by Peter Docker
After a long time, Mort starts laughing. Izzy starts to laugh as well.
It was his laugh, says Mort.
They both laugh like crazy people as the memory of Josh’s laugh froths around them in the car.
His laugh, and his shooting, says Izzy.
This sets Mort up a fresh path of laughter.
His laugh ... And his shooting...
They laugh. Cry a bit more.
You want to fuck? asks Mort.
Right here in the front seat?
Yeah.
Good idea, Izzy says.
They rip their gear off and fuck right there in the front seat.
Straight to Hell
A phone in the centre console starts to ring. Izzy is slumped on top of Mort in the passenger seat. She lifts her head. They look at the console. Izzy pushes herself up and off Mort with two hands on his shoulders. She opens the door and climbs out. The interior light should come on but doesn’t. Izzy shrugs the thought off. Mort would adjust those type of things: SOP. She stands next to the car struggling back into her clothes as Mort leans across, opens the console, and takes out his phone.
You got my message? Mort asks.
Izzy’s eyes flick onto Mort. She didn’t notice him send a message.
When are you moving our friend? asks Mort.
...Convoy?
...Fuck.
...Send me the numbers of the transport officers.
Mort pulls his strides back up, and clambers across into the driver’s seat. He starts the car.
You coming?
Where you headed?
Straight to hell.
I’m in.
Izzy climbs into the car, and Mort takes off at speed. His phone makes a noise. With one hand on the wheel and the other on his phone, he quickly enters a process, and a map appears on the small screen. He floors it. Izzy puts on her seatbelt. Izzy looks at the gadget.
Is this how you found me?
Yep. You know that.
Yep. I know the rules, Izzy concedes.
The executive sedan races through the night. The car passes Toyota after Toyota going both ways, the lifeblood of the mines. Mort glances down at the screen on his device. He slows the car. He stops near the top of a long slow hill, angling the car so that the headlights shine off the highway. He looks off into the bush at the left. Izzy follows his gaze. There’s a track with fresh tyre marks, leading off into the black nothingness. Mort swings the big car off the highway and onto the dirt track. He leans across in front of Izzy and retrieves a handgun from the glove compartment. One of those big Israeli Army gas-auto jobs.
Shit, Mort.
You said you knew the rules.
After a minute or so the headlights pick up the white Isuzu near what looks like the entrance to an old disused gravel pit. All the doors are open. Mort parks the car, and gets out, with his pistol barrel preceding his eye movements. Izzy follows behind, with her reassembled BlackBerry ready to shoot. Mort goes first to the prisoner modules, they are both empty. He stands over the body of Captain Trim Beard. He kneels and rolls the body over. He swears under his breath. He stands and moves to the cabin. Izzy takes a couple of shots.
He doesn’t fuck around, she says.
Mort looks in the front and sees the two dead GPL4 blokes, Farley and Suporio. He lowers his pistol. Izzy comes around the corner and takes some shots of the bloody cabin and its bloody occupants.
Mort feels the front of the Isuzu where it rubbed against the muddy Toyota with his fingers.
Did he ram them?
More than one now. At least one driver and one shooter.
What does that mean?
It’s growing. Like a fucken cancer. And now Smokey.
Do you know him?
He is as mad as a cut snake, and as cunning as a shithouse rat.
That’s a lot of metaphors. Sounds like you like the guy.
You’re the one pretending to be his missus.
Is that a green monster in your eye, Mort?
No, I’m just pleased to see you.
Mort stows his weapon in a holster on his belt.
You know the driver, Izzy.
She looks over. Mort’s gaze is unwavering.
How could I?
Come off it. You’re in it. They want you in it, too. Tell me, who is the first person you think of?
She thinks of Xavier, but looks away into the night in case he can read the name in her face.
I’m not a player in the story, Mort.
Yes you are. You’re a bad liar. You visited Smokey. They moved him. Now he’s out. Loose. A good man is dead.
