by Peter Corris
We drove to the Dados Village, which is where I got my first surprise. I was already thinking of filming Frank if things worked out. He was perfect for it, a character, if he wasn't a total con man. His office convinced me. It was one floor up overlooking the indoor garden. Lots of glass and polished wood, good equipment and furniture. Frank settled behind an IBM desktop and punched buttons. Two pages slid out of the printer. He made two photocopies and gave me the original to read and sign.
'Standard agreement, with appropriate variations,' he said.
I looked it over and found nothing to object to. I was contracting the services of Francis Button, who was a bonded, licensed private investigator, to research and report on a matter of historical interest. I agreed to pay on a per diem basis plus reasonable, accounted-for expenses, providing I received daily progress reports. My retainer of $300 was noted.
'Three hundred?' I said.
Frank shrugged and snapped his braces. 'You apply a little pressure, I apply a little pressure. That's business.'
I handed him the money and he gave me a receipt. 'Where's your secretary?' I said.
'I don't have one. What for? I'm here, I can answer the phone or tell someone to sit down. I'm not here, the answering machine costs twenty bucks a week. A brain-damaged monkey could write a letter on these word processors. I gotta law degree and an accounting ticket. I'm a bachelor and I don't drink—what else've I got to do at night but write cheques and keep files?'
'Sounds lonely. Have you got any other interests? I ask because . . . if this works out, you understand, we might want to film you.'
The braces snapped. 'Married three times. No good. I'm too obsessive. I'm good company for myself only. I'm an interesting enough guy. You'll find out.'
'What do you expect to find out for me?'
Frank checked items on his stubby fingers. 'One: newspapers. Two: witnesses. It ain't so long ago. Three: I don't know yet.'
I laughed. 'Well, that's honest.'
'Yeah. An honest dollar makes for a good night's sleep. Mind if I give you a bit of advice, Vic?'
I'd come to like Frank Button and I had a twinge of conscience about not telling him some of the sidelines to the story—the helicopters at Wadi Djoul, the break-ins at Hammersmith, the deportation of Randolph Craft. Still, I was sure he was concealing things from me. So I smiled. 'Go ahead.'
'Don't eat at the El Toro, don't get into a card game at the El Toro and, most of all, don't get laid there.'
23
Craft Project—Journal (continued)
Los Dados is no place to hang about in if you're not interested in gambling, sex and drinking. I mean all three, carried to excess, and costing a great deal of money. It's hard to imagine having a nice, quiet night in the town. Either a debauch or stultifying boredom seem to be the options. I was tempted. Under the neon the whores and the tables and the drinks all had a tremendous appeal. I wondered how Basil Craft had found it. He made it clear that he had indulged but gave no details. Speculation was worthless; I was coming to think of Walking Across the World as a mad brew of fact and fantasy. I wondered how Richard Craft had made out in the town. I was hungry for more sources, more information, and all I had going for me was a little squirt with a bow tie and a high opinion of himself.
I bought a pizza and a six-pack of Coors and took them back to my room at the El Toro. No-one invited me to eat, play cards or get laid. I tried to read Elmore Leonard's Freaky Deaky but I couldn't concentrate on it. If there had been a TV set in the room I would have turned it on. I was that desperate. I finished the pizza which left a nasty smell in the air and a burning in my stomach. I drank the third can of beer and was about to open the fourth when there was a knock on the door. It opened immediately and Danny the pilot came into the room carrying a white envelope in one hand and a bottle in the other.
'Say, buddy, you look worse than you did before. What's with you? Holed up in this fleapit eating pizza? I thought Aussies knew how to have a good time.'
'I've been away from home too long,' I said. 'Is that the bill?'
'Yeah.' He handed me the envelope; I opened it and nodded at the amount. Fair. About what I expected. Danny left the door open and leaned against the wall.
'I can cash some traveller's cheques and square you,' I said. 'Are you on your way somewhere?'
'No. We are. Told myself if you were here and ready to pay up we'd go out and have a time and you are and that's what we're gonna do.'
