The Build Up, page 6
‘Who?’ asked Siohban, a recent arrival in Darwin.
‘Dianna McVeigh,’ offered Sean.
Siobhan shook her head. Obviously, she didn’t have a clue who they were talking about. Dusty was surprised – she thought everybody in the English-speaking, internet-connected world had heard of this woman who had gone missing in the Australian outback. The other yogis were all looking at Dusty, expecting her, no doubt, to explain who Dianna McVeigh was.
‘Do I have to?’ she said.
‘It is your case, dear,’ said Bev, at sixty-eight the oldest in the class.
Was my case, thought Dusty, but that wasn’t something she was going to divulge.
‘Here we go,’ she said, taking a hefty swig of wine. ‘Dianna and Greg McVeigh. Late twenties. Pommies. Just married, they arrive in Sydney. Hire a campervan. Wander up the east coast. Byron. Gold Coast. Cairns. Usual places. Then across to Darwin. After a week here they head for the big rock, for Uluru. About a hundred clicks past Pine Creek they pull off the road to watch the sunset. Drink some rum. Smoke a couple of joints. Get pretty shit-faced, both of them. Decide that driving’s out of the question so they may as well stay where they are, sleep under the stars. About two in the morning, we reckon, somebody turns up. Trusses Greg up. Takes Dianna. Next morning Greg manages to get free. Drives back to Pine Creek. A number of possessions are missing from the van. We go public with a few of them. A week later we get a phone call from a mechanic in Katherine. Says he recognises the backpack in a LandCruiser he’s been working on. Belongs to a bloke by the name of Evan Dale Gardner. He’s got no shortage of form, mostly property though. We bring him in. Real hard nut. Denies everything. Still, we go to trial. There’s no body. Everything’s circumstantial. We lose. Gardner walks.’
‘I think I saw him the other day,’ said Bev, giving an involuntary shudder.
Dusty, too, had seen him the other day. She’d been at Parap market, ordering from the Som Tum lady, when he’d walked past her, dressed, as usual, in King Gee khaki. The continued police surveillance, or what Stan Lavery, his lawyer, called the ‘unprecedented harassment of my client’ meant that his normal job, interstate drug running, was no longer viable. He’d moved to Howard Springs, about thirty kilometres out of Darwin and had taken on more conventional employment. He was now ‘gainfully engaged in the mango industry’. Still, she thought she’d been mistaken, he wouldn’t have the audacity to walk around in broad daylight like that, not after all the adverse publicity he’d had, his ugly mug in the NT News almost every day, croc-like in its ubiquity. It was him, though – the sloping shoulders, the slightly protruding ears, that mean square face.
‘He absolutely radiated evil,’ said Bev.
It was Dusty’s turn to buy drinks. As she approached the bar she took note of who was waiting – the bald bloke in the noisy shirt was next, then the suit with the tasty butt, then her. When the suit walked off with his drinks Dusty turned around to further check out his assets, certain the barman had clocked her as next in line. When she returned her gaze, however, it was to see that a tall broad-shouldered man had pushed in front of her.
‘Excuse me,’ said Dusty. ‘I’m pretty sure I was next.’
The man turned to look at her. Instantly Dusty knew who he was. You couldn’t follow AFL in Darwin and not know Trigger Tregenza. He’d played a few games in the backline for the Sydney Swans before coming to Darwin and reinventing himself as a full-forward. Like a car repaired at a backyard panel-beater’s, his features weren’t quite straight: his nose kinked twice before it arrived back at the more-or-less vertical, his cheekbones didn’t match. It gave him a rugged sort of charm, though, that was further enhanced by his hair. Thick and sandy, it was a young man’s hair, the sort women like to run their hands through. He hadn’t put on the weight either, his poloshirt was tucked into his shorts and he had the sculpted legs of a sportsman. Apart from flirting quite seriously with him one night at a Grand Final do – she even remembered the year: 1998, the Adelaide Crows had just won their second flag – Dusty didn’t really know Trigger personally very well. She’d heard so many stories, though, and felt as if she was much better acquainted. For a start, there was his dick. Apparently he was one of those blokes who feel obliged to christen their member. In his case it went by the name of Cazaly, as in ‘Up there, Cazaly’.
