Sweet One

by Peter Docker

  You need a haircut, constable, says Bremmer. You look like a fucken hippy!

  Look like a professional – act like one, DS Bremmer. You blokes been to the beach?

  And funny too? You’re wasted on the job, says Mapleton.

  They go in.

  So, who have we got here? asks Bremmer.

  I’m Howell.

  I’m Stockbow.

  You the drivers? asks Mapleton.

  They both nod. Bremmer turns to the other woman in the room.

  Who are you? asks Bremmer.

  Rankin. GPL4 supervisor.

  Bremmer nods.

  I want you to write out your statements. Everything you can remember. Dot every t, cross every i. This has got to be watertight. Any questions? Bremmer asks.

  No one responds.

  Constable Hando here will bring you some pads.

  Crew-cutted constable nods and smiles.

  Let’s look at the van, says Bremmer.

  He and Mapleton turn and head out of the room. They take the stairs.

  Do you want me to separate em, DS Bremmer? asks crew-cut.

  Just get their fucken statements, says Bremmer up to crew-cut.

  The two big dees flop down the stairs in their thongs.

  We might have to organise counselling, they both look like shit, says Mapleton.

  Maybe they always look like that, says Bremmer.

  They come off the stairs and head for the back door through the cells area.

  Catch any big waves? calls out the charge sergeant as they go past.

  Fuck off! Bremmer throws back at the sarge.

  The Gloves Are Off

  (Perth, Western Australia)

  Smokey hands Matty the sat phone. Matty crosses to the galley kitchen and puts the gadget in the microwave. He hits ON and fries the device until it crackles and pops to his satisfaction. He opens the microwave and tips the smoking contents into a canvas bag. He heads for the door.

  Where you going?

  Get rid of the shit. Five minutes.

  Smokey stops him at the door. Matty is taller but Smokey is the more powerful. And the more dangerous. Matty is scared of him when he’s been drinking like this.

  Where’s Mel?

  She’s not coming, Smokey. She can’t.

  Tell me where she is.

  I don’t know.

  Smokey grabs him by the throat.

  You better not be lying to me, Matty.

  She wouldn’t tell me where she was. She knew you’d get it out of me.

  Smokey punches the door beside Matty’s head. His fist makes a serious dent in the reinforced wood. Smokey starts to pace back and forth a few steps either side of Matty, who stands near the door with the smoking canvas bag dangling from his hand. Smokey’s grey eyes flick this way and that like the tongue of a serpent tasting the air.

  We gotta get ready, says Smokey, and little globules of clear spittle form at the corners of his mouth.

  What for?

  He’ll be on the move soon. We gotta be ready to move him.

  You’re getting sentenced tomorrow, Smokey.

  So you gotta be fucking ready, he says, and jabs a sharp finger into Matty’s chest.

  Smokey paces.

  Is she with Mort?

  Mort’s gone back, says Matty.

  When it happens, it will be fast.

  Sure, says Matty, and hopes he knows what Smokey is talking about.

  The phone calls have tipped Smokey off into some strange place. First the call from Baal. Then him using a sat phone to call Kandahar. Then someplace else. Matty knows Smokey and Sweet One are from out the goldfields way. But he knows better than to ask anything now. Smokey is crazy when he’s on those pills, and really crazy when he’s not. Smokey goes and sits on Mel’s black leather couch.

  Can I go, Smokey?

  Where?

  Gotta get rid of the sat phone shit.

  The gloves are off, Matty. The fucking gloves are off now!

  Matty looks down at Smokey. Smokey has his head in his hands. His fingers dig at his eyes as if they were earthmoving equipment trying to discover some valuable trace elements deep inside his sockets.

