Peter Temple - Dead Point

The sound of a machine came from beyond the building. We walked around, passed an old pale-blue Valiant, buffed up, saw an expanse of dark, wet, rutted ground, big concrete pens holding gravel and sand, mulch, compost, other dark substances, everything untidy, spilling out of the enclosures, crushed into the ground.

The machine was a mid-sized lifter and it was moving rocks from one part of the yard to another, television-sized rocks for adding character to small, flat blocks in the outer suburbs.

We walked towards it and the driver saw us coming, the light glinted on his dark glasses as he looked our way, kept on going to his new pile, dumped the load with a crash, reversed the machine, gunned it back to the mother lode, took the bucket down, stuck it in with a ghastly screech, lifted, rocks falling out, swung around, went back, lifted the bucket to dump.

We were close, in the noise. The man turned his head towards us. Cam raised a hand, palm outward.

Bucket poised, the man cut the motor. He was big, no neck or chin to speak of, peaked cap too small for his long hair, tiny nose, arms like sewer pipes, belly hanging over a wide leather belt.

‘Yah?’

‘Rick Chaffee,’ said Cam. It wasn’t a question.

‘Want somethin?’ The man’s voice was reedy, not congruous with the body.

‘Few words about the parking garage.’

‘What?’

‘Curtin parking garage. You worked there.’

‘Jacks?’

‘No.’

‘I’m workin here,’ the man said. ‘Busy.’

‘Be a good idea to talk to us,’ Cam said.

‘Yah. Why’s that?’

‘You could be in trouble.’

Chaffee shook his head. ‘Not cops?’

‘No.’

He swivelled in his seat, stood up on the platform of the machine, towered over us, our heads at his knee-level. ‘What’s your name?’ he said to Cam.

‘Bruce,’ said Cam.

Chaffee drew on his sinuses, not an engaging sound, and spat to Cam’s right.

‘Bruce’s not a coon name,’ Chaffee said. ‘You look like you got a bit of coon in you.’

Cam turned his head to me, eyes full of resignation. ‘Far as I’m concerned,’ he said quietly, ‘you stayed in the car.’

‘We should leave,’ I said, more than uneasy, much, much more. ‘There are other ways.’

‘Won’t take long,’ Cam said. ‘Since we’re here.’

He turned back to Chaffee. ‘All I want to do is ask you about the Curtin carpark.’ Pause. ‘Mr Chaffee.’

Chaffee put a hand into an armpit, scratched. ‘Busy, boong, fuck off.’

Cam looked down, shook his head, coiled, sprang, hooked his right arm around Chaffee’s knees, pulled the big man out of the machine with one twisting movement, brought him over his head and dumped him.

Chaffee made a sound like a kicked dog as he hit the wet ground. He rolled over, balled himself, he was no stranger to being kicked, would try to grab the foot, the leg.

Cam stood back. ‘Get up, Ricko,’ he said, ordinary tone. ‘I’m in a good mood.’

Chaffee got up, wary of a surprise, but when he was on his feet, I could see he liked this turn of events. ‘Hey,’ he said, taking off the dark glasses, throwing them to one side, his eyes flicking to me. ‘Hey, no reason to fucken do that, really fucken stupid. Fucken boong stupid.’

Cam took a step closer, inside the range of the big arms, his hands at shoulder height, loose fists. He was as tall as Chaffee but 20 kilograms lighter. Chaffee put his head to one side.

‘Cocky fucken boong,’ he said, then grabbed at Cam’s shirtfront, lunging, forehead dropped for the butt.

Cam went forward, into the lunge, his right hand travelled upward no more than 10 centimetres, a corkscrewing fist that made contact with Chaffee’s nose, brought the man’s head up, opened his eyes wide with pain, his arms falling to his sides, cap falling off.

Cam took another pace, in close, hit him again, the same short, twisting punch, this time high in Chaffee’s chest, in the left collarbone. I thought I heard it break.

Chaffee went down, on one knee, both hands at his nose, blood running through his fingers. Cam put his hand in the man’s hair, pulled him forward, dragged him across the muddy, rutted ground, Chaffee moaning, not resisting.

‘Open the car door, Jack,’ said Cam, nothing different about his voice. ‘Wind the window down. Take the keys out.’

I opened the driver’s door of the Valiant, did as I was told. Cam pulled Chaffee up to the open door, dropped his head on the seat, got behind him, kicked him in the backside with his right boot.

‘Get in, Mr Chaffee,’ he said.

Chaffee crawled in, using the steering wheel to drag himself. Cam helped, gripped the man’s wide leather belt in both hands, pushed him in, slammed the door, a solid thunk.

Feeling his knuckles, flexing his fingers like a surgeon about to operate, Cam went over to the lifter, swung himself up, started the motor, gunned it, reversed, swung the machine savagely, came up to the Valiant.

‘Ricko,’ he shouted.

Chaffee was holding his chest now, his mouth open, blood in it, running over his lower lip. He looked at Cam, fear, wonder, in his eyes.

‘Who’d you lend the Cruiser to that day, the one they sacked you for?’

‘Dunno what you…’ Chaffee coughed blood.

‘You know, bubba,’ Cam said. ‘Ran your own carhire business at the Curtin. Tell me now. Quick.’

‘Know fuck-all about-’

‘Your mates nearly killed a woman that day, know that, Ricardo?’

‘Nah, don’t-’

Cam raised the hopper.

I stood back.

He dumped the full load of stones, big landscaping stones, on the Valiant.

Stones bounced on the roof, one went through the windscreen, stones fell off the sides, rolled onto the bonnet, the boot.

The roof collapsed, the right-hand door pillar buckled, the back doors popped open.

Cam reversed the machine, swinging around, screamed across to a pit of yellow paving sand, dropped the hopper, drove it into the sand, filled it, sand spilling, raised the hopper, reversed and swung, came back.

A last grey volcanic rock toppled off the Valiant roof, rolled down the crazed, opaque, holed windscreen, over the stoved-in bonnet, fell into a puddle.

In the car, Chaffee was making sobbing, wheezing noises, noises of terror. The roof was pressing on his head and he was trying to open his door, jammed by the impact.

‘Jesus, Ricky,’ said Cam. ‘You come through that alive. You’re tough, you WA boys.’

He pulled the lever, dropped most of a cubic metre of sand on the Valiant. The springs sagged, sand poured into the car through the hole in the windscreen, filled the depressions, slithered to the ground.

The Valiant was disappearing under rocks and sand.

Chaffee screamed.

‘There’s more comin, Ricko,’ said Cam. ‘Then I’m givin you the gravel shower.’ He waited. ‘The Cruiser. Who’d you lend it to? Last time I’m askin you, fat boy.’

‘Artie, Artie, I only know Artie.’ Chaffee’s voice was weak, he could barely speak.

Cam revved the engine, calmed it.

‘More, bubba,’ he said, ‘more.’

‘God’smyfuckenwitness, Artie’s all… I’m dyin…’

‘Damn straight,’ said Cam. He emptied the rest of the sand onto the car, switched off, climbed down, dusted his moleskins, hands brushing. He went over to the wrecked Valiant, tested the door handle, gripped the door pillar in his right hand, and jerked.

The door came open. Cam reached in with both hands and pulled Chaffee out, jerked him out, let him fall into the mud. Paving sand was stuck to the man’s blood, blood and sand all over his big chest, it was in his long hair, and he had a mask of yellow sand on his face, new black blood from his nose eroding it, creating thin furrows of blood.