Playing in The Traffic

By Richard Miller

American ex-army captain, Anthony Ryder expects to find peace and tranquility when he arrives in Sydney for the first time since his R & R days. Instead, he finds himself embroiled in a world of drugs, murder and betrayal. Finding himself thrust into a situation where he feels like an actor with no script, can Ryder discern his role before the final curtain?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Miller
• Release date: Jul 26, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452479101

Book preview

Playing in The Traffic

by

Richard C. Miller

Smashwords Edition

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Published by

Richard C. Miller on Smashwords

Playing in The Traffic

Copyright 2010 Richard C. Miller

ISBN 978-4524-7910-1

Look for this book in print at Amazon.com

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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Author’s Note:

Sydney, Australia is a real city. Darlinghurst, Kings Cross, Double Bay and Paddington are real suburbs in Sydney and real people live in them. The following story takes place in those suburbs but is not real. It is a work of fiction and, in its entirety, a figment of my imagination. I made it all up. None of the people in my story exist in real life and none of the situations depicted are real or based on anything that ever really happened. They are all figments

I want to thank Dennis Billuni, Senior Editor at A-1 Editing for being helpful in making a raw manuscript into a good book and for being supportive of my efforts. A few people read the manuscript even before Dennis did. My sister, Marianne Williams; my brother Jerry Miller; my friend Micky Catana and my friend Ted Lekas all waded through a lot of stuff and still thought it worth reading. Thanks largely to your support this book is real.

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Playing in The Traffic

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Chapter 1

"Your friend will have to die if we are to succeed. Surely you can understand that." The old man was not asking a question with his mildly accented words, he was making a statement of fact. This is the way he wanted it, therefore this is the way it would be.

Listen, he's a mate of mine, the younger man replied across the gray metal desk, stubbing out yet another cigarette, and I don't want him killed. There's no reason it has to be him. Anyway, the plan will work better if it's a stranger.

A thick pall of cigarette smoke curled toward the high ceiling and disappeared into the dark corners of the small room. A cone of light from the single overhead lamp stabbed through the darkness. The younger man spoke in a quiet but lower-pitched voice, trying to project some authority in an attempt to hide his obvious unease. He knew he was right to be stubborn but the knowledge didn't help him. His nervousness began to show despite his best efforts as the room filled with the smoke from his cigarette and the damp rings expanded under his arms.

Listen, the younger man repeated, making another attempt to sell his argument, Marty's too well known around here and easily tied to us. He works here, for fuck’s sake, and everyone in Kings Cross knows it. He wasn’t sure he was being successful even with logic on his side and he banged the desktop with his flattened hand for emphasis. Everyone in town knows that, even the cops. It has to be a stranger—someone new around the Cross—someone no one else knows. It's better for us that way. Nobody’ll point fingers in our direction. All the cops will have is a body with no real connection to any of us. That’s the beauty of the plan. All the blame gets laid on a dead man and nothing is left to point to us. He had made his argument for better or worse and he leaned back in his chair, his face disappearing from the harsh cone of smoky light. He locked his fingers behind his head and let the cigarette dangle from his lips in an attempt to display the nonchalance he didn’t feel.

The older man wasn't fooled. He saw the argument as another sign of weakness but he didn't say so. Indeed, he thought the younger man both weak and a fool, but he didn't say that either. He was still useful, and in this matter he was actually correct, the old man conceded to himself.

But that didn’t matter. The old man liked having the younger man fearful because then he knew who was in charge. Furthermore, he enjoyed toying with the young man for the feeling of power it gave him. Besides the pleasure derived from goading the younger man, he wanted the man’s friend out of the picture. Out of sight was acceptable, but dead was better. The friend was an embarrassment and the old man didn’t understand the young man’s attachment to an imbecile.

The air thickened in the abrupt silence and the growing pall of smoke.

