Roadman Page 9

  “Flathead mullet,” Max said, taking care not to injure his fingers on its sharp gill plate. He tossed the mullet into the fishing box he’d readied earlier with a bed of ice. “The lake and the river is full of them. Not too bad either for a freshy. Cook up lovely with garlic and butter.”

  Two hours later, just as the early evening breeze was picking up, a dozen fish were lying in the ice box. Just as many empty cans of West End Draught were piled next to the tackle and bait.

  “I’m getting hungry,” Gerhard said. “Shall we cook some of ze fish?”

  Max had been thinking the very same thing only moments before. “Not here,” he said, standing up and putting his jacket back on. “Smoke’ll alert the rangers. We can make a fire at my campsite. It’s not far.”

  They scaled and gutted the fish at the edge of the lake, then packed the rods and tackle into the Cherokee and headed back to Lake Road. At the intersection with the A131 they turned right and soon thereafter Max pulled the Cherokee to the side of the road. He instructed Gerhard to jump out and open the rusty gate to the Johnson farm to let the Cherokee drive through.

  “Man, vot happened here?” Gerhard said as they rounded the rutted driveway and passed the gutted ruins of the old farmhouse.

  “Fire. Back in the fifties. Been derelict ever since.”

  Max drove on by toward the eucalypt clearing at the back of the farmhouse and parked the Cherokee next to the humpy. He peeked a sideways glance at the ground beneath which the good-for-noth’n fuck’n spooners were lying in an eternal embrace in the boot of the Merc. Even in the two months or so since he’d shut the mouthy bitch up for good and put her loser boyfriend out of his misery, the turned over ground had recovered sufficiently to be almost indistinguishable from the area around it. Weeds had already sprouted up and the winter downpours had smoothed out the soil.

  If you didn’t know what had happened here, Max figured, you’d barely notice any fuck’n difference.

  “Oh, you’ve got a little wiltja,” Gerhard said, getting out of the car. A kookaburra answered with a laugh from the eucalypt high above his head. “It’s well camouflaged. I would never haff guessed anyting was here at all.”

  “A whatjit?” Max said.

  “A wiltja. It’s vot de Aborigines call a shelter, like dis one.”

  “It’s a humpy, mate,” Max said. “My weekender.”

  He did a quick survey of the humpy, making sure the steel traps, saws, axes, spades, and hunting knives were hanging where they should be and that the lock on the old army trunk hadn’t been pried open. Judging by the droppings around the rolled up swag in the corner, it seemed the only visitor he’d had since the last time he was here was a bush rat or a possum. Fortunately, the mantrap on the far side near the drying rack was still primed and hadn’t been set off by an inquisitive fox or feral cat. Even better, the two roo skins on the drying rack looked relatively undamaged considering the recent rains, ready for their last cure of stack salting.

  “Dis is great. How’d you find dis place?”

  Satisfied that nothing was missing and everything was as he’d left it, Max glanced over his shoulder at Gerhard, grinning. “A family secret,” he said, and began to search the ground beneath the eucalypts for twigs and branches to get the campfire going. Within minutes the fire was flickering. Max retrieved his gear from the car and stacked them in the far corner of the humpy. He told Gerhard to do the same with his belongings.

  “You may as well stay here the night,” he said. “It’s too late now to be hitching for a ride.”

  He then hung the Remington on a hook above the swag and grabbed the sharpest hunting knife from the wall to slice the fish into fillets, his favourite Muela Kangaroo knife he mostly used to gut and skin the roos. He then took the icebox full of freshly gutted fish from the rear of the Cherokee and dumped it near the campfire to start grilling over the open coals.

  While Max was tending to the fish, Gerhard sat on the granite rock next to the campfire, can of West End in hand. His gaze moved from the grilled fish to the roo skins draped over the drying rack behind Max. “I don’t get it, man. You get to enjoy dis beautiful paradise but you spoil it by killing. Don’t you feel sorry for zem?”

  The kookaburra laughed down at them again from the top of the eucalypt. Squatting on one knee, Max glanced over his shoulder, then back at the fish grilling over the coals, prodding them with the kangaroo knife and delighting in the scent of barbequing flesh mingled with garlic and butter.

