The Amber Trail (16 page)

A shout came from the opposite
end of the room. One of the customers leaned over the bar and
reached for Jules. He was tall and solid, with short cropped hair
on a boxy head. His eyes were heavily lidded. He did indeed look
like a demented version of Frankenstein.

“
Get away!” Jules
slapped at his hand.

Chook pushed to his feet with his
eyes narrowed, and Frankenstein’s two friends dragged him away to
the dancefloor.

Jules strode across the bar to
Chook; her face was red. “Can you watch the bar for a bit? I’m
gettin’ security.”

“
Not sure I have the
cleavage for it. But I’ll give it a shot.”

She gave a pinched expression,
picked up the damp towel from the bench, and threw it at him. He
tried to duck away, but it slapped into the side of his head and
fell back to the bar. She crossed the room toward a staircase in
the corner. Dig watched her go.

“
Right! Time to
work.” Chook moved behind the bar, before putting on a deep stilted
voice and furrowing his brow. “Sorry sir but I can’t serve you.
You’ve obviously had way too much to drink. Don’t want you falling
asleep on the toilet now.”

“
Ha ha.” Dig lifted
the towel from the bar and feigned to throw it. Chook ducked and
smiled, showing a set of crooked teeth. He grabbed his beer and
swallowed a mouthful.

“
So what brings you
over here anyway?” Chook said.

Dig picked at the label of his
beer. “Work.
”

“
Work? You in
tourism?”

“
I work in a brewery
actually.”

“
Ha! Come to learn
from the masters huh? I bet you don’t get beers like this back in
Australia.” He tapped the top of his bottle.

Dig shrugged. “One of our beers
tastes pretty much the same. We use the same hops
actually.”

Chook frowned. “I’m not talking
about the
taste
dude.”

Dig looked up. “Huh?”

Chook gestured to the dance
floor. “Why’d you think this place is so packed every night? And so
full of spaced-out twats?”

Dig straightened. “What do you
mean?”

Chook leaned forward and pointed
to Dig’s beer. “The green label’s the local stuff. They only sell
it in this bar. They call it
unrefined
.”

Dig’s stomach clenched. He lifted
the beer and studied the label. “Unrefined?”

Chook glanced over his shoulder
to the stairwell. “Look, don’t tell anyone I said this, but I think
they have, like, genetically modified the hops somehow. You know,
with
science
. Infused them with, like, opium poppies to make
some kind of hybrid, alien plant.” He picked up his bottle and
presented it like he was doing a magic trick. “So when they brew
it—ta daa!”

“
Opium?” Dig’s breath
caught in his chest and his mind raced.

He thought back to the crop
fields in Hampi—the endless rows of hops with the strange orange
tinge, and Girish’s doctorate in Botany sitting proudly framed on
his wall. Then the containers of the ‘secret’ hops that were
delivered to the Buckley Brewery every month, and the block of
material that Shiv had regularly arranged to pick up from his
father.

Had his father been extracting
the opium out of the hops?

The final words from his father
came back to him. The words choked out as he lay stricken on the
bush track, his throat closing up, drowning him of
oxygen
:

The brewery is
tainted...you should shut it down…no more packages.

Dig’s heart pounded as he stared
at the beer in his hand. A tinkling crash echoed behind him, and he
turned to see Frankenstein in the middle of the dancefloor, swaying
left and right as he yanked a curtain of beads down from the
ceiling.

“
Man,” Chook said.
“That guy’s lost the plot. Shiv needs to get down here
now.”

Dig turned quickly. “Did you say
Shiv?”

Chook gave a blank look. “Yeah,
he’s Jules’ boyfriend. You know him? He’s a right prick huh?” He
joined his thumb and forefinger in a circle and waggled it at his
forehead—the universal symbol of a dickhead. “But even so, he’ll
make that guy wish he never set foot in here.” He turned to the
staircase. “All good. Here they come now.”

