Black Glass

by Mundell, Meg;

  ‘Pft. Don’t worry. I keep a spare suit at the office.’

  ‘Here, let me —’

  ‘No no, I’ll do it.’

  ‘I’m so sorry —’

  ‘Forget it. Work pays my dry-cleaning bills. Now, what were we saying?’

  ‘Ah …’

  ‘The other stories you’re working on?’

  ‘Yes, yes … Besides the fluff, mostly corruption and exploitation stuff. That brothel guy who got done for kiddie porn? I’m doing a profile on him.’

  ‘The court psychiatrist is a department guy. Easy to work with — I can connect you if you like.’

  ‘Brilliant. Thanks, that’s perfect.’

  ‘We can talk messages next time — it’ll be pretty standard. They were mostly street kids.’

  ‘Great, great. And there’s another story I’m keeping quiet for now. A scoop. About immigration and the blood racket.’

  ‘Ah. Well, I’ve got contacts in immigration. You’re seeing an intersection?’

  ‘Possibly. But keep that low for now.’

  ‘That goes without saying, Damon. You like the underbelly stuff, don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t you? Keeps life interesting.’

  ‘True. Now, do you want to hear about our upcoming projects? This is an exclusive, so you might want to take notes.’

  [Legends Hotel, North Interzone: Grace | unidentified female | clerk | Merlin | Peep]

  From the outside it looked like a hotel in an old film, a flashback to an imagined time, all sharp shadows and smudged light; there was something familiar in its worn bluestone face and narrow windows, the dim red-carpet glow of the foyer, the silhouettes of potted palms. On one side of the building pulsed a glassed-in games arcade, where lone players gunned down foreigners; the shopfront on the other side was vacant and dark.

  Grace watched the blonde woman shove the door open, her stiletto heels tipping a little against its weight. She caught a flash of bare arm as the woman entered the building’s crimson mouth. She’d been following her — that long swoop of blonde ponytail, the black polka-dot dress — for almost an hour without once seeing the woman’s face, except in brief profile. From the back she was straight out of a nostalgia flick, those ones she’d made Tally stay up late to watch, even though her sister always complained they had school in the morning. Block and retreat, drop the curtain on those thoughts. On cue, Grace replaced the memory with a harmless montage of still shots: heels stepping up a kerb, the swirling hem of a dotted dress; a cigarette held aloft, smoke spiralling up like calligraphy.

  Earlier today she’d tried calling the number again. It rang, and rang, and rang: the line still open, the signal still travelling through space, flying from here to some unknowable place. Thirty rings, then it cut out. Her coin returned. And again: thirty rings, then the dead signal. The coin. A sick feeling, her heart gone blank.

  Grace was standing there in the phone booth when the woman walked past. She’d seen this same woman before, she realised, but only from the back — at that Tiffany’s place, heading into a room with an armful of towels, that blonde rope of hair swishing as she walked expertly in those high, high heels. A sense of old-school glamour. Grace hooked the receiver and shadowed the woman’s confident walk, simply because she seemed to know where she was going — all the way from the park beside the river, through darkening streets and laneways, past strip dens and taxi ranks, noodle shops and building sites. But now she’d vanished into this hotel, leaving Grace hunched with exhaustion and thoroughly lost.

  A scream broke the air from several streets away — a long, torn sound like furniture being dragged across floorboards — and she drew back into a doorway. The streets did not feel safe, and she was losing concentration. Her vision had begun to blur, and there was a dull ache in the pit of her stomach. What was it Max used to say about money? It was like a boomerang: wouldn’t come back if you were too fucked to throw straight. You had to look after number one. All she could think about was a bed in a room, a door with a lock. Nothing else mattered but sleep. In the morning she’d forget the dreams (that fleet-footed shadow running through pine trees; ash all over her feet, her hands, in her mouth. Ashes to ashes.) Then she’d figure out what to do next.

  This next shot she knew off by heart: camera at a low angle, her silhouette against the lights of the hotel. Back straight, cross the road, up the steps, reach for the door; she felt her heels tip a little on the bluestone as she pushed against its weight.

