by Alan Duff
Must be they all spotted it: the temperature shot up a hundred degrees, the car registered collective movement of everyone tensing.
‘I bet they’re to do with the chicks you mouthed off at,’ said Lu, but not yet frightened.
‘I bet they are too. So who’s worried?’ drawled Bron. Turned his face to Lu’s. Hard expression of his Samoan warrior ancestors. ‘Do I look worried?’
‘You should be,’ she said. ‘Enough to just say sorry, didn’t mean no offence. Trying to tell you dopes, you got to be careful in this crazy world.’
A second vehicle arrived. Changed things. Eight doors opened near at once.
‘Fuck,’ Deano groaned. ‘Eight against four?’
‘Three,’ Jay said, catching Lu’s eyes in the rear vision.
‘Four,’ she shot back. ‘Just ’cause I didn’t like what you did doesn’t mean I’ve become your enemy.’
‘We better go then,’ Jay said, in more a leader’s voice. And he jumped out and the others followed.
Eight in tight black shirts, white ones or loose shirts with no collar to show off the bling even in the semi-gloom; dark, short-cropped hair that didn’t hide their ethnicity — these were Muzzies, Lebs likely. On anger juice. They always were. Lot of shit gone down between them and a rough crowd claiming to be true-blue Aussies when none of the trio of Lu’s mates would give that type time of day. Not racism. They had their principles. It was to do with this religion crap, made worse by the terrorists and too many Aussies’ negative attitude lumping everything in together, as if any of that has to do with young people whistling at girls, dudes out cruising of a Saturday night. They could be anywhere.
‘How’s it goin’?’ Jay pretty cool. Lu knew why: the knife he carried at all times.
‘Wassup?’ Bronson sounding immature, imitative of someone he wasn’t. And maybe just a little bit nervous. Why wouldn’t he be?
‘Wassup? You fuckin’ know wassup, bud,’ was the evident ringleader’s opener. ‘Dissing our chicks?’
‘No, man,’ said Jay as his lot fell into the collective shadow of the eight arrivals with the streetlight behind them. ‘Just guys showing our appreciation of some nice chicks going by.’
‘Yeh — our nice chicks. Like Leb chicks. You got that?’
‘Didn’t see no signs round their necks,’ Bron said, ‘or we wouldn’t have said anything.’
‘What you mean, signs round their necks? You mean Muslim signs? You dissing our religion now?’
‘Mate, you sound like you were born right next door to me,’ said Jay. ‘I be right?’
‘Never next door to a piece of dissing Skip filth like you.’
‘Easy to say that mob-handed.’ Menace in Jay’s tone. He’d had too many beatings over the years to be fearing another one.
‘Anyone’d think we spat at your mosque or something.’ Bron’s reckless courage must have been inspired by Jay’s.
‘You wha’?’
‘You heard. And if you were born here, like, duh? Duh, we don’t get it. Ain’t we one and the same? Like I ain’t my parents, they’re Samoan, a bit of German. But I’m Aussie like me mates here. And you.’ The last more a challenge to state what side they were on.
Lu wondering now if to take it on herself to say sorry, or this was annihilation. But the code said no, not ever. Above them traffic was booming a constant echo in the steel rafters, off the concrete, maybe the water had some part in the sound effect too. And this situation. Jesus.
A ship blew its fog horn though no fog in sight; a clear night of lights twinkling on the water, stars up there, and the Opera House in its floodlit prominence. And stupid us.
Good things sure don’t last, they just don’t. As the beating started.
Afterwards, licking their wounds, Jay saying, ‘Hairy Leb chicks, they have to shave every day. Who’d go with one of them hairies?’
Trash talk, in their beaten anger and humiliation, including Lu who had not been spared for being a chick. Not that she was bad-mouthing. Still, plenty of hatred there for swarthies who’d beat up on a chick, same time they were claiming their own had been dissed. Fuckin’ gangsta rap talk how it’d been taken up by everyone so no one could use language to identify themselves. Not how it used to be.
