Draw the Brisbane Line (2 page)

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

God, the way he was looking at Dave with a half-smile trying to challenge the watery crunch of his eyes, Dave felt that familiar urge to
help
.  When someone asks for help, you give it, that’s what was drilled into him by parents, by teachers, by publicists.  No reason to go back on that now, just because they were standing at the end of the world. 

Dave looked at Cain standing there in his suit, pressed shirt, Windsor-knotted tie and patent black shoes.  He hadn’t dressed for a working day, he’d dressed for a coffin.  There was no point trying to talk him around.

‘Tell you what,’ Dave said.  ‘I’ll move the chair over by the glass.  Maybe it had been there the whole time, you know?’

Cain tried to wink, but the flutter of his eyelids cut loose a thin stream of tears Dave hadn’t realised he’d been holding back.  ‘You’re a smart man, Dave Holden,’ he said.  ‘And a
good
man.’

Right, a good man.  Dave lifted the heavy iron chair and carried it over to the glass edge of the balcony.  The muscles of his lower back tightened and clenched, but only for a moment.  With his face so close to the glass he could look down and see the rooftops of office blocks staring up at him.  They used to be giants, some of those buildings; and his apartment building, Pinnacle, seemed to be looking down on them and saying,
really, you call that sky-scraping?
  Pinnacle curved out beneath him as the lower floors spread out to occupy a base-level footprint the size of a full city block, and sometimes he imagined he could almost surf the curve of glass all the way to the street.  He wondered if Cain shared his fantasy. 

With the chair in place, he took a few steps back.

Dave didn’t know what he’d been expecting from Cain.  Maybe a short speech, or a show of reluctance or procrastination.  When he looked back at it over the next few days, he’d tell himself,
I didn’t really think he’d do it. 
He’d convince himself he was playing the role of a parent calling his child’s bluff, showing some tough love. 
You want to smoke?  Here, smoke the whole pack!
  He sure as hell hadn’t expected Cain to nod once, climb onto the chair while trying to keep off his injured knee, and then simply tip himself over the glass barrier without even a wave goodbye.

But that’s what he did.

Dave quickly retreated back into the apartment and closed the sliding door.  His heart beat hard inside his chest, an enraged prisoner rattling the bars of his cage.  He didn’t want to be out there to hear the thump or the cheers of the ghouls.  He didn’t want to entertain any too-late second thoughts or doubts.  He thought about getting another beer from the fridge, but not even the idea seemed appealing.  What he wanted to do, right then, was get out of the city.  Get on a plane and fly to Queensland.  All he wanted to do was to see Jenny and tell her he was sorry.

He probably wants to kill me
, Epoch thought.

He probably thinks I want to kill him
, Nero thought.

The two men regarded each other across the table in the pub as though they were alone in the room.  This despite the clamour of mine workers clumping about in their steel-toed boots and filth-tinged fluorescence, ferrying beer and snacks from the bar.  At least half of them had recently been laid off, and although the bar was still early into the breakfast service, there was no way they were going to adhere to the hours permitted by their liquor license.  When some of these guys come into your home, pissed off, you really don’t want to go making it any worse.

Bacon and beer … Epoch had to admit there was something almost primally appealing about that. 

Nero had an agenda, Epoch knew that.  A guy like Nero didn’t invite you out for a beer because he was thirsty and didn’t like drinking alone; he normally wouldn’t deign to speak to someone like Epoch unless it was going to lead to something else, something big. 

Epoch though, he wasn’t interested in big.  He’d managed to stay alive for as long as he had by keeping relatively small, operating around the fringes and occupying the wide periphery of the bigger players; not hidden completely, mind, because hiding just leads to being found. 

Take, for example, one of Epoch’s previous associates, a weed dealer by the name of Dean Whispers.  Whispers had a bit of trouble staying away from his own product.  Whether it was that, or some other affliction — maybe a childhood illness or a birth defect, Epoch couldn’t say — but he did know that the smoke couldn’t be helping his voice.  When he spoke, he sounded like he was being choked and on his final breath.  Epoch always found himself struggling for air whenever he spoke to Whispers.

The real problem Whispers had was with the weed though, not his voice.  Clouded his judgement.  Epoch truly believed that if he’d been able to keep a clear head he never would have thought for a second that dealing a bit of blow on the side was a good idea.  But he did, though only for a short while.

‘He was a maggot,’ Nero said, his pronouncement trampling over the wave of smoke which rolled out his mouth, beating it and bashing it.   ‘A grub.  At best, he would grow into a fly, an irritating prick of a thing.  You ever experienced the flies out west, or in the middle? Those bastards are focused in their irritation, like all they want to do is escape the baking sun and their idea of an oasis is deep inside your nostril.  The flies out here aren’t as bad as that, but I can’t say I’m a fan.  Whispers was like that, an east-coast fly-to-be.’

‘So you’re saying, squash him before he can fly?’ Epoch said.