He also liked his ladies to dress up a bit. No schoolgirl outfits, no nurse’s uniforms, not even thigh-high patent leather boots and split-crotch panties. No, apparently the champion full-forward preferred them to wear a football jumper, but not any old football jumper, it had to a Hawthorn jumper and it had to be 23, the great Dermott Brereton’s number! It was a great story, and Dusty had heard it a few times, but she didn’t believe it – nobody was that weird!
Trigger smiled at Dusty, a smile about as genuine as eBay Armani, and continued ogling her breasts.
‘Beauty first,’ he said, giving no sign that he’d recognised her.
What did that mean? Either, thought Dusty, I’ve aged so much I no longer resemble the willowy lass of eight mango seasons ago, or the preferred option, he’s been with so many women he no longer recognises them individually, they’ve all just blended into some amorphous mass.
‘Beauty’s got nothing to do with it,’ said Dusty, and, determined that he wasn’t the only one who could play the non-recognition game, she added, ‘Visiting Darwin, are you?’
‘No, actually I live here,’ said Trigger, throwing an astonished glance at the barman – she doesn’t know who I am! ‘You obviously don’t.’
‘Only the last eleven years.’
Dusty paid for her drinks and walked away. Had she really once flirted with that terrible man, perhaps even considered going home with him? She could see his reflection in the window now, walking the other way, drinks on a tray. He approached a table, where two women were sitting. They were dark-haired. Were they Asian? It was hard to tell. By that time Dusty had turned the corner and Trigger and his reflection had disappeared.
Chapter 13
The car, a red RAV4 Cruiser, belonged to Spida, an ex-teammate who was now residing in one of the Top End’s less sought-after residential properties – Berrimah Prison. He was doing six years for importation of a prohibited substance. He had a hotshot new lawyer now, though, and last time Trigger visited him he was talking about getting out before Christmas. Which, of course, would be great and Trigger wished him the best of luck. Well, most of him did. There was a small part that said, fuck it, he’s a drug smuggler after all, cutting our kids down in their prime, and should pay his debt to society. Besides, where would he live if Spida got out – he’d been minding Spida’s Walsh Bay apartment since he’d booked into Berrimah, and what’s more, what would he drive?
Though the car wasn’t his, the CDs in the stacker were, and, once again, as he fast-forwarded through the collection, he had cause to congratulate himself on his classic taste – Billy Joel, Dire Straits, Johnny Farnham, Celine Dion. All of it gold, but he was thinking something a bit edgier today, something to get him into the facilitating mood, the right mood to separate those vets from their disability cheques. As if on cue, there it was – Sting. Perfect!
‘Noi, you like the Stingster?’ asked Trigger.
Noi, however, was already asleep, curled up, catlike, in her seat, one hand holding the Buddha amulet that hung around her neck. It occurred to Trigger that maybe she was on something. He’d heard of that – they’d bring the girls over and dope them up, turn them into addicts, a pharmaceutical ball-and-chain. Trigger felt an unfamiliar cardiac jolt – did she really know what she was in for, had Noi explained it to her properly? This concern was dismissed from his mind as quickly as it came, however – it was a tough world out there and there was nothing Trigger Tregenza could do about that. We all make choices, don’t we, and we all have to live with the consequences.
After an hour of driving, just past the Noonamah pub his mobile rang. It was Noi, sounding even more hysterical than usual.
‘Trig. You come back now. You bring back Noi now.’
‘Slow down, what’s your problem?’
‘Big Boss, he say to me, Noi belong him. You bring Noi back now.’
Trig’s law, yet again. What to do? If Big Boss was as tough as his imagination suggested, then to continue would not be advisable. Trigger tended to think, however, that a fair measure of a boss was the muscle he employed, and Big Boss employed Ned Maleski, a man Trigger would back himself against any day of the week. In fact, it was something he’d look forward to, another ‘titanic struggle between two titans’.
‘Tank, I hope you’ve got plenty of Viagra,’ said Trigger as he hung up and put his foot down.
