Sweet One

by Peter Docker

  Mister Foster?

  Good girl, Izzy. That’s what I’m talking about! I’m leading with yours on the website. It’s already stacking up the hits, and it’s the middle of the night back here in civilisation. We’ll go front page on the next edition. Not tomorrow, too late.

  Thanks, Mister Foster.

  Izzy rolls her eyes at Charlie like she is a kid talking to her parents.

  Good photo, too. Is that true that a photo of the Old Man can’t be used because of cultural sensitivity?

  I heard it somewhere when I was doing the Psalm Island series.

  They should use that protocol when our lads get killed in Afghanistan.

  That’s what Macca reckons. I’m surprised to hear it from you, though.

  Those lads have got mothers. And despite rumours to the fucking contrary, I do have a heart, Izzy Langford.

  Izzy doesn’t know what to say.

  You’re back, Izzy! You’re back! That’s the main thing, he laughs down the phone.

  Mister Foster, if the subbing of this story goes the same way as the Big Bill thing –

  Hey! Hey, Izzy! Foster comes in, cutting her off.

  Charlie mock flinches at the volume of Foster’s Old Melbourne accent coming through the phone.

  We’re here now, says Foster.

  All right, I’m just saying – I’ll be going with–

  OK! OK! You’re breaking up! Great story Izzy!

  And the line goes dead. Charlie gives Izzy a look. Izzy shrugs.

  Bosses. What can I say?

  It’s why I work for myself, Izzy.

  I can see the advantages.

  Charlie stands.

  I’m going to set up me swag.

  She gets up and opens the door for him. Outside the motel room, the car park is now full. Cars line the building, and the spindly hedge. All the mineworkers, drillers, and prospectors are now in their rooms. Missionaries, misfits, and mercenaries – that’s what they say. That’s who comes here. Izzy briefly wonders which one she is. She hears a noise, and looks down towards Tom’s office.

  Tom is just coming out of his office. He has an Aboriginal girl with him who he grips tightly by the upper arm. She does not struggle against him. Tom drags her down to a room two doors before Izzy’s room. Charlie ignores the scene, and climbs up into the tray of his Patrol to unroll his swag on the foam mattress that he has put there for exactly this purpose. The door opens to the motel room. At that moment the Aboriginal girl looks up to see Izzy staring at her. Dark eyes blaze into blue. Brown eyes have nothing – blue have everything, that look seems to say. Izzy is thinking about the teenage girls she saw trafficked in and around the opium industry in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The First World isn’t that different to the Third World. Everything looks different, looks more opulent – everything except the look in the eye of those who are helpless to resist the power. That look in the eye is the same the world over. A look that Westerners have trained themselves not to see.

  A white man grabs the arm of the Aboriginal girl, and she is pulled inside his room. The door closes. Tom glances at Izzy: a challenge. Izzy wants to say something. To do something. She thinks about Josh over there with his Rules of Engagement. She knows that she’d be a crap soldier, because right now, if she had a weapon – she would discharge it multiple times right into the centre of Tom’s slowly spreading shit-eating grin. Rules, or no rules.

  Nice night for it, Tom says, turns away, and shuffles back down to his office.

  Izzy watches him go without a word, imagining machine-gun and tracer rounds pounding into Tom’s back. She takes the two steps to the back of the Patrol, where Charlie is climbing into his swag.

  So, how does it work? she asks.

  Tom is a loan shark. Everyone owes him money that they can’t pay back.

  By ‘everyone’ – you mean Aboriginal people?

  Yep. The banks won’t give them anything. So they come to Tom. If you are a motel customer – for a hundred bucks you get a black girl. Tom knocks fifty bucks off their loan, and pockets fifty.

  How do such young girls run up debts?

  Might not be the girl. Could be her uncle, father, grandmother, whatever.

  Your father should have said – where there are white penises, there is a sex trade.

  Spoken like a true Eastern Stater, says Charlie, lying down.

