Shore Leave

by David Whish-Wilson

  Tremain, however, remained seated, his eyes elsewhere. He snapped out of it when Swann finally stood. ‘But how would that work? Wouldn’t there be a conflict of interest, especially after the recent scrutiny of the government doing business with the Conlans? Talk of a Royal Commission?’

  ‘There are ways. Speak to your accountant.’

  ‘I will. Thanks for your time. What do I owe you?’

  Swann shook his head. ‘Advice is free. Sorry I can’t help.’ The churning in his guts had become minor spasms, now short violent convulsions. Swann leaned over the garden and threw up his coffee, holding back the dog by her collar.

  When he was finished, Tremain thrust his hand out, his eyes striving for the right note of commiseration. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you were unwell. You’ve been through a lot.’

  He sounded genuine, which saddened Swann, because it was precisely the reason that Tremain was being robbed blind.

  6.

  Devon Smith scraped gravy and potato crud off the last of the plates, took the water-blaster and scoured the stacks, covering the splashback with pieces of the same crapola before turning the high-pressure hose on the splashback too.

  Devon watched the water drain into the massive sink. He took up the handle on the brushed steel dishwasher and lifted, stepped away. The greasy steam that enveloped him smelt of bacon fat, stale eggs and rotten cabbage from where the drain filter was clogged. After he replaced the plates and cutlery in their trolleys, loaded and removed the next wash, he’d have to empty the drain – his least favourite job. He was supposed to empty it after every meal service, but the smell was so foul that it made him gag as he reached his fingers inside the filter and scraped it out. Instead, he changed the filter every couple of days, and never the day before his rostered holiday, which was Monday. It was a small act of defiance, pathetic really, but that was what it’d come to.

  The other Kitchen Patrol crewmen were on shore leave, along with three thousand other ranks, the officers staggering the release of personnel into the port. That left two thousand ranks on board – essential staff mainly – the guns manned and the divers still patrolling the vast hull beneath the waterline every few hours in case of a terrorist attack. All of the pilots were on shore leave, as were the pointers and strikers – the staff who made landing and taking off on a moving platform possible.

  Devon Smith had joined the US Navy hoping to be one such specialised crewman, but after his ninety days of TAD, or temporary assigned duty in the galley, he hadn’t been assigned elsewhere, like all the others from his cohort. He’d wanted to try out as a gunner but after another ninety days he had the same result – kept back in the galley. Even on Kitchen Patrol he’d failed to impress the team of cooks and their supervisors, who’d banned him from knife and grill work, claiming that he didn’t have the temperament to contribute to a team environment. Devon Smith had finally found his level working as a permanently assigned dishwasher in the scullery, something he hadn’t told his dad or anyone else back in San Diego. New midshipmen and women came and went, doing their ninety days of shit work before being transferred to more important duties, but Smith was stuck where he was. It took him the full six months to figure out that his nickname in the scullery, one-dee-ten-tee, wasn’t some nigger word but was instead navy slang for idiot.

  That was about to change. With plenty of the KP on shore leave, wandering around in their summer whites pretending they were real sailors, lying through their teeth as they angled for a thirteen-button salute with a local girl, Smith had been reassigned back into the galley to help prepare a special meal service for the officers on shore. Until now Devon didn’t know how he was going to get his contraband off ship, but he considered himself smarter than they gave him credit for. It was almost like the amount of shit he’d received was part of a higher plan, designed to get him to this position. He did know one phrase of navy slang, however, reinforced by repeating it over and over, and was something that he was looking forward to saying.

  Alpha Mike Foxtrot.

  Adios, motherfuckers.

  7.

  Swann heard a car door slam. He peered from behind the front-room curtain, watched a taxi pull away as the tanned and fit-looking US Navy Master-at-Arms Steven Webb, dressed in tropical whites – shorts, long socks and short-sleeved shirt – took off his cap and opened the gate. The dog crawled out from underneath the house and slunk toward the stranger, trying to raise her hackles but betrayed by her rapidly wagging tail.