The man is a mindless cretin, came the old man’s reply, breaking the spell. He's an imbecile and I don't like having him involved in my affairs. His stupidity is an embarrassment to me and a danger to all of us. Why bring anyone else into this? The more people who know about our affairs, the more obvious the danger becomes and we must be professional in our dealings and especially in this situation. I say he knows too much about us already and for that reason alone we should eliminate him.

The old man wasn’t worried about answering to the police if the plan failed. There would be no tangible connection to him and he would remain free of taint. He always did. He had voiced his opinion of the younger man’s strategy, therefore he would not face any negative backlash from the police or anyone else. It would be the young man’s life on the line in the case of failure, not his.

The old man didn't smoke cigarettes and was becoming noticeably agitated as the meeting progressed. The atmosphere in the tiny room continued to thicken, the air becoming more and more fetid, and he could feel his own silk shirt becoming sticky with sweat under his Italian suit. It made him feel dirty and uncomfortable and he hated that. He picked up an old stained menu from the desk and began fanning himself.

That's my point, Mr. Waldmann, continued the younger man. He isn't involved and he doesn't know anything about our affairs. I can guarantee it. All he does here is mind the door and do an occasional collection for me. He does odd jobs, for fuck's sake! His voice rose as he stubbed out another half-finished cigarette.

He knows too much about our operation and he is a liability, the older man retorted.

Sure he knows something's going on; I admit that. Half of Sydney thinks something’s going on, even the police, but there’s no proof. No one knows anything for real and no one knows anything at all about this scam. Marty’s no danger to us. He can't tell a soul and neither can anyone else. Besides all that, he wouldn't dob us in if he did know something. Trust me; I know I'm right about this. I'd stake my life on it.

You just did. A third and deeper voice spoke from the darkness of the smoky room and the young man’s gaze shifted nervously before moving back to the old man sitting across the desk.

The young man leaned forward in his chair, his hands flat on the bare surface of the desk, his face now stark in the harsh light. He spoke in earnest, ignoring the dire implication of the third man's statement. "Right now no one has any idea this scam even exists. Not Marty, not anyone. That's why he's no threat to us and that's why no one can tell anybody anything.

Listen, with this one variation, we've pulled this same scam before and no one has ever suspected a thing. I propose we keep it like that. That's the beauty of my plan; no one knows the reality except those who need to know, and that's only us.

You're wrong about that, mate. The Sydney Drug Squad know and the United States Drug Enforcement Agency in Panama know, too. We’re sure they're the ones who tipped the coppers here. The third man had been sitting in the shadows and except for the thinly veiled threat, hadn’t moved or spoken. Normally he wouldn't speak in these meetings, he was there to back what the old man said. He didn’t make policy, he made certain the old man’s policies were followed. A loner by nature, he rarely spoke but when he did, everyone within earshot listened, his reputation for quick violence speaking much louder than his voice. He was a big man with rough, weathered skin, large pendulous earlobes, and icy blue eyes. The young man barely managed to hide an involuntary shudder as he met that cold gaze.

Mr. Katsouris is aware of all that, Max. That’s why he has formulated this plan, the older man replied. He turned back to the younger man and said, We are aware of the need for a scapegoat if your plan is to succeed. The plan has merit but if we are not to use your friend then you must find a suitable substitute quickly. The shipment has already left Panama and time seems to be our only problem aside from your choice of goat.

The old man rose and the others quickly followed, their business concluded. The plan was approved and would be implemented accordingly. Someone would die in order for it to work but the trio leaving the smoky room would be free to continue doing business and that was their chief concern.

The younger man—the host of the meeting—was still nervous despite the final acceptance of his plan. At least it wouldn’t be his mate who would die. He had never been involved in another man’s death and was relieved the dead man would be a stranger. But if his plan failed for any reason, the others would blame him and it would be his own life in forfeit.

The third man, the taller of the three by nearly a head, moved from his place in the shadows and opened the door for the older man.

Don't be a fool about this, said the older man, stepping through the doorway. We are all professionals here and we will do what we must in order to succeed, regardless of your personal weaknesses. You should understand that your man is expendable. People like him are. If you are unwilling to use him, you don't have much time to find a replacement.

