A Dash of Reality

by Murray, Lee

  ‘The thing is, Janeen, I’m going to need a gown for the gala.’

  ‘Nah, you won’t have to buy a gown yourself. Sportzgirl will dress you.’

  ‘Well, yeees,’ I say, ‘but Annalise will be in charge.’ I look into the bottom of my empty corrugated cup.

  ‘Oh, I see. And you don’t fancy looking like Lady Gaga?’ I pull a wry smile.

  She sighs deeply. ‘The things I do. When is it then?’

  52

  Still groggy, I swipe the sleep from my eyes and clamber across the still-warm space where Jack would be if he hadn’t already left for his cycle with Shane. I check the too-neon digits of the alarm. 6:13am! Who’d be ringing Jack’s place at this hour?

  ‘Hullo?’

  ‘Mel?’

  ‘Janeen?’ In an instant, I’m fully awake. ‘What is it? Is it Caro?’

  ‘No, it’s not Caro. She’s fine. She’s at my mum’s. It’s me. Can you come right now?’ I sit upright. There’s urgency and an edge of desperation in Janeen’s voice. Still holding the phone, I throw off the duvet and swing my legs around to the floor.

  ‘Where are you? At Nandor’s? What’s his address?’

  ‘I’m at the police station, Mel. Monmouth Street.’

  It takes me exactly twelve and a half minutes to pull into the police station car park; two minutes to throw on my clothes and drag my hair into a rough ponytail, one minute to stuff my sockless feet into my running shoes without – Olaf-be-damned, this is an emergency – first untying the laces and a further four frenzied minutes searching for my blasted car keys which are under the newspaper on the kitchen bench, another minute to grab my sweatshirt and handbag, half a minute to back my car out Jack’s garage, and five minutes and one interminable traffic light to get here.

  I dash up the stairs and into Reception.

  ‘Janeen Stratford, please? I’m her Support Person.’ A hefty duty policeman, dark smudges under his eyes from what’s evidently been a long night, buzzes me in.

  He points his biro to a room off the corridor. ‘Through there.’

  Woefully overcrowded, the Monmouth Street station is slated for overhaul. Officers squeeze past each other through the narrow corridor, darting in and out of holding rooms. I’m reminded of a pantomime I once saw, a bedroom farce where one actor would leave the stage through one door just as the next actor appeared at another. I open the door of a tiny windowless waiting room and am almost bowled off my feet by my friend.

  Janeen.

  Flannelette Betty Boop pyjamas still visible under a voluminous brown blanket, Janeen looks as young and vulnerable as she did that first day in the Hepburn corridor. I hug her to me as she succumbs to the blubbers.

  ‘Mel! Thank goodness you’ve come. I didn’t know what else to do.’

  ‘Janeen, what’s going on? What’s happened?’

  ‘It was a raid, Mel!’

  ‘A raid?!’

  ‘A drugs raid!’ she wails. ‘I was snuggled up in bed at Nandor’s – it was only my third night staying over because we’d agreed to take things slowly – when suddenly the room lights up like a fucking fireworks display and the police are screaming on megaphones from outside telling us they have the place surrounded.’

  ‘Ohmigod! You must’ve been terrified.’ Janeen grabs my forearm, her nails biting into my skin.

  ‘Mel, at first I thought they must’ve got the wrong house. I mean, these things don’t happen in real life, do they? But I look over at Nandor and he looks like he’s seen a bloody ghost and, Mel, it occurs to me he doesn’t look surprised. He jumps up, shouts “Shiiiit!” and hightails it stark-naked out the back door, making for the ute. Leaving me there, like a bleeding stuffed toy. He didn’t get far though, did he? The police weren’t kidding when they said they had the place surrounded. I looked out the window and saw this tough officer handcuff him. Mel, it was awful. They were bellowing over the megaphones accusing him of being head of a major cannabis operation, and how they were confiscating the property including the outbuildings and their contents as evidence. Oh, Mel!’ she howls and I feel her shudder, ‘I’m such a fricking idiot!’