  But the edit between exterior and foyer was rough, a jump cut. She stood there blinking. The carpet only feigned redness from a distance: up close, it was a faded burgundy, mottled with dark stains. The plants were plastic and thick with dust. The smell was a shock too, an unlovely mix of damp mattress and stale sweat.

  Inside a hole in one wall sat an enormously fat man chewing a meat pie, t-shirt straining against his bulk like the skin of an overweight toad. ‘Room?’ he asked, swallowing. Behind him hung a board full of keys.

  Grace approached the counter, feeling in her bag for the envelope of cash. ‘How much is it for one night?’

  ‘Thirty,’ he said through his pie, ‘but if you pay for a week it works out a lot cheaper. One-forty. That’s twenty a night.’

  She felt dizzy. ‘Is that the cheapest room?’

  There were pastry flakes in his beard. ‘There’s one other, real small. No window, just a bed and a light. Won’t lie to you: it’s basically a cupboard. But the lock works.’

  ‘How much is that one?’

  ‘Call it twenty. Or a hundred for the week. You want to see it?’

  She shook her head, held the envelope and counted out five twenties, watched his sausage fingers daintily spirit them out of sight.

  ‘Number 13,’ he said, handing over a key. ‘Third floor, top of the stairs, black door.’ Now he was jotting numbers in a ledger. ‘Any papers?’

  ‘No,’ said Grace, then improvised, ‘not on me.’

  He nodded. ‘Cops don’t bother with us here.’ He looked up, wiped his mouth. ‘No guests in the rooms, though.’

  ‘I don’t want any guests.’

  His eyes shifted over her shoulder. ‘Hey, Merlin,’ he said.

  An elderly man carrying a small case had conquered the heavy door and was edging his way across the foyer. He wore a black suit with stovepipe trousers, and his stoop brought him level with Grace’s shoulder. Folding himself into a chair, he turned his bright gaze on her face.

  ‘Good evening, Kevin,’ he said, in a voice rich and full as an orchestra. ‘I see we have a new guest — will you introduce this radiant young lady?’ He propped the suitcase on his lap, flipped up the latches, waited.

  (A phrase scampered across the back of her mind: May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaks proud things.)

  The man behind the counter shrugged, waved a plump palm. ‘This is Merlin.’ A phone rang, and he reached for it.

  The old man raised his eyebrows at her; kindly, enquiring.

  ‘Grace,’ she said, swaying a little in her borrowed shoes.

  ‘Enchanted.’ He nodded. ‘Grace — of course. I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

  Now he was opening the case, taking something out: a wooden doll dressed in a tuxedo, limbs swinging limp and helpless. At once the creature sprang to life. It perched on the old man’s knee, face turned towards her; wide blue eyes, a slow blink of surprise. Head tilted to one side, the dummy regarded her cheekily.

  ‘Hey there, doll-face,’ it said in a high, singsong voice. ‘You’re a knockout. You ever worked in showbiz?’

  [Flinders Lane, Civic Zone: Tally | Blue]

  Yeah, I got something in my eye, bit of dirt or something. No way, hose-ay, uh-uh, no thanks. Probably just an eyelash. I’m not rubbing it, I’m just moving it around. Hey, c
heck out that lady, she’s got bare feet too carrying her shoes, man those kind of shoes they look fancy but they make you walk like a duck don’t you reckon. Like a tippy-toe duck, like Barbie how she’s always on tiptoe even when she’s got bare feet. I reckon that lady’s drunk.

  Hey shit see that car there again Blue, is that … are they undercover cops do you reckon. I seen one of them looking at me when they drove past — I know that, they not allowed to have beards or moustaches and stuff, but the undercover ones are undercover aren’t they? So that’s different.

  What you doing with the leftover bits? Are you allowed to stick that there, on that churchy thing? Ah. Yeah, true. These ones are pretty don’t you reckon, with that swirly writing, like a fancy birthday card. You reckon this works, all these stickers? You reckon it makes people buy stuff? I am, I am, jeez. I’m always concentrating. I’ve only got about half left. Man.

