The Lay Low period is officially over.
‘You did good,’ Leon says, and I know what he means by it.Goodmeans keeping your mouth shut.Goodmeans taking one for the team.
‘Well, it was a dumb bust, yeah?’ I shift on my feet, eyeing off the package he’s got on the desk. Bullshit small-talk makes me impatient. I don’t need a pat on the head. Get on with it already.
Leon notices, snorts. ‘This here – another delivery for Red Cliffs. Go round the back this time.’ The gold envelope he hands me feels weighty.
I leave the office, but something makes me hesitate in the hall. The impatience I felt a second ago, in the office, has been replaced with this treacle-y lethargy. It scares me, for some reason.
I walk down the hall, turn left into the men’s toilet, go into a stall, close it. Sit on the lid of the toilet. Take the envelope out of the front of my hoodie, unfold it. The flap isn’t stuck down, makes it nice and easy to check inside.
The money in the envelope is stiff, clean, fresh. Fifty dollar notes, the polymer shining. This is a decent chunk of money. It sits nicely in my hand, this chunk. I don’t like to make value judgements, but if I had to take a guess, I’d say there’s about five grand here. Another matching chunk, its twin, still sitting in the envelope.
Ten grand, here in my lap.
Just looking at this much money makes me dizzy.
I lift my head. The toilet stall is painted black. There’s silver tagging and old playbills on the inside. The doorknob is falling out as the chipboard disintegrates; the door is actually kept shut by a slide bolt that goes into a drilled hole in the jamb. The slide bolt is new. It’s still shiny.
Ten grand.My breath comes out shaky.Ten thousand dollars.
For the space of two breaths, I think crazy thoughts.
All my debts repaid. Dad’s bills sorted. The monkey off my back. I could go to Melbourne – no. Further. I’d need to go further than that. Brisbane, maybe. Or overseas – hell, I could live overseas for a long time on ten thousand dollars –
I catch myself before I start to spin loose from my moorings.
Getting involved with this narc business is high risk. I’ve never had any illusions about that. But the reality of it is sinking in: ten grand in a gold envelope, toilet doors with the knobs falling out, the smell of urinal cake. These things feel very real right now. I bet if Leon told Ando to knock me, that would feel pretty real, too.
I put the money back in the envelope the way I found it, fold the flap down, tuck it back in my hoodie. Then further, into the waistband of my jeans. I feel nauseous. I need to talk about this. Just to get it off my chest. Because the alternative is a heart attack or something.
I consider pulling out my phone right now and calling Amie. Explaining that I’m sitting in a black-painted toilet stall in a skanky club in Mildura, with ten large pressed up against my skin.
But I can’t call her now. That would be fucking suicide. I stand up, press the flush button and get out of the stall, wash my hands at the little pitted sink, dry them on my jeans. Look at my face in the rust-spotted mirror above the black and white checkerboard tiles.
I still look okay. My lips are a bit white, I’m a bit thinner in the face, but I’m still me. I lick my lips, press them together.Don’t overthink it, Harris.
I get the hell out.
*
After my panic attack in the dunnies at Flamingos, the delivery turned out to be very simple.
Without that wad of money under my shirt, I feel calmer, less cloudy, even though the weather has turned to drizzling crap. I stop off home to change clothes – ‘always change clothes after a delivery’ was one of Snowie’s tips – and walk into the house to find Reggie watching TV.
‘Hey, Reggie.’ I shake rain out of my hair. ‘What’s happening, mate?’
Reggie leans over the back of the couch, his plaited rat’s tail flopping loose. ‘Yeah, just watching the game, eh? Watching Carlton lose.’
I check the teams on the telly screen. ‘Shame they’re not losing to Essendon.’
Reggie shrugs. ‘I don’t mind, I’ll take it. I just like seeing those snobby bastards eat it.’ He drags his eyes away. ‘Whatcha up to?’
‘Got an appointment.’ When he raises his eyebrows at me, I shrug. ‘The girl at the tatt place said I’ve gotta come in for touch-ups, to finish off me back. Come for a ride if you’re bored.’
He makes a face. ‘Can’t. Waiting for Kev, hey.’
I change my shirt and hoodie in my bedroom, head back out to the Pitbull. Eighth Street is only a five minute drive away, and the tattoo parlour is deserted on a Saturday afternoon.