The next thirty-six hours are not a blank, it wasn't as bad as that, but we drank a hell of a lot and smoked some grass and danced and sang and didn't sleep. We called in on people Danny knew and sometimes we stayed and sometimes we went out. You get used to the neon and the noise; you get to love it and to want to keep it flowing around you. Perhaps it was the tequila, perhaps the tension that had built up from working on the Craft project, perhaps I was just ready to howl. I howled good and proper. We drank in town; we drove out into the desert and drank some more; we talked and swore and boasted.
Danny spent some of the money he'd earned from me; I spent some of Andy McKinnon's. A Texan named Wade, a big man in a white suit that got grubbier and grubbier, spent more than either of us. Our group of revellers expanded to ten or so, shrank to three or four, then blew out again. Wade kept paying. He'd buy a round of drinks and look at the meagre change from a hundred-dollar bill and say, 'Ah'm shore glad ah don' waste mah money gamblin''.
It all ended on the balcony of a hotel on the Los Dados version of the strip. I'd fallen asleep in a chair and the bright morning sun hit me squarely in the face, prising my eyes open and forcing me to blink and perform some actions other than drinking, smoking, talking and laughing. I was shocked to find that I was sober. Aching all over, stubble-faced and smelling bad, but sober. I walked through the French windows into the hotel room; men and women lay around on the beds and in the chairs. A few were curled around each other, most were separate and all had their clothes on. We hadn't gambled and I hadn't screwed anybody. I was relieved.
It took me a while to find my way back to the El Toro—the rapid movement through the city and desert had disoriented me. I missed the place by a couple of blocks on two attempts and finally spotted it by luck. I'd forgotten the name of the street it was on and I had a good worry about that. Brain cell destruction? I tramped up to my room and, dulled-down as I was, I knew that I hadn't left the door unlocked. The old routine. I made a noise outside, waited and edged the door open. I knew pretty well where everything had been before I walked out of the room with Danny and I could see that some items had been slightly disturbed. The computer was still hidden but the books that hid it were in a different arrangement. I did a quick search. Everything looked at, nothing missing.
The adrenalin rush I'd had on seeing the open door drained away and left me shaky. I took a long time over getting cleaned up. I wondered how much sleep I'd had, but drunken sleep in a chair is hard to evaluate. I was hung-over but not too tired, or tired but not too hung-over. I couldn't face the 'Breakfast Nook', though. I found a dim, quiet bar and had tomato juice and cracker biscuits. Then three cups of coffee. Then a blueberry muffin. It all stayed down. Out on the street, in dark glasses and a clean shirt, I felt as good as the next man. I walked a few blocks and felt even better.
Frank Button was waiting for me in the lobby of the El Toro. He stayed in his chair and flapped his hand at me. I sat down on a frayed couch and didn't remove my glasses.
'Tie one on, huh?'
'A bit,' I said. 'Have you got anything for me?'
'Everything. You're gonna like it.'
I looked around the lobby; the desk clerk was making a phone call, the few other people hanging around were minding their own business. 'Tell me.'
'I located a guy used to be the editor of the Clarion, Hunter Burnett. Just so happened he has a complete set of the issues for the period you're interested in.'
'You located him, eh? I think you knew about him all along, Frank. I think you played
me for a sucker.'
Button touched his bow tie and ran his hand over his bald head. 'Don't look at it like that, Vic. Sure I knew the guy and I suspected he might be able to help. I didn't know for sure. Turns out he can and here I am. If I was a crook I could've strung you along several days.'
'There's that,' I said. 'Where're the papers?'
'His place. Los Cabanas—subdivision out near the desert. Dry air's great for preserving old newspapers. Let's get going.'
I collected a notebook and the tape-recorder, checked that I had some money. I watched out of the corner of my eye as Frank looked idly around the room. 'This place was searched while I was away,' I said.
'That so? I'm not surprised. You lose anything?'
I shook my head. 'Why aren't you surprised?'
'Place like this? Stands to reason. Coulda been the narcotics boys, you coming up from Mexico. Gaming squad, Clark County cops. Anyone.'
