The Amber Trail (7 page)

Jake lay on the bed with his hand
propped up and wrapped in a bandage. His eyes were puffy; he was
still groggy from the operation. “Mum I told you,” he croaked. “I
was washing out the fermentation tank and the lid dropped down on
my hand. By the time I could think straight enough to realise my
finger was gone, it had washed down the drain with the rest of the
liquid.”

“
So what did the
doctors do?”

Dig sat beside Jake on a plastic
chair. “They cleaned it up and closed the wound with some skin from
his thigh. That’s the best they could do in the
circumstance.”

Jake cleared his throat. “They
should’ve taken the skin from the couple of toes I’ve got webbed
together. You know, sort out the Buckley deformity while they were
at it.”

Genetic advancement,
Dig
thought.

“
You poor thing.” She
stepped forward to brush the hair away from Jake’s eyes. “Well at
least you’re still in one piece.” Her cheeks blushed pink. “I
mean...that you are
okay
.” She dropped her head and
straightened the sheets of Jake’s bed.

Jake rolled his eyes and stared
at the wall.

“
You boys have got to
be more careful,” she continued. “I don’t want any more surprises
right now, or I just might have...a nervous breakdown or
something.” She finished rearranging the sheets and looked back to
Jake. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“
Could you ask about
some more pain relief?”

“
No problem,” she
said, patting his free hand. “I’ll get a nurse.” She turned and
walked out of the room.

Dig scratched at his ear. “How’re
you feeling then?”

“
Been
better.”

He took a glance out to the
corridor. “Should we at least
consider
getting the cops
involved?”

“
And hide for the
rest of our lives? Not likely. Even if we caught those guys we’d be
waiting for more to turn up. And I get the feeling the cops might
be interested in those packages Dad gave them over the last few
years.”

Dig shook his head. “What about
swapping the hops? Or we try to make a better beer?”

“
We can't change the
recipe. The contracts are for Buckley's Chance, nothing else. And
Dad mixed up crap recipes for twenty years before getting it right.
We don’t have a hope in trying another one.”

Dig leaned back in his seat and
hooked his hands behind his head. “There must be a way to sort this
out.”

“
There’s no way.
We’re screwed, that’s all there is to it. I don’t know what kind of
arrangement Dad had with those gangsters, but whatever it was, it’s
gone. And as soon as our hop supplies run out, Buckley’s Chance
will die as well—and take the whole brewery down with it.” Jake
sighed. “I think we need to tell Mum.”

“
No.” Dig folded his
arms. “Not yet. Just give me a day to think about it.”

When he returned home, Dig headed
to the brewery office. He dropped into the revolving metal chair
and spun himself around, thinking.

They were stuck between two bad
options. If they accepted the current situation and tried to
continue on, the brewery faced certain ruin. All their major
contracts relied on the imported hops, and if those contracts
defaulted, there would be no turning the business
around.

Alternatively, they could try to
salvage a working relationship with a bunch of people who seemed
not only intentionally mysterious, but downright
psychotic.

Dig sighed, then turned his
attention to the desk in front of him. The dusty desktop computer
sat against the wall. A plastic in-tray sat beside it, filled with
a messy pile of papers. Dig lifted the top piece of paper from the
tray—an invoice for cardboard packaging. He placed it to one side
and continued through the pile. He found what he was looking for
about halfway through the papers, and held the crumpled page up to
the light.

He leaned back in the seat,
invoice in hand, and spun around again in a slow revolution while
he considered his options. After a few moments, he returned his
attention to the paper and studied the details in the top
corner.

Phone: (+91) 09 242
641559

Dig glanced to the phone sitting
in its cradle, then reached out and picked it up. The hum of a dial
tone droned in his ear. He checked the invoice and punched the
numbers into the keypad.

After a few clicks and hisses, a
muffled ring echoed down the line. It rang a few times before it
was answered.

“
Hello,” said a voice
in an unmistakable Indian accent.  

“
Oh hello,” Dig said.
“I was wondering if I could speak to Max please.”

There was a pause. “Yes, this is
Max.”

“
Oh hi. My name’s Dig
Buckley. I think that you may know...um...may have
known
my
father, Shaun Buckley?”

The hush of static filled the
line. “What is the purpose of your call?”

“
Well, I’m guessing
you already know this, but we had some bad news this week regarding
my father. He was involved in an accident and has died.”

A pause. “Yes.”

“
Well, my brother and
I are trying to pick up the areas of the business my father
controlled, including delivery of materials such as your hops. We
had a meeting with one of your guys this week, a guy called Shiv.
Does that sound right?”

There was no answer.

“
Look, I don’t know
if you’ve heard yet, but unfortunately our meeting with Shiv didn’t
go too well. I’m calling to try to put that meeting behind us, and
continue our previous hop supply arrangement from your
company.”

The static crackled in the line,
and ran for an uncomfortably long period of time.  

“
Max?” Dig said. “You
there?”

“
Don’t ring here
again,” said the voice. The line clicked, and the monotonous pulse
of the engaged signal filled his ear.

