True West
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TRUE
WEST
DAVID
WHISH-
WILSON
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David Whish-Wilson was born in Newcastle, NSW, but grew up in Singapore, Victoria and WA. He left Australia aged
eighteen to live for a decade in Europe, Africa and Asia. He is the author of The Summons, and three crime novels in the Frank Swann series: Line of Sight, Zero at the Bone and Old Scores. His most recent novel, The Coves, was published by Fremantle Press in 2018. His non-fiction book, Perth, part of the NewSouth Books city series, was shortlisted for a WA Premier’s Book Award. David lives in Fremantle and
coordinates the creative writing program at Curtin University.
TRUE
WEST
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For Andrew
PART I
WESTERN AUSTRALIA, 1988
1.
Lee Southern drove with his palm against the steering
wheel. He liked to feel the machinery blow in its tight iron constellation while he held the picture in his mind. The
Ford F350 felt like an extension of his body and like him it was seventeen years old. Lee’s father had bought it on the day that Lee was born. The minute he heard that Lee’s mother
was in labour he drove to the Geraldton Ford dealership and bought the F350 utility with its 351 Cleveland engine and
straight green paint job.
Lee rested his arm on the driver’s sill and let his hand
wobble in the wind. The sun was headed toward the horizon
and he could smell the baked limestone crests that rose and fell alongside him like the flanks of a snake. The floor of the tuart and banksia scrublands was covered in purple, blue,
pink, white and yellow wildflowers. Spring was his favourite season but he wasn’t looking at the flowers today.
Lee glanced in his wing mirror like he’ d been doing the
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last five hours. They would be coming for him if they weren’t already. Some of them on bikes, some of them in their tricked-up Landy 4WDs.
The Knights would be coming as soon as they discovered
their latest five-acre plantation had been destroyed: cropped to the base of the stalk and raked into mounds and set on fire with diesel.
Lee still had ash and dirt and the smell of mary-jane smoke on his hands, jeans and t-shirt. He’ d left the acreage before dawn with the orange flames pumping flak-gun smuts into
the bluing sky.
Lee patted the dash of the truck and eased on the acceler-
ator. Just thinking about what he’ d done made him speed. The Knights would be looking for his father’s Holden Sandman,
with its swirling death’s-head decals along the sides and its Knights01 plates – bestowed upon Jack Southern as first president of the club. Now that Lee’s father was missing, Lee’ d been ordered to return the plates to Greg Downs, the new
Knights president and probable killer of his father. Instead, Lee had gone and torched their plantation.
Lee put his hand on the wheel and felt the tappets beating
their quiet rhythm and the pistons firing and all of it a
controlled dance of fire and fuel. The Ford F350 truck had
been parked under a tarp at his uncle Gary’s block outside
Dongara. It was unlicensed and untraceable – the perfect
vehicle for him to escape in.
Lee reached for the dash and took out a cigarette. The truck kept on straight without his hands on the wheel because of al 8
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the weight. It was fitted out to provide him with an income when he got to the city. Last week, Lee and his uncle Gary had cut off the ute-bed and replaced it with an iron sheet. There were blocks of pig-iron bal ast in the engine bay to balance out the home-crafted towing rig they’ d bolted to the iron sheet.
Onto that, Lee and his uncle had welded a winch scavenged
from a Mack truck. A steel box filled with dollies and canvas slings and stands, chocks and jacks. A diesel generator and air compressor. Air cushions taken from his father’s fifty-foot trawler. Snatch blocks and spare chain. Heavy-duty rope and steel cable. Bridles and skates and arrow sticks. A shovel and broom and tarpaulin. A toolbox and first-aid kit.
There was a whine that became a throaty roar and Lee took
the wheel and stared in the wing mirror until he saw the
riders. He was rolling at one hundred but they were coming
on him – two riders in black leathers floating through the
silver heat mirage and leaning into the banking turn. Lee
reached under the seat for his father’s Luger pistol. Before his father owned it, his grandfather had ratted it from a German officer in North Africa. His grandfather had pointed it at the German officer and, because they were instructed not to take prisoners, had tested it on the officer’s brainpan. The pistol was Lee’s father’s favourite. He brandished it at meetings and fired it down at the gun club and disassembled and cleaned it whenever he needed to think.
Lee drove one-handed with the pistol aimed at his feet and
looked back at the riders who’ d moved out of single file and were now in tandem. He flicked off the safety and fingered the 9
DAVID WHISH-WILSON
magazine that was supposed to hold eight rounds but because of the tight spring only held seven. The riders were signalling to one another. Lee’s instinct was to speed but the truck was top-heavy and cornered badly. He eased his foot and slowed
to eighty, and then seventy, and held the pistol and calmed his breathing. The Luger was semiautomatic and if he wasn’t careful he’ d shoot out the magazine in seconds, and then he’ d be unarmed.
