Hot Rock Dreaming (A Johnny Ravine Mystery)

Prologue

I met my mother just once more after she died.

She told me she was happy now, that she didn’t regret dying. She was dressed in a purple sarong and she smelled of camphor wood, the fragrance that the Japanese sailors used to give her. A golden glow came from her shiny black hair, and when her hands moved I could see a soft blue light. She was standing right in front of me, but her voice was muted, as if she were on the other side of a thick curtain.

In the dream, or vision, or whatever it was, she said she had always loved me. I tried to ask why she had abandoned me, and what had happened to my father, but she just stared ahead, a wistful smile on her face. Then she was gone.

It was the most beautiful experience of my life.

But it didn’t stop me becoming a killer.

Chapter One

At first people said that surely Old Albert Wallaby Walker died as he would have wished.

They found him sprawled out in his Alice Springs painting studio, surrounded by his pictures, his brush in one hand, a tube of yellow acrylic paint in the other. He had been painting one of his famous images of the Kurtal rain spirit, and the yellow paint was smeared right across it.

Certainly the manner of his demise was harsh, apparently hit on the head when an object tumbled onto him during an earth tremor. However, he was an old man - in his mid-eighties, most believed - and his passing must have been mercifully swift.

But then doubts arose.

For one thing, he had been struck excessively hard.

And for another - why was it that earlier he had several times predicted his own violent death?

* * *

Old Albert’s sudden passing, just the previous day, was the reason I now found myself aboard the morning Tiger Airways budget flight from Melbourne to Alice Springs. I was squeezed between a German backpacker who had spent the entire two hours of the journey so far listening on his MP3 player to a techno band playing at high volume the same half-dozen songs over and over, and a lady, next to the aisle, who was even now unscrewing her third miniature of Johnny Walker. It was eleven o’clock in the morning.

Possibly emboldened by the whiskey, she turned to me and made some kind of enquiry.

I was deep in my thoughts, and in any case the whine of the powerful aircraft engines made hearing difficult. In a slow and deliberate gesture that I hoped indicated my aversion to in-flight conversation I inclined my head towards her and raised my eyebrows.

She repeated, Are you an Aboriginal?

I shook my head.

You’re very dark. But you look more Latino.

I’m from East Timor.

That’s Indonesia. Was.

I nodded.

She seemed to be a short woman, possibly my height, although skinny. Aged around forty, I guessed. She was wearing a simple white peasant blouse with short ruffled sleeves, blue jeans and knee-high black boots. Her long black hair was lush and shiny, and from a distance she probably looked striking. But up close her face was lined and cracked, like a dry desert riverbed, as if she had played a lot of outdoor sport in her youth. Or had done a lot of crying.

Why did you come to Australia? Her voice was slow and just a little slurred.

To look for my father.

And because I was tired of all the killing, and needed a quiet life, I wanted to say. But I didn’t.

This must have been too difficult for her. She looked away, and I guessed she was returning to her own reflections. She seemed to be gazing along the aisle towards the cockpit, as if somehow in there were located all the answers to the mysteries of life. But then she turned back to me. The Aboriginal people are very spiritual.

I couldn’t imagine what response was required. I nodded, and she again went silent.

I didn’t have to be flying budget. Wolfstead Gannon was my client, and he was a man of wealth. He had made his riches in the seventies and eighties as lead singer and songwriter for the hugely political Nunnachucks pop group, which toured Australia, and occasionally the world, preaching a chart-topping message of green, sustainable living and reconciliation with our Aboriginal population.

Then, eschewing the traditional pop star post-career of drugs, alcohol, depression, broken marriages and tax evasion, he had astutely invested his considerable earnings in real estate, the stock market and his own lines of fashion clothing and health food products, and was now a regular on the BRW magazine Rich List, with a fortune of several hundred million dollars. When he felt in need of a top-up, he organized another of his revival tours. It was a wonder he didn’t have his own private jet to transport me.

Yet despite this considerable wealth, Wolfstead somehow managed to maintain his credentials as a prophet of the green revolution, of simple living and of the need for reconciliation between our Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples. It was an image he sculpted lovingly – taking part in protest demonstrations, appearing for free at benefit concerts for worthy charities and even issuing his own media releases on pressing issues of the day.

Now, it seemed, his image was under threat, and all because of the death of Old Albert. An urgent and mysterious phone call from him the previous evening had summoned me to grab the first available flight to Alice Springs. He needed my help. I was still trying to wrap my brain around his strange message when the woman spoke again.

