A midnight easterly blew off the desert, gusting in the higher branches. Swann turned the hose onto the garden that ran alongside his shed, soaking the Hardenbergia whose purple flowers had browned in the heat. Marion was asleep in the front room beneath the ceiling fan, but he hadn’t been able to drift off.
Swann aimed the hose into the clumps of wattle, woolly bush and banksia. When the plants were mature they wouldn’t need watering, but another day like today and they’d be crisp as the leaves under his feet. Swann avoided squirting beneath the concrete slab where two bluetongue lizards had taken up residence. Their saucer of water beside the nearest shrub was brimming, and he could see the heavy trace-shape of their tails in the sand.
Swann was glad that the lizards had moved in because they kept snakes away. Last year, he’d removed a metre-long tiger snake who’d occupied the same hole, attracted to the motorbike frogs in the neighbour’s pond. Swann had nearly trodden on the snake after looking for a cricket ball knocked into the bushes by his nine-year-old grandson, Jock. Swann immobilised the snake’s head with the tines of a garden rake and lifted it by the tail, dropping it into a hessian bag. He took it to the dunes behind South Beach and released it.
Swann put his head under the hose and soaked his hair and face. Gone midnight, and it was thirty degrees. Despite the faint moonlight and the floodlit port working through the night, the sky was a sprawl of stars. The crescent moon sat above the roofline of his fibro shack. He could see its pitted surface and the shadows formed by deeper craters. Above him was the Southern Cross and the Milky Way, like fairy floss across the western horizon.
Swann wiped a hand over his wet hair and flicked a spray of droplets into the bushes. He put his hands on his hips as another wave of nausea rose from his belly. He swallowed hard, and it passed. He was getting better at keeping it down, even if his symptoms weren’t improving. The headaches were more frequent and the nausea was worse every day. He was lucky that Marion was a nurse, pushing him to get help. She didn’t know what was wrong, but then again neither did his doctor, or any of the specialists he’d consulted. Swann was too sick to work but it didn’t matter for now. He’d worked solidly these past years and had enough money to last a few months.
The front gate screeched on its hinges. It was Swann’s early alarm system, together with the dog, who emerged from underneath the house, growling. Swann walked to the driveway. He recognised the moonlit silhouette of Kerry Bannister, dressed in her regular jumpsuit and blonde wig. Kerry was the long-term madam of the Ada Rose brothel that was a minute’s walk from Swann’s home.
Swann whistled to the dog, who ceased her growling. She was afraid of the dark and her relief at being called off was demonstrated by her wagging tail and running back and forth between Swann and Kerry. Swann halved the distance between them and Kerry did the same, shoulders set while lighting a cigarette, her weathered face illuminated by the streetlight.
‘Couldn’t sleep, eh?’ she asked, thrusting out a hand for him to shake.
‘Not when there’s mischievous Christians afoot.’
Last week, as a favour to Kerry, Swann had installed a security camera on the back wall of the brothel, to dissuade whoever kept painting crucifixes there in fluorescent road-marking paint, which was near impossible to remove.
‘I’m a witch, don’t forget. Safe from their mumbo jumbo. You and Marion should join our coven sometime. Speaking of, is she asleep?’
‘Sound. I don’t think she’d be keen to frolic at this point.’
The smoke from Kerry’s cigarette turned Swann’s stomach, and he felt a convulsion in his belly. If the ripple became a wave then Kerry had better stand back.
‘It was you I wanted to see. Glad I didn’t have to wake you. We’ve got a bit of a … hostage situation in room five. Daniel’s off sick. And before you ask, the male person concerned doesn’t strike me as the Christian type.’
‘You call the cops? Who’s he with?’
‘Montana. And no, I didn’t. Thought I’d try you first. With the Yanks coming tomorrow, I don’t want to look like I can’t manage my affairs.’
‘Is the person armed?’
‘Don’t think so. He’s just refusing to come out. Blocked the doorway with the bed.’