The road dipped into the crazed pastel colours of the coastal woodland. The only movement ahead was a raven swimming
in the watery mirage with roadkill in its beak. Lee could see the city as a brown smudge on the southern horizon, and
then the bikes were alongside him, and then they were ahead, and he didn’t recognise the twin BMWs or the riders whose
panniers were full of camping supplies. They were soon out of sight and Lee immobilised the pistol and slipped it under his seat.
To steady himself, he checked the gauges and dials.
Temperature and oil pressure were fine. His speed was regular.
Another kilometre clicked over on the trip meter – three
hundred so far. The fuel gauge was the only problem, headed toward empty. The V8 engine was thirsty and he only had
forty-five dol ars in his pocket. The plan was to hit the freeways as soon as he got to the city and hopeful y snag a tow.
The rig rattled and the suspension creaked and the sun was
warm on his arm. He liked the colour of his skin when it got a belting of sun. The regular creamy chocolate-milk colour
went a deep iodine red. It was the same colour as his father’s 10
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skin that was year-round reddish-brown like the dirt in their yard and which made the black of his father’s hair and the blue of his eyes more startling real.
Lee began to pass cars coming the other way, overtaking the long-haul road trains headed to the Pilbara mine sites laden with WABCO tyres, dongas, fleet vehicles and water tanks.
The brown bomber he’ d taken before setting the plantation
alight was wearing off – the first waves of fatigue and nausea began to tremble through his body. He hadn’t eaten for thirty-six hours. He had thirteen bombers left but wanted to save
them – the last of his father’s stash. His father often w
ent a week without sleep. He was fine for the first few days until he began shooting the speed every hour, and then his head
went sideways and his paranoia grew. Lee would get the guns together and hide them in the shed, except for the Luger,
which never left his father’s belt.
There were pine plantations now. Lee wiped his eyes and
then there were strawberry farms, plots growing cabbage and lettuce, and he could see the conical hats of Vietnamese in the fields. He tuned the radio and found a university station that was playing a Beasts of Bourbon track. Lee’s music was in the trunk out back – Saxon, Slayer, Anthrax, Black Sabbath, AC/
DC, Metallica, the new Megadeth, a whole lot of mixtapes.
The only music in the deck was one of his father’s Johnny
Cash compilations, bought at a Paynes Find service station
when Lee was eleven and they were returning from one of
their missions: leaving caches of weapons and food in the
desert for when the invasion came. The Beasts of Bourbon
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track ended and now it was a new band called Guns N’ Roses, and Lee tapped along, and then he saw the Volvo pulled into a cutaway with its bonnet up. Lee slowed the rig and pulled onto the hard shoulder, rolled into the graded dirt behind the car.
She was sitting on a red pudding rock in the sparse shade
of an old tuart, smoking a cigarette and looking at a road
map. The woman put the map down and followed him with
her eyes. Lee climbed from the truck and hitched his jeans
and ran a hand over his cropped head. Her expression didn’t change as she tapped ash onto the dirt, and it was only her eyes that were smiling. She was about twice his age. Her skin was pale and she wore tight jeans and leather boots. She didn’t get up – just flicked glossy hair off her face and waved at a fly.
‘That truck. Those jeans. That smudged t-shirt. Your face.
You look like a Calvin Klein advertisement.’
Lee didn’t know what that meant but he smiled, because she
was smiling now, reaching out a hand for him to lift her up.
She weighed hardly anything at al .
She dug her heels in the bauxite gravel and stepped in a
careful fashion toward the Volvo, as though she wasn’t used to walking on anything but carpet and cut grass.
‘Something went bang, and then everything seized up, and
I glided in neutral until I found this spot.’
‘Is anyone coming for you?’
The question seemed to concern her, and she bit her lip and looked at her hands then stared him in the eye. ‘I was going to flag down a police car. They come down the road quite regularly.’
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She wasn’t from around here, and couldn’t know the police
routines, but he understood and nodded toward the car. ‘You want me to take a look?’
He knew as soon as the words left his mouth that it was
the wrong move, offering to fix her car when he had a
perfectly good towing rig right there. Then he remembered
her description of the engine going bang, and that could only mean one thing – good news for him and bad luck for her.
Lee touched the inside of the bonnet that was cold under
his fingers. The engine was cold too, meaning she’ d been there some hours. He leaned over the driver’s seat and turned the key. The engine wouldn’t crank. He dropped the bonnet and
wiped his hands on his shirt. ‘Was she running a bit off before the bang?’
‘Yes, like a three-legged horse.’
‘First you blew a head gasket, and then you lost water and
overheated, and then you threw a piston into the cylinder
head. That was the bang. I’m sorry to say this, lady, but your engine’s finished. I can tow –’
‘Please. That’ d be marvellous. Will you take a cheque?’