About a week later the male trio jumped two Arab-looking guys down a sidestreet off Chinatown. By association — not choice — Lu ended up a lookout as the boys beat shit out of them.
Jay told Deano afterwards it was just as much to see if D was still one of them, ‘And you are, mate. You’re one of us. Stand together. Fall together.’
Deano didn’t say how he felt having his loyalty put to the test, seemed happy to receive Jay’s and then Bron’s hug. They were buzzing then, with excitement, strutting, a kind of sexual static coming off them that almost got Lu interested.
Still went their separate ways though: better Deano stayed wide of them, residential-wise. Wondering why he bothered with this continual crap, disaster at every turn, when a good turn was all it had started as.
Plus he had the old boy, the drunk who picked him on the train, to worry about. When would he next turn up out of the blue? Old prick had sponged off him for two weeks of free drinking. Could’ve been longer if Deano hadn’t decided enough, and slipped the break, an old term his dad must have used to come so naturally — to run for it.
Chapter twenty-three
Working for Sandy Tulloch didn’t seem such a bad idea to Anna after all. Even if he was abrupt and they’d just had a clash over something she said to him. ‘Listen, honey. The entire world is suffering its worst economic crisis since the nineteen thirties, so don’t be giving me any idealistic crap on your obscene wealth theories. I intend to be as obscene as I possibly can. The job’s there if you want it. If not, there’s a queue ten kilometres long wanting to take your place.’ Then he walked off.
Fact Tulloch was part of the family business and a good friend of her father’s did help a young woman wear her hurt pride. And with her father calling in to see Sandy whenever he was in Sydney, she could hardly say she no longer had the part-time job Sandy had offered. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, her father would have said of trying to tell Sandy her views on capitalism and how the economic crisis had exposed greed. And he’d have chuckled at his reference to a horse.
The work itself was mundane; tidying up papers for a number of the man’s scores of company entities, moving between floors eighteen and twenty-three as all were offices of companies he owned. That was how she ran into her father this evening, finding she rather wanted to chat with him — some emotional need to connect, maybe — as he stepped out of the lift she was about to get into.
Except he was in a hurry. He and Sandy had important matters to discuss. ‘You’ll know this economic tsunami has hit us too?’
Yeah, sure. But with fifteen million in the bank. Unless the bank had gone bust? ‘Dad, are you all right?’
‘If you mean financially, very much yes. But I have an obligation to my partner …’
She switched off, as he was impatient to head for Sandy’s office. Hurt, she didn’t return his goodnight.
From a gloom she tried hard to hide from the boys, Lu raised her eyes to see a face at once familiar and unknown to her. Not a bosom pal’s. Yet still her mind went: Jesus Christ, it’s her!
At the young woman across the street waiting at the lights, engrossed with her cell phone, obviously reading a text. Lifting that unforgettable portrait of a face to see if she had the green light to walk. Paris Fig Shade wine-drinker herself, of the fish market.
How come she had a girl want to buckle at the knees all of a sudden?
Turned to the boys, they hadn’t spotted the chick. What now, walk on and say nothing? Make excuse to drop back and catch up in a minute? Oh my God, it’s her.
Noticing then she — her — looked downright miserable. Like Lu was. But I got reasons. What’s your excuse?
Looked like she’d been crying. Well, come talk to Lulu. I’
ll listen. Pour your heart out: I know hurt, I understand pain like you would never have known. Hear about mine and you’ll never feel hurt again, or not like it really counts for much. Hey, but pain is relative isn’t it, honey, you can cry all you like, for isn’t believing your heart is broken the same as if it truly is?
You’re like the lovely princess shut up all alone in the castle, out of favour with your family, in love with someone forbidden who’s not good enough for your royal personage. But you’ll be back in favour, just taught a lesson on how to be a royal. It’s not actual pain, you’ll come to realise. Not of the kind that destroys part of you.