Nero dragged the last of the smoke from the cigarette before dropping the butt into an empty beer glass, the last remaining crumbs of embers hissing as they hit the dregs.

Epoch thought he’d kept his activity low-profile enough to avoid Nero’s attention.  He was apparently wrong about that, but how wrong he was might be the difference between breathing and baking in a hot dirt grave out on a mine site.

Whispers had been buried in the middle of a blast pattern, holes spaced about a foot apart over the area of a football field, packed with explosives. Separating him from the coal and the dirt after that would have taken a microbiologist.

‘You know I never worked with Whispers, right?’ Epoch said.  ‘He and I were in totally different businesses, we moved in different circles, embraced a completely different set of values, of ethics.  I want to be crystal clear about this, OK?  I’m not looking to compete with you, not in any way.’

Nero closed his eyes and nodded.  He was neither calm nor agitated, but some fragile middle-ground.   Epoch didn’t have a gun, not even a knife, but he did have a fragmentation grenade in the inside-left pocket of his wildly weather-inappropriate jacket.  He used to have three of them, but he sold one and traded the other for a week’s motel accommodation.  If Nero swung towards agitation, he was ready to reach for it like a cowboy drawing a six-shooter.  He’d practised a few times before he left his apartment.

‘I know,’ Nero said.  ‘And I appreciate that.  To be honest, I’ve been impressed with the way you’ve carried yourself around here.  Always keeping your transactions just small enough, just the right size for the cops to give you a pass.  With the right incentives.  Am I right?’

Epoch nodded.  He paid the local cops a healthy ten percent to look the other way when required.  Is this what Nero wanted to talk to him about?  Was he going to shake him down for a slice of his modest action?

‘So you’re experienced in the explosives trade now, yeah?’ Nero said.  ‘Know who’s who, what’s what?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘How are you finding it then?  Working out for you?’

Epoch shrugged.  ‘Can’t complain.  Except it means I’m stuck driving and catching buses and trains to go anywhere, can’t board a plane with all the trace on me, it’s everywhere, clothes and bags.  Can’t wash the shit out either, it just sticks to you in tiny adhesive particles.’

Nero nodded.  ‘Yeah, I’ve heard that.  Thing is, right, I’m in the boom-boom trade myself, you know?’

There it was.  Epoch wasn’t surprised.  ‘OK, I’m out, I’m gone.’

Nero shook his head and smiled.  At least, he thought, the kid had a solid grasp of cause and effect.  ‘I’m not here to chase you off.  I want you to work for me.’

Epoch froze, waiting for the rest of it.  Did he mean work for him as in, be the unwilling participant in a protection racket?  Was this just a novel way of approaching a shakedown?  He scratched the sparse stubble on his chin with his right hand, a nervous tic, and his hand couldn’t help but brush the hard bulge of the grenade on the way back to the table.

‘I’m just small-time,’ he said, already starting to shake his head.  ‘My experience isn’t worth a bit to you.’

Nero laughed softly and waved at the waitress for a couple more beers.  ‘Yeah, nah.  Probably not.  But it’s not your experience I’m interested in, not really.  It’s you, yeah?  It’s potential.  I need good people Epoch, and I think you’re good people.’

Epoch’s hand was back at his chin before he realised it, scratching and digging at those lonely whiskers.  ‘I don’t really work well with others, you know?  Anyone who’s ever hired me has fired me, eventually.’

‘You’ve never worked for me.’

‘And what would that involve, exactly?  Working for you?’

‘Oh,’ Nero said.  ‘Some of this, some of that.  Little bit of the other.’

‘You already have people for bits of this, that and the other.’

‘Yeah, but … I get a feeling you might be the best at it.  Like I said, I can see potential.’

‘Really?  And what are you basing that on, your gut?’  Epoch hoped his hammering heart couldn’t be seen beating under his jacket.

Nero laughed, and Epoch breathed a bit easier.  Two more schooners of lager appeared on their table, and Epoch took the top two inches off his in three gulps.

‘You’ve got some balls,’ Nero said.  ‘Yes you do.  OK, here it is.  I’ve got a long tail of business lined up.  You heard of the QTA?’

‘Queensland Territorial Army?  Those freaks?’

‘Yep, those freaks.  See, they’re interested in stockpiling a weapons cache.  And my organisation, as it happens, has been stockpiling just such a cache.’

‘Bush militia like to shoot shit and blow things up?  Who’d have thought?’

‘Yeah, it ain’t rocket science.  The challenge, though, is keeping under the AFP’s radar.  You want to hazard a guess at how I’ve done that?’

Epoch shrugged.  What would he do to keep the feds at bay?  ‘You paid them off too?’

Nero clapped his hands and barked out a rough laugh.  The small round table wobbled, and Epoch hadn’t made enough of an impact on his drink to keep the beer from splashing up over the rim.  He shifted it onto a nearby coaster.

‘See?  See?’ Nero said.  ‘That’s why I like you Epoch, you shave with Occam’s razor.’

