Roll With It (15 page)

Cecy was right beside him. ‘I’m sorry. Did I shock you? What sort of dreams do you have, Rocket?’

‘Takes more than that to shock me, unfortunately, after some of the human behaviour I’ve seen over the years, including my own.’

‘Do you dream?’

‘I actually have the same one, over and over. An old police friend of mine, Flipper, and I are in the Soggies and the guy I shot, Coleman, is shooting at us. I’m yelling at him to stop, that I don’t want to kill him again but he just keeps firing.’

‘So what happens?’

‘He keeps shooting so I kill him.’

They were past the Woolworths. All quiet.

‘Wow,’ Cecy said. ‘Then you wake up?’

‘No,’ Laver said, pulling off the road and swinging a creaking leg over the bar of his bike. ‘I used to, after his dead body opened its eyes and looked straight at me. But now he keeps on firing and kills me as well. The dream’s not over until we’re both dead.’

Wondering if he should mention the ghostly form of Coleman in his apartment most nights. Deciding against it. ‘Want a drink?’

‘We just had a coffee.’

‘We’ve ridden at least two hundred metres since then. I want a water.’

‘Where’s your water bottle?’

‘Those things look unhygienic. I prefer pure water from plastic bottles.’

Cecy sighed. ‘No wonder I barely work up a sweat when I ride with you.’

He thought about crossing the road to the 7-Eleven, but then wondered if they’d have water in the Soul Food Café.

***

No sign of the hot waiter, Lou realised as they came through the door. There was the chick with the shaved head and the nose ring, and the other waitress Lou was pretty sure she’d seen playing in a band at the Tote a few weeks ago. She was in stripey stockings and a T-shirt, looking sexy. Lou smiled to herself at Jake’s reaction, his eyes almost falling out of his head at how the T-shirt barely covered the waitress’s butt.

They got a table by the wall, Lou sitting on the bench seat and Jake taking a chair, his back to the coffee machine. Jake fascinated by the guy at the next table, with a twirly moustache and a red jacket like Michael Jackson used to wear. He looked like he was out of a circus. The café wall had flowers painted on it and a huge woman’s face painted in yellow on the ceiling. The room ran deep, with lamps and couches and maybe a bar down the back. There were no cafés like this in Kew, that was for sure.

The waitress with the shaved head came over, and Lou noticed she had a tattoo of flowers snaking from the back of her neck to under her ear; the big new thing in town. It looked okay. Lou ordered a strong latte. Jake went for a hot chocolate.

‘How’s that whole vegan thing going for you?’ Lou asked.

‘Good,’ Jake said. ‘Why?’

‘You just ordered a hot chocolate.’

‘Yeah.’ Jake was still checking out the people at the other tables like he was in a zoo.

‘Never mind. So, these stickers?’

‘Yep,’ said Jake, tuning back in and looking slightly startled.

‘You’ve been working on this idea for a while, huh?’

‘Oh months,’ he said. ‘It’s frustrating watching people grab the brands that are so bad for the environment and not do anything about it.’

‘Like which brands?’

‘Huh?’

‘Which brands are you thinking of specifically?’

Jake waved a hand. ‘Oh, you know … some of the washing powders. Detergents. That tissue company that is right into wood-chipping the Otway forest.’

She nodded. ‘OzSoft.’

‘Yeah, that one,’ he said, leaning to his right as the waitress delivered his hot chocolate and placed a latte in front of Lou, who was still weighing up whether this guy, middle class and largely clueless, was for real.

‘So, how serious are you about this idea of yours, Jake?’

‘Oh, very. I really want to do it. If I don’t try to make a difference where I can, I hate myself. Anyway, mine’s a pretty meaningless job if you don’t look for worthwhile aspects, and this is one.’

Lou made her decision. ‘I think you should put the whole thing down on paper – recycled paper too, Jake. Don’t mess this up with Rachel through clumsiness.’

‘Who’s Rachel?’ he said, looking confused.

‘The manager of Friends of the Planet. Pay attention. I’ll have a read of the proposal first, to see if it’s in language and a format that she’d like, and then maybe we could present it together.’

