River of Salt

by Warner, Dave;

  That’s when the penny dropped. This was going to be a problem. And it was.

  Her mum guessed what was on her mind as she saw her daughter approaching. She rang off from Mary Stevens and said, ‘Darling, you know this changes everything.’

  She protested. No, no, no. You can’t do this. Her mother pointed out that a girl had been stabbed to death.

  ‘The Ocean View Motel is like … Queensland. It’s fifty miles from here.’ An exaggeration of course but Kitty felt she needed to throw everything she had at this.

  ‘There’s some madman running around.’

  ‘I’ve got Todd to protect me.’

  ‘Todd’s not your father.’

  This was the most superfluous statement her mother had ever made. Even she seemed to realise that. She guillotined all discussion.

  ‘Not while there’s a murderer out there.’

  And so Kitty had plunged off the cloud without a parachute, down through cold, chill air. All because some girl she’d never known, never met, got herself stabbed to death. It would almost certainly turn out the girl was a prostitute or something. She’d probably been entertaining men in her motel room. Now because of this stupid woman …

  She pulled herself up. Deep breaths. Maybe it was a madman, maybe the girl was minding her own business but she clearly didn’t have a guy like Todd to protect her. And that’s when, right at the nadir of the plunge, she came up with a new strategy.

  ‘It’s incredibly offensive to the Henleys.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Virtually accusing their son of being a killer.’

  ‘That’s rubbish. It’s nothing of the sort.’

  ‘Okay, so … you’re saying he’s not a killer but if the hypothetical situation arose where this killer of some woman we don’t know, fifty miles away … if that madman decided out of all the cars at the drive-in to target Todd’s, that Todd wouldn’t be able to defend me. That he’d what … run away and save his own skin?’

  ‘I’m not saying that.’

  ‘That’s how it’s going to sound. That Todd would be so scared he wouldn’t even be able to lock the doors. He wouldn’t think of driving off, he’d just sit there and let us both get stabbed to death.’

  The longer the ensuing silence went, the more optimistic Kitty had got. Then, capitulation.

  ‘Fine. You may go with Todd, straight there and straight back, no stopping off for malts at the milkbar, no getting out of the car for the snack bar.’

  And that’s when she felt that gravitational rip in her stomach as she started climbing again for the stratosphere. Five forty: time to paint nails.

  Nothing was going to stop Blake’s ritual. Despite everything, he was up at seven and out for a surf. He was still touched by Doreen’s loyalty. She was the best. If only she didn’t work with him. She was beautiful, sexy, but he never ever thought of her naked, having sex with him. In fact, he never really thought of any women like that, not like some guys did, Jimmy for example. Sure, once he’d actually had sex with a woman, it was different. Then he only had to smell their perfume, or catch sight of their thigh when they crossed their legs and he’d be feeling the need in his loins. But until then it was their mystery that drew him in. They were so different to him, to men. They might barely move an eye and that could tell you more than sitting for a thousand hours in a bar with some guy. The trouble with Doreen was that if they got close he might want to share, to tell her about who he had been. That would be disastrous because she could never love him then. Never trust him. How could you trust a man who had let his own brother perish? He could lie but that was cheating, just as wrong as if he was sleeping around. Now, it was okay to lie if you had to, to save your skin, or in a business situation. But if you fell for some girl, or she fell for you, then lying was weak, the coward’s way.

  He would not bother to visit Carol today. She started her shift at eleven-thirty and besides, it would set a bad precedent. Tomorrow they would drive up the coast. He only barely considered that was near where the girl was murdered. Before he’d dropped off to sleep he’d already decided that Doreen was right. The girl was from Queensland passing through and had just picked up the matchbook at the Heads. That still left Nalder to deal with. In that regard he would let sleeping dogs lie.

  And there was still Harry and Steve.

