Roll With It (14 page)

‘He has people in this town too, Wildie, for Christ’s sake.’ Stig was reading and frowning. ‘The article even says the car was found nearby where another was taken. A perfect description of the car right outside this house, Wildie. Now we have to get rid of it and get a new one.’

The Wild Man winced slightly as he died on-screen. ‘It’ll give us something to do. You didn’t tell me this would be such a boring process.’

‘I didn’t know it would take this long – but it’s all the more reason why we have to lay low, mate.’

The Wild Man sat patiently as another digital hero appeared on the TV screen, ready for battle. Stig sighed.

‘Wildie, can you try to stay off the nightly news for me? Just for a day or so? Could you do that for me, mate? Please? … Fuck!’

The next time Wildie failed a level they got out of there, just to see daylight and feel air on their faces – and to get a new car that wasn’t the subject of an assault inquiry. The Wild Man drove and they headed to Northland shopping centre, finding a decent silver Commodore near the back of the multi-level parking bay.

‘Perfect,’ Stig said. ‘The four A’s. Anonymous, Air conditioning. Air bags and A bit of grunt.’

Wildie had the car revving inside of thirty seconds. Stig, jittery, got in, taking the first toke on a joint. Offered some to Wildie, who shook his head. ‘I thought you were keeping your head clear for this deal.’

‘Yeah, but the waiting is shitting me. Need to stay calm.’

‘Don’t get too calm,’ Wildie said. ‘I want my cut fast and I want out of this city.’

As they drove back, they detoured to Fitzroy and grabbed hamburgers at a place Stig didn’t remember from before, called Grill’d. Good burgers that beat McDonald’s all ends up.

Back in the car, Stig drove and took a quick detour into Gore Street. About a hundred metres along, he drove slowly past a double-storey terrace with Buddhist peace flags fluttering across the front and a few old bikes scattered around the porch. The house was completely dark.

‘Looking for a root, mate?’ asked Wildie.

‘Something like that.’

‘Is this place a brothel? I’ve noticed a few in Fitzroy.’

‘No, it’s not a brothel. Old girlfriend.’

‘Even better. Comes for free. We could always hit a singles night down on King Street.’

‘We’re facing enough danger already, mate, without getting suicidal,’ Stig said.

They headed back onto Brunswick Street and turned north, Wildie unusually quiet – not attempting to put on the usual hip hop CD, just staring out the window – until he said, ‘You know how you said Jenssen had people in town.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Why don’t we offer the stuff to them?’

Stig drove for a while. ‘Offer the gear to Jenssen? Is that what you’re actually suggesting?’

‘No, fuckwad. Offer the gear to Jenssen’s bloke in Melbourne. As a side deal. It’s a different thing.’

Now Stig was thinking about it. ‘But if he makes the call north, we’re dead and buried.’

‘But if he doesn’t, the gear goes into the usual distribution channels, we get paid and he gets a larger cut than usual because he doesn’t have to send any of it north.’

Stig shook his head slowly. ‘It’s bloody risky.’

‘And which part of this wasn’t, since we left the bodies in the car?’

Stig had to think about that. The Wild Man had a point.

***

Stig was ringing from a payphone – nothing that could be easily traced. Almost two states away to the north, the phone rang. He could see it: one of those old white Telstra-issue handsets sitting next to the sunny window that looked out on a panoramic sweep along the coast, including the headland of Byron Bay.

She answered on the fifth ring.

‘It’s me,’ he said.

‘Oh my God.’

‘Can you talk?’

‘Of course. God. I couldn’t believe you were really dead. Where are you?’

‘Perth,’ Stig answered.

‘Should I come to you?’

‘Not yet. I have a few things to do first. Has Jenssen been in touch?’

‘Of course. He rang to say he was sorry you were dead but after that, there wasn’t much to say.’

‘So he bought it?’

‘Sure. Why wouldn’t he? We all did. Even me, you bastard.’

She sounded as though she was on the brink of crying.

‘Babe, I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell you. The less who know, the better. I promise I’ll make it up to you. In a big way.’

‘I’m so glad you’re alive. I’m just glad you’re alive.’

