NEW VOICES

A Short Story

by Garrett Russell

Slither

THE SHARK SCANNED THE SCENE OF DEATH carefully. It was more like a scene for a postcard -- a stretch of beach in late afternoon sunshine, a jet ski lolling in the shore break, the sea breeze ruffling the grasses on the dunes. Nothing more. No sign of a struggle. Not even a single footprint to disturb the sand.

"Rest in peace," thought the Shark, and the thought made him smile with satisfaction.

He ran through the plan in his mind for what must have been the thousandth time, testing and probing for any weak points, any possible holes. And for the thousandth time, he came up with the same result. Perfect.

He imagined the headline in tomorrow's Courier Mail. MILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN LOST AT SEA. Or maybe, if they were pressed for space, SHARK MISSING. His only regret was that he would not be in town to read it. By the time the paper hit the breakfast tables of all those stock brokers and investment advisers and security commission snoops, he would be five flying hours away. And, as usual, one step ahead of them all.

By the time they realized he was gone for good, he would be settling into the security of his new identity. By the time they discovered how much money was missing, he (and it) would be safely established beyond extradition. By the time his old business empire finally collapsed, he would be too busy building the new one to give it a second thought.

One step ahead. The Shark marvelled at how far he'd come on that one simple ploy, how easily he'd been able to slither through a sea of gullibility to this, his moment of greatest triumph. Even his name was part of the game. He knew, early in his career and well before anyone was brave enough to say it to his face, that they called him the Shark. It was meant as an insult, but he twisted it to his advantage. Like the Rats of Tobruk revelling in the Rommel taunt, the Shark basked in the recognition of his predatory business tactics. He used the name to convince investors they were better off with him than against him, ran ads in the business pages with a sharp dorsal fin logo. And that's when he really took off.

He discovered he enjoyed notoriety. His name and smiling face became a fixture in the social as well as business pages, and the money rolled in faster than ever. It was very nearly his undoing.

The Shark shuddered at the thought of how close he had come to disaster. It was his own fault, of course, for confusing profile with profit. He had been enjoying himself so much, he almost missed the warning signs. If Alice had been able to have her way, he most certainly would have. But something - instinct, he supposed -- brought him back to his senses just in time.

He was less than half a step ahead of the pack when he realized he had to get out.

The business part, the money part, was easy, even with the securities commission plodding at his heels. The challenge was to get himself out clean and free. He'd been seduced into making himself so damned recognizable.

The solution, when he finally came up with it, was as brilliant as anything he'd ever dazzled the stock market with.

And it worked so well: there was no shortage of applicants to the three line classified he ran at the most desperate end of the employment columns. With minimum qualifications required and the vaguest promise of wealth and adventure, he had plenty of men to choose from. It took only seven interviews to hit on his target -- same age, similar height, close enough in looks, and most importantly, no living family. John Herbert Smith was the kind of no-hoper no one would miss, and he came equipped with a tax file number.

He was also gullible. Much easier to impress than the average investor. He bought the story of a top secret mission without once asking why a nonentity such as himself was being interviewed by the CEO. Or even why the interview was conducted in a car park and not an office full of nosy secretaries. He willingly traded his tax papers, driver's licence, bank account details and a signed passport application in return for a modest cash advance.

And when his physical presence was no longer necessary, he disappeared with gratifying ease.

John Smith never knew what hit him on that dark night two weeks ago. His body was now buried deep in the lonely scrub he had been inspecting with his new boss.

The Shark wasn't sure which was more bizarre -- the fact that his victim died believing he was working on a hush-hush project to establish a landing zone for trade with intergalactic aliens, or the fact that soon he would be slipping past the noses of the ASC, the Queensland fraud squad and Australian Customs under an alias as fake as John Smith.

But there was nothing at all false about the passport, licence, credit cards, wallet full of cash and economy class airline ticket that waited for him less than two kilometres away. They were locked in the glove box of the battered old four wheel drive, bought for cash by the original John Smith last month and parked near the southern tip of North Stradbroke Island by the new John Smith last week. Also locked in the vehicle was an old suitcase packed with clothes for a change of climate, and the moustache and hair colour to turn the man on the beach into the man in the ID photographs. He had discovered that, with the right tricks, a face is as simple to disguise as a balance sheet. It all comes down to where you put the lines.

He mentally ran through the next steps of his plan as he walked away from his jet ski, trudging through ankle deep water (no foot prints, he reminded himself) and heading north to the bar. There were no fishing boats out beyond the surf line at this time of day and at this stage of the tide, just as he'd planned. There would be no one to see him paddle the wave-filled gap between the islands - just as there had been no one to see him earlier in the day, when he had gone ashore over there to double check the four wheel drive and pick up the short surf board he'd left locked in it.

He had two hours for the paddle across the passage and drive to the Dunwich barge, another two hours clear till his flight, and at least an hour and a half before anyone would even think of looking for him.

Alice might worry at sundown, she'd definitely be on the phone by seven. He smiled as he imagined police torches probing the open spaces of his Boxster in the car park of the Runaway Bay Marina. It had hurt to despoil the little Porsche's lines with a towbar for the jet ski trailer, but it was essential to his plan. Any man who would leave such a prized toy, hood down and exposed to the elements, must surely have intended to return.

His smile broadened as he imagined Alice, wet-eyed and whimpering, giving the media performance of her life, probably on the front verandah of the house from which the receivers would certainly soon evict her. But for once her performance would be no act.

Poor Alice. He felt almost as sorry for her as he did for the Boxster. Until the thought of all the new Alicias and Bernadettes and Carolines who'd be waiting for him and his money in his new cruising ground made him hard despite the cool chill of the sea breeze.

Now he was knee deep in the waves surging around the sandy tip of South Stradbroke Island, with nothing between him and his new life but a short paddle in a gentle surf. He pushed the board ahead of him and plunged into the break.

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