by Nick Place
Jake was so busy wallowing in self-pity that he almost missed the bike. It was four hours since he’d lost her as she rode away from the pool, and his seventh cruise along Smith Street as his ‘sick day’ ticked hopelessly away. He’d battled the peak-hour traffic in his Mazda for a while, towards and then away from the city, but this time he walked, bewildered by the variety of restaurants, bakeries, two-dollar shops, seconds fashion outlets, art galleries full of what looked like the same graffiti that was on the walls down every lane, and a bar called Kent St, which made no sense given its address was Smith Street. Bikes were everywhere, locked to every pole and bike rack. Jake took it all in, wondering if he shouldn’t buy a bike, on the off chance he saw her riding along and they could somehow bond by pedal.
He only saw the bike because he was looking down one of the side streets, frowning and wondering if the Legs lived somewhere just off Smith Street, maybe in the old Foy & Gibson clothing warehouses turned into apartments. But, hell, for all he knew she lived or worked in Chadstone or St Kilda, miles from here. There was no reason to think she had any connection with this grungy street full of rumoured drug deals, very real beggars, crazy street-walkers mumbling and occasionally ranting, alcoholic derros and occasional clusters of Indigenous locals. Not that he had a clue about this world. He felt a long way from his mum’s house in safe, middle-class Kew, even though it was less than five kilometres away.
But geez, she’d fit right in, dressed like she was. And if she lived or worked somewhere else, why would she be at the Fitzroy Pool every day? And how far could she be going if she was on a battered old purple bike?
Which he was stunned to find he was staring right at; it was chained to a pole down the side street. He walked down and inspected it more closely. It was covered in stickers relating to whales and Kyoto and woodchips and abortion and other causes, as well as one calling the Liberal Party dickheads. One big purple sticker was for Friends of the Planet, which rang a bell somewhere in Jake’s overwhelmed brain.
He backtracked to Smith Street and realised which shop he was standing in front of, a double-fronted, glass-windowed grocer–cum–café–cum–clothes store. The Friends of the Planet.
He checked his reflection in the window of the empty shop next door, the ‘For Lease’ sign cutting his face in half. He looked a little strained and sweaty, and a lump of hair was standing up over his right ear – no, it was his left in the reflection – but he looked okay. He was glad he’d gone with a white T-shirt today; any other colour would have shown sweat-rings ballooning out from under the arms by now. She’d only notice the sweat if they hugged, he thought, and then he chuckled. That was hoping for too much but, heck, there was nothing wrong with dreaming.
Jake pushed the glass door open, prompting the three large bells mounted above it to swing into space before they came crashing, clanging and bouncing back against the frame. Jake fought his way through a curtain of multi-coloured beads and took in the shelves of tie-dyed clothing, handmade candles, animal harm–free running shoes and other paraphernalia cluttering the shop. A café area of tables and chairs filled the right-hand side of the front of the store. He spied a kitchen door further back, the blackboard above it offering what appeared to be exclusively lentil dishes. Crystals hung from fishing-line along the front window, sending rainbow shafts of light onto the opposite wall, revealing swirling dust within their beams. From the ceiling hung dozens of T-shirts with slogans about everything and anything. Moving further inside, Jake took in the organic foods on offer in the grocery section.
Somewhere deep in the bowels of the shop bells started to chime, softly at first but growing steadily, coming closer all the time. Finally a woman appeared in the kitchen doorway behind the café counter and the source of the bell-frenzy became clear. Her hair was a frizzy mass of red curls erupting magnificently skywards, adding at least a foot to her otherwise below-average height. She was wearing a puffy bright-purple jumpsuit, as though she had just dropped her parachute in the other room before coming out to smile what was clearly supposed to be a beatific, calming smile of welcome in Jake’s direction. The woman had a Greenpeace badge pinned to the scarf that fought desperately to keep her hair off her temple, and her earrings were giant silver circles with crosses connected to their bottoms. It was her feet that were ringing; she must have had small bells on her anklets or sandals although Jake couldn’t see them. The parachute suit was unbuttoned at the front, revealing a T-shirt that said something about women and the night, but Jake, trying not to be caught staring at her chest, didn’t read it too closely.