  Meantime, he wanted to try Crane on a spot tonight. He’d changed his mind about him being too weird, got to thinking Saturday could be a good night for Crane. Arty types from the hinterland north and south made their way to the Shack. It wasn’t a lot of people, maybe only twenty all up, but put Crane with them and it would give the Shack the flavour he wanted. He couldn’t describe that flavour exactly but he knew what he didn’t want — those nightclubs with the silver shimmery curtains and some Californian Poppy dude crooning about the moon. Crane was as far away from that as you could possibly get. As he towelled off, Blake sensed a change in the air, moisture, a build-up. It might take a few days but somewhere along the line, it was going to dump.

  Crane was lying on his back on a thin mat on the floor of his shack. He did not look good. There were some cuts around his face and on his arms.

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘The vagaries of life.’ He didn’t try to sit up.

  ‘What specific vagaries?’ After a while you got to learn this was the best way to speak to Crane.

  ‘After the last gig and the excellent plonk you bequeathed me I became inspired to stretch my legs, walk up that old logging road off Salisbury Drive. There’s a little hut up there the loggers once used. Regrettably I lost my sense of direction and fell right off the ridge, through a thankfully thick bit of foliage that cushioned the worst, no broken bones. I landed like a cat, literally, you know they can fall out of a window and land fine?’

  ‘So you’re not up for tonight? I’m thinking Saturday could work well.’

  Crane registered the offer and visibly brightened.

  ‘Au contraire, Monsieur Americano, I’ll be there with bells on. My weekend rate —’

  ‘An extra bottle.’ Crane’s smile was as good as a handshake. `You hear about the dead girl?’

  He had not. He hadn’t been out of his place since he hobbled back. A truck driver had given him a lift for all but the last mile or so. Blake told him what he knew.

  ‘ “Life stains the white radiance of Eternity till Death tramples it to fragments.” Shelley.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Whoever she is, she is in a far better place. Then again Shelley was more pissed than me most of the time, so who’s to say? It will give me something to work on for tonight.’

  ‘You need anything?’

  ‘Aspirin. I have toilet paper, water and books, the essentials.’

  Blake went back home and spent an hour practising the guitar. Playing guitar and sex were the only times he felt immune from his past, innocent, like when he was a kid and Tommy Ioppolo let him hold his pigeon. He could still remember the pumping heart, the soft feel of feathers, life. Then images he didn’t want crashed in: smash, bam. A newspaper, Yuri Gagarin. A hole appearing right in the middle. Blood. His phone rang. It was Winston Clarke.

  ‘Sorry about yesterday. It was a big night Thursday, and we just kind of kept at it yesterday.’

  ‘No trouble.’

  ‘The kegs are ready for pick up when it suits you. And I have your money here right now.’

  ‘I’ll come on over.’

  Though it was a Saturday morning, there were only a couple of guys kicking tyres on the lot when Blake arrived and parked by the office next to Clarke’s Bel Air. In the distance he caught sight of Leftwich, nodding his head in a phony way to a prospective customer. Clarke must have been waiting. He bustled out brandishing an envelope.

  ‘Thanks, mate, I’ll use you again.’

  ‘You know where to find me. Everything went well?’

  Blake leaned back on the Chevy to check the cash in the envelope. Long ago he learned to take not
hing for granted. As he glanced down, he saw the Chevy’s fender was dented.

  ‘Too well.’ Clarke pointed at the fender. ‘One of Tom’s idiot mates. But what are you going to do? You’re too young for kids, right? Don’t worry, one day.’

  The money was all there.

  ‘You need a receipt?’

  Clarke waved that away. ‘Cash is cash. We should get together some time. Talk about the States.’

  A chance for Clarke to try and sell him a car. He went perfunctory. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Speaking of the States. What about Jackie Kennedy? Is she something or what? How could you concentrate on running the country with that waiting at home?’ One of the tyre-kickers was heading over. ‘I gotta go. Everything’s ready for you at the house. They broke a few glasses.’

  ‘That’s covered.’

  ‘Thought so.’

