Tuesday, May 1, 2018

The Cremorne Falcon*


The romance had gone out of his life. Not, of course, the rumpy-pumpy, at-it-like-rabbits style of romance. Oh, no. That he could always get, although hopefully without having to pay for it next time. Lifting his chins slightly, Lester smiled at his reflection in the thick glass window alongside the digital film projector. Chicks dig guys in the entertainment industry. Prime example: the woman who stacked zucchinis so provocatively at the Big Bear supermarket. He could tell she was gagging for it by the way she became slightly nervous when he pushed his shopping trolley purposefully down her aisle. But, frankly, women could wait, he had other priorities. Rubbing his tummy in a circular motion, he stifled a belch. Priorities like dessert. Plucking a choc-top from the small freezer at the rear of the projection room, he pivoted, took aim and kicked a Digital Cinema Package carrying case across the floor. Limping forward, he checked his watch. It was time to plug the DCP’s hard drive containing tonight’s film into the server. That’s where the romance had gone, into a damn server.

When the cinema’s management recently mothballed his cherished movie projectors, he was told digital was the future. Really? Gone was the almost erotic rhythm of his work: spooling out the end of a 35mm film, lacing it onto sprockets, checking the magazines were firmly in place. Now he was a mouse clicker.

Through the projection room’s soundproof window, he could see dark shapes in the cinema seats, jostling with buckets of popcorn, syrupy carbonated drinks and mobile phones. Few seemed to be watching the movie. Philistines. Although to be fair on the original Philistines, they may have warred with the Israelites but they never had to sit through a Russell Crowe movie.

All that collective restlessness in the theatre was distracting. Once again, the audience needed to be taught a sharp, pungent lesson. Collecting sachets of Movicol laxative from his locker, Lester crept down the gloomy cinema’s carpeted steps, pausing to sprinkle powder into drink containers. Despite a stab of regret for the extra overnight work for the cinema’s toilet cleaners, he pressed on. Sprinkle, sprinkle.

At the rear of the theatre, he watched, waited. Within 20 minutes, the laxative had managed to clear out, if that’s the term, at least a dozen misbehaving patrons. Those remaining continued to crunch, slurp and text. Bugger.

Then he saw two silhouettes in the back row. The men – one bulky, the other petite –  appeared to be playing pass-the-parcel, shunting a paper-wrapped object backwards and forwards between themselves.

“Take it,” Lester heard the little man hiss. “It’s cursed.”

“Nonsense,” said his companion, settling back in his chair. “It’ll be over soon, I hope.”

The smaller man gripped the parcel. “What? The fear and loathing engendered by this Medieval figure of a bird?”

“No, this ghastly Crowe epic.”

On cue, the end titles appeared on the screen. For a man with a fuller figure, the larger of the two was nimble. Leaping to his feet and sending a shower of popcorn onto the couple in front, he headed for the door. The other man followed.

Lester, no stranger to Film Noir, recognised trouble when he saw it, and he liked what he saw. He had a lot in common with his idol Humphrey Bogart, screen detective, laydees man, brawler. Both were 5’ 8” and blessed with panther-like grace, although Lester grudgingly admitted Bogart was unlikely to have also worn Hush Puppies. He breathed deeply. Cometh the hour, cometh the man: Lester Tebbutt, Private Investigator.

He trailed the nattily-dressed men until they reached the cinema toilets. In the corridor outside, a long line of pale-faced patrons stepped gingerly from one foot to the other.

“We need to get in,” the little man whined.

Barely acknowledging obscenities from those in the queue, his companion took the smaller man’s elbow, steering him towards the main exit. “Too late, Mr Cairo. The rendezvous with the mystery buyer in the end cubicle must be abandoned. Perhaps another night. Come, join me at my apartment. I’ll fix us a drink.”

Lester kept pace as the pair trekked down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams – aka Military Road, Cremorne. In a side street, the two men entered an Art Deco apartment block. Moments later, Lester’s toe cap shot out, stopping the front door shutting. In the lobby, he heard the big man’s deep, fruity voice behind him. “Don’t be a stranger. Join us.”

Warily, Lester stepped into a sumptuously decorated, ground floor apartment.

“I’m Kasper Gutman,” said his host. “This is my business associate, Joel Cairo. And you are obviously the secretive buyer of The Maltese Falcon. I admire the way you’ve coped with the overcrowded loo issue.”