That smile, radiating inexplicably intense warmth, peace and love, was still fixed on him and Jake fidgeted, wondering if he should just keep pretending to look at the junk on display or whether he should say something – ask about the Legs? What would he say?
‘Hi. Just looking,’ he stammered and immediately took an intense interest in a book about how to make your own dream-catcher. But he needn’t have worried because the bells were slamming against the frame of the door again and the woman behind the counter instantly forgot that Jake even existed.
Jake saw the look on her face before he half-turned to glance at who had entered the shop. He saw a tall, broad, deeply tanned man in a Rip Curl singlet, camouflage cargo shorts and green thongs. At least half a head taller than Jake and a few years older, the man was wearing a baseball cap with ‘Dreamworld’ on the front. He had a goatee and a large tattoo of what appeared to be a flying tiger curled around his left bicep. The guy glanced briefly and dismissively in Jake’s direction and then shoved past him, the curl of a smile appearing on his lips.
The enduring image for Jake, when he later thought about the first time he ever saw Stig, was of the hard, dark eyes that fixed on the woman and stopped her, like headlights closing in on a startled and horrified rabbit.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ said the rabbit, finding her breath.
***
Stig smiled, glad to finally be out of the house, away from Wildie’s endless video games, back in his old hood, and obviously remembered. He was enjoying the woman’s distress. ‘Hello Bindi. It’s been a while. You don’t look too thrilled to see me.’
‘You just took me by surprise, that’s all,’ she shifted uncomfortably, eyes darting. ‘I thought you were interstate.’
‘Yeah, I was. But now I’m back. I couldn’t live without all my brothers and sisters in the Melbourne greenie movement. How have things been around here?’
Bindi treated the question like it was a landmine. ‘Umm, not too bad. About the same, you know. Nothing much has been happening.’
‘Yeah? What about my little Louie?’ Stig asked, leaning in.
Bindi stiffened a little, steeling herself. ‘I don’t know that Lou wants to see you, Stig. I think it would be better if you left.’
Stig gave Bindi a wide grin. ‘Aw, come on, Bins. What kind of a way is that to treat an old mate? I drop by to have a cup of carob-chino with a former lover I’m still very fond of and you try to turn me away? Whatever happened to peace and goodwill to your fellow man and all that?’
Bindi was stiff as a board now. ‘Our philosophies don’t mean we have to be civil to people who use us and our good intentions for the kind of means you did, Stig. Life around here is a lot happier since you’ve been gone.’
‘Is that right, Bins? Is that right? Everybody’s got nice, calm auras, have they?’ Stig was absentmindedly holding the tail of a dreamcatcher with his right hand. ‘Everybody’s chakras are radiating positive vibes into the atmosphere, huh? The moonbeams are generating love and harmony?’
He jerked his arm and the dreamcatcher snapped in half. Bindi physically recoiled.
In a trembling voice, she muttered, ‘I think you should go.’
Stig took half a step closer to the counter and leaned forward so that his face was only a few inches away from the quivering rabbit with the high hairdo.
‘Guess what, Bindi,’ Stig said softly. ‘I don’t give a flying f
uck what you think, you stupid bitch. If I want to see Louie, I’ll see her. Because guess what? I don’t have to pretend I’m into all this peace and lentils and shit anymore. Now, where the fuck is Louie?’
‘Not here,’ said the rabbit. ‘She doesn’t work here anymore.’
‘Really? Gone back to the ‘burbs, has she? Seen the error of her bullshit hippie ways and gone back to silvertail luxury?’
‘Just leave, Stig.’
Stig smirked at her, the attempt at defiance, and said, ‘You’re bullshitting me. I bet she is still working here.’
‘She’s not here,’ Bindi said miserably.
‘Well, you tell Louie I’ll be seeing her very soon and I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of her, if you know what I mean.’
‘You are disgusting,’ Bindi spat with terrified venom, but Stig responded with a cheerful wink. He turned and walked out, slamming the door so hard the bells sounded as though they were announcing the apocalypse.