Lu hoping the boys wouldn’t recognise the chick. One of them might say something to her, embarrass, scare her. They still had that edginess, still leering at women. Not what Lu wanted. Thought she would love to know the girl — oh, yeah, sure — even if no idea what she’d say, what they could possibly have in common. Since the beating from the Lebs and maybe since it started with Uncle Rick, things had changed. She and her mates used to cruise through this life as hard as it got, laugh at things, laugh at anything, at nothing. Just at being together. Now they were wary, some would say paranoid, of the Lebs, any new group of Muzzies, her uncle, the cops. Like they were under siege, or ready to explode.
Sydney’s Paris Hilton got the walk signal and came across Macquarie Street, just past nine o’clock. Not so flashy as at the fish market, jeans and a top of average style, but no less gloriously beautiful. God did she have it.
Lu changed the group’s direction by veering off into Hyde Park. Shaken, stirred up with thoughts and emotions. Like love and hate had met unexpectedly on the street and neither sure which had the upper hand. Lu so confused, and for no reason she could fathom. But it wasn’t jealousy.
As she walked the word intact kept coming up in her mind. The fuck is that about? What’s intact? Us? Our group? Are we breaking apart, is that what I’m afraid of, that we’re about to disintegrate? Or has Paris fuckin’ Sydney Hilton thrown me all out of kilter, same as she did at the market?
Intact? Why had that word come spinning out of nowhere? You mean she is intact and I am not? But all had their burdens to bear, she knew. And hers had lightened, or were supposed to. So stop feeling like this, Lu, letting jealousy and envy take you over. Yet no sooner these thoughts than others subsumed them.
Go choke on some raw fish, Lady Fig Shade. Hope a big pelican swallows you. Better watch you don’t run into a bus and your looks are ruined. What you got to be crying about? Try some old bastard’s semen in your young mouth. Try that, Miss Fig Shade. Fuckin’ crybaby.
Chapter twenty-four
Lu looked up from closing the till to a bloke who was all presence and, she realised in milliseconds, had timed this. Just when he’d walk in.
The computer screen of his eyes racing through calculations: she could hear that rapid clicking of his brain figuring her out. Now, who did this remind her of? Why, Uncle Rick, who else with that menace.
But this one was different. His size for starters. Humungous. And didn’t he know it. Eyes that said he was king of all they took in. Silly moustache like it was carefully painted on his dial. Lu thought he must be a gangster got hungry on his way back from a killing, or going to commit one.
‘Yes, mate? What would you like?’ Her standard greeting to one and all.
‘You’d be Luana O’Brien, wouldn’t you?’
A cop, not a gangster. Had to be. Well, same thing. With this bloke it was. Maybe this was the cop called in on Jay and Bron’s pad, asked did they know Lu O’Brien, young woman he wanted a chat with, nothing urgent. Cop had made a remark: ‘Bloke who gave us her name is not exactly Man of the Year. Funny bloke. Just doing my job following up.’
She nodded yes, gave a face: I’m ready. He kept looking at her. Not staring with the cheekiness dancing in his eyes like Rocky’s first-ever entrance to her life had been. Just looking. She wondering what read his computer was getting on her.
‘Niece of a Richard Duncan?’
‘One of them. He’s got nephews too.’ Wondering if to mention the obvious. ‘Why, you related?’ she said just for the hell of it.
Bloke took an age in responding. Let out a sigh first. A long one. Like he was bored.
‘Luana? I hate smartarses. Job’s tough enough without them.’ A look saying she’d better get this back on the right track smartly.
‘Okay. You the cop dropped in on my mates?’ Yes, it was him. Expression completely unchanged except one eyebrow barely lifting. ‘About my uncle losing his privates?’
‘For a man that’s a catastrophe, not just “losing his privates”.’
Meaning, she guessed, she was too blasé about it for a blood relation. And given Rick had obviously fingered her. Shrugging, Lu said, ‘I never liked him.’
‘No,’ the cop said. ‘Nor does he like you, from the description he gave.’ Eyes ran up and down her, made her feel uncomfortable. ‘About as accurate as me being called short and of slim build.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Said you weren’t very attractive, and that’s not his exact words.’
‘Well, thanks. To that silly old prick and you for passing it on. Did he say ugly?’
For just one moment the cop looked embarrassed. Not a breed known for feelings, subtlety or smarts. Not a cop.