  It was midmorning and Marion had left for work. Swann had planned on another day of taking it easy until midday, when he was on babysitting duty for his two grandchildren, Jock and Neve. They were both keen swimmers and he usually took them to the pool, or the beach if the Fremantle Doctor wasn’t blowing.

  Swann cracked the front door and mock-saluted the American.

  ‘Swann. Glad you’re home. Been keeping well, I hope?’

  ‘Yeah. Fine,’ Swann lied, immediately regretting it. ‘I got your letter. Take a seat. You on duty or just showing the colours to the lower ranks?’

  ‘Bit of both. I’ve got a bottle of overproof Cuban rum with your name on it.’

  The idea of drinking didn’t appeal, but Swann played along. ‘Isn’t there an embargo on that kind of thing? The Cold War and whatnot?’

  ‘Not for the finer things. They get traded through the merchant navy, then come to us.’

  ‘Got the brig ready?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. I had some repeat offenders clean it yesterday, as a taste if they screw up again and go AWOL with one of your local ladies. Say, you’ve lost weight, my friend.’

  Swann told him what had happened, adding the part about his new sickness, and Webb nodded attentively. Before joining the navy, Webb had been a Washington beat cop, and later, a detective. They’d traded cop stories over bottles of whisky the last time the Carl Vinson was in port. Since then, apart from a voyage back to the US for a refit, she’d been out patrolling the Indian Ocean at the behest of President Reagan, and now President Bush, who wanted a demonstration of American resolve in Iran’s backyard.

  As the conversation moved to the purpose of Webb’s visit, the American looked concerned. Swann put Webb at ease. ‘I’ve got two young men working for me, who can do the legwork if I’m unable. They’re learning the ropes, but reliable.’

  The last time the Vinson was in port, just prior to the most recent corporate frauds whose investigations had supported Swann financially ever since, he had been desperate for work. When Steve Webb had quizzed Kerry Bannister at her brothel about several AWOL midshipmen, she’d walked Webb around the corner to Swann’s house. The navy had its Shore Patrol, but they lacked local knowledge. It didn’t take Swann long to track the sailors. Webb had the name of their last watering hole, and that was all Swann needed. Twenty dollars to the barman and he had some names, Webb standing beside him looking puzzled. He’d offered the barman the same amount a few hours earlier, receiving a firm ‘sorry, can’t help ya’. Swann put through a call to a traffic cop friend and then they had addresses to accompany the names. The first apartment-block in suburban Mosman Park was dark, but the next in downtown Claremont was lit up with disco-ball reflections shimmering across the front windows. As they approached, the sound of Prince’s ‘Kiss’ made the windows tremble in their frames. Swann took the front door while Webb covered the back. He’d told Swann stories of men he’d tackled in backyards and stairwells over the years, barefoot and with their pants barely fixed.

  The three AWOL African-American sailors looked crestfallen. Swann felt immediately sorry for them. Their new friends pleaded with them to stay. They were all young western-suburbs women with healthy tans, white teeth and ski-ramp noses. Uni student types, being no-strings adventurous. In this they weren’t alone. Whenever Yank ships floated into port, the number of women in the city swelled by thousands. They frequented Pinocchios, Rumours, the Red Parrot and other clubs where the sailors were taken by knowing taxi drivers. Sometime
s the relationships that started on the dancefloors became permanent, but more often they were one-night stands, both parties looking for a bit of fun. And why not, Swann thought, watching the sailors kiss the Claremont kids goodbye. The lovers wouldn’t be meeting again that time, however – the sailors were AWOL, which meant time in the brig, shit-bird duty and a small drop in their rating for the next months, if they were lucky.

  Webb took out a packet of Camels from his pristine shirt pocket, offered one to Swann, who shook his head. ‘You quit?’

  ‘I haven’t felt up to smoking, or drinking for that matter, for a few months.’

  ‘You mind if I?’ Webb asked, lighting the cigarette with his service zippo. ‘It’s great to hear that you’ve got capable friends, in case I need them, but I was hoping that you could help me this morning. Shouldn’t take long. This particular midshipman’s friends tell me he’s somewhere in Fremantle. Last seen in your local pub, the Seaview, while his amigos ducked into the bordello of the formidable Kerry Bannister. He can’t have gone far and it’s only a minute walk from here. Thought you might want to accompany me?’