Bindi leaned hard against the counter, put both hands to her mouth and began doing an exaggerated breathing exercise, body quivering, until a female voice from somewhere out the back of the door where Bindi had first appeared called, ‘Bindi love, is that you breaking the door? Have we got customers?’
‘No Lou. It’s all good. I’ve got it,’ Bindi said, and closed her eyes, taking several more careful deep breaths while placing her hands together out in front, palms up as though to receive something. Then she suddenly opened her eyes to catch Jake staring.
‘What?’ she asked. ‘What do you want?’
Jake was already edging towards the door. ‘Nothing thanks, just looking.’
And then he was gone.
Laver liked Constable Cecilia Valencia immediately, the pair deciding to start off the day by heading towards Carlton. It was his third day in the saddle, and his arse hurt as soon as it hit the seat.
‘So, you drive a Pajero,’ Cecilia said as they left the garage. ‘Strange choice for a bike cop.’
‘Why?’ Laver asked, puzzled by the comment.
Well,’ she said, ‘somebody devoted to police work and saving the environment by cycling gets in his car at the end of the day and all but personally clubs baby seals to death with carbon monoxide?’
‘I’m unconvinced about the science of that statement,’ Laver replied. ‘Anyway, let the record show that I have been known to load the Pajero with surfboards, scuba-diving gear and camping gear. It’s huge, and not that reliable, but it’s useful.’
‘You’re a camper,’ she said, an eyebrow raised in his direction, black hair whipping back in the wind as she pedalled.
‘I’ve been known to camp, yes.’ Laver wished his legs would warm up or at least loosen up enough to stop the cramping.
‘When did you last camp? In the bush.’
Laver had to think. ‘About two years ago. But it wasn’t in a tent, if that’s what you mean.’
‘A cabin? That’s not camping.’
‘No,’ smiled Laver. ‘Not like that. We were performing surveillance on a suspected terrorist cell near Macedon. Had to lie flat on our stomachs, guns ready, wearing camo gear and night-vision glasses, taking photos and trying not to need to piss or crap for the best part of thirty-six hours.’
‘You serious?’
‘Sure. We thought they were al-Qaeda, planning to blow up the Supreme Court.’
Cecy, whose entire police experience so far had been giving fines to motorists and dealing with minor street-level offences, was impressed. ‘So what happened?’
‘Nothing. They were all talk. We ended up rumbling their farm – busted them for growing some pot, gave them a few gentle taps to remind them they shouldn’t move beyond pub boasting, and packed it up.’
Cecy decided he might be serious and wondered what ‘a few gentle taps’ entailed. The scenario he described wasn’t like anything she’d read in the thick police work manuals in her training. They rode in silence for a while.
‘Who’ve you been out with so far?’ she finally asked, as they cruised side by side along Johnston Street.
‘The first time, I rode with Standish and Ollerton.’
Slatts hadn’t done the new guy any favours. ‘Oh Jesus. The terrible two. You guys bond? Talk about guy stuff?’
‘Sure. You know Standish … couldn’t stop chatting.’
‘Like about what?’
‘Oh, everything and anything. Correct depilation techniques. The fact he sleeps upside down, like a bat, in gravity boots. His secret collection of Barbie dolls. His love of poodles.’
‘Okay, you’re kidding. Right?’
‘Ask him.’
‘You are kidding. I know you’re kidding,’ Cecy stared hard at Laver. ‘Right?’
Laver just grinned.
‘Okay,’ she said, suddenly sure. ‘You’re lying. You called him “Standish”. If you were that close, you’d be on first-name terms.’
‘It’s a guy thing,’ Laver said dismissively. ‘Goes back to army days.’
‘You were in the army?’ Who was this guy?
‘God no. Worse. I was SOG. Anyway, does a gorilla like him even have a first name?’
Good point, thought Cecy.
Over coffee at Tiamo, Cecy told Laver a lot about herself. There was something disarming about him, this veteran cop who clearly didn’t give a shit; something that made you feel like you could talk – something she didn’t normally do with work colleagues. She didn’t spill everything, though – not by a long shot.