  “Can’t be sentimental ‘bout hunt’n animals, mate,” he said. “You’re about to eat flathead you’ve just caught. No difference.”

  “But you kill ze roos for fun, for sport, not to survive.” Gerhard shook his head and sipped from his beer can. “So stupid, man.”

  Max glared up at Gerhard, his grip on the hunting knife tightening. “What, you think you’re better than me?”

  Gerhard caught his eye, then looked down toward the campfire. “No, man, I don’t.”

  Maybe it was the beers, or maybe the German fuck’n accent, but Max had no intention of letting the foreign fucker get away with such a bullshit comment. He stood, looming over the good-for-noth’n prick. “Spoiled shit like you prob’ly never done a hard day’s fuck’n work in your life, have ya?”

  Gerhard leaned so far back he almost toppled from the granite rock, his free hand outstretched. “Whoa, man, take it easy. Relax.”

  But relaxing was the last fuck’n thing Max wanted to do. He had to teach this loser a lesson in fuck’n manners. “Don’t tell me what to do, boy. All my life people been tell’n me what to fuck’n do. But not here. This is my place. My fuck’n territory.” Max grabbed Gerhard’s ponytail and shoved the point of the hunting knife into the soft flesh of his neck just beneath his jaw. Gerhard’s eyes blinked wide and Max heard his beer can falling to the ground next to the granite rock, then the fizz of lager spilling onto the ground.

  “Who you feel’n sorry for now, huh?”

  Gerhard grabbed Max’s forearm with both hands. “Don’t do it, please. Put ze knife away. I’m sorry.”

  His whimpering was pathetic. The German fuck had no balls.

  “Could kill you right here and who’d care?” Max said, pushing the tip of the knife ever so slightly further into the fucker’s neck. Gerhard took a sharp breath in, saying nothing, still clinging to Max’s forearm. “Your fuck’n girlfriend? She’s probably fucking your best mate right now as we speak. And your father? What’d he care, huh? Prob’ly glad to get rid of a good-for-noth’n bum like you.”

  The kookaburra laughed down on them again, a long extended laugh that made Max think of the canned laughter of his favourite sitcoms like Two and a Half Men and the oldie, but always a fuck’n goodie, F-Troop (now, how did the theme tune go again?). Yet he didn’t feel like laughing now, or any time soon. Neither did the stupid fuck that was about to piss his army pants.

  “Please, man, you’re hurting me,” Gerhard said, clinging tighter to Max’s forearm.

  His struggles aroused a familiar tingling in Max’s crotch, which made him hesitate for a second. He was no fuck’n homo, so why should he be getting excited with what he was doing to this dickhead? He pushed the thought aside and sniggered, letting go of the loser’s ponytail and releasing the knife from his neck. Gerhard, uncertain at first, dubious as to whether or not Max might just change his mind and thrust the blade into his jugular after all, released his grip on Max’s forearm. Then, realising he only had a few seconds before Max did actually change his mind after all, he stood, half tripping backwards over the granite rock, and rushed to grab his belongings from the humpy.

  “Come on, mate,” said Max, absently thumbing the sharp edge of the hunting blade. “I was only joke’n with ya.”

  The tingling in his crotch was unchanged, which still unnerved him. Gerhard put on his rucksack, shifting it with a few shrugs of his shoulders until the weight was sitting comfortable on his back. He turned to Max.

  “I should repor
t you,” he said.

  Max clenched the hunting knife, gritting his teeth. “What the fuck are you on about?”

  Gerhard ignored him.

  “Know where you’re goin’?”

  “I can find my way,” Gerhard said, slinging the PVC piping over his left shoulder. It was so long it nearly touched the back of his boots. “I remember the way back to the road.”

  A cool breeze rustled through eucalypt leaves and wafted past Max’s face, but what he felt in his solar plexus was much cooler, as thought he’d swallowed the whole contents of the icebox and it had solidified in his gut as a frigid snowball. He smiled, the kind of contented smile he hadn’t felt since he was a kid back in the seventies, back when he’d skinned the rabbit alive on the very same granite rock that this German loser had just sat his scrawny arse upon and then buried it alive to be eaten by the crows and the ants. It was the smile of surrender. Surrender to the whims of the Gods and whatever fuck’n fate they had in stall for him. There was no turning back. All he needed was the sign.

