Thought Crimes (16 page)

‘Ever seen a dead man?'

Unable to guess where the driver was coming from, Jon asked, ‘Dead in what way?' He'd been past road accidents where lumps under sheets were being loaded into ambulances that were going nowhere fast.

‘Nah, mate. I'm talking about standing next to a corpse … A situation where you might be the one bloke in the world who knows the fucker you're standing over's dead. Puts everything into perspective.'

Perspective. They'd been on the road five hours, with just Noel's gear shifts, twisted Cat, and the merits of setting eyes on a dead man. Who could say those five hours were more or less oppressive than the ‘at least two hours' promised by the station assistant?

Bilyup was nothing more than three ancient petrol bowsers and the kind of café where only speed-fucked, alco truckies would consider eating the food. Under dirty glass, Jon found a tray of battered things fried the previous month. The tennis balls used at the Australian Open had less bounce than the dim sims in that bain-marie.

Quality of life probably didn't mean much to regular roadhouse patrons. While Jon chanced coffee and toast, Noel shared several beers with the owner, the equally bear-like Neale. Neale and Noel, two hairy-shouldered kegs vying for a hoppo bumpo dream-team. If he'd been any sort of storyteller, Jon could have made something of that.

‘Was telling Jonno here that a man hasn't lived till he's seen death close-up,' Noel told Neale.

‘Wouldn't fuckin' read about the bods that've carked here,' Neale said. ‘
Coronary Central
… Told the Flying Doctor to build a black Cessna and call it the Flying Hearse. You'd fly it real slow. Left lane in the sky.'

‘Jonno's goin' up Timboolya.'

‘Wanna see death, that's a good place to start. That's if this cunt's driving doesn't kill you first … I bet he hasn't told you he's night blind.'

‘Will be after another couple of stubbies,' Noel added.

Jon laughed heartily because he knew that this was when hearty laughter was expected. By now, he couldn't have cared less about the deadshits stupid enough to eat Neale's food, or Noel's night-blindness, or whether death was something a thinking man needed to experience first hand. All his hopes centred on Timboolya. If those hopes were frustrated, he didn't know what he'd do.

You'd have sunsets this glorious on other planets, but you wouldn't have Noel's helium-fuelled Cat to augment your admiration. With even fewer trees north of Bilyup, you stuck fast to the enchantments you found.

‘There's a box of stick mags under the seat if you want to climb into the cabin and have a tug.'

Jon could imagine better ways to pass the time, but thanked Noel politely.

‘I buy German mostly … But I'm quite partial to Asian. So long as they've got some meat on them and they're not shaved. You want a bit of wool over the gash. Where's the fun if you never discover anything?'

Maybe Jon should have accepted. The night became a little sullen after that. A crescent moon hung over the highway like a scythe.

‘This is the place, I reckon … This is where you bring a body that needs dumping. Lose someone out here, and you'd be hardpressed to find 'em again.'

Maybe once every half hour, they copped the flash from an approaching rig's high-beams, but the road was straight, there was no one to overtake, and little to keep a driver interested. Jon knew it'd be safer to keep Noel talking, but he couldn't find it in him. He might have asked about Noel's load, what he knew of Timboolya, or whether a particular, hairy-sexed woman filled his thoughts when he tugged. He might have done that if he'd been able to shift focus from where he'd be in seven hours.

Another set of powerful headlights in the distance.

‘What about aliens? … Would a smart fella like you believe in them?'

‘Aliens? … Sure.'

‘This is the place for 'em. In Yank movies, the fuckers always head straight for Washington, like they can't wait to be attacked. No friggin' way. If you were an alien, you'd come some place like this, where it's easy to fit in, and you'd take a disguise. Reckon you'd wanna look just like me.'

Jon had learnt that different things frighten different people. Snakes. Spiders. Some blokes would have shat themselves when an alco truckie like Noel mentioned dumping bodies where they couldn't be found, but it was Noel's talk of disguised aliens that scared Jon like nothing had since he was a kid. He tried to keep calm while straining to control a twitch in the tentacle hidden near his colon.

Not long before sunrise, big green highway signs made their first mention of Timboolya. Timboolya 91 … Timboolya 84 … Jon thought about how far he'd come, and how time tames even the vastest distance. His fear of Noel, or what might have been waiting for him in Timboolya, gave way to anticipation.

Just past a sign that said
Timboolya 13
, Noel pulled his rig into a decrepit roadhouse and ordered a plate of bacon and eggs.

‘Not eating?'

‘I'll eat when I'm there,' Jon said, hiding his desperate urge to keep moving.

‘Know anything about the place?'

‘No.'

‘Shithole.'

‘So people tell me.'

The driver had almost polished off his food when the waitress started a conversation about waterskiing. After she repeated the same point about freeing surplus channel-water to top up the lake, Jon excused himself to take some air. Noel followed him outside not long after.

‘Nice girl, Tanya … But not half the piece her mum was. Blokes shot their wad at the sight of Tanya's mum in a wetsuit.'

With Noel cranking up the engine, Jon thought it a good time to thank him for the lift.

‘Least I could do,' the big man said as he swung the rig off the highway onto a dirt road that carved a narrow path straight into a fierce rising sun.

‘I thought Timboolya was on the highway.'

‘It is … But there's something you need to see first.'

Falling at the last hurdle was a phrase Jon knew. A metaphor for radical disappointment, or cosmic denial. You never kill a man up front; you tease him right to the moment he thinks his worries are over.

‘I could grab another lift at the roadhouse.'

‘Mate, none of this is about wasting your time.'

This detour wasn't designed for rigs. If something half as big came from the other direction, they'd be fucked. That danger didn't seem to trouble Noel, who gunned the pedal even harder than he had on the highway.

Finally, that familiar hiss as the brakes did their stuff, and Noel brought the rig to a halt between two scrubby paddocks. Not somewhere you'd pull over to take in the scenery.

‘This way.'

Jon followed the big man without asking, as if everything that might happen had already happened a dozen times over, and resistance was just another humiliation you didn't need before the moment that ends all indignities.

‘Over there. Between those two trees.'

Under the screaming sun, the tawny paddock married fresh rabbit shit with powdered rabbit shit. Thirty metres short of the trees he'd pointed out, Noel stopped and told Jon to go on.

Beneath a craggy eucalypt, Jon saw what looked like the charred leftovers of a campsite. Drawing nearer, he saw the lumps were dead crows. A dozen birds lay rotting under the sun. Nearby, propped against the larger of the two trees, was a shrivelled body. Though the face was eaten away, two half-devoured tentacles told Jon that he'd found the man he'd travelled so far to see.

Jon was standing there, uncertain what to feel, when the big man approached from behind.

‘Warned him about the dimmies. The gunk inside might not look like protein, but I figured it was stuff a bloke like him shouldn't eat …'

‘Yeah, that's right.'

‘He was going up Timboolya to meet a mate … Guess you're the mate.'

Jon was trembling so hard he couldn't have spoken, even if he'd had something worth saying. He'd travelled seven light years through space, and spent three earth years trapped in this disguise. All that time and energy had gone into tracking Jesno to tell him he could go home. He'd been exonerated, and the key witnesses had been jailed for their perjuries. There'd be a huge compensation pay-out.