‘Something like that,’ he said.
‘Oh?’ was all Lu could think of responding with.
‘I’ll be having a word to him. In fact, looking through the window and seeing you were the only female on duty, I thought my information on your working here was also inaccurate.’ He did shift a little, though that didn’t change his towering over her from a great height.
‘From my uncle, right?’
‘If you are Luana O’Brien.’
‘What else did he say?’
‘I’m more interested in what you’ve got to say.’ He did smile, a little.
Lu thinking this bloke was definitely softening. Maybe she wouldn’t be joining Rocky inside after all. May as well keep him on this friendlier side of the fence. ‘Sure, if you tell me who I’m talking to.’
‘Detective Sergeant Kevin Ahern, at your service.’
If she wasn’t mistaken that was lust in his eyes.
Fella started clicking his tongue. But at that instant Tilan Malak appeared alongside Lu and said to Ahern, ‘Don’t I know you?’ With respect in his tone too, unusual for either of the brothers.
Ahern gave thinnest of smiles. ‘I think we may have run into each other at some stage.’ No more to say, not to Mr Malak.
‘Guess we have. Lu here looking after you?’
‘She is. Thank you.’ Meant now piss off. Yet Tilan hardly turned when Ahern called him back.
‘I have some questions I have to ask her. You expecting to be busy tonight?’
‘Busy every night. Or we’d be closed. But sure, she can have time off. Rest of the night, you want her to.’ ‘Might take that long.’
‘Mind if I —’
‘I do mind.’
‘Sure. Off you go, Lu. Maybe I’ll call Rhonda in.’
And right then Lu’s instincts said she had been plucked out from the flock. But then she was never part of one, was she?
Walking to the plain-clothes police car and Ahern said it straight out, ‘That old bastard said you were ugly.’
Want to broadcast it all over town?
‘When you are one of the spunkiest chicks I’ve seen in years.’
Her turn to sigh. ‘Heard that line before.’ I don’t believe it. I just don’t. And you’re a cop. Shouldn’t be talking like this, meant to be investigating a crime — a serious crime. And how are they going to pin it on me?
‘I’m fair dink.’ He checked her progress with a large finger on her bare arm, sent a shiver through her. ‘Trying to think of who you remind me of. Boy, this could be one interesting investigation.’
Meaning what? To hell with this. If I looked back I bet my boss is sta
ring suspiciously at us, like this man’s repossessed me like a bit of furniture. But he’s the law — The Law. What do you do? And she had, to use their term, conspired with others to cause grievous bodily harm to another. With reason, of course. But still.
‘It’ll come to me.’ At the car, he held the front passenger door open for her.
Lu thought: didn’t they put suspects in the back? And wasn’t he supposed to be accompanied by another officer if it was an interview? Where were they going at any rate?
‘Go for a little drive, shall we?’ His weight made the car slump his side. Not a fattie either, not a gram of it. And though he had quite an open smile on now, he was scarier than back there in the shop. Jesus, Lulu-girl, I think it’s another one of those good-things-never-last moments.
Wouldn’t be an hour passed and the city limit too, out on the western side, funny thing, same direction the boys took Rick. He went from chatting away to quiet — and when he veered off into the black of countryside and pulled up way out middle of nowhere? Well. It was coming. You’ve attracted another one, Lu. Who said the back seat was more comfortable ‘as this could be a long interview’. Said with one of those certain male looks. So she braced herself accordingly.
Back of a police car, coughing, shifting, that familiar breathing. Next he was pawing her. Jesus. Parked out in a rural nowhere, vast spread of city lights twinkling in the distance.
Telling her, ‘Your uncle’s a fuckin’ liar and he’s gonna cop it. No one lies to Kevvy Ahern. You’re just beautiful. I can make this all go away for you, hon. Know exactly what’s happened. I’m a cop, see. We figure these things out. Come here, babe.’
Got her skirt hiked up, fuckin’ big mitt like a bear’s paw clawing at her up there, under the panties, lucky a girl hasn’t got her period, this bloke wouldn’t like that, what man does.