The Day of the Gecko

by Robert G. Barrett

  Before he began climbing down the trail, Les peered at what he could see of the handball court. Part of his view was blocked by an old, ramshackle grey paling fence at the end of the vacant lot which was full of rubbish. Hanging over the palings was a scrubby, flat tree that looked like it was trying to push the entire fence into the handball court below. Les could make out some grimy besser brick wall and rusting cyclone wire, but if the rest of the baths looked bad, this part looked completely stuffed. He wiped some sweat from his eyes and started walking down.

  The trail was just dirt, rubbish and dried scrub till it reached the rocks. Les clambered over the rocks for a few metres till he stood beneath the wall of the handball court where it sat facing out over the ocean under the caretaker’s flat. A jump across a few more rocks brought Les to a locked gate dangling between two pumphouses and a sign saying TRESPASSERS PROSECUTED. PAY AT THE FRONT. A hop, step and a jump had Les up some more rocks and onto the top of one pump-house, then up a short flight of faded blue and white stairs onto a long concrete landing. One way led past the pool to the entrance. The other went straight into the handball court. Les took a sharp left.

  He entered through an alcove of grey or grimy yellow besser bricks and at first thought he might have walked into a handball court in Calcutta or maybe Jamaica. It was completely shitted out, mon. There was a covered area to his right of peeling yellow stucco and the first thing he noticed was a meter board saying JOHNSON PUMPS, NSW QLD WA. Above it a family of starlings had a nest and it was covered in streaks of brown, black and white shit. There was enough guano there to send Christmas Island broke. If that wasn’t enough, there was another one in the comer that had copped the same amount of shit, or more from another nest. Running round the walls were the remains of a wooden bench and some wooden railings dotted with corroded metal clothes pegs. Most of the wooden railings were on the concrete floor next to the remains of old chairs, discarded clothes and other assorted rubbish rolling around in the dust and mud.

  Les walked out into the handball court area. It was about thirty metres by thirty. One grey besser brick wall with a square hole in it faced the ocean, the wall behind the playing area was topped with twisted cyclone wire clinging to rusting poles and above the next wall was the grey picket fence that looked like it was ready to fall in at any moment and bring the scrubby tree with it. The handball court was green — mostly. What wasn’t was chipped brown or cracks showing through the brick wall it was painted on. The white lines of the playing area showed and the battered metal plate, for low shots, still clung precariously to the far wall. But as far as a handball court went, you wouldn’t hold the World Series there. Norton had a look round at the cyclone wire, the disgrace that passed for a wooden fence, plus the assorted rubbish everywhere, and shook his head. If the truth be known, we’re doing them a favour blowing the place up. 1929? 1829’d be more like it. Blow it into 2099. Les walked over to the hole in the wall and gazed out again. This time he noticed a fair-sized rockpool beneath the handball court leading in from the ocean and on this side of the pool he also noticed a thick, rusty iron spike sticking out from the rocks which would be perfect for bringing a boat in; especially a rubber ducky. I’ll bet that’s where they’ll tie up, he thought. Les walked back a pace or two and looked down at the granite, strengthened concrete floor. So that’s roughly where they are, eh! Les jumped up and down on the concrete a couple of times. No disrespect meant there, fellahs. But I’m just wondering what the galloping major’s going to use to get through this? It’d want to be something good. Though they’re not all that far down and that wall behind’d go like a pack of cards. Oh, well, Eddie said he was the best in the business. And that’s enough for me.