Across the room, Jules appeared
in the stairway with Shiv and the thugs behind her. Dig’s chest
tightened. “I’ve got to get out of here.” He stood up. His stool
thumped to the floor behind him.

Chook frowned. “Hey,
chill—”

“
Gotta go.” Dig
turned for the exit. His hand brushed against his beer bottle, and
it dropped to the floor and shattered, covering his toes in beer
and glass. Dig stared at his feet for a long moment—it was somehow
hard to comprehend, like his thought process was battling through a
numbing cloud of fog. His balance wavered, and he reached for the
bar to steady himself.

There it is,
Dig thought.
The opium’s kicking in.
He swallowed, took a deep breath,
then glanced across the room. Shiv stared at him from the base of
the staircase, eyes wide. Dig began to stumble across the
dancefloor toward the exit.

“
Hey Dig!” Chook
shouted from somewhere behind him, somewhere far away. “Wait a
sec!”

But Dig pushed on. The pulsing
lights of the dancefloor danced in his vision, throwing shadows,
disorientating him. The bass pounded in his temples. He blinked,
trying to focus on the fuzzy shapes before his eyes, but they
swayed left and right like cartoon ghosts. Something slammed into
his chest, and he fell to his rear on the dirt floor.

A figure dropped to the ground
beside him, and he turned to see Frankenstein lying on his side,
scowling. “You idiot,” the guy slurred.

“
Sorry.” Dig pulled
himself to his feet. His legs were shaky, his head full of cotton
wool. He pushed onward through the crowd, bumping against shoulders
until he recognised the bright rectangle of the exit. He moved
toward the light, and as he reached the door, a figure appeared
before him.

“
Leaving so soon?”
Shiv said. His eyes were steely.

Dig turned back inside, but the
thugs stood behind him, blocking his path. He faced Shiv again and
steadied himself on the door frame.

“
I’ve decided to take
your advice and head home,” Dig said. “All hush hush and all that.
Never see each other again. Just like you said back in
Oz.”

Shiv clenched his teeth and
placed an arm against the frame, blocking it. “It’s a bit late for
that.”

Dig glanced around at the three
men. “No...it’s okay, I better hit the road I think. Long flight
back.” He pushed forward and tried to duck under Shiv’s
arm.

Shiv shifted his body to block
his path. “You need to come upstairs.”

Dig tried to smile, and pushed
forward again. “Maybe next time.”

A hand came down tightly on Dig’s
shoulder, turning him. Another pressed into the small of his back,
pushing him back toward the bar.

“
Okay,” Dig said.
“Maybe I’ll just say hello, seeing as I’m here.”

He was directed through the
dancefloor toward the stairs in the back corner of the room. As
they passed the bar, Chook frowned.

“
No Shiv! That’s not
him! That blockhead down there’s the problem.” He pointed at
Frankenstein, who hadn’t yet managed to stand up.

“
Chook,” Dig shouted
as he was pushed across the room. “Don’t worry about
it.”

Chook stepped forward and grabbed
Shiv’s arm. “Shiv, you have the wrong guy.”

Shiv scowled. “Get your hands off
me.”

“
Just
listen
for once you dickhead. This guy isn’t the problem. He was sitting
with me quietly at the bar.”

“
Chook, stop it!”
Jules said from behind him.

Shiv grabbed a handful of Chook’s
shirt and shoved him to the ground. Chook fell back to his elbows
with his chest rising and falling and his cheeks blushed pink. Shiv
nodded to his companions, and they pushed Dig onward toward the
stairs.  

A rush of footsteps skipped
across the floor behind them and Chook punched Shiv in the jaw.
Shiv fell to one knee with a hand at his face and his lip smeared
with blood. Chook stood over him, fists at his side, eyes
wide.

The thick-jawed thug took two
quick steps and backhanded Chook across the face with a slap, then
swung a punch into the pit of his stomach. Chook buckled over in a
heap.

Jules squealed and rushed to
Chook’s side. “What the hell are you doing?” she screamed at the
thug.

