Digger Field (14 page)

‘Your friend, he was very brave trying to protect you, yeah,’ Mr Black said to me. ‘Look after him.’

He jumped back into his car and drove off down the road.

‘Leave us alone,’ Tearley shouted at the back of Mr Black’s car.

The ambulance came down View Street about a minute later.

We were allowed to sit in the back of the ambulance with Wrigs on the way to the hospital. The paramedic rang his mum.

‘It looks like a pretty clean break,’ he told her.

Me and Tearley waited at the hospital with Wrigs until his mum turned up. Then we walked down to the police station.

I was feeling really guilty about Wrigs. I wish I’d never even come up with the idea of becoming skimming world champion. Then we would never have seen Mr Black and then none of this would have happened.

‘Hey, guys,’ said Stevens when we walked through the station door. ‘What’s up? You look stressed.’

We told her what happened.

‘That’s terrible,’ she said. ‘Sergeant Tranh is not here at the moment. He’s looking for a new, um …’ She looked embarrassed. ‘He’s gone to pick up some cheap parts for his car. But I’ll call him and let him know. I’m sure he’ll get back to you as soon as he can.’

She opened a filing cabinet and pulled out another mobile phone.

‘You two should go home,’ she said. ‘But take this. Call us if you’re worried. You’ll be fine, but I probably wouldn’t go to the river.’

Me and Tearley went and hung out at my place for a while but neither of us felt like talking. We just watched tele for a while. Then we went around to check on Wrigs. Both his arms were in casts.

‘How do you go to the toilet?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know yet,’ he said. ‘But I’m going to try and hold on.’

‘For six weeks?’ said Tearley.

‘If I can.’

Tranh rang a little later to tell us not to worry. He had a plan.

CHAPTER 34

DAY 34: Thursday

My skims: 18

Wriggler’s skims: 0

Tearley’s skims: 15

Sergeant Tranh’s skims: 5

World record looking very unlikely.

Money made for tinnie: $0

The weirdest day in the history of the world.

The mobile phone rang at 7.00 am.

‘Digger? Tranh. River. Thirty minutes. Bring Tearle and the kid with the broken arm.’

‘Wriggler?’

‘The ginga,’ Tranh said.

‘He’s got two broken arms now.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Okay, get the ginga with the two broken arms,’ said Tranh. ‘Half an hour. Hurry up.’

Tearley met me at Wrigs’ place. I didn’t think he’d be allowed to come but he said, ‘Mum reckons if I can’t use my hands, I can’t get into more trouble. So I’m coming.’

When we got down to the bottom of View Street there were police cars everywhere. Tranh and Stevens were standing just outside the deserted house.

I heard some drilling coming from inside.

‘Have you caught him?’ I asked Tranh.

‘No,’ he said. ‘But after what happened yesterday, he knows we know and we know he knows. So it’s likely he’s disappeared, never to be seen again.’

Tranh looked at Wrigs.

‘How do you go to the toilet?’ he asked.

Wrigs shrugged.

‘Awkward,’ said Tranh.

‘We’re just about there, Sergeant,’ a voice called from inside the house.

‘Okay, let’s find out what exactly is in that cellar,’ Tranh said.

He led us into the house. In the kitchen there were two policemen dressed in white and holding a huge drill. They were drilling through the padlock on the trapdoor.

Around the hole were a couple of people in protective overalls, huge gloves and helmets holding nets and cages. They must have been thinking the animals would bolt out and overrun them. In the middle was Wills from the
Daily
, taking photos of the action.

‘Ah,’ Tranh said to everyone, but mainly to Wills. ‘Are we ready? We believe that under this manhole is the evidence of a highly-organised smuggling ring. Below here is an illegal warehouse of rare native reptiles that will be traded around the world on the black market. If you will, Constable.’

One of the constables in white finished the drilling. The lock fell through the hole and onto the floor below. The other constable took a large crowbar and wedged it between the floor and the manhole.

The trapdoor was opened. Wills’ camera flashed. We all looked into the hole.

There was nothing to see. Not so much as a single animal.

Stevens climbed down a little wooden three-step ladder into the cellar.

‘Sir, nothing down here,’ she called out.

Tranh went down to look for himself. He came out holding an empty cage.

‘No animals, then?’ asked Wills.

‘Not as such,’ said Tranh.

‘So you’re too late?’ said Wills.

