Gunshine State Read online

She’d been working in Gladstone, Queensland’s biggest coal exporting port, when she met Sean. He turned up one night, still in his overalls and steel-capped boots, good looking, blue eyes like hers, shoulder-length dark hair. He told her he worked as a shot firer at one of the mines, looked after explosives and supervised blasting.

  He visited her every night that week she was in town. Against her better judgment, she gave him her address, said to call next time he was in Brisbane.

  A month later he did.

  THREE

  Chance was in the shower when she got back to the hotel, his soiled clothes in a pile by the bathroom door. The TV was on, a show about fishing. She turned it off, sat at the table against the wall, poured a finger of whisky into one of the hotel glasses, topped it up with water, and downed it in a single gulp. She bit into her burger. It tasted good despite being lukewarm.

  The bathroom door opened. Chance emerged, a towel around his waist, a trail of vapour following behind him.

  He sniffed the air. ‘Smells great.’

  ‘Burger and chips,’ she said, chewing her food. ‘There’s one on the table for you.’

  She could tell Chance was making an effort to appear normal as he walked across the room, but the tension in his body, how he slowly lowered himself into the chair, gave away the pain he was in. There were dark bruises around his chest. The wound on his left shoulder where a chunk of skin had been taken out looked bloody and raw; the entire arm was stiff and held close to his body.

  Chance reached forward with his good arm, undid the wrapping on his food, picked up a chip.

  ‘Any sauce?’

  ‘Afraid not.’

  ‘Things are grim.’ He put the chip in his mouth. ‘Any hope of a whisky?’

  She made him a drink. He knocked it back, held out his glass for more.

  When they’d finished eating, she sat him on the bed, rolled him a cigarette, and got to work on his shoulder.

  ‘They’ve found Gao and Nelson,’ he said, blowing smoke toward the ceiling. ‘There was a female cop, talking about it on the news. She looked like a real hard case. No word yet about Curry.’

  The way he said it, the casual tone, alarmed Kate. She wondered if he was testing her, what her reaction would be.

  ‘Doesn’t change anything.’ She dabbed his wound with antiseptic, put a large square bandage over the wound. ‘Tonight you rest. Tomorrow we swap cars and drive to Yass, do it in one trip.’

  When she’d finished Chance lay back against the bed head, the towel still around his waist. Conscious of him watching, she stripped down to her bra and panties, drew the heavy curtains, set the alarm, threw off the quilt cover on her bed and climbed in. She lay there in the semi-darkness, listened to the noise of vehicles and people moving about outside.

  ‘Not that I’m ungrateful, but you’d stand a much better chance on your own,’ said Chance.

  ‘Don’t think the thought hasn’t crossed my mind,’ she said. ‘Truth is, right now I don’t know what else to do. Three thousand dollars isn’t going to get me far. At least you have a plan, someone who will help you when we get to Yass.’

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ the voice came back in the darkness. ‘We’ve still got to get past the police. Not to mention whoever else might be looking for us.’

  Kate rolled over. Chance’s outline on the other bed reminded her of Sean.

  She’d been seeing him on and off for several months when he suggested she move to Gladstone, live with him. She bought a plane ticket, moved in to his motel, a single room that cost the same as a flat in Brisbane.

  In the following weeks she discovered he had two jobs. The day job he’d told her about, another dealing drugs.

  Those few months with Sean, before everything blew up, Kate learned a lot about the drug trade.

  It involved a lot of money. It required a machine, a seller wanting to be paid, a buyer expecting delivery, a hierarchy of management, fixers, enforcers, dealers and mules. Most of the time the machine was invisible. That was a good thing. The only time you ever saw it was when something went wrong.

  FOUR

  Kate switched off the alarm. The light through the crack in the curtains was faint. Disorientated, she recognised Chance’s shape in the next bed, remembered where she was.

  Kate forced herself up, went into the bathroom, splashed cold water on her face, thought about putting on make-up, settled for red lipstick. She climbed into the clothes she’d worn earlier, picked up her car keys, the roll of cash.