Three dead men.
Yeah, three.
You have your filter on too, Mort. Does no one else count as human but those from your world?
We served together. Under fire together.
Well, you didn’t protect him in this, did you?
Mort holds her gaze for a while. She doesn’t fuck around, either.
Mort goes over to his car and grabs his comms unit and dials.
How many times do you want to underestimate him? You fucken idiot! he shouts into the phone.
...Don’t forget yours.
...He engineered the visit – you fuck!
...Good! Fucking great!
Mort hangs up. Izzy takes some more shots of the truck.
Trouble in Camelot? asks Izzy.
You got enough good shots?
Izzy stashes her BlackBerry and comes over to the car. She eyeballs him across the roof.
I want this shit stopped. I want my job back. Officially. You can track what I’m doing easier. I’m still working. I need to get paid. I’m embedded here.
Yeah, cause embedding went so well for you last time.
It went about as well as this. I’m not kidding, Mort. Call who you have to and convince them. I’m not the enemy. I’ve been a step ahead of you every time.
You’ve been dancing to his tune.
So what? What have you been doing? Overdosing junkie witnesses.
I had nothing to do with that.
But you told them what I said. You knew what would happen.
Mort drops his head. He gets into the car and Izzy follows.
And I want my bloody laptop back!
That wasn’t me.
Do you do anything?
Why should I help you? You gonna tell me what you know?
I’ll share.
You better.
He swings the car around and they head back to the highway. Two more 4WDs caked in dust trundle past. Mort swears.
Too Good
Queenie pulls the Landie into Uncle Wadi’s camp. She switches off the engine, and stares straight ahead.
You’re quiet, Queenie says.
Yeah, agrees Izzy.
That soft hotel bed messing you up?
Probly.
Izzy tries to smile – but can’t. Queenie looks down at the steering wheel.
You lose someone, Aunty?
Izzy’s lip quivers.
Yes.
Who you lose, Aunty?
Izzy looks at Queenie.
Why are you calling me ‘Aunty’?
My grandfather called your father ‘brother’ once. That makes you my aunty.
Your grandfather? I thought he was ... Jamu for him?
Queenie shakes her head, as if to say ‘Come on, Izzy, you knew this.’ Her dark eyes look off into the distance.
They got nother relationship.
Oh.
Your man? Queenie asks.
Izzy nods slowly.
I lost my man ... the only man I ever wanted to be my man ... I lost him...
She sits in the Landie and weeps. Queenie is weeping too.
Him a soldier? ... Your man?
Izzy can’t reply. She nods, two big curly nods, until her heads comes to rest on her chest.
We are born to this, Aunty. We are soldier families. Our men are warriors.
He was too good for them, I’ll tell you tha
t, my niece. HE WAS TOO GOOD FOR THEM!
Queenie puts her arm around her aunty, and holds her tight with both hands on her shoulders. Izzy can feel the warmth of Queenie’s hands.
They take away everything good! EVERYTHING GOOD!
The two women sit and weep for a long time.
Eventually, Izzy catches sight of her own reflection in the windscreen of the Landie. Her tight curls have run completely wild. Her eyes are red, puffy, and wet. And a big drop of clear viscous liquid is dripping from her nose.
I look like a wreck!
Queenie looks at her own reflection.
Best place to hide a wreck is in a whole uteload of wrecks.
Izzy smiles a hard, sad smile.
I need a fag, Izzy says.
Those things will fucken kill ya.
Hopefully.
They get out of the Landie laughing. They wash their faces under a tap at the side of the shed. Izzy lights up a fag. She puts on her sunnies.
After a while, Uncle Wadi comes out of his place. He talks to Queenie in desert language.
Uncle Wadi says Macca will call soon. You all right, Aunt?
Izzy nods. She goes inside the shed. She walks up to the old phone and it starts to ring.
Macca.
Izzy.
Macca takes a breath. Izzy hears him light a smoke.
