St Kilda Blues (12 page)

The whimpering from the rear of the car was getting to be a little annoying. The boy considered using the knife again but decided he had no interest in Abo blood. He used a rock to finish the Aborigine off, deciding a head injury would be consistent with a car crash. There was blood on his shirt and pants by the time he finished but there were spares in his kitbag. He stripped off his clothes.

It took a long time, longer than he expected, to dress the boy in his shirt and trousers. He only had one pair of shoes but decided that the corpse being barefoot wouldn't be a problem. Getting the body into the passenger side was a real effort and it took him almost an hour. Sliding Brother Brian's body across the front seat and away from the steering wheel and pedals was a lot easier and he was glad he had killed him where he sat. Brother Brian was mostly skin and bones in any case.

He was sweating and exhausted by the time he finished and he had swallowed almost half of one of the water bottles before he stopped himself. He knew he would need to ration the water, so washing the dried blood off his hands was out of the question. Squatting naked in the desert, he rubbed his hands and arms and face with sand to scrub away the evidence. A rumbling from his stomach told him he should probably eat and he stood up. Brother Brian's big breakfast had kept him going well past the time they would normally have stopped for morning tea and it was a long time since the boy's bowl of porridge.

He took one of the hotel sandwiches from the paper bag in the back of the car. The sandwich was already warm in its greaseproof paper wrapping and flies descended on it immediately. He moved round to the side of the Dodge, to the open front-seat passenger door. What was inside was of more interest to the flies buzzing around his sandwich and they left to join the swarms already congregating on the bloody corpses. Still naked he stood and watched as he ate, chewing every mouthful slowly and carefully, his eyes never leaving the scene of carnage he had created.

After his lunch he had trouble starting the car until he realised it had to be out of gear. Once it was started, the combination of clutch and accelerator pedal was hard to master. Eventually he got the car moving, jumping and jerking. He left it in first gear because he didn't really understand what the gears did, but this actually worked for him across the sandy desert surface. He needed to be far enough away from the road to avoid casual discovery but not so far that it would take him too long to walk back.

There was a large clearing in the scrub about a half a mile in from the track that seemed suitable. The vehicle stalled a couple of times but he eventually managed to park it in the middle and well away from the spinifex and the dried desert grass. It would be best to avoid starting a brushfire, which might spread and call attention to the vehicle before he was long gone. He took the water jugs and sandwiches and his kitbag from the back of the vehicle and set them far enough away to be safe. There was a tow rope in the back and he cut off a section, making a loop through the handle of the kitbag so he could carry it over one shoulder. He would need both hands for the water bottles and he would need both water bottles if he was to survive.

Berlin followed the hostess towards the rear of the restaurant. At the back of the dining room he saw a glass display cabinet filled with steaks and plates of prawns. Behind it was a large stainless steel grill where two chefs were cooking meat over charcoal. Occasional bursts of red flames flickered up through the bars of the grill when the fat from the meat hit the coals, the smoke instantly whisked away by exhaust fans.

The hostess stood beside Lazlo and put her hand on his shoulder. He put his arm around her waist. She smiled at Berlin, the smile saying, ‘Aren't I a lucky girl?' If she was more than twenty or twenty-one Berlin would have been very surprised.

Lazlo stood up and the two men shook hands. ‘Too long, Charlie, much too long. Six months, I think. You are hungry, like always? Sit down, Charlie, sit down and we shall eat and talk about old times. The children are well, and Rebecca also?'

The hostess pulled out a chair and he sat down. ‘Everyone's good, Lazlo, but I can't stay, there's something big on.'

‘Then a big meal is called for, Charlie. Napoleon said an army marches on its stomach and you are a detective sergeant and the police are like an army, yes? And hunger clouds the judgement; a man thinks better with a full belly.'

Lazlo turned to the girl and waved away the menu she had opened. ‘We start with the bean soup, I think, Maya. Then two of the steaks, the big ones, and tell Victor my guest is a friend.'

‘And what if I wasn't a friend, Lazlo?'

Lazlo grinned and winked. ‘What can I say? I'm in business, Charlie, and in business the more a guest at my table has to chew the less time he has to argue with me. And cooked rare, I think, is that good for you, Charlie? Victor will do medium but only under protest and to ask him for a steak well done is to wave the red rag at the bull.'