  Izzy sits slumped in her little brown room. She pours herself a cup of red from the new bottle. She looks at the clock radio beside the bed. Almost midnight. Tarin Kowt is three and a half hours behind. Izzy flips open her laptop, and brings up Skype. She drinks the cup of red wine straight down. She gets up, and refills the teacup. She paces in front of the TV. She pulls out a menthol cigarette, lights it, and hurls her lighter at the NO SMOKING sign. She paces and smokes. Smokes and paces. She smokes the menthol down and stubs out the remainder in the ball of sandwich foil. She throws the foil ball into the plastic bin near the door. Macca said she should only contact him if it was an emergency. Otherwise she should write.

  She sits on the bed, and hits the Skype icon for Josh. It’s an emergency.

  The ethernet beeps and crackles with expectant electronic noise, and Josh appears on the screen. His head is down, with his eyes looking up at the inbuilt camera. Since she saw him off at the Gold Coast Airport, he appears to have aged ten years. How many days ago was that? How many hours? This can’t be right. He has lost weight, and has heavy dark bags under his eyes.

  Josh?

  Izzy?

  His eyes flick around the bunker where he is.

  I didn’t think you’d be there, she says.

  She sees his image nod. It’s as if he answered the Skype request without realising what he was doing.

  Well, I am.

  And then nothing. No Josh laugh. Just the hazy electronic silence, and the jerky Skype image. When Izzy hit DIAL, she was hoping for one little burst of laughter from Josh. Because she knows that then she would laugh. Could laugh. She aches for that laugh to fill her when all she has is nicotine and alcohol. And they don’t fill anything. They just dig deeper holes. And here she is, in a little brown motel room in the land of hole diggers, talking to a computer screen.

  I can’t talk now, Izzy.

  Can I Skype you tomorrow?

  We’re going out tomorrow.

  Josh looks at his watch. Izzy sees that he is holding a pistol in his left hand.

  What is it, Josh?

  Josh’s eyes swing back to the screen, as though he had totally forgotten that Izzy even existed. Macca told her about this. He reckoned that the modern comms make it even harder for soldiers. He reckons it was easier to go, and not to talk until you are face-to-face again. No phone calls, no emails, no Skype. He reckons it’s even worse for the spouses, too – watching their men in this other dark space as they try to put on brave faces, and remember about the things of the real world.

  What? asks Josh.

  What is it, Josh?

  You know, I told ya about Sads, the sapper who got wounded, and I had to look after his dog, well – he asked me to.

  Izzy’s mind races over everything they talked about in the hotel room in the Gold Coast. He never mentioned anything about this.

  Yeah, she says.

  And the dog went missing, while I was on leave ... Well, we found the dog.

  Oh, exclaims Izzy, feeling the lump come into her throat.

  The Taliban got him, poured petrol on him, and lit him up. It was the burnt fur stink that led us to him. Then there was a firefight. Short and sweet, comes his voice through the machine.

  Izzy bites her lip. He must have gotten off the plane, and gone out straightaway. What is going on? Josh’s eyes flick around the bunker.

  And now we’re going out again. Well – fucking bring it on, says Josh.

  There is a silence. Izzy feels like she is watching Josh drowning in slow motion.

  Well, keep your head down, my man, she says quietly.

  Josh focuses on something
past his screen.

  We’ll fucking see, says Josh.

  Izzy isn’t sure what to say. She wants to hold him.

  And don’t call again, says Josh suddenly.

  What?

  Just leave me alone. Don’t call again.

  Josh?

  I don’t want you to wait for me. I don’t want anything!

  Josh?

  I know about Teddy, and Phil!

  Josh?

  I gotta go.

  And the screen goes blank. Izzy drinks wine from her teacup. She paces. This can’t be happening. She retrieves her lighter, and lights another smoke. Dig the hole deeper. She wants to scream. She wants to be sad. To cry. A single tear wends its way out of her left eye. She quickly wipes away the offending moisture with her sleeve. That tear was angry, not sad. Burns like acid. This bubble of anger, not sad. She is angry with Josh. Why mention Teddy and Phil? She is angry with the sapper. Why get wounded? She is angry with the Taliban. With the damn dog. With Macca for being right. With herself for being stupid. She drinks another toast to her own stupidity. She wanted to tell Josh that she loves him. She wanted to say how the entire rest of the world can fuck off and die, as long as she is in his arms, looking into his eyes. She wants to remember their endless languid lovemaking, but when she closes her eyes, all she can see is a dog on fire, running this way and that, and screaming out from the pain.