  “All right,” Max said, pretending to give the loser a helping hand. The tingling in his pants had escalated into a throbbing hard-on so fuck’n intense he reckoned he could screw every fuck’n Asian whore in Lady Li’s and then go ‘round again just for good measure. “Just let me give you a piece of advice.”

  Gerhard stopped and turned. “Sure. Vot?”

  That was the last mistake the loser would ever make. Gerhard had looked directly into Max’s eyes, giving him the sign, asking him to do it, begging him. It was all too perfect, and Max needed no second invitation. He plunged the Muela into the German fucker’s guts, then sliced up until he felt the blade slam into the underside of the sternum.

  Just like gutting a roo, he thought.

  Gerhard’s mouth and eyes widened in shock, reminding Max of… well, a stunned mullet. Gerhard then sucked in a deep breath of garlic-scented air, saying nothing. His gaze fell to the kangaroo knife sticking out of his midriff to the hilt, which Max instinctively let go. Gerhard grabbed for the handle, trying to pull it out, but his legs gave way and he slumped to his knees, then toppled sideways with the weight of the rucksack and PVC pipe, landing at Max’s feet with a grunt. His boots twitched in spasmodic jerks for several seconds, then he moved no more.

  “Never threaten me!” Max said, smiling as he had. He prodded the prostrate loser with the toe of his boot just to make sure he wasn’t pretending.

  From high above at the top of the eucalypt, the kookaburra laughed long and loud and for some reason the catchy theme tune to F-Troop jingled in his head:

  When killing and fighting get them down,

  They know their morale can’t droop.

  As long as they all relax in town

  Before they resume with a bang and a boom…

  F-TROOP!

  Venus and her starry sisters had come out to party again now that the sun had been put to rest. Spread right across the black vault they were look’n mighty damn fine again tonight. The campfire crackled and flickered, casting its streetlamp-like orange glow across the campsite and warming his feet and legs and chest against the chill. His belly was satisfied with freshly grilled mullet and another half-dozen or so cans of West End Draught. It was damn perfect. The way things fuck’n ought to be.

  Except it wasn’t. Not even fuck’n close to being perfect. His head hurt like fuck from another raging headache and now he had begun to get all fuck’n paranoid about witnesses from the Aldinga roadhouse and maybe even the driver of the delivery van he almost smashed into on the road up Sellicks Hill. Had anyone seen him stop to pick up the hitchhiker? Would anyone recognise the Cherokee again if the cops started getting fuck’n nosey and asking all the wrong kinds of questions? The owners of the roadhouse certainly would. He couldn’t count how many fuck’n times he’d stopped to fill up on gas and beer and ice over the last ten years or so. Bad mistake on his behalf; he should really have thought about that more.

  At least the fat bitch behind the cash register didn’t know his name (he wasn’t that stupid to get too fuck’n friendly; noth’n more than small talk about the weather and what fish were starting to bite and how bad the fuck’n Crows were this year) but she could probably give a half-decent description of him should the coppers want an identikit of their ‘Number One Suspect In The Case Of The Missing German Loser’.

  Wasn’t all that bad, though, he reckoned, rubbing his temples and taking another sip of West End. Were plenty of other routes he could take to the Johnson farm and avoid the Aldinga roadhouse completely if he wanted to, which was probably the fuck’n smartest thing he could do from now on. Could take the Willunga Hill road for a start and come in from the top of the hills in the east. There was also the Serena Road along the coast, for another. Sure it’d be longer, and he’d have to pass through his hometown shithole every time he came out this way, which he really didn’t want to do, but if it meant the difference of being spotted by the fuck’n cops or slipping around them then he’d put up with all the bad fuck’n memories of his childhood. Keep his chin down and his gaze straight and pass right on through without so much as a G’day or how-do-ya-digeridoo?

  Then again, if he really thought about it (and man, with this raging headache, it was fuck’n hard to even think about whether he should sleep inside the shelter of the humpy tonight or sleep out under stars next to the campfire and risk the possibility of a downpour, let alone think what to do about avoiding the cops and potential witnesses to his crime), he doubted whether anybody would have fuck’n noticed the German loser getting into the Cherokee. He’d seen dozens and dozens of hitchhikers in that same spot over the past few years. They were a dime a dozen. Just another fuck’n annoyance nobody paid any attention to, if they could help it. Normally the truckies offered them a lift, or a farmer in his pick-up truck looking for cheap summer labour.

