The Courier's New Bicycle

by Kim Westwood

  He stares up at the mixer tanks on the gantry. ‘You looked in those?’

  I say no, and feel remiss.

  The metal stairs by the front entrance look worse than the office set, but are actually more securely attached. I climb, then work my way along the gantry to the first giant mixing bowl. I grip the handle on the lid. It’s heavy but levers up, and I poke the torch beam inside the tub. The interior is thickly crusted and the colour hard to pick, but ‘scurvy yellow’ would be close.

  ‘Paint,’ I say down to Anwar, then try each along the row. Same result, different colours.

  I descend the stairs and join him by the equipment. Here, the detritus makes sad piles on the concrete, the dust bunnies grown big enough to become dust hares. I scuff at a pile with the toe of my boot and something separates from the formless grey. I pick it up: innocuous, but recognisable anywhere. A piece of blue wax from an anti-tamper seal. I scuff again. More bits show up, all blue. I grab Anwar’s arm.

  He inspects the piece in my hand. ‘It may have nothing to do with the current situation,’ he says.

  I look at him doubtfully. ‘But so many?’

  ‘Someone — your office lovebirds, for instance — might have been breaking open their personal stash here for years. And blue wax isn’t used exclusively by EHg.’

  I have to admit he has a point.

  The polystyrene eggs are just one shape of a variety, the shells bought as blanks by distributors then filled with the manufacturer’s products and sealed, the wax medallion at their join stamped with the maker’s unique logo. Now we no longer live in a throwaway world, the distributors have a re-use system going. Buyers can return the old shells to receive a discount on their next expenditure, or they can be handed in for money, like bottles or cans — which is why you never see the whole thing lying around, just the remains of the tamper-proof seals.

  Fingering a piece of wax, I watch Anwar inspect along the production line towards the conveyor belt and pallets at the loading dock. Suddenly he hauls on a handle and a piece of equipment rolls out.

  ‘This is more convincing,’ he remarks across the space.

  I drop my find and go over.

  It’s a drill press, but the part that normally holds the drill bit has been converted to take a metal die. Beside it on the portable stand is a small camping stove and wax pot.

  It’s ridiculously simple. The polyshell sits in the concavity on the drill table, hot wax is poured from the pot into its indented seam, and then the swing arm brings the die down into the wax. With one piece of equipment and a few key ingredients, a small-time operation can do big damage to a company like EHg.

  ‘Gail said it’d be on Barrow Road,’ is all I can manage.

  Anwar shrugs. Misinformation can happen to the best.

  He fiddles with the drill chuck while I frown up at the office and wonder what the lovebirds thought when the others moved in below.

  Anwar stops fiddling and holds up the die. It’s imprinted with EHg’s trademark. ‘Sloppy of them, leaving this,’ he says, and pockets it. ‘Now let’s see the office.’

  We climb the stairs to the landing and I go for the door handle. It doesn’t budge. Surprised, I train the torch beam below it, and find a shiny lock where the rusty one used to be. I stand there foolishly as a bad thought dawns. What if the orange flag in the window was never a signal for romance, but Gail’s new player all along and I mistook the vital clue?

  I glance at Anwar.

  ‘I think we have a return date here,’ he says solemnly, and my throat goes dry. I’m a wuss when it comes to confrontation. That’s why I have runners’ legs and a racing bike.

  We’re buzzed into Cute’n’Cuddly’s delivery yard. Anwar parks the van beside a polished relative and we walk into the warehouse, Gail calling us to where, inventory in hand, she’s sorting through a set of boxes stacked for delivery.

  ‘It goes through phases,’ she says, bending back the flaps of a box and brandishing a fluffy grey creature. ‘Bilbies are the current favourites, but six months ago the market couldn’t get enough of hairy-nosed wombats and growling koalas.’ She puts the bilby back in the box and closes the flaps. ‘In marketing parlance it’s called “macro-charisma”. Big furry animals will always win hearts and wallets over the tiny ones, such as insects, even if the latter are the true miracles of nature. Nobody wants to snuggle up to a weta or a dung beetle.’