The younger man closed the door firmly as soon as the others were out of sight. He turned the dead bolt lock, returned to his chair, and automatically took another cigarette from the pack of full-strength Benson & Hedges on the desk. These men were supposed to be his friends as well as his business partners and he wondered why he felt such fear in his gut every time they met. Didn’t they understand that he couldn’t set his friend up to be killed? He had known Marty all his life, they were friends, mates, and they had a bond that he didn’t want to see broken. Not like that. It had to be someone he didn’t know.

Annie Duncan had first noticed the quiet man when he boarded the aircraft in Denpasar. There was something about him, something that set him apart from the rest of the tourists returning from Bali on the flight Qantas employees had dubbed the party run back to Sydney.

An incurable romantic, Annie enjoyed watching people. She liked to speculate about them. Who were they really, behind their facades, what adventures had they had that made them what they were. She made up stories involving those who sparked her interest and she thought the stories were quite good. So did most of her friends, and someday when she stopped flying she was going to write books about them.

The airline had rules governing the relationships between hostesses and passengers. In a word, they were forbidden. Her personal standard regarding non-involvement with passengers was totally in keeping with the standards of her peer group; exactly strict enough to suite her purpose of the moment—and therefore mostly in accordance with the airline's policy. But no one had ever told her not to look. And this particular man she found extraordinarily intriguing—and she was looking.

There was something about him that made this interesting looking man seem incongruous in the crowd. He was older than most of the people she saw doing what he seemed to be doing. Most backpackers were Europeans in their early twenties and appeared to be just out of university, this one appeared to be in his mid-thirties and a Yank. Not that his age would necessarily make him stand apart from the rest of the passengers, nor would the fact that he was a Yank. But he was not half of a couple, or even part of a group; he traveled alone. To Annie's way of thinking someone this good looking simply should not be leaving by himself from a romantic island paradise like Bali. There had to be a mystery here.

Eventually Annie made up her mind that he must be what he seemed. A traveler, she thought. A bit older than most and a bit more seasoned because he had been doing it longer. Someone who had been farther and to places most people never bothered to go and therefore of more than passing interest. She wondered what places in the world he had seen, what he had done there and what new adventure had brought him to her airplane.

Would you like tea or coffee, sir?

Coffee please. I’ll have it black, thanks. His voice was quiet and moderately deep with a neutral sounding American accent. He had a lovely smile, she thought, and she melted a little.

Normally Annie liked Americans. If family rumor was to be believed, her maternal grandfather was an American sailor who had been in Sydney during the '39 to '45 war. This was a skeleton in the family closet and not generally spoken of in public but apparently her grandmother had been a bit more fun in her younger days than one might think to see her today. Her Yank was a red headed farm boy from somewhere in the American Wild West and he was called Rufus. Gran said he had freckles and blue eyes. This Yank had looked up at her when she spoke and she saw that his eyes, under dark and rather bushy brows, were hazel, almost green. His face below longish, wavy dark hair was calm but with an air of intensity about the green eyes that she found, at the same, time both attractive and a bit unnerving. This only added to the mystique—maybe there was a hint of danger there and she thrilled at the thought.

Up close she could see a scar on his left cheek and another above the eye that caused the eyebrow to droop a little and his nose had been broken at least once. These imperfections only lent more hints of danger, she decided, and added to the attraction.

But despite the faded jeans and calm demeanor this was no laid back hippy. Way too intense, she thought, she could see that clearly now that she was up close. So, what would make a man that intense, she wondered, maybe something to do with the scars. She was even more intrigued.

Annie was on the verge of breaking the airline's steadfast rule with an obvious offer and she made an attempt to engage the man in conversation.

But she had been quietly and firmly put off.

She was stunned. Annie Duncan was completely unused to this kind of treatment by a man—any man. Above average height, slender and blond, she knew herself to be more than just attractive, she was a desirable young woman, and normally on flights it was she who fended off advances from passengers. She didn't like it one bit when the tables were turned and cold water was dumped on the flames of her imagination.