  The dusk sky bathed the town in soft golden light. The streets were quiet. The only sign of life was the pub, customers spilled onto its front porch. She drove past, parked around the corner.

  Inside was packed. People lined the bar, sat at tables. A small group danced in front of the band, four middle-aged men in acid-washed jeans and T-shirts. The drummer wore a red bandana.

  Kate pushed her way to the bar, leaned over the counter, shouted at the man behind it for a whisky on the rocks. When her drink appeared, she downed half, turned around, scanned the crowd.

  She drained her glass, ordered another. She had to attach herself to a local, someone who knew the place. She scanned the room again, focused on a woman standing by herself in the far corner. She wore jeans and a faded black T-shirt with a car logo on it, tapped her feet and moved her shoulder-length hair from side to side slightly in time to the music. Kate picked her as the kind of woman determined to have a good time whenever she went out, edged across the room toward her.

  ‘Local boys?’ Kate said, leaning in close to the woman.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘They’re good.’ Kate sipped her drink.

  ‘You’re not from around here,’ the woman said in a mock southern drawl.

  ‘That obvious, is it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Just passing through. Staying at one of the hotels, wanted a drink, a bit of fun. Looks like I’ve found the right place.’

  ‘Honey, you’ve found the only place.’

  ‘I’m Amber.’

  The woman put her hand out. ‘Denise.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Denise.’ As they shook hands the lead singer announced the band was taking a break.

  ‘So what do you do in town, Denise?’

  ‘I run the local hairdressing salon.’ She ran a hand through Kate’s hair. ‘Actually, your hair feels like it could do with some TLC. Stop by tomorrow, I’ll help you out.’

  ‘Love to, Denise, but I’ve got to make tracks early in the morning.’

  ‘Then at least let me buy you a drink.’

  Kate drained her glass, placed it on the nearest surface. ‘Sure. Scotch rocks.’

  Denise returned five minutes later carrying a glass of red wine and another whisky.

  ‘Cheers,’ Denise said and downed a generous slug of her red.

  Kate bit her lower lip. ‘Between us girls, I wonder if you could help me out with something.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Denise.

  ‘I’m not travelling alone—’ Kate stumbled, unsure how much to say. Denise reminded her of some of the older fly in, fly out sex workers she’d met, women who’d had tough lives but never came off as spent and bitter. Her instincts said she could trust Denise. She didn’t have time to be sure.

  ‘Do you know anyone in this pub that can sell me some smack?’ Kate heard a pleading tone in her voice, tried to modify it. ‘It’s not for me. I promise.’

  Denise put up a hand to silence her.

  ‘Honey, you do what you need to do, you’ll get no judgment from me.’ She drank half the red. ‘Bloke over there, he’s your man.’

  Kate followed her gaze to a thin man standing on the opposite side of the room. He wore a Jim Beam T-shirt, jeans, sunglasses.

  ‘Mister shades over there?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Thanks, Denise.’

  Before Kate moved, the woman grabbed her by the wrist. ‘Be careful, honey.’

  ‘I can take care of
myself.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it for a second.’ She feigned a smile. ‘Just don’t go back to his house.’

  Kate went to the bar, ordered another whisky. She watched the dealer over the rim of her glass, waited until the band started playing again to make her approach.

  Kate had agreed to meet the dealer around the corner in fifteen minutes. The night was warm. She listened to the band inside, aware of the irony of her situation. Less than forty-eight hours ago she’d been standing next to a suitcase full of heroin. Now, here she was trying to buy two grams.

  Kate remembered the shotgun in the boot. She popped the trunk, moved the weapon to within easy reach, just in case the dealer tried anything funny, covered it with an old blanket.

  Just as she started to wonder whether the dealer would show, he turned the corner and walked toward her.

  The dealer held out a small plastic bag of white powder.

  She gave him the money, reached for the bag. He pulled it away just as she was about to take it.

  ‘You want somewhere nice to take this?’ The dealer smiled, revealed a mouth of tiny crooked teeth. ‘My place ain’t far. You could follow in your car.’