He scratched at his chin.  ‘Yeah, good for the brain, but fairly awkward with the hard-to-reach stubble.  OK, so let’s take the razor to this meeting.  You want me to help you with your boom-business, yeah?’

‘To start with, yes.’

‘And what does Blinky think about that?’

Now it was Nero’s turn to be surprised — not that Epoch knew about Blinky, Nero’s semi-official local hand, but that he’d bring him up in the meeting.

‘Blinky,’ Nero said, ‘has his talents.  But he also sees things differently a lot of the time.’

‘You don’t like people disagreeing with you.’

‘I don’t like people being stupid, acting like a cunt for no reason other than he can.  Blinky still thinks he’s in a bikie gang sometimes.’

‘And you don’t?’

‘You see me riding around on a bike?’  Epoch shook his head.  ‘No, because it makes very little business sense to ride one.  Even before they banned the gangs, riding a hog out in a place like this … the flies Epoch, the fucking flies.  You get to the end of the day, you don’t need dinner with the amount of blowies you’ve swallowed on the road.  Anyway, Blinky’s just the local … what … foreman, for lack of a better word.  This business we’re discussing, it stretches further than that.’

‘So you’re saying there’ll be some travel required?’

Nero liked that.  Like they were discussing a  regular sales job.  ‘There’ll be some, yeah.  But don’t worry, we’ll get you scrubbed up nice and clean before we put you on a plane.

‘Ah, see?  See the way you slipped that in there?  Already talking like I want the job, like we’re moving into discussing logistics.’  He waggled his finger at him, smiling.  ‘You, you’re a smooth one, you are.’

‘Yeah, I’ve made the deductive leap, decided you’re interested.  Because I know you Epoch, I know what makes you tick.  I wouldn’t be sitting here with you now if I didn’t.’

Epoch lifted the beer glass to his mouth and tipped it slowly, his hand steady as a rock.  ‘So tell me: what makes me tick?’

Nero took a short sip of his own beer and started.  ‘You’ve tried working conventional white collar, but you never felt comfortable in an office.  Too much structure, poor remuneration, slow advancement.  You have ambitions beyond the small boxes they let you occupy in those jobs.  Like in that job a few years ago in Perth, what was the company?  Insite Logistics?  The general manager kept you in a clerical function, wouldn’t let you move into a client-facing role, so what did you do?’

Epoch was knocked slightly off-balance, but tried not to show it.  The depth of Nero’s personal interest surprised him.  ‘I blackmailed him.’

‘Caught him whoring around, took some photos, threatened to go to his wife … and suddenly you were a Client Service Associate.’

‘Led me to my next employer.’

‘Working with the miners, yeah, where you drifted from job, to job, to job.’

‘Gathering experience.’

‘Yeah, you got some of that.  But you never really settled, never really trusted anyone.’

‘You’d have trust issues too if you saw the way some of these guys operate.  They think scruples is just the name of a board game.  Why do I feel like I’m a guest on This Is Your Life?’

‘Because I want you to understand, this isn’t a casual offer I’m making you, I’ve put a lot of time and thought into this.  I’ve done plenty of background checking, and while you don’t have the cleanest history, that doesn’t concern me because I don’t want a clean history.  Dirt adds character.  I want someone I can relate to, someone I can understand.  For example, take the grenade you’re carrying in your jacket pocket — I know why you’re carrying it, but I don’t think you’d try to use it, not here.’

Epoch wobbled under a sudden flash of panic: could his heart beat hard enough to dislodge the firing pin?’How can you be sure?  I mean, if I’m disturbed enough to bring it with me in the first place, then is it that much of a stretch to think I might pull the pin?  I could be a desperate and panicked individual.’

‘You don’t sound too desperate and panicked.’

‘I hide it well.  But really, I come to a meeting with a grenade in my pocket and you still want to hire me?’  Epoch glanced around as he said it to see if anyone’s ears pricked up, but sitting at a table with Nero was like sitting in a soundproof bubble — patrons and staff went out of their way not to hear what was being said.

Nero shrugged.  ‘I’ve done similar things myself before, once or twice.  Once in a roomful of Special Forces commandos.  Ha!  Mind you, they were all high as fuck, so I did hold the advantage.’

Epoch had another sip of his beer, his hand naturally steady this time, and tried to imagine a career with Nero.  ‘When would I start, in this role?’

‘Right away,’ Nero said.

‘Can I take a day to think about it?’

Nero smiled and shrugged, letting him know he wasn’t offended.  ‘Take two if you like.’

Nero finished up his beer in an unbroken three-gulp swallow and left, citing an appointment with a man about a dog, and Epoch stayed at the table sipping his way through the second half of his schooner, contemplating doom and fortune.  When Nero left, he took the protective buffer with him, his own personal force-field, and Epoch found himself suddenly more crowded, groups of three and four men eyeing him aggressively for his table.  If he stayed where he was for much longer there’d be a confrontation, which might lead to a fight; everyone in town was on edge, and punches were thrown around as often as greetings.