by Luke Davies
We went to sleep and got up about eleven or midday and had another hit. The new dealer’s name was Lester, and he would figure in our lives, on and off, for a while.
Two Saturdays earlier, Candy didn’t know about her market value. The hockshop owner had taken her for a ride. He would get his later, when an overwrought methamphetamine addict in the throes of speed psychosis shot and crippled him in an argument about the value of a lawn mower. But Candy learned pretty quickly about market value. For a while, for a few years, she was the hotshot money tree and we lived, like royalty, in the kingdom of invincibility.
FOURSOME
The hotshot money tree. At the peak of good things financially, we actually rented a nice flat, out along Queens Road. The building was designed by some Swedish architect back in the thirties. It was a deco number, full of curves and whiteness and railings and round windows, designed to give the impression of being on a ship. It was full of yuppies too, nine-to-fivers in suits, with nice cars; and then there was us.
It made us feel so full of hope, to move into such a swish place. We felt a kind of duty to keep the place clean, to empty ashtrays, stuff like that. Perhaps we felt that our lives would change just by being there.
But not necessarily change as in making the decision to stop using dope. It was that time when things subtly shifted, when we began to accept that we were devoted to the cause, when the point became not how to stop, but how to use well. Candy was beginning to get good at working, at the way to do it without feeling, at how to get the most money for the least effort, to be in charge of johns so danger never happened. It hadn’t been long, but we’d done that mental somersault where we reasoned that it was all for money and therefore it didn’t affect our love.
We were on a roll. The money came thick and fast and it seemed the wonder of a comfortable life would be endless. We weren’t sick for months at a time. We felt instinctively we were in the middle of vast good fortune.
Candy was doing escort. It was less restrictive and less boring than brothels. We got to drive around together all night. There was some comfort in that, some comradeship.
Mostly things went smoothly. Occasionally Candy could earn a thousand dollars between six in the evening and six in the morning. We were stoned and happy all the time. Even when the money was bad it was good.
I didn’t have a license, of course, couldn’t really drive, having never done it much, but at least here I was able to give a kind of moral support. We had a deal with Jesse, a cousin of O’Brien’s who worked a day job in computers. We’d take his car every night on the condition we always filled it with gas when we returned it, and once in a while we’d give him a free taste. He was that rare breed, a casual user. They belong in nature documentaries.
We’d drive all night from job to job. Probably my greatest contribution to the whole deal was doing the street directory. I’d always liked maps. We’d park, Candy would get out. Sometimes I’d go to the door with her, to check that the place seemed all right. Then I’d sit in the car with the seat reclined back and the radio turned low, and wait for her to finish. There were times I felt a sadness, bored and restless in a quiet street in Doncaster or Heidelberg or Brighton. A kind of dull sadness about being tied by flimsy strings to this life, in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. About my part—there must have been one—in accepting that a relationship could be like this. An ache of guilt, occasionally, that I could have the gall to call it love. But mostly I thought I wouldn’t swap my life for anything, that Candy was in it and heroin was in it and what more could you possibly want?
It was hard to score good dope at six in the morning. Generally we’d try and have that kind of shit wrapped up by midnight or one. Sometimes we’d still have a small whack left at dawn, and then sleep for a while. Other times we’d go to bed a little ragged. Then we’d wake up wired at midday, but with lots of money, so we could score straightaway.
The afternoon was the time of love, when things were bright and busy, when it didn’t feel like it sometimes felt when I sat alone in the car at night. We would wander and eat, or smoke a little grass and watch TV, or look for clothes in Salvation Army shops. We would often hold hands as we walked, and even in winter we’d feel warm in the sun. The supreme body furnace was in us, spreading its warmth through our veins.
We spent a lot of time scoring and organizing deals, doing all the drug stuff. Then in the evening the calls would begin to come from the agency.
One night at about eleven, Candy went to a job at some tacky motor inn in St. Kilda, and the bitch at reception had the nerve to say, “No. Not here you don’t. This is a clean hotel.” Candy ranted and raved, but she didn’t want to lose the guy. He’d booked for an hour, but once he saw her, he went a bit gaga.
Candy sensed this, which was what she did well. She told him that for eight hundred bucks he could spend the whole night with her, back in the apartment on Queens Road. He loved the idea. But he said he only had two hundred on him, he could get the other six hundred in the morning. Candy looked at me and said, “What do you think?” I shrugged my shoulders. I sized the guy up and thought it was worth the punt. He was as straight as they come. He was drunk and sincere. A Western District farmer down in the big smoke for a couple of days.
I was the minder, obviously. It couldn’t have been my physical size, but often in these circumstances people treated me with some deference. Or more likely, some wariness. It must have been the mere fact of being a pimp. As if we weren’t just a fucked-up boyfriend and girlfriend putting on a big front. As if Candy, being so beautiful, would have selected me as the toughest and the meanest from some pimp employment bureau.
His name was Keith. I shook my head and looked to the ground, trying to show a form of sympathy tempered by doubt.
“I dunno, Keith. Six hundred is a lot of money in a situation of trust. You sure you’ve got this money?”