  I try to picture a Cute’n’Cuddly dung beetle. I fail.

  We walk past production-line sorting tables and a forklift bay, back to Gail’s unmarked office at the rear of the building. She heads for the roller chair behind her desk while Anwar and I both find something uncomfortable to lean against.

  ‘I’m buying us some chairs for your birthday,’ he informs her.

  She smirks and makes a show of settling in her seat. ‘Tell me what you found.’

  Anwar produces the die and she sheds her easygoing air.

  ‘I’ll get the surveillance equipment installed as soon as it’s light,’ he says.

  ‘We can monitor activity from here,’ Gail replies. ‘I’m not planning on jumping them, just getting the footage to identify them for others to deal with.’

  I breathe a small sigh of relief. Others. Not me and Anwar.

  Gail leans forward, intent. ‘If we can catch them at it and expose them, things will begin to settle down.’

  ‘What if there’s a bigger player pulling their strings?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m looking into that.’

  Gail has spies niched in the workings of Neighbourly Watch and Nation First. Anything she doesn’t hear from them is usually picked up by the many eyes and ears of the underground network, which makes it all the more surprising she doesn’t know who these people are yet.

  She throws a glance at Anwar, deciding something.

  ‘The vultures are beginning to circle,’ she tells me. ‘Yesterday I had an offer on the business. An anonymous party is willing to pay a minuscule cash sum for Cute’n’Cuddly before, as their go-between so charmingly put it, “the wheels fall off the gravy train”. He put up some very persuasive arguments, but I declined.’ She leans back. ‘I’m not discounting the possibility he’s part of whatever’s causing our problem. Your discovery might help us with that.’

  I don’t want to spoil the best news we’ve had, but there’s no getting out of what I have to tell her, so I launch straight in.

  ‘I had a visit from Mojo Meg at the speakeasy on Sunday, and a direct offer to work for her. I’m sorry I didn’t mention it yesterday morning. The attack on Roshani pushed it out of my mind —’

  I stop in surprise. She’s smiling broadly at me. Not the response I was expecting.

  She laughs. ‘I knew Meg was headhunting you even before she came to our table to tell me the market news.’

  I must look shocked, because she laughs again. ‘Salisbury, why are you always the last to know these things?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Meg’s had her beady eye on you for a while. Last week wasn’t the first time she’d put out signals.’

  ‘I thought it was just to get at you. To rub it in that there’s someone trying to damage the business.’

  ‘She wishes. Her entrepreneurial streak and her mean streak are one and the same. A flailing competitor makes her hungry as a shark. She’s been looking for an opportunity to poach you and there’d be no better time than this.’

  ‘Why me? There are plenty of other couriers available.’

  Gail looks at me as if I’m stupid. ‘Because you’re a first-rate courier. And you should know in our game that’s a valuable commodity.’

  I shift uncomfortably, not looking at her. ‘I didn’t tell her no outright. I said I’d think about it.’

  It’s Gail’s turn to look surprised.

  I rush to explain. ‘I’d never actually do it, but it seemed like she knew something we didn’t, and I thought I might get her to divulge more.’

  ‘That’s a danger
ous game.’

  I’m downcast. ‘It was an off-the-cuff thing — which I now have to weasel my way out of.’

  I wait for her to castigate me for being so foolish, but instead she looks thoughtful. ‘You know,’ she says, ‘it might actually be a good idea.’

  ‘No!’ I can’t help the outburst. The thought of working for Meg for even a day is unbearable.

  Gail picks up the die and weighs it in her hand. ‘This proves they were at the paint factory, but not necessarily that they’re coming back. In this business it doesn’t take much to spook the customer into a mistrust of the product, and the pond scum we’re dealing with have already done that. What if they have no more need of this?’ She places the die on the desk. ‘It puts us back at square one.’

  I make a pathetic noise halfway between a groan and a whimper.

  ‘Look, Salisbury, I don’t think Meg is behind this, but your instincts were right: if anyone has any information worth knowing, it’ll be her. She owns the compendium on other people’s business. Can you keep her thinking you’re interested for a few days?’

