Black Glass (25 page)

She was getting sleepy. It had been a long, exhausting day, and they'd eaten a big meal that evening, the leftovers from some corporate do in a chain pub next to the casinos: roast beef and potatoes, coleslaw and these little egg tart things, even some cream-filled meringues to finish off. The unfamiliar fullness was making her limbs feel heavy.

Earlier that night, after watching the suits stuffing their faces on the other side of the glass, they'd snuck round behind the building, found a cardboard box and started carefully sorting through the discarded food in the cleanest of the bins. When a waitress had suddenly stepped out into the alley, an unlit cigarette in her mouth, they leaped away like rabbits and hid behind a dumpster, hearts banging while she finished her smoke and went back inside. But the woman soon returned, holding a plate stacked high with food, glancing over her shoulder towards the kitchen. She peered out into the dark, straight at their dumpster, and they peered back. She held the plate high for a few moments under the light, then placed it on the lid of a recycling bin. Then she disappeared into the kitchen.

As soon as the coast was clear they'd crept over to retrieve the paper plate, which sagged under the weight of the food she'd piled upon it. There was enough for two, and it was all good stuff, nothing chewed or mangled.

‘I love that lady,' said Tally.

They put the plate into the box and headed for home: better to get in and out fast, said Blue, and this would do them nicely. He'd had to convince her that leaving a thank-you note would only land the woman in hot water.

Tally tried to focus on the checkers game. She'd been in tears earlier that afternoon but had hidden them from Blue, heading outside to walk around the block and get it out of her system. He didn't need more drama, she figured.

The day had not delivered on its promise. After a restless night — a long stretch of darkness in which she did no more than skim the surface of sleep, barely dipping into its depths — she'd jerked awake at dawn and lain there wide-eyed, watching the sun creep through a crack in the window-board. Blue was a light sleeper so she tried to be quiet; she jotted down some observations in her notebook, marked out their route from last night, the location of the burned-out factory. Her pencil rustled against the page for some time before he began to stir.

‘You awake?' she whispered loudly.

He lay there a few moments, then grumbled ‘no', so she let him be for another half-hour, until she couldn't wait any longer. They had a lot of ground to cover — no point getting a late start. An impatient sigh finally roused him.

The first thing to do, they'd agreed, was get new batteries for Tally's camera: the image of Grace had to last all day, so she'd buy spares from the Quik-Mart on the edge of the city. And before they began their search, Blue had insisted, they'd also pick up their pay from Moz. With that task out of the way they could concentrate on their detective work, aim to cover a decent section of the Quarter while it was still light.

They tidied themselves up, drank a long swig of water each, made Tally a belt from a bit of old rope, and set off for the city. But they'd barely reached the edge of the Old Docks before Tally felt a prickle in the atmosphere, something amiss with the consistency of the air. Vague sounds bounced towards them — the muffled bark of recorded speech, the chop of a helicopter. This section of the Interzone was usually dead space, a derelict area marked by silence, an air of long-abandoned machines and tumble-down buildings. In these disused laneways they seldom came across other people, and those rare souls they had encountered always passed by quietly without drawing attention, bound for some private business or sleeping spot of their own.

Now the scattergun shots of running feet, and three kids rounded the corner at a sprint, legs scrambling at the air like panicked animals. The kids flailed down the alley towards them, faces set in the grimace of flight, breath rasping. No time to pull back from that flurry of limbs, blood streaked down a forehead and hot, tear-wet faces; a moment of eye contact then they were gone, just the fading sound of sneakers slapping concrete. Tally stared dumbly after them. Before she could open her mouth, another noise emerged: a low roar punctuated by honks, an uneasy rumble, faint but unmistakably sour in tone. As they turned a corner they heard it, the blurred holler of a voice yelling into a megaphone; a three-syllable chant and its ragged echo, the sound of a crowd responding.

Now, at the far end of the street, they saw a dozen people drifting their way, some staggering with their heads down, or arms looped over shoulders. One man broke through and ran along the middle of the road, knees and elbows pumping. Tally and Blue drew back into a doorway as he pounded closer, but he didn't look their way, just kept running. His face was contorted and he left a ragged sobbing noise in his wake.

‘What the fuck?' said Blue.

More bodies were spilling around the corner, some holding sticks or poles topped by bent cardboard signs, the words hard to read from here. Tally shaded her eyes and squinted:
NO SUMMIT!
read one placard.
ID-NET = BIG BROTHER
read another.

Two young women hurried past, coughing and unsteady, hands to their faces. ‘Don't go down there,' warned one. ‘The riot squad's throwing gas canisters, protest got out of hand.' Her top was torn at the neckline, but the two were both well dressed; they didn't look or talk like streeties.

‘What is it? What's going on?' Tally called after them, but the women were already hurrying into the maze of laneways behind her.

‘Where are we?' one asked her friend, still coughing. ‘How do we get back?'

More people were appearing now, and the noise of the unseen crowd was growing louder. It made no sense to keep heading in that direction.

‘We'll have to go around,' Tally said. ‘Take the long way.'

‘What long way?' said Blue. ‘Jase said that whole part of the Docks is a no-go.'

‘We can go round,' Tally insisted. ‘Loop around the whole grid and come in from the top.' She started walking back the way they'd come. She didn't say
you promised
, but when she glanced back Blue's long lope was catching up with her.

They kept the trouble to their left and cut through the backstreets to come out in sight of the Princess Bridge. A few cops swaggered around in nervous groups of four, heads swivelling ostentatiously as they spoke into headsets, but there was no sign of the upheaval further west. Tourists snapped photos against the backdrop of the Yarra River, despite its scum of floating litter; trams dinged and screeched, commuters came and went. Tally and Blue crossed the bridge, skirted the Commerce Zone, and as the sun inched higher they looped back across the top of the city, heading for the top of the Interzone. To the south-west, helicopters circled in the sky, and a siren rose from that direction now and then, but otherwise the soundscape had returned to normal.

