Driving Big Davie (Dan Starkey) (21 page)

'I rest my case.'

'You can rest your case up your hole, you wanker.'

'You're the wanker.'

'No,
you're
the wanker.'

'Is that right?' He came up to me and gave me a push.

'Fuck off,' I said and pushed back.

Then he pushed me again.

And I pushed him.

He took a swing for me with his good arm and missed. I swung for him and he ducked. He kicked out and I grabbed his foot and walked him backwards until he fell over into the water. I went with him. I landed on top of him. He pulled my hair and I punched his shot arm. He let out a howl and poked me in the eye with the finger of his good hand. I grabbed my eye and screamed; at the same time he punched me in the stomach. He tried to buck me off, but I stayed where I was. I got one hand round his throat and pushed him down into the water. With the other hand I scrabbed his face. He got a hand free and pulled my ear hard. Then he pulled my cheek out and twisted it. I screamed and brought my knee hard down on his balls. He yelled and let go of my cheek, but then he thrust his pelvis up and managed to throw me over his head. I landed with a splat and a splash. I was winded; before I could raise myself he was on me, trying to punch my face, but I kept moving my head from side to side. Every time he missed my face, one of my fists shot out and punched him on the bullet wound.

It was a good fight, and could have gone on all day, or until one of us drowned, but it was ultimately interrupted not by fatigue or tears or by one of our mothers arriving, but by a shout.

'Hey! Fellas! You okay over there?'

We stopped, and groggily turned to stare into the rain: there was a tractor with its full lights on twenty yards away, and just visible around the glare and rain, a farmer type waving at us.

Davie and I exchanged glances, then helped each other up. I stumbled across to the farmer shouting without any dignity at all: 'Help us, we're lost, we don't want to drown.'

As I reached him he smiled indulgently. 'Looked like you boys were having a fight.'

'We were just helping each other up. We went off the road. We had an accident. We're both a bit shaky. Thank God. You hear about people getting lost in the Everglades for ever.'

The old guy smiled with his cracked yellow teeth. 'Everglades? Those aren't Everglades.'

'Well, what are they?'

'Fields.'

I nodded. It didn't matter what the hell they were. We were safe. Davie arrived at my side. He was covered in mud from head to toe. So was I, for that matter. His shirt was ripped and I could see blood and dirt mixed on his shot arm. 'We need help to get our car out,' he said, and nodded back at the ditch. 'Do you have a chain or tow rope?'

The farmer was about seventy years old, his face pinched and weatherbeaten, his yellow oilskins cracked and ancient, but he was game for anything. 'Reckon I have,' he said, and began to climb down from his tractor. He splashed his way over to the ditch. Davie and I followed, glaring at each other behind his back. The farmer looked down at the car, which was about three quarters submerged. He nodded to himself. 'Reckon I can get it out all right, but it ain't gonna work. You'll need to take it to town to get fixed up.'

'That would be great,' I said.

'I
'll go bring the tractor closer.' He splashed his way across to it.

Davie looked at me and hissed, 'Wanker.'

'Fucker.'

The farmer drove the tractor up, then jumped down and secured a tow rope to a hook at the front. He held the other end out.' Now I need one of you boys to go in there and secure the rope. That or we can come back tomorrow when the rain's off. Course, not sure the car will still be there.'

Davie looked at me, I looked back. Davie's lip curled up. Mine curled down. Davie stepped forward and took the rope out of the farmer's hand. 'I'll do it,' he said, and jumped back down into the ditch.

The farmer was just climbing back up into his tractor when I said: 'So where is the nearest town?'

Davie was just preparing to submerge himself in the water.

The farmer turned and pointed in the direction we'd been travelling. 'About a hundred yards that way, just around the bend.'

I nodded down at Davie, vindication enveloping my face. 'Told you, told you,' I sang.

'Fuck off, wanker,' Davie replied, then dived beneath the oozy muck-coloured water.

Everglades City had no real right to call itself a city. It would hardly have qualified as a village back home. It had a population of 321. That's what it said on the cracked green sign we passed on the way in, sitting on top of Farmer Giles's tractor. He wasn't really called Farmer Giles. We didn't know what he was called. More to the point, we didn't care. We were cold and damp and miserable. We hated each other. If we'd been two hundred years older, or younger, depending on how you look at it, we might have fought a duel. And I would have won, because I had right on my side.