  ‘I suppose …’ It’ll be like playing cat and mouse with a tiger.

  ‘And if it came to it, would you be willing to work for her for a while? Business here will be on a downturn.’

  It hurts me to even hear her say that.

  ‘It’ll look like I’ve deserted you.’

  ‘Yes, it will.’

  ‘Who’ll know the truth?’

  ‘The three people in this room — and only the three.’ She eagle-eyes me. ‘Not best friends or girlfriends. Not even the cat.’

  I’m so transparent. My thoughts had leapt instantly to Inez.

  In my heart, I know Gail’s right. If Meg smelled a rat, who knows how she’d retaliate? She’d have no qualms about leaning on Inez if she suspected me of anything, and I can’t let that happen.

  Anwar, silent all this while, nods at me: a small gesture telling me I can count on him in this, no matter where it goes. I’d like to say it makes me feel better, but it doesn’t.

  My boss ignores my dismay and carries on. ‘In tough financial times, people have to find any means they can to keep their heads above water, and with demand for EHg’s products in a tailspin, everyone’ll see it as a move of necessity on your part.’

  I grimace at her using the same drowning allusion as Meg.

  ‘But —’

  ‘It may not even need to happen,’ she cuts in. ‘If it does, it’ll only be for a short time — say, incommunicado for a week. Then we’ll have another talk.’ She watches me sympathetically.

  I feel wretched. But Inez won’t see it that way, is what I’m thinking. Going off to work for Mojo Meg without so much as an explanation will seem like the worst kind of betrayal. I’d better pray the surveillance at Ferguson’s nets us a result or my new girlfriend will very quickly come to hate me.

  Gail gets up from her chair, our powwow over. Hangdog, I follow her to the door. Anwar stays put, some heavy conversation to be had after I’m gone.

  Out in the yard she motions to my bike left here earlier. ‘You going to be okay on that?’

  I nod. It’ll be a relief to ride and feel the burn.

  Last thing, she presses a troche pack into my hand. ‘Tell your friend Lydia this is a month’s supply of hormones. If she takes them exactly as directed, it’ll smoothe out the oestro flux, but she should consider seeing a Red Quarter specialist and becoming a regular client.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I’ll make sure she knows.’ At least after tonight one of us is going to be a much happier human being.

  I seek out Inez. Her place is in Richmond, a semidetached cottage a few minutes’ ride from mine. She inspects me through the spyhole then unlatches the chain and deadlock. The door opens. She’s standing there in just a tee-shirt. I get a sudden urge to fuck her wildly, insanely.

  ‘You alright?’ she asks.

  ‘Just here for a hug,’ I reply, but it comes out so forlorn.

  She takes my hand and pulls me inside, the bike left across her front step.

  The door barely closed, we are kissing in the hallway. The press of her lips on mine is electric; hunger surges from somewhere deep. She grabs the waistband of my jeans, drawing our bodies closer.

  The tee-shirt is too big for her. I drag it off one shoulder to get to a breast, and kiss fervently, the flavour and texture of nipple like no other.

  I have her up against the wall. ‘Make me come,’ she says.

  My hand dives, searching for the wet. She’s not wearing knickers. A wellspring meets me. I drive the heel of my palm against her mound and slip a finger into her.

  She moans. Her pelvic muscles grip and release, that action an incendiary in me. We rock in sync, faster and faster motion. She comes in shudders, and we collapse together on the floor.

  She looks askance at me from beneath mussed hair. ‘You seem … different,’ she murmurs.

  I don’t know what to say. ‘Work stuff,’ I manage, feeling duplicitous.

  She’s watching my face, her brow creased. Like everyone, she knows Gail’s troubles are also mine.

  ‘What’s your boss got you doing for her now?’

  I can’t meet her gaze, the truth impossible to tell.

  ‘Go,’ she says. ‘Sleep. You look like you need it.’

  ‘Love you,’ I whisper. And then I’m walking out her door.

  12

  Even in daylight, SANE’s precinct is well-hidden inside the Red Quarter. It takes several wrong turns through the alleyways to work out the instructions written on the back of the business card Tallis Dankner had handed me at the hospital. Eventually I find the faded lettering of the Padstow & Flint, Haberdashers wall, and the doorway hacked in more recent times through its brick.