“There’s no problem with the money. I swear, first thing in the morning. As soon as the banks open. No problem at all.”
“Because you cannot fuck around in a situation like this. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Of course I understand.”
I could hear the dryness in his throat, his nervousness at dealing with me when Candy was the object of desire.
“What have you got to give me for the night, Keith? I’ll be in the same flat, don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. Driver’s license?”
“No problem.”
He pulled it from his wallet. I looked at it. He was thirty-six, a ruddy-faced farmer acting completely out of character for a night.
“It’s not much security though, is it?” I added. I looked at his wedding ring. “Tell you what. Give me the ring and I’ll feel good about this.”
“Oh come on,” he pleaded.
“Keith.” I cut him short. “Two-way trust. The ring’s not going anywhere.”
He slipped it off his finger and I put it in my pocket.
“And the two hundred,” I said. “You give me that now, as a deposit. Because I have to pay the agency at the beginning of an all-night job.”
It was bullshit, but only Candy and I knew that. We had several dealers to choose from, but we could hardly make Keith wait while we paged someone or drove all over town. The closest dealer, a door knock away, was Ellie May the transvestite. Her dope had been all right lately and I could just turn up without ringing; she was always there.
We drove the short distance to Ellie May’s flat and parked.
“What are we doing?” Keith asked as I got out.
“This is the office,” Candy said. “He’s dropping in your deposit.”
I got a two-spot off Ellie May and we went back to our Queens Road digs. Keith looked impressed and seemed to relax. We’d cleaned the flat immaculately in an afternoon smack-fiddling binge.
Keith went to the bathroom. Candy went to the lounge room and made a call to the agency. She told them the job had fucked up, that there was a big scene at the m
otor inn, that the guy had gotten freaked and canceled. She told them also she’d come down with some kind of thing and was vomiting a lot and wouldn’t be able to work anymore that night. It was only midnight by now so they weren’t pleased. Still, they had no real choice but to buy it.
Keith came out of the bathroom and Candy told him to go into the bedroom and make himself comfortable. I was in the kitchen mixing up on the counter. Candy came in, looked over my shoulder, and checked out the amount of dope we’d gotten.
“Hurry up,” she said. “I’ve got to get in there.”
I was almost ready with her syringe when Keith appeared at the door and gave us a fright. Our backs were hunched away from him.
“What are you doing?” he asked, a genuine curiosity in his voice. Candy swung around and guided him back to the bedroom.
“He’s just fixing a tap,” I heard her say. Sometimes the most absurd things make the greatest sense.
She rushed back into the kitchen and had her shot. I had mine and settled down to watch TV for the night. From time to time my conscience would wander into my body, and I’d think about what they were doing behind that wall at just that moment. I was never usually this close to it. But there’s a paradox about taking heroin and feeling anything, and it was easier to be blank and watch the screen.
After about half an hour Candy came out of the bedroom. When the door opened I could hear Keith’s loud snoring. Candy looked at me and grinned.
“He’s out for the night, I think,” she said.
We watched TV together and occasionally Candy went in to check on him. At about four A.M. we had another blast. Candy went back to the room then and everyone slept for a few hours. Jesse wasn’t working in the morning, and he had said we could keep the car until later in the night, as long as we gave him a nice taste.
I woke when Keith, hungover and pale, staggered to the bathroom at about nine. Since I was still dressed I was ready to go.
“Let’s hit that bank, then,” I said.
The three of us drove to the National Bank on St. Kilda Road. Candy waited outside in the car and I went in with Keith. There was a fuckup. As in, they wouldn’t give him his money. He didn’t have the funds. His credit card was over the limit too.
We stood in conference away from the counter. I tried to look angry but restrained.
“Keith, this is a serious problem. I’m sure you know that. It’s not that I’m heavy or anything. It’s just that the people I work for, the people above me, well—they are. And they won’t stand for this. It’s six hundred dollars. I have to have the money.”
“Listen, I can send it to you,” he pleaded. “I really didn’t expect this to happen. You can hold on to my driver’s license.”
“Keith, that’s not the way it works. I have to have the money before we part company, and I want to part company soon. I’m busy. I’ve got things to do.”
“I understand that.”
“Now think. How can you get the money? Ring someone, get someone to put it in your bank account. It doesn’t matter how. If you don’t get the money I have no choice but to make life difficult for you.”
“There is one thing,” he said.
He was a creative thinker. He got the St. Kilda Road branch to ring his hometown branch. They handed him the phone over the counter and he spoke in familiar tones to the manager. I moved away to give him room, but I heard him say things like “urgent” and “a spot of bother, I can’t explain now.”
Finally I saw the look of relief on his face. He gave the phone back to the teller, who spoke to the country manager for a moment. In a couple of minutes Keith had his six hundred dollars. He walked outside the bank and he counted the notes out to me. I gave him his ring and driver’s license. Suddenly he was not important in my life.
“Well, I’m glad that’s all ended okay, then.” I tried to smile pleasantly. “We have to go now, Keith. Enjoy the rest of your time in Melbourne.”
I jumped into the car and pulled my seat belt over my shoulder. Candy leaned across me.