They stood in an awkward semi-circle, with Cairo stroking a bird of prey statuette encrusted with jewels from beak to claw.
As Gutman poured a large whisky, Lester stared speechless at the glass.

“Better and better,” said Gutman. “I distrust a man who says ‘when’. If he's got to be careful not to drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does. And now to business, do you have the agreed amount for this Maltese treasure created for the Knights Templar?”

The whisky burnt Lester’s throat. He was more of an Aperol Spritz kinda guy. He was about to say: “There appears to have been some sort of misunderstanding …”  when he noticed Cairo was cleaning his fingernails with the tip of a switchblade knife. “Potentially,” Lester said instead. “First, could you remind me of the price?” In his wallet, he had $15 and an Opal card. It might be enough.

Drink in hand, Gutman suddenly lent into Lester’s face: “Five million Euros.”

What was the Euro exchange rate? Lester asked himself. He needed time to Google the answer. Stall, stall. He beckoned for Cairo to give him the bird. It felt lighter than he imagined. The facets of each jewel reflected the overhead chandelier. Lester recognised quality: “A masterpiece.”

Gutman reached for the artefact. The big man’s sweaty finger tips touched it for only a second before it slipped, shattering on the floor. A dozen cracked paste jewels popped free from the plaster of Paris model.

“A fake!” the trio chorused.

“We’ve been swindled,” added Cairo.

Sighing, Gutman refreshed Lester’s glass. “It appears we won’t be taking your five million Euros tonight. Please, have a seat. I’ve a proposition. You strike me as a man of the world. Someone who can handle himself in dangerous situations. Come with us to Malta to track down the real falcon and the scoundrel who switched it for that fake. Adventure awaits.”

Tilting his head back, Lester finished his whisky. “Count me in,” he rasped.

Gutman smiled approvingly. “Excellent. And now, if you don’t mind me asking, where did you buy those elegant shoes - Milan or Madrid?”


“Grace Brothers Chatswood,” replied Lester, glancing down. Perhaps Bogart did wear them after all.

# # #

* The copyright infringements are, yet again, too numerous to list ... nevertheless  ... Copyright 2018 GREG FLYNN


Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Have Gun, Will Travel *


Her eyes would make your fillings melt. That’s if you’re the sort of shallow man who’s attracted to rather obvious sexuality. I went to the window, opened it and let the summer breeze in. It smelt of petrol fumes and street urine.

Running a finger around the inside of my collar, I said it was good to see her again. She cut me off with a “Don’t lie”. There it was – that regal poise. Nothing had rattled her either in Urozgan Province where she’d screwed me over, and not in a nice way. My very own Queen of Hearts. Now we were sitting in a pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake position in my stuffy Kings Cross office. She crossed her legs and the room temperature went up five degrees.

The Queen leant forward. “We were casting around for a shambolic, high functioning alcoholic with few scruples and less dollars. We immediately thought of you.”

“If I were you, I’d ask for a refund on that Diplomacy for Dummies course.”

A small shrug. “Interested, Paladin?”

“Since you put it so nicely, tell me more.”

“We’d like you to find someone.”

“You don’t need me for that.”

“And kill her.”

“Even in Sydney, murder’s against the law.”

“You’re in luck. She’s not here.”


The aircraft touched down with a perfect three-point landing. The Atlas Mountains were in the distance, Marrakesh airport terminal sat in the foreground.

In an open air car park, a knavish character in a black suit only slightly less dusty than his SUV watched me lift my bag onto the rear seat. I returned the stare. “Aren’t you meant to say ‘Welcome to Marrakesh, Mr Paladin.’?”

Sliding into the driver’s seat, he started the engine and hit the accelerator before my door closed. Twenty silent minutes later, the vehicle jolted to a standstill at the mouth of an alley leading from Jemaa el-Fnaa market to a cluster of trinket stalls. The departing wheels showered gravel over my shoes.

“You should’ve been on time,” said a nervous voice behind me.

“We took the pretty route,” I said, turning.

He was standing with the sun’s glare over his shoulder. I could only make out a smallish shape clad in a white linen djellaba. The sunlight made the cloth semi-transparent. Not the sort of outfit to go commando in. Beckoning me to follow, he led me between the stalls. “Oh dear, I shall be too late,” he said, looking at a large gold fob watch, his nose twitching.

