Ecstasy Lake Read Free

later.’

2
    â€˜Later’ was five the next morning. The phone next to the bed rang.
    â€˜Meet me in the lobby in half an hour. Dress casually.’
    I took a shower, dressed in shorts, T-shirt and a light jacket and was in the lobby at 5.30, still barely awake. Tasso met me there, looking too cheerful, albeit slightly seedy, and guided me outside to a black BMW. Bert looked even less like a chauffeur than he had the previous day and just as alert, despite the early hour. Tasso sat in the front with him and I took a back seat and we made our way through Adelaide’s quiet gridded streets.
    â€˜Where are we going?’
    â€˜Out on the water.’
    It was still night, but there was a faint lightening of the sky to the east.
    â€˜You got a boat?’
    â€˜Of course I’ve got a boat.’
    We drove to a marina on the Port River. Bert used a plastic security card to open the eight-foot-high gate at the entrance, then drove to the clubhouse. Before Tasso and I got out, Bert asked me for the number of the phone I’d bought yesterday afternoon.
    â€˜Thanks,’ Tasso said, as he gave the thumbs-up sign. ‘See you this evening.’ Bert drove off. I could hear the pleasant-enough chiming of yacht masts and the far-off drone of early-morning traffic. Tasso waved at a yachtie as he arrived in his own BMW. The air was acidic with the smell of seagull shit and privilege. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
    â€˜Who the hell is Bert?’
    Tasso just smiled.
    The marina boardwalk was gated and the gate was locked. Tasso opened it with his security card and led me to a motor launch.
    â€˜You always have to have the biggest, don’t you?’
    â€˜Why shouldn’t I have the biggest?’
    We boarded the ship and I followed him as he climbed the stairs to the cockpit above the main cabin, and watched as he flicked switches and started the engines with a push of a button.
    â€˜She’s fuelled up,’ he said. ‘We’re good to go. Get the moorings, will you?’
    I’m no seaman, but with Tasso calling instructions I managed to unhitch the ropes from their posts. We cleared the berth and throbbed our way out of the marina, a line of moored boats bobbing in our wake. We motored northward along the hemmed-in estuary known as the Port River past the North Arm, a strip of water that ran through mangroves to the east of Garden Island and Torrens Island. We passed the Torrens Island power station, threaded the stone breakwater and headed into the Gulf. In the day’s new light, the smooth, amber water looked like whisky. We swung right—northwards—as Tasso opened the throttle. When we reached cruising speed he pushed a couple more buttons and sat back.
    â€˜This is what you do when you’re rich, Steve. You play with things. You own things. Big things. The biggest. You own things you never thought you could ever own and you play with them because you fucken well can.’
    â€˜It must be boring.’
    â€˜It never gets boring.’
    â€˜Where are we going?’
    â€˜Nowhere in particular. We’ll blow out a few cobwebs first.’
    According to the speedo, or whatever they’re called on big motor launches, we were doing about thirty knots.
    â€˜You know the best thing about being rich, Steve?’ said Tasso.
    â€˜You can solve world poverty?’
    â€˜Besides that.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜You don’t have to swallow.’ He made a gesture with his hand towards his mouth and then towards me. ‘You’ve always been an employee, Steve. If your boss tells you to swallow, you swallow, right?’
    â€˜I guess so. Or I spit.’
    â€˜But most people can’t spit. They’ve got commitments, family to look after; they need the money, the security. They swallow. Me, I don’t swallow anything for anyone. That’s the beauty of being rich.’
    I left him enjoying being rich and went