  ‘Hang on a minute, Janeen. Let’s not jump to any crazy conclusions, okay? In New Zealand a person is still innocent until proven guilty. Are you absolutely sure Nandor is involved? He does have other people working for him on the property. This doesn’t sound like the same Nandor you’ve been raving about for the last few months. Maybe this is all a misunderstanding? I realise it doesn’t look good, given the man took to his heels and ran, but maybe he panicked. It’s not as if you get woken up every morning by the sound of sirens, is it?’

  Janeen shakes her head emphatically. ‘Nooo! It’s true, Mel. I’ve seen the crop drying in the shed. Rows and rows of the stuff. I thought it was dried herbs: rosemary and bay leaves and coriander. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I can’t believe what a jerk I am, Mel. I was so taken in by him. He seemed so nice. I wanted him to be nice, you know?’

  ‘I know, honey, I know.’ I rock her until her shudders subside, and all the time I’m thinking the medieval practice of hanging drawing and quartering could still have some merit.

  After a while, Janeen calms down. I sit her down on a hard plastic chair and ask her if she’s already made a statement and if she knows how long it will be before they’ll let her go home.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she moans. ‘I’m here ‘helping the police with their enquiries.’ I think they suspect me, Mel. They must think I’m in on it, like I’m some sort of gangsta’s moll. What am I going to do?’ She’s working herself back into an agitated state, wringing her hands and rocking back and forth from the hip.

  ‘Do you want me to call Margaret and Len?’

  ‘No! Please don’t call them. Maybe they won’t have to know. It’ll kill them, Mel. All I’ve ever done my whole life is disappoint my parents.’

  ‘Don’t be silly! I’m sure…’

  ‘And there’s Caro. She’s sleeping over at their place. I don’t want Caro traumatised. I don’t want her to see her mother in a prison cell.’ She’s exaggerating. It’s a waiting room.

  ‘Please, Mel. Promise me you won’t call them.’

  ‘Okay. Wait here,’ I say masterfully. A superfluous command since, with the exception of the toilet, she isn’t supposed to go anywhere, but I hope my tone instils calm. ‘I’ll go and find out what’s going on.’ Janeen nods. Emotionally exhausted, she slumps back in the plastic chair. I give her a reassuring smile and slip out of the room.

  The hefty duty policeman tells me a detective will be through to speak to my friend as soon as she’s finished talking to Mr Saint-John. He buzzes me out so I can use the vending machine. What am I going to do? Janeen needs legal advice, and fast. The only person I know who works in law is Rob Dyson, a clerk of the court whose parents live in my building. I suspect Rob isn’t going to be much use here. I pull out my cell phone and call Marcus because I can’t think of anyone else. My stepfather isn’t too pleased to be woken at 7:30am on a Sunday, but when I tell him about Janeen’s circumstances he says he’ll get someone down here immediately. Then I text Jack. I don’t want him to come home and find I’ve cleared out. Things between us have been tense since I attended the book launch with Rico. I wouldn’t want him to jump to the wrong conclusions. The text sent, I get the officer to buzz me back in and carry the waxy cup of hot sludge through to Janeen. We sit down to wait.

  Half an hour passes and we’re still sitting here. My bottom’s uncomfortable on this pile-inducing plastic chair and poor Janeen’s been here longer than I have. And all because she fell in love with an outlaw. I bet no-one made Maid Marian wait for four torturous hours. Mind you, it doesn’t sound like Nandor has been robbing the rich to pay the poor either. Eight o’clock comes and goes. Mark and Scottie and the others will have left by now. Even though I have a perfectly legitimate excuse for not being there, I feel a twinge of guilt mingled with regret. I’m mulling over how odd it is to feel bad for not running when the
door opens and Janeen’s lawyer enters.

  It’s Pinstripe Type.

  Dressed this time in a darker pinstripe, polished black shoes and emanating a faint scent of soap and aftershave, he puts his briefcase on the table and opens it with deft, economical movement.

  ‘Ms Short. Good morning. I’m a friend of your father. I believe we may have met one afternoon at his Omokoroa home when you …when you…’ When I bared my bum to everyone in the entire universe is what he means to say. ‘Let’s see what we have here, shall we? How long have you been involved with Mr Saint John, Ms Stratford?’

  ‘About three months.’

  ‘And is your relationship of a business nature or more personal in nature?’

  ‘Well, it started out as a business relationship, but for the last few months Nandor and I’ve been seeing each other.’

