Too Easy

by J. M. Green

  Phuong put her arm through his. ‘I’m going with Bruce,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay with him, at his dad’s.’

  ‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘Go to Western Port and stay there. I’ll get in touch when I find Mortimer.’

  Copeland grunted.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ I said pointedly as I walked away.

  ‘Stella, wait.’ Phuong caught up with me. ‘The tape. I’ll send it to you.’

  13

  TIME TO go home to bed. I stopped at the lights on Ballarat Road. The passing traffic was partying; music doofed. Then, crossing the road right in front of me, I saw Alma. She must have come straight from the abandoned drug deal in the car park. She walked fast, holding her bag to her chest.

  I flicked my left blinker and followed her. She was headed to the Macca’s up the road. It had been a long time since my last McNugget. I passed Alma and pulled into the McDonald’s car park. She was sitting down in a quiet section near the toilets when I entered the building. Near the entrance to the kids’ play equipment, a table of delinquents had chips, eating some and throwing the rest. I stood in the queue behind a man in hi-vis, and studied the board. God help me, I couldn’t go through with it. Even the thought of the soft-serve made me want to puke.

  I stepped up. ‘A cup of tea. Thank you.’

  I took my tea to a table near Alma, facing the door. In the eye-aching glare of fluorescent lights, I felt myself sinking. This place was a nightmare. Joy could not survive in here — too much convenience. I jiggled the tea bag. My reflection in the window appeared weary and resentful. If I turned my head slightly, I had a view of the girl.

  The auto doors parted and a slim woman came in, brown hair in a bun, wearing a professional-looking pants suit, a leather satchel over her shoulder. She scanned the place, looking for someone. Alma raised her hand and the woman hurried over, brushing by me as she went.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said to Alma. ‘How’s the treatment working?’

  Alma touched her cheek. ‘Great. All cleared up.’

  Intrigued, I moved closer and bent over my phone, pretending to scroll through something on the screen.

  ‘And the new hair colour?’

  Alma swished her hair. ‘Love it.’

  ‘Great. So tell the others.’

  Alma sighed. ‘They don’t care about skincare.’

  The woman pursed her lips. ‘What they care about is irrelevant.’ She pulled a stack of files from the satchel. ‘I need to schedule appointments for the tests.’

  An adolescent shrug from Alma. ‘I told you, offer them smokes and shit. That’s the way to get through.’

  ‘Community workers don’t bribe their clients.’

  Community workers? What community worker meets clients after midnight?

  A pause. The woman straightened her back. ‘Right. What can I get you?’

  ‘McFlurry.’

  As she walked by, I leaned out of my chair to put my phone in my bag, and we connected hip-to-head.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ the woman said.

  I caught sight of a blue tatt on her wrist, uneven scribble. ‘Nice bit of ink,’ I said.

  ‘This?’ She laughed and held it out. ‘It really is ink. Biro, actually. A phone number.’

  ‘Oh, right. I thought it was a home-made job, like a prison tatt.’

  She ripped her hand away. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I … wait, what? I didn’t mean —’

  ‘You fucking —’ She swiped at my cup, sent it skittering, tea splashing the wall.

  ‘Wow. Okay.’ My hands were up, palms out. ‘I’m going now —’ I was stepping backwards and grabbing my handbag. I had made it to the doors when Crazy in the pantsuit came at me.

  ‘Wait! Listen,’ she said. ‘I want to apologise.’

  ‘No need. Forget it,’ I said, flustered.

  ‘Come on, hear me out. I’m not a bad person. It’s just that I can fly off the handle sometimes.’

  ‘We all can. No worries.’

  She lowered her voice, almost pleading. ‘So there’s no need to make a complaint about me or anything, is there?’

  ‘Last thing I would do.’

  ‘Because I’ve been inside, and I’m a bit touchy about it.’

  ‘That’s understandable.’

  ‘Don’t need the parole people breathing down my neck.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  She pointed to Alma. ‘I’m making up for it, working with these kids.’

  She stared at me with clear, unblinking eyes. Up close, I saw that some hard years dragged at her cheeks. A tooth was broken at the front. Community workers needed clearance, and jail time was a deal breaker. Whatever this was, it was less than legit.