Two and a half hours later and he was at the camp. The lights were a surprise – he’d been expecting something more dingy, a couple of gas-lamps throwing off a feeble light, but the camp was lit up like Sydney Harbour Bridge on New Year’s Eve. The second surprise was that there were so many people. Trigger should’ve guessed – Aussies didn’t need much excuse for a party, especially Territorians, especially Territorians who lived in remote areas. Fuck it – that’ll do. Let’s get together! Let’s party!
People had come from all over the general area. Blackfellas from the Pandanus Springs community. Ringers from the cattle stations. Gem prospectors from the gem fields. And vets, of course. Quite a few in uniform, or part-uniform, their chests spangled with medals.
‘You stay here,’ he said to Noi, but he could’ve saved his words – she was still asleep.
He got out of the car, making sure to lock it behind him. The thick night air smelled of eucalyptus and burnt sausages and Jimmy Barnes was belting out ‘Khe Sahn’ over the loudspeakers.
Trigger could remember exactly the last time he’d seen Tank. It was at the Fox and Lion Hotel in Fox Studios, just next to the Sydney Cricket Ground, the Swans’ home ground. He’d just been delisted by the Swans and was having a few commiserative drinks – if not drowning his sorrows at least giving them plenty of fluid to splash around in. Tank, who was a trainer at the club, had taken him aside and suggested that he might like to pursue a career up north. He’d even given him a couple of numbers to ring. OK, going to Darwin was the worst decision he’d ever made, but that wasn’t Tank’s fault, he’d only been trying to help a mate out. Trigger owed him one.
Finding Tank was no problem. As soon as he heard that distinctive kookaburra laugh, Trigger knew he had his man. He hadn’t changed much, either. He still had the mane of white hair swept back, the wide, open face, the big, solid gut. Only now he was walking with the aid of a stick. The result, Trigger found out later, of a recent hip replacement.
‘Maaaaate!’ said Tank, when he spotted Trigger.
He detached himself from his fellow vets and hobbled over to pump Trigger’s hand. The usual bullshit ensued – don’t look a day older, could still pull on the boots, before Tank lowered his voice and said ‘So how’d you go?’
‘All sorted.’
‘Knew I could rely on you, Champ.’
This was only his third outing as a facilitator, and Trigger was feeling slightly out of his depth. Tank had it all worked out though. First he gave him a quick tour of the camp.
The kitchen was made from saplings with a corrugated iron roof and brick floor. So too the toilet, or ‘latrine’, as Tank called it. The twenty or so 2-man tents were all neatly laid out, some of them inside A-frames with tarpaulin roofs and mosquito-proof netting enclosing the sides. Water was stored in three polytanks. A diesel generator supplied the power.
Trigger was impressed – no wonder the government was listening to what these vets had to say. There were a few women around, but none of them appeared to be single, let alone on the game. Trigger was starting to feel real good about this – a seller’s market and he had the goods. Tank led him along a track, away from the camp proper, through a cluster of termite mounds. Trigger had been ten years in the Top End, he’d seen termite mounds before. Nothing like these, though – they were huge things. Hideous.
‘Fucking termites, eh?’ said Trigger.
‘Fucking termites,’ agreed Tank.
The light here wasn’t good, but Trigger could make out an old-style army tent.
‘The little lady can set herself up in that honcho,’ said Tank.
Trigger took a look inside – a thin mattress, a torn sheet, and a smell that would not only wake the dead but give them nightmares for years to come.
‘Fuck!’ said Trigger, stepping back quickly.
‘Detox tent,’ explained Tank. ‘It’s where we put our druggies.’
Trigger had toyed with the idea of going first, testing the goods so to speak, but there was no way he was going to do that now. Not in there, anyway.
‘What say we get going at twenty-three hundred hours?’ said Tank, looking at his watch.
Trigger had to smile – in all the time he’d spent with Tank back in his Sydney days he hadn’t even mentioned Nam, in fact back then he’d only had two topics of conversation, football and fucking. Now, apparently, it was all army-speak.
‘No problems,’ said Trigger. ‘Just one more thing. We’ve got the all-clear for this, haven’t we? I mean the boss is OK with it?’
Tank gave him a conspiratorial wink. ‘All Indians here, mate. No chiefs.’