  Les had another look around and suddenly felt he was being watched. Or maybe it was just the thought he shouldn’t have been in there in the first place, on top of not having paid his way in. Norton had seen enough anyway. He left the way he came — down the steps near the pumphouse, and the rocks by the gate, then more rocks past the rockpool. A wave had filled the pool and it just looked too blue and inviting. Ah! Who gives a shit? thought Les, and he plunged into the pool. It was sensational. The water was all bubbles and surge, like an open-air jacuzzi. Les dived up and down, wallowed around for a while then scrambled out over the rocks on the far side. Rather than get his wet Nikes full of dirt and dust climbing back up the trail, Les followed the rocks back to the steps and came up that way. He didn’t seem to notice anyone around as he walked up to Notts Avenue. But Les still couldn’t help feel that someone had been watching him. He stopped to adjust one of his socks just before where the yellow besser blocks started and had a last look over the rocks. A stocky fisherman casting out on the rocks past the pumphouse caught his eyes. That’s not my big mate, the Russian fisherman, is it? Les had another look. I think it is. Can’t see the other one, though. Les had another look round while he adjusted his sock again. Oh well. Feeling good after diving into the pool, Les soon got into his stride and squelched his way back up Hall Street to Susie’s unit.

  After a shower, some more water and another cup of coffee, Norton felt decidedly better than he had when he blundered out of bed earlier; there was no doubt the run and the swim did the trick. He was standing in the lounge room in a clean pair of jeans and a green Wallabies T-shirt taping one of Susie’s Rippingtons CDs and thinking it was almost time he started heading for Central railway station when another thought struck him. When the galloping major got here, where was he going to sleep? He couldn’t really expect him to doss on the lounge when there was a spare room. It was none of his business and Les wasn’t all that interested, so he’d kept out of the boarder’s room. Now it might at least be an idea to see what was in there. It was adjacent to Susie’s and the door wasn’t locked; Norton opened it and took his cup of coffee inside.

  Ackerley’s room was narrower than Susie’s with a short, curtained window at the end that overlooked where the long, skinny balcony finished. There was a single wooden bed with drawers along the side and a built-in bedlamp in the far left comer and against the right wall was a skinny wardrobe with a small dressing table built onto its side. Next to the wardrobe were a couple of benches made out of milk crates with a number of books either standing up or falling over. A battered boogie-board and a pair of flippers lay against the wall on the left as you walked in and in the right comer there was an old barstool and desk on which a small word processor was sitting. The carpet was brown, the walls a kind of yellow, holding a couple of posters pinned with Blu-Tack — one of the original Star Trek crew, the other was some bloke sitting at a table in a suit and metal-framed glasses, smoking a pipe. Les had a closer look. Jean-Paul Sartre. Buggered if I know who that is, he shrugged. A thin black-and-white doona and matching sheets were crumpled across the unmade bed and there were four small rings in the dust on the shelf across the bedlamp where someone had removed a small radio.

  Les put his coffee down on the desk, gave it and the beadstead a quick wipe with his hand, tidied the doona and straightened the pillow. That’ll do you, major, nodded Les, picking up his coffee. On the way out he had a glance at a couple of books to gauge Ackerly’s reading tastes. Time Scale. An Atlas To The Fourth Dimension by Nigel Calder. The Cosmic Code. Quantum Physics and The Language of Nature by Heina R. Pagels. Les put the books back and looked at one of the posters. Yes, beam me out, Scotty. He closed the door, switched off the stereo, rinsed his coffee cup in the sink, then locked up the flat and walked down to the garage.

  Les managed to find a parking spot along the ramp that ran up past Belmore Park and he had a minute or two up his sleeve when he locked the old Ford and walked up to the Country Trains platforms. Now what did Eddie say again? You don’t know him, but he knows you. Just stand under the big clock and Garrick will find you. Well, shrugged Les, a man can only do what a man’s told to do. A minute or two later Les was doing exactly that — standing under the big clock, waiting. He stood there for a good ten minutes, watching the crowds
of people around him coming and going, sitting, waiting, reading. Some carrying luggage, some not, some wearing Akubra hats or carrying guitars. Couples would embrace each other with happy greetings, other couples would be tenderly holding hands in a sad farewell. Les peered into the crowds of travellers or commuters trying to pick out someone that could be whoever it was he was supposed to meet. Maybe I’ve missed him, thought Les. Maybe he missed the train. Maybe I should light a cigarette, lean back against a wall like Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel and blow a stream of cigarette smoke up in the air. Norton kept looking about him and was thinking of getting an ice-cream when he heard a voice just to his left.