  That funny-looking guy, with the weird hair? Toldya, I didn’t tell him anything, he was asking questions but I just acted dumb. Yeah, he was asking about Diggy, did I know Diggy had I heard of him blah, blah. But I said nah don’t know anyone called that, never met him, doesn’t sound like a proper name to me. And he was calling Diggy a griffin or something, griffin … grifter? Frick is that? Dunno, just some funny-looking dude with a fancy watch and all that hairgel crap in his hair. All combed back like it won’t move in the wind, not even a tornado, ha.

  Alright. I know how to stick ’em on, all level and on the clean bits, I’ll do the other side and meet you up there on that corner. Where? Oh right, didn’t see … Is that always on? Well, round the corner then. Yeah, I’m remembering everything. Don’t worry. I’m making a map in my head.

  CHAPTER 5:

  VENTRILOQUISM

  [SoniCorp Stadium, Green Belt, city south: Milk | estimated crowd: 12,840]

  By dusk the crowd is swelling. From up here the concert-goers are one substance, a swirling mass of slow-mo dots. They trickle through the stadium gates and eddy around the bar, the food tents and toilet trucks, the merch stand.

  Only when you zoom in do these motes emerge as individuals — and even then, thinks Milk, the unofficial dress code suggests otherwise. Rich kids or not, a sea of black clothing and new tattoos never means an easy ride.

  As usual he’s working with substandard gear: one visual monitor is tinted a sickly green, and the rifle mic outside the female toilets is transmitting nothing but white noise — one invaluable source of audio info ruled out.

  His booth is set up in a sky-pod, an old model that creaked somewhat ominously on ascent; he’d wasted five minutes explaining to the pushy manager why his goggle-eyed son could not just quietly check it all out from the passenger seat. Milk reminds himself: there will always be variables outside your control. All you can do is try to minimise them.

  The sun is sinking behind the casinos when the support band bangs out its first chords, all mock-desultory and aggro; the sound ripples through the crowd below, drawing a howl of response. A huddle of heavy-set boys sends their minion back to the bar. Down on the grass couples touch briefly — a hand on a neck, the small of a back — a reflex action, like checking your footing before diving into deep water. Then the first few bars of music slam out, and plastic cups are obediently raised to approximately fifteen hundred mouths.

  Rock concerts are not the best jobs — the money middling, the ego factor irritating — but they keep Milk on his toes. The weekly casino gig is lucrative, but surprisingly draining: too much emotional drag, the stakes too high. The youth demographic varies wildly, and a test ground this big is hard to refuse. Concert managers just want a healthy profit and minimal trouble, and as long as they understand he can’t be held accountable for every glitch, things usually go smoothly.

  Milk ups the colour saturation in the booze tent, adds a shot of Thirst that spreads like a yawn, watches nearby drinkers drain their cups and reach for their wallets. This first singer isn’t pretty so he illuminates her kindly. He’s researched their stuff: heavy on the drums, light on subtlety, well-worn lyrics. The headline act is a UK group, older and angrier, who’ve been courting tabloid scandal for months. Milk doesn’t mind their sound, and the singer is easy on the eye. Not that he’s a perve: when aesthetics is your calling, everything deserves a second glance.

  Tuning is always an imprecise art, a seat-of-your-pants prospect. You have to read the algebra and poetry of the crowd, its stray notes and key shifts, its undertones and descant; to navigate that line between vigilance and reverie. Below him people’s movements write complex diagrams on the grass, a code for which he is both translator and author.

  A movement in his peripheral vision: a blink of red–blue–red. Hovering a metre from his face is an AirDrone. Distracted by the cockroach-shaped craft, Milk scowls into the void of its compound eye. Christ. The cops still can’t grasp his role. He flashes his ID and Access chips at the machine. ‘Working,’ he enunciates clearly. ‘Or trying to.’

  The reply is flippant, thrown out the side of a distant mouth as the drone zips away. ‘Join the club, mate.’

  Nosy bastards.

  The first band ends their set by torching the national flag: technically illegal, but never prosecuted, just what passes for rebellion at a monitored concert. The Southern Cross hangs in blackened tatters, but the Union Jack in the top corner is untouched. The stagehands quench the flames with a foam gun and stuff the soggy remains into a bin.

