Zero Minus Ten

She laughed, then became silent. After a moment, she said, “I’m not ashamed of what I’ve been doing. I had to do it. There are many girls who find themselves in the same situation. It supported me and my mother. I had a nice home. I had money …” Her voice choked as she attempted to hold back tears. Bond put his arm around her, keeping one hand on the wheel.

“Sunni, you’re right,” he said. “You don’t have to justify anything to me. Or to yourself. You did what you had to do.”

“I was exploited,” she said. “I’m damaged goods.”

“No, you’re not,” he said. “You have a strong heart and a good head on your shoulders. You can leave all that behind you.”

“I am anxious to go,” she said. “I have no family ties in Hong Kong anymore.” She was quiet for a few minutes, then wiped away a tear. Bond knew the poor girl hadn’t been able to grieve properly since her mother’s death. Finally, she said, “You’re right. I can start over. Will you help me, James?”

“I’ll do my best, Sunni,” he said truthfully.

By late afternoon, they had entered Australia’s gold fields and driven through the ghost town of Coolgardie, at one time the gold rush capital of Australia. Half an hour later they finally entered the frontier town of Kalgoorlie and its sister suburb Boulder. Kalgoorlie was a semi-thriving place dubbed the “Queen of the Golden Mile,” reputedly the world’s richest square mile of gold-bearing earth. The surrounding land was hot, flat, and terribly arid. If it hadn’t been for the gold rush of the 1890s, the town wouldn’t exist. At one time, there were more than one hundred working mines in the Golden Mile. Kalgoorlie’s gold fields continued to produce during the 1920s but faltered after the war. A big nickel boom in the 1960s brought renewed prosperity and tourism to the town.

The streets were very wide. If it were not for the modern street lights and the cars, the place might have been mistaken for the set of a Hollywood western. The historic main street, Hannan Street, was lined with antiques shops, pubs, hotels, and large buildings that displayed the long-gone wealth and opulence associated with gold frenzy. The side streets were home to all manner of industrial service facilities such as gas and electric providers, bitumen and bobcat services, machinery repair shops, and drilling equipment sales. It was clearly a roughneck, hard-hatted man’s world. Bond now understood why the local law enforcement agencies quietly allowed brothels to prosper along notorious Hay Street, which ran parallel to Hannan Street.

They stopped at the Star and Garter, a motel on Hannan and Nethercott Streets. Bond got a room which was overpriced considering the rustic “quaintness” of the place. Sunni appeared to be extremely happy with it, though.

It had been a long drive and they were hungry. They walked along Hannan Street towards the downtown area until they found a noisy pub. Bond thought he had stepped back in time when he entered the place. It was more like a Wild West saloon than any sort of English pub. The place was full of men, the hard-drinking type, and they all looked like extras from a Crocodile Dundee movie. All conversation halted when they got a look at Sunni and her long legs. Then there was a long, loud whistle, followed by raucous laughter. A barmaid yelled, “That’s enough!”

Bond led Sunni to a table away from the bar and whispered, “Are you all right in here?”

She nodded confidently. “After what I’ve done for a living, nothing can faze me.”

The men at the bar started talking to each other again. Bond overheard the words “Sheila,” “bird,” “skirt,” and “beaut,” all “Strine” words, or Australian slang, meaning an attractive woman or a tart, depending on the context.

The barmaid, who looked as if she had been born during the gold rush, took their order. She was smiling, but her manner was such that she might have thought they were aliens from Mars.

“She’ll be right,” the woman said. Bond took this to mean they needn’t worry. “They’ve been on the piss for a while,” she went on. “Where you from?”

“England,” Bond said.

“You too?” the woman asked Sunni.

“I’m from America,” Sunni replied.

The woman sniffed, then said, “Whadallibe?” Bond, amused, translated this as “What will it be?”

“If you’re hungry, all we got is counter lunch.”

A man at the bar called out a little too loudly, “It’s your shout, Skip!” The man he addressed groaned and ordered a round of drinks for his mates.

“What’s counter lunch?” Sunni asked.

The woman looked at her. “Steak and chips.”

“That’s fine,” Bond said.

The woman scribbled on a notepad. “You get a salad too.”

“We’ll have a couple of pints of beer. I understand you brew your own here.”

“Goodonyamate. Hannan’s—best beer in Western Australia. Two pots, then?”

“Hold it, Mary,” one of the men said. The one that had been addressed as Skip brought over two large mugs of beer. “It was my shout, so our two guests here are included.” He plopped the two mugs down on the table and held out his hand to Bond. “I’m Skip Stewart. Welcome, mate.”

Bond shook his hand. “Thank you. I’m James, and this is Sunni.”

“Sun-ni! ” he said, making a slight bow to her.

Skip Stewart was dressed for the bush, in sturdy boots, moleskins and a grimy cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He also had on an Akubra hat high on his head. Strapped to his right calf was a large knife in a sheath. “What brings you to our fair city?”

“Just passing through,” Bond said.

“Ya know, I can tell you a thing or two about this town,” Stewart said. “My great-grandaddy on my mother’s side was the engineer who first brought water to Kalgoorlie.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s right. C.Y. O’Connor was his name. It was at the turn of the century, during the gold rush …” Stewart took a chair at their table and proceeded to tell his story. Bond didn’t mind, and Sunni was grinning at the man. He was overflowing with local colour.

“Ya see, the miners were dropping like flies what for the lack of water. Drinking water, that is. My great- grandaddy came up with an invention—a wood and pitch water pipe that stretched from Kalgoorlie all the way to Mundaring Weir, near Perth. Nobody thought he would succeed. They all called him a strop, but he kept going. Well, the pipeline was finished and turned on, and after three days—there still weren’t no water yet! My poor great- grandaddy shot himself ’cause he thought he’d failed, eh? But you know what?”

“What?” Sunni asked.

“He didn’t realize that the water would take two weeks to travel that distance, eh? He had solved the problem. A week and a half after he killed himself, water poured out of the pipeline and began to fill up the town’s new reservoir!”

“That’s quite a story,” Bond said.

“It’s true, mate.”

The men at the bar called to Stewart and held up their empty mugs.

“Oh, uhm, it’s your shout, mate,” Stewart said to Bond.

That meant it was Bond’s turn to buy everyone in the bar a drink. “Sure,” he said, and nodded to the barmaid.

Skip Stewart stood up, obviously pleased with Bond’s response to the men’s request. “Goodonyamate. I can tell you’re no two-pot screamer. Hey, if you need anything while you’re here, you don’t hesitate to call on me. I run guided tour packages into the outback. I have four by fours, utes, campers, and dirt bikes. If you need to get somewhere in a hurry, I’ve got a little plane at the airstrip for hire. Rent the plane, you get the pilot for free.”

“Who’s the pilot?” Bond asked.

“You’re lookin’ at him.” Stewart said. He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it to Bond. It was a little limp and damp from the man’s sweat. “That’s my card, mate. Like I said, call if you need anything. I’ll leave you two to your dinner now.” He took the opportunity to get another eyeful of Sunni, then sauntered back to the bar and rejoined his friends. Bond stuck the man’s card in his pocket and smiled at Sunni. She was enjoying this. The barmaid brought the counter lunch, which consisted of greasy, tough, overcooked steak, and thick, oily french fries. The salad was a couple of lettuce leaves, one piece of sliced tomato, and a slice of tinned