The Ada Rose had been open for as long as Swann could remember. It’d been a Ruby Devine brothel until her murder, when Kerry Bannister took it over. Kerry paid the right people, kept the shopfront discreet, looked after her workers and made sure men weren’t involved in the day-to-day. The brothel was a kilometre from the port and only became busy when the Yanks were in town, as they would be tomorrow.
Swann put on his jeans, boots and an old tee-shirt he could afford to have ripped, or worse. On his way to the brothel he stopped to heave behind a hedge. His stomach was empty except for the potato and leek soup that was all he could keep down. His jeans hung loose on his hips due to lost weight.
Kerry Bannister and the three other women on shift gathered in the hallway outside room five. They were all dressed in civvies – jeans, sandals and loose shirts. Kerry moved her workers through the business in three-monthly cycles, paying for them to fly in from Sydney and Melbourne, and Swann didn’t recognise two of the newest women. He nodded to Havana, who still worked a room but also filled in as manager when Kerry was away. She was a Noongar woman in her late twenties with short black hair, and Kerry’s sometime partner. Her fists were clenched and her large brown eyes were fierce with the desire to get at the man behind the door.
‘I think he’s got her gagged. She’s not sayin anythin,’ Havana said when Swann knocked on the door.
‘Open the door,’ he said firmly. ‘We just need to know that … Montana is ok.’
Swann looked to Kerry. ‘Punters in the other rooms?’
‘Nah, we closed up, soon as this happened. He came in alone. Small bloke, sunburnt face and heavily freckled. Gave his name as Ron Smith. My guess is a cockie, or a miner.’
Swann knocked again but there was no response. He tried the door but it was wedged shut. ‘Carlie, could you get what I left at the entrance?’
Swann had used Havana’s real name, and she nodded, returning with the chainsaw cradled in her arms.
Swann took the old machine that he’d inherited from Marion’s father. He hoped it’d work. It was primed with two-stroke but he had no cause to use it in his suburban backyard. The last time he’d worked the chainsaw was a few years ago when he’d gone to a friend’s block outside the city, to carve firewood off a fallen jarrah.
He nodded to Kerry, who stood back as he opened the choke to full and shouted, ‘I’m coming in,’ then put the machine on the ground and pulled the starter cord. It caught first time, and the smell of exhaust filled the hall along with the deep chuckle of the idling motor. Swann lifted the blade and pressed go. The blade scythed the air and the motor roared. He gave it a good rev and kicked the door. Immediately the handle shuddered, and turned. The door opened a fraction, then more as the bed was dragged away. Montana fled the room, pulling panties from her mouth. The other women formed a circle around her, Carlie foremost, nodding to Swann to enter the room. Instead, Swann killed the motor, and the sound of the chainsaw died away. A small man with ginger hair and an orange moustache dressed in double-denim stared at him. Wore old KT26 trainers on his feet. He raised his hands to show they were empty. Swann stood away and let Kerry into the room. She backed the man into a corner. ‘Empty yer fuckin pockets onto the bed. Every last cent. And yer wallet too. I’ll be holding yer licence in case of further trouble.’
The man did as he was told. He had plenty of money: two wads of mixed notes, near three hundred dollars, which likely made him a miner. He opened his wallet and spilled cards onto the bed.
Kerry’s right fist hovered beside her shoulder. She shouted behind her, ‘Montana, you ok? He do anything?’
‘She’s alright,’ Carlie answered.
The man’s face was empty of expression. He didn’t appear drunk. He edged around Kerry and didn’t look at Swann as he passed. Kept his eyes on his feet as he sauntered past the gauntlet of jeers from Carlie and the others.
Kerry patted Swann on the bicep. ‘Thanks mate.’
‘Not a worry,’ Swann answered. ‘Where’s the toilet?’
‘Down the end, where it’s always been. You alright? You look peaky.’
Swann hurried down the hall.