  Spotting a tense knot forming in the smokers’ tent, a red blob on his infrared feed, Milk mollifies the area with womblight and vanilla as guards move in to neutralise the trouble. The manager has warned him that the headline act likes to stir up the crowd. ‘You’ll need to keep things toned down,’ the man advised. ‘Keep it under control. A tight leash.’ Milk had gestured to an image on a large screen overhead: a manga cartoon of teenage girls machine-gunning down an army of advancing robots, all flying pistons and braced legs. ‘That won’t help,’ he’d pointed out. Milk recognised the VJ’s work: their last shared gig, a year ago in a downtown club, had begun as a tussle for territory before giving way to a grudging symbiosis. Not this time. These days it hardly matters what the VJ does: his status has sunk, his broadcast is one-way, and imagery is not everything. A lighting monkey knows not to mess with the Money Artist; Milk hates the name, but that’s how management sees it.

  Week by week, Milk has felt his talent blooming. Dancers, concert pianists, athletes: the top performers hone their craft relentlessly, pushing past the limits of concentration and endurance. Every park, every bus stop and vacant lot now poses a question: with patience and a hidden vantage point, how could he influence the way this space is felt, remembered, used?

  The best thing is, he doesn’t have to guess. The city is a giant test lab. Milk sees his covert tuning experiments as good works: most are aimed at the brain’s pleasure centres, the benign elements of memory. That summer-themed set-up next to the river, for example, with the ripe plum scent, the honey-bee sounds and warm lights: that went down a treat. High smile quotient on that one.

  But people are complicated — you can never be sure what they’re reacting to, what buried layers of the past are dredged up by a certain smell, a certain slant of light. So lately he’s begun entering the frame himself, striking up conversation on some pretext: a dropped object, a feigned loss of bearings. Getting close to his subjects is an anxious thrill, but it gives better data. And there’s no risk. Sure, these days people are used to being watched, but they have no reason to suspect they’re being tuned. Not yet.

  But the cost of his constant vigilance is starting to show. He’s seen the bathroom mirror: a bleary pallor, dark shadows beneath the eyes. Maybe he needs a short holiday. Lately he’s caught his concentration drifting on the job, and it’s hard to switch off after-hours. Half the faces in the street now seem familiar. He tries to treat his insomnia with doctored scents, but his brain’s not
buying it; mornings are now marked by the bitter aftertaste of Imovane.

  The main act stalks onstage. Gripping the mic like a weapon the singer leans over to spit into the front row. The kids scream back — they love this stuff. Milk lights the woman like she’s standing in a bonfire: flames racing up her legs, torso all scarlet.

  Music judders into the night, and the energy of the crowd below swells and peaks, a symphony of orchestrated mayhem, beautiful to watch. The singer is a lightning rod, and the band channels the current. He zooms in on her: dark hair snapping like a whip, long limbs doing ninja kicks, red mouth loosing bloodshot sound. A howl of menace, carefully calculated: she’s a pro. All he has to do is jiggle the nuance and keep an eye on those kids stage left — a tiny epicentre of trouble, which he’s already quelled twice.

  He really is tired. The secret is to pace yourself, leave room for downtime. He thinks about those limited edition Pumas he found online last night — the Jazz Pimp numbers. Now there was a shoe for a man on the way up. He’s paid express. They should arrive Monday.

  Too late, he realises something is wrong. Silence, white light blaring in his face; then a blast of discordant noise, a taunting female voice. He’s all lit up, trapped, a mouse in a glass box. His feedback registers bleep in alarm. Milk shields his eyes, squints into the glare. Now he can hear her.

  ‘Fucking pigs!’ the vocalist is screaming. ‘What the fuck you looking at?’

  Then he clicks: she’s screaming at him. The stupid bitch thinks he’s on the other side. She thinks he’s the cops. Onstage two figures are grappling with a huge spotlight, hijacking its glare and directing it upwards: those two little shits have climbed up and yanked it around to capture Milk in its beam.

  He’s had nightmares along these lines — being pinned to a dissecting table, a giant microscope bearing down, the black lens millimetres from crushing his skull. Yes, the possibility of discovery has always hovered. But not like this.