  Swann looked at his watch. He had time. The dog, Mya, recognised the signal of Swann shuffling into his thongs. She wrinkled her nose at the smoke coming off Webb’s hand but got hopefully to her feet, slinking to rub her face into Swann’s shins.

  ‘Sure, I’ve got a couple of hours. He have any kind of record or history I should know about?’

  For Swann, it was a routine question, especially now that he felt physically compromised; his legs and arms gone soft with the months of disuse, his reflexes slow. Webb waved a hand. ‘Nothing I’m aware of.’

  Webb’s answer caught Swann’s attention by its tone. Webb was the classic cheerful American, using his charm to open conversations but also to shut them down. He seemed to genuinely like Swann, but was always guarded when it came to questions about his fellow servicemen and women.

  ‘Bring the dog if she wants to come, Frank,’ was all he added. ‘I miss dogs.’

  Webb had shown no interest in Mya, despite her imploring eyes, sniffing at his bare legs all the while. Swann presumed Webb to mean that a loyal dog might be useful in defusing a potentially tricky situation. Swann tapped his thigh and Mya came to heel, slinking beside him as they rounded into the street, smiling at Webb and only ducking her eyes when wattlebirds flew overhead.

  The Seaview Hotel was Swann’s local. It’d seen better years, back when workers from the local fellmongers, tannery, biscuit factory and the nearby docks flooded in around knock-off time. It still catered to residents loyal to Old Tom, the Serbian publican who’d bought it with a lotto win. Tom ran the lodging house upstairs, although he’d leased the bar to Sydney gangster Abe Saffron a couple of years back. The business was used to launder Saffron’s money, who’d refurbished the place and otherwise used it as a money sink, hiring Tom as bar manager.

  Tom watched them come, wiping a glass with a dirty towel. The bar was hot with the smell of stagnant air and unwashed beer mats.

  Swann made the introductions while Tom delivered his inscrutable Buddha smile. It was a smile suitable for all manner of situations, including the moment prior to wading into a mob of drunken fishermen with his rounders bat.

  Swann told Tom what they were after – sailors who’d rented a room for the night.

  ‘Black one or white one?’ was all he replied.

  ‘Black one,’ answered Webb.

  Tom took a roll of keys off his belt and tossed them to Swann. ‘Room six. Next to stairs.’

  Swann thanked Tom and they took the staircase that rose through the building, the old boards creaking in their carriage posts. ‘Economical with words, your friend,’ said Webb, who now sported wet patches under his armpits and down his back.

  ‘That was him being talkative,’ Swann replied. ‘Your Yankee ways rub off on people.’

  At the top of the stairs, Swann searched through the keyring. Tom’s lodging house was a carnival of scents for the dog. She darted from Swann’s legs to the overflowing bins and the stains on the carpet, the sticky substances on the bannister.

  Swann nodded to the nearest door, the aluminium number 6 missing one screw and fallen to make a 9. Webb knocked loudly. A toilet flushed behind them in the communal shower. Swann turned and watched a thin hairy man with a neck tattoo and a towel around his waist exit the toilet, clock them and grimace. Tom’s rooms were also rented out to the prison service as a halfway house for newly released inmates, and the man had gaol written all over him. Swann ignored him and turned to Webb, who knocked again before asking for the key. Swann handed it over and waited. Webb unlocked the door and toed it wide. A single bed with strewn sheets. Barred window closed, despite the heat. Ceiling fan not moving. Swann waited outside, although he was getting that feeling – some rooms just felt like a crime scene. Webb felt it too, looking carefully at the walls, behind the door, under the bed. Picked up the bin and showed Swann the used condoms. Swann knelt and ran his fingers through Mya’s silky ears. She knew something was wrong, and didn’t enter the room. Webb lifted the mattress and began looking underneath.