Oh well, she rationalized, he probably wasn't her type anyway. Doubtlessly one of those cases where the fantasy turns out to be better than the reality, she rationalized in self defense. After all, there had to be a reason he was alone.

Besides, he wasn't even traveling first class, probably had no money, and was under six feet tall—well, maybe not, but he wasn’t all that tall either.

Her last and final objection was his age. Almost as an afterthought she revised her previous estimate upwards from mid-thirties to forty, probably even over forty—she had spotted a hint of gray in his hair. One more point to support her mildly damaged ego.

Annie continued along the aisle serving the rest of the passengers on the flight to Sydney and wasted no more thought on the strangely quiet, unresponsive—and suddenly much older—man.

Anthony Ryder’s first look at Sydney as the huge 747 circled over the city gave him a magnificent view of the entire suburban sprawl, all the way from the Blue Mountains in the west to Bondi Beach in the east. The city appeared to be dominated by water with Botany Bay on the southern edge and Broken Bay to the north, the majestic Sydney Harbor bisecting the space between the two. The huge plane banked and he noticed differences in the city skyline from his last visit. There were several more and much larger buildings in the city now and more traffic than he remembered. As the plane touched down on the tarmac, bright sunlight streaked through the dark clouds building ominously in the sky to the west. The promise of thunderstorms and rain would be welcome in the sweltering summer heat below.

Sydney looked quiet and peaceful from the air and he remembered green was a predominating color on the ground, stark contrast from the place that was the beginning of his present journey.

Afghanistan had been mostly barren, mountainous, and dry and the predominating color there was brown. His time there had been spent mostly high in the mountains fighting alongside the mujahedin rebels against the Afghan government's Soviet-backed army. His memories of that place consisted of an infinite clear blue sky over high mountain valleys and craggy peaks, most of which would be snowbound now that it was winter in the Northern Hemisphere. He also remembered bomb-cratered villages inhabited by children with missing limbs, a world of pain and hopelessness etched on their young faces. But all of that was in the past, he kept reminding himself. Afghanistan was no longer part of his reality; it existed only in memories. The memories were nonetheless real to him and were of extreme violence, blood, and the stench of death.

Sydney, though, was today’s reality and existed in the present, palpable in the here and now. He hoped this might be a place to start his life anew, a place where he could put an end to his journey, put away the past and move on toward a future that was at this point an empty book. He expected to find no similarities to his previous life to remind him of places, people and wars he wanted to forget.

Anthony Ryder had tried settling in other places before embarking on his odyssey. The first and obvious choice had been San Francisco, the city most familiar to him. Although he had been born in the farming country of north central California, he had spent many of his formative years in the City by the Bay. Expecting a warm welcome on his return from military life, he was instead met with indifference and in some cases outright hostility. No one wanted to know about him, what he had seen, and how it had affected his life. He thought the only things people seemed to care about today were money and sex—and instant gratification in both arenas.

Modern society had become confusing to Ryder after his long stay in the mountains. He tried dating women he had met and found them shallow and insensitive to anything beyond their own immediate desires; and they found him much too intense. He had tried working at a few jobs, none of which proved to be satisfying. For twenty years Ryder had been a professional warrior and was not trained or even psychologically fit for any civilian occupation he could think of. The thought of life in a cubicle sounded worse than death to him. He considered attending university and then teaching but the thought of living in the unreal world of academia was appalling. He thought he would be even more alienated there than in the civilian world he had returned to. But with the regular monthly income he received as retirement pay from the army and money in the bank, employment wasn’t an immediate concern.

The problem with this world, he thought, was the question of reality. What seemed real to Ryder, and important to him, was not considered real or important to society in general. After spending what seemed like most of his life in two separate war zones, Ryder was being consumed by nervous energy and simply was not able to settle down. Indeed, Ryder had a hard time sitting still long enough to watch a movie or a show on TV. He was used to living on the edge where facing mortal danger on an almost daily basis had become a way of life, and a normal sedentary existence was now impossible for Ryder. He just didn’t fit into society.

