Port Vila Blues

Forty-two

Crystal had been halfway to the crew’s quarters at the Palmtree Lodge after the latest delivery for Huntsman when on impulse he told the driver to turn around and go back. ‘Reriki,’ he said.

Thirty minutes later he was admiring how the other half lived. All he’d ever been able to see from his room at the Lodge were a smudgy coconut-oil soap factory at the rear and an ugly strip of corally beach at the front, but the Reriki cabins were something else. He turned switches: the ceiling fan came on, the aircon, the TV. The bed was queen-size. He went out onto the balcony. Cane chairs, not moulded plastic, and a stunning view of blue water, manicured lawns, the neat, shingled trunks of carefully tended palm trees. The air smelt sweet, clean, scented by tropical flowers and afternoon rains.

But De Lisle didn’t arrive to pick up the case that day, or the next. Finally he rang De Lisle’s house. ‘He come in boat, tomorrow,’ a woman said.

So he watched the house. He saw the yacht tie up midway through the afternoon. Shortly after that, a water taxi collected De Lisle and headed across the harbour toward the island. Crystal left his cabin and made for a secluded alcove across from the reservations desk and the bar.

The management had placed a couple of armchairs there, flanking a coffee table stacked with back issues of Readers’ Digest. There was also a small bookcase crammed with books left behind by resort guests. Crystal flipped through a New Age paperback while he waited. It told him how to own his own life and acquire guilt-free wealth and power as he did it. Well, the wealth would come soon enough. He wasn’t stupid enough to run with De Lisle’s jewels but he did intend to push the man from five grand a delivery to fifty, a fair enough amount considering what he was expected to carry, the risks involved, and being hassled by nameless cops in Melbourne.

De Lisle arrived dressed in tropical whites again, beaming at the staff, shouting bon jour and letting them cluster around and pat and hug him. All an act, Crystal decided. For the next thirty minutes, De Lisle held court at the bar, then eased away and walked on short, heavy legs to the door of the security office, his face damp with humidity and effort. He paid the man, collected the suitcase and disappeared.

Crystal waited a couple of minutes then sauntered down to the ferry. It was five o’clock, tourists flocking back to the island to have an early sundowner at the bar. On his way across to the mainland, Crystal watched De Lisle’s water taxi steer a course among the ocean-going yachts.

At the other end, Crystal headed left, down to the cafйs and restaurants of the little port. He had a coffee, took a stroll, filling in time until evening, when he would tackle De Lisle. A pleasant edginess animated him, a sense of having reached the final stage.

All that evaporated at six-thirty when he reached De Lisle’s house and saw another taxi there, saw one of the Melbourne cops pay off the driver and press the intercom.

‘Keep going, keep going,’ Crystal urged, shaking his driver by the arm.

He got out two streets farther along, paid the driver and walked back, trying to grow into the shadows under the palms on the other side of the road. A cop. That changed things. There’d be no walking in and asking for fifty grand with that cop there.

Crystal watched De Lisle’s house helplessly, his hands slipping in and out of his pockets, looking for somewhere to rest. He looked both ways along the street. Kumul Highway, what a laugh. In that spirit, Crystal noticed the open-air market and the low-slung cement block building next to it. In the late sun of the day it glowed the colour of strong tea. Otherwise it was riddled with salt damp; mangy dogs scratched in the packed dirt around it. Still, it said bar over the front door and Crystal had worked up a thirst coming this far.

He went in. Not too bad. A few tables, booths, wooden floors. Clean-looking. Overhead fans kept the place cool. A few locals drinking. Hell, they even sold Fourex.

Crystal fronted up to the bar. He said, slowly, carefully, ‘I don’t want a beer, I don’t want Bacardi and Coke, screwdriver, none of your tourist crap. Give me a kava.’

The local brew was served in small, deep-bowled shells. Crystal had never tried one in all the time he’d been flying in and out of Vanuatu. But it was never too late, and he tipped the kava down his throat. He gagged, coughed, lit up a smoke. Thick, vile, like muddy water mixed with castor oil. He wanted to throw up.

The barman was watching him with interest. Bugger you, Crystal thought. ‘I’ll have another.’

Then he had a third. The barman was wearing half a smile now. Crystal wondered why. He couldn’t feel anything; there was only a bit of an aftertaste.

Following his fourth kava, Crystal went to the men’s. Jesus, now he could feel it. His knees gave way for a moment. He came back from the men’s and collapsed in a booth near the silent juke box in the rear of the place. Waves of euphoria and nausea swept through him. The euphoria was good, but he didn’t trust it. The way he was feeling, he might just knock on De Lisle’s door and apologise for thinking bad thoughts.

Time to get off the kava, though, that was for sure. Crystal switched to beer-Fourex. God knows what an un-Australian beer might do to him.

He left the bar. The moon was high and bright and he stood for a while under the palm trees, looking down the road at De Lisle’s house. Bastards. Wrecking his life. He’d like to tie De Lisle to a chair and dance around him slicing off a piece here and there like that guy in Reservoir Dogs. He began to walk. At the gate he stopped, reached out a hand experimentally to the cold steel.