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knocked off Bob Crosser. You make a few calls. You do your inves-
tigating. Don t tell anyone I told you, but don t forget you heard it
here first.
As I sat there listening, as mute as the sozzled young journo,
I had mixed feelings about Sharpie. The Bob Crosser thing was a
load of BS, an old junkie s wishful thinking, and probably a wild
goose chase in store for the journo hey, maybe this was one of
Sharpie s wind-ups! but on the other hand, a lot of what he was
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saying I agreed with. He was saying things that I d thought but
hadn t allowed myself to say. I couldn t help feeling sympathetic.
Yet looking at him stewing himself to death in a broth of hatred and
resentment and jealousy, I also couldn t help seeing myself ten or
twenty years further down the line the worst of myself come home
to roost. If I wasn t careful, I d end up like Sharpie, with an audience
of one, ranting on and on every night about how I d been robbed
by the Americans and Deano Rudd and Ranger Lamington. It was
a hateful future, and when you see the worst of yourself reflected in
another man I challenge you to stop yourself from turning on him
with a homicidal fury.
And then he started on me.
 That pathetic spindly little wimp, Frosty Westlake, he said
and left a long silence. He shook his head like that was enough.
But it wasn t. With blokes like Sharpie, you can always rely on
them carrying their point through to the end, and beyond.  There
was a man I thought had principles. You know, those segments he
did on Lamington s shows they were good. That was my style of
bringing the viewers in touch with the Australian fauna. I reckon
he copied his style from me. He could have been something,
Westlake. But what did he do? He sold out to Lamington and the
American money. He could have been a star, but he preferred to
be Mick s bumboy. You know, I heard they were, you know . . .
He made a zero with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand
and jiggled his right index finger in and out of the hole. Bastard.
Whatever else there was between Mick and me, it wasn t that. But
I wasn t angry, I tell you. I was sad. And you know, I was Mick s
bumboy. I had thrown away my life for that bastard. But I didn t
need Sharpie Phelps with his finger-in-the-hole lowest common
denominator to tell me. I d already been told, and I d been told
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in a way that had left scar tissue that not even Sharpie s crude
innuendos could punch through.
 Sad case. Sharpie shook his head, meaning me. To be called a
sad case by this sad case was pretty funny, that s for sure. He went
on for a while longer about how pathetic I was, like he knew I was
out there waiting for him and he only needed to give me my last
reason, to break down my last qualms.
Anyway. For a while I was worried that they d both pass out on
the table. But Sharpie was popping some kind of go-fast pills, along
with the usual tranquillisers and anti-depressants. He was in for
the long haul.
At around two in the morning, nearly dying from the cold and
my bum feeling like a frozen pizza, I had my chance. The young
bloke got up, his chair screeching on the linoleum like a wounded
barrier kingfisher, and went out, possibly for a long-overdue p.
but more likely to escape the kitchen and pass out on the floor of
the first room he came to. Taking advantage of the break, Sharpie
left the kitchen too. I d only have a few seconds, but I was ready.
I took what I needed out of my bag and scuttled around the side
of the kitchen to the screen door. I remembered the layout from my
times here with Mick (when Sharpie had bowed down to the lord
and master like a courtier hoping for a minor diplomatic post; you
wouldn t believe it to hear him now. I almost wanted to remind
the old bloke, to set the record straight . . . But why? Why would
I bother?). In a shot I was through the door, doing what I had to do,
and out again. I bumped a chair and my footsteps clacked on the
floorboards, but I counted on each man thinking it was the other.
If either was in any kind of state to notice anything, which they
probably weren t.
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Once I was back at my post, I stayed just long enough to make
sure that Sharpie was going to finish his drink, rather than spoil my
plans by turning in for the night.
He sat down again, alone, as if he had a while to go. He d
continue this conversation whether the journo was there or not.
He picked up a bottle of pills and tapped a couple into his hand.
Sharpie and his pills I d always said they were going to be his
downfall. I wasn t the first to say so, and at his funeral a few days
later, which I attended with Phil Barrows and, annoyingly, Ranger
Lamington, I sure wasn t the last.
And what a stroke of luck that that journo was there, on the
spot. Talk about a feeding frenzy.
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SEVENTEEN
When I brought my car out from behind the feed shed and took
off down the road back towards Darville, keeping the headlights
turned down until I was miles out of range of Sharpie s homestead,
I took a moment to say the words to myself.
 I am a murderer. I have killed a man. I am a murderer.
With Glenn Mellon and Steve Heath, I had my excuses. But now
there was no backing away. I d killed a man.
All right, I tried. I told myself it was his choice. He didn t need
to take those pills. He didn t need to take any pills. He had an addic-
tion, a disease if you like, and it was his decision to pick up that bottle
and shake out those pills. I hadn t stuffed them in his mouth, had I?
He did it to himself, and it was the natural end to what he d been
doing to himself for years, decades.
It didn t work.
I can t say I was feeling much except a blank elation that it had
been so easy. The other feelings were yet to come. On the drive
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towards home, I was pretty detached from it all, as if I d watched
it happen on a TV show. Unbelievable that it was so easy. The
horse tranquillisers I d taken from the Kangazoo vet surgery were
commonly used by druggies like Sharpie anyway. In lower doses,
sure, but there was a pretty simple diagnosis for him. He d taken
too much of one of his party drugs. He swallowed a whole pharma-
cy s worth every night and day anyway, so it was hardly surprising
that he d lose count. The journo, as it turned out, was my best
accomplice. Terrified that he d be fingered himself, being the only
witness and all, he cooked up a story that Sharpie got so pissed he d
begun to play around with his pills and swallow handfuls just to
show how tough and daring he still was. The best part of it was, the
journo dropped the whole  Who s killing the great nature present-
ers of Australia? wheeze. He couldn t point to a pattern or a prime
suspect now, could he? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]