  Clarke strode quickly to the stranger, hand extended automatically, gold watch gleaming. Different world.

  There was an old FJ and a Zephyr slumbering on the lawn. Up here you could see the purple of the clouds more. Maybe it wouldn’t thunder today, but soon. Clarke had disconnected the kegs and packed up the glasses. They’d done well, got through about one and a half of the kegs. Blake loaded up the ute. Thomas Clarke appeared at the top of the back steps shading his eyes. He wore footy shorts and nothing else. Even from this distance Blake could feel the weight of the kid’s hangover.

  Clarke managed to slur, ‘Oh, you. Just checking.’

  Like the kid could have done anything if it wasn’t.

  Blake said, ‘You enjoy your birthday?’

  The kid looked like he was going to be sick. ‘See you.’

  He retreated into the house. Blake thought he heard retching. Well, he sold them the beer but didn’t put a gun to their head to drink it. Only as he was driving away did he realise the irony of that sentiment. He tried to recall his own eighteenth birthday, got an image of Jimmy, Vinnie and him catching a train to Penn station. They had wound up in Little Italy where they drank some really rank, strong stuff, grappa or something like it, who the fuck knew? Vaguely he remembered some craps game. Yeah, that’s right, it was coming back, though it might have been his nineteenth birthday. He won, rolled seven three times in a row. Made his point, the ten. They kept calling him birthday boy. Vinnie and Jimmy went off with some hookers and he had to wait by stinky trash cans in an alley. But it was his nineteenth, he was certain of it, for his eighteenth he now remembered he’d spent at Tommy Hanlon’s apartment watching the Giants playing the Phillies. He was certain because the next year the Giants headed west, which was a pity. He liked the Giants more than his home team who were crap. Jimmy was supposed to be getting there but never showed up and Blake had to walk back home by himself. It turned out Jimmy and Vinnie were boosting some truckload of liquor for the Mob. Their payout was a box of booze. That’s probably why they’d tried to make it up to him the next year with the New York trip. He wished he could go back, spend a night sitting on crates in a New York back alley twiddling his thumbs, or watching a snowy TV screen seeing the crap Phillies get beat up again, knowing it didn’t matter how shitty the night was, because sooner or later Jimmy would be there.

  Miss you, brother.

  Eventually Kitty had decided on a lovely white summer frock with little cherries and matching red shoes. She was watching through the curtains of her bedroom for the telltale headlights in the driveway. 6.44, right on time, twin headlight beams speared at her, and she had to pull back in case her face was snared. She heard the engine switch off and the door close, made herself remember to breathe. The plan was her mum would greet Todd and say ‘I’ll let Kitty know you’re here.’ Her father would do the man-to-man thing, shake Todd’s hand, ask him to be particularly careful with a potential maniac on the loose.

  Her mother appeared in the doorway, didn’t need to say anything, just raised her eyebrows.

  ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Beautiful.’

  Her mum stepped back and allowed her to make an entrance into the lounge room. Todd swung back from where he was standing with her dad and smiled as she mustered her best ‘hi’.

  They stood there awkwardly for a moment.

  Her mum said, ‘Well, you don’t want to miss the start.’

  Her feet got the cue and started moving.

  ‘We’ll wait up for you. Please don’t be late, Todd, not with … you know.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Ferguson. I will take good care of Kitty.’

  ‘Give my regards to your father.’

  ‘I will, Mr Ferguson.’

  The only one in the house not gushing was Bumps. She had a scowl on her face.

  The door closed and they were suddenly outside in the perfumed, humid night. Todd’s car sat in the driveway. Kitty didn’t know anything about cars, what model was what or anything, but it looked reasonably new. She waited at the passenger door and was electrified by Todd’s fingers as they rested gently on her lower back. He looked into her eyes.

  ‘You look terrific.’