Could've been you, I thought. But I didn't say anything. The bright sunshine was still hurting my eyes so I let Frank drive. He levered the seat forward, dropped the Camaro into drive and took off with wheels spinning. A couple of blocks and he was off the strip, making turns through the streets, heading west. We left the close-packed bungalows behind and got onto a narrower road passing through larger allotments. The further we went the more cactus appeared in the gardens. Frank made a showy, skidding turn and headed up a rutted dusty track. 'I love to drive,' he said.
He stopped outside a wooden cabin set in the middle of a series of rose beds. The beds were all shapes and sizes and the roses, red, pink and white, grew profusely. I could see the elaborate watering equipment sticking up and snaking through the thorny bushes.
'He must love roses,' I said. 'Or is Mrs Hunter the gardener?'
Frank switched off the engine with a reluctant sigh. 'Man's name is Burnett, Vic. Better get that right—Hunter Burnett. Ain't no Mrs Burnett I ever heard of. Hunter hates roses but he grows 'em for sale. Says every times he makes a dollar from selling a bundle of those suckers he's two dollars happy 'cos the roses're on their way to the trash can.'
We went up the steps onto the slatted verandah and Frank hammered on the door. A big man wearing white silk pyjamas and black leather slippers answered the knock. 'Button, you sawed-off bastard. You little guys always knock the hardest, you know that?'
'We screw the hardest too, Hunter. Ask any woman of experience. This's Victor Bright wants to browse your files and pay us both some money.'
'Direct little cuss, ain't he?' Burnett said. He thrust a large hand at me and I shook it. 'Come in, come in. Newspaper man, Vic?'
'I have been. In Sydney, Australia.'
'You don't have to tell me where Sydney is. I been there. Editors' conference in '70. Great place. What're they gonna do about your Bondi beach, though? That's a shame.'
'They've put on a tax to raise money to clean up the ocean,' I said.
He snarled at the word tax. 'Greatest city beach in the world—bar none.'
We went into a living room strewn with books, papers and magazines. There were some sagging canvas chairs, a low table half covered with beer cans and a big TV set. One wall was plastered with photographs of shirt-sleeved men in newspaper offices, talking, drinking, smoking. There was a bookcase so neat that it stood out in the untidy room as if it had just come from another house altogether. It contained nothing but works on the subject of rose-growing.
'Beer or coffee?' Burnett said.
Button said, 'Beer.'
I said, 'Both.'
We sat in the chairs with our arses dropping towards the floor until Burnett came back with the drinks. The beer was warm. The coffee was instant with curdled milk. This was a man who didn't know how to live alone. He took a swig of beer, farted and belched and I could see why he was on his own. He wasn't fit to live with anyone else. Still, he seemed cheerful. 'This little crook told me shit about your project, Vic. You like to fill me in some?'
'Not too much,' I said. 'I'm interested in a man named Craft. He made a long trip through the desert in 1950. Ended up here for some weeks. I haven't been able to find any trace of him. I'd like to know what's in the cuts. That's about all I want to say.'
Burnett drank more beer and grinned at Button. 'Close-mouthed bastard, ain't he, Frank? You swear he's not here to put a tax value on my files, list my assets, pick my fuckin' nose for me?'
'I swear,' Button said.
Burnett heaved himself up. 'Good enough for me. Frank knows that if he lied to me I'd bury him out under a fuckin' Prairie Sunrise supreme, don't you, Frank?'
'Sure, Hunter.'
'Finish your drink and come in here. No liquid, no tobacco, no ink in the file room. I even like people to breathe shallow if they can.'
We trooped through to the back of the house where a door opened into a narrow, long room without windows. An air-conditioner and a blueish overhead artificial light hummed. The room contained floor-to-ceiling shelves, drawers, lockers and storage bins. There must have been millions of pieces of paper there—newspapers, magazines, letters, published official reports, handbills, newsletters.
'Impressive, huh?' Burnett said. 'Complete archive here.'
'Documenting what?' I said.
'Life in Nevada. I'm gonna write a book about the state from the time the primeval jello set till yesterday.'
'Like Michener,' Button said. 'Call it Nevada.'
'Fuck Michener. Now when're we talking about?'