  ‘Les Norton?’

  Les turned slowly around. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’m Major Garrick Lewis. Eddie Salita said you were expecting me.’

  It was hard to guess Major Lewis’s age. He would have to have been at least in his fifties, but he looked more like a grainy mid-thirty, and the way he wore his brown hair wisped across his forehead in a kind of Beach Boys style gave him an even more youthful appearance. A pair of dark green eyes, set in a straight, square face above a slightly broken nose, seemed to weigh you up like a bag of tomatoes while he looked at you and a wide mouth stretched across two rows of perfect white teeth gave you the impression of a semi-permanent, if slightly cynical, smile. He was wearing plain light brown cotton trousers with a plain khaki shirt, a blue peak cap and a dark grey photographer’s kind of vest with about a hundred different pockets in it. There was a large, black, zipped-up canvas carry bag at his feet and an overnight bag across one shoulder. But what surprised Les was a metal crutch under his right arm. He had a white Adidas trainer on one foot and a sock on the other bound into a canvas and rubber brace or splint that went up to his shin. Great, thought Norton. The galloping major’s a bloody cripple. And I’m lumbered with him.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ Norton offered his hand. ‘I’m Les, anyway. Pleased to meet you — Major Lewis.’

  ‘Call me Garrick. And I’m pleased to meet you too, Les.’

  The major’s handshake was brief, but very firm and very businesslike and when he straightened up off his crutch he came up to just under eye level with Les.

  ‘The car’s just out there,’ said Les, nodding towards the main entrance. ‘I’ll give you a hand with your stuff.’

  ‘Thanks, lad. I’d appreciate that.’

  Norton picked up the major’s bag and they started slowly towards the car. ‘What happened to your ankle?’

  ‘I sprained it.’

  ‘I’ve done that,’ replied Les. ‘It’s a proper bastard.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed the major. ‘It is.’

  Les couldn’t tell if Garrick was smiling when he said that or it just looked that way.

  They didn’t say anything else on the way to the car. Les put the major’s bag in the back along with his overnight bag. He went to take Garrick’s crutch but the major preferred to lay it in front of him after Les opened the door and he manoeuvred himself inside. Norton climbed behind the wheel and they proceeded towards the Eastern suburbs. They went back up Eddy Avenue and had reached Albion Street without a word passing between them, when Les thought he’d better say something. He had the radio off and it was getting almost embarrassing.

  ‘Well, I guess we both know what this is all about, Garrick.’

  ‘Yes. Eddie’s explained to me what’s going on.’

  ‘And did he tell you where you’d be staying?’

  ‘Eddie explained all that, too,’ replied the major.

  ‘Right. Well at least we both know where we stand in that department.’ They drove on in silence till they got to the Captain Cook Hotel.

  ‘Did you, ah, have a good trip down?’ asked Les. He didn’t particularly care, but he had to say some bloody thing.

  The major turned from the window to Norton. ‘What exactly are you trying to say, Les? Is there something on your mind? Problems? Doubts?’

  ‘No. No. Nothing like that.’ Les shook his head. ‘But I have to admit, I’m a bit curious about you. I mean, how do you know Eddie? What’s your caper? I’ve been in a few capers with Eddie and Price.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, Les. I know all about you. I’ve even seen you in action. You’re there, lad. No two ways about that.’

  ‘That’s very nice of you, Garrick. Now what about you. Where are you? Here, there, where? What about a bit of SP. Of course, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s okay. I understand. No offence, Major — sir.’

  Major Lewis seemed to smile for a second. ‘Okay, Les. You want a full profile on Major Garrick W. Lewis, alias The Gecko. All right, I’ll give it to you in a nutshell. I used to be in the army, I live on a farm on the North Coast with my wife and three kids, and I blow things up for a living.’

  ‘That’s it?’ said Les.

