River of Salt

by Warner, Dave;

  ‘He smiled at me, squeezed my hand, managed to say my name, but he was a bit out to it. The doctor said that’s the drugs.’

  ‘Andy say anything else?’

  ‘One other thing: Audrey.’

  Shit. That was something he would have to take care of. Only then he noticed his vase had been replaced by a proper goldfish bowl, the fish still swimming.

  ‘Where did the bowl come from?’

  ‘I worked an arrangement with an orderly. I’m guessing that the vase was you.’ She had a smile on her lips. He owned up.

  ‘The other night. So he’s going to be alright?’

  ‘They say he’s not going to need a plate or anything else. Once they reduce the drugs in his system, he’ll able to hold a proper conversation but he shouldn’t work for a few weeks.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  What he wanted to do was seize her and kiss her, not like with a girlfriend — although maybe there was a bit of that too — but because it just seemed right. He did nothing at all. All of a sudden it felt awkward.

  ‘What about the family?’

  ‘I left a message with a neighbour.’

  ‘I’m driving to Sydney,’ he said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘That’s a bad road at night.’

  ‘I’ll take it easy. There’s things I have to check out.’ He told her about his conversation with Harvey. He nodded at Andy. ‘He might have seen something. Everybody forgot about Andy but he was there all the time.’

  ‘The doctor said he might not remember anything about the attack or even days before.’

  ‘I know. But he might.’

  After the hospital, he had one more visit to make. Nalder had been eating steak. He had a napkin stained with worcester sauce tucked into his shirt. He wasn’t happy to have Blake knocking on his door.

  ‘You shouldn’t come here.’

  ‘It would be weird if I didn’t.’ He told him about Andy.

  ‘Well if he can identify the men who beat him up, I promise I’ll do something.’

  ‘That’s not why I’m here. I’m going to Sydney.’

  ‘To help Crane? You’ve got rocks in your head.’

  ‘Stokes worked as a hooker. I think maybe she had some special customer, could be our guy, or at least could help if she spent time with him.’

  ‘What do you want from me? And make it quick, my mashed potato is getting cold.’

  ‘I need somebody who can tell me where she worked, who her friends were.’

  Nalder picked steak from a tooth. ‘There’s a Vice cop I know down there, might not be averse to earning an extra quid or two.’

  Detective Sergeant Ray Shearer had shoulders like axe handles, heavy hands. One look told Blake he was vastly more dangerous than the weak punks who’d beat up Andy. Blake had already folded seven pounds into a wad in his palm and when they shook hands Shearer transferred these to his own with practised ease.

  They were in a small dining room adjoining a cramped bar somewhere in the Cross. After driving for around five hours, Blake had reached Newcastle near midnight. There he slept on the beach like he had when he’d first arrived in the country. He’d cruised to Sydney, called into the Kings Cross police station and met Shearer, who had suggested a lunch meet at the pub.

  ‘What’s a septic tank doing up in Boomer’s patch?’ Shearer didn’t bother to check the notes he slipped into his jacket.

  ‘Surfing, running a bar.’

  ‘Half your luck. How is the bastard?’

  Their earlier meeting that day had been succinct. Blake had established that Nalder had been known as Boomer in his younger days, that he had played rugby with Shearer, and that for seven pounds Shearer would find out what he could about Valerie Stokes, her criminal record and associates.

  ‘He’s like the sheriff up there.’

  Shearer chuckled. The waitress arrived with their food. Shearer winked at her, began sawing meat.

  ‘This bird, Val Stokes, got done in.’

  It was a statement. Blake hadn’t told him that.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you want this information why?’

  If he told the truth, Shearer might shut up shop. But what choice did he have?

  ‘They’ve arrested a guy I know. I think he’s innocent.’

  ‘The drifter?’

  ‘He’s not really a drifter.’

  Shearer added copious salt and waved his hand. ‘I don’t give a stuff. Vernon and Apollonia have tags on themselves. Always strutting around, “We’re big Homicide D’s”.’ He reached into his jacket and pulled out a sheet of paper. ‘Valerie Stokes’ charge sheet. I’ll be honest, I didn’t remember her, don’t think she was in the game long. Worked at one of George Shaloub’s brothels.’

