimpse the driver. But he glimpses me.
I know this because of the sudden screech of brakes.
Its momentum carries it on, smoke rising from its rubber, long tracks scorching black on the black tar. The pig squeal seems to last hours, getting louder the further the car goes. When it finally comes to rest the machine’s body has drifted gently in its desperation, skewed against the straight lines of the road, panting.
I step onto the bitumen and stand there in the stink of the clearing smoke. I know Leo must be watching me in his mirror and I wait for him, screw the cap off the bottle and brace myself with a short swig.
Finally, the driver’s door opens. A figure with ragged blond hair steps out, stands to his full, remarkable height. He wears a black suit that doesn’t quite fit because no one makes clothes for people like Leo—long and skinny with limbs like he spent years stretched out on a rack. He doesn’t shut off the motor and he doesn’t close the car door. Just towers over his vehicle, faces me with an odd stillness, too far away for me to hear him if he speaks.
The calm gives this all a sense of showdown.
I can’t help but smile at him, at the slight absurdity of this black wasteland where we’ve come face to face for the first time since we both got kicked out of the same profession, two stick figures on a barren highway, either end of a sad motel. There’s no sound of anything but the soft meter of the Valiant’s engine.
Then I see there’s something in his hand and I stop smiling. It’s a blade, several inches long, bouncing soft light from where it hangs by his lower thigh.
He’s too far away to hear, but I say, ‘Leo?’
Now he goes, beelines across the carpark, crane legs striding metres at a time. I recognise vengeance in the sharp crack his shoes make on the white gravel, in his face as he moves into the light.
‘Wait!’ I break into a run, knowing I won’t get there in time.
With one powerful overarm action Leo buries the knife into the Mitsubishi’s rear tyre. There’s a hiccup and a hiss and the car sinks.
All I can do is shout, ‘No, Leo!’ and throw up my helpless arms.
He silently yanks the blade out and turns serenely to face me as I approach. ‘I owed you that much, didn’t I, John?’
‘Put the knife away. You don’t need it.’
‘Goodness me, John, I don’t intend to use it on you. I am perhaps more likely to get what I came for while I’ve got it in my hand, though, wouldn’t you say?’
I keep a distance, raise the bottle and my other hand in the air. ‘You win, Leo. I’ll take you to Troy. Just put away the knife.’
The planes of his white face, that black coat; his yellow hair and long limbs. He has the look of a scarecrow that’s climbed down from its hoist on some nearby farm to terrorise Yarindarra in the nighttime. Now he strikes a casual pose, enjoying the power of his knife.
‘So you’re working again, Johnny old boy?’
‘Nope.’ I take another hit of the gin. The tipping back of my head causes me to lose balance and I gently reposition myself. ‘This is a one-off.’
Leo looks me over, from my feet to the scar on my brow.
‘Probably just as well. You don’t look as though you could take much more.’
I scratch my nose, force a glum smile.
Leo says, ‘I didn’t expect you to stop for the night. It’s not like you to be so sloppy.’
‘Can you put the knife away?’ I wave the bottle at him. ‘It’s making me nervous.’
Leo shakes his head and is about to say something when the sound of footsteps and a familiar shucking noise turn him towards the motel office.
She must have heard the Valiant’s brakes and me shouting. Now she’s standing outside room two with her glasses dangling from the rope around her neck and an old pump shotgun held up with one hand.
‘I don’t want this shit going on here, boys. You understand? Bloke with the knife, that your car sitting out on the road?’
The gun is a Remington eight-seventy, but it’s hard to be sure in this darkness. It’s levelled at the scarecrow who’s frozen in place, grimacing at her, knowing by her appearance and her rural inflection that she could pull the trigger and sleep fine tonight.
‘Yes it is, as a matter of fact.’
‘Well, off you go then. Enough mucking about.’
He turns to me, his face demanding an explanation. I’m just as surprised as he is.
‘Madam, I am awfully sorry for the intrusion. I’m here on court business. I’ve got documents to—’
‘I don’t give a rat’s what you’re here doing. I’m not having you shouting and waving that thing around in t
he middle of the bloody night. Acting like a bloody idiot. Now I’m telling you to piss off.’
‘Very well…’ He folds the switchblade and drops it into his jacket pocket, edges past me, his hands raised in surrender.
As he passes I say, ‘Give me the subpoena.’
He stops and eyeballs me, inches away.
I say, ‘I’ll serve it.’
His face is all wrinkles and he smirks. ‘No fear.’ But he lingers there like he’s considering it.
‘I’m not going to tell you again,’ she yells, takes another step forward. There’s a biro behind her ear; it’s pointed at Leo, too. ‘You’ve got a vehicle sitting plum in the middle of the bloody highway. You’ll get someone killed.’
Leo shouts over his shoulder, ‘Don’t shoot.’ But he doesn’t go anywhere. He squints at me, at my scar, at the bottle in my hand, at how I’m offering to do his job for him. Then a smile comes across his face.
‘Poor old John Dorn. Something happened to you, didn’t it?’
And he slowly backs away towards the road.
‘Keep going,’ she says, following him with the weapon.
As he steps backwards he sneers, thrusts his chin out, raises his voice so she’ll hear him. ‘I’ll return with the police.’
Then he turns and starts the trek to his car.
We watch him in silence, a loping black-clad nightmare trying to hide his defeat. He folds expertly into the driver’s seat like a spider through its trapdoor and the engine responds with a dip in its whirring beat. He puts it in gear, slams the door shut, straightens the machine on the road and stamps down. The tyres screech goodbye. His lights sweep south, crushing dead animals in their path.
Some showdown.
When I turn back to her she’s tucked the Remington under her arm, taken the biro from behind her ear and she’s writing on a scrap of paper, noting Leo’s plate number.