  ‘That, and I’m also what you could call a soldier of fortune. I was a major in the Australian Army. Army Intelligence. Special Operations. Then Shadow Company — where I met Eddie.’ The major looked up at Les. ‘I was an explosives expert, Les. More than that. I’m said to be the best there is. I was a scientist at Sydney University when I went straight into Army Intelligence and Special Ops. I can do things with explosives others are still thinking about.’ Garrick smiled again and his tongue seemed to flick around his mouth, reminding Les somehow of a lizard. ‘Now I just travel round the world blowing different things up for different people. Bougainville. Brunei. I did a lot of work during the Gulf War.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Norton was impressed. ‘And you’re married?’

  ‘Yeah, married a Kiwi nurse I met in Vietnam. A Maori. So between my army pension and the odd explosion here and there, Les, I manage to feed the wife and kids, send them to school and keep a roof over our heads. And we all live happily on the farm.’

  Norton had to smile. ‘Well, bloody good onya, Garrick. Sounds like you’ve got it together. Good luck to you, mate.’

  ‘Thanks, Les.’ Lewis made a gesture with one hand. ‘Of course, I have to admit I don’t mind doing this on odd occasions. Life on the farm’s good. But you need a bit of excitement now and again. Plus there’s the earn, of course, Les.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The wife knows what I do. She doesn’t mind. Her and the kids are probably glad to get rid of me for a few days.’

  ‘Do you like a drink, Garrick?

  ‘Moderately.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Les went past Bondi Junction towards Old South Head Road. ‘Anyway, I imagine you and Eddie’ll have a few things to talk about when you catch up with each other.’

  ‘Yes. It’ll be good to catch up with young Edward again.’

  ‘Hey, Garrick. There was something else I wanted to ask you?’

  ‘Yes, Les. What was that?’

  ‘Eddie mentioned that same nickname you just did. The Gecko. How did you get it?’

  Major Lewis rolled back the left sleeve of his shirt. Tattooed in black, brown, light blue and red on the inside of his forearm, was a fat gecko lizard, about ten inches long, with splayed tail and webbed fingertips. It looked good.

  ‘So that’s it,’ said Les. ‘It’s a beauty.’

  ‘That and something else,’ said the Major.

  ‘Something else?’

  Garrick smiled and his tongue flicked across his lips. ‘Yes. But we won’t worry about that for the time being.’

  Les nodded and thought he might let it go at that. ‘Okay, Major — sir. Whatever you say. At ease or as you were. Take your pick.’

  They headed down Old South Head Road to turn right into O’Brien. Garrick wasn’t talking, which had Norton thinking. Yes, you can bet your life there’s another side to Major Lewis. Alias The Gecko. Plenty he won’t let on. Then why should he? And one thing was for sure. There’s no shit in this bloke. He’s the most straight up and down man I’ve met in a long while. He’s a professional. He is a Soldier of Fortune. Les took a left at Simpson then a right into Hall. Though I wonder how the
poor silly bludger stuffed his ankle? Next thing Les hit the buzzer, the shutter rolled up and they were in the garage. Les took Lewis’ bag, helped him up the stairs and through the front door. Soon, Les had opened Susie’s door, hit the security buttons and they were standing in the middle of the lounge.

  The first thing Garrick said was, ‘Shit! Look at all those bloody CDs.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Norton. ‘They belong to the owner. Come on, I’ll show you your room.’

  ‘Just hang on a minute, Les.’ Garrick placed his crutch on the lounge, sat down next to it and began unlacing the canvas splint round his ankle. Les watched as he finally got it off, tossed it to one side and started rubbing and scratching his foot. ‘Ohh, shit! You reckon that doesn’t feel better.’

  With a kind of dry look on his face, Les watched Lewis stand up, walk round the flat and do a few squats. You didn’t have to be an orthopaedic surgeon to see there was nothing wrong with his ankle. ‘That’s an amazing cure, Garrick. How did you do it? The power of prayer?’