I saw the news, Izzy.
A sob catches in her throat like an errant fishbone.
Are you all right, Izzy?
I’m OK.
You with people?
Yeah. Good people.
You don’t wanna go home?
I’m here to do a job, Macca. Josh would want me to follow through.
Yeah.
Izzy wipes her eyes with the back of her sleeve.
Dillon reckons the arresting cops for Howell and Stockbow – Bremmer and Mapleton – didn’t separate them, says Macca. They allowed them to sit in a room with their supervisor for three hours to get their stories straight, or that’s what it looks like.
And Smithers, the sergeant from Somerset, remanded the Old Man in custody with no authority to do so. Then he convened an illegal court with the local JP, who exceeded his powers to commit the Old Man to transport to Baalboorlie, at the very least ... And then the cop who allowed the Old Man to get into the prisoner transport when he knew the aircon wasn’t working...
They both breathe as though they’ve come tumbling down a massive sandhill, and flopped down at the bottom.
You in Perth, Macca?
Yep.
Any joy with your SAS contacts?
The trail for Sweet One stops at a thing called BlackCu. A CIA operation in Northern Pakistan run by a Navy Seal called Thorpe. No one wants to talk much.
I bet they don’t.
Izzy nods to herself and mentally takes the note. If she actually imagines the act of writing things down, then those things go in, and aren’t forgotten. She learnt long ago that imagining writing things is also much faster than actually writing things.
How well did Dad know the Old Man?
They were in the shit together.
I know that.
Snowy and him ended up working for the CIA in Saigon. I wasn’t part of that. Didn’t agree with what they were...
Macca’s voice trails away. Izzy waits. Macca collects himself.
Your father went to Baal, at least twice ... We weren’t close at the time. We’d had a falling out.
I didn’t know any of this, Macca.
Listen Izzy; don’t get caught up in anything.
I am caught up, Macca. We all are.
I gotta go, Izzy.
Izzy hangs up. It’s hard to pin Macca down. Is he being a copper, or a father? Or a soldier? She knows that when she saw that craziness in Smokey’s eyes she recognised it. Is this why she keeps falling for soldiers? That look in Macca’s eye when he is six beers in. She goes outside. Queenie and Uncle Wadi are talking in Language. Queenie gets up.
Do you know ngapartji ngapartji?
What is it?
It is a way of being for us desert people. Literally it means – I give you something, you give me something.
OK.
You need to see something.
Izzy nods.
But first – you gotta be smoked.
Uncle Wadi steps away.
Queenie waves her over to the fire. She places a big switch of certain green leaves on the fire. The smoke rises to engulf them both and Queenie sings a blessing in desert language. She takes the hot leaves, and presses them into the bare shoulders of Izzy.
Clear your mind, Aunty. Clear your spirit.
She puts the leaves back into the fire to warm them, and repeats the process over and over. When it looks like the leaves might burst into flame, at the very last moment Queenie puts it out with her water bottle. She speaks in English and in desert language. Izzy feels the heat and the smoke seeping into her, blowing right through her. Finally, Queenie is finished. She chucks the remaining leaves into the fire, and heads for the Landie, her hand signal telling Uncle Wadi what she is doing.
Old Tyre Camp
They drive down through Big Rock, stopping only once to let three armoured personnel carriers trundle past. Queenie and Izzy watch the steel war machines in silence, both caught in their own thoughts. First they drive up the access road to the lookout over the super pit. Queenie stops the Landie, and they gaze out over one of the biggest and richest open-cut mines in the world. The scale of it is vast, measured in kilometres, not metres. A steady stream of Haulpaks carrying ore coming up out of the hole, and empty ones going down to be filled, crisscross the pit. It is like looking at some unholy ant colony, where the scale of it makes the observer feel giddy. They climb out of the vehicle to look at the big hole.
The brainchild of Alan Bond, comments Izzy.
Do you know Alan?