‘I can confidently say that this empty cage is proof that the efficiency and responsiveness of local police have chased organised crime out of Pensdale,’ said Tranh.

He posed for a photo.

‘Gee, he is smooth,’ Stevens whispered to Tearley.

We walked out of the house with Stevens, and onto the grass.

‘I thought of you guys,’ she said.

She pulled out a big bag of rocks from the police cactus garden.

We were all having a skim when Tranh bounced out of the house.

‘Good job, everyone,’ he said.

He grabbed a rock and pegged it at the water. It went straight in. No skims.

He grabbed another and tried again.

This time he got two.

‘So, do we get any reward money?’ said Wrigs.

‘Reward money?’ said Tranh. ‘What for? We haven’t caught anyone. Sometimes just doing a good job is reward enough.’

Maybe. But it’s not going to buy a tinnie.

Tranh had another skim. This time he got five.

‘This uniform is too tight around the shoulders,’ he said.

‘So what happens now?’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Will you chase Mr Black?’ I said.

‘He will be well and truly gone,’ said Tranh. ‘That’ll be the last we hear of it all. Except in tomorrow’s newspaper, I guess.’

He winked.

‘Come on, Constable Stevens,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to get my car to the detailer by ten.’

‘That is so unfair,’ said Wriggler when they were gone. ‘We gave them all the evidence. It’s not our fault they didn’t catch him.’

‘Mr Black must have come back last night,’ I said.

‘The police should have come here last night, then,’ Tearley said. ‘We might as well take the camera down.’

We grabbed the milk crate and went back into the house. I climbed up and took the camera off the wall.

‘What a waste of money,’ said Wrigs.

‘You still owe me for it,’ said Tearley.

We headed outside and there was Mr Black, standing in the middle of the vacant lot next door. He had a cage in each hand. I couldn’t see what was in them because they had solid sides. But they looked pretty heavy.

He was standing between us and the path up to the street. It was the only way out. We were trapped. Unless we wanted to swim across the river.

‘The police have gone, yeah?’ said Mr Black.

‘They’ve just gone to get some more, um, things,’ said Wrigs.

‘Yeah,’ I stuttered. ‘They’re coming back.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Mr Black said. ‘I’ve been hiding in the bushes and I saw them go. You’re telling me lies, yeah.’

We were goners. Mr Black put the cages on the ground. He was going to vivisect us.

He opened one of the cages and pulled out a snake. It was dark brown with creamy yellow stripes. It was a metre and a half long, at least. Mr Black kept one hand tight around its throat so it wouldn’t bite him.

‘She is beautiful, yeah? A tiger snake.’

He put the tiger snake down on the grass in front of us.

‘Beautiful but dangerous, yeah. You wouldn’t want to scare her. One bite, and fifteen minutes later you’re dead, yeah. No chance.’

This was far worse than vivisection. He was going to kill us slowly. One bite, and the poison would seep through our bodies. First it would shut down our arms, then our legs, our nerves, our brain and finally our hearts.

The snake slid slowly towards us. I remembered I still had the police phone on me. I thought I would try and call Sergeant Tranh without Mr Black knowing. I put my hand in my pocket.

‘Don’t move,’ Mr Black yelled.

I froze.

‘You don’t want to startle her, yeah.’

The snake stopped in a tuft of grass halfway between us and Mr Black, and arranged itself into a coil.

‘The cops, they nearly caught me, yeah,’ said Mr Black. ‘I was getting the animals out of the cellar, but the cops turned up. I had to hide up there, with the cages.’

He pointed at the bushes.

So he’d been hiding there the whole time the police were searching the house, and no one even noticed.

‘I thought they would find me, yeah, for sure, but they didn’t think of looking up there.’ He laughed. ‘Not very smart, yeah?’

The man had nerves of steel. He was the scariest man in the universe. Without doubt. Ever. Bar none.

Mr Black looked at Wrigs. ‘Both of your arms are broken now, yeah?’

Wrigs nodded. He was shivering, even though it was about a million degrees in the shade.

‘How do you go to the toilet?’

Wrigs shifted his weight from one foot to the other. A little squeak came out of his mouth.

‘Maybe your friend should help you, yeah,’ Mr Black said, pointing at me. ‘Since you broke your arm trying to help him, yeah.’

He smiled. It was the fakest smile ever. His gold tooth glistened in the sunlight. I’ve watched enough movies to know that gangsters always try to be funny—just before they smash you.