“
Crap!” Dig stared at
the phone for a few moments, then checked the invoice and punched
the numbers into the keypad again. The phone rang with three long
rings, before the line dropped immediately into the engaged
tone.

“
Crap, Crap, Crap!”
Dig slammed the phone back into its cradle. He
kicked
away from the desk, and the chair rolled
across the room.

He tried to ring four more times
that day. The first three times the line went dead before he had a
chance to say a word. The fourth time he rang as a hidden number on
his mobile phone, but when the phone was finally answered, he only
got out the word “Hello?” before the line went dead once
again.

His mother found him the next
morning, sitting back in the office chair, staring at the ceiling.
He held the invoice in his hand
. The
computer screen glowed bright in front of him.

“
Here you
are.”

Dig took an intake of breath and
turned quickly at her voice. Bags hung under his red eyes. “Oh,” he
said. “You scared me.”

She folded her arms. “You’ve been
in here all night?”

“
Something like
that.”

She frowned. “Well it’s time you
came out. I’m going back to see Jake. You coming?”

Dig stretched and yawned, then
nodded.

They didn’t speak on the way into
the hospital. His mother drove with her head tilted to one side and
a small plastic container balanced on her lap. Dig stared forward
at the road.

When they arrived, they found
Jake lying flat on his back, his head propped up with two pillows,
staring up at a small television bolted to the ceiling. His face
was covered in stubble and his hair was greasy. He glanced at them
as they entered, then returned
his
attention
to the low hum of the screen.

“
Hi Jake. How are you
doing?” Dig’s mother said in a soothing tone.

He gave a small shrug.

She pulled a seat to the side of
the bed and sat down. Dig stood inside the doorway. “I have a
present.” She handed him the plastic container. “I made you some
biscuits.”

Jake glanced at the container
with a blank look. “Thanks.”  

“
So how is
the...hand?”

“
Sore.” He looked
back up at the television.

“
Oh you poor thing.
Don’t worry, we’ll get you home soon, and you can have a solid rest
for a few days to recuperate.” She reached out and tried to adjust
Jake’s hair, but he ducked away from her reach. “And don’t worry,
Dig can run the brewery till you’re back on your feet. I might even
get in there and help a bit. What do you think Dig? Want me to haul
a few sacks of barley to help get things moving?”

“
Humph,” Jake said,
his eyes not leaving the screen. “Not likely.”

“
Come on. It’s not
all that bad.”

Jake raised his eyebrows at Dig,
and Dig dropped his gaze to the floor. The voice of the television
news anchor-man chattered in the background, discussing the
previous night’s cricket score.

“
Mum,” Jake said.
“We’ve got something important we need to tell you.”
 

Her eyebrows furrowed as she
looked back and forth between her sons. “What?” she said. “What is
it?” Her hand grasped tightly at the strap of her purse.

Jake sighed. “Mum, it looks
like—”

“
That I’m going to
India,” Dig interjected.

They turned to stare at
him.

Dig stood stiffly. “Yes,” he said
as he scratched at his neck. “I’m going to India...to meet up with
our hop suppliers. Nothing to worry about, just a face-to-face to
maintain the business relationship now Dad isn’t about.”

“
Oh,” said Dig’s
mother. “That’s...interesting news.”

Jake pursed his lips. “Yes,” he
said. “Very interesting.” He pushed himself upright in the bed.
“Mum? Would you mind getting me a good coffee from downstairs? The
stuff they serve here is shit.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she looked
back and forth between her sons. “Everything alright?”

“
Of course,” Jake
rubbed his ear. “Just need a good caffeine fix, that’s
all.”

She sighed and walked out of the
room.

Jake waited until the click clack
of her heels had receded far enough down the hall before speaking.
“You’re kidding right?” he whispered.

“
No.”

“
But that guy's a
lunatic!”

“
Yes,” Dig said. “But
he isn’t the one who runs the operation—this Max character does. If
I can just talk to him, then maybe we can sort this problem
out.”

“
Not going to
happen.”

Dig raised his eyebrows. “Oh
okay
,” he said, walking forward to the edge of Jake’s bed.
“Then let’s just tell Mum that after one week of taking over the
brewery that we’ve managed to ground it to a halt and push it into
bankruptcy...and oh, by the way Mum, you better start packing up
your stuff—as you won’t have the house much longer
either!”

Jake’s head dropped. “Well if
you're so keen to talk to this Max guy, then why don’t you just
ring him?”

Dig swallowed. “I did. And he
keeps hanging up on me...but before you say anything, I think that
if I can just get a chance to meet him face-to-face, and explain
things calmly, then we might just be able to turn things
around.”

“
Have you ever
considered that maybe we don’t
want
to turn things around?
Dad apparently told you the
deal is off
. Why the hell would
he say that? Why would he intentionally destroy the one beer that
keeps the brewery ticking?”

Dig pushed his hands into his
pockets. “Yes, I was thinking about that last night. And no, I
can’t understand it.” He bit at his lip. “But you know, maybe he
was delusional and didn’t know what he was saying...”

Jake’s voice raised an octave.
“Maybe he was
delusional
? Now you suddenly doubt your
spectacular deathbed confession?”