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the whole place had this eerie, necessitous look about it. Hank got out of the car, undid his fly and did a great piss on the driveway. Well, that suits me, thought Norton, and got out and did the same. Hank finished first and started towards the larger house.
    â€˜This way,’ he said, without waiting for Les.
    â€˜Yeah, righto,’ answered Norton, and took his time finishing.
    Les picked up his bags and walked into the house, trying not to make too much noise. There was the usual small hallway when you entered, a loungeroom to the left and another room to the right with a large wooden table and some old chairs around it. The house was nothing too flash, lots of paintings on the walls, bric-a-brac sitting onold cabinets and a few scatter rugs on the yellowy brown carpet. Somewhere ahead light came from another door; Les headed towards it and found a fairly large kitchen with windows facing on to what looked an enclosed verandah. There were more doors to his right and a passageway that was a laundry. Light came from another doorway at the end of a shorter passageway; Les walked towards it and found what evidently was his room.
    It was a fairly large, dimly lit room with carpet — and not much else. There was a single bed against the wall as you walked in; opposite was a long, low table with a lamp on it, a fan, an ancient ghetto blaster and just plain junk. There were a couple of old lounge chairs, another low but smaller table in one corner and that was about it. No dressing table, no wardrobe, not even an overhead light fitting. Just a sliding glass door and a flyscreen to the left as you walked in, left open to get the non-existent breeze or air, and another door in the far corner. The rest was just junk; mainly old wooden frames that looked like they could have once held paintings.
    Hank stood in the middle, looking round like it was the Presidential Suite at the Sydney Regent. ‘Well, what do you say?’
    â€˜Great,’ answered Les, sweat already dripping from his chin. His bags dropped on the floor along with his arse. ‘Bad luck I can only stay three weeks.’
    â€˜You got a bed there, a lamp, the fan works. That sliding door leads out back and this is your bathroom.’ Hank opened the door in the corner. There was a shower, toilet and sink; the white tiles looked reasonably clean but it smelled of stagnant water.
    â€˜Nice,’ nodded Les, as Hank closed the door. Christ! he thought. How do I find myself in these spots? Long Bay wasn’t much worse than this. And at least it was cooler.
    â€˜Now let’s go and have a real drink.’
    Les had a last look round his sumptuous lodgings and followed Hank out the same way they came in. I imagine another margarita would be out of the question, mused Norton.
    There were a few night sounds as Les crunched along the narrow path to what was obviously Hank’s section of his family’s rambling estate; though what Les was mainly concentrating on was the bloody heat and flicking Spanish Moss out of his face. Laurel Lee’s house reminded Norton of a weekender down the south coast alright. The south coast of East Germany. The front door stood warped and splintering in the dim light just above it, there was a large window and curtains to the right and a smaller window to the left, which Norton surmised was the kitchen. The place was all a sickly orange and white and looking at it from the outside it was hard to imagine that it once was new. All it was now was faded paintwork, grime and dry rot. Come and stay at my place any time you’re in America, you guys. I own two houses and my family’s got heaps of money. What did Price, the wise old owl, say the night before Norton left? Don’t even believe half of what yanks tell you. They’re full of bullshit. No wonder his boss was a multi-millionaire and looked twenty years younger than he was.
    Hank unlocked the front door and inside was just as tatty, only it