Number two Noi was still asleep. Trigger nudged her gently, but she woke with a start, eyes wide.
‘Noi, it’s OK, it’s me, Trigger, remember?’
‘Me feel bad,’ she said, and Trigger could see that she wasn’t lying.
‘Take some medicine,’ he said, remembering the bottle Noi had given her.
She did as he suggested, washing it down with some of the Coke Trigger had brought her.
He handed her a sausage in a hammock of bread.
‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling.
So she can speak English, thought Trigger.
She ate daintily, picking at the bread with the very tips of her fingers.
‘How long Noi Australia?’ asked Trigger, pronouncing each syllable slowly.
‘Three mun,’ she said.
‘You like Australia?’
‘Many kangaroo,’ said Noi, and again she smiled.
Fucking kangaroos! They’d almost run into a couple on the way down.
Now it was Noi’s turn to ask a question. ‘You wife?’
Trigger smiled. Technically, yes. Practically, no. And two kids to boot. But he didn’t think Noi’s English was up to understanding his complicated marital status.
‘No,’ he simply said. ‘No married.’
‘You marry Noi.’
Such an unexpected request, it sneaked past Trigger’s guard. For a second, he considered it. Marry Noi. Drive away from here, turn left on the Track and head south. Save Noi. Save himself too, probably. He looked at her face and he could see the hope in it. It would be the most decent thing he’d ever done. Would ever do.
‘C’mon, let’s get to work,’ he said.
He needed money. She needed money. It was as simple as that. He showed Noi the tent and she said nothing. Just as she was about to disappear inside he stopped her. ‘Protection. Noi have condom? Rubber?’
‘Noi have.’
Not so innocent after all, thought Trig. Bloody good, these girls, a fella’s got to have his wits about him. He positioned himself with his back to a termite mound, and waited. The sound of irregular footsteps, a crunch of leaf litter, and Trigger had his first customer. Tank.
‘Never big on slops,’ he said, taking out his wallet. ‘What’s the damage?’
‘Mate, I feel bad charging you.’
‘Bullshit. What’s the damage?’
‘How does two hundred sound?’
‘Fair enough, I reckon,’ said Tank, sliding four fifties from his wallet.
‘Take your time,’ said Trigger, pocketing the money, as Tank awkwardly negotiated the tent entrance, crawling in on hands and knees.
As he took up his position by the termite mound again, he made a mental note – next time bring an iPod. There was going to be a lot of standing around, and John or Celine would be great company out here. Seven-and-a-half minutes later Tank was back.
‘Shit, what’s wrong?’ said Trigger, recalling Tank’s stories of all-night shagging sessions.
It would be her fault, of course. Why had he ever brought number two Noi?
‘Nothing.’
‘The girl?’
‘Gorgeous.’
‘But–’
‘Just a quickie,’ said Tank. ‘I wanna leave plenty of time for the other fellas.’
‘Come back later, then,’ said Trigger. ‘A root on the house for old time’s sake, eh?’
The next customer was Scotty, another vet, a mate of Tank’s. Had a bikie look about him, but everything went fine – he paid his money and had his pleasure and even remembered to say ‘Thanks’.
To Trigger, anyway.
Chapter 14
Trigger thumbed through the wad of notes.
Two thousand and four hundred bucks.
It wasn’t the easiest money he’d ever made – he’d backed a few winning horses in his time, but this, unlike that, was proper work. If prostitution was, as they said, the oldest profession in the world, then pimping must be the next.
What he’d do was get himself a nice four-wheel drive, a Nissan Patrol or a Range Rover, stick a thirty-foot caravan on the back, stick a couple of girls in that, take off around Australia, stopping off at all the vets’ camps, servicing their needs. There had to be more vets’ camps, didn’t there? And why only vets? All those cashed-up baby boomers, sea-changing, tree-changing – doing whatever it is they did, were moving away from the cities, to where the air was clean and the grass was green and the snatch wasn’t exactly thick on the ground.
They were gentleman, those vets, a pleasure to do business with. Grateful almost. The only grief he’d had all night had nothing to do with any of them, it was that baby-faced ringer who wanted his money back.