“Bye, Keith. Nice to meet you!”
And we drove away. Keith stood there, unshaven and uncertain, and then walked off in the opposite direction.
Later in the afternoon we lashed out and scored three grams off Lester. Lester was best when you bought the bigger amounts, but sometimes he took a little arranging. We returned the car to Jesse and gave him a little hit. He was happy.
We caught the tram back home from Jesse’s place at Carlton. We decided we’d ring the agency and take another night off, lie around and have lots of dope and watch TV and then get a big sleep.
But at about nine the intercom system rang. We weren’t expecting anyone and we looked at each other. Candy answered and I saw her eyebrows rise as she buzzed the security door open.
“It’s Kojak,” she said.
“Kojak? I wonder why.”
Kojak was a dealer Victor had put us onto. We hadn’t asked him to come around, so it didn’t really make sense. We didn’t owe him any money, we didn’t owe him any favors. We weren’t in any trouble with him, so we hoped his visit meant good news.
He came in with a pretty girl. Her eyes were lowered and she scowled at us by way of introduction. We could see she was hanging out for some gear. Her name was Lucy. She had short red hair and pale skin. Lovely green eyes, even with her huge pupils. She wasn’t all skin and bones, so she probably hadn’t been using for long. No more than a year or two. She was about twenty-five, a late starter.
Kojak didn’t use the dope he sold. He was in his mid-thirties, came from Malta or somewhere like that. Shaved his head, God knows why, drove a brand-new blue Commodore. Nonusing dealers, of course, were the scum of the earth, but Kojak was okay as far as nonusing dealers went. He was reliable, the deals were big, the dope was pretty good. The main reason he wasn’t high on our list of priorities was that he often didn’t respond to his pager for an hour or two.
“So how are you, Kojak?” I said. “What brings you here?”
“Can Lucy use your place for a shot?”
“Of course.”
“And after that, can we use your bedroom?”
I looked at Candy. She shrugged.
“Sure. Go right ahead.”
Lucy hit up and suddenly relaxed and became friendly and talkative. Obviously she had no cash and the deal was a hit for a fuck. We chatted for five minutes. Kojak asked us if we wanted to buy any dope and we said no, we had plenty, but maybe tomorrow. Then Kojak said to Lucy, “Let’s go,” and they went into our bedroom.
This hadn’t happened before.
“She seems nice,” Candy said.
“Yeah … yeah, she does.”
We stared at the TV for a few minutes. Then from the corner of my eye I noticed Candy’s head tilt toward me.
“Maybe we should go in there,” she said.
“Go in there? What do you mean?”
“Go in there. Join them.”
I looked her in the eye. I was trying to see if I understood her motives. There was no real reason to do it or not do it.
“I guess so,” I said.
“Lucy’s cute.”
I nodded agreement.
“Anyway,” she added, “it might be a good idea to get in good with Kojak.”
She was right about that. It was our duty, really, not to let an opportunity pass. In some strange way, if Kojak got an extra thrill, then he would owe us something, even if only a particularly good deal or leeway with credit sometime in the future. Besides, I felt a stirring of horniness for the novelty of the situation.
We tiptoed to the bedroom door and knocked. There was a pause.
“Yeah?” Kojak sounded surprised.
Candy opened the door and stuck her head around. “Would you mind if we came in and joined you?”
“Sure,” Kojak said.
“Sure,” Lucy said.
We went into the room. Lucy was lying on her side propped up on one elbow. She looked even more gorgeous with n
o clothes on. Kojak was sitting at the head of the bed, one leg tucked under him and one stretched to the floor. Obviously we’d interrupted Lucy sucking Kojak’s dick. Kojak was holding his erection in his hand. I had a quick glance and was glad it didn’t seem any bigger than mine.
We took our clothes off. Candy was naked in a flash. I took my time because I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do. What would be appropriate. How things would pan out. All I knew was I felt tingly about Lucy and Candy, and nervous about the presence of Kojak. I just wasn’t into men; it seemed stupid to force anything.
Candy climbed onto the bottom end of the bed on her knees. From my point of view, everything was sexually charged. Candy’s butt was smooth and white and pointed up in the air toward me. When she moved her left knee forward to crawl toward Lucy, the curve of her pubis and the soft flesh of the inside of her thigh were exposed. It was an angle I hadn’t often seen. Anyway, all angles looked good when looking at Candy.
Lucy spread her legs and stretched her arms out. She clasped her hands around Candy’s neck and pulled her forward. They started tongue kissing. I was curious to see what Candy looked like kissing someone else. It was a luscious heroin-stoned meeting of wet lips and tongues. They writhed on each other’s bellies and their legs became all intertwined.
Kojak got his hands between them and was rubbing Lucy’s breasts. He moved his erect dick closer to their faces. Candy lifted her head away from kissing Lucy and started sucking Kojak.
I was naked by now and up on the bed. From above it would have looked like this: the two girls in the middle, Candy facedown on Lucy; Kojak in the vicinity of Candy’s right shoulder; me down around Candy’s left foot. The two men diagonally opposite.