  ‘So you live with Saint-John?’

  ‘No, no. I have my own house. I have a daughter. I’ve only been to Nandor’s three times.’

  Pinstripe Type skims the wad of documents he’s taken from his briefcase. ‘Yes, that appears to correlate with surveillance information the police have to hand. So you were not aware then, prior to this morning, that Saint-John has been engaged in any illegal activities? Were you aware the Oropi property where the raid occurred is the site of an extensive drug operation?’

  ‘No, of course not. I didn’t know anything about it,’ Janeen insists. ‘He told me he was an organic farmer. I thought he meant like Barbara and Tom on The Good Life.’

  ‘I’m sure Janeen knew nothing about it,’ I add quickly. ‘We did know Nandor was growing organic herbs, just not those kinds of herbs.’

  ‘Unfortunately, Mr Saint-John alleges it’s Ms Stratford here who instigated the cannabis operation. He says he simply fell in love with the wrong woman and was too enamoured to realise he was being led astray.’

  ‘What!!’ Janeen jumps to her feet, leans menacingly over the rickety table, and glowers at Pinstripe Type. The blanket falls to the floor and she’s a flaming ball of fire (albeit punctuated with Betty Boop motifs.) But killing the messenger isn’t going to help us here, so I pull her pyjama top from behind and drag her gently back onto her plastic chair.

  ‘Saint-John claims it was you, Ms Stratford, who masterminded the mainstream means of distributing the product.’ He holds up a tiny pouch made of sun-flowered cotton fabric and tied with a piece of lemon ribbon.

  ‘Do you recognise this packaging?’ he asks. I moan inwardly.

  ‘But I have receipts! I have bank records. I can prove I never received payment for anything other than those fabric packages! Believe me, I don’t know the first thing about distributing illegal substances.’ Janeen is sobbing now.

  Good thing Janeen was diligent enough to juggle polytech courses with baby gym. Right now, those study hours are paying off big time, because she’s been careful to make copies of all invoices made out to Nandor’s company, Oropi Organics. There are records of materials purchased from her suppliers. There’s a financial papertrail. Janeen reveals her secret password and Pinstripe Type calls up her online bank records on his laptop. We bite our fingernails as he studies the figures and after some time he leaves the room to talk to the detectives.

  Once again, Janeen and I are left waiting for what seems like a millennium. My stomach is starting to gurgle, but I can’t face the coffee-sludge from the vending machine, so I get up and dance a two-step back and forth across the tiny space. Finally, Pinstripe Type returns. The news is heart-warming. Too clever for his own good, Nandor has tried to hide his drug business in plain sight, taking advantage of government incentives for new businesses and claiming a hefty tax refund. Janeen’s paper trail provides essential evidence into the extent of his distribution network. If she will surrender her financial documents, she’s free to leave. Janeen is delirious with relief and wants to settle the fee immediately, but Pinstripe Type won’t hear of it.

  ‘A favour to Marcus,’ he says, waving away her gratitude. I feel a flash of appreciation for Marcus. He may be boring and uninspiring, but when the chips are down that same staidness guarantees a few accountants and lawyers in his entourage. Pinstripe Type closes his laptop, sheaths his pen, snaps his briefcase shut and leaves the room. As soon as the door closes, it reopens and a wide-shouldered female detective with a no-nonsense manner enters.

  ‘If you could sign the paperwork, Ms Stratford, you’ll be free to go.’ She has a gravelly voice that brokers no argument. I suspect she’s the only girl in a family of six brothers. It’s just as well she didn’t question Janeen because if she had, Janeen might’ve confessed to murdering her granny and stuffing her into a violin case.

  ‘I should inform you, you may be called upon to testify when Mr Saint-John comes to trial. At the moment, it seems unlikely anyone will post bail for him, but in case they do I think you would be wise not to get further involved.’

  ‘That’s a shame, because I’d like to give that duplicitous, sneaky, conniving cheat a piece of my mind.’ Now she’s got over the shock of Nandor’s deception, Janeen has morphed from uprooted wilted flower to enraged Amazon spoiling for a fight.