When we weren't glaring at each other we noted the small school, the bank, the half a dozen guest-houses and dozens of small tourist-trap businesses exploiting the city's position on the edge of the western Everglades. It probably looked okay in the sunshine.

Farmer Giles towed our Land Cruiser to an auto-shop on the far side of the city, although you could have walked back to the nearside in about three minutes. It was still raining heavily, but it was all a question of degree: at home it would have qualified as the worst thunderstorm in history; standing at JJ's Auto-shop waiting for JJ to finish ramming a four-tier sandwich into his bake, it actually looked like the rain was easing off.

When JJ eventually emerged I said, 'Nice weather for ducks.'

He just squinted at us. 'What's that?' he said.

Our accents were as thick as champ. And yet he had an accent and we could understand every word. It was a conundrum. I thought about raising this point with Davie, but instead I gave him the fingers. He had turned me into a murderer and a thief, but much worse than that, he was being really mean to me. I was his oldest friend and he was subjecting me to torrents of abuse. He was a fucking fucker.

JJ took a look at our vehicle. 'Nice wheels,' he said. 'You give it a bath or somethin'?'

'That's right,' Davie said.

JJ smiled. He was wearing oil-stained overalls and a Miami Dolphins baseball cap. Some people suit baseball caps. JJ didn't. His head was too wide; his ears were bent down by the sides of the cap and sticking out at each side like handles. His hair was voluminous and naturally curly. He looked like he'd failed the audition for the Hair Bear Bunch. But he was going to get us out of a hole, so we wouldn't take the piss until later. And then only if Davie and I were speaking.

'I'll have to dry this mother down 'fore I can see how much damage been caused. You gentlemen planning on sticking around for a while?'

'How long's a while?' Davie asked.

'Difficult to say. I'm not too busy. Reckon I'd have her ready for you some time tomorrow, presuming I can get her ready at all.'

Davie glanced at me. I shrugged. We had no choice really.

'Is there a hotel in town?'

'Guest-house. Tell them I sent you.'

We stepped out of the auto-shop and stood stunned for a moment on the hot asphalt outside. Sky — blue. Sidewalk — dry. Sun — blasting.

'How do they do that?' I asked, even though I wasn't speaking to him.

'God knows,' said Davie, and He probably did.

We started to walk down the street marked Broadway — and then I stopped and said: 'Aren't you forgetting something?'

Davie thought for a moment. 'I'll count to three, and then we both apologise at the same time.'

'I was thinking more of the gold bars we've left in the boot.'

'Oh, fuck!'

We turned and hurried back into JJ's. He was back at his sandwich, so we shouted to him about our cases, and he waved us on. We opened the boot and hauled the gold out of the back. The soaked bag was even heavier than before. Davie winced. We were still caked in mud and slime, which couldn't have been good for his arm. My repeatedly punching him on it couldn't have helped either. I delved back into the car and pulled our travelling bags out. I draped one over either shoulder.

'Cheers,' Davie said.

'No problem.'

It was a small peace gesture on my part, although at the least provocation I would hurl his bag into the nearest swamp. I took hold of one end of the gold bag, Davie took the other with his good arm, and we heaved up. We began our walk back into the city.

It was hard going.

The sun was now so strong that the mud was drying out on our clothes and hair and faces, causing us to walk with a stiff gait like an arthritic version of the Wild Men of Borneo. If I'd been the local Sheriff, cruising past, I would have stopped for a nosey. So I can quite understand why he did — Sheriff Sterling Baines. It said his name on the side of the car. Under his name someone had painted two neat little rows of x's. He eased along beside us for several metres, then pulled the car into the kerb. He rolled down the window and smiled out at us. He was about sixty. His hair was thick and white. He was old, but he didn't look like someone you'd want to mess with. As soon as we'd clocked him I'd said to Davie, 'Let me handle this,' and he'd surprised me by agreeing.

'You the guys went for a swim?'

'That's us.'

'You should watch out — when the water comes up like that, that's about the only time we see the 'gators real close.'

'We'll bear that in mind.'

'JJ fixing your vehicle?'

