Monkey Business (10 page)

I looked at his empty palm. ‘How much do I owe you?'

‘Special price for pretty lady. Fifty dollar.'

‘You've got to be kidding! That can't have been more than five kilometres.'

‘Forty dollar.'

‘Twenty.'

‘Thirty?'

‘Oh, all right.' I gave him a fifty-dollar note and followed him out to his car for the change, but he sped away with his arm waving happily back and forth out the window.

Luckily for me, the Koala Bear Hotel had a room available on the top floor – three flights of stairs and no lift. My room was about as inspiring as the hotel foyer, and the cleaner's mop obviously hadn't been able to reach the corners of the white tiled floor. There were two single beds. No view of the beach, however there
was
a view through a small, square window directly across a filthy courtyard into another room where a couple was having sex. And making a lot of noise about it. I tried not to look, but I couldn't help it. The guy's bare bum bounced up and down, up and down. Every now and then she'd fling one or both of her legs into the air and laugh. And I was peeved, thinking that I'd like to be in Bali right now having hot, sweaty sex with Jack. Not trying to find him in some scary jungle where he probably lay dead or mortally wounded, gasping his last, raspy breaths.

I chucked my stuff on one of the beds, huffed, said to the sex couple, ‘Have an extra one for me,' and left the room. I'd decided to check out the Australian Consulate first; Lucy had insisted on it. Back out the front of the hotel, I flagged down a cab. It was Bruce Willis, the rip-off driver. He hopped out of his car and held the door for me, smiling brightly.

‘I'm not going with you,' I said. ‘You ripped me off!'

‘Sorry, lady. Free ride now.'

I hesitated. It was stinking hot. I looked around. ‘I suppose,' I grumbled, got in, and two minutes later we pulled up outside the Australian Consulate.

‘Here, lady.'

‘Well, that wasn't very far.'

‘Twenty dollar.' He held out his hand.

‘Hey, this was supposed to be a free ride!'

‘Fifteen dollar?'

‘No money!'

‘Ten dollar.' He looked miserable. ‘My wife, she have cancer.'

‘Oh, please.'

‘And dybeety.'

‘Oh, for God's sake.' I slapped a ten-dollar note in his hand and got out, and he zoomed away.

At the consulate I waited in line behind a couple of backpackers and a variety of odd-looking people, all of whom I thought should be friendly – being fellow Aussies – but they weren't. They all looked unhappy, hot and tired.

It was finally my turn. As I stepped up to the counter, the guy seemed to be already looking for the person behind me.

So, what to tell him? I couldn't say that I thought Jack had been sent to Saint Sebastian by a secret Australian organisation that was also illegal, so, thinking about the Hercules I'd seen, I said, ‘My friend came over here on a mission with the Australian Air Force and now he's missing in action.'

‘That sounds like a problem for the Australian military.'

‘Well, actually, I don't know if he was here with the military or if it was . . . a private thing, but he's missing and no one's doing anything about it.'

The man spent approximately three quarters of a second inspecting his computer screen. ‘The RAAF is not currently active in Saint Sebastian.'

‘Well, what about the army?'

‘It's all the same.' He looked past me, ready to serve the next in line.

‘Can you check somewhere else?' I said, feeling desperate. I really thought he would have some kind of answer for me. My reward for being brave and coming here would be that the Australian Consulate would know what needed to be done once I'd alerted them to the problem. That they'd send troops or consulate people or something out there to find Jack.

‘There is no active military here from Australia,' he said.

‘But I saw the Hercules!'

‘Miss, please.' He was looking really pissed off, and I was attracting attention, which probably wasn't a good idea.

Still, I leaned close and lowered my voice. ‘You're wrong. He came over here on a mission and now he's missing in action. And his friend who rang to tell me about it is missing as well.'

The man, stiff and shitty, said, ‘As I said, currently there is no active Australian military in Saint Sebastian.' He looked past me again.

I leaned to the side so that I was directly in his view. ‘And, as I said, you're wrong.' I choked on that last word. Damn it, why couldn't I just stand in a shop or at a counter and shout at annoying, unhelpful people without getting emotional? Like Lucy.

The man watched me for a moment, glanced around, and leaned in. ‘Look,' he said, quietly, ‘if the Australian military sent someone over for active duty, we'd know about it. Unless,' he added, lowering his voice even more, ‘the operation was secret. In which case, no one would know about it, and if the operation were to go wrong, even the government might deny any knowledge.' He stared at me for a moment longer, leaned back and said in a normal voice, ‘Why don't you try the UN?' Then called, ‘Next!'

I staggered away, his words echoing in my head. Is that what had happened? Was Jack here on a secret government mission that had gone wrong, and now they were denying his very existence? I thought that kind of thing only happened in movies. But if it
was
a government thing, why was JD involved?

With directions from the consulate security guard, I found the United Nations office. When I told my story, the man sitting opposite me didn't bat an eye. He just pushed a pile of forms at me and suggested I go back to my hotel to fill them in and bring them back some other time.

‘But you don't understand,' I said. ‘My friend might be a prisoner and they might kill him.'

‘Lady, I'm due to go on annual leave,' he checked the clock on the wall, ‘in exactly two hours. I really can't get involved in some fantasy you might have —'

‘Fantasy!' I almost screamed the word.

‘Okay, well, what you say is probably true, but my flight's booked, and I'm outta here today.' He grinned. ‘Gonna visit some of those famous fleshpots in Thailand.'