‘You’d do that? Present it with me?’

‘Sure. I deliberately left the suburbs behind because I couldn’t handle how apathetic, how uncaring your average person out there was about the environment. So many plants and fauna and species going out of existence every day, the rainforests still being mowed down in Brazil and elsewhere, and bastard companies still testing cosmetics and shit like that on animals. It makes me sick. And the thought of getting something going in the heart of a middle-class suburb like Heidelberg is very exciting – if you can convince your boss to do it.’

‘Oh, I’m sure I can. Don’t even think about that.’ Jake’s eyes darted nervously. ‘It will be totally fine.’

Lou sipped her coffee. ‘So, what’s the wording on the stickers going to be?’

‘I wanted to talk to you about that.’ He leaned forward. ‘Do you have any ideas?’

‘Oh, plenty,’ she said, glancing up as the café door opened. And then forgot all about stickers.

At first the two tall, tanned men were framed by the bright sunshine outside. But now she could see them. One with bright-orange hair, a thick beard and thick, blocky tattoos; a circus freak, but huge. The other, buff and tanned in a singlet, somebody she recognised in an instant, just by the way he moved. Somebody who’d thrilled her and then disappeared literally overnight. Somebody who even now gave the bad-girl side of her a surge, at the same moment that the loyal Friends of the Planet employee felt pure rage.

Jake, seeing her face change, turned to look at who she was looking at. Physically startling as he saw the big redhead but then, worse, realising the other guy in the singlet was the one who’d scared Bindi at the Friends of the Planet. Who was now smiling at Lou like a cat that’s found the mouse out of its hole.

A predatory smile was Jake’s first thought.

Lou’s arms folded across her chest as Stig said, ‘Well, look who it is. Louie, Louie.’

Louie not saying a word, just staring at him and past him to Wildie.

‘This wild man is a friend of mine,’ Stig said. ‘A buddy from up north. I thought he might like to meet you.’

‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ she said.

‘Oh babe, don’t be like that. We’re lovers, remember.’

Watching the pudgy-faced kid she was with digest that and trying not to laugh. Stig slid onto the bench, sidling right up to Louie’s hip so she could feel his heat, as Wildie took a chair from another table and sat down next to the kid, staring straight at him.

‘Mind if we join you? Catch up for old time’s sake.’ Stig gave her a big smile. ‘You’re still looking fantastic, Louie, although I’m not sure about the new hair.’

‘I don’t want to talk to you. You should be across the road, talking to Rachel about those funds that mysteriously disappeared about the same time you left Friends of the Planet.’

‘Now don’t be like that. I haven’t seen you for ages, and you go straight to unsubstantiated rumours.’

Wildie moved in his seat and grinned. ‘Mate, something you didn’t tell me about?’

‘Nothing to tell. A misunderstanding, I guess.’

‘Bullshit,’ said Louie, arms still tight across that great chest of hers.

‘Why don’t you play nice, hottie?’ Wildie said. ‘We’re a lot more fun to be around if you’re not so hostile.’

‘And your new best friend threatens strangers. Charming.’ Louie’s voice rising.

‘Oh geez, babe, relax,’ Stig said. ‘I didn’t remember you being this uptight.’ Now looking at the guy sitting across from her, dwarfed by the Wild Man – physically and in sheer presence. He was sitting frozen, staring at his cooling mug of hot chocolate.

‘Who’s your little buddy, Louie?’ Stig asked. ‘You got a new boyfriend?’

‘None of your business,’ Louie said. The kid looking at her in surprise as she didn’t deny it.

Leaving Stig to ask the kid directly, ‘Where do you fit in, fella?’

But the kid only looked at him and swallowed, as though contemplating speech and failing. Jesus, thought Stig. Louie has dropped her standards.

He was about to suggest that Wildie and this kid, whoever he was, go for a wander, leaving him and Louie for a few minutes so they could get reacquainted, when Wildie, looking towards the door, hissed ‘Stig’ and he saw the look on Wildie’s face.