‘And kicking, Sophie. Listen, just sit tight. Wildie and I weren’t the only thing that got out of that car in one piece. Let me make the most of that and when I can, I’ll send for you, okay? It goes without saying that you don’t say a fucking word in the meantime.’

‘How dumb do you think I am? Jenssen would have my arse too, Stig.’

‘Yes, he would. I’ll be in touch, okay?’

‘Sure …’

Silence stretched down the line until she said, ‘Jesus, babe.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. But it will be worth it. I promise. Love you.’

‘Love you too, honey,’ she said.

Stig hung up.

And so did Sophie.

Sitting in the sunshine, wrapped in a towel, gazing down on Byron and smoking a home-made rollie, the scent of marijuana drifting through the room, Karl Jenssen said: ‘Where is he?’

‘Melbourne,’ Sophie said, reaching for the joint. ‘I heard a tram in the background, the stupid fuck.’

The Friends of the Planet door clanged as usual. Jake could
never get used to those bells that hung off it, crashing into the glass. It took him a moment of steadying them with his hand before he looked around – and there she was, sitting behind the counter, watching him with one thin eyebrow raised over those amazing grey eyes.

‘Nice entrance, Jeff,’ Lou said.

‘Jake.’

‘Oh sorry. Jake. I’ve always been crap with names.’

‘It’s okay. We hardly know each other,’ he said, feeling himself blushing for no apparent reason. ‘I really like that T-shirt,’ he stammered to divert her attention, pointing randomly at the shirts hanging over her head.

Lou turned and gazed at the shirt before reading, deadpan: ‘“Abortion is murder. Hang them high.” Really? You love that one?’

‘Umm, the one next to it,’ Jake said weakly. ‘“Vegan future. Valid future.”’

‘You’re a vegan?’

‘You bet,’ Jake said, thinking he might have been wrong about the Star Trek connection. He’d really better look up that term. ‘So, um, we were talking about a coffee to discuss my idea. Is there a day that would be good, you know, for you and everything?’

Lou stood up and swung her arms behind her head, her chest straining against her shirt before his eyes as she stretched and yawned. ‘What about now?’

‘Now?’ Jake was trying to look anywhere but at the two undone buttons of her shirt. He’d taken a late lunch break to come here, hoping to catch her when she wasn’t busy – but this he hadn’t expected.

‘Yeah, I’ve got cabin fever. Warren is in the back somewhere. He can keep an eye on things. HEY WAZZA? CAN YOU MIND THE DESK FOR A BIT?’

‘Sure,’ came a voice from the kitchen area.

Jake looked at all the empty tables and chairs in the café section at the front of the shop. ‘You don’t want to just grab a coffee here?’

Lou was already at the front door. ‘Nah, I need to get out.’ Then she leaned in, smelling of something Jake couldn’t quite grasp – soap? sandalwood? – and whispered, her breath thrilling his neck, ‘Plus the organic coffee they serve in here is nothing but weak mud.’

What she didn’t mention was the guy who worked behind the counter at Soul Food, a café just down the street on the other side of the road. He and Lou had been appraising one another for a while. Turning up with another man, even one as dodgy as this supermarket geek, would keep counter boy guessing.

Blissfully ignorant of all this, Jake walked tall down Smith Street in his kick-arse hat, his cool T-shirt and streetwise jeans, accompanied by the hottest hippie chick on the planet. His heart soared. When one of the ever-present Smith Street desperados shuffled up, yelling that she needed three dollars for a fare to Ballarat, Jake gave the woman a five-dollar note. He was living large.

They managed to avoid being killed by a tram as they crossed the street and headed for the Soul Food Café: All organic. All the time.

***

Stig stopped to check out some vintage footy jumpers in the window of a collectables shop. One looked a lot like the guernsey he had worn as a junior playing for Yarraville in the Western Region Football League, just after the club fell out of the VFA. The Mighty Villains, as the club had once been known. Now he’d heard they were the Eagles, combined with bloody Seddon. Footy wasn’t the same.

