by Nick Place
Cecy, Ms By The Book, responding, ‘As of April, it’s an on-the-spot fine of five hundred and fifty dollars. Imprisonment of up to two years for the big ones.’
‘That’s crap. Look how much skill goes into the good ones. It must be really hard to perfect.’
Laver pulling out his mobile to take a photo of the art.
So Cecy just knew she was in for a show when they rode their bikes down a back alley, off Hardware Lane in the city, and came across a guy in a khaki jacket, ultra-baggy jeans and a beanie, his face covered in a paint mask, spraying an image of an orange woman in a string bikini onto a brick wall that made up the foundations of an office building. The guy seeing them way too late and tossing down his spray can, saying, ‘Ah crap.’ He looked resigned.
Cecy watching the dude’s face, mask now pulled down, as Laver said, hands on hips, gazing at the half-finished artwork, ‘How about I do you a deal? We can arrest you or you can let me buy you a coffee and ask you how it’s done and how you got into it.’
‘I don’t drink coffee.’
Laver looked at him. ‘The coffee isn’t the important part. Pay attention. I’ll buy you a Coke or a creamy soda if you like. What I want to know is more about this whole street art thing. It rocks.’
And so they spent an hour with the guy. He called himself Monkey, and he said he was sometimes paid commissions to decorate walls in houses or offices. He’d inked the outdoor section of St Jerome’s, a cool bar that recently closed down on Caledonian Lane, and was part-owner of the shop next door that sold T-shirts with his and other art on them. Laver said he’d drop by and check it out, when he had a chance. They parted ways, Monkey waving goodbye, smart enough not to head back towards his artwork just yet.
Later that shift, over yet another coffee for Laver (Cecy having moved to orange juice), Cecy asked whether he planned on making any arrests or landing any fines at all while on the squad. Laver grinned, shrugged and said, ‘What? You think we should have quotas like the grey ghosts? Let the parking officers be the pinheads of the street. The way I see it, we’re around if any real crime happens. That’s enough.’
And it was. The next day, on Smith Street, Cecy felt the adrenalin surge as a woman waved them down, a scarlet splash of blood staining her temple and dripping into her eye. The woman quivering in shock as she told them she’d just had her bag snatched, offering a good description of the thief and pointing to where he’d run a minute or so earlier. Laver unexpectedly pleased, telling Cecy that it was enough time for the thief to have turned around and seen he wasn’t being chased, which would have made him relax – almost certainly a junkie after quick cash for a hit. And, sure enough, moments later finding him, on his haunches in a lane near the Union Club Hotel, going through the bag’s contents. Laver, wearing a new, hard face Cecy hadn’t seen before, suddenly pumping his legs on the bike pedals and landing on the guy before he had taken more than two steps in an attempt to run. Laver planting the thief’s head into the rough tarmac of the lane, twisting the guy’s arm sharply behind his back, Laver’s full weight on him. ‘Good luck finding a score in the detention centre, you arsehole,’ Laver hissed.
When the cops in the wagon arrived, one said to Laver, ‘Rocket, you’re losing your touch. You didn’t kill him.’
Cecy could tell that Laver had to work hard to smile and tell them, ‘You guys are hilarious.’
Laver quiet as they rode away.
‘Do you think you can make it, away from Major Crime and copping shit from other cops like that?’ Cecy asked.
‘As long as I stick to coffee and don’t start noticing all the good pubs around here, yeah,’ he replied. Then he gave her a grin, saying, ‘Besides, I could have a worse life than getting paid to tone my legs and hang out with you, right?’
Cecy thought it wasn’t quite a come on, but not far off.
Brian Salter had been selling cars for twenty-three years. From the early Kingswoods to the latest science fiction–inspired Holden Special Vehicles, he had sold them all – even through the global economic meltdown that had made even Holden a shaky brand. The tiny lot he had set up on his own fifteen years ago – just one corner block on the Nepean Highway, halfway to Brighton from the city – had expanded to take in more than an acre of frontage. Secondary dealerships with other players in the auto market, like Daiwoo, Hyundai, and even Skoda, had kept Salter’s Special Auto Stadium – he always dressed his lot in sporting themes – in respectable shape.
