True West
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bottles, then hundreds, a cascade of ruby red wine filtering through the shattering glass, a tinkling, musical sound as it fell through the racks.
The flames were lapping up and eating the floorboards,
curling over their heads. Lee had two bullets left. Paxton
firmed his grip on Emma’s head and made ready to break her
neck.
Beside him, Frankie fell to her knees, and then Paxton saw
the jagged shard in her neck, leaking arterial blood, and he shouted, and Lee took the shots, two in quick succession, saw the blush of red mist and shattered teeth emerge from Paxton’s mouth, then the pop beneath his right eyebal , instantly
bloody, pooling in the reddening light, both his hands rising as he fell backwards into the flames.
Emma was still limp in her chair, a puddle of urine beneath her. He picked her up in a fireman’s carry and made for the stairs.
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DAVID WHISH-WILSON
He didn’t take off the hood as he placed her onto the kitchen bench. He went to the stove and turned on the gas elements, went to the rear of the house and opened every window, every door.
The old house was screaming, sighing. Flames spurted across wood-panelled wal s and onto curtains and blinds. Rising up the stairwell bannisters, eating the varnish and wooden steps.
On the back patio, the dogs were looking into the house,
unsteady on their feet and edging away, out into the darkness.
Lee made for the front door, pressed to open the gate. He
staggered up the driveway and crossed the street and bowling club carpark and opened the van door. He placed Emma onto
the passenger seat. He ran around the car and started it up, backed across the lot.
Nobody inside the club had noticed the golden glow and the
crackling trees down by the river. Lee turned onto Riverside Drive and pulled off Emma’s hood and looked into her eyes,
then tore out the gag in her mouth. She began to spit and
wheeze and offered up her bound hands, and he steered and
undid the binds.
Lee wound down the window and headed for the coast,
neither of them talking, Emma sobbing and then the shaking
began in Lee’s hands as he realised that he too was crying, his eyes burning from the smoke and the tears.
*
They found a phone box at a beach north of the port, and
then showered, the bright sodium lights of the cranes glowing 252
TRUE WEST
across the silky black ocean. It was warm and stil , but Emma shivered as Lee dried her with the blanket from the van. She put her arms around him, and they whispered to one another.
When Emma’s father’s red Volvo pulled into the parking lot, Lee watched from a distance: Emma standing alone under a
streetlight, moths batting above her head, the Volvo spearing across the broad spaces of the empty lot and skidding alongside her.
Her father was wearing a suit, and he nearly fell over in his rush. He grabbed her and held her close as she lay her head on his shoulder.
253
26.
It was dark in the karri forest, the pale trunks rising to the canopy swooshing in the wind. Lee had taken back roads south along the coast and the van was coated with a red dust, bugs sprayed across the edges of the windshield where the wipers couldn’t reach. He stopped in the middle of the forest on a hard shoulder covered in bark rinds and bought a twenty-kilo bag of apples from an honesty stal , leaving the five dol ar note under a brick inside an iron cage.
As soon as he left the forest, the sky opened and the soil
turned sandy grey. A farmer had drawn him a mud map on
the back of a tourist brochure, and he slowed and saw the
hand-painted sign beside another dirt track and took a bite of an apple and turned onto the track.
He didn’t have any idea which direction he was headed, but
soon the spaces between the low trees began to widen. Balga trees and ti-tree began to clump together, and he could smel briny water, and the sandy track became pale and he knew
254
TRUE WEST
that he was near an estuary of some sort.
He glanced at the mud map as he drove, the van’s wheels
skidding in the turns, a flock of black cockatoos rising in a cawing wave to circle above him, a family of kangaroos
hopping onto the edges of the track and watching him pass.
He knew that he was close and slowed, smelled the smoke on
the wind, heard a windmill blade turn through its circle.
The track thinned out and then he was driving on pea-gravel and his wheels were loud in it and he saw the farmhouse up
ahead. The sun shone on a spray of water from a hose fixed to a star picket and he looked at the scarecrow next to it dressed in faded dungarees and gumboots and a big floppy hat, and
then the scarecrow moved, and turned into a woman. She
raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, just as a kelpie pup joined her, standing with its ears cocked and tail aloft.
Lee kept driving. He knew that the road would lead to an
estuary and a river mouth, the coastal dunes where he’ d make camp, set himself up with a tarp and a blanket, a jerry can of water and his remaining Rohypnol, to get himself clean and
wear the suffering due to him. He didn’t want his mother to see him sick. He looked at her in his rear-vision, her hand still cocked to her head, shielding her eyes from the glare, watching the van disappear into its coiling tail of dust.