‘She just lay there,’ he said. ‘She didn’t do nothing.’
‘Dianna McVeigh,’ offered Sean.
Siobhan shook her head. Obviously, she didn’t have a clue who they were talking about. Dusty was surprised – she thought everybody in the English-speaking, internet-connected world had heard of this woman who had gone missing in the Australian outback. The other yogis were all looking at Dusty, expecting her, no doubt, to explain who Dianna McVeigh was.
‘Do I have to?’ she said.
‘It is your case, dear,’ said Bev, at sixty-eight the oldest in the class.
Was my case, thought Dusty, but that wasn’t something she was going to divulge.
‘Here we go,’ she said, taking a hefty swig of wine. ‘Dianna and Greg McVeigh. Late twenties. Pommies. Just married, they arrive in Sydney. Hire a campervan. Wander up the east coast. Byron. Gold Coast. Cairns. Usual places. Then across to Darwin. After a week here they head for the big rock, for Uluru. About a hundred clicks past Pine Creek they pull off the road to watch the sunset. Drink some rum. Smoke a couple of joints. Get pretty shit-faced, both of them. Decide that driving’s out of the question so they may as well stay where they are, sleep under the stars. About two in the morning, we reckon, somebody turns up. Trusses Greg up. Takes Dianna. Next morning Greg manages to get free. Drives back to Pine Creek. A number of possessions are missing from the van. We go public with a few of them. A week later we get a phone call from a mechanic in Katherine. Says he recognises the backpack in a LandCruiser he’s been working on. Belongs to a bloke by the name of Evan Dale Gardner. He’s got no shortage of form, mostly property though. We bring him in. Real hard nut. Denies everything. Still, we go to trial. There’s no body. Everything’s circumstantial. We lose. Gardner walks.’
‘I think I saw him the other day,’ said Bev, giving an involuntary shudder.
Dusty, too, had seen him the other day. She’d been at Parap market, ordering from the Som Tum lady, when he’d walked past her, dressed, as usual, in King Gee khaki. The continued police surveillance, or what Stan Lavery, his lawyer, called the ‘unprecedented harassment of my client’ meant that his normal job, interstate drug running, was no longer viable. He’d moved to Howard Springs, about thirty kilometres out of Darwin and had taken on more conventional employment. He was now ‘gainfully engaged in the mango industry’. Still, she thought she’d been mistaken, he wouldn’t have the audacity to walk around in broad daylight like that, not after all the adverse publicity he’d had, his ugly mug in the NT News almost every day, croc-like in its ubiquity. It was him, though – the sloping shoulders, the slightly protruding ears, that mean square face.
‘He absolutely radiated evil,’ said Bev.
It was Dusty’s turn to buy drinks. As she approached the bar she took note of who was waiting – the bald bloke in the noisy shirt was next, then the suit with the tasty butt, then her. When the suit walked off with his drinks Dusty turned around to further check out his assets, certain the barman had clocked her as next in line. When she returned her gaze, however, it was to see that a tall broad-shouldered man had pushed in front of her.
‘Excuse me,’ said Dusty. ‘I’m pretty sure I was next.’
The man turned to look at her. Instantly Dusty knew who he was. You couldn’t follow AFL in Darwin and not know Trigger Tregenza. He’d played a few games in the backline for the Sydney Swans before coming to Darwin and reinventing himself as a full-forward. Like a car repaired at a backyard panel-beater’s, his features weren’t quite straight: his nose kinked twice before it arrived back at the more-or-less vertical, his cheekbones didn’t match. It gave him a rugged sort of charm, though, that was further enhanced by his hair. Thick and sandy, it was a young man’s hair, the sort women like to run their hands through. He hadn’t put on the weight either, his poloshirt was tucked into his shorts and he had the sculpted legs of a sportsman. Apart from flirting quite seriously with him one night at a Grand Final do – she even remembered the year: 1998, the Adelaide Crows had just won their second flag – Dusty didn’t really know Trigger personally very well. She’d heard so many stories, though, and felt as if she was much better acquainted. For a start, there was his dick. Apparently he was one of those blokes who feel obliged to christen their member. In his case it went by the name of Cazaly, as in ‘Up there, Cazaly’.