This morning, Salter was checking that the early morning kids had done a thorough job of hosing the cars along the street frontage. A couple of the Commodores were a little streaky with dust and pollution – the price of being on the southern suburbs’ main artery to the city – and so he yelled at Angelo, the lot foreman, to have them re-hosed.
Angelo shook his head, raised his arms as though to ask, ‘What can you do?’ and started yelling at one of the kids who hadn’t taken off yet.
Salter was heading back to his office when he saw a tall bearded man, wearing sunglasses and a beanie pulled hard over his head, bending over to look inside one of the new Series Five Holdens. Years of experience instantly told Salter that there was no way this guy could buy the $60,000 vehicle. But Salter was proud of his ability to guide customers towards their true level of car and price-range. He was sure he could find something for this gentleman.
He straightened his tie, squared his shoulders and switched on the salesman’s grin as he strode across the lot.
The Wild Man watched the salesman through a reflection in the car’s side window: fat around the middle, thinning on top, in a dark-blue suit that fit badly and a loud red-and-yellow tie. Looking older and fatter than the version of him on the giant billboard overlooking the yard, Salter with a giant pencil on the advert, along with the words, ‘Pencil in a visit to Salter’s Special Auto Stadium today!’ He was walking with an idiotic grin on his face, like the Wild Man was a long-lost son. The Wild Man straightened enough to regard the approaching dealer with disdain.
Salter bounced past a second-hand Datsun and gave the Wild Man a wave.
‘Hello, hello, hello. What a wonderful morning, eh? Straight out of the box. I love it when the morning sun sparkles off the cars. Makes me feel like I’m in the right business, eh? How are you, sir? Can I help you?’
‘I’m just looking.’ The Wild Man wandered away, past a couple of cars, glancing through the windows at the dashboards. Salter took in the broad shoulders bulging beneath the dirty white T-shirt that was scrawled with a motif for something called ‘Spiderbait’.
‘Well, that’s fine. You look as much as you like. Are you after any particular kind of car? We have several individual dealerships for new cars but also an extensive range of potentially more affordable used cars …’
‘No. I’m just looking.’ The Wild Man gave Salter a lingering look, as though to emphasise his point, and Salter felt a slight chill. The guy was tall as well as muscled, and impressively suntanned – the sort of tan Salter spent hours trying to achieve, either under a UV lamp during the Melbourne winter or on his annual mid-winter sojourn at his timeshare townhouse at Noosa.
‘You from around here, mate?’ he asked, still walking fast to try and keep pace with the man who remained a potential customer, slightly threatening or not.
‘No.’ The Wild Man bent to examine a late-90s Subaru.
‘Ah, beautiful little car, that. Four cylinders with the power of a six. Very straight body. Low kilometres. Great sound system.’
The Wild Man straightened, his back to Salter, and turned slowly. ‘I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you fuck off and let me look at cars? Okay?’
Salter drew himself up to his full height – about half a metre shorter than the other man. ‘Well, hey, there’s no need to use that sort of language, young man. I happen to own this lot and I’d thank you to remain civil.’
The Wild Man faced him fully now, then looked over to the massive billboard of Salter and the giant pencil. ‘Civil, eh
? How ’bout I shove that giant pencil of yours up your arse and then twist it? Would that be civil enough for you?’
‘Now, hey.’ Salter looked around, trying to spot Angelo. ‘There’s just no need for that.’
The Wild Man smirked at him and gestured at a nearby four-wheel drive. ‘How much is the Subaru, big guy?’
‘What?’ Salter stopped in his tracks.
‘How much is the fucking car?’
‘Twenty-seven thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars. You want to buy it?’
‘You’re fucking kidding. It’s not worth half that.’
Salter started to chuckle nervously, looking again for Angelo. He was way down the other end of the yard, supervising a kid with a hose, not looking Salter’s way once. Salter fiddled with his tie. ‘Now, look, I really don’t think you understand the car you’re looking at. Maybe I should get one of my senior salesman to come and—’
‘You got the keys? I want a test drive.’