  Blake scanned the sheet. There was a perfunctory arrest report. Not much to go on.

  ‘How do I get to Shaloub?’

  ‘You don’t.’ As if he knew Blake was going to argue, he held up a warning palm. ‘Please, trust me on this.’

  Blake understood: Shaloub was some kind of Aussie mob boss.

  ‘So what do I do?’

  Shearer ate some more, chewed thoroughly. There was a neatness and efficiency about him.

  ‘I’ve made some enquiries on your behalf. Shaloub’s bodyguard is a giant, name of Granite. Granite’s no professor but he remembers absolutely every piece of tail ever set foot in the Cross. He remembers Stokes. He says you should speak to a girl called Jill. She’s still on the game but she and Val Stokes used to room together. I’ve written the address on the back. She doesn’t start work till two.’

  Blake said he didn’t want to seem rude but he wouldn’t stay, he wanted to get onto it straight away. Shearer told him no offence was taken.

  ‘Tell Boomer I might pay him a visit one day. Thanks for lunch.’

  Perhaps this was a mistake, a waste of time and effort. Perhaps he should have let it go, left it to Harvey to get it right. But he couldn’t, just the same as he couldn’t turn the other cheek when those bozos smashed up Andy. Crane was his responsibility, that’s the way he figured it, same as Jimmy had been, and he’d let him down, right, Jimmy? He did not deserve any of this: playing his guitar in his own bar with a beautiful woman like Doreen working alongside him, surfing in the crystal ocean, watching the sun rise like a gold coin over a sheet of pure silver. He’d suspected all along it hadn’t just been gifted to him, that there must be more to it, some fine print like on a winning lottery ticket. This was the fine print. You have to help those who cannot help themselves, you have to protect and serve those who serve you. Maybe it wouldn’t stop with Crane, maybe there would be another hurdle he had to clear.

  The address Shearer gave him was half-a-dozen blocks away, downhill in a cramped quarter of apartments and old triple-storey terraces where damp washing was strung on lines and the road suffered from acne. After following directions from a woman with a scarf knotted over her head, he found himself in a minute kitchen at a tiny table beside a caged mechanical canary. Jill wrangled a kettle on a gas cooker, Viscount between her lips, a housecoat with Chinese blossoms. Her brown hair ran wild like the bracken around the back of Carol’s house. He put her age at thirty, give or take.

  ‘Can’t believe it.’ She poured hot water into an aluminium teapot, closed it up, shook it around. ‘Stabbed?’

  ‘Brutally. Sorry.’

  She sighed, continue to motion the pot.

  ‘Can you think of anybody who might have hated her …?’

  She looked up sharply. ‘You said the cops had a bloke.’

  ‘I don’t think he did it.’

  She considered him long and hard. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I want to find out who did kill Valerie. Otherwise I think whoever murdered her is walking around laughing.’

  She was thinking about that, he could see it.

  ‘Hey if I’m wrong, you’ve done good by her anyway. Did the police speak to you?’
She shook her head, began to pour tea into two odd cups. He decided his best shot was to keep talking.

  ‘She left Brisbane on Sunday, stayed at the Heads Sunday night then, voom, disappears from Monday afternoon until Thursday evening. I think she must have stayed with somebody, maybe a former client. Maybe they killed her, or would know who did.’

  Jill brought the cups and saucers over and sat on the other chair.

  ‘Stokesy was a good kid. She was a bit lost, needed to work a few things out. I think she knew this wasn’t the life for her. What’s she been doing?’

  ‘Barmaid in Brisbane.’

  Jill nodded like that made sense.

  ‘Can you think of anybody she had a special connection with?’

  Jill added three spoons of sugar, stirred slowly. ‘Sorry. She had a couple of regulars but …’

  ‘What is it? Somebody come to mind?’

