by Zane Lovitt
*
Moss chose the first motel he came to. A well-lit front office, rooms in a single story U-shape around a car park at the rear. The neon sign announced vacancies.
A bell tinkled as he entered the office. He stood at the counter, thumbed a stack of forlorn-looking fliers for local attractions, a nature walk, a historic railway bridge. Canned television laughter was audible in the back office. A middle-aged male with thinning brown hair and doughy features parted a curtain of yellow beads, gave Moss a sullen once-over.
‘Help you?’
‘I’d like a room for a couple of nights.’
‘Fill out your details.’ He passed a registration form and a key attached to a round piece of wood with the number 11 on it. ‘How’re you paying?’
‘Cash.’
‘I’ll still need a credit card, just in case.’
‘Don’t have one.’
The man’s eyes narrowed. He started to speak but Moss silenced him by placing a fifty-dollar note on the counter.
The man ran two fingers over the white stubble on his fleshy chin, pretending to consider the offer. He shrugged and pocketed the note.
‘My car broke down about ten kilometres out of town. Who can I see about getting it towed in and repaired?’
‘Hennessy’s garage at the end of the main street, but he’s shut till morning.’
‘Where can I go to get a bite to eat?’ Moss paused a beat. ‘And some female company.’
The man licked his pale lips, smiled at the prospect of a fellow conspirator.
Moss placed another fifty on the counter.
*
Moss disliked arriving anywhere in the dark, the sense of disorientation and lack of control. He took his time walking along the main drag, getting his bearings. Mid-week on the cusp of winter, a couple of takeaway shops and the pub the only signs of life.
Most of the buildings were red brick. A few were older, beginning of the last century, the occasional art deco flourish. Built with logging money. A small country town populated by honest, hard-working souls, but poke hard enough or ask the right person, the sleaze wasn’t far away. He’d got lucky. The hotel receptionist was the right person. It had been the same during his time in Asia. Even the friendliest place had an underbelly, a club, bar or house like the one the receptionist had told him about. And Riviera didn’t seem that friendly.
Moss sat at the pub counter, eating a mixed grill, taking his time. A smattering of customers pretended to mind their own business, but couldn’t help checking out the new arrival. The walls were covered with framed black-and-white photographs from the town’s earlier days: horse-drawn carts hauling logs through the bush, groups of solidly built timber-cutters gazing at the camera, axes over their shoulders. He wondered where the name Riviera had come from. The town wasn’t near the sea, not even a river. The photos supplied no clue.
He exited the pub into the chilly night, walked along the main drag, his breath making little clouds, until he found the side street. He passed a few businesses, some of them permanently shuttered, a large stone church set back on a wide lawn. Another few metres he saw the sign, the word ‘Barons’ in yellow neon letters.
He pushed open the metal door. Inside was all smooth surfaces and cheap stainless steel finishing. Classic rock from the speakers, cigarette smoke hung in the air, sport on a TV over the bar; the bright green playing field stood out in the dimly lit space. The only other customers were a clutch of men and a couple of young women at the end of the bar. The men paused, looked at Moss, went back to their conversation.
It took Moss a moment to register the presence of several other young females sitting around a glass table in a corner. They reminded him of girls at a school dance, awkward but alert, trying to look street smart beyond their years. Moss glanced at each in turn. His heart skipped a beat as he locked eyes and let his gaze linger on the tallest of the group. He noticed her brown skin and Asian features.
When the bartender approached, he nodded at the single beer tap, lit a cigarette, closed his eyes against the smoke. When he opened them, the tall girl was at his side.
‘Got a light?’ Shoulder length hair fell around her oval face, framed her large brown eyes. It was jet black except for a badly dyed stripe of purple.
Moss offered her his lighter.
She grinned. ‘Got a smoke, too?’
He slid the packet across the bar towards her. She took two, lit one, put the other in the pocket of her denim jacket. She perched on the stool, placed a shoulder purse on the counter.
‘Haven’t seen you in here before?’ she said, between quick drags on her cigarette.
‘Haven’t been in here before.’
‘Passing through?’
‘Yeah, something like that.’
‘Consider yourself lucky.’ She glanced around the bar before returning her gaze to him. ‘Buy me a drink?’
Moss nodded at the bartender. She poured the girl a rum and Coke.
‘What’s your name?’ She dabbed a finger in the condensation on the side of her glass as she spoke, made a circle of moisture on the bar top.
‘Moss.’
‘I’m Hannah.’ She ground her cigarette out in the ashtray between them. ‘Want some company, Moss?’
‘Seems to me that decision’s already been made.’ He smiled to take the edge off his discomfort, suddenly self-conscious in his cheap leather jacket and old jeans.
‘Dude, seriously, I don’t have time for mind games.’ She blew her cheeks out. ‘It’s not like anyone comes in here by accident.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘So, you want some company or not?’
‘Sure.’
She slid another cigarette from his pack, lit it.
‘You want to do it here or somewhere else?’
‘What?
‘You want to fuck here? There’s a room out the back, or somewhere else?’
There was nothing sleazy in the statement. She could have been talking about the weather or her favourite sports team.
