He was English, I caught that now.
‘First residence after the village. The entrance is on your right, first gate. Adriatica, that’s the name. It’s marked on the map. And the name’s on the gate.’
He pressed a small plastic disc, the size of a fat ten-cent coin, onto the windscreen above the registration sticker. ‘So that we can find you if you get lost, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ll take it off when you leave. Enjoy your visit, sir.’
Bugged, I drove across the bridge, down a curving road, through a landscape sculpted by bulldozers, blanketed with imported soil, planted with thousands of mature sub-tropical trees, grassed, lavishly watered. Water was always visible, on both sides deep inlets. I saw two fat joggers, a thin runner, half-a-dozen walkers, a woman in jodhpurs on a high-spirited chestnut horse. Then the golf course was on my left, greens like great dollops of pureed spinach, people on motorised buggies. I watched a man duff a tee shot.
The golf clubhouse was low, sinuous, heavy with flowering creepers, and then the village appeared on my right, a semicircle of whitewashed buildings of different heights, different roof shapes and pitches, a clock tower in the middle, someone’s idealised Mediterranean village, water glimpsed beyond the buildings, flashes at the end of narrow lanes. Two small parking areas were as snobbish as stockbroker bikies, European metal only, nothing Japanese here.
This was where big money came to die, water without, guards within.
I found Adriatica behind a white creepered wall broken by bays housing big shrubs, leaves large and polished. Its gate was black wrought iron, ornate metal stems and leaves. It was a gate for cars. No-one arrived on foot in this place; there was nowhere to walk, nowhere to park, no pavement, no kerb, no gutter.
I parked in front of the gates, got out. It was warm. I took off my jacket and approached the gates.
‘Take off the coat,’ said a voice.
‘I’m not wearing a coat. I’m carrying my coat.’
He came into view from the left, a thin man, not young, slicked-back hair, one eyebrow like a furry caterpillar stuck to his forehead. The weapon held at his side, pointing at the ground, was extravagant, a long-barrelled. 38.
I said, ‘Put that fucking thing away. I’ve got an appointment to see Mr Filipovic.’
He shrugged, opened the gate.
I walked up a paved driveway to where a path through tropical jungle branched off to the house. The air was dense with exotic scents.
At the front door, a huge studded Moorish creation, another man, young, tee-shirt and jeans, was waiting, holding a device like a cordless telephone. ‘Gotta check you over,’ he said, then ran the metal detector over me.
‘Give him your coat,’ he said.
The man with the revolver had come up behind me. I complied.
‘Arms up,’ said the detector of metal.
I raised them. ‘Looking for a wire?’ I said. ‘Go very carefully.’
He smiled at me, excellent teeth. ‘I’m very careful. Loosen your tie, unbutton your shirt, cuffs too.’
You sensed a lack of trust in him.
When he was finished, he said, ‘Come in.’
We went through a hallway decorated with oversize Grecian-style urns, down a passage and into a sitting room the size of a four-car garage. It was full of white leather chairs and sofas and glass-topped tables holding heavy bowls of tortured coloured glass. On the wall above a fireplace hung a huge picture of a red rose lying on stone steps. The blowsy petals held perfectly rendered drops of dew the size of oranges.
Through the open French doors, you looked over a broad deck to where a boat was tied up, at least ten metres of gleaming white craft with a flying bridge. A man was working at the stern, kneeling on the deck, straightening up every few minutes to relieve his back.
‘Welcome to my house.’
The man had come into the room from a door to the right of the French doors. He was in his fifties, heavily built, oiled silver hair combed back, wearing only striped shorts and boat shoes. His skin was the colour of fudge and his chest was grey-furred, like the belly of an old dog.
I put out a hand. ‘Jack Irish.’
‘Milan Filipovic.’ He applied a challenging grip and I gave it back.
‘Strong hand,’ he said. ‘Don’t work behind a desk all the time, hey?’
‘Thanks for seeing me,’ I said.
‘Not a problem, mate.’
Another man had come into the room, a younger man, strong looking, a bodybuilder, with dark hair cut short. He was in shorts, a golf shirt and boat shoes.
‘Steve,’ said Milan. ‘He works for me.’
Steve didn’t offer to shake hands, just smiled, another mouth of first-rate teeth. Something in the local water, perhaps, or a good cosmetic dentist.
‘Hey,’ said Milan, ‘we’re jus goin out on the boat, test the engines. Steve, ask that cunt if he’s finished?’
Steve went out.
‘This place, what you think? Nice, hey?’
‘Very nice. Must be good to live on the water.’
‘The best. Cost a fucken bomb. What you reckon they want for management, upkeep, security, all that shit?’
‘Quite a bit.’
‘Forty grand a year. How’s that?’
‘That’s a lot, that’s steep.’
He scratched his chest pelt. ‘I told em, I don’t need your fucken security, look after myself. Little cunt says it’s not an option.’
I watched Steve come back. His legs were too short for his torso.
‘Ready,’ he said.
‘Pineapple juice,’ said Milan, ‘get a coupla litres.’
He led the way to the boat. We passed the man who’d been working on it. ‘She’s ace, Mr Fil,’ he said. ‘Runnin smooth.’
‘Good boy,’ said Milan, patting him on the chest. ‘Tell Denny I said cash.’
We were at the centre of a bay, a big expanse of water. The village’s long curving boardwalk was on the right, two-storey boathouse-like buildings lining it, people sitting under market umbrellas. Perhaps forty other waterfront houses were in sight, most of them with boats tied up at their landings, big white muscle boats, here and there a yacht supplying some class.
‘Like it?’ said Milan.
‘Top spot,’ I said.
‘You gotta earn it.’ He was first onto the boat.
Steve and the young man who’d searched me arrived, Steve carrying a big pitcher of yellow juice. The young man cast off, went up to the flying bridge, Steve went below.
‘Take a seat,’ said Milan, waving at the banquettes. They were gently scalloped into individual seats.
I sat down. He sat opposite me, his pectorals sagging, dark nipples peeping out of the dense hair like the noses of inquisitive forest creatures.
The engines fired, a satisfying sound, a growl that made the deck beneath my out-of-place leather soles vibrate. My searcher took the boat away from the landing, howling off at forty-five degrees from the land. In a few minutes, we were passing through a broad opening to the sea, a dead calm sea, blue-black.
Milan got up, climbed the steps to the bridge, muscles showing in the big calves, said something to the helmsman, who throttled back the engines, settled on a modest cruising speed.
Back in his seat, Milan looked at me, opened his arms, palms upward, smiled. ‘Fucken paradise, hey? Whatya think?’
I looked around. There wasn’t much to see. An endless flat paddock of ocean, a boat here and there. ‘Very close to it,’ I said. ‘You’re a lucky man.’
He laughed, ran a hand over the oiled hair. ‘Lucky? Jack, listen, mate, I come to this country with fuck-all, I work like a dog, anythin, mate, anythin, cleanin gully traps, that’s what I did. Cleaned a gully trap?’
I shook my head. I had, actually, but this wasn’t the moment to compare experiences.
‘Yeah, well, don’t talk lucky to me, mate. Qualified fitter and turner, you think I get a job? No way, they don’t want a fucken wog can’t speak two words of English.’
Steve emerged with the pitcher of yellow juice and two heavy-bottomed tumblers. ‘Yellow peril ready to go,’ he said.