  ‘Not exactly somebody. She came back one day grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary.’ Jill realised what she said, nodded at the cage with a smile. ‘Not that one. I did have a real canary once but it got out.’ Blake waited patiently. ‘She came back from wherever she’d been, happy as Larry with twenty quid or so. That’s a big haul. She’d spent a few bob already too. She was very mysterious about where it come from but I knew she couldn’t hold out. Later she tells me, she met a couple of fellas on the street. They look her up and down, ask if she wants to be in a film. You can guess what kind of film.’

  ‘Was it the one time only?’

  ‘One other time, a month or so later, she said they’d contacted her and she’d done another.’

  ‘She give any names?’

  Jill sucked the last of the fag and stubbed it out. The lipstick on the butt reminded him of the bloody smears in room ten.

  ‘Tell the truth, I wasn’t sure if I believed her. I never heard of anybody recognising her in any movie.’

  ‘You think she made it all up?’

  ‘Not all of it. I remember she had cash, more than normal, but the girls always want to talk it up a bit, you know? Especially with film stars. So and so screwed David Niven or sucked off Tony Curtis. My arse. And the prime minister or premier, of course … mind you, those ones could be telling the truth.’

  He couldn’t see a phone in the flat.

  ‘How would they have contacted her? You have a phone back then?’

  ‘No. They would have just driven around till they spotted her. Usually she was working Darlo on the other side of William. She was new, so she didn’t get prime territory.’

  Dead end. He tried another line. ‘She say anything at all about this movie? Who else was in it?’

  ‘Said it was suck and fuck in front of a proper big movie camera. The bloke in it with her was one of the ones who fronted her, about forty she said.’

  ‘She say where they filmed it?’

  ‘I think she mentioned around Alexandria or Zetland. Some warehouse with a bed and mattress set up. They told her this could be the start of a big career.’ Jill gave a derisive snort.

  ‘You think she made all this up?’

  ‘I think she exaggerated. Maybe it was a film but a private one for these jokers to get off on. The so-called second time, she wouldn’t talk much about because I think she knew I didn’t believe her. I think she just made up that to save face.’

  But if there was a second time, Blake was thinking, maybe the guy gave her his number or some way to stay in touch. But how could he have contacted her? She would have to have contacted him at some point. Brisbane would have to be his next stop. Her words broke into his contemplation.

  ‘You look like that movie guy: Troy Donahue.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You want a freebie? Little memory of the Cross?’

  The answer was no, he did not. But if he said that, he risked offending somebody whose help he may need again. A thought dashed across his brain that he could pay her for her time without the sex but he dismissed that as insulting.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Why not?’

  Mile after mile of bush. Gum trees standing straight and silent along the side of the road like ghosts sitting in judgement on the living: on him. It was amazing you could drive so far and see so few people. With each passing minute, the sun slunk lower, as if embarrassed by the outcome of the day. Light that had been pale, almost white when he set out, turned the colour of urine. My life is like this, Blake thought. I keep driving on in my car, removed. I don’t get out and touch what’s around me. Little by little, things get darker and you don’t really know where you are any more, you just follow white posts and try not to crash.

  Sometimes you fuck up, though. He caught jagged memories of the house on Cockatoo Ridge: muzzle flash, blood, gaping bone.

  Darkness was always coming for you.

  He saw a brick apartment block, his breath on a misted window. You tried to stop it, to head west, to outrun night, to put distance between your actions and your future, but it was as relentless as age.

  9. Edward

  South of Taree with his tank on empty, the hour hand almost at the point where gas stations shut up shop, he saw a Neptune sign and pulled over. The attendant was a young raw-boned guy in overalls. Blake heard himself talking and joking with the guy about the drive ahead, around four hours to go still, but it could have been somebody else, a puppet, doing his part. It was still hot and the smell of the gum trees was as overpowering as Jimmy’s Californian Poppy used to be when he had a date. Jimmy. What the heck would Jimmy have made of this country where you could drive a full tank and pass a handful of cars? The idea of them camping out on some picnic rug, ants biting Jimmy’s ass, brought a smile to his lips.