'Yes, he is.'

'Okay — well, anything I can do to help, just let me know. We have a small, peaceful community here, kind of like to keep it that way.'

'Absolutely,' I said. Then I nodded down at the x's on his door. 'Those all the people you've killed?'

He laughed. 'No, son, that's the number of days till I retire. Can't hardly wait.' He winked and said: 'See you boys around.'

Then he drove on.

'Didn't bother about a lift,' I said when he was completely out of range.

'Thank God,' Davie added.

We moved sluggishly on down Broadway. We laboured past a Spanish-style railroad depot and a frame community church. There was a flaking four-column temple building with a sign that said
Old Collier County Courthouse
and a plaque that told us it was built in 1926. We turned onto Shorter Avenue, moved past the Company Laundry Building, then finally came to a halt outside the Bank of Everglades. It had been built in the same year as the courthouse, which seemed to make sense.

'We have to go in, put this in their safe.' Davie nodded down at the gold.

'What we have to do,' I said, 'is get a room, get cleaned up. We walk in the bank like this they'll push the alarm button.'

Davie shook his head. 'Shit-kicking town like this, they're used to all sorts. They won't bat an eye.'

'Davie — they'll chase us. Or they'll shoot us. I know about places like this.
My Cousin Vinny.'

'Trust me.'

'Yeah, right. That's what you said in St Pete — now look at us.'

Davie blew air out of his cheeks. Then he reached into his pocket. 'Tell you what, seeing as how we're not going to get anywhere like this, we toss for it.'

I thought about that for a moment. I'd read
The Dice Man
and knew what trouble following the whim of a dice could get you into: this was somewhat the same, only with fewer options. But as the alternative was getting into another scrap with Davie and having to live with the ignominy of being beaten up by a one-armed man, I nodded and he tossed and I called and he won.

We lugged the bags up the steps into the bank. Security seemed a little lax to say the least. There were a couple of elderly women drinking coffee and reading magazines on comfy seats set into a window alcove; a teenager was getting a Mountain Dew out of a vending machine; and instead of a series of windows with cashiers, there was a high desk with a bored-looking man in an open-necked white shirt sitting on what appeared to be a bar stool, reading a copy of the
Everglades Echo.
A small black plastic nameplate was sitting before him.
Mr EC Hamilton, Manager (Owner).
So now we knew.

'What sort of a bank is this?' asked Davie.

'No idea, Sundance,' I said.

EC Hamilton, the manager and owner, looked up from his paper. 'Bank's across the road,' he said.

'It says bank outside,' said Davie.

'Yes, sir, it does,' said EC, with the weariness of a man who'd spent his whole life apologising for not being a bank.' Used to be the bank. Now we're a guest-house. Kept the name. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Not so sure now. Like I say, bank's across the road.'

Davie peered back out through the door. 'There's a laundry across the road. The Company Laundry Building.'

'Yes, sir, that's the bank. It's the Company Laundry Building, but it's the bank.'

'So where's the laundry?' I asked.

'Ain't no laundry,' said the desk guy.

Now that we had that sorted out, and seeing as how we were actually already in a guest-house, albeit by default, we decided to take a room, get cleaned up, then deposit the gold in the bank later. Davie signed us in while EC blinked curiously at us.

'You fellas been for a swim?' he asked.

'Car trouble,' I said.

'Figures.' He returned his attention to his newspaper.

'JJ sent us,' I said.

'JJ ?'

'JJ of JJ's Auto-shop. That entitle us to some sort of discount?'

'Nope.'

There were no elevators in the guest-house, so we had to lug the gold up three flights of stairs to our room. When I glanced back I just caught EC's eyes flicking back down to the newspaper. Across the lobby, the two old women didn't even show us that courtesy; they watched us until we were out of sight. The only one who didn't show any interest was the teenager struggling with the vending machine. If past experience was anything to go by, we'd be better off killing him right away, because it's always the one you least suspect.

Upstairs we were more than polite to each other. There were single beds. Davie said after you and I said no, after you. So he chose the bed by the window. He said he was going to have a shower, and I said so was I. He said after you and I said, no, after you, and he said, no I got the bed I wanted, you have the first shower. It was going to get really annoying after a while.