She told him that her parents had come from Colombia in the 70s. She’d visited there a few times, struggling to digest the fact that close relatives lived in poverty while the Australian Valencias were in comparative working-class luxury in the western suburbs of Sydney. She told him she missed living up north, but she’d joined the Victorian police two years ago, while chasing a boy, and she loved her job. The boy, on the other hand – a TV actor – she now listed as a bad mistake.
She didn’t tell Laver that the actor dickhead was only the latest in a long line of mistakes, and far from the worst. Didn’t reveal that she’d joined the police force in an attempt to iron out her life when it seriously needed some ironing out, that she’d moved as far away as she could from a loose, lawless and dangerous crowd that was close to unravelling her. Of course she didn’t explain, to Laver of all people, that she clung sometimes desperately to the order and rules of the law she now enforced; that she loved them for giving her ground rules and a foundation.
Instead she talked about family – the good thing in her life. About how she mostly missed her sister and her brood of nieces and nephews. Said that she still got up there, to Sydney, a few times a year. She told him how last time she’d visited, she’d seen the duende: three little nodding goblin-like creatures that sit by bedroom windows and try to coax people outside.
Realised she couldn’t believe she was telling him this stuff but pleased at his reaction, not greeting the duende with scorn but with genuine curiosity.
‘What happens if you go outside?’ he asked.
‘When?’
‘When the little nodding guys are around.’
‘You die. Well, you disappear.’
‘They kill you?’
She frowned at that and had to think. ‘No, they take you away. Children, actually. They take the children away.’
‘Where to?’
‘To their world.’
‘How big are these guys?’
‘That’s not the point. They’re spirits.’
‘And you saw them?’
‘I saw their shadows, all nodding right outside the windowsill.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Burrowed into the bed, closed my eyes. They can’t come in.’
‘Why not?’
She shrugged. ‘They just can’t.’
Laver sat up and leaned closer. ‘You Colombians have anything on finding a dead bird in your house?’
‘A dead bird?’
‘Y
eah. Not long after I shot the guy, I got home and found a dead pigeon in my lounge room.’
‘It had flown in?’
‘That’s the thing. All the windows and doors were closed. I double checked.’
Cecy frowned. ‘I can’t think of anything but I’ll ask around.’ Maybe her parents would know something.
There was a lull in the conversation. Cecy scanned Laver’s face and decided to go for it, ask what everyone in the squad wanted to know but was too chicken to ask: ‘So what’s it like to shoot someone?’
Laver smiled, acknowledging her bravery. Then frowned, looking for words. ‘It’s … surreal,’ he finally managed. ‘It’s one of those moments that you can’t believe is happening, even as it is. Like you’re watching a movie but you know you’re not. It’s real. But your brain can’t quite compute that reality.’
She took it in. Was back seven years, telling her older sister, hearing herself say the words, that their grandmother was lying dead in the bedroom. ‘Yes, that makes sense.’
Laver suddenly stood, stretched and then grinned down at her. ‘I’ll bet your nickname is OJ. You know, like the orange juice.’
What? Grasping for the conversational change of gear, she stared at him.
‘Valencia orange juice? No?’
She rolled her eyes, getting it now, and laughed. ‘Oh god. You men and your nicknames.’
As the morning progressed, Cecy felt more and more conflicted. Go-by-the-book recovery Cecy was struggling with her partner’s often complete disregard for the job – but there was another part of her, that other part, that couldn’t get enough of hitting the road with Laver. At lunch, she asked Slatts if she could have more shifts with the newbie, and watched her boss put his head in his hands.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘Your caffeine intake been down? Life getting too comfortable so you need a grenade thrown into the mix?’
‘I just find his approach to police work … interesting.’
‘That’s what worries me.’
‘What do you mean?’
Slattery sighed. ‘Cecy, I’ve watched you develop as a police officer with great potential, doing everything by the book, cutting no corners, exceeding all KPIs. And now you want to join our five-minute freak show?’