He also liked his ladies to dress up a bit. No schoolgirl outfits, no nurse’s uniforms, not even thigh-high patent leather boots and split-crotch panties. No, apparently the champion full-forward preferred them to wear a football jumper, but not any old football jumper, it had to a Hawthorn jumper and it had to be 23, the great Dermott Brereton’s number! It was a great story, and Dusty had heard it a few times, but she didn’t believe it – nobody was that weird!
Trigger smiled at Dusty, a smile about as genuine as eBay Armani, and continued ogling her breasts.
‘Beauty first,’ he said, giving no sign that he’d recognised her.
What did that mean? Either, thought Dusty, I’ve aged so much I no longer resemble the willowy lass of eight mango seasons ago, or the preferred option, he’s been with so many women he no longer recognises them individually, they’ve all just blended into some amorphous mass.
‘Beauty’s got nothing to do with it,’ said Dusty, and, determined that he wasn’t the only one who could play the non-recognition game, she added, ‘Visiting Darwin, are you?’
‘No, actually I live here,’ said Trigger, throwing an astonished glance at the barman – she doesn’t know who I am! ‘You obviously don’t.’
‘Only the last eleven years.’
Dusty paid for her drinks and walked away. Had she really once flirted with that terrible man, perhaps even considered going home with him? She could see his reflection in the window now, walking the other way, drinks on a tray. He approached a table, where two women were sitting. They were dark-haired. Were they Asian? It was hard to tell. By that time Dusty had turned the corner and Trigger and his reflection had disappeared.
Chapter 13
The car, a red RAV4 Cruiser, belonged to Spida, an ex-teammate who was now residing in one of the Top End’s less sought-after residential properties – Berrimah Prison. He was doing six years for importation of a prohibited substance. He had a hotshot new lawyer now, though, and last time Trigger visited him he was talking about getting out before Christmas. Which, of course, would be great and Trigger wished him the best of luck. Well, most of him did. There was a small part that said, fuck it, he’s a drug smuggler after all, cutting our kids down in their prime, and should pay his debt to society. Besides, where would he live if Spida got out – he’d been minding Spida’s Walsh Bay apartment since he’d booked into Berrimah, and what’s more, what would he drive?
Though the car wasn’t his, the CDs in the stacker were, and, once again, as he fast-forwarded through the collection, he had cause to congratulate himself on his classic taste – Billy Joel, Dire Straits, Johnny Farnham, Celine Dion. All of it gold, but he was thinking something a bit edgier today, something to get him into the facilitating mood, the right mood to separate those vets from their disability cheques. As if on cue, there it was – Sting. Perfect!
‘Noi, you like the Stingster?’ asked Trigger.
Noi, however, was already asleep, curled up, catlike, in her seat, one hand holding the Buddha amulet that hung around her neck. It occurred to Trigger that maybe she was on something. He’d heard of that – they’d bring the girls over and dope them up, turn them into addicts, a pharmaceutical ball-and-chain. Trigger felt an unfamiliar cardiac jolt – did she really know what she was in for, had Noi explained it to her properly? This concern was dismissed from his mind as quickly as it came, however – it was a tough world out there and there was nothing Trigger Tregenza could do about that. We all make choices, don’t we, and we all have to live with the consequences.
After an hour of driving, just past the Noonamah pub his mobile rang. It was Noi, sounding even more hysterical than usual.
‘Trig. You come back now. You bring back Noi now.’
‘Slow down, what’s your problem?’
‘Big Boss, he say to me, Noi belong him. You bring Noi back now.’
Trig’s law, yet again. What to do? If Big Boss was as tough as his imagination suggested, then to continue would not be advisable. Trigger tended to think, however, that a fair measure of a boss was the muscle he employed, and Big Boss employed Ned Maleski, a man Trigger would back himself against any day of the week. In fact, it was something he’d look forward to, another ‘titanic struggle between two titans’.
‘Tank, I hope you’ve got plenty of Viagra,’ said Trigger as he hung up and put his foot down.