255
AUTHOR NOTE
True West is set in late 1980s Perth against the backdrop of hate crimes associated with Jack van Tongeren’s Australian
Nationalist Movement that included the firebombing of Asian businesses, as well as the dog-whistle comments made by then federal Liberal opposition leader John Howard associated with
‘slowing down’ Asian immigration. It’s fair to say that the men of the ANM were social y marginal figures and yet it’s also true to say that because of their propaganda, and their actions, this period wasn’t a comfortable time to be an Asian-Australian
in Perth. Van Tongeren was ultimately sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment for his crimes, while John Howard
went on to become one of Australia’s longest serving prime
ministers. This historical Conservative integration with and curtailing of the extreme right by accommodating anti-Asian and, more recently, anti-Muslim rhetoric is neither durable nor without danger. It cannot be denied that the recent expression of openly racist sentiments in the Australian parliament, for 256
TRUE WEST
example, contribute to perpetrators’ justi fication for horrific acts of violence, such as those that occurred in Christchurch in March 2019. True West is, however, entirely a work of fiction, and any resemblance to real people living or dead is coincidental.
At p. 116, I have included a quote within from Friedrich
Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883–1891). And at p. 55, Lee paraphrases Michael Bakunin, from Michael Bakunin:
Selected Writings (Grove Press, 1974).
I owe a deal of gratitude to my first readers – Mark
Constable, Sean Gorman, Rob Schofield and Andrew Nette –
whose advice was invaluable in improving the rough early draft.
This novel is dedicated to author and pulp scholar Andrew
Nette for his friendship and encouragement, for deepening
my knowledge of the genre and making me want to be a better writer. I’ve long admired Andrew’s writing and his advocating for darker-edged Australian crime writing. Thanks always to my publisher and editor, Georgia Richter, for seeing what this novel might become and gently guiding me there, as well as to my publicist Claire Miller and all the team at Fremantle Press.
Love and thanks always to my family – Be
linda, Max, Fairlie and Luka.
257
MORE GREAT CRIME
It’s the early 1980s, the heady days of excess, dirty secrets and personal favours. Former detective Frank Swann is in disgrace, working as a low-rent PI. But when he’s offered a security job by the premier’s fixer, it soon becomes clear that someone is bugging the premier’s phone, and it may cost Swann more than his job to find out why.
‘In the Frank Swann series, David Whish-Wilson has done for Perth what Peter Temple did for Melbourne with Jack Irish.’ Westerly Magazine
‘[Perth] is indeed one of the key characters in the novel, a remote wild-west mirage with more money than sense …’ Australian Book Review AVAILABLE AT FREMANTLEPRESS.COM.AU
FROM FREMANTLE PRESS
San Francisco, 1849: a place gripped by gold fever, swarming with desperate men come to seek their fortune. Among them are former convicts, Australians quick to seize control in a town without masters, a town for the taking. Into this world steps an Australian boy in search of his mother. Just twelve years old, alone in a time of opportunism, loyalty and violent betrayal, Samuel Bel amy must learn to become one of the Sydney Coves if he is to survive.
‘A stunning historical fiction novel about survival and greed, and the inherent human pursuit of wealth ... a true gem, providing a vivid and visceral glimpse into a time-period characterised by extreme change and cultural tension.’ Better Readin g
AND AT ALL GOOD BOOKSTORES
MORE GREAT CRIME
AVAILABLE AT FREMANTLEPRESS.COM.AU
FROM FREMANTLE PRESS
AND AT ALL GOOD BOOKSTORES
MORE GREAT CRIME
AVAILABLE AT FREMANTLEPRESS.COM.AU
FROM FREMANTLE PRESS
AND AT ALL GOOD BOOKSTORES
First published 2019 by
FREMANTLE PRESS
25 Quarry Street, Fremantle WA 6160
(PO Box 158, North Fremantle WA 6159)
www.fremantlepress.com.au
Copyright © David Whish-Wilson, 2019
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
Cover design Nada Backovic, www.nadabackovic.com
Cover photograph Tim Robinson © Arcangel Images
Printed by McPherson’s Printing Group, Victoria, Australia
A catalogue record for this
book is available from the
National Library of Australia
True West, ISBN 9781925815719 (epub)
Fremantle Press is supported by the State Government through the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries.
Publication of this title was assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Document Outline
Front Cover
Title Page
About the Author
Half Title
Dedication
Part I: Western Australia, 1988 Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part II Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Author Note
Copyright