Lee struggled for the right answer. He wanted to say yes,
but a cheque was no good. He didn’t have a bank account and didn’t know how to cash a cheque. It was part of his father’s ethos to avoid banks unless you were robbing them.
‘How about you fill up my truck at the next servo, and some of the jerry cans, and we’ll take it from there.’
He expected her to look worried at his answer, exposing his operation as half-arsed, but she smiled and put out her hand 13
DAVID WHISH-WILSON
and Lee wiped his hand on his jeans and they shook on it.
‘I ride with you?’
He realised he was staring at her and broke off the handshake and nodded. ‘Go back into the shade until I’ve put her in the sling. Won’t be long.’
Lee turned toward his truck. His uncle Gary had shown
him how to hitch a car but he’ d never done it himself. The Volvo was a rear-wheel drive and he’ d have to sling it to the back axle. He headed for the steel box and made a picture of everything he’ d need, which in this case was only a canvas sling. He lit a cigarette as he walked and took out a brown bomber from his pocket and swallowed it. He would be
making conversation for the next hour at least, and needed
the spur-on. Lee wished the woman wasn’t so friendly with
him – he needed to concentrate on the road, and then get to where the paying work was.
14
2.
The woman’s name was Sophia and he liked her better with
every passing minute. She had a throaty voice that deepened when she chuckled, which was often. Their conversation took his mind off what he had done and what he was running from.
She sat on the bench seat and touched his arm to make her
points. Even though she was thirty-six years old, the same age his mother would’ve been, she didn’t flirt like the leery women his father drank with at the Tarcoola Tavern. Lee had been
with plenty of girls, but they were just that – girls – with the exception of Emma, and he didn’t want to think about her.
There was an awkward few minutes when Sophia tried to
draw him out. She wanted to know about his mother and
father and where he was from. Lee stiffened in his seat and his arms went rigid on the wheel – his father’s voice in his head.
This woman is an outsider.
There was a time a few years ago when Lee started the
day with a bucket bong, just to get through it al . The bush 15
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weed came from their plantations and it was strong and clean but it began to turn him weird. He started to suspect that
his schoolteachers were federal police, sent to observe him.
He’ d once topped every class, but he stopped handing his
homework in. It wasn’t until one of their plantation-sitters cleaved open his friend’s skull with an axe, just because he’ d begun to suspect his friend was a spy, that Lee realised the effect the bud was having. It was the family business, all for the cause, but he stopped smoking that day and had never
gone back to it. Getting paranoid-weird wasn’t dangerous for some citizens, he supposed, but for his father’s people, who were all trained in violence, the consequences were lethal.
Lee put the thoughts of Geraldton out of his head. He
tried instead to enjoy the sound of Sophia’s voice and the
blood that was pumping through his limbs in a syncopated
rhythm and the way his skin hummed because of the brown
bomber kicking in. He drank from a carton of iced coffee and waited for her to finish her hamburger, which had covered
the wrapper in her lap with shreds of beetroot, carrot and
lettuce. Her can of Passiona sat in the cup holder, untouched since she’ d tasted it that first time. The tank was full of petrol and the reserve tank and jerries were full and the woman wa
s pretty entertaining, telling him about her ex-boyfriend, who was some kind of lawyer from a rich family. How she’ d found photographs of him in a shoebox in their walk-in closet. He was facedown in all of the photographs, with his hands and
feet bound to bedposts, and there were switch marks on his
back. In one photo he had a broom handle up his arse. The
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photographs didn’t worry her as much as you might think, she said, it was more his reaction when she laid them on their bed.
He flat out denied it was him in the photographs. He denied it even after Sophia said that it didn’t matter, because it was a turn-on to see a man explore the boundaries of his need, and that she wouldn’t mind exploring them with him. But he kept denying it and then he started to get angry and final y he told her to leave. It was over, he said, and if she ever mentioned the photographs he’ d cut her throat. All in less than a minute. Her chuckle at the absurdity of his reaction. The coward. Who’ d vowed to spend the rest of his life with her, but who didn’t want her to see him as anything other than the sailing club stalwart and legal rising star that she’ d known since her teens.
She didn’t regret the break-up, except for the fact that he’ d taken back their Mercedes. But what could she do? He was a
lawyer with deep pockets who could sue her.
Which gave Lee an idea; the speed coming on strongly now,
making him want to impress her, making him want to do
something to staunch the nerves in his bel y.
They were in the city’s northern suburbs, headed down
Wanneroo Road where the banksia scrub had given way to a
horizon packed with orange terracotta roofs.
‘Take the coast road,’ she said, ‘there’s less traffic.’
Lee panicked for a moment. He hadn’t been to the city for
many years and didn’t know his way around. He didn’t want to call attention to the fact that his sole compass was the knowledge that if he kept to Wanneroo Road then he’ d end up in the city centre, and from there he’ d be able to see the freeway.
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So he answered, casual as he could, ‘Where does your ex
live?’