Winter Traffic

by Stephen Greenall

  If they call for instructions they’ll have to own the stuff-up, We had the carpenter but lost him. Gary’s wrath / fuck that. Nuts has been on the same rung a long time and he’s tired of calling for instructions.

  Twenty minutes stewing. Then the detective walks out, hands in pockets / deep in thought. Rawson climbs into the Pintara and starts the engine. Eric draws his seatbelt.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what.’

  ‘Gotta follow.’

  Nuts Finnegan watching the house. High walls, high gardens. Cost you a mint. ‘The cop is nothing.’ He is surprised how sage it sounds in his mouth.

  ‘Are you nuts?’

  ‘That’s exactly who I am.’

  The Pintara lost from view now. Gone, irrevocable. That’s okay—the driver feels good about it. He reaches for the door, tells his extra pair of hands to do the same.

  12

  Low sky again. Portentous. No—not portentous. It’s just the season, winter, rain that will double back later for reasons that are random, personal. Weather is not a symbol except in books / it doesn’t mean a thing.

  —

  Yes it does. Two valleys, thirty miles apart. Two tribes. They don’t fuck with each other / a treaty etched in charcoal. But late in the year, the depths of pagan December, one of those valleys gets colder—really bites. They spend their summer making better spears.

  Next thing you know, you’re rolling round town in a bearskin. Feel pretty bloody clever in a suit made of that. Feel warm when others don’t. And there at your belt, just hanging, the steel leftover from the job. You know, they don’t have anything like it.

  —Who don’t?

  —Those fuckers we hate, thirty miles over.

  —We don’t hate them.

  —Yeah we do.

  —Those fuckers that leave us alone?

  —They laugh at us, make trouble.

  —I didn’t know they laughed at us.

  —Been laughing at us for years.

  —Wow.

  —They think they’re so good with all their cows and tools and women.

  —

  Time to work a shift / this too shall pass.

  The hundred billionth human is a big example, axe-handle wide, pushing six-six. Maybe someone will offer a description later in the day. Or maybe he’ll get lucky and no one will pay attention.

  Smartly turned out, hair slicked, a briefcase that bespeaks something corporate. Or would if it were normal in its dimensions: like him the case is oversized, stretched to implausible length.

  Good street for the purpose. Close to arterials, not too busy, not so quiet that you stand out like dog’s balls. His boring new rental is three blocks away and he passes exactly no one in the four-minute walk. He fronts the building / takes close control of his body.

  —

  Apartments, four storeys from the 1960s. The era when architects took leave of their senses, imaginations. Probably not painted since late in the seventies, a baby-puke shade that could be yesterday’s carrots. Not a cheap outfit, though—not around here. The south-facing wing has ripper views.

  He appears to jiggle a key but it’s sticking on him. Happens to everyone. The sizeable man lends his shoulder to the task, the move violent but highly contained, a dislocated joint being jerked back into place. The door gives way like Open Sesame, like Jesus mate, why didn’t you just ask.

  —

  The silence inside is like womb silence. That is the beauty of the mid-morning hour, the office class flooded out like the clockwork numpties they are. Only grandmothers lurk in the catacombs now, and they are glued religious to Bert.

  Gloves of splendid leather, the man kinder to the next lock he faces. He picks it like a smith, a surgeon. Paid for by the minute / you do the job right.

  Chewing gum. Remember not to leave it.

  —

  He slips within and shuts the door softly. A renovated two-bedroom unit painted neutral, devoid of furniture. The tiny kitchen gives way to a miniature lounge and the miniature lounge to a barely-there balcony. The curtains are open / he sees the world like a one-way mirror.

  A bus is parked down the way.

  Large one, just sitting there.

  —

  The railway line is the vista’s axis. It runs north-south, south towards harbourland, north towards the retail city at Chatswood. The pretend metropolis, the luxury view.

  Sydney. It looks like a train set that God put down just perfect.

  —

  He doesn’t go out on the balcony. Too exposed. Instead he goes to the master where the outlook is merely windowed. He assesses the width of the sill and angles of attack.

  It’ll do. He goes to one knee and lays the case down flat, the hardware coming together like meccano. A long dark stick insect, dramatic against the beige of steam-cleaned carpet.