You look sad.

What’s there to be happy about? I wanted to reply, but I said nothing. I was wishing that I’d packed a meal. Tiger was one of those post-modern airlines that charged even for water and peanuts.

Do you live in Alice Springs? she asked.

Melbourne.

You don’t look like one of them… She waved an arm vaguely, indicating the other passengers. Most gave the appearance of being young backpackers, like the German next to me by the window.

I’m on business.

We don’t have business in Alice Springs. Only tourism. And art. Now she was looking at me expectantly, her tired and watery eyes blinking hard.

I was suddenly distracted as a kid ran up the aisle and bounced off the service trolley. He looked embarrassed. Then he touched his forehead and realized a bubble of blood had appeared, and he started bawling. Someone – his mother, presumably – rushed forward and grabbed him.

I looked again at the lady. Do you know a painter named Old Albert Wallaby Walker?

He’s famous. Everyone knows him.

He died yesterday.

She was silent for a while. He was a very old man. At the airport in Melbourne I’d bought that morning’s The Age newspaper, and had found inside a tiny report of the death. I showed it to her. She read it aloud in a slow monotone:

The death has been reported from Alice Springs of celebrated Aboriginal painter Old Albert Wallaby Walker. Though his year of birth was not known, he was believed to have been in his mid-eighties.

He lived in Papunya for many years, and was associated with the famed Papunya art movement, although more recently he had based himself in Alice Springs.

His art works, particularly those depicting stories related to the Kurtal rain spirit, are in leading public galleries in Australia, and he also acquired a degree of fame internationally. He was found dead in his home on Monday. The cause of death has not been given.

She handed back my newspaper. He was an old man. Were you his friend?

I’m a private detective. A client wants me to find out how he died.

The mention of my occupation usually sparked sudden interest, if not excitement. Private detectives carry an aura, like jungle explorers or popular novelists.

But she simply said, The Aboriginals are spiritual people. She looked at her whiskey glass, then back to me. Are you spiritual?

That was a leading question. I go to church. It wasn’t untrue. Even if recently I kept finding excuses not to bother getting out of bed most Sunday mornings. It had been a while since I felt spiritual.

With a shaky motion she raised one arm and ran some long bony fingers through her hair. The spirits are strong in Alice Springs.

Good to know. I hoped she might detect the sarcasm in my voice. I held up my newspaper, as if I urgently needed to check out some stock prices. But the woman would not be deterred.

You need to be strong. Because the spirits here are strong.

I wasn’t sure what she meant.

Do you know about the Dreaming?

The Dreaming. I think…

Dreamings are everywhere. Whole new spiritual worlds. Different universes. Look out the window. What do you see?

I tried to peer out, across the body of the longhaired German, who seemed lost in the reveries of his techno-grunge. Clouds, I said.

There’s desert out there. Red desert. And underneath the desert are the honey ants. Do you know them?

I was getting tired of this woman. I felt like shouting out, NOT THE HONEY ANTS! in some kind of Monty Python parody. I just shook my head.

They have their own world too. Under the desert. A whole universe. There are different worlds out there. Everywhere. She looked at me with a sudden piecing stare that belied the amount of alcohol she had consumed. Alice Springs will change you, she said. Alice will change you. Now she turned away, and finished her drink.

I didn’t understand, but I had other things on my mind. The aircraft had begun its descent and my ears started popping. The pilot made a slight turn to starboard and suddenly harsh sunlight flooded through the cabin window. Once more I thought about the urgent phone call the night before from Wolfstead Gannon…

I was at home, seated in my small living room, eating crackers and cheese and watching a black and white movie on TV starring Robert Mitchum and Cary Grant, when the phone rang.

Drop everything, Johnny, Wolfstead had commanded in the honey-laced baritone voice that still sent women swooning.

I didn’t have a lot to drop, and was certainly happy to have paid work. I lived alone, cheaply, but bills still needed paying.

I’m in Alice Springs, he said. Have you heard of an Aboriginal painter called Old Albert Wallaby Walker?

I don’t think I know any Aboriginal painters.

He’s dead. And they’re saying I did it. Then he added something so strange that it had left me baffled and confused. He was the most famous of the lot. In his eighties. Still painting. He died today in an earthquake. And they’re saying I did it.

Did what?

The earthquake. They’re saying that I caused that earthquake.

What was he talking about?

Chapter Two

I stepped out of the aircraft squinting in the sudden sunlight.