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

  ‘Your loss.’

  Kate snatched the bag.

  ‘Somehow I don’t think so.’

  FIVE

  Chance didn’t move when Kate opened the door to their motel room. The air inside smelled stale, fast food, body odour, and cigarette smoke.

  She kicked off her boots, turned on the bedside light. Chance moaned, spots of blood visible on the bandage she’d applied earlier.

  Kate sat on the edge of his bed, took hold of his uninjured arm, inspected it. Spoiled for choice in terms of healthy veins. Her fingers paused on the stub of his little finger, taken clean off at the lower joint. Must have hurt like hell.

  ‘Kate?’ said Chance weakly, eyes half open.

  ‘Shut up and lie still.’

  She used Chance’s belt as a tourniquet, cooked a little of the white powder on a metal teaspoon from the tray of complimentary tea and coffee, watched it boil and dissolve, sucked it up with the needle, got ready to shoot him up.

  Chance’s eyes focused on the needle, became alert. He grabbed her wrist, held tight.

  ‘What the fuck,’ he hissed. For a moment she thought he was going to snap her wrist.

  ‘It’ll help with the pain,’ she said. The needle hovered mid-air above his skin. ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about, Gary, I promise.’

  She watched him deliberate what to do, the pain making even simple thoughts difficult. His grip slackened. He let go, allowed her to shoot him up. His body stiffened slightly, his eyelids fluttered, his mouth drooped and he went limp.

  Kate rolled herself a cigarette, poured a generous shot of whisky, channel surfed, the volume low.

  She glanced at Chance every now and again, thought of the nights spent watching Sean on the nod, the state junkies got into when their eyes are closed and they look asleep, but they’re actually awake, going with the pleasure.

  Kate knew drugs were a part of life for many of the workers in the mining industry. There was so much money around and so little to do. On their first real date Sean had turned up in a hire car with an ounce of coke in the glove box. He had access to cash, far more than his mining salary, thought nothing of dropping two, three hundred dollars on dinner. Once, he flew them both to Bali for a long weekend, picked up the tab.

  Sean was different from other men she’d dated. He talked about the share market and the importance of China to the Australian economy. He told her, now the mining boom was starting to cool, that they had to have other options. He wanted to go back to Brisbane, start a family. He and Kate would buy old houses, do them up and sell them for a profit. In retrospect, that was the problem. People made a little money, started talking and acting like they were economic experts, whereas, in reality, they knew jack shit.

  They’d been living in Gladstone six months. She worked whatever jobs she could find. He had his mining job, dealt drugs on the side. Recently, he’d branched out into steroids, performance enhancing drugs, stuff with names he couldn’t even pronounce. He told her it sold like a bomb to image-conscious young men in the industry.

  He used a little, coke, a bit of heroin every now and again, nothing major, and his rapid-fire metabolism seemed to purge them from his system almost as quickly as he took them.

  Kate rarely touched drugs, didn’t know where Sean sourced his product. She never asked and he never volunteered the information. Every few weeks, he’d drive off around sunset, return several hours later with a new supply.

  One evening, out of the blue, he said he needed her to drive him to a pickup.

  ‘My usual guy can’t make it,’ was his only explanation. The word ‘drugs’ was never used, almost like he was embarrassed to say it out loud.

  It struck her as strange, but given that she had been living off the proceeds from his trade, it was only fair she help out.

  After two hours of driving, they came to a fork, a crumbling stretch of bitumen running off the main road. Sean told her to take the turnoff. She drove until they arrived at an abandoned service station. The headlights illuminated the decayed façade, window smashed in, walls covered in graffiti, nothing else but flat earth dotted with scrub in every direction.

  A four-wheel drive ute was parked in front of the building, the heads of its two occupants silhouetted in the rear windscreen.

  ‘Who are they?’ she asked.

  ‘Always the same two guys, don’t know their names.’

  He leaned forward to pick up a small blue backpack on the floor between his legs. As his T-shirt rode up, she saw something metallic. It had never occurred to her he’d be carrying a gun. She didn’t know he owned one.

