Devon Smith nursed his beer and watched the police come and go. He’d arrived at the pub early to scope for exits and suspicious-looking drinkers among the dozen men seated at the stick. They had the look of regulars familiar to dive-bars everywhere: middle-aged and lonely, with doughy complexions and soft muscles.
The pub had a quiet atmosphere, even though Devon suspected that it was busier than usual because of all the police. They were mostly detectives in neutral-coloured suits, boring ties and cheap functional shoes. Nothing like the narcotics and vice detectives who worked the Gaslamp district of San Diego – with their gangster flair and loud voices – part of the street theatre of the area he called home. Smith could easily imagine the local detectives seated at the bar alongside the local drinkers, who were barely energised by the police presence, eyes darting from their beers when they thought it was safe to look.
There was a uniformed officer at the foot of the stairs, which led up to what was presumably a boarding house for wet-brains. The cop was a big blond unit, wide across the shoulders with paws the size of baseball mitts. He was a fine example of Aryan manhood, although his blue cotton uniform was also on the plain side, and made him look like an oversized boy scout. At a holster on his belt was a six-shot .38 S&W revolver, another point of difference. Last year, the police at home had all switched to the Glock 17, a lightweight mostly polymer pistol with a large magazine and no external safety or hammer – meaning a fast draw and easy repeat firing. Smith imagined himself in a shootout with the policeman. His Glock versus the Aussie cop’s S&W. Smith would prevail because of the Austrian pistol’s safe-action feature, and also because the cop had probably only fired his weapon down at a gun range, unlike Smith. The thought made Smith happy. He’d have to work that into his sales-pitch – the fact that with a Glock in your hand the local police were outgunned.
Smith had no idea what the police were doing upstairs and he didn’t care. He hadn’t been off the Vinson since Yemen, having had his shore leave revoked for the most recent port of call in Mombasa, Kenya. The black sailors taking leave in Mombasa had been thrilled at the thought of banging whores of their own kind, and hadn’t shut up about it when they got back from the bars and cathouses in what looked another sweaty and stinking port. Fremantle, however, looked more like Smith’s kind of place – clean and mostly blue-collar white. On his way from the Vinson to the Seaview Hotel, he’d seen a few examples of the local blacks, all of them poor looking and some of them clearly homeless, hanging around a soup kitchen. To Devon Smith that was another tick on the positive side of the ledger – a sign that the Aussies had their social pyramid the right way up, unlike what was happening back at home.
Devon Smith looked at his cheap-ass watch, a fake Rolex bought in Yemen. The biker was due in ten minutes. Devon hoped that Barry Brown wouldn’t be put off by the presence of police in the bar. They looked like they were leaving anyway, one detective in a beige suit and tan tie with a ginger moustache carrying a fingerprint kit in a plastic suitcase. There were no other sailors in the bar at this hour despite the brothel across the road. Smith checked himself in the mirror behind the bottom-shelf spirits – Jim Beam and Jameson, Beefeater gin and Smirnoff vodka. Something called Stone’s green ginger wine, and Brandavino. Captain Morgan rum.
Smith wasn’t in uniform, despite the regulations. He’d worn his summer whites off the Vinson but changed in a toilet block at the edge of a park, stowed the uniform in a haversack.
Smith straightened the collar on his freshly ironed Fred Perry polo, which showed off his tattoos. His father had become a member of the California Aryan Brotherhood in San Quentin back in the sixties, and had brought Devon up in the life. Devon hadn’t been to prison himself, so wasn’t officially entitled to wear the shamrock, Celtic cross or the numerals 88, but they’d both figured that it was a matter of time. Devon’s father had done the tattooing himself, a trade he’d learnt while locked up. It was Devon’s father who’d made contact with the Aussie biker when he learned that Devon was going out on the Carl Vinson. The meet was difficult to organise, done by letters and aerograms. It was made more complicated by the fact that a shit-heel sailor like Devon wasn’t informed of the Vinson’s route on its world tour, let alone the possible dates and duration of his arrival. But a meet had been arranged and Devon received a name and phone number to call. He’d dropped the twenty-cent piece from a public phone in the same park where he’d changed into his civvies of polo shirt, khaki Dickies trousers and Converse high-tops. The voice that answered was male, and middle-aged, the Australian accent broad and deep.
Smith looked around at the drinkers a final time, wondering if one of them was his man. None of them looked likely, although it was hard to tell – his father, for example, had gone to seed because of the beer and crank. There were a couple of Mediterranean types which he could discount, and the white men looked too weak-chinned and hokey.
Smith looked to his watch again. The final policeman had left and the bartender reappeared: a fat Slav-looking thing with a sweaty face and monobrow. Smith followed the man’s eyes as a shadow fell across him. He heard the voice, and turned in his seat.