  Big Bill

  (Gold Coast, Queensland)

  Feel the Law. It is here. All around. He feels it flow up through him from the earth beneath his socked feet. The man with many names feels the Law blow through him like a soft wind barely disturbing the leaves hanging from his branches. The power of the Law is unknowable and undeniable. The Law comforts and terrifies. Returns all things to order. The rising sun badge–shaped burn on his lower guts aches with the power of the Law. He wriggles his toes in his socks like he’s done a thousand times on a thousand parade grounds. He breathes in the sweetness of the frangipanis. He stands in the shadows of the garden barely half a step from the pebblecrete pathway leading from the front door to the front gate, and the street beyond. It’s a warm humid night on the Gold Coast. His breathing is regular and his mind is calm. The man allows the telescoping metal police baton that he is holding so that the shaft is hidden up behind his forearm to slip down into a fighting grip. He waits.

  Eventually he hears them coming from inside. Big Bill is the loudest. They’ve all drunk a bit of piss, and as usual, Big Bill has drunk the most. Macca brought a carton of XXXX, and when it was finished, Big Bill insisted on a couple of Jim Beams for the road. And Big Bill mixes a big drink. They prop just inside the front door, indistinct figures behind opaque glass, laughing and shaking hands, and slapping each other on the back, as though they’d been watching the game on TV – and the Maroons won.

  Then the door opens, and the three blokes spill out into the light by the front door. Detective McIntyre and Detective Oliver are both big men, but Senior Sergeant Bill Furphy towers over them.

  Call me tomorrow, says Olly.

  Fuck off. You call me, says Big Bill.

  What a pair of bastards, says Macca, and staggers on the pebblecrete.

  If he’d taken one more step, one little totter, and gone off the path, he would’ve bumped into the man standing silent and still in the shadows; the man with the Law flowing through him like water. That would’ve been the last thing Macca ever did. Macca catches himself, and he and Olly head for the gate.

  Are you blokes all right to drive? calls out Big Bill, and the note of mock-concern in his voice sets them all off laughing.

  Blow in the bag? I’ll fucken piss in it! laughs Olly.

  Your dick would probly fit in the nozzle, says Big Bill.

  Like I said, a pair of bastards, says Macca.

  Olly and Macca laugh their way out to the brand new Commodore parked out the front. They jump in, with Macca behind the wheel.

  Don’t forget to call me tomorrow, yells Olly.

  You plain-clothes are all up yourselves, yells Big Bill.

  The car takes off and Big Bill stands in the front yard watching them go.

  He turns and goes back up the pebblecrete and opens the front door.

  Something makes him turn back towards the street. Not a sound, or even a movement in the corner of his eye – just that sense that made him a good copper once, before all this Psalm Island shit. Big Bill turns to see a man standing on his path, only a few steps away. The fact that he hasn’t seen or heard this man enter the frame should’ve sent Big Bill’s alarm bells ringing. The grog makes you weak. Big Bill meets the man’s gaze, and for a moment he thinks he recognises him. But he doesn’t. They all look the fucken same anyway. That’s what his grog-soaked brain is telling him. Maybe it is a quality in the man’s eyes that he recognises. Maybe he sees the same thing when he looks in the mirror. Maybe killers of men are stained by it, the blemish on show in the eyes, available to all those who know how to look.

  Whaddayou fucken want? Big Bill asks, the grog making him sound slightly too loud, and slightly too confident.

  The man’s gaze is unwavering. Big Bill stares down at him, expecting some reaction. There is none. Big Bill is not used to struggling to hold eye contact with anyone.

  Well, fuck off then! Big Bill says, and turns to go inside.

  The Law man takes two steps, flicking the metal baton out to its full length, and collects Big Bill a terrific blow behind the knee. Big Bill starts to fall, and even before he hits the deck, he is rocked by a second blow to the side of the head. He falls facedown, half in the front door and half out. The man in dark clothing steps over him and the baton smashes down on his hands, first the right, then the left. Big Bill is still conscious, and the pain from his broken hands sizzles up his arms and explodes into his grog-affected brain.