The hostess closed the menu. ‘And wine?'

Lazlo shook his head. ‘No alcohol, not for my friend, he is a policeman of some impeccable reputation and is always on duty. We have cider, I think, Charlie, or perhaps ginger beer? No, just water for now, I think, yes.'

The hostess walked behind the counter by the grill to talk to the chef.

‘Some changes around here since I last stopped by, Lazlo, and pretty busy for a Monday night. I'm surprised.'

Lazlo looked around the restaurant. ‘Business is good. We close for six weeks to make the renovations and already my outlay is recouped. We open seven nights a week because I have to take my dinner somewhere. And many Australians join me, as you can see. The adventurous ones. Steak is a good way to start; you Australians always like steak. When I show people how good steak can be when it's aged properly and not burned to a crisp then they will trust me to show them other things, things more exotic.'

A waiter put a basket of bread rolls in the centre of the table and this was followed immediately by two large bowls of soup. To Berlin it looked more like a bean stew, with an almost gravy-like consistency and small chunks of tender meat amongst the beans. He was done before Lazlo was even halfway through his. Lazlo put his spoon down and gestured to a waiter, who removed both soup bowls. He sat back, a contented look on his face.

‘So our Rebecca is well, Charlie?'

Berlin nodded. ‘Fighting fit.'

‘And becoming more famous every day. I'm considering hiring her to photograph myself and my businesses.'

‘I read you had a number of things on the boil, Laz. I'd have thought running this place would keep you busy enough.'

‘The cafe is a hobby and a place to eat without having to make a booking. And now with Victor and my little Maya there, it runs itself. My time in the mountains opened up many entrepreneurial opportunities. Motels, Charlie, that is the growing business.'

‘Motels? Aren't there a lot out there already?'

‘Sure, of course, since people have many cars now and they travel more. And where you have travellers, you have customers and you build your motel and wait.'

‘Sounds fair enough.'

‘Sure, Charlie, but the smart man builds his motel before the customers are there, if he knows they will be coming.'

‘I'll bite, Lazlo. How do you know they'll be coming?'

Lazlo smiled. ‘Oil, Charlie, oil. They find it in the Bass Strait off Gippsland, you may have heard – lots of oil, and gas too. Enough oil so soon we can run our cars for just a few cents a week and we shall cook our food and heat our water for free. So of course they will want to get it out, and quickly too.'

‘And you want to go back to getting up at dawn and swinging a pick or driving a bulldozer or doing some blasting?'

‘You joke with me, Charlie my friend, but in the Snowy I saw a big enterprise happening, the building of dams and tunnels and hydro-electric plants and I learned a lesson.' He tapped his temple with an index finger. ‘A man can work hard but he can also work smart. Food and shelter, Charlie – we are men who have both been without these things at one time so we know their value more than most. I have already my people buying up properties in Gippsland, motels, hotels, cafes. Soon there will be men arriving who will dig for the oil, men who will work hard and be well paid for their efforts. They will be tired and hungry and dirty from this digging, but with money in their pockets. I will feed them well and give them hot showers and beds with good mattresses and clean sheets.'

‘I think they'll most probably drill, Lazlo. It's all under water, remember?'

Lazlo grinned. ‘Then I give them extra towels along with their dinners and their soft pillows. But enough business talk, tell me of Sarah. Have you spoken yet by telephone?'

‘Just the once, from Athens airport, but it was a bad line. She missed you at the airport, you know, she said you were invited.'

Even amongst the dozen volunteers in her group and a crowd of friends and relatives and well-wishers crowding around the group at check-in, Berlin knew Sarah had been keeping an eye out for her Uncle Laz. There were sleeping bags and rucksacks and suitcases all neatly tagged and Berlin fought back images of troopships and stacks of canvas kitbags stencilled with names of young men whose only return home to Australia would be in the form of a telegram that regretted to inform a waiting mother or father or sister or brother.

‘I'm not a big one for farewells, Charlie, you know that of me. And I might have made it awkward by once more trying to dissuade her.'