‘Well, the keys are in our reception office. I’ll have a salesman fetch them if you’re serious about the car, but clearly we wouldn’t go below twenty-five thousand.’
‘Listen dickwit. You’re the boss of the lot. You have skeleton keys to fit any car here. Hand over the key for the Subaru. Now.’ The Wild Man loomed over Salter, blocking out the early morning sun.
‘Umm, no, I haven’t got keys like that, certainly not on me.’ Salter’s right hand involuntarily drifted towards his pants pocket. He tried to adopt a firm tone. ‘I think maybe it might be better if you just left, thank you. I don’t think Salter’s Special Auto Stadium actually wants to do business with a man such as yourself. There are plenty of other lots along this road. So move along, please son. Thank you.’
The Wild Man took one fast step forward and ripped a short, sharp left uppercut into Salter’s ample stomach. The salesman didn’t even see it, only found himself trying desperately, unexpectedly, to breathe. His lungs couldn’t find any air as he bent double, arms futilely trying to protect his gut after the damage was done. The Wild Man glanced around, then hit Salter twice in the face: once on the right temple and then flush on the nose. There was a breaking sound from within the nose and blood started to flow instantly. Salter went down, making a low moaning sound, his shoulder sliding against the door of a Corolla station wagon, and the Wild Man kicked him three times in the chest, breaking ribs, before lifting Salter up by the tie and giving him a last, heavy punch to the face. Salter gurgled a little as he sank back onto the bitumen.
The Wild Man crouched, dug into Salter’s right-hand pants pocket and grabbed the substantial bunch of keys he found there. He expertly flicked through them until he found the ones he wanted: a Subaru key and the single Lockwood padlock key on the bunch. Straightening, he walked fast around the bonnet of the Subaru and unlocked the padlock holding the metal chain that acted as a fence for the lot.
About two hundred metres south, a caryard worker yelled, ‘Hey!’ and started moving in the Wild Man’s direction.
The Wild Man waved a single finger in the guy’s direction then ducked back around the car, kicked the inert Salter in the kidneys, and slid into the Subaru’s driver’s seat.
The guy yelled ‘Hey!’ more loudly and broke into a run as the Wild Man fired the engine, slammed the gearstick into first and planted his foot, erupting onto the Nepean Highway in a wide-arcing left-hand turn that had several cars veering wildly to avoid him, horns blasting.
The Wild Man raced up to ninety kilometres per hour, screaming the gears through second and into third, before swinging left again and then right down a side street. This ring of skeleton keys is pure fucking gold, he thought to himself, grinning madly. Driving more sedately, he cruised along until he spotted a white Commodore parked outside a row of single-fronted shops. He parked the Subaru, got out, walked calmly but quickly up to the Commodore, inserted the appropriate key and managed to pull out without anybody noticing.
He wove his way back to the Nepean Highway and headed for the city, pulling off his beanie and glancing at Salter’s Special Auto Stadium just long enough to register the group of people huddled around a blue-suited form, one blonde girl talking furiously into a mobile phone.
The Wild Man flicked on the radio and winced when talk-back voices filled the car. He punched buttons until he found Triple J. That was more like it.
The Wild Man cranked the volume and enjoyed the drive.
***
‘Well, Stig, this is a surprise.’ The voice of Andrew Wo, one of Melbourne’s rising drug stars, came calmly through the phone. ‘I’d heard some bad news about you, mate. You seem healthier than the Queensland authorities would have the world believe.’
‘Alive and well and loving the Darwin weather. But let’s keep all those facts between us, hey, Andrew?’
Stig hoping that some profitable dealings with Wo before he went north would count for something.
‘You can’t seriously be trying to go behind Jenssen’s back?’ Wo said.
‘Once in a lifetime opportunity, Andrew, and top secret so nobody will even know. You in?’
There was silence. Then Wo said, ‘You’re insane. I want no part of it.’