  ‘Case work of some kind?’

  Her laugh was deep, the pack-a-day kind. ‘I’m all about the kids.’

  Not exactly an answer. ‘How’s that?’

  She paused, appeared pained. ‘I don’t want anyone to go through what I’ve been through. I try to reach them early, before they get addicted.’

  I acted impressed, thinking that this psycho should not be anywhere near kids. On the other hand, right now she might be useful: she might have connections, know people — dealers perhaps. ‘So community work? Me too, sort of, a social worker.’

  She looked astonished. ‘No way! Really? Hey, I’m Josie. Let me buy you another cup of tea.’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Come on. We can both have a chat with young Alma.’

  I didn’t want tea. But Alma, yes, I wanted to chat to her. ‘I’m Stella.’

  ‘Grouse.’ She lowered her voice as we walked back to Alma. ‘This kid, I swear she’s got a death wish.’ She laughed again. ‘We’ve all been there, right?’

  ‘Ha ha, yeah.’

  14

  ‘ALMA, THIS is Stella.’

  She cast a slow eye from Josie to me. ‘Hi.’ Stage-four boredom; she was almost terminal.

  ‘I’m getting her a cup of tea. You want that McFlurry?’

  ‘With Oreo sprinkles. Wait …’ Important pronouncement coming … ‘No sprinkles.’

  Josie left, and I smiled at Alma. She made a blatant evaluation of me, found nothing of interest.

  My eye drifted to the files on the table. I couldn’t read the labels on any of the tabs. Several papers inside each, paperclips poking out.

  ‘Josie is —’

  ‘I’m bipolar,’ Alma said, watching me to gauge my reaction.

  ‘That must be tough,’ I said.

  She shrugged, ‘Yeah. Been in hospital. Taking my meds.’

  ‘Is Josie helping you with that?’

  ‘Pfft. No. As if.’

  ‘What does she … do? How does she support you?’

  She smirked. ‘Don’t get all suspicious.’ Like I was a real square. ‘She’s trying to set me straight.’ The sly look.

  I almost laughed.

  ‘Anyway, I don’t care, she pays for stuff so, whatever.’

  ‘Stuff?’

  She looked away, deaf, the bored act again.

  Time to burst this concocted bubble. ‘Does she know you sell drugs? How’d that deal with Razz go?’

  Her eyes locked onto me like a search light on an escaped prisoner. I held her gaze. She flicked her hair.

  ‘You some kind of creepy kid stalker?’

  ‘Should I tell her?’

  She leaned over the table towards me, hissing. ‘You don’t know shit.’

  ‘Whose gear were you selling?

  She held out her hand, middle-finger up.

  Josie returned. ‘All the crazies out tonight, ay? Here you go.’ She handed me a cup and slid the dessert towards Alma.

  ‘I’m going to the bathroom,’ Alma said.

  ‘Me t
oo.’ I followed her into the ladies.

  Alma pouted at her reflection, pumping a mascara wand.

  I pretended to inspect my eyebrows.

  ‘There’s a bloke owes me money,’ I said to her. ‘Wonder if you know him?’

  ‘Probably not.’ She worked the gunk over feathery lashes.

  ‘Isaac Mortimer?’

  ‘Never heard of him.’ She zipped up an expensive-looking bag and left.

  I looked in the mirror, absorbing the conversation I had witnessed. Josie’s shtick seemed somewhat bogus. I had come across volunteer crusaders before, working at late-night soup trucks, handing out blankets to people sleeping rough. They were usually backed up by a church or community organisation. Josie was an unauthorised, freewheeling sort of helper, the kind who often did more to harm than to help. Though perhaps haircuts for the homeless was innocent enough.

  Meanwhile, her putative client, Alma, was a trouble on steroids. Unnerving, like the company she kept, and yet she seemed highly intelligent. I had no doubt she was feeding me a crock of nothing-to-see-here.

  I had one last look in the mirror, picturing myself with seventeen layers of mascara. As I was leaving, I heard a noise in one of the cubicles.

  ‘Is she gone?’ A teenage girl’s voice.