‘Long way round alright,' remarked Blue. He pointed to a Quik-Mart. ‘Batteries,' he reminded her.

Tally's feet were sore already, but she didn't care. At last the trail was leading somewhere, she could feel it, and she'd walk till her feet were bloody stumps if she had to.
Be there
, she willed. It had to be Grace.

To reach the Quarter, Blue suggested, they could walk along the verge of the old highway; made more sense than risking the new tunnel, with its exposed walkway, and quicker than trekking down to the old one. Besides, he had to stop off somewhere, just for a sec. Since they were already going that direction.

It was late morning, and Tally was growing impatient when they stopped outside a wrecker's yard in a run-down block.

‘Five minutes,' Blue promised. ‘Then we go get our pay and look for your sis.'

Behind the chain-link mesh, old car bodies hulked in rusted rows. A skinny German Shepherd trotted over to them, barking and snarling, but Blue poked his finger through the fence and spoke in a low voice, and the dog sniffed at him, gave a half-hearted lick and lost interest.

A man in filthy orange overalls was approaching them, tools clinking on his belt. As he drew closer Tally felt his scowl turn on her.

‘Kid,' he said, nodding to Blue, shooting him an appraising glance. ‘Who's your mate here?'

So Blue knew this man.

‘Just a friend,' Blue answered, and there was something careful in his voice now. ‘Thought I'd stop by to check up on the old girl.' He was staring at something through the fence.

The man gave a laugh without humour. ‘Same as ever, ready when you are. How's the savings going?'

‘I got two-fifty,' said Blue.

Tally looked at him in surprise. He had two-fifty what — bucks?

‘And I got your deposit, so only another six hundred to go.' The man had a gravelly voice. Grease was lodged in the pores of his face, and his big stomach seemed to strain against the overalls like a hungry creature sniffing out food. He shook his head and smirked. ‘Can't see it happening myself.'

‘I'll get the money,' Blue said levelly.

Tally followed their eyes. Parked against the wall of a sagging shed was an old Land Rover that had once been yellow. Through the nicks and black marks in the paintwork she could just make out the words
Road Maintenance
on the door. In the tray were a stack of faded orange cones and a couple of road signs.
MERGE
, commanded one.

The man leaned into the mesh of the fence, his belly pressing against it. He breathed down on them but he was only interested in Blue, looking him up and down in a way Tally did not like.

‘You want your deposit back?' the man asked. Then he poked one dirty finger through the fence and touched Blue's cheek, a move that was both strangely tender and sickening at once. Tally stopped breathing.

Blue barely flinched, shook his head. ‘Don't sell it to anyone else. I'll get the money.'

‘Offer still stands,' the man said. Now he was stroking his belly, and Tally recoiled, her heart banging in her chest. ‘You know where I am.' The man whistled the dog to heel and walked off.

Tally turned to Blue. Her throat felt thick. ‘You going somewhere?' she croaked, but he wouldn't look at her. He had both fists in his jeans pockets; they were clenched, she knew, around his two lucky stones.

‘Come on,' he said, already walking. ‘We both got stuff to do.'

They had worked their way across the Quarter methodically, starting in the west and zigzagging north–south, almost reaching the verge of the Carnie District. But their search had led to nothing. They'd walked for almost nine hours straight, asking everyone they met. Most said the picture was too blurred to make any sense of; some insisted that it could be anyone. Several refused to even glance at the image, and one crazy man threatened them with a scrawny fist, yelling something about the men in black. ‘My cousin's got hair exactly like that,' said one girl. Another had simply pointed at a looped video ad suspended over the freeway: a shampoo commercial featuring three beautiful girls, one blonde, one brunette and one long-haired redhead, with matching lipsticked smiles and white teeth. The ad winked off, and a new one took its place. ‘Good luck,' the girl had said.

The sun was down when Blue called a halt for the day. Their feet were sore from walking, and they needed to find a decent meal. Tally hesitated, but she could see that he'd had enough, was ready to head home without her. She remembered the kid with the blood all down his face, the people staggering and running, the pitch-blackness of the old tunnel.

She could come back tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day until she found her sister. She had nothing else to do, and nothing else to care about. She would keep searching until there was nobody left to ask and nowhere left to look.

CHAPTER 10:
LADY WITH A SNAKE

[Unmapped building, old industrial zone, The Quarter: Damon | fixer ds-26b | Diggy | estimated crowd: 450]

The ring girl pranced around the hexagonal cage like a carnival pony, knees lifted high, dark hair shining under the lights. The crowd rose up to the ceiling on all sides — close to four hundred of them by Damon's estimate, and ninety-five per cent men — hooting and cat-calling from the stands.

Down there in the cage the girl responded to the racket, sashaying and winking under the lights, holding the number two aloft with her ribs arched out and shoulders thrown back. Her bikini was emblazoned with what looked to be the Australian flag, although through the haze of smoke it was impossible to count the stars with any accuracy.

Damon was taking mental notes; scribbling was out of the question, and he'd been assured a minicam definitely wasn't worth the risk. Sure enough he'd seen a hand-lettered sign near the entrance:
No cameras! Phones OFF! All cameras AND PHOTOGRAPHERS will be smashed!!

He'd arrived with his paid fixer, a stringy bogan called Mickey, just as the second fight finished. Getting here had been simpler than anticipated: a $30 cab ride to the derelict industrial area out past the far side of the Quarter, then a short walk through unlit, litter-blown streets to the venue, a low brick warehouse with blacked-out windows. The fights were held in the basement, Mickey said.