Moss drained his beer. ‘Let’s go back to my motel.’
‘You got to talk to Erskine, you want to do that.’ She signalled over his shoulder.
He turned around just in time to see a man break away from the group at the end of the bar. The man’s companions watched intently as their friend approached, faces grinning in anticipation, the joke at Moss’s expense.
‘I don’t know you.’ The man had a broad build, straw-coloured hair, cut short back and sides. ‘Been in the Riviera long?’
‘Just stopping in town for a few days while I get my car serviced.’
‘Like it?’
Moss hesitated.
‘Mate, I’m just fucking with you.’ The man grinned. ‘As my late father used to say, no names, no pack drill.’
Moss detected menace behind his jaunty demeanour, the life of the party and the unofficial enforcer.
‘You want to take Hannah for some fun, yeah?’ Erskine placed his arm around her narrow shoulders. She winced at the contact.
‘You can pay her when you’re finished. Do whatever you want, but no rough stuff. Any rough stuff, I’ll find out and you’ll answer to me. Understood?’
Moss nodded, stood up.
Erskine turned to go back to his mates, paused halfway.
‘You crazy kids have a good time now.’
Male laughter accompanied them out of the bar.
*
It started to rain on the walk back. They ran the remaining several hundred metres, damp and out of breath by the time they reached the motel.
Moss closed the door after her, flicked a light switch. The fluoro tube in the pelmet above the double bed spluttered to life.
She threw her shoulder purse on the round laminated table, breathed deeply.
<
br /> ‘I got to piss.’
Moss picked up a glass, took off its plastic wrapping. He lit a cigarette, sat on the edge of the bed and tapped the ash into the glass, the rain louder now. His fingers stroked the checked acrylic blanket as he thought about Thailand and Cambodia, other times, perched on the edge of a bed, waiting as a female he didn’t know moved about in the adjoining bathroom.
He looked up at the sound of the door opening. Hannah stood, backlit by the bathroom light, naked except for her bra and panties. Only just out of her teens, but nothing remotely girlish about her body, the way her hip curved, the swell of her breasts as she placed her clothes in a bundle on one of the chairs.
She plucked the cigarette from his mouth with an exaggerated gesture, like something she’d seen in a movie, dropped it in the glass. She pushed him down and started to straddle him, her narrow fingers pulling at his belt.
‘Stop,’ Moss said, pushed her away.
A strand of black hair fell across her face. She bit her lower lip, made another attempt to unbuckle his belt.
‘No.’ Moss pushed her away, harder this time.
Her brow furrowed. ‘I could give you a massage, get you in the mood…’
‘No.’
She folded her arms over her breasts, fixed him with a determined look. ‘What the fuck game you playing, man?’
‘It’s just…’ Moss realised he hadn’t planned what he was going to say. ‘I’m tired. I had a long drive today.’
‘So, what am I supposed to do? Walk back in the rain to the club.’ She snatched a singlet from her pile of clothes, pulled it over her head. ‘I’ll be fucking soaked by the time I get there. It’s even further to the caravan park.’
‘Caravan park?’
‘Where me and another girl stay.’ She pulled on her tight black jeans one leg at a time. ‘Not that it’s any of your fucking business.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll pay you.’
‘Bloody hell, you’ll pay. I leave here without the cash, Erskine’ll have my arse.’
‘He your pimp?’
‘Yeah, that and a lot of other things.’
Moss lit a cigarette. ‘You don’t have to go.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Sleep here. In the morning, I’ll give you whatever money you’re owed. You can go. Erskine will be none the wiser.’
She paused, one arm in the sleeve of her white top, her large eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘What’s your game, Moss, or whatever the hell your name is?’
‘No game.’ He held the cigarette pack out to her. ‘I’m just more tired than I thought I was, okay? The room’s dry and warm. Sleep here, I won’t try any funny stuff. Promise.’
‘I thought funny stuff was the reason you brought me here.’ She took a cigarette, accepted his light. ‘What the fuck, man, you’re still paying, what’ve I got to lose?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Got anything to drink?’
Moss unzipped his canvas bag, pulled out a third-full bottle of bourbon, held it up for her to see.
‘This do?’
She smiled her agreement.
*
Moss saw his pale aging features superimposed on the window. The rain came down at a hard angle on the empty carpark. Hannah slept in the bed behind him. The water on the window made streaking patterns on her face and exposed shoulder.
The worst time in prison was when it had rained. The drains overflowed, the rats came out, and the dead air was full of mosquitoes and the stench of cramped bodies. Everything was damp. For some reason, no-one was allowed out of the cells when it rained. And it rained a lot in Cambodia.
He and Rory had been sentenced to eight years each in Complex One, Prey Sar, for importing two kilos of ecstasy tablets from Thailand. Moss’s idea: they’d sell the pills on Phnom Penh’s backpacker party circuit, make some quick money, get out of Cambodia, where they’d been for six months. Rory wasn’t sure he wanted to leave; he’d met a local woman, Chon, and was thinking of staying, but went along with the plan anyway, could always use the money.