  Death in Custody

  Izzy watches the red numbers intently. Her legs are burning beneath her, her chest pounding, as she pedals. She gets ready as the last three seconds count down, organises her body to change up a big gear: 16:06, 16:07 – 16:08. She stands on the pedals and powers, gives it everything she’s got, at the same time lifting her eyes from the timer to look out the window across the grey city in the grey morning light. Behind her the home phone starts to ring. Again. She hears it, but far off like a baby in a womb hearing the telephone in the apartment next door. Izzy powers. The sweat flies off her as she burns through the sprint. Her eyes drop to the red numbers. 16:18, 16:19 – 16:20. And she drops the power from her legs to coast. But the pedals want to keep going fast. They have a certain momentum. She will just have got control of it and slowed down – when it will be time to sprint again. This is why Izzy loves this interval sprint training. Twelve seconds sprint, eight seconds coast, and go for a minimum of twenty minutes. You don’t get time to think. It is all survival. Counting time, sprinting, resting, and surviving what happens. This is what Josh says combat is like. What Macca says life is like.

  She pumps into the next sprint, standing on the pedals, and gripping the hand-rests with renewed enthusiasm. And finally 20:00 ticks over. Izzy allows her legs to slow until the pedals are only just turning. Behind her, the BlackBerry goes off. ‘Ace of Spades’: Foster. He’s a persistent bastard. Izzy glances back across her open-plan warehouse apartment to where her BlackBerry is sitting on a blacktopped table doing that buzzing thing. She swears. Who left it all the way over there? She wipes the sweat from her face with her gym towel. She pedals on. The phone stops. Then goes again. She swears again and climbs off the exercise bike. She takes a few steps towards the table, when a big wobble hits her thighs. She takes a shorter step with her front foot, and half places it down on a shoe lying there. Izzy topples forward and lands with a smack right on top of the other shoe, right in the face. She swears louder, and crawls the last couple of feet to the table and the BlackBerry ringing.

  Izzy.

  There is a sigh down the line.

  Are you all right?

  Don’t start me, Mister Foster.

  You’re booked on a plane to Perth.

  Perth?

  Then to Baalboorlie.

  Baalboorlie?

  Is there an echo in here?

  Smart-arse.

  Biggest gold and nickel deposits in the world. Maybe you’ve heard of it?

  What’s in Baalboorlie?

  I’ve sent you an email.

  What is it?

  Death in custody.

  In the silence Izzy can hear Foster’s laboured breathing down the phone.

  Another one?

  What can I say? People die. Some of them die in jails.

  Are white people dying in jails?

  People are people to me.

  Can’t you send someone else?

  You’re the expert, Izzy.

  Izzy takes a breath. How can one person be so infuriating?

  I’m not talking to any cops, she says.

  Suit yourself. Just get me a story I can print. An angle I can sell. You’re in the hot seat, Izzy. The cops will talk to you. You didn’t shaft Big Bill.

  Will you let me write it this time?

  Subbing is a natural part of the process. Grow up, Izzy.

  Foster hangs up. Why can’t some madman with an axe go for him?

  Izzy heads for the shower.

  Izzy spends the flight reading. There’s not much. Police being tight-lipped. They don’t want any more stations burnt down. Izzy wrestles with her feelings. Or at least, sifts through them. Data has no meaning without analysis. The Old Man was Aboriginal. They are the most locked up, the most unemployed, the most hospitalised, the most hated ... it almost b
urns out the retinas. The most. Izzy closes her eyes. The aircraft hums all around her. Then she reads about the Old Man. She has her Apocalypse Now moment, looking up and around, certain that she must have been handed the wrong dossier. And ‘dossier’ is a word not used often enough. This can’t be right. He’s not on the ‘most’ list. He’s on a whole other set of lists. An ambassador, a veteran: so how is he dead?

  The Old Man dying in the back of the prison van could be a story from Stalinist Russia. Should be a story from some South American military regime. What’s going on in this country? Australian citizens are killing other Australian citizens. Should be a story from the Taliban. Izzy gets that weird cold feeling in her stomach that she first experienced flying into Tarin Kowt. She tries to shake it off with a cup of tea.

  She gets to Perth and joins the queues of men in big boots, yellow or orange hi-vis shirts, and some carrying hard hats. Salt of the earth, her father would’ve called them. They work their guts out, their marriages and families torn apart by the tyranny of distance, and carry this country on their backs with their taxes and royalties. They smell of cigarettes, sweat, and bourbon and Coke. They talk too loud about where they’re flying to, or where they’re flying from. Or what they’re digging, and how they are digging it, and how deep their hole is. They all look dog-tired. That digging sure looks like it wears a man out.