  He’d left Sydney at three in the afternoon, little wiser than when he had arrived. He had tried to find Detective Shearer again to ask about a potential blue film starring Valerie Stokes but was told by the station cops Shearer was out. The way they said it warned against him asking again. His theory that some former client might have hired her had no support, so the movie line was all he had and that was as thin as the paper on a roll-your-own. The attendant gave him his change, wished him well and went back to finish up in the garage. A car hummed by. He felt like a fly trapped in one of those displays in that big New York museum he’d visited as a kid; a rare outing with his mum and aunt who lived somewhere near Cleveland. Like the whole world could be painted and put inside a cube, and it was beautiful but the only thing that was actually real was that dirty little fly. He remembered a card from his aunt and uncle after his mum died, Jimmy ripping it up, chucking it in the bin. He wondered now if they had offered to look after him or something. Jimmy had dismissed the card as crap.

  ‘Where were they when she needed some help? I’m looking after you, nobody else. We stick together.’

  But his aunt, Jane was her name, she had been nice that one time in New York. They had stopped at a café and Aunt Jane had bought pie for him and his mum. Jimmy wasn’t there of course. He was already in too much trouble. Maybe he was in juvie at that time? Too late now. He could not remember the taste of the pie, nothing like that, not even if it was apple or something else but he remembered he liked it, almost as much as those glass cubes with the world inside them.

  As he was about to climb back into the ute he saw a shape coming towards him from the south along the side of the road, moving in uneven jerks. He thought for a moment it may have been a roo but as it drew closer realised it was a man walking with an uneven gait on account of the big swag he was carrying across his back. As the man reached the station area, Blake saw he wore tattered clothes and shoes with no socks, and then last of all that he was Aboriginal, and only Blake’s age. Blake had had nothing to do with Aborigines. It wasn’t like back home where there were actual laws in some places keeping black and white from mingling, but all the same there was a real demarcation and the ‘Abos’, as everybody called them, seemed to have the thin end of the stick. On his travels he’d caught glimpses of black people liv
ing down by riverbeds or in parks. He’d been drinking in pubs where they’d been shooed out even though they weren’t noisy or drunk. He had never seen an Aboriginal person in Coral Shoals. This guy looked like he’d been walking for a long time.

  ‘Where you heading, man?’ he asked when the guy was nearly level. The guy stopped, looked nervous.

  ‘I’m just passing through. I’m not stopping.’

  He said it like if he stopped it was going to offend Blake.

  ‘But where are you heading?’

  The young guy looked away, didn’t meet his eyes, said, ‘North.’

  ‘Me too. You want a lift?’

  The guy blinked. ‘In your car?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Blake slapped the roof. He wondered if maybe the guy was a bit simple. ‘I’m heading to Coral Shoals. I’m Blake.’

  He stuck out his hand. The guy hesitated then took it.

  ‘I’m Edward.’

  ‘So Edward, you want to take a load off? I could do with the company.’

  Edward smiled for the first time. It was like a full moon coming out from behind clouds.

  ‘Me too, Blake.’

  They’d been chatting easily all the way to the outskirts of Coral Shoals. The moon had been hung out like a lantern, birds had faded from silhouettes to invisible. Edward told Blake this was only the third time he’d ridden in a car and the first time ever in the front seat. Apart from that it was the bus or the back of the police wagon. He said he was originally from Wagga Wagga but he’d left when he was sixteen. He wasn’t exactly sure where America was but he knew about Mickey Mouse and Coca Cola. He slapped his knee at Blake’s accent.

  ‘That’s funny.’ He amused himself trying to sound like Blake.

  ‘What are your plans from here?’ Blake asked. They had just passed a sign that said five miles to Coral Shoals.

  ‘Plans?’

  ‘Yeah. You got a job lined up?’

  The idea of a job seemed foreign to Edward. He explained after leaving Wagga Wagga he’d gone fruit-picking but eventually he had to move on and since then he hadn’t worked much at all.