  Eight carriages are pulling into the station; people disgorge. School kids, young mums. They pass through the turnstiles and cross onto the neat and roundabouted street that runs parallel to the station. A humble little road that never hurt no one, the friendly neighbourhood shops at Artarmon.

  He looks at his watch. Czech. More of that functional beauty.

  Rawson picks up the rifle and views his planet through its scope. A relaxing of body to accept the gun, to ask acceptance in return. The weight of the piece is reassuring—the balance of its craftsmanship and cruel superior steel.

  11

  ‘I’m ravishing,’ says Bopper Dean. ‘You shoulda let me eat.’

  Life inside the coach is like prison. Your minutes do not belong to you. And they house you with someone you wish you’d never met.

  ‘You lisnen?’

  ‘I didn’t stop you,’ says Sutton.

  ‘Yeah you did. I said I was going for a dog’s eye and you give me a look, put me off.’

  The putter-offerer says nothing. He sits in the waist by the window, protected from low winter sun by heavy tint, by the lenses of his wraparounds. From time to time he measures his watch.

  ‘Everyone reckons the Scania is some hot-shit model,’ says the driver of buses. He is draped like a pelt across seats reserved for the old, disabled, pregnant. ‘Rave about the Volvos. They see it comes from Europe and costs double so they think it must be better. Reverse racism and that. Give me a Hino any day, something with guts.’

  Her birthday. He wanted to organise flowers, something better than flowers, but he didn’t have an address. Neither did she. I’m still at the motor inn, but please—don’t send anything. I’ll probably be out of here by the time it comes around. God, I’d better be.

  ‘You deaf? I said everyone reckons Scanias and Volvos are better because of where they come from, like Scandinavia’s this perfect country.’ ‘That isn’t what they reckon.’

  Contravention: Bopper bristles to hear it. ‘Know about this stuff, do we? Mate, I worked Sydney Buses for four years—Sydenham Depot, Leichhardt Depot, Kingsgrove Depot, Liverpool Depot. Went to Bondi Junction and was an instructor, showed ’em how it’s done.’

  ‘So. You can drive it.’

  ‘Course.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘But people think it’s easy because it’s some shit-hot model. Like it’s gonna drive itself. It’s not gonna drive itself, buddy—it’s twelve fucken tonne of technical machine. That turn at the top? I’ll have to triple-clutch to make it stick. And kiss the air brakes, just kiss. It’s no picnic in the park.’

  Bopper falls to nail-biting, casts reproving glances at his single passenger. The coach is dormant, in position; pedestrians wander the footpath but nobody looks twice. Bop wears the uniform he didn’t hand back when they terminated him. ‘This fucken waiting,’ he says. ‘Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.’

  The motor inn, the Regency: he should have just sent roses on spec. Have a crack / what’s the worst that can happen. If she’s found a place, moved out, they sit in reception for a week.

  Big deal. But imagine she’s still there, hating it
, getting a knock on the door from the number-one florist in the whole of Orange County.

  ‘Hear what I said? I wouldn’t wish this waiting on my—’

  ‘I must know worse blokes than you.’

  ‘Probably fucken do…You feelin it? Ready to rock?’

  Bopper met again by the rampart of silence. It distresses him / he needs the chat. He rises to wander the aisle, a horrible antic gait and way of clicking his fingers, a cluster of melodramatic sighs. Eventually he thinks to be infected by Sutton’s calm and takes the seat immediately in front. Close but divided, each man facing the front.

  ‘I always heard stories about you. Around town and that. But I never seen you so I started thinking you were a pigment of Rawson’s imagination.’

  ‘A pigment,’ says Sutton. ‘He told me you were a colourful character.’

  ‘Did he?’ Bopper spins, hunches elbows on the rail like a girl informed that a certain boy likes her. ‘What else?’

  Sutton looks through his accomplice, at the right-side mirror of the coach. It is the lighthouse that marks the end of their common axis. A particular form and colour he is waiting for, an idea that warps into being on four thick wheels.

  ‘Bopper.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘It’s time.’