  That’s where the cops would start their snoop’n, he mused.

  He was sure of it. Not with some random drive-by pick-up. He had time on his hands; and shit, if things got too hot and he had to leave fuck’n Adelaide and move to Melbourne or Sydney, or even fuck’n Perth for that matter, then he would. There was noth’n holding him back in Adelaide except a mouthy bitch for an ex-wife, a lousy fuck’n job, and a useless fuck’n cat that was as loyal to him as one of his regular Love-You-Long-Time-Mista at Lady Li’s.

  Nah, El Stupido wouldn’t miss him if he never came back. Nobody would ever fuck’n miss him. Bill O’Driscoll would call up someone else to fill in and do his work. The whores at Lady Li’s would just fuck another client or five or ten. Even Sarah would prob’ly be fuck’n relieved to have the city to herself and not have to worry about bumping into her fuck’n ex every time she drove to the shopping mall or went out to dinner with her friends (at their expense, of course).

  Rubbing his temples, Max stood up from the cold granite rock (man, his arse was ice and his legs were on fire) and went over to where he had just finished burying the stupid German fuck. He took a big swig of beer, tipping his head right back and emptying the last drop into his mouth. Then he crushed the empty can and tossed it aside. It clanged into the corrugated side of the humpy and bounced back into the shadows, disappearing somewhere into the surrounding bushes. He gazed down at the turned-over ground at his feet, belched, then forearmed his mouth.

  He reset the mantrap that he released when digging the grave, sliding it over so that it now rested on top of the unseen loser. “Report me?” he said, slurring. “Now you can report me to God ya fuck’n arrogant bastard!”

  He undid his zipper and pissed on the spot about where he reckoned the fucker’s gaping mouth would be. Steam rose in a small misty cloud where his piss landed on the freezing soil. Then he zipped up his trousers and went to inspect the loser’s rucksack and see if he had anything valuable he could use or pawn off.

  Sitting back down on the granite rock next to the campfire, he first rummaged through the rucksack but found fuck all, tossing most of its contents
onto the flames; passport (his full name was Gerhard Heinrich Winkler, not that he gave a fuck what the little prick was called), maps of Australia, a couple of tatty novels written in German (not that Max read books in English anyway), and stinking socks and dirty underwear that he reckoned hadn’t been washed in days, maybe weeks. Man, the German fucker was a filthy pig. The only things he thought he might be able to salvage were the zippo lighter, some maps, a digital camera, and his sleeping bag, and even then the tag said it was low rated and not recommended for temperatures below freezing. Even his spare Adidas sneakers were a size too big.

  Pocketing the zippo lighter, he tossed the sneakers and the empty rucksack onto the flames as well, thinking it was pretty fuck’n useless all round. He opened the PVC piping and slid out the didgeridoo with some difficulty. In the flickering orange light he made out the ornate Aboriginal artwork along the entire length and circumference of the hollowed out shaft — goannas, kangaroos, emus, and even some weirdly shaped human figures. He was no fuck’n art critic by any stretch of the imagination, but even he could tell that it was a nice piece of craftsmanship, something that was worth a bit of cash to boot.

  He glanced over at the shallow grave. “You’re not all fuck’n useless then, Herr Winkler,” he said.

  Resting one end of the didgeridoo between the V of his boots, he brought the other end to his mouth, pursed his lips like he would blow into a trumpet, and blew into it. His cheeks puffed out, his face went red, but only a small fart-like sound puffed out the other end. He tried again with the same result, the effort of which only made his headache even worse.

  “Useless fuck’n thing,” he said, throwing the didgeridoo aside.

  He got up to get himself another can of West End Draught, but halfway to the humpy he was struck with a hammer blow to his solar plexus. He sank to his knees gasping for breath, arms crossed and clutching his chest, a searing pain in his heart, as if it was him and not Gerhard who had been impaled with the hunting blade. He started rocking back and forth, moaning.