Shiv nodded to the stairs, and
the thug grabbed Chook by the collar, dragging him across the
floor.

“
No!” Jules pulled at
the thug’s elbow, but he hardly noticed her.

Dig took a final glance toward
the dancefloor, but nobody in the crowd
seemed
to have
notice
d
what was
happening—they were staring vacantly at the DJ.

The hand in Dig’s back pushed him
upward, and he watched his feet as he stumbled up the timber steps.
Over time, foot falls had worn depressions in the centre of the
risers. He concentrated on placing each foot in the centre of the
step, one at a time, trying not to stumble as he battled the murky
fog that had descended over his mind.

When they reached the upper
level, the stairs opened out to a dusty room with a leather couch
wedged against one wall, and an empty bar on the other. An elevator
shaft lay open in the corner, blocked off with tape, and double
doors led to a balcony that overlooked the beer garden below. The
thump of bass reverberated up from the dancefloor.

The thugs pushed Dig and Chook
down to the couches. Jules took a seat beside her brother and sat
stiffly with her arms crossed. “Shiv, this is bullshit.
”

“
Leave
it.”

“
No! Let Chook go
back down.”

“
Keep your mouth
shut!” Shiv shouted, and Jules cringed, then opened her mouth to
speak before closing it again.

Dig perched on the front edge of
the seat. He was still struggling to process his thoughts, but
 willed his concentration through it. “Is Max here?” he said.
“I want to speak to him.”

Shiv put a hand on his hip, then
smirked at the bald-headed thug. “Oh, you want to speak to him do
you?”

Dig blinked around the room.
“Yes.”

Shiv snorted and the thugs
laughed. “No, you can’t speak to
him
.”

“
Look. Just give me
five minutes—”

“
Dig!” Chook
interrupted. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but Max
isn’t a dude.”

Dig looked blankly at Chook.
“Well what is...he?”

“
Her real name’s
Maxine. But everyone calls her Max.”

Shiv laughed, then walked to a
doorway near the staircase and knocked lightly against the frame.
“We’ve got a visitor.”

Chook rubbed at his neck and gave
Jules a pained look. They shuffled closer to each other on the
couch, their lips thin.

A patter of tiny footsteps
approached from the doorway, and an overweight bulldog waddled
through the door with its tongue hanging sideways. It trotted over
to a worn basket of blankets near the balcony and plopped itself
down.

Behind it, a short, stocky woman
walked into the room, wearing a draping brown sari and her hair
tied tightly at the back of her head. She held a cigarette in her
hand, and the sickening smell of cloves filled the air. She scowled
at the three people sitting on the couch. “So,” she said in a
gravelly voice through brown stained teeth. “You just couldn’t keep
away.” She lifted the cigarette and took a drag.

Dig’s mind churned. He thought
back to the voice he had spoken to on the phone in Australia. He
had assumed it was male from the deep tone. But it seemed he was
wrong.

And she looked somehow familiar.
His brow furrowed. It was hard to keep a grip on his
thoughts.

Shiv stepped toward Maxine.
“Would you like a drink?”

She nodded, and the thick-jawed
thug opened a fridge behind the bar.

Dig stood up. “Look—”

“
Sit
,
” she said.

Dig paused, then sat back down on
the edge of the couch. “Look,” he repeated. “We aren’t meeting in
the best circumstances here, but I think we need to
talk.”

“
Yes,” Maxine gave a
cold smile. “I agree with you. Please go ahead.”  

Dig cleared his throat before
speaking. “The thing is,” he said in a shaky voice. “I originally
came to India to try to talk to you guys about our old hop supply
deal back in Australia. But now I’m here, I’ve changed my mind.” He
glanced over to Shiv. “Shiv and I talked back home about closing
things down. And I actually think that’s a good idea now. No more
Banyan hops. No more Buckley’s Chance. Call it quits.”

Maxine stood stiffly with a
downturned mouth. Smoke drifted out of her nose and billowed in the
air.