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  ‘Alma.’

  ‘Um, yes. It’s just me here.’

  ‘Sweet. So you said you’re looking for Isaac?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said to the cubicle door. This was turning out to be quite a surprising night. ‘Do you know him?’

  A hacking cough and then the gross sound of inhale and swallow. ‘We’re mates.’

  ‘You are?’ I said, incredulous. I got on my knees and looked under the door. A back blocked my view.

  ‘Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘Sure.’ I went into the next cubicle and looked under from the side. A pile of blankets, a girl’s skinny legs sheathed in black leggings, dirty bare feet, green toenails. She was sitting on the floor with her back to the cubicle door.

  ‘Bikie, face tatt says fuck yeah.’

  ‘That’s him.’ I got up and washed my hands. ‘Don’t you get disturbed by people coming in?’

  ‘Nah. It goes quiet from now on. They come in to clean about seven, so I’ve got a few good hours.’

  I heard the optimism and the confidence, and I despaired. Tomorrow, I’d have a word with Boss. In the meantime, this was a genuine bite. ‘I heard Isaac skipped town.’

  ‘Nah. I saw him yesterday.’

  ‘Really? Where does he hang out?’

  She let go another wet cough, a hacking TB-style lung ejector. I waited.

  ‘Corpse Flower clubhouse in Braybrook.’

  I would not be walking up to a bikie clubhouse to knock on the door. Not on the word of a green-toed child in a McDonald’s toilet at four in the morning. I imagined that Copeland would have ruled the clubhouse out as a hideout in any case. ‘Hmm, anywhere else?’

  ‘He sometimes drinks at The Ashbrook, plays poker there.’

  I have read about escaped prisoners who were caught at their local pub. Sometimes the lure of the pub outweighs common sense, especially for the extremely stupid.

  ‘Thanks for that.’ I paused before leaving. ‘You okay in there?’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘Alright then. Well, good night.’

  ‘Warm, dry — fucking will be, mate.’

  Josie was waiting for me. Alma had gone, leaving her McFlurry untouched.

  ‘Might call it a night,’ I said, picking up my tea. ‘I’ll have this in the car.’

  ‘Yeah, I should go home, too.’ She seemed distracted.

  ‘Nice pantsuit,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks. I try to be professional.’ She smiled, showing a glimpse of broken tooth.

  The question was, a professional what?

  At the top of the four flights, I discovered my front door was washed in yoke and albumen. The Halloween hag had made good on her threat. The kid must have wasted three-dozen eggs. I swept up the shells, but the ick was stubborn and a quick wipe with paper towel did little.

  I had the Spray n’ Wipe out when I saw a voicemail message on my machine. ‘It’s your mum, love.’ My mother, Delia, insisted on the telephone. Never a text or email, no matter how hard I tried to convert her. ‘Call me when you get a chance. I need to talk over this Tyler business with you.’

  Tyler was my sister, Kylie’s, husband. He was what my father’s generation called a no-hoper. He’d trained to be an Anglican minister, but gave it away for lack of interest. Then he tried his hand as a mechanic, but he had no qualifications, and caused permanent damage to a vintage Chevrolet. Then he had a crack at stock agent, but he was unpopular with the farmers who found him apathetic and ill-informed. I didn’t know what the ‘Tyler business’ was, nor did I want to know.

  It had been a long day and a rough night. I undressed and stood under a hot shower until I started to relax. I fell into bed, thinking about the girl who intended to bed down for the night in a public toilet. There were stray dogs who lived better than some kids in this city.

  15

  THURSDAY MORNING at work, I was occupied with typing my name in different fonts to see which I liked best. Stella Hardy in Verdana, Stella Hardy in Traditional Arabic, Stella Hardy in Wingdings. Stella Hardy in Wingdings 2.

  Since arriving at WORMS, bleary-eyed and seedy, I’d sent emails to some contacts I had in a couple of youth-housing agencies, and given them the details of the homeless girl sleeping at McDonald’s. Then I spent a good hour reading The Age online. I read stories of the post-storm clean up — some houses were still without power. Weather predictions for Cup Day were for a cold start with rain, before the sun was expected to out and blast us like an atomic bomb.