‘What do you want from us?’ stammered Tearley.

Mr Black stopped smiling. ‘That is the question, yeah,’ he said.

He stepped towards the tiger snake and prodded it with his foot. It unfurled itself and slithered past us and towards the bushes.

‘There you go, yeah,’ he said to the snake.

The snake slid into the undergrowth.

Wriggler snorted. He must have been holding his breath ever since Mr Black pulled the snake out of its cage.

Mr Black looked at Tearley. ‘Tell you what I want, yeah,’ he said. ‘I want you to help me.’

Wriggler sucked in another huge gulp of air. It looked like he was going to hold his breath again.

‘H … help you?’ Tearley stammered.

‘Yeah, with my special friends. Well, more like family than friends. They need to escape.’

What was he talking about? Special friends? Like the Mafia? I must have looked like a stunned chicken.

‘Don’t worry. Once they get away they won’t hurt you, no problems, yeah.’

This was getting worse and worse. Was he expecting us to help his gang escape?

‘It would have been okay, yeah, but my neighbour dobbed me in. A bit like you did about the cellar. Some police came to my flat, almost knocked down the front door, yeah. I didn’t know it was illegal.’

The phone in my pocket started vibrating. Then it rang.

‘They said I had to get rid of them.’ Mr Black stopped and turned to me. ‘That’s your phone, yeah? Well, you better answer it.’

I was shocked he’d let me. ‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Digger, it’s Constable Stevens. I forgot to get the mobile off you.’

Mr Black turned to Tearley and Wrigs. ‘I didn’t know it was against the law for me to keep them as pets,’ he told them. ‘And I couldn’t just let them go. They would have been killed. It’s wild out here, yeah.’

Pets? What was he talking about?

‘Are you all right, Digger?’ Stevens said.

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,’ I said.

But I wasn’t so sure that I was right about Mr Black any more.

‘Where are you? I’ll come and get the phone.’

‘Um, um, no, it’s okay. I’ll drop it at the station.’

The moment I said ‘station’ Mr Black stopped talking to the others and stared at me. He must have realised it was the police on the phone.

‘Are you sure?’ said Constable Stevens.

‘Yeah, I’ll see you in half an hour.’

I hung up and put the phone back in my pocket.

‘They want to arrest you,’ I said to Mr Black.

‘Yeah,’ he said.

He bent down and opened the door to the other cage. A goanna stuck its head out.

‘He’s very shy, yeah. Come out, Mr Smiley.’

‘Mr Smiley?’ said Tearley. She stared anxiously at the lizard’s huge claws and long forked tongue. Her voice cracked a little.

‘He’s my favourite,’ said Mr Black. ‘More like family than any of the others. He’s the hardest to say goodbye to.’

Mr Smiley took a step out of the cage, then reared up and pushed out his chest. He flared the skin on the back of his neck and hissed.

‘Be careful,’ said Mr Black. ‘Sometimes goannas mistake people for trees and run up their legs.’

Wrigs looked at me. The veins in his neck were in full pop-out mode. He was going to have a Wrig-out any second.

‘Why didn’t you say anything to the police?’ he suddenly screamed at me. ‘They’d be here by now.’

I ignored him. He didn’t get it.

‘Is this your last friend?’ I asked Mr Black.

‘One more after this one, yeah. Then I’ll be gone.’

‘Oh,’ said Tearley. It sounded like she had just worked it out.

Mr Black’s friends weren’t the Mafia. They were his reptiles.

‘Are you mad, Digger?’ Wrigs wailed. ‘You can’t let him get away. He knows where we live. He’ll come and——’ ‘Come and what?’ said Mr Black. ‘Why would I come to your place? The only reason I went there before, yeah, is I was looking for my cousins. Then you drove in, so I figured I had the wrong house, yeah. You ignored me at the hospital, yeah, so I thought you didn’t want to talk to me. So I left.’

‘You went to Digs’ place, too,’ Wriggler yelled. ‘He saw you.’

‘Shut up, Wrigs,’ I said.

‘When I bought the biscuits, yeah? I was going to visit my old boss, Ms Burke,’ Mr Black said. ‘She never paid me much, yeah, but I used to find all kinds of reptiles when I was looking after her garden.’

‘Tearley told us that Ms Burke caught you stealing,’ Wrigs shouted at him.

‘Shut up, Wrigs,’ I said again.