Not personally.
I met him once at Wooroloo, says Queenie.
Wooroloo?
Prison farm near Perth. I was visiting my uncle. Alan was the receptionist. All the prisoners have jobs.
He was a prick.
Seemed like a little old man to me, comments Queenie. Somebody’s grandfather.
Yeah, that’s how Rupert comes across.
You know Rupert Murdoch?
Met him once ... Not in a jail!
Pity.
They laugh. They look out for a bit longer, and then climb back into the Landie. Queenie drives back down the hill, and goes left. The road wheels leisurely to the left, curling around the massive mound of dirt that is the mine. On the other side of the road are big open square sewerage ponds that are part of the mining town’s sanitation system. Between the road and the mine there is an area fenced off by cyclone fencing. Inside the enclosure, amongst the sparse scrub, there are stacks of monstrous tyres. They look like they are the old tyres from the giant ore-carrying Haulpaks. There are a couple of three-sided tin sheds, just posts with corrugated iron sheets hammered onto the outside. There are a few small fires, and groups of Aboriginal people sitting around. Against the backdrop of the gargantuan mound of dirt, it seems impossible that the people should be here. The absurd juxtaposition of the empty nothingness of the poverty of the people against the vast display of the wealth of the open-cut mine is so ridiculous that it should be funny, the design of a god with a sardonic sense of humour. But the demeanour of the poor souls in that tyre yard does not lend the watchers to any expressions of humour.
Queenie turns the Land Rover into the Old Tyre Camp and stops near the open gate.
They know this car. I’ll give them a minute to realise we’re here.
Izzy looks in to where the mob is sitting. No one there seems to look over in their direction. The people who are moving around all appear to be in slow motion, as though they are walking at the bottom of the vast inland sea that was here three hundred million years ago. Izzy is thinking about bombed-out villages in Afghanistan. She remembers seeing a thirty-million-dollar main ba
ttle tank parked outside the remnants of a village made of mud. The Americans had been attacking some enemy combatants in the front building, and had killed a family of six living three houses away, the fifty-cal rounds simply passing straight through all the mud buildings.
Queenie nods to herself. She drives very slowly into the Old Tyre Camp, and parks over near the fence, a good distance from the closest group by the fire.
The camps are mostly divided into language groups, Queenie says. Most of these people are from communities to the east, out in the desert. They come to town for hospital, dialysis, court, visit family, visit family in jail. Some get caught up in drinking cycle. Some never leave. Some come especially to drink. Some are on the run from tribal punishment. Our Law is stricter than yours. Some are avoiding ceremony. The main camp is in the railway yard, says Queenie, and points with her lips back towards town.
Izzy can see a lot of people about a kilometre away. Izzy and Queenie climb out of the vehicle. In the distance they can hear sirens going off in the mine. Izzy looks to Queenie.
They’re going to blast, says Queenie.
They take a few more steps before the rumbling explosion touches their ears, and shakes the ground beneath their feet.
Cha-ching! says Queenie with a smile.
Her cheeky cash register noise is funny in this setting. Poverty has a noise too. And a smell. After a little while the sharp smell from the explosives in the mine drifts across the fringe-dweller camp. They look back to see a white van pulling into the front gate.
Dialysis transport, says Queenie.
They pick people up, take them to dialysis, and drop them back here?
Queenie nods.
Sometimes you can get the drivers to stop for Coke for the kids.
As if on cue, they watch three boys aged about ten run up to the front of the van as it pulls up near one of the tin shanties. Two white people get out, and hand a can of Coke to each of the three boys. They open their Cokes, and go skipping away into the straggly scrub with their sugar and caffeine hits. The white people help one old lady out of the van. One of them gets out her wheelchair from the back, and they sit her in it. Then they go into the shanty and help an old fulla out, and into the van. Once he is secured, they climb back in, and drive back out the front gate.
Those two lads; don’t look them in the eye, warns Queenie.