Garry Disher - Port Vila Blues

The local brew was served in small, deep-bowled shells. Crystal had never tried one in all the time he’d been flying in and out of Vanuatu. But it was never too late, and he tipped the kava down his throat. He gagged, coughed, lit up a smoke. Thick, vile, like muddy water mixed with castor oil. He wanted to throw up.

The barman was watching him with interest. Bugger you, Crystal thought. ‘I’ll have another.’

Then he had a third. The barman was wearing half a smile now. Crystal wondered why. He couldn’t feel anything; there was only a bit of an aftertaste.

Following his fourth kava, Crystal went to the men’s. Jesus, now he could feel it. His knees gave way for a moment. He came back from the men’s and collapsed in a booth near the silent juke box in the rear of the place. Waves of euphoria and nausea swept through him. The euphoria was good, but he didn’t trust it. The way he was feeling, he might just knock on De Lisle’s door and apologise for thinking bad thoughts.

Time to get off the kava, though, that was for sure. Crystal switched to beer-Fourex. God knows what an un-Australian beer might do to him.

He left the bar. The moon was high and bright and he stood for a while under the palm trees, looking down the road at De Lisle’s house. Bastards. Wrecking his life. He’d like to tie De Lisle to a chair and dance around him slicing off a piece here and there like that guy in Reservoir Dogs. He began to walk. At the gate he stopped, reached out a hand experimentally to the cold steel.

‘De Lisle!’

A scream of hate and revolt from the head of the steps.

Then the flare snaking from out of the darkness, an eyeblink comet of oily smoke and flashpoint combustion.

Wyatt ducked, pulling Liz Redding down with him. Springett, surprised, stood where he was.

The flare arrowed over Springett, over Wyatt and Liz Redding, struck De Lisle in the flesh at his waist, and began to burn.

De Lisle went down soundlessly and Wyatt did two things: he threw his jacket over the flare, shutting off the giveaway spluttering light, and he went after Springett, flare-burn in his eyes.

Springett had his back to Wyatt, snapping off shots with the silenced Glock, spraying them over an arc, hunting for the man on the terrace above him. Wyatt heard the slap of impact, a grunt of surprise and pain, and heard Springett’s triumph: ‘Got you, you bastard.’

Ramming with both fists, Wyatt caught Springett behind each knee. Springett buckled, his arms windmilling as he toppled over backwards, flailing uselessly at the black air. Wyatt, crouching behind him, heaved upwards as Springett thumped onto his shoulders, flipping the man onto his head.

Wyatt stayed close to the ground, ready to uncoil and attack Springett, but Springett stirred, sighed, and lapsed into unconsciousness.

Liz found the gun. Wyatt saw the hard concentration in her. In a series of crouched jerks she swung the gun on De Lisle, Springett, the danger above, always covering Wyatt between moves.

‘There’s not,’ Wyatt observed, ‘all that much wrong with you.’

He saw her relax the gun arm a little, smile crookedly at him. ‘I guess we’re even. If we don’t count your tying me up.’

Wyatt gestured, uncomprehending and irritated. He could never see the sense in weighing up this kind of profit and loss. ‘Liz, we can’t stay here.’

She let the gun fall to her side. ‘What a mess. What a fucking mess.’

Wyatt looked out across the water to Reriki. The search party was winding down. Nothing was happening on the island itself and one by one the probing searchlights were blacking out on the patrol boats, letting the coral, cliffs and mangroves become shadows in the moonlight again. He could smell his jacket burning, but the flare was close to extinction now. There were no neighbours gathering on either side of De Lisle’s fence.

Liz Redding was crouched over Springett, the fingers of one hand on his pulse. Wyatt made to step past her. ‘I’m out of here.’

She swung the gun on him. ‘You’re under arrest, Wyatt. Springett too, when he wakes up.’

Wyatt stopped. ‘You don’t have jurisdiction here, not over me, not over him. You shouldn’t be here in the first place. Does your boss know you’re here?’

A twist of hate: ‘Springett’s my boss. Wyatt, I’ll put in a good word for you. You saved my life. You cooperated. You were not involved in the magnetic drill robberies.’

Then she swayed, put out her hands, found nothing to cling to and sank gratefully onto the terraced step. Wyatt unpicked her fingers one by one until he had the Glock pistol. She laughed a little wildly. ‘It’s Springett’s. I found it at his house and smuggled it here in my luggage.’

Wyatt stepped away from her. He watched as she straightened her back, both arms holding her trunk upright, and cranked her face around to look at him. She was stubborn, fixed, angry.

‘I need to get something out of this,’ she said. ‘Do you know what I was told? We couldn’t touch De Lisle over here, no real evidence, respected magistrate, friends in high places, blah blah blah. I was told to take some leave, I’d exceeded my responsibilities. They said they’d put out an international alert for Springett but don’t expect any joy in Vanuatu because last year an Australian priest here had his hands in the parish till and was fiddling with the choir boys but before they could arrest him he was tipped off by a bishop in Sydney and got away.’

‘So you thought you’d just fly in and bring them back yourself.’

She looked away. ‘Springett tried to have me killed. My own boss.’

Wyatt preferred the Glock silently. She recoiled. ‘Is that how you work your life? I want to see him wriggling in court.’

Wyatt crouched there with her for a while. “The yacht,’ he said.

‘What about it?’

‘There’s a dead man in my room over there on the island, two dead men here. I can’t fly out. They’re not likely to let you fly out. The yacht’s our only chance.’

She was working herself into a spitting anger. ‘I can’t sail. Can you sail? It’s all a big mess.’

‘I know the basics, but I’ll need your help.’

She shot out a foot, striking Springett, who groaned, stirred, tried to kneel. ‘What about him?’

‘Bring him with us. You’ll have formal jurisdiction over him once we’re in Australian waters.’

‘His lawyers are going to just love that. What about De Lisle and the other man?’

Wyatt walked down the steps with the Glock, wiping it with his handkerchief. He wrapped De Lisle’s fingers around the butt, the trigger, then shook it onto the grass near the outstretched hand.

He went back to Liz. ‘Let the locals work it out.’

‘Piece of cake,’ she said.

They got Springett onto the yacht and roped him to a bunk. Then Wyatt remembered the false nameplate on the stern. ‘I’ll be back.’

Alarm showed on Liz Redding’s face. ‘Where are you going?’

Wyatt said it again: ‘I’ll be back.’

He found De Lisle’s study in a corner of the house. The window overlooked the harbour. There was an open safe behind a painting on the wall. Empty. He went through De Lisle’s desk. The papers for the yacht were in the bottom drawer, listing the new name and registration. De Lisle had put it all together so that he could run and hide. There’s no reason, Wyatt thought, why it shouldn’t work for me as well.

He returned to the yacht. He found Liz Redding in the little galley, swabbing the clotted blood from her nose, dabbing antiseptic cream onto her cuts, examining the bruises on her stomach. He touched her. As soon as she felt the contact, she sighed raggedly, as if he’d drained something bad from her.