‘Why?’ Stig was genuinely shocked. ‘I can get the gear down to Melbourne within a day. What do you owe Jenssen?’
‘Nothing, Stig. It’s about staying alive. I owe the man nothing, but I also have no wish to find myself at war with him.’
‘For Christ’s sake. I’d heard you were the new muscle here.’
‘Do you mean Melbourne or Darwin?’ Stig winced at his slip, but luckily Andrew didn’t wait for a response. ‘I am a rising star, Stig – mostly because I conduct smart business. It’s time we wrapped this up. Now.’
‘Okay. Sure. I respect that,’ Stig said. ‘Andrew?’
‘What?’
‘Just because you don’t want in doesn’t mean you have to fuck me, does it?’
‘What can you possibly mean by that?’
‘Can we keep the fact that I’m alive between us?’
‘Of course, Stig. I’m not entirely amoral, you know.’
‘I’m sorry, Andrew. You’re right, I shouldn’t have raised it. Just nervous, I guess. Better safe than sorry, hey?’
Andrew Wo chuckled quietly. ‘Better safe than sorry? Better safe than fucking sorry? My friend, you left that behind forever the moment you took this path. Good luck, but please do not contact me again.’
Another night of being tormented by Wesley Coleman’s ghost. It was standing mutely at the end of the bed when Laver woke from what might be called sleep. Laver rolled over and growled at it to piss off. The ghost was still there forty-five minutes later when he woke yet again – Laver had serious words with it at that point – but then it was gone half an hour after that.
Now he lay on his back, groggy and as tired as before he’d tried to sleep. Said to the room: ‘You shot at me first, you prick. Go to hell.’
Laver staggered out of bed and winced at his stiff legs – which seemed like his biggest problem, until he sat down for breakfast and almost yelped at how tender his buttocks were.
‘Who is the bastard who invented the bike seat?’ he mused aloud to the empty flat. ‘Coleman, wherever you are? Got an answer to that?’
Driving to Collingwood, he frowned at the rain lashing the windscreen. The only sure way to end Melbourne’s endless drought – the cause of catastrophic bushfires and dangerously low water levels in the dam, the reason the cricket ovals were bone-dry and trees across the city were wilting – was to send Laver out on a pushbike so the gods could pour buckets of rain on his sorry head.
It was just like when Melbourne and Sydney staged the biggest charity concerts ever, for the bushfire appeal, and it had bucketed rain in both cities all day. Laver had long ago come to the conclusion that God, or nature or whatever you wanted to call it, had a perverse sense of humour.
At the Mobile Public Interaction Squad’s office, Slattery took one look at La
ver and didn’t pair him up with anybody. Cecy headed off with Ratten, giving him a small wave as she left. Laver donned his ridiculously luminous green rain jacket with ‘POLICE’ in black letters on the back, rode the two blocks from Wellington Street to Brunswick Street, rain trickling down his neck the whole time, and hobbled to one of the bench seats, which required less leg-bending, in the window at Mario’s, wondering if his arse would hurt less if he sat on a folded newspaper. Instead, he took off the glowing green jacket and sat on that.
Now that he was off the road, the rain backed off noticeably. Cruel as well as perverse.
As he sipped his coffee, Laver’s thoughts turned to his fiancée. Marcia had hardly been in touch. Told him she was going to the theatre with a friend one night; too tired to come over, another. Giving him that distracted ‘uh huh, uh huh’ on the phone that she only did when she was actually working on her computer, or surfing Facebook, or doing something else while pretending to listen to him. When Laver tried to bring her up to speed on the worrying lack of an actual inquiry date, Marcia was barely concealing yawns down the phone.
‘You don’t give a shit about this stuff?’ he asked her straight out.
‘It’s just part of the game, isn’t it? You look contrite, they tell you off. “Bad boy, Tony. Don’t shoot anybody else, okay?” You say, “Sure, sorry again.” Then you head back out when it’s done, gun packed, until the next one. Why should I get worked up about it?’
‘Babe, I killed a man.’
‘I know. Got a tattoo marking the occasion yet?’