I walked back to the hotel. In my room I flopped onto the creaky single bed. So, now what? I did some deep breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The sex couple was still going. Or maybe they'd had a sleep and started again? I thought about being with Jack, imagined holding him, hearing his voice. The sex couple was making so much noise I could hear them through my closed window. His grunts and her squeals. I remembered being in Sydney, in the hotel with Jack. Our first time. Not that we made noises like that, I'm sure. When we'd finally made it to the bed, we'd been a bit shy with each other, even though there'd been about six months of foreplay. That night, Jack had saved me from my kidnapper, put me in a bath, brought me Krug champagne and a snow globe, then made love to me all night long. I remembered his face as he lay on me, moving slowly, kissing me deliciously, and the way he looked into my eyes . . .

He'd told me then that he couldn't get involved. Specifically with
me
. Because he already cared about me too much, he'd said, and he couldn't imagine if something even more terrible had happened because (he didn't say this) he lost his wife and parents and (he also didn't say this) he'd never dealt with the pain of that loss. But it all sounded like excuses anyway.
It's not you, it's me.
Damn straight. He didn't say that either, but I didn't give him reason to. In fact, I'd told him that I wasn't interested in getting involved – what a nightmare being Jack Jones's girlfriend! That's kind of what I'd said, even though I didn't mean it. And now we've been together again and he's made it pretty obvious he hasn't changed his mind, but it'd be nice to think that some time in the future, maybe we could make a go of it – a relationship. If I found him alive.

And then I was crying at the ceiling. Tears filled my ears and I didn't do anything about it. My attention-seeking inner victim was shoving the miser aside. It said, ‘Why me? Why do I deserve a boyfriend who goes M.I.A.?' Joining the conversation I was already having with myself, a small voice somewhere in the room reminded me that a couple of shags does not a boyfriend make, not by a long stretch, and no one said I
had
to go to Saint Sebastian. I probably needed to remember all that. But Jack's still my friend, and I do love him. You never know, I thought, I might be able to do something to help. What should I do now? I tried to meditate to see if answers would come from the universe.

Go to the bar
, it said.

‘But I've got a hangover.'

It's after five. Happy hour.

‘But I need to find Jack.'

Go to the bar and ask around, you idiot!

‘Oh, all right.' I got off the bed. I was in and out of that bathroom in a shot because there was a vague smell of sewage in there. And the bathroom had a mirror, which I didn't want to accidentally look at. And, I really needed a drink.

At the entrance to the bar I gazed around. The receptionist had told me with a giggle that it was called the Bum Crack Bar and it wasn't hard to understand why. I considered going some place else, but it was hot and I was stuffed and I had sticky-out hair, and I quite liked the idea of not having to walk too far to get home. I made a mental note to eat something.

The Aussie scene before me reminded me very much of El Cheapo Backpackers, with several men and their bum cracks lined up on the stools at the bar drinking cans of VB. A few others were shooting pool on a small, tatty table. There were rows of Victoria Bitter flags hanging across the ceiling – decoration rather than advertising, I imagined – and a solitary, filthy fan that took about a minute to complete one rotation. My feet stuck to the floor as I made my way into the room. I wondered how they'd respond if I announced I was looking for a couple of Australian soldiers who'd possibly been captured by some enemy. Or who were lying in a hole. Or dead. As I headed for the bar, a man I knew emerged from the men's. It was Dwayne from the plane and when he saw me, a big smile lit up his face. Not that his face needed lighting up.

‘Hi, Dwayne,' I said, feeling relieved.

‘Well, well, if it ain't the Tupperware gal.'

I giggled. ‘I think you've mistaken me for my mother.' Horrors! ‘Are you staying here?'

‘Here? Hell, no. Who'd stay in this dump?' He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Just doin' some business.'

I lowered my voice. ‘Right. Business.' I gave him a wink. Black-market stuff. Yeah.

He said, ‘We should have a drink some time. I'm here a couple days.'

‘That'd be really nice.' But what was I saying? I wasn't here to flirt and have drinks with strange men.

‘Where's your friend?' he said, looking around.

‘What friend?'

He paused, giving me a pretty intense look. ‘You said you were meeting a friend here for some
sightseeing.
' He wiggled his fingers in the air, making quote marks.

‘Oh. Right!' Whoops. I laughed too much. ‘She's, ah, been held up. Arrives tomorrow.'

Dwayne nodded, looked over his shoulder at the people sitting at the bar. ‘You sure your friend's not already here?'

‘What?' I checked out the people at the bar. Unlikely-looking candidates. ‘No, not yet.'

I forced a smile and he grinned, said, ‘Wish you'd gone straight to Bali?'

I stretched my smile wider. ‘Next stop.'

‘Well, see ya 'round.' He gave me a lingering look as he walked away.

I sat on a stool next to one of the bum cracks and asked for a glass of wine, which was poured from a cask and which tasted like salad dressing. I pushed it aside and ordered a VB. A glance in the fridge told me there wasn't much point asking for any other kind of beer. The barman handed me a menu. It was typed on a piece of paper that had passed through many sweaty hands. I ordered the fish, which was just called ‘fresh local catch'. I asked if the fish was grilled or fried but the barman walked away without answering.

The man next to me made a groaning sound. I swigged on my stubby and discreetly checked him out. He had a basketball beer belly and skinny brown arms and legs sticking out of his clothes. The kind of leathery tan that gets layered on over many years in the sun until there's no chance it could ever fade or do anything but turn to cancer. Or maybe the sun just keeps burning the cancer off. He had deep lines on his face plus a bushy grey beard; looked about sixty, might have been forty, and seemed harmless enough for a chat.

‘Hello,' I said, smiling but hopefully not in a flirty way.

The man's right eye moved and regarded me for a moment.

‘G'day,' he mumbled.

‘You're Australian? I'm Erica.'

‘Phil's the name. Phil Collins.'

‘Ah, like the singer,' I said, but his expression – what I could see of it – was blank. And there was no more conversation forthcoming. Phil Collins stared at the fridge, his arm lifting and lowering at a steady rate.

I said, ‘Do you live here in Seni?'