  I remember the mass exodus from this part of town in the first days of the pandemic — mainly yuppies who’d recently bought here. They fled to the countryside in the hope that putting a bit more space around them might act as protection from the virus spreading like wildfire in the close confines of the CBD. It didn’t. But it left those parts of the inner city that had been declared plague zones as unpopulated as they’d ever been, and ripe for takeovers. Those who stayed behind the barricades blocking off their streets had no money to do anything else, but as prices plummeted and more and more properties were offered up for hurried sale, others stepped in who were less afraid. This is how a syndicate of madams was able to buy up the real estate on the main thoroughfares of what is now the Red Quarter, and how the surrogacy organisations and medical professionals who’d been made pariahs were able to move into its backstreets. With that shift in demographic, something of the personality of ‘old Melbourne’ was returned to its centre. A reversal of fortunes, I have to say, I’ve never been sorry about.

  I buzz and look up into the lens, and hear the lock release.

  Behind is a passage leading to a courtyard and internal-facing set of buildings. I wonder who lived here in Padstow & Flint’s day. Light bathes the worn flagstones and archway relief. A figure sits, mug in hand, on a bench seat beside a gnarly ficus. I cross to an open door where the sign in the stairwell points up. Leaving my bike at the bottom of the stairs, I climb three flights to the top floor.

  The emergency team coordinator’s office is refreshingly light and airy, the morning sun slicing through open skylights onto wide, scuffed boards.

  ‘Glad you could make it,’ Tallis says, and rescues me an armchair from under a pile of papers.

  I don’t tell her how I nearly didn’t, having slept through my alarm. The memory of the fast and furious sex in Inez’s hallway — and my just as speedy departure — lingers in my body, a mix of emotions.

  Tallis offers tea or coffee, but I demur, breakfast and no secrets from my girlfriend what I really need. Together we drag the armchair over to another positioned beside the windows looking onto the courtyard.

  ‘How’s Roshani doing?’ I ask.

  ‘Extremely well,’ Tallis
replies, and plonks herself down, motioning me to join her. ‘She was discharged from hospital late yesterday and is recovering here now.’

  A twenty-four-hour turnaround. ‘That was quick.’

  ‘They never keep them long. They’re short-staffed and know we have some expertise.’

  Both chairs are low and easy-backed, designed for comfortable conversation, but my host is anything but comfortable right now. She leans forward, elbows on knees, fiddling with a pen.

  ‘She’s told me what happened Sunday night.’

  I’m impressed: Tallis has done wonders in such a short time. I remember she mentioned she’d been a midwife until the Nation Firsts confiscated her licence. I’m betting it’s some of that talent she’s brought forth to persuade the traumatised young woman from behind her veil of silence.

  Tallis continues. ‘Roshani was visiting her brother. He lives in a squat in the financial district. It’s been a regular thing, dinner at his place every Sunday — something not okayed by us or SADA, the Surrogates and Donors Agency. She says she followed the personal safety protocols and is sure nobody saw her leave the Red Quarter. Apparently they converged on her from different directions on Pilgrim Lane. She didn’t realise what was happening until it was too late.’

  My spirits sink. I’d hoped it was an unhappy coincidence — wrong place, wrong time — but it sounds planned.

  ‘Has the brother been told?’

  ‘We sent someone around early yesterday morning. He’d been worried sick.’

  ‘So he knows the circumstances of her pregnancy? Is he trustworthy?’

  ‘That’s open to conjecture. Normally SADA would vet every contact, but Roshani did this secretly.’

  ‘Which squat is he in?’

  ‘The Tea House.’

  A Melbourne icon. Originally a warehouse then offices, it was converted into boutique apartments by a Singapore hotel syndicate that went bust because of bird flu. Its six storeys of red brick are marooned at the bottommost corner of the financial district between the Saviour Street Bridge and the half-finished high-rises that totter like giant pins on the foreshores of the Docklands, all restoration and development there stalled for nigh on a decade.