  ‘Ms Stratford, Nandor Saint-John is a dangerous man. We’ve been watching his movements for some time now. You should know he put his former partner in hospital with a ruptured spleen. She was lucky to survive. Her small son tried to intervene. Saint-John hurled him across the room and broke the kid’s pelvis. Unfortunately, since the woman was unconscious at the time and the kid is too young to testify, Southland police were unable to convict him of grievous bodily harm. Believe me, anyone who would do that to a child is nasty piece of work.’

  Janeen blanches. I can tell she’s thinking of Caro.

  It’s after ten when we slip out of the police station. I’ve missed my run with Road Runners. I wonder if they said my daughter is moving house this weekend.

  ‘Mel, can you stop at a dairy on the way home?’ says Janeen. ‘I’m all out of ice cream.’

  Caught Short by Long Arm of the Law? by Ross Sully

  Seen with a friend slinking from the Tauranga Police Station in the early hours of Sunday morning was none other than Melanie Short, Sportzgirl spokesperson and one of five remaining competitors in the Racing Feat reality series.

  What possible cause could there be for this run in with the law? Although police are being tight-lipped about the reason for the Short stay in a holding cell, daybreak seems an unlikely hour to indemnify one’s parking infringements.

  Given the poster pin-up’s proclivity for minimalist attire, perhaps an indecent exposure charge would be closer to the truth?

  Miss Short’s response? A terse “No comment.’

  From: Brittany Bryers, Candygloss Cosmetics, bbryers@candygloss.com.au

  To: Melanie Short, melshort@gmail.com

  Subject: Colin Short Itinerary Update

  Dear Ms Short,

  Ms Grant and Mr Short request the pleasure of your company at Auckland’s Chez Monique at 7:00pm on Thursday 9 June.

  Yours Brittany Bryers

  Personal Assistant to Ms Candy Grant

  From: Melanie Short, melshort@gmail.com

  To: Brittany Bryers, Candygloss Cosmetics, bbryers@candygloss.com.au

  Subject: Re: Colin Short Itinerary Update

  Dear Ms Bryers,

  Thank you so much for this invitation. Wow, Chez Monique! I can’t wait to finally meet Ms Grant. Please tell Colin that I’m bringing someone I’d like him to meet, too. Looking forward to next week.

  Warmest regards, Melanie Short.

  From: Brittany Bryers, Candygloss Cosmetics, bbryers@candygloss.com.au

  To: Melanie Short, melshort@gmail.com

  Subject: Re: Re: Colin Short Itinerary Update

  Dear Ms Short,

  Please refrain from using this email address for your personal correspondence.

  Yours Brittany Bryers,

  Personal Assistant to Ms Candy Grant

  From: Melanie Short,
melshort@gmail.com

  To: Brittany Bryers, Candygloss Cosmetics, bbryers@candygloss.com.au

  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Colin Short Itinerary Update

  Dear Ms Bryers,

  Sorry!

  Regards, Melanie Short.

  53

  I’m back in Winston’s corner office after another summons from Derek. At least, this time I’m wearing my own clothes so there are no nipples tattle-tale-ing the anxiety on my side of the cherry desk.

  Clad once again in Hugo Boss (this time in midnight blue accessorised with a shot purple tie), Winston leans back in his black leather executive’s chair and fiddles with a gold tipped Mont Blanc fountain pen.

  ‘Good to see you and Black have gone with our suggestion to initiate a liaison, Melanie,’ he says softly. Then, bracing his arms on the heavy leather armrests, he roars, ‘but, what a fucking waste of time! Where’s the frenzy of media attention? The trashy tabloid columns? The radio commentary? The fucking FREE publicity, Melanie?’ I shudder at the violence of the outburst. He’s really mad. ‘One slightly suggestive Sully article is not what I had in mind. You will spice it up. You will give me fire here, not a pathetic plume of smoke. I want raunchy, sexy, and titillating. I want Sportzgirl turbo-boosted into the media as attire for the adventurous and risqué sector of the female buying public. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘But…’ Too slow. Derek cuts across me.

  ‘I have Annalise investigating a garment line for Black, sir. Sophisticated sportswear for the modern day rake. If Melanie and Rico can ramp up the heat on their liaison we could launch it in time for the finale.’

  ‘Excellent!’

  ‘But, it’s only meant to be a little canoodling, not a full blown affair. I have a boyfriend. He…’