  Ya fucken cunt, burbles out of him, and he realises that his jaw is broken.

  The man grabs him by both broken hands, and drags him into the house.

  Big Bill is over a hundred kilos but he is moved quickly by his assailant.

  That quick drag makes Big Bill afraid. Too efficient. Like he’s done it before.

  Big Bill kicks his legs like a rugby player being tackled, trying to get them up and underneath his big body when he is hit in the right forearm, and hears his own bones break.

  Ya fucken dead ... Ya fucken...

  And the left forearm is broken. Big Bill is still trying to organise his battered body into standing when the man from the darkness drops his full weight into him with a knee-strike to his liver. This flattens his body onto the terracotta flagstones. Now the terror grips Big Bill. Now he knows.

  He killed a man with this move. Now it’s coming at him. From a man who stepped out of the darkness, and floored him before he knew what was happening. He is trying to suck air in through his nose. Blood is bubbling out of his face. He is trying to crawl when the next knee-drop goes into his liver. Now he is still. The knee-drops to his liver go on and on. It is the last thing he will remember. Finally, the man from the darkness rests. The man drops the baton next to Big Bill, and bends over him to check for a pulse at the throat. There is nothing.

  The man lets himself out the front door.

  Got a Job

  The sound of an engine wakes him. He opens his eyes, and without lifting his head watches the headlights of the other vehicle sweep across the car park. A door opens and he hears the sound of a big bunch of keys jiggling over the surf beyond. He lifts his head a little and sees the white ute with Gold Coast City Council insignia on the doors parked near the amenity block. A bloke in green council uniform unlocks the doors to the ladies, then the gents. He looks at the clock on the dashboard of the stolen Camry. 4:30 am. He slumps back down. The council ute drives away. The Camry is the only car parked in the car park above the beach but the council bloke doesn’t notice it, it is so completely cloaked in its ordinariness. And why would he be looking? People come down here for early morning jogs, walks, yoga
, or surfing all the time.

  The man gets out of the Camry and crosses to the toilet block carrying a large plastic bag. Out to the east the sun is just rising over the South Pacific Ocean. He’s never liked the sea much. He is a freshwater man, a desert man. The toilet block is austere concrete and steel. He quickly divests himself of his plain black gear. He checks the dressing on his burn. The earlier exertion has made it weep. He gingerly pats the wound dry, and replaces the dressing. He gets into his next costume – the orange-reflector hi-vis shirt, jeans, and big boots. The mirror in the toilet block is one of those buffed steel jobs, the council got sick of replacing the proper mirrors every time the schoolies are in town. He can’t see himself clearly in the metal mirror under the fluorescent light but he knows that the ridiculous shiny orange look is perfect. Hide in plain sight. Where he is going the whole place will be swarming with blokes dressed like this. He tops it all off with a Jack Daniel’s baseball cap which he pulls down low. The best place to hide a machine gun is in an enormous stack of machine guns. He puts the black clothes in the plastic bag and goes back to the Camry.

  He drives to the airport, stopping only to deposit the bag in a St Vincent de Paul donations bin in a shopping centre car park. Maybe in a month a truck will come and empty the bin, taking it to a big warehouse for sorting. They might not even notice the blood. At 5:20am he is boarding a plane for Adelaide. No one looks twice at the fit-looking Aboriginal man in the mining attire. Fly-in fly-out, they’re all thinking. At least you’ve got a job. Good on ya, mate.

  Ex-Parrot

  Her phone goes off: ‘Ace of Spades’. Izzy opens her eyes. She is facedown on the brown bedspread, and still fully clothed. She has a ciggie butt between her fingers, and a big burn-hole in the brown bedspread where she fell asleep with it still lit. She swears. Could’ve burnt the whole place down. Pity. ‘Ace of Spades’ goes on and on. Doesn’t that prick ever sleep? Where is the bloody BlackBerry? She pulls herself up off the bed, carefully unpeeling her face from the bedspread. Dribbled while she slept. Her BlackBerry is in a fold of the brown bedspread. She grabs it.