  She melted. He opened the door for her and she slid in, the way she and her friends had practised when they were pretending a couple of years back. But this was really happening. Kitty guessed her mother would be sneaking a peak through the drapes and would be impressed that Todd had opened the door for her ‘like a gentleman’.

  They reversed out. So far she had hardly spoken to him but she knew that you were supposed to ask boys — men, she corrected herself — all about them.

  ‘So you were working with your dad today?’

  ‘Yeah, he has a factory warehouse. It’s all fertilisers and stuff, pretty boring.’

  ‘University must be interesting.’

  ‘We do a lot of drinking, that’s interesting. The rest of the time it’s a bit like school except no uniform and it’s harder.’

  ‘It can’t be as boring as here.’

  ‘I don’t know, you don’t have some girl stabbed to death there. How was that, eh? Like twenty times or something.’

  Kitty hadn’t heard that detail and asked how he knew. ‘Someone said. I only found out when I got home from work. I bet she’s a prostitute.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Otherwise what was she doing in a motel by herself?’

  ‘I heard she was quite pretty. The police showed my mum a photo. You see one?’

  ‘No, I got home, had a bath and got ready.’

  That’s something she would have liked to witness. She steered the conversation away from dead girls. This was her first date with Todd, she didn’t want it ruined by morbid talk.

  ‘You know anything about the movie?’

  She’d looked it up. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence was playing. She’d heard the song on the radio but it wasn’t her kind of thing.

  ‘It’s a western.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her heart sank. Even a spy film had a little romance. Horses and guns was such a boy thing. Todd looked over and grinned.

  ‘Don’t worry. We might be too busy to care what the movie is about.’

  She felt herself blush. There was something she had to know though before any kind of … activity … was going to occur.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’

  ‘That depends. If you want to know if I have been thinking about you all day, the answer is a definite yes.’

  Here goes. ‘What’s the situation with you and Brenda? Are you like, going steady?’

  ‘With Brenda Holsch? Is that what people think?’

  ‘It’s what Brenda likes people to think.’

  He was shaking his head vigorously. ‘We went out a few times, that’s all. She got really clingy, like we were engaged or something. She asked me to come, check her out on Thursday, which I was happy to do. She’s a good mover. She was real pissed off when I said you deserved to win.’

  It was better than Kitty could possibly have hoped for. To prove her fairness she offered, ‘She’s attractive.’

 
‘Oh yeah, she’s that alright. But you know, I’m not ready for an engagement yet.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Darn.

  By the time they joined the queue of cars they knew a little bit more about each other. Todd liked sailing and still kept a VJ at his parents’ house. She’d confessed that if she could have a wish to be anything, she’d be an actress, but for now she was thinking of working in a bank: secure job, reasonable pay. Todd parked in his ‘favourite place’ over on the left-hand side by the trees.

  ‘Nobody can see us here,’ he said with a smile. It took a bit of time for him to position the car just right on the hump. Then he got out and organised the speakers. The drive-in was about half full but not many people were getting out for the store. Kitty guessed most of them were a bit spooked too. She was glad she wasn’t working in the store. Todd reached down and slid the seat back. The ads were playing and the lights were on half.

  On screen, an attractive woman was spraying her perfect beehive with Gossamer. For a fraction of a second Kitty imagined the woman at the motel doing that, waiting for her lover, ignorant of the truth that in a few minutes some maniac would be plunging a knife into her.

  ‘What are you doing way over there? I’ll need a loud hailer.’

  Todd lifted his arm off the back of the seat by way of invitation and she snuggled over. He put his arm around her. Everything was perfect. Then the lights went way down and the titles started rolling.

  Todd said, ‘Darn, I think I’ve got something in my eye.’

  She turned away from the screen to look at him. His eyes were staring right into hers. Before she knew what was happening he had lunged at her and his mouth was fastening onto hers. This was not like any other kiss she’d ever experienced. For a start, she couldn’t keep her lips closed. The pressure of his mouth, his tongue … Oh my God, they were French kissing!