  I now turned my attention to the task of locating a Mr Isaac Mortimer. If I was honest with myself, both sides of the law were as fishy as penguin breath. Frankly, I couldn’t care who got investigated; preferably the lot of them. But threats had been made against Phuong, and that changed the whole ball of wool.

  I found the police media release Phuong had given me, in a crumpled ball at the bottom of my handbag.

  Division Response Unit/Guns and Gangs (DRUGGs) members have arrested a man following the execution of a search warrant in Norlane today.

  About $180,000 worth of drugs were seized from the Marsden Ave property and a 32-year-old Norlane man was arrested and charged with the following offences:

  - one count of possessing a commercial quantity of a drug of dependence,

  - one count of possessing cartridge ammunition,

  - three counts of possessing an unregistered firearm,

  - one count of possessing an explosive device.

  Detective Sergeant Bruce Copeland said today’s operation is a reminder of the hard work being done by DRUGGs to tackle drug-related crime.

  On the back, Phuong had written Mortimer’s last known address: 15 Marsden Ave, Norlane.

  The girl sleeping in the toilets at McDonald’s had said to try either the Corpse Flowers clubhouse or The Ashbrook Hotel.

  I opened a browser window and discovered that tonight, at The Ashbrook Hotel in Braybrook, was parma night. A pot and parma for twelve bucks. Perhaps Brophy could be convinced to leave his studio and have dinner with me. Not the parma, of course, but maybe a salad and chips, perchance a buttered roll. Isaac Mortimer went there for the gambling, not the food, if the kid in the cubicle was right. And that was a big if.

  In the meantime, I could start with what I knew for certain about Mortimer: he was a dealer. It was likely he was also a user. I rang the needle exchanges and called in a couple of favours from some friends who worked there, but made little progress. And I figured a person like Mortimer would likely stick in the memory.

  ‘O
i!’ Boss was looking over my shoulder. Open plan offices were a modern-day tribulation. ‘The business cards arrived.’ He dropped a small box on my desk. ‘Here’s yours.’

  Boss had assigned us our job titles. I had lobbied for ‘Social Worker to the Stars’ or ‘Good-Time Girl’, but he’d insisted on ‘Client Liaison Officer’.

  ‘Thanks. Is that all? I’m kind of busy.’

  He was unimpressed. ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Um. Nothing. I’m all yours.’ I stuffed the business cards and the press release in my bag.

  ‘Afshan called. Things are getting heated with the neighbours apparently. The police have been called. Help him sort it out.’

  I was concerned for Afshan, naturally, but I was also overjoyed to be getting the hell out of this place. As I was leaving, I popped my head in Boss’s office. ‘Were you aware that children are sleeping in the toilets of Macca’s for want of a bed for the night?’

  He stopped typing, looked bored. ‘Are they?’

  ‘Yes. Is anyone doing anything about that?’

  ‘I’ll check my magic answer-to-everything stick and let you know.’

  ‘You,’ I said evenly, ‘need a holiday.’

  I took the train to North Melbourne, changed to the Sunbury line, and alighted at St Albans.

  Ah, St Albans, the best phở in the west, halal meat, fresh injera, frozen yoghurt, and the highest murder rate in the state. Personally, I liked the area; it had a crazy high-adrenalin atmosphere. And a high murder rate was relative, right? I pulled out my phone and read up on a few stats: 2.9 homicides per 100,000 people was the Victorian average, while 7.2 per 100,000 people was the average around here. Global average was 6.2; the average in America, 5.2.

  I quickened my pace.

  The way to Afshan’s house cut through the thrumming shopping district, through the supermarket car park, along a council recreation reserve, and down a street of houses that were either neat with well-tended gardens, or rubbish dumps with a couple of cars up on blocks in the front yard. On the way, I tried Afshan’s mobile, but it was turned off. His share-house was an austere weatherboard in which seven adult men lived. Two single mattresses in each of the two bedrooms, two in the dining room, and one in a covered back veranda. They took turns to cook in the tiny kitchen, but not, if I remembered correctly, to clean it.