Now it’s my turn to raise my eyebrows. ‘They let you in?’
‘Snowie’ll vouch for me. Anyway, club or not, if you’re living here I’ll see you round.’
He gives me that lopsided smile again, lopes off to exchange small talk with Kevin in the lounge room. I hear the front door open and shut. The walls in here are Kleenex-thin: I won’t be calling Amie from my bedroom to give updates. We’ll have to text each other to arrange meet ups, or handle emergencies.
I take the last swallows of my beer, look around the kitchen. The benches are peeling white laminex. The cupboards look like they were installed in the seventies. The table I’m sitting at wobbles: someone’s shoved a folded TallyHo packet under the foot of one leg to steady it, but the packet has worked its way free. I lean over and push it back. The wobble lingers.
So this is it.
The decision to come to Mildura, to do this, seemed really clear-cut – exciting, even – when I was sitting at another kitchen table in Amie and Derrin Blunt’s house. I’d thought I was stuck, that all my options were bad ones, but then I’d been given a third path. Amie offering to be my contact cemented the deal. It felt as if I was making a good choice. It feltright.
But now I’m in it, and this is no joke. Snowie, Ando, Kev, the kid Reggie I just met… These are real people I’m dealing with. Like an actor sunk in a role, I’ve gotta be switched on twenty-four-seven – I’mlivingit. And I can’t afford to fuck up.
It’s weird that Sarge Blunt and Amie are the only ones who really know what I’m doing here. But knowing they know makes me feel less alone.
I get up, dump my empty in the sink and make my way out. Give Kevin a polite nod, move through to the bathroom. Close the door and survey the grotty tiles and brown grouting landscape before splashing some water on my face at the sink.
I check myself in the mirror. I’m okay. There’s nothing in my face that betrays how I’m feeling, what I’m thinking. I can fit in here. This is what I came to do. Settle in, sink deep. Pretend to be something I’m not.
I rake back my hair, put my game face on. Leave the flimsy privacy of the bathroom and go out to meet what’s coming.
*
‘Harris!’ Snowie waves me over, a shit-eating grin on his face. ‘Mate, good to see ya. Find the place okay?’
‘Yeah, the big neon sign and the punters lining the pavement out front kinda gave it away.’
Flamingos is a pretty happening joint. Black and silver panels on the street facade, lots of patrons queuing. Mentioning Snowie’s name got me the nod from the neckless Italian stallion on the door.
Inside, the club sinks down into the ground in three terraced rows, like an amphitheatre, with the dance floor laid out at the bottom. I’ve been in places like this before. Obligatory disco lights, dry-ice smoke, black vinyl couches, cheap tables. My own reflection bounces back at me a dozen times from mirror walls. People stand in clumps, move up and down the levels, laughing and knocking back beers, making enough noise to compete with the DJ. Through the speakers, Lana del Ray sounds like she’s gargling acid in time to the beat.
I’m wearing my jeans and a clean T-shirt, with a black hoodie I got from the op shop where I bought my pillow and blankets this afternoon. I slide into the round-table booth. Ando slouches beside Snowie. His expression is approving as he pushes a beer across the table for me. ‘There you go. First of many. Nice to see you could make it.’
Signing on, making the move here to Mildura, has obviously lifted me in Ando’s opinion. But I’m not interested in his approval.
‘Cheers.’ I meet his eyes, hold them as I raise my beer. Ando knows I can take a punch, but the day will come when he’ll find out I can throw one, too.
‘Harris, this is Barry.’ Snowie nods towards the guy sitting between us. ‘You’ll be seeing him around Amblin Court. Barry’s our man on the ground. Talks to all our little friends. Barry likes to talk.’
The guy beside him guffaws. He’s a bit older, with a dark flat-top haircut, a paunchy face, and below his rolled-up shirtsleeves, the hairiest arms of any bloke I’ve ever met.
He slaps Snowie’s shoulder, turns to shake my hand with the enthusiasm of a Labrador. ‘Harris, is it? Nice to meet ya, good stuff. Be cool to have a runner around.’
I raise my beer and grin. ‘I gotta be the only ‘runner’ in town with a walking cane, I reckon.’
Barry yuck-yucks again, hunches over the table. ‘Not gonna get homesick, are ya? You’ll be right in Mildy, for sure, mate. Few more days, you’ll feel like a local.’
‘You bet.’ I make a show of looking around the room. ‘Nice joint. You live here or something, Snow? Or is it ‘Free Mates’ every night?’
‘This is Leon’s club.’ Snowie gestures at the mirror walls, the punters dancing and shifting in the space of the club. ‘Not bad business, eh? You’ll meet Leon soon. He’s the man. Giving the people what they want. And we’re helping him out.’
For a nice tidy profit – right. So this Leon bloke is the general, and Snowie’s one of his lieutenants. Ando’s the heavy, Barry’s the street dealer liaison…and I’m the runner. I drink on that for a moment.
We sit and bullshit together for a while. I can keep up this stuff all night: sinking piss and talking about nothing much, checking out the chicks in the club. I can’t help comparing the ladies’ dress code here – smoothed hair, skin-tight jeans or short skirts, high heels, shitloads of makeup – with Amie’s homespun style.
I’m at the bar, buying the next round on Snowie’s tab, when I see a familiar face in the mirror. Reggie McCloud is behind me, dodging patrons to slide in closer.
‘Harris. My new friend.’ He smiles, and all his teeth glow in the blacklight above the spirits shelf. ‘Gemme a beer?’