Two and a half hours later and he was at the camp. The lights were a surprise – he’d been expecting something more dingy, a couple of gas-lamps throwing off a feeble light, but the camp was lit up like Sydney Harbour Bridge on New Year’s Eve. The second surprise was that there were so many people. Trigger should’ve guessed – Aussies didn’t need much excuse for a party, especially Territorians, especially Territorians who lived in remote areas. Fuck it – that’ll do. Let’s get together! Let’s party!
People had come from all over the general area. Blackfellas from the Pandanus Springs community. Ringers from the cattle stations. Gem prospectors from the gem fields. And vets, of course. Quite a few in uniform, or part-uniform, their chests spangled with medals.
‘You stay here,’ he said to Noi, but he could’ve saved his words – she was still asleep.
He got out of the car, making sure to lock it behind him. The thick night air smelled of eucalyptus and burnt sausages and Jimmy Barnes was belting out ‘Khe Sahn’ over the loudspeakers.
Trigger could remember exactly the last time he’d seen Tank. It was at the Fox and Lion Hotel in Fox Studios, just next to the Sydney Cricket Ground, the Swans’ home ground. He’d just been delisted by the Swans and was having a few commiserative drinks – if not drowning his sorrows at least giving them plenty of fluid to splash around in. Tank, who was a trainer at the club, had taken him aside and suggested that he might like to pursue a career up north. He’d even given him a couple of numbers to ring. OK, going to Darwin was the worst decision he’d ever made, but that wasn’t Tank’s fault, he’d only been trying to help a mate out. Trigger owed him one.
Finding Tank was no problem. As soon as he heard that distinctive kookaburra laugh, Trigger knew he had his man. He hadn’t changed much, either. He still had the mane of white hair swept back, the wide, open face, the big, solid gut. Only now he was walking with the aid of a stick. The result, Trigger found out later, of a recent hip replacement.
‘Maaaaate!’ said Tank, when he spotted Trigger.
He detached himself from his fellow vets and hobbled over to pump Trigger’s hand. The usual bullshit ensued – don’t look a day older, could still pull on the boots, before Tank lowered his voice and said ‘So how’d you go?’
‘All sorted.’
‘Knew I could rely on you, Champ.’
This was only his third outing as a facilitator, and Trigger was feeling slightly out of his depth. Tank had it all worked out though. First he gave him a quick tour of the camp.
The kitchen was made from saplings with a corrugated iron roof and brick floor. So too the toilet, or ‘latrine’, as Tank called it. The twenty or so 2-man tents were all neatly laid out, some of them inside A-frames with tarpaulin roofs and mosquito-proof netting enclosing the sides. Water was stored in three polytanks. A diesel generator supplied the power.
Trigger was impressed – no wonder the government was listening to what these vets had to say. There were a few women around, but none of them appeared to be single, let alone on the game. Trigger was starting to feel real good about this – a seller’s market and he had the goods. Tank led him along a track, away from the camp proper, through a cluster of termite mounds. Trigger had been ten years in the Top End, he’d seen termite mounds before. Nothing like these, though – they were huge things. Hideous.
‘Fucking termites, eh?’ said Trigger.
‘Fucking termites,’ agreed Tank.
The light here wasn’t good, but Trigger could make out an old-style army tent.
‘The little lady can set herself up in that honcho,’ said Tank.
Trigger took a look inside – a thin mattress, a torn sheet, and a smell that would not only wake the dead but give them nightmares for years to come.
‘Fuck!’ said Trigger, stepping back quickly.
‘Detox tent,’ explained Tank. ‘It’s where we put our druggies.’
Trigger had toyed with the idea of going first, testing the goods so to speak, but there was no way he was going to do that now. Not in there, anyway.
‘What say we get going at twenty-three hundred hours?’ said Tank, looking at his watch.
Trigger had to smile – in all the time he’d spent with Tank back in his Sydney days he hadn’t even mentioned Nam, in fact back then he’d only had two topics of conversation, football and fucking. Now, apparently, it was all army-speak.
‘No problems,’ said Trigger. ‘Just one more thing. We’ve got the all-clear for this, haven’t we? I mean the boss is OK with it?’
Tank gave him a conspiratorial wink. ‘All Indians here, mate. No chiefs.’