Lou did too, watching Stig and the big guy turn to stone, their faces turning insolent and blank, as a cop dressed in cycling gear materialised from the blinding sun of the café door. Lou thinking the guy looked slightly ridiculous in lycra shorts and shirt. He had the wrong haircut and somehow the wrong face for the look.

The cop had his back to them as he asked if he could buy bottled water there. Then asked if, in that case, he could maybe trouble them for a glass of tap water? Thanking the chick behind the counter.

***

It’s funny how a glance is all you need, Laver thought. You just had to relax and let your brain remember the details. Four people. Three men and a girl with coloured hair. No read on the girl, but the guy opposite her, a guy who didn’t fit, looking scared. The other two giving Laver the look only criminals give police. One, bearded and orange hair. The other, tan and lean. Both big. Both thirty, give or take.

Laver’s spider sense going haywire from the moment he heard a word whispered as he came through the door. Was it ‘Cig?’ The two men stiffening. He was feeling eyes on his back now. Who were they and what was going on? A drug deal? The other two at the table didn’t feel right for that.

Laver sipped his water and turned around.

The guy against the wall was looking at him and now looked away, doing it at a careful pace. The bigger guy, with orange hair, like fairy floss on his head, hunched, turning his back to Laver.

He wandered over to the table. They were all staring at him, except orange-hair who very deliberately wasn’t. The kid next to orange-hair pale. The girl not much better.

‘How you all doing?’ Laver said. ‘Great day out there.’

Silence.

‘Everything okay here, people?’

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ It was the guy against the wall, in the singlet. Who Laver now knew was the leader.

‘Just making conversation. You nervous?’

‘Why would I be?’ That dead-eyed stare. Laver wondering, do they have classes among crooks to learn it?

‘No idea. What’s your name, son?’

Laver seeing his eyes burn on the word ‘son’, but the guy holding it together. Saying, ‘Do you mind, officer? I just hit town and I’m trying to catch up with my girlfriend here.’

‘Good for you,’ Laver said happily. ‘Is that right, Miss?’

The girl nodding. Looking at her coffee.

Laver saying to the guy, ‘You didn’t give me your name.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

Laver giving him his own dead-eye cop stare before glancing to the younger guy with the silly hat down the end of the table. ‘How are you, mate? All good?’

The kid swallowing and nodding. The girl still staring at her coffee. Now taking a sip.

Laver taking his time. ‘Mind if I pull up a chair? I’ve been riding for hours.’

‘You’re fucking kidding, aren’t ya?’ said orange-hair, finally giving Laver a glance, but getting a harsh look from his mate.

Laver saying to orange-hair, ‘They prison tatts, buddy?’

The other guy getting up, saying, ‘We’re actually on our way, so you can have the table. Catch you later, Louie. I’ll drop by.’

‘How about you don’t?’ said the girl.

Orange-hair was on his feet as well. Big, now he was standing. Very big. Laver sipping his water as they left. Noticing the dweeby guy exhale. Watching how the girl gave it a few moments before she said, ‘Let’s talk about this later, Jake,’ went to the counter and paid the bill. She asked if she could borrow a pen, scribbled something and walked back over to their table, handing a slip of paper to Jake. ‘My number. For the project.’

Then she was at the door, checking the street before she left.

Laver and the dweeb now alone. Laver saying, ‘Who were those guys, Jake?’

Jake, staring at the magical piece of paper in his hand, saying, ‘I have no idea. I think they’re hippies.’

‘Hippies? They didn’t look or act much like hippies. You don’t know their names?’

Jake shook his head. ‘Nope. And I’m happy if it stays that way.’

Laver finishing his water and thinking, well, that makes one of us.

He headed into the sunshine, where Cecy was staring off down the street.

‘Eleven ball. Corner pocket.’

Laver missed the shot and cursed – but not too loudly. The pub was almost empty, with only a few diehard early drinkers nursing their glasses.

Mitchell Dolfin scowled and tilted his head as he surveyed the table, then leaned over his cue and doubled the four ball into the middle pocket.

Laver nodded his admiration and sipped his beer.

‘Flipper, how big a role do you think intuition plays in police work?’