‘We couldn't do that even working together, could we, Laz? And once she talked Rebecca round, that was that.'

Lazlo reached across the table and put his hand on top of Berlin's. ‘I worry for her, Charlie, I have concerns.'

‘You and me both. I suppose the only good thing is the fighting is over and she's on the winning side.'

‘But Charlie, Israel didn't win, have you not heard?'

Berlin stared at his friend. ‘The Israelis crushed the Arabs in just six days, Lazlo, remember? It was in all the papers and on the TV news. I don't think you could have missed it.'

‘Joke with me again if you like, Charlie, but you know what a Pyrrhic victory is, yes? I looked it up. That's a victory that can actually be in the long run a defeat.'

Berlin heard the note of real concern in Lazlo's voice. ‘I'm sorry but I'm not following.'

‘I sit in this cafe in June and listen and with my sleeves rolled down no one knows I'm a Jew. For the first few days all I hear is how the poor Jews are suffering, how they are outnumbered and boohoo, it is so sad for them. And then unexpectedly it's over and the Arabs armies are smashed to bits and their air forces destroyed. Israel is victorious, she has beaten her enemies and expanded her borders and suddenly it all changes. The talk is quickly all about how pushy these damned Jews are, and who do they think they are to be so aggressive? You mark my words, Charlie; in the long run no good will come of any of this.'

Timing was important now. It would be safest if it was done just on dusk. Brother Brian had told him trucks usually avoided travelling at night because of the danger of a collision with a big kangaroo in the darkness. Night driving was also dangerous because of the generally poor condition of the roads, which were hard enough to navigate safely in daylight. There was nothing he could do about the flames; they were necessary and should pass quickly enough. As for the smoke, the sunset breezes would dissipate that quickly, blending it into the darkening sky and then hiding it completely in the night-time blackness.

He waited, sitting in the relative coolness of the lengthening shadow on the eastern side of the car. The dagger was in his right hand. He twisted it around, watching the play of light on the blade and the tip, feeling both comforted by its presence and also excited by its potential. He ran the index finger of his left hand along the flat of the blade, along the blood groove and over the words engraved on the blade:
Meine Ehre Heißt Treue
.

A few months earlier he had carefully copied the words onto a scrap of paper and taken them to Brother Frederick. Brother Frederick was German, with a thick accent and thicker arms and a propensity for sudden outbursts of anger. The man was in charge of the blacksmith's shop with its fiery forge and anvils and heavy hammers, and he cared for the half-dozen draft horses that pulled the farm machinery. These were the only living creatures on the mission that he treated with any kindness, and it was only fear of their keeper that kept the boy from contemplating the possibilities of his dagger and a full-grown horse.

The boy warily explained to Brother Frederick that he had found the words in a book in the mission library and wondered what they meant. Brother Frederic had run his thick, callused fingers almost reverently over the paper, over the words. He'd whispered, ‘Meine Ehre Heißt Treue,' then held the scrap of paper gently to his chest, over his heart.

The boy pressed him. ‘But what does it mean?'

The response in Brother Frederick's heavily accented English was a little difficult for the boy to follow.

‘It means “My Honour is Loyalty”, child. It's all about brotherhood and a glorious, wonderful time now gone, a time of great men and an even greater leader.' Brother Frederick was smiling, which was something the boy had never seen him do.

‘You mean like King Arthur?'

Brother Frederick was suddenly red-faced, angry, screwing up the piece of paper and tossing it onto the floor. He leaned over the boy, screaming, flecks of spittle spraying from his lips and hitting the boy in the face

‘King Arthur? King Arthur? You talk to me of King Arthur? King Arthur was a Gott verdammt Britisher. I spit on the British and I piss on the stinking Americans dogs and their masters, the Jews.'

The boy had turned and fled and he tried to steer well clear of Brother Frederick after that.

He stood up and stretched. He'd dozed for a good while and now the sky was a darker blue and the shadow of the car reached out almost to the edge of the clearing. Brother Brian's wristwatch told him it was close to five, close to the moment. A constant buzzing noise from inside the car told him even the approach of night hadn't slowed the activities of the flies. The boy smiled, knowing they had a surprise coming very soon.