Embittered, angry, and as disillusioned with civilian life as he had eventually become with the army, Ryder packed his backpack and left California after a stay of only a year and made his escape into the rest of the world.

Traveling east, he found Northern Europeans substantially no different from Americans in their attitudes and philosophies. Reality was all about money, power, and vice and Ryder thought all these things were merely illusion. After a summer in the gray north, he moved south toward the sunny Mediterranean. Southern Europe, where even winter days were filled with sunshine and vine-covered hillsides, proved to be more to Ryder's liking but attitudes remained substantially the same and he found no reason to linger.

Winter gave way to spring, and early summer found Ryder sailing the Greek Isles. He had signed on as deck hand aboard a small schooner captained by an Englishman who provided exquisite holidays afloat for wealthy international tourists. It was an idyllic lifestyle and one Ryder found appealing. Reality was all around him here, thick and tangible because it was need that dictated action. When the wind came up too strong, you shortened sail; when you arrived at some secluded cove, you dropped anchor; when the ship's bottom became fouled with barnacles, you hauled her out and scraped them off. Life was simple and it suited Ryder’s basic survivalist philosophy. He saw survival as a question of need; you did what needed to be done to ensure that you continued to live.

Idyllic as this season was, it passed like all others, and when the tourists went home in the autumn, Ryder moved on to the Middle East. Following a winter in Israel and Egypt, he moved on to India and the exotic east. Bali, in Indonesia, had been the last stop before deciding to revisit Sydney.

He had been on the road for two years. The journey had been a long one from there to here but had been in no way arduous and the dangers he faced were those of all travelers and benign in the face of what his life had been. Ryder had begun to mellow during his travels and he expected Sydney would be mellow, too.

Picking up his worn backpack from the carousel Ryder made his way through the crowds of travelers. Leaving the air-conditioned airport building he felt the physical blow of heat and humidity. Wiping the quick accumulation of sweat from his upper lip, he took the first cab in the rank.

Where to, mate? the cab driver asked.

Ryder knew a little about his prospective new home. In addition to the stories from travelers he met while on the road, he remembered the time spent in Sydney with his friend, Reg Denning. The memories were nearly twenty years old now and faded around the edges but Ryder remembered where he was going even if he didn't know how to get there.

Kings Cross, please.

The route took them through areas of Sydney which were mostly industrial until they neared the city proper. Even then Sydney was just another large conglomeration of buildings with snarls of mismanaged traffic and crowds of harried-looking pedestrians. Nothing really set it apart from most other cities, he thought, except for the water views and those, he remembered, could be magnificent.

To Ryder's relief, the driver began a monologue about his own experiences as a traveler, the vast quantities of beer he had consumed and the willing women he had met. Ryder tuned the driver out and took the time on his own to look at Sydney and to reflect on the long road that had brought him back to this place.

This last stay in South East Asia had been restful and, like most of Ryder's time, spent generally on his own. Ryder had enjoyed Bali in particular. He found the island beautiful and tranquil and he had rested there for two months, moving periodically from one cheap accommodation to another and from the beach to the mountain as the need to move on overcame the desire to remain still. Some of the other islands were interesting, too, in that they were touched only superficially by the modern world. But Ryder had spent a good deal of his past years in a different Third World country and had seen enough to make him unimpressed by perceived poverty and the lack of modern amenities. What did impress Ryder was real hardship, the hardship he had witnessed first on the battlefields of Vietnam and later in the mountains and bombed out villages of Afghanistan. Ryder had little time for people who thought the latest fashion, a cellular phone, and a new German car were necessary for a happy existence. He was convinced it was impossible to know about or even appreciate life until you had looked death in the face and decided to survive.

Ryder knew a great deal about the twin realities of violence and war. He had trained intensely for both and then spent a large part of his life on intimate terms with them, and they were real to him—a defining part of his life.