The Wild Man was checking out the shop assistant in a clothes shop: spectacular legs ruined by leggings cut off at the calves, which seemed to be the fashion in Melbourne, but made no sense to a Queenslander. Either wear leggings or let bare legs do their thing. The girl caught Wildie looking and gave him a stare, then grimaced when the Wild Man slowly grabbed his crotch and thrust in her direction.

They continued along Smith Street, Stig planning to scope Friends of the Planet in search of his old girlfriend. But then, shit: there she was, right in front of him, weaving through the traffic and hurrying to get out of the way of a tram, maybe a hundred metres down the street. Stig took a half-step into a doorway to look at her. Damn, did she do justice to his memories. She still had that body, even if she insisted on wrapping it in tie-dyed dresses and mottled stockings, her hair held back by what looked like a crocheted headband. No doubt about those tits though, swinging under a half-buttoned shirt. And the legs had lost nothing in his time away. Stig had a lot of fond memories of being tangled amongst those legs. And still well groomed, under the hippie façade, he’d bet. Louie’s shocking secret: she hadn’t fully bought into the hairy, unwashed greenie scene. But you had to make it to her bed to find out.

What Stig couldn’t believe was the dweeb she was walking with. Some nerd in a ridiculous hat, kind of shuffling to keep up with her, and wearing black business shoes with jeans. He was saying something and she laughed, but politely, not with much enthusiasm. And then they were gone, stepping through the door of the Soul Food Café.

‘Hey Wildie,’ Stig said. ‘You want to meet my girlfriend?’

‘Isn’t she your ex-girlfriend?’ The Wild Man replied.

‘Only until she sees me again. Come and meet Louie.’

***

‘Admit it,’ Cecy said. ‘You’re enjoying yourself.’

‘That’s a big call,’ Laver replied as they cruised east along Gertrude Street.

‘You know you are.’ Cecy just behind his shoulder as they rode. ‘The sun’s out, you’ve had some good coffee, you spent half an hour checking out some industrial design shops, you got to read the paper cover to cover.’

‘I call it quality police work.’

‘You even look like riding isn’t such an ordeal anymore.’

‘I have to admit, my arse is only hurting me badly today, not absolutely killing me.’

‘Thanks for sharing,’ she said.

‘And my legs are feeling better. The sun helps. But I’m not sure I’d go all the way to “enjoying myself”.’

‘Keep telling yourself that. Be so much more fun sitting at a desk at St Kilda Road, drinking instant coffee, sleep-deprived, trawling paper records, looking for white-collar crime.’

‘Is that what you think my life used to be like?’ he said, swinging around in the saddle to look at her – and then almost running into a door swung open by an oblivious woman getting out of her car.

Heart pounding, he concentrated on where he was riding for a bit but then admitted, ‘Actually, that was a fair chunk of most days. I’d be gagging to be out in the sunshine on a day like this.’

‘Well, there you go.’ Cecy sounding dangerously close to smug.

‘Except for the pointless and futile nature of the work,’ he added.

‘Jesus,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘The example you set.’

They turned left onto Smith Street and Cecy said, ‘I had the weirdest dream last night.’

‘You were a real cop who got to ride around in cars?’

‘No, I was at a rock concert and I had to fight my way to the stage because my band was on.’

‘What was the band called?’

‘The Theatre of Cruelty.’

‘Good name,’ Laver said. ‘Is that an actual band?’

‘No idea. It was just in my head.’

Laver, thinking he’d have to mention it to Damian, continued: ‘So then what? You played the gig?’

‘No, I realised that I had to arrest the lead singer. I had to arrest him for a whole bunch of minor offences, the sort you learn at the academy by the hour but in the real world, they don’t matter at all.’

Laver laughed. ‘Attagal. The Chief Commissioner would be proud of you. So did you make the arrest?’

‘No. The lead singer turned out to be a giant, some kind of South American gangster about twice my size. He sort of waddled towards me and the crowd was chanting for me to give him a head job on stage. I could either arrest him or go down on him, and I couldn’t work out which I should do.’

‘Jesus, Cecy.’ Laver had no idea how to respond to that, instead turning his attention to check whether the usual gang of crazies were behaving themselves in front of the Woolworths. He wasn’t in the mood to tackle hobos or drunks.