Number two Noi was still asleep. Trigger nudged her gently, but she woke with a start, eyes wide.
‘Noi, it’s OK, it’s me, Trigger, remember?’
‘Me feel bad,’ she said, and Trigger could see that she wasn’t lying.
‘Take some medicine,’ he said, remembering the bottle Noi had given her.
She did as he suggested, washing it down with some of the Coke Trigger had brought her.
He handed her a sausage in a hammock of bread.
‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling.
So she can speak English, thought Trigger.
She ate daintily, picking at the bread with the very tips of her fingers.
‘How long Noi Australia?’ asked Trigger, pronouncing each syllable slowly.
‘Three mun,’ she said.
‘You like Australia?’
‘Many kangaroo,’ said Noi, and again she smiled.
Fucking kangaroos! They’d almost run into a couple on the way down.
Now it was Noi’s turn to ask a question. ‘You wife?’
Trigger smiled. Technically, yes. Practically, no. And two kids to boot. But he didn’t think Noi’s English was up to understanding his complicated marital status.
‘No,’ he simply said. ‘No married.’
‘You marry Noi.’
Such an unexpected request, it sneaked past Trigger’s guard. For a second, he considered it. Marry Noi. Drive away from here, turn left on the Track and head south. Save Noi. Save himself too, probably. He looked at her face and he could see the hope in it. It would be the most decent thing he’d ever done. Would ever do.
‘C’mon, let’s get to work,’ he said.
He needed money. She needed money. It was as simple as that. He showed Noi the tent and she said nothing. Just as she was about to disappear inside he stopped her. ‘Protection. Noi have condom? Rubber?’
‘Noi have.’
Not so innocent after all, thought Trig. Bloody good, these girls, a fella’s got to have his wits about him. He positioned himself with his back to a termite mound, and waited. The sound of irregular footsteps, a crunch of leaf litter, and Trigger had his first customer. Tank.
‘Never big on slops,’ he said, taking out his wallet. ‘What’s the damage?’
‘Mate, I feel bad charging you.’
‘Bullshit. What’s the damage?’
‘How does two hundred sound?’
‘Fair enough, I reckon,’ said Tank, sliding four fifties from his wallet.
‘Take your time,’ said Trigger, pocketing the money, as Tank awkwardly negotiated the tent entrance, crawling in on hands and knees.
As he took up his position by the termite mound again, he made a mental note – next time bring an iPod. There was going to be a lot of standing around, and John or Celine would be great company out here. Seven-and-a-half minutes later Tank was back.
‘Shit, what’s wrong?’ said Trigger, recalling Tank’s stories of all-night shagging sessions.
It would be her fault, of course. Why had he ever brought number two Noi?
‘Nothing.’
‘The girl?’
‘Gorgeous.’
‘But–’
‘Just a quickie,’ said Tank. ‘I wanna leave plenty of time for the other fellas.’
‘Come back later, then,’ said Trigger. ‘A root on the house for old time’s sake, eh?’
The next customer was Scotty, another vet, a mate of Tank’s. Had a bikie look about him, but everything went fine – he paid his money and had his pleasure and even remembered to say ‘Thanks’.
To Trigger, anyway.
Chapter 14
Trigger thumbed through the wad of notes.
Two thousand and four hundred bucks.
It wasn’t the easiest money he’d ever made – he’d backed a few winning horses in his time, but this, unlike that, was proper work. If prostitution was, as they said, the oldest profession in the world, then pimping must be the next.
What he’d do was get himself a nice four-wheel drive, a Nissan Patrol or a Range Rover, stick a thirty-foot caravan on the back, stick a couple of girls in that, take off around Australia, stopping off at all the vets’ camps, servicing their needs. There had to be more vets’ camps, didn’t there? And why only vets? All those cashed-up baby boomers, sea-changing, tree-changing – doing whatever it is they did, were moving away from the cities, to where the air was clean and the grass was green and the snatch wasn’t exactly thick on the ground.
They were gentleman, those vets, a pleasure to do business with. Grateful almost. The only grief he’d had all night had nothing to do with any of them, it was that baby-faced ringer who wanted his money back.
‘She just lay there,’ he said. ‘She didn’t do nothing.’