  ‘I give these guys money,’ he said when he noticed the look of concern on her face. ‘They give me something back. Simple. You just stay here, it’ll only take a minute.’

  She started to speak, stopped herself, nodded.

  ‘Everything’s going to be cool, okay?’ His face looked pallid in the ghostly light from the consul, sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip, despite the air conditioning.

  Kate peered at the section of disused building illuminated in the two circles of light, tried to make sense of the graffiti, turned her attention to Sean. He walked toward the waiting vehicle, the backpack over his shoulder.

  Sean placed one hand on the roof on the driver’s side of the vehicle, knocked on the window. She watched him step away as the car door opened and a large, bald man stepped out. He wore heavy work boots, a reflective orange safety jacket over grease stained overalls. The man held a blunt shape in one hand, pointed it at Sean’s face. It took her a moment to realise it was a gun. She watched Sean’s mouth move rapidly, panic on his face.

  She sat, stunned, as a thin, pinch-faced man emerged from the other side of the car. His long hair poked out from under a blue woolen beanie, but otherwise he was dressed like his partner. He also had a gun.

  Pinch-Faced Man looked directly at Kate, started to walk toward her with long, deliberate strides. He raised his gun, fired several times. The shots illuminated the night like a strobe light.

  Kate heard the bullets hit the radiator, the front tires. The car wheezed and hissed. A spiderweb of cracked glass appeared on the car’s windscreen. She ducked below the windscreen cavity, her head in her hands, eyes screwed shut. She realised how stupid it was for her to be here, all the bad things that could happen.

  The door opened. Pinch-Faced Man wrenched her from the car, patted her down as she struggled on the ground, found her mobile phone, pocketed it, dragged her along cracked concrete toward the sound of Sean’s voice. He was begging his captor to leave them alone, not to hurt her, pleading that he hadn’t done anything wrong, that he wouldn’t do it again. Sweet Christ, he would never do anything wrong again.

  Pinch-Faced Man let go. Kate opened her eyes, saw two
enormous steel-capped work boots in front of her, the dusty leather worn and nicked. She sat up, looked at Sean. He’d stopped speaking, knelt on the ground, weeping. Bald Man stood next to him, hands by his sides, relaxed.

  She reached out for him, felt a burst of pain as Pinch-Faced Man kicked her arm away.

  Bald Man shot Sean in one kneecap. Sean screamed, a high pitched animal sound that reminded Kate of the time she’d ran over one of the dogs with her father’s tractor.

  She sat very still. The echo of the shot in her ears vied with the sound of her lover’s pain. Bald Man stepped forward, put his boot against her temple, pushed her cheek-first onto the concrete.

  ‘You tell that old queer his son’s a fuckup,’ he said, not taking his boot away. ‘Tell him, it ever happens again, it’ll be him lying on the ground with a shattered kneecap, or worse.’

  Bald Man took his boot away. Kate didn’t dare move, just lay there, stones and grit biting into the side of her face, listened to the two men get into the car and drive away.

  Sean eventually stopped screaming, the pain and blood loss lulled him into a state of semi-consciousness. She dragged him under what was left of the service station’s awning, covered him with an old blanket from the boot of their car and started to walk the way they’d come.

  She eventually hit the highway, walked another hour until a set of headlights appeared in the distance. Kate stuck her thumb out. A light blue seventies-era VW Combi Van, the side speckled with rust, slowed, stopped. The driver, a young man in his twenties, agreed to help her. Sean was nearly dead by the time they got to him. He lived but lost the leg.

  Sean didn’t talk much about what had happened that night. She pieced it together from scraps of conversation. He’d gotten greedy, stiffed someone for money they were owed, something like that.

  They moved to Brisbane, he started using heavily. She wasn’t sure whether it was a response to losing the leg, the humiliation or the guilt at nearly getting both of them killed. When she found his bluish-tinged body on the floor of their bathroom, she was relieved. The police ruled it an overdose.