Their partner in crime, Narridh, was a rich Cambodian kid Moss had met one night in a bar called The Heart of Darkness. When the police arrested them in possession of the tablets, Narridh’s connections gave him protection. The cops offered the two foreigners a deal. Pay ten thousand dollars or jail. They didn’t have the money so it was jail.
Moss had gone through Hannah’s purse while she slept, found condoms, a twenty-dollar note, a few loose cigarettes, a mobile with no credit, and a creased, dog-eared postcard. On the front of the card was wide stretch of sandy beach, palm trees, calm blue water, with the words ‘Welcome to Sihanoukville’ in gold letters. Moss had been there, a deep-water port and popular tourist destination in the south of Cambodia. He flipped the postcard over, winced when he recognised the almost childlike handwriting, promising to take Hannah to Sihanoukville one day.
Chon had been born in a dirt-poor farming village near Sihanoukville, left at the very first opportunity, took the well-trodden path to Phnom Penh and a job as a bar girl. Rory had taken her home from one of the dives on Street 51; a week later he said he was in love with her.
Moss’s needs were much simpler. But the nights Rory was out of town, the nights Moss had slept with Chon – their bodies slick from sex in the tropical heat, the ceiling fan slowly spinning above – changed that. He’d never met anyone like Chon. She had a hair-trigger temper but she also loved to laugh – a harsh, guttural sound that seemed too big for her relatively small size. She devoured everything in her path: food, drugs, men, life.
Halfway through their jail sentence, Rory was killed in a fight with another inmate over a stretch of floor space. The worst thing: part of Moss was glad his friend would never know.
After his release, Moss stayed in Phnom Penh long enough to sort out a new passport and enquire about Chon. The few people who remembered her said she’d left town soon after he and Rory had gone to prison. One of them, a worn-out bar girl with half a missing finger, told him Chon had gone to visit a relative in Melbourne, gave him an address.
When Moss got back to Australia seven years later, he looked up the address: a housing commission flat in Broadmeadows occupied by a Cambodian family. Chon, a distant relative, had stayed there long enough to have her baby, a daughter called Hannah. He tracked her up the Hume to Sydney before losing the trail.
Moss had better luck with Hannah. It took him a couple of years, searching between jobs, but he was able to pick up her trace through an old mate working in residential care. It was through him that Moss found out about Hannah’s encounters with the law, the first time for shoplifting; the next, soliciting.
‘What about your parents?’ Moss had asked Hannah as he poured the last of the bourbon.
‘Never knew my dad; Mum didn’t talk about him.’ Her was voice drowsy with alcohol and exhaustion. ‘Mum was seriously fucked up.’ The words flowed with the ease that comes when you talk to a complete stranger, someone you don’t care about or think you’ll ever see again. ‘She used to dress me up, drag me to bars with her, a conversation starter to pick up men. Once she made me carry drugs for one of her boyfriends, this creepy wannabe-biker dude.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘She died.’ She said it matter-of-fact, the pain long gone or covered over with more recent scars.
Moss swallowed, tried to sound casual. ‘How?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
The crumpled postcard said different.
*
Moss woke before she did, lay next to her in the dull grey light through the part in the curtain, looking for a resemblance.
After a while he reached out, shook her shoulder. She came awake slowly, opened her eyes, unperturbed at finding herself next to a stranger.
They took turns in the shower. As they were
about to leave Moss handed her money, suggested breakfast before he went to see about getting his car fixed.
She shrugged, her wet hair like flowing tar. ‘If you’re paying, sure.’
He opened the front door, indicated for Hannah to go first. She stepped outside, froze.
‘You kids sleep well?’ Moss heard a male voice say.
It was the man from the bar last night, Erskine, only this morning he wore a police uniform.
On the other side of the police cruiser, out of harm’s way, stood the receptionist. He grinned, amused at Moss and the girl’s surprise.
‘Get in the car, Han,’ Erskine said calmly. ‘I’ll run you back to the park.’
She hesitated.
‘I said get in the fucking car.’ He watched her climb into the back seat of the cruiser. She sat very still, eyes straight ahead.
Erskine smiled, hitched his belt up, a move Moss knew was designed to draw his attention to the holstered gun on the cop’s hip. Erskine’s eyes were hidden behind wraparound sunglasses.
‘Have fun last night?’ said Erskine.
The motel’s receptionist licked his lips, leered at the innuendo.
‘Having sex with a woman must feel good, Eric, after all those years taking it up the arse in that shithole in Cambodia.’
Moss tried to cloak his surprise, failed if the look on Erskine’s face was anything to go by.
‘Yeah, we may be a small town but we still have Google. How many years did you do again? Seven, eight? Must have been a tough gig.’ Erskine’s brow furrowed in mock concern. ‘How old are you? Thirty-five? Christ, man, you look fifty, beat up and wasted. Not that I’m surprised, what you went through, wipe a few years off any man’s life. What are you doing here in Riviera?’
‘Just having a look, free country after all.’
‘No, mate, it’s not. Not in this town.’
Moss reached into his leather jacket.
Erskine whipped his pistol out, held it two-handed, the barrel pointed at Moss’s face. ‘Easy, man.’
‘Just getting my smokes.’
Erskine nodded, lowered the pistol slightly.