  10

  Karen is a maggot. She lies there dumb and empty, a mouth full of stones. Larval being, spun in silk, just a snack for passing predators.

  —

  He moves about the cabin from time to time. She cannot see him—the sleeping bag is shut too tight. He zipped her up, tucked her in, a desert the size of a fingerprint at the back of her throat.

  She’s alive.

  How come?

  —

  It takes a long time but she works it out. The couple on Roar Magnetism. They saved her.

  Their liveliness: it put him off. He didn’t want to carry her body out, not while there was still some ruckus in the world. So he made a decision, hit her with half the dose. Now it’s daytime and Paspaley has to wait until dark again.

  That’s okay, he can dig it. Patience is primary among the virtues of police.

  —

  He’s a pro.

  You do not kill until you have to, until you can. You do not cross that line unless disposal is immediate.

  Their champagne and infidelity, her stay of execution.

  —

  Metal on metal. Her slowed-down logic takes a while to place it: the crisp puncture of can opener. The man is eating peaches. In a series of tiny movements she brings her eyes to the vinyl rim and her body doesn’t feel like her body.

  Her peaches. They belong to the boat.

  Emotion forms, the first in this, her second life. Karen’s metabolism is fast and she tells herself that she is processing the dose much faster than he can know.

  She’s going to survive, avenge those fucking peaches.

  —

  He moves around some more, stretching with methodical regularity. The Pardoner is a huge body / there’s so much blood to pump. You can’t let a unit like that just settle. His magnitude is constant torment, constant responsibility.

  Karen’s body is over-settled, under-pumped. The involuntary processes feel forced, like they might lapse at any moment. The lungs, the heart, the pulse of brain: all the mandatory stuff you don’t want to find yourself having to think about.

  Bide your time. People have wriggled out of worse, people less than you.

  —

  She hears him set something on the table bench. A click, a radio coming to life.

  ‘12-13, respond.’

  ‘Respond HQ, over.’

  ‘Pursuit in progress, Eastern Valley Way.’

  ‘AT-2 en route to Kavanagh.’

  ‘Copy AT-2.’

  Not the radio—a police scanner. Karen peers over the edge and sees a pair of crossed feet. The Pardoner is taking his ease.

  Emergency noises, the city speaking to itself through its own hidden channels, the secret underneath language of crime and fire and heart attack.

  Nostalgia.

  Rodge listens to this shit to pass the time.

  —

  She wrote to him. Margaret, care of Ipswich. He stalked her, watched her apartment.

  ‘121, Hampden Road Artarmon. All units respond, repeat all units.’

  ‘Respond HQ.’

  ‘Red, Red. Be advised all units, 121 Artarmon is in-progress. Opposite the station, Hampden Road.’

  ‘C6 respond.’

  ‘Red!’

  Armed Robbery. He shadowed her to the hospital and smashed her window with a tyre iron. Karen knew it was him. Knew and did nothing.

  ‘121 Artarmon, advise ETA.’

  ‘C7 respond.’

  ‘Lane Cove, two minutes.’

  ‘Ambulance requested.’

  ‘C7, thirty seconds.’

  ‘Copy that, AT-6—stand by to advise casualties.’

  ‘Shots fired HQ?’

  She’s drowsy, peeping over the edge of the world to see the whole of him in profile. Paspaley wears a balaclava. He looks like something, something from childhood. Suddenly sleep wants her / how ironic is that.

  ‘C6 southbound. Pacific Highway, three minutes.’

  ‘C7 arriving, 3-15. In pursuit, the vehicle is a bus—’

  ‘Parable 12, advise ninety seconds.’

  ‘Say again C7—you said bus?’

  ‘Gas! Gas!’

  Big Bad Banksia Man. Yeah, that’s it: two cruel eyes and a cruel slit of mouth. Snugglepot, Cuddlepie—even the names induce sleep. Of course they do / it’s a bedtime story. But don’t you fucking dare.

  ‘C7, we’re taking fire! Repeat 303 Artarmon—’

  Karen was a hard little kid to scare, but she didn’t like the Banksia Men. Now her childish mistake has brought one to life, her brainless midnight dare. Somnia: if she goes under, gives in, there will never be another waking. Her name will pass into fairytale, a cautionary princess who didn’t follow rules.