  ‘Locked from the outside,’ said Swann. ‘But the key not returned. Perhaps your man’s already –’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Webb extracted a wallet from inside the mattress. A fat black wallet, stray fibres of mattress-stuffing in its fold. ‘Old navy practice, called the Mexican bank. Done it myself once or twice. Every cathouse in every port, you’ll find sliced pockets in the mattresses, always on the bottom by the feet.’

  ‘But that’s a new mattress.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘So sailor boy has a knife, not here.’

  Webb nodded, opened the wallet and took out an ID card, looked at it, put it back.

  ‘He might’ve been drunk, forgot it.’

  ‘Never happen, Frank. Either he’s in the wind, doesn’t need ID for his imagined new life and wanted us to find it here, or something’s not right. Let’s go and speak to Mr Friendly downstairs. Gonna need to rent this room for a while.’

  ‘Tom mentioned another sailor – a white one. Should we?’

  Webb pocketed the wallet, took a last look around the room. ‘Yes, we should, but first let’s get the room sealed. Sorry about this, Frank. Thought it’d be routine …’

  Swann had heard that before. He looked out over the balcony, across the carpark to his backyard. His old shed roof, shaded by an ancient white gum. Behind him, Webb locked the door, jangled the keys for Swann to take. Swann turned as the first convulsion rose from his belly. There wasn’t time to make it to the toilets. He put up a hand and leaned over the balcony.

  8.

  Tony Pascoe kept his head down, hoping that the Esso cap he’d stolen and his long white beard would conceal his face. He proceeded down the nearest suburban street, heading away from the coastline and marina.

  Pascoe made sure to walk like a civilian. He kept his gait open, like he was innocent of every thought beyond heading home to water the garden or feed the dog, or whatever suburban people did to fill in their time.

  Pascoe was nine hours on the run, and the coppers would be looking. It was a risk to leave his hide in the yacht club, where he’d broken into a cabin cruiser off Capo D’Orlando Drive, down the furthest end of a long jetty. The cruiser was a sixty-footer named Easy Rider. As he’d hoped, the interior was layered with dust on the sheoak veneer surfaces. It was likely that the super-rich owner only used it occasionally in summer, if at all. There were drawn blinds on the windows and the cupboards were stocked with canned steak ’n’ onions, rice pudding, two fruits and baked beans. Pascoe was used to prison food and could eat the rations cold while sitting in the darkness. So confident was the owner of the yacht club security that there was a spare key hidden inside a biscuit tin. Pascoe didn’t know how to drive a boat, but he liked the thought of heading west when his job was done. The liquor cabinet was stocked with single malts and tequila. He could stea
m out into the great wide ocean until the fuel sputtered out, then drift, and drink himself to death.

  The only things that Pascoe had taken off the boat were a fishing rod and an army surplus flare gun. He carried the fishing rod in his left hand, hoping to look like a typical old man returning from a day’s fishing at the Mole. It was a stubby boat rod and useless for land-based fishing, but he gambled that nobody would look closely. Pascoe wore the backpack heavy with the oxygen tank and the flare gun. He kept a steady pace through the flatter streets, trying to regulate his breathing. The vast open sky and the ordinary smells of restaurant cooking and car exhaust were intoxicating after so many years inside, and he tried to keep his eyes off the new-model vehicles and the fashions worn by the pedestrians headed into town. Even from a casual observation, it was clear that the cars had lost their sixties curves and gone boxy. When Pascoe had entered the prison in 1970, Japanese imports were limited to the rare Toyota Crown or Nissan Cedric – now the plastic bumpers and rice-burner engines were common. The fashions however hadn’t changed much. Men still wore their hair long, and flannel and jeans remained the norm. The few women he saw on the street who weren’t nonnas in funereal black wore pale blue jeans and permed hair, with bright lipstick.

  Leaving the yacht club during the daylight hours was a risk but Pascoe needed a gun. Until the cancer had mowed him down, he’d been as handy as any other prisoner, but now any kind of physical confrontation meant that he was liable to collapse and die.

  Pascoe tried to focus his mind on his breathing and his slow, even steps. Walking meditation. Fighting was a useful thing to let his thoughts drift across, however, now he was fighting to survive from day to day. He listened to his whistling lungs and the slapping of his thongs on the footpath.