  On the plane to Baal she is sat next to a big man with a barely maintained goatee and Celtic tattoos who reads Ralph magazine, and grunts with approval each time he turns to a new page plastered with bare bosoms that look like they’ve been blown up with a bicycle pump. Poor lonely bastard, thinks Izzy, and for a moment imagines his big gnarled hands on her own breasts. She told herself over and over that she’d abstain – but by the time the plane lands in Baal she’s drunk three vodka and tonics. She abstained all the way from Melbourne to Perth. How much abstaining can a girl stand? It’s not enough to get rid of the weird cold feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  The airport at Baal is small and the passengers alight from the aircraft via a set of stairs mounted on the back of a small truck. There are a lot of passengers, mainly men, moving around. But the terminal isn’t fooling anyone. It’s a tin shed next to a small dusty airstrip. There is one bored-looking security guard, leaning against a steel strut out the front, and smoking a cigarette. Izzy gets a quick photo of him before he even notices her. The big blokes in mining clobber quickly disperse, and the one taxi is full with a fat bloke in a big white hat and his fat missus. Even their luggage looks fat. And his hat. That looks fat, too. A fat hat. That’s the trouble with vodka, gives the mind a hard edge. Hardened. Honed. Toned. That’s if a hard edge is trouble. Izzy goes up to the security guard.

  Hello.

  The big guy turns to face her, but keeps up his pole-lean.

  Any cabs?

  Where ya goin? he asks.

  Izzy looks around. If they aren’t at the end of the earth, you can probably see it from here. Where is she going to go: The Louvre?

  Into town.

  The big guy stubs out his cigarette.

  I’ll call ya one.

  Thanks.

  He takes out a mobile and dials.

  Yep ... Ready now ... Yep, the airport.

  He hangs up.

  Where ya from?

  Melbourne.

  Fucken too cold, he says, and stalks off back inside the tin shed pretending to be an airport terminal.

  Izzy holds the handle of her carry-on, and waits. After sitting down on the plane, it is good to be finally standing again. She’s got one idea. Which is better than none. She takes out a menthol and lights up. Two drags later an old Ford taxi comes around the corner, and slides in next to her.

  Can I smoke in your cab? she calls.

  Yeah, I don’t give a fuck, love, comes the driver’s voice.

  Izzy climbs into the back and keeps smoking. The driver is a slim bloke in his late fifties, with a weathered dark complexion, long greying hair in the 70s rocker style, and a long wispy Fu Manchu moustache. Izzy feels like she is in a cowboy movie. They smile at each other through the rear-view mirror.

  Where ya goin?

  I want to go to a workshop where they fix car air conditioners.

  Right. There’s two.

  I want the one who had the contract to fix the prison van.

  The driver fixes her with a stare in his rear-view mirror.

  Who are you?

  Izzy. Izzy Langford.

  What are ya? A cop? Coroner’s office?

  Journalist. Melbourne Star.

  I used ta have one when I was a kid.

  What?

  Malvern Star.

  This is the Melbourne Star, it’s a newspaper.

  I know, love. Just kiddin ya. I know exactly where you wanna go.

  The taxi takes off. Izzy takes in Baal. After Melbourne, it is the space that is so different: the width of the streets, the distance between buildings, and sky that takes up more space than earth. And the colour. The red dust has stained everything – as if the whole town was put through a washing machine with a new red dress, and the colour ran. The late afternoon sun accentuates the effect. After about ten minutes, the cab picks its way through the light industrial area, and pulls up out the front of a big shed with BAAL AIR in huge block letters on the office door.

  Is this the place?

  The cops were here this morning, collecting records, and shit. Is that about that old blackfulla getting killed?

  The cops?

  Well, one copper. It’s not their highest priority.

  Did you know him?