  ‘Red! Red!’

  Riding Hood. She called out the Beowulf and then he came to get her.

  09

  They tell you to buy the worst house in the best street. Maybe someone gave this advice to Gary Pterodactyl. He heard and blinked and carried on with existence. Such is Gaz, owner of the most outstanding pile of bricks in an otherwise atrocious district.

  This is the best house.

  So he says to first-time visitors. Without fail. He doesn’t qualify the pronouncement, doesn’t make it for pleasure. He is saying it now in the same emotionless voice. ‘The best house. Nuts? The best.’

  ‘It’s great,’ whispers Nuts. ‘Love it.’

  ‘It’s not great, it’s the best. Why you here?’

  Nuts makes a dry swallow / Gary puts him off. Also the footage in his head on constant loop, the horror on Eric’s face. ‘Nuts,’ whispers Nuts. Wolfed down like fucken lamb’s fry…He motions to the van that waits beyond the elaborate gates. ‘I got you a present.’

  ‘Car,’ says Gary. ‘You bought me a car.’

  ‘Nah, mate. Come and look.’

  Gary’s in the nuddy. Nuts assumes he will go back into the house and retrieve a pair of boxers. Wrong: together they descend to ground level, the naked primate and the primate wearing clothes, the one wearing clothes embarrassed. A man is walking the nature strip completely fucken starkers.

  ‘They tried to phone,’ says Nuts. Again the hollow tone, ringed with recent trauma. Anyone else would see his hospital eyes and offer water, ask if he’s alright. ‘Front office give us a lead on Sutton.’

  ‘When’s this?’

  ‘Last night. I’m at the Courthouse for a few and then I’m at a knocking shop on Elizabeth.’

  ‘Elizabeth. Knocking shop.’

  ‘Soon as I’m there I get the call but. Down we go, Vincentia, me and the kid.’

  ‘The kid.’

  ‘Eric, mate. He’s at Emergency.’

  Gary nods to hear the news
, says Eric, Emergency as though a long-held suspicion is being confirmed.

  ‘Can’t stop thinking about it.’

  Gary deaf to Nuts’s thinking. He stands at the rear of the vehicle with hands on hips, draped in nothing but a look of acute concentration. Something coalesces in the lens of the dark-tint window, a monster that gestates in jungle swamp. The shape is pale, vivid, large with fury, a jaw that smashes reinforced glass.

  ‘Dog,’ says Pterodactyl.

  ‘We followed the wrong car from the storage joint. Rawson dropped this thing in Paddo, kept on going.’

  ‘There’s blood.’

  ‘Eric’s, mate. His ballsack—gone.’

  ‘Ballsack.’

  ‘We’re loading this thing and it goes feral, rips his fucken jeans off. So I go screaming round to St Vincent’s and Eric’s sitting there shaking, holding his franks and beans in one fucken hand. You ever seen a nurse fucken vomit? She wasn’t no spring chicken, neither.’

  ‘Eric. Dead.’

  ‘Nah,’ says Nuts.

  ‘Yes. No ballsack, you die.’

  ‘Maybe. They put him on a gurney / I pissed off out of there.’

  The animal escalates to new bandwidth of fury. ‘Rabies,’ says Gary. ‘Fierce, ferocious, ferocity.’

  ‘Couldn’t wait to see your face. That’s the last thing Eric said. Couldn’t wait to see your face when we give you such an awesome present.’ But even as he says it, Nuts knows there is no spectacle for Eric to miss. The naked man’s face is the same as always, a mask of cretin intensity behind which nothing.

  ‘Bloke,’ says Gary. ‘I open the gates, you back it in.’

  08

  ‘Well this is a fine old clusterfuck for a Friday fucken morning. Who are these jokers?’

  ‘Looks like Channel Ten.’

  ‘Oi! Clear that bloody footpath!’

  ‘Jesus. Tow truck en route?’

  ‘Confirm.’

  ‘Do they know we need more than one?’

  ‘Just get ’em here—this isn’t much of a look. Pricks in the chopper are doing live feed.’

  ‘Where are our brave rally drivers?’

  ‘Royal North.’