Diesel And Whisky: Diesel And Whisky, #1

By Ralph Allan

Max Brody, knock-about guy, former soldier and professional hunter is on his way to deal with a pack of wild dogs. At the Paris Motel he encounters Jane; down on her luck; no money; her car about to disintegrate. And she is carrying a double barrel sawn off; her mission: to commit murder.

Max rescues Jane from herself. They journey together. He must find out why she wants to kill policeman Troy Bates, and talk her down.

Their journey will end in a deadly shoot out. Jane must show courage and daring. Max must use all his skill with a rifle. They will take the law into their own hands.

Diesel and Whisky is a modern western. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: QuakeSpireInk
• Release date: Nov 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9780992306342

Ralph Allan

Ralph Allan is an academic and financial analyst. His special interest is financial fraud. While investigating the workings of the money game, he discovered ruthless people who will stop at nothing to achieve wealth, power and control of people's lives. His work of fiction 'The Money Club' lays bare the dark world of money making where vice is the plaything of the people making the mega deals.

Book preview

Prologue

What can I tell you about yesterday and where it has gone?

For me it happened this way.

1

At the crossroads I stopped at idle. The diesel chortled as old diesels do when they’ve been driven hard for a thousand k. The right-hand fork took me down the by-pass and straight ahead took me into town. The last hundred clicks were old sheep and cattle country. The flecks of white fluff by the roadside told the new story; cotton. Fields laser levelled; raised levees all around; black and dry now but ready to be flood irrigated from ancient aquifers deep beneath the ground; giant engines pumping precious water onto GM modified seed; insecticide ready. The cattle were still there; down dusty roads and living in stalls and being fed on soya meal and waiting to be chomped on a plate in Japan. Another corporate farm where the cheques incoming and outgoing had lots of zeros.

The town would be small but thriving. I’d never been there but the white fluff and the feed lot beef would pump just enough dosh into the old wool town to keep the shops and rambling old pubs alive. And there would be a bar and beer there that needed a kiss from me. My kinda town.

Before I sipped that ice cold, I needed a place to lay my head. Down the bypass they built a service centre where grey nomads jostled for fuel with B double leviathans; beyond that a couple of shiny new motels, sanitised and homogenised, catered for the people that didn’t cart their home behind the Land Cruiser.

Down the old road, the ‘Paris Motel’ was a sign sticking out above some shaggy she oaks. The neon on the stanchion said 1960’s, the name on the sign said someone had a sense of humour. It would be clad in fibro; the real stuff that would kill you twenty-five years later if you cut it up and inhaled the dust. It would be cheap and simple. My kinda motel.

I slipped the Troopy into gear and the old girl clickety-tapped towards bed and breakfast at low revs.

The architecture lived down to my expectations. A driveway flanked by reception with attached residence and through to a rectangle of boxed rooms each with line marked park spaces. The whole lot in need of a can of paint.

I slipped from the cab and grunted my bones to straight, pushed open the aluminium door and breasted the counter. I tinged the bell and waited. Through a gap in the multi coloured plastic fly curtain I could see a flat screen TV. John Wayne and Walter Brennan were laying down classic lines in ‘Rio Bravo.’ There was a stack of DVD packets on a low coffee table. By lifting on my toes, I could just make out the titles, most of which were in my late-night viewing collection. My stickybeaking was halted by a bejewelled white hand that thrust through the plastic strips. I dropped my feet to flat and my host pushed through and up to the counter. A waft of not so cheap perfume came with her plus the faint of smell of tobacco booze and air freshener; frangipani.

G’day. What can I do for you?

It was said with a hint of city voice. The body and the face had a few miles on the clock but this lady was still a looker. I brightened.

A room for the night.

Sure, there’s plenty to choose from.

I had already made that assessment. There were half a dozen cars for the twenty rooms on offer. She pushed a piece of paper across the counter with the usual blank spaces. I filled in the minimum required and she leaned elbows on the counter studying my face.

I like your taste in movies. I offered as I penned away.

Yair Howard Hawks one of the greats. I was close enough to pick up her mint breath. It was warm. That will be sixty bucks. Do you want a milk ...? She paused and looked at my scribble,  Max.

Thank you. I passed the notes and she retrieved and passed the milk cold from the fridge.

Don’t suppose you’ve got any John Ford in there? I said testing the waters.

Of course. ‘The Searchers’, ‘Liberty Valance.

You’re my kinda movie buff ... I paused; her move.

It’s Wanda but you can call me Wanda, Max. It was said deep and husky and she handed me the key.

Thanks. Negotiations had gone far enough. The next move had to be subtle.

See you later.  I made for the door. I was about to let it close but she stopped me. I turned. She let her hair fall across one eye. She gave me a look languid and sexy.

Max, you need anything else, you just give me a whistle. She turned and glided through the plastic.

Good move Wanda. This could be interesting. Wanda could be interesting. In