For a brief moment I almost imagined I was still on patrol in East Timor and had unexpectedly emerged from the depths of a dank and dark forest into some kind of clearing. My initial instinct was to jump back behind the nearest tree for fear the enemy was watching.

Then the furnace-like heat - as if the pilot had forgotten to switch off the jet engines - brought me home to reality. I was poised at the top of the aircraft steps. I stood still for an instant and surveyed my surroundings.

Down on the tarmac I could see a white and green BP oil refueling truck lumbering towards us. The ground beyond the airstrip was a brilliant red. Some mountain ranges looming in the distance were a shadowy grey. I began walking down the steps, raising a hand to shade my face, and realized that already my underarm was starting to perspire.

Welcome to Alice Springs.

Clutching my canvas travel bag I made the short, dusty walk to the air-conditioned comfort of the airport terminal, a large hangar-like building whose interior was decorated with ornate Aboriginal patterns. It seemed the departure lounge and the arrivals area occupied the same expanse, and travelers and their companions – some coming, others leaving - were milling everywhere like lost goats. I stood on tiptoes and looked around.

Wolfstead spotted me first. He was standing against a wall near the souvenir store, waving a newspaper. Even in what was presumably a disguise, of oversize sunglasses and a Baltimore Orioles baseball cap, he was instantly recognizable.

He was a tall, chunky man of around fifty, with thick, shoulder-length black hair that – if genuine - spoke of great genes. His tight, black t-shirt revealed a powerful chest and muscular arms. Bulging thighs threatened to rip apart his tan trousers. As a young pop singer, appearing regularly on stage and on television, he had learned the moisturizing crème and exfoliant arts, and his skin remained soft and shiny. He might have formally retired more than a decade earlier, but no one could describe him as looking washed-up.

He seemed more like some kind of Star Wars warrior than an aging pop star, and I could readily imagine him soaring through the sky with a flowing cape and thrusting sword.

I walked over. Our last meeting had been more than three months before, but he didn’t try to shake hands or engage in pleasantries. He simply grabbed my arm and pulled me with him, heading for the exit. The top of my head didn’t even reach his shoulders. You didn’t have any luggage to pick up?

I shook my head and pointed at my travel bag. You said it ought to be a short visit.

I was supposed to be on that plane today, out of here, he said, pointing vaguely behind him. He was walking fast, pushing through the people, a habit I guess from trying to avoid recognition all the time. His head was down. I was nearly running to keep pace. I’ve had to delay everything. These jerks are really screwing me around. He was as agitated as an industrial washing machine.

A fat middle-aged lady pushing a pram in through the entranceway gave a happy shriek of recognition. Wolfstead ignored her and strode outside. Again the brilliant sun and intense heat burst upon me like a mortar shell. He headed towards the airport car park. A black Holden Commodore with darkened windows sat waiting.

We climbed into the back – even in this large family sedan his giant frame looked somehow squashed – and he gave instructions to the driver. Then he removed his hat and sunglasses and turned to me. Beads of sweat dotted his tanned forehead and his large round eyes were red. For a man who always strove to remain in control he looked remarkably vulnerable.

It’s what I told you on the phone last night, he said. The old guy. The painter. He died yesterday. He handed me his newspaper, still rolled up. It’s in the local rag. There, look, on the front page.

I unfolded it. In the middle of the front page, under the heading Death of Renowned Alice Springs Artist, were a photograph and an article. I looked first at the image. It showed a small, skinny man, very old, very black, sitting cross-legged on the floor in what appeared to be a painting studio. His long face was lined, though he still boasted a full head of thinning white hair, and he had grown himself a somewhat straggly white beard. He was wearing loose-fitting black trousers and a white singlet.

He held a brush in his hand and appeared to be painting a canvas that lay flat on the ground, although only part of this work appeared in the snapshot. I turned the newspaper upside-down and stared at what was visible of it.

The photo was monochrome, so I could not discern the colors. But it looked like little more than a mass of dots, interspersed with a lot of wavy lines and in one corner a small object that resembled a stick figure of a man. Sure, I could discern some power in those wavy lines, but otherwise this picture fragment said little to me.

The article was longer than the one I’d read in The Age:

The death has occurred of famed Alice Springs-based artist and Aboriginal elder Old Albert Wallaby Walker. He was thought to be in his mid-eighties.

One of about eight siblings, he was born in the Western Desert region. His father was a stockman and his early years were spent traveling between many of the Central Australian pastoral stations. In his early life he also himself worked as a stockman.