At a door marked “Sortie”, he tapped twice. Indoors was cool and gloomy. A dark shape frisked me before taking over as guide. We reached an inner courtyard and, suddenly, the Queen of Hearts was back in my life. I’d swopped my Macleay Street office for a Marrakesh riad – and she was still holding court. The pale, rabbity little man from the alley stood off to one side offering us tea, no, coffee, no, rosé. Why not?

We didn’t clink glasses. Instead she raised her’s, smiled and said: “Off with her head.”

“Sounds messy.”

She assured me she wasn’t being literal. I didn’t believe her then nor during the briefing: go into the High Atlas, avoid antagonising the local Berbers, kill a Russian double agent and bring back proof-of-death. The agent had defected in Canberra, worked on the Queen’s team on nanotechnology – code for implanting tracking devices in unsuspecting humans – then two years later, she vanished. The Queen handed me GPS coordinates and a set of keys. “Try to look French and trustworthy,” she said to my back as the dark shape led me from the courtyard.

In Jemaa el-Fnaa, an ageing Toyota wagon with a Médecins Sans Frontières logo on the driver’s door stood waiting. By dusk, the boxes of medical supplies in the rear were bouncing in time with the potholes. Off to the left, a roadside fire threw shadows on a tent. At the tent flap, a turbaned figure in a flowing robe waved a mobile phone. It flashed three times. Stopping, I unloaded two boxes, staggered under their weight and called out: “I saw the code.”

The man’s mischievous feline grin came and went. “Actually, I was just trying to get a signal.” His accent placed him 18,000 kilometres away. “Name’s Chester. I’d give you a hand, mate, but my back’s buggered.”

The inside of the tent smelt of warm goat’s milk. I bent over to drop the boxes. Something hard pressed into my spine. I hoped it was a gun barrel. After yet another frisk, we sat with a small fire between us. “We leave at midnight,” Chester said.

“On camels?”

“Do I look like a tourist? No, we’re taking your vehicle.”


The bright moonlight made the mountain road less grim, almost magical. Under blankets on the back floor lay assorted weaponry and two Iridium satellite phones. It’d taken us several hours to assemble the kit hidden amongst the medical supplies.

Dawn did little to warm the air. I straightened a Médecins Sans Frontière-branded jacket. “Am I a plausible doctor?”

“At a stretch: an implausible nurse.”

I left him with a satellite phone, binoculars and a sniper rifle on a hilltop above a Berber village. Hammering down the road between clay and stone houses, the Toyota’s wheels threw up a long dust cloud.

The village’s small clinic looked cool and calm, as did the woman standing on its front steps. Mid-thirties, blonde, tall, Dr Alice Alistratov matched her photo. Two men in lab coats helped me carry medical supplies into the building, then left us alone with cups of coffee. I drank mine in two gulps.

Dr Alice sipped at hers. “My sources say you’ve come to kill me, Mr Paladin.”

“’Kill’ has such a finite ring to it.”

She hung a stethoscope around her neck. “If I’m a double agent, what am I doing openly running a healthcare centre?”

That was a question I‘d already thought of. In the background, I could hear the clinic opening. I followed her into a spartan waiting room, trying to look vaguely medical. The patients didn’t appear convinced. I gestured for Dr Alice to step into an examination booth. “You have one minute,” I told her. Dr Alice wouldn’t be hurried. She explained she’d defected to help humanity. Instead she’d found herself in the Queen’s private wonderland. Hadn’t I ever wanted to do good? she asked.


The sun was directly overhead as I drove up to Chester’s position. Ragged locks of bloodied blonde hair with strips of scalp were stuffed into my trouser pocket. In the village behind me, a siren went off. The Toyota’s dust cloud grew bigger.

Back in the riad’s courtyard, the Queen studied the trophy scalp before flipping it to the rabbity man. Run a DNA check, she ordered.

The rosé she handed me tasted metallic, like blood. It came with a question: had I said anything to Dr Alice before I killed her?

In fact, the last words I’d said as I helped bandage the doctor’s head were: “Find another rabbit hole to go down.”

I looked into the Queen’s dark eyes. “No, Ma’am.”

# # #

* The copyright infringements are too numerous to list ... nevertheless  ... Copyright 2018 GREG FLYNN