  The old bloke? Picked him up once. Everyone reckons good riddance – but I reckon they should hang those fucking screws.

  Who is everyone?

  This ain’t fucken Melbourne, Izzy from the Star. Everyone.

  What’s your name?

  Call me Charlie.

  Can you wait for me, Charlie?

  For you, Izzy, Izzy Langford, from the Melbourne Star – anything.

  Izzy gets out of the cab and heads for the office. As she pushes open the outside door there is a man coming in through the other door, from the workshop. He is a thickset man in his late forties wearing overalls and has the greasy look of an industrial worker. He has something else too, a harried hunted look. He sees her and runs his dirty fingers through his wide goatee.

  Sorry, I’m just closing up.

  Oh. I just wanted to ask you some questions.

  I’m closed.

  Have you got just a minute...

  I told the other lot everything I know.

  I’m a journalist.

  So you can ask them.

  Izzy shifts on her feet, but makes no move to exit.

  I’m trying to run a business. It’s all right for those government bastards, they don’t have to worry about people not paying them.

  Did you fix the aircon on the van?

  They wouldn’t pay for me to do it. I sent it back three times not being fixed. I fixed other things, like the radiator, but the air con was always just too much. And now they’re going to try to pin it on me. I told that bitch Rankin that I wouldn’t let my dog travel in the back of that van down to the shop and back. She never cared!

  And what’s your name?

  Neville Quartermaine. If you quote me I’ll deny everything.

  Did you keep records, Nev?

  I’ve got a fucking photo of a tea towel that they put on the inner pulley wheel that’s been there for six months. They wonder why they can’t get any cold air – what a bunch of fucking idiots!

  You help me, Nev. We’ll shine a light on this.

  I don’t wanna be quoted.

  You won’t be.

  And I don’t wanna be blamed.

  You won’t be. Have you got that photo?

  Nev goes around behind his chaotic desk and brings up the screen on his laptop. Izzy quickly checks the photo that Nev brings up on the screen, then emails it to herself.

&nbs
p; Thanks, Nev. I’ll be in touch.

  Izzy turns and strides out of the office, and back out to the cab.

  Can you take me to Somerset?

  Somerset? Four hours, at least, says Charlie.

  Then we can be there by nine thirty.

  Maybe.

  And home by two.

  If I drive out there, I’m sleeping. I’ve been on all day.

  You wanna take me, Charlie?

  Charlie fixes her with a good long look.

  The taxi takes off.

  A Picture

  The taxi takes a couple of turns and they find themselves in a tight little street with old workers’ cottages lining both sides. Down the end there is one free-standing brick house on a larger block. Charlie pulls into this house, and parks on the front lawn to the left of the driveway. In the driveway is a Nissan Patrol ute. There is a swag and other gear in the tray back.

  What are we doing here? asks Izzy.

  Changing vehicles. I don’t know if they’ve got any LPG in Somerset.

  What about price? asks Izzy.

  Are you paying Cab Charge?

  Diners Club.

  Don’t worry about it, then. Chuck ya stuff in the ute.

  Charlie jumps out and heads for the front door, where he is greeted by a woman with long blonde hair. She is a little too old to be still going for that level of blonde, but she is getting away with it, thinks Izzy. Hard edge getting softer. The two go into the house. Izzy gets out, and grabs her bag, which she puts into the cabin of the Patrol. She takes out her phone and dials.

  Hello?

  Macca, it’s Izzy.

  Izzzzzy!

  You all right, Macca?

  Beautiful, my girl.

  You having a beer, Macca?

  Still! Still having one. It’s been the same one my whole fucking life!

  Macca, I’m in Baalboorlie. The Wild West.

  The Wild West. Oh, shit Izzy, we heard about that thing! That fucking thing!

  Macca – it’s not cops. Private contractors. Cops had nothing to do with it.

  Thank the fuck lord for that!

  Yeah. Listen, Macca – you got any mates here?

  Dilly-On! The bloody prick! He’s there! Dillon. Senior Cunt-stable Dillon!

  Thanks Macca. Have one for me!

  Love ya, my girl! You’ve always been a...