In his thirties he moved to Papunya, and he became friends with many of the men who were to become leaders of the Papunya art movement. However, although he began painting in Papunya, he did not attract much outside attention until he was in his sixties and was living in the outskirts of Alice Springs, near the site that he said represented the resting place of the Kurtal rain spirit.

He quickly established himself as an exciting talent with a dramatic series of paintings based on the Kurtal Dreaming. These used symbolism that had become famous through the Papunya art movement, but also incorporated additional motifs such as representations of the Kurtal spirit in human form.

In the 1990s he became one of Australia’s most sought-after living artists, both domestically and abroad, with galleries and art patrons competing vigorously for his works. At the height of his fame several of his paintings fetched prices at auction of more than $100,000.

He was found dead in his home on Monday. The cause of death has not been revealed.

I stared out the car window. We were speeding past a barren landscape of rich red soil spattered with clumps of burnt-green spinifex grass. To one side was a hill of orange-red rocks. The sky was shiny blue and cloudless. It was like some fauve painting, a Matisse perhaps, an explosion of intense, saturated color. I looked back at Wolfstead. I still don’t understand your connection with all this. Or even why you’re here. Or why you want me here. And especially about earthquakes.

So listen and I’ll tell you. Subtlety was not a virtue with Wolfstead. I’m guessing that you haven’t heard of hot rock technology. He was starting to appear more relaxed.

Something to do with your music?

It’s a kind of geothermal energy.

Steam from the ground. I knew that much. But what was the connection with the death of the old Aboriginal artist? Or my presence here?

Right. Only we don’t have much natural geothermal energy here in Oz. It’s more for the Icelanders and the Californians. And the Kiwis. But what we do have are a lot of hot rocks, deep under the ground. Temperatures up to 500 degrees. I’m talking hot.

Volcanic rocks?

Okay. Similar. Now here’s the picture. Hot rock technology takes advantage of these rocks to make electricity. Cold water is injected onto the rocks, and then it comes back as boiling hot water and it’s used to generate power. Then sent back down as cold water, and so on.

He was moving his big hands around in the air, as if I were deaf and needed a visual aid. It’s brilliant. Seriously brilliant. Renewable energy that doesn’t screw up the environment. It’s cost competitive with other sources of power. And, get this, for various geological reasons certain regions of Australia are better suited for this technology than just about anywhere else in the world.

Say what you want about Wolfstead – and plenty of people did – but when he merged his superior intelligence with his passions he became an unstoppable force that not even his elephant-like ego could derail.

I recalled our initial meeting when I was a part of a group from Melbourne’s small East Timorese community trying to organize a concert to help our many suffering brothers and sisters back home. Someone hit on the idea of asking Wolfstead, and he essentially took over.

He knew everyone, and he wasn’t shy about talking his pop star mates into helping out as well. Somehow, all the publicity for the concert seemed to revolve around Wolfstead and his contribution, but that didn’t matter. He transformed it into a success.

Still, something about him told me – perhaps it was his palpable aggression, his scattershot rudeness, or the casual manner in which he belittled even some of his friends – that if you crossed Wolfstead he could become a dangerous enemy.

We had met again several times, as he turned the plight of the East Timorese into one of his new causes. And though he always needed to be king of the castle, he could be exceedingly generous, donating both time and money.

When he learned my occupation he had even directed occasional private investigator work my way, helping several parents trace missing daughters who had gotten seduced by the pop music scene.

He was passionate about renewable energy, and at our subsequent meetings he worked to educate me. Unfortunately, I was not a good student.

It’s just bliss to live in a country where the lights come on when you throw the switch, I had told him. And don’t flicker or go off just as you’re preparing dinner. And a country where electric power isn’t being used to torture people. Why try to change?

So perhaps there was a touch of condescension in my tone as I answered him now. Power from hot rocks in the ground. Wow. Right on. Sounds too good to be true. I still couldn’t fathom why he was telling me all this.

Yeah. Almost. It’s still in the early stages of development. It’ll be quite a few years plus millions and millions of dollars before it’s powering your home theater equipment.

So what is your connection? I couldn’t help guessing that Wolfstead was somehow involved for the potential profit.

There’s this company RokPower. Here in Alice. It’s one of a couple of dozen around the country that are trying to develop hot rock technology. They’ve reached a reasonably advanced stage. His voice was rising. He paused and looked around. I felt sure that he wished he could be striding up and down a soundstage, shouting out his message to thousands of adoring fans, rather than being forced to address an audience of