TROUT   [ 3

The  Secret
 [ 1, 2 , 3 , 4 ] 
 
  4.

"Jeez man.... what're we goin to do with the  body........?"
  "Dunno. Head off down there..."
  They headed off down the dusty side road towards the Borough tip. They  heard the  crash of the Falcon's gears just behind them as it screeched into the  same turn.
  "Some bastard is following us... get goin!"
  Clive's Falcon suddenly spluttered, there was a clang and the motor  died. They  screeched to a halt. "Gimmie that spanner..." howled Clive as he shot  around to the front  and hoisted up the bonnet. There was a clank or two, a crash as Clive  jammed down the  bonnet and got in behind the wheel again, revving the motor back into  life.
  "They stopped, Jace." said Tatua. "Look, we'll go round here..." They  gunned the  Holden ute, John's body bouncing around in the back, down the side road  towards the tip.
  The tip staff weren't there that day. A strike over individual contracts  or something - Jason  and Tatua cared little, they didn't work for anyone and maybe never  would.
  They ground to a halt beside the tip face.
  "Get him out and over here." shouted Jason.
  "Hey, we'd better make it look good case they find em!"
  "Gimmie that knife in the back, Tate." said Jason. He ripped the  remains of John's  shirt off. "Get me that bit of cardboard..."
  They cut a hole in John's back and dipped their fingers into his blood.
  "What about "Bob Marley is dead?" suggested Tatua.
  "That'll do. Hey, just do one of those German things too, you know, a  swasta  something."
  Tatua explained, "A swastika, you mean, man... yeh, I know how  to do one  of  them, too."
 They tied the large piece of cardboard with the message and swastika  crudely  fingered with blood on it around the corpse and rolled it down the tip  face. The body  flopped this way and that, mixing with ash and rotten vegetables until  it rocked to a stop at  the bottom. They gingerly followed it down pushed some garbage over it.  They were still down at the bottom of the tip when Clive's Falcon rolled to a halt at  the top.
  Clive and Boyd looked down over the face at the rolling upward-looking  eyes of the two boys.
 "Well well well. What do we have here, now?"  Clive looked sternly at  the two  boys. "Is that poor John?" indicating the now still, partly covered  corpse.
  "Na na - we didn't do that, man - honist- na! He just fell out of  the roof..."
  "You boys had better come back up here." said Clive sternly. Boyd was  nervously hanging around in the background wondering what he'd got himself into.  The four of them gathered together at the edge of the tip. Tatua and Jason explained what  they had done.  They all went over to look at the cannabis spread around in the back of  the ute.
  "Nobody's going to miss him." Clive suggested.
  "Hate to see this stuff go to waste - with the police climbing all over  it asking awkward questions." said Boyd, tentatively trying to contribute  something to help. "You poor boys." he said, putting his arm gently around Jason's shoulder.
  "You have lots of secrets now, haven't you, boys?" said Clive.  Jason and Tatua said nothing. All that lovely dope was slipping out of their hands and they  couldn't do a single  thing about it!
  "What about the ute...." Jason asked urgently. They held a  council of war. The die  was cast. They would get the ute quickly back to John's place and stash  the dope away  safely. Better still, they could get some of the seed heads together,  mix it with some stuff Clive already had, and have a smoke at Clive's place.
  They did just that. Clive sat in the big chair staring at Jason's tight  little bottom. He took another puff. The world seemed a much better place. Here were the  four of them, all with the same deadly secret. John would just become another missing  person lost amongst the drug wars at this time of year. Even if the authorities were to find  his body, the message and sign painted in blood on the cardboard wrapped around him would be  enough to throw  them off the track.
  Jason and Tatua were showing signs of mellowing, in their new company..
  "This is good, good stuff, hey, great man." Jason mumbled some more and  looked up at the swimming ceiling.
  "Yeh - what about some music...." Tatua started beating his hand down  on his leg, simulating a beat. Boyd started suddenly, relaxed and stared fixedly at  Tatua's firm little  bulge.
  "I've got something better than that." said Clive and reached for a  video cassette from the line of cassettes on the shelf next to the tv.
  "You boys are going to love this, now just relax, you - nice -  boys." 


Trevor Reeves     © 1997 
 

a