It was early in Ryder's second tour of duty in Vietnam that he discovered Corporal Reg Denning. Denning was an Australian who had grown up in the Sydney suburbs of Balmain and Kings Cross and the two soldiers had met while Ryder was on leave in Saigon. They quickly became inseparable companions and stayed drunk and stoned on marijuana for the next two weeks.

Toward the end of their leave, they were leaving the Saigon Post Exchange each with a carton of beer under his arm when they were stopped by a Vietnamese Army colonel.

You two guys like to do me a favor? asked the officer.

Sure we would, mate. I've been waitin' all my life for the opportunity to do you a favor! laughed the Aussie corporal whose opinion it was that he was doing the colonel a favor just by being in Vietnam.

The colonel ignored the jibe and turned to Ryder.

What can we do for you, colonel? said the Yank.

All I want is a toaster from the PX. Can you buy it for me? replied the young officer looking over his shoulder for military police. Vietnamese nationals, even ARVN colonels, were barred from shopping in the Post Exchange and products from there were valued greatly as status symbols and could fetch big money on the black market.

Sure, mate, we'll take care of everything. You just stand here and keep your eye on our beer, said Denning. Tony, let's go get the colonel his toaster.

The toaster took only a few minutes to purchase and the two soldiers were back on the streets again heading in one direction with their beer while the colonel, with his toaster, took off walking rapidly in the opposite.

Six weeks later Ryder was called before his company commander and handed a small leather covered box.

Sergeant Ryder, this came for you in the morning dispatch. Want to tell me about it, son? said the company commander.

What is it, sir? replied Ryder, reaching for the package. The package contained a medal, a Vietnamese Cross of Valor, the highest honor paid by that country to a military hero. The accompanying orders named Sergeant A. Ryder a recipient of the medal for Special Service rendered to the Vietnamese people.

I don't think there's much I can tell you, sir. Ryder was at a loss for words.

I understand, sergeant. I don't think I need to hear the details anyway. Congratulations, son, the officer continued as he stood, saluted and offered the young sergeant his hand, it’s not often we get the opportunity to serve like that and I suppose both of you deserve your medals and probably more besides.

Both of us, sir?

Of course both of you. That Australian corporal, Denning, got the same medal. You were together on that mission, weren't you?

Yes, sir, said Ryder, finally remembering the toaster episode and the Vietnamese colonel's parting remark: You guys are going to get a medal for this! Now, twenty years later, Ryder could still hear Denning's raucous laugh at hearing the news.

Since the heroes apparently had missed the leave they were supposed to have been on in Saigon, and in recognition of the honor paid to them by the Vietnamese, they were both given an extra two weeks leave in Sydney. The two weeks were spent almost entirely in Kings Cross bars.

A year later, Reg Denning and the Vietnamese colonel only a memory, Ryder won his commission on the battlefield in Vietnam. Largely, rumor had it, due to the intervention of a Vietnamese colonel who had recommended him for the honor following a secret mission undertaken together with an Australian corporal.

Chapter 2

It felt strange being in Sydney again after all these years. Although Ryder had been here before and knew basically where Kings Cross was in relation to the city, there were notable differences along the route they were taking. For instance, he didn't remember the large office buildings now lining William Street and there was a different face on the Kings Cross Hotel. They approached Kings Cross from William Street, with the huge Coca-Cola sign glaring down as they turned into Darlinghurst Road. This was not the same sign that had been there twenty years ago and, come to think of it, the building was new as well. The entire intersection he remembered was now gone and had been replaced by a giant concrete monolith with a Hyatt Hotel logo on it and an empty lot where there used to be a row of terraced houses. Under the empty lot was now a tunnel to the city’s eastern suburbs.

Entering Kings Cross, Ryder noticed a surplus of traffic on the main thoroughfare but not many people on the sidewalks. The crowds he remembered had been made up primarily of soldiers on R & R leave from Vietnam and hordes of girls of every description. The small numbers now seemed more shabbily dressed than the old crowds had been and many were drunk. He saw two derelicts asleep or passed out on the sidewalk, half-draped across