I gave him the dates and he went straight to one of a set of large bins which held bound copies of the broadsheet Clarion. He grunted and slid out a volume, cleared a space on top of the bin and stepped aside. 'Go for your life. Isn't that what they say in Australia?'
'That's what they say.' I opened the cover and began turning pages. The paper was in great condition, not brittle or frayed like most such relics. The Clarion, like all American provincial papers and even a lot in the capitals, devoted 90 per cent of its space to parochial affairs—local politics and personalities, how national events would affect Nevada, what Nevadans were buying and selling, throwing and catching. The state's motto was 'All For Our Country' and the paper was acting it out.
The big news in the later months of 1950 was argument over the siting of a military establishment and a power and waste-disposal plant. Should they be located together so the military could defend the plant if need be, or spread out to distribute the danger and the money? The Clarion was all for dispersal. The Examiner, I gathered, was for concentration. The papers had had a lot of fun abusing each other and levelling veiled accusations of corruption against their respective proprietors.
I found an item on the Craft expedition low down on page 2 of the issue for 30 November 1949:
DESERT WALK ENDS IN LOS DADOS
An expedition headed by Dr Basil Craft, of London, England, has arrived in Los Dados after a walk of a thousand miles from Mexico through the American southwest. The party walked through Death Valley.
Dr Craft said the purpose of the expedition was scientific. The party consisted of Dr Craft and his brother and several Mexicans and Indians. Mules and horses were used as pack animals and no motorised transport was employed. When asked if this meant he was an opponent of the motor car industry Dr Craft replied, 'No comment.'
Dr Craft said that he had made mountain and desert crossings in Africa and Mongolia and always headed for a large body of water at the completion of the journey. Hence his termination of this trip at the Hoover dam.
Frank Button had been reading over my shoulder 'Kinda dull,' he said. 'Guy sure wasn't out for publicity. Is there any more?'
I turned over the pages for the next few issues but found no further report on Craft. Hunter Burnett looked uneasy.
'Disappointed, huh?'
I didn't reply. I was wondering whether this downbeat coverage might mean that the Examiner had got to Craft first and extracted all the juice from the story. I turned pages idly, still hoping for a follow-up, and a deadline from an issue
a couple of weeks later jumped out at me:
APACHE GIRL BRUTALLY SLAIN
The body of a young Apache woman was found in a garbage dump off Sahara Boulevard near the city limits yesterday. She had been stabbed and severely mutilated, making personal identification impossible at this stage.
A spokesman from the sheriff's office said that the victim appeared to be fifteen or sixteen years of age. Her injuries made it impossible to tell whether sexual abuse had taken place.
Joseph Loomis, a part-Apache who works at the garbage facility, identified the body as that of an Apache by tribal markings and some beads clutched in the dead girl's hand. Mr Loomis expressed surprise that an Apache was in the Los Dados area without his knowledge. 'Down country woman for sure,' he said. 'Ain't no-one of the people knew she was here or how she got here.'
24
Marsha met a tired and travel-stained Bright at Heathrow and listened to his account without interrupting as she drove the Mini back to Camden Town. Once inside the flat they drank and made practised, mutually satisfying love.
Marsha said, 'I suppose you've got it all written out in every detail.'
'Yup. Now, what about you? How did you get on with the nurse?'
'I found her and she talked to me.'
'I hope you kept notes. Sorry, of course you did. Well, come on—what did she give you?'
'Wouldn't you like to see?'
'How d'you mean?'
'I videotaped her. I didn't have to take notes. I've got the whole thing in words and pictures.'
'You didn't take a video camera with you.'
'I hired one in Zurich.'
Marsha explained how she'd read over a selection of photocopied Craft materials while on the plane. One passage in particular had taken her attention. She handed the page to Bright and he read it while Marsha poured more wine.
Sometimes, to escape from the pressure of work at the clinic, I would take a boat and row out onto the lake. I rowed for many kilometres, exhausting myself, until I reached that state of heightened awareness sought by yogis and mystics. I am a scientist. These transcendent states are the product of low blood sugar and violent exercise can bring about this effect—meditation, fasting, self-flagellation are merely techniques to achieve this same end.
