Black Ice

by Leah Giarratano

  'Here. You can take it with my drink,' he said.

  Fucking hell. Seren gave Christian a luscious smile and licked her finger, leaving the half tablet there on the tip of her tongue. She turned and faced the others at the table. The redhead had been sipping a luminous lime concoction from a tall glass and now Seren picked the drink. She took a deep sip. 'Mmm, yummy.' she said.

  'Thank you!' the redhead said, snatching her glass back.

  Seren beamed at her. ''Scuse me again, everyone, for just a mo. Be right back.' Once again she traversed the dance floor; this time blood rushing in her ears. She found the ladies and pushed past the gaggle of girls at the sink, all caking on more make-up. She slammed the cubicle door and bent face first over the toilet, thrusting her fingers down her throat. Please God let it come out. She heaved.

  When she saw the tiny white pill swimming in a pool of fluoro green in the bowl, Seren began to cry. She turned and sat on the toilet, holding her hand in front of her, her fingers dripping in vomit and saliva.

  'You know you can get help for that, honey.' The voice came from the next cubicle. 'You should see a counsellor or something. Bulimia is a serious illness.'

  Seren wiped her hand on some paper and waited for the toilet next door to flush. She waited some more. Finally, she rose and made her way to the sink to splash her face and rinse out her mouth. She ignored the two women pretending not to stare and faced herself in the mirror.

  Go and get that fucker, she told herself.

  Back at the table, the redhead had gotten too close to Christian again. Seren plopped down between them.

  'I'd like five please,' the girl said to Christian, glowering. 'To go.' She stood to leave, tugging at her friend's arm, encouraging her to also rise.

  Seren almost snorted in frustration. She was too close to record this drug deal safely. She reached under her feet for her bag while Christian stood and moved to say goodbye to his friends, to give them their parting gifts. She turned the camera on, but missed the whole transaction.

  'Actually,' she said, 'I do feel like dancing now, Christian.' Seren rose from the chair and smoothed her dress. She stood a foot taller than Redhead, who quickly made her exit.

  She dragged Christian to the dance floor. Within moments, a crowd of people surrounded them. Seren moved closer to her man.

  Weary, but satisfied, Seren stepped out of the cab and walked quickly towards her unit block. She'd not yet heard whether Tready was out of hospital, and although she was dubious that he'd be in the mood to tangle again so soon, she didn't want to be out here any longer than she had to be. Especially tonight: Christian had given her enough money to cover her rent and she had to get it inside; she couldn't afford to lose it again.

  Leaving the lift on Angel's floor, she smiled. A couple more nights like this one, and she should have enough evidence to convince Christian that he had to pay up, and then she and Marco could get out of here forever. She'd already thought about asking Angel to move with them. She'd easily have enough money to cover rent for a place for her too.

  Thank goodness for Angel, she thought, making her way along the balcony that led to her door. It had turned out to be a lot more convenient to have Marco fall asleep in Angel's unit, and then bundle him back to his own bed when she arrived home. It was awful spending all this time away from him when she'd ached for so long to be near him. Despite her impatience to finalise her plans to blackmail Christian, she determined to stay home tomorrow night and spend time with Marco.

  A small frown appeared as she made her way along the balcony. The light was on in Angel's unit. It's after one, she thought. I hope Marco hasn't kept Angel up this late. She tapped quietly at the door. When Angel opened it, Seren could see that she'd been crying.

  'Angel, what's wrong?' Seren moved around her, into the small unit. Marco wasn't curled up on the lounge. 'Where's Marco?'

  Angel hid her face in her hands. 'I tried to stop them, Seren,' she said.

  'Who? What are you talking about? Marco!' Seren moved through the unit. 'Oh my God, Angel! Where's Marco?'

  'DoCS took him, Seren.'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'Your P&P officer, Maria Thomasetti. She came here with this bitch from DoCS. Someone must've told them Marco was down here with me.'

  'What's wrong with him being here? There's nothing wrong with that!' Seren stared around the room wildly, and then turned to face Angel. 'Why did they take him?'

  'Thomasetti said that you were behind in your rent and that was a breach of your parole. She said they might lock you up tomorrow.' She glanced at her watch. 'Well, today. They said that Marco would stay with them until they knew whether you had to go back inside. I'm so sorry, Seren. I couldn't stop them.'

  Seren put her face in her hands and screamed.

  37

  Thursday 11 April, 2 pm

  Damien moaned on the toilet. He hadn't moved from the bathroom since the cops had left his house. He hadn't been joking when he'd told Agassi that stress sent him straight to the toilet. He'd had a lot of time to think in here, and he'd come up with a few possible explanations as to why this was happening to him.

  The main one had to do with the curses.

  Probably the main reason he hadn't been able to get into the whole Jehovah's Witness thing, he considered now, was his mum's double standards. When the God Squad were around, she was all sweetness and light, but if no one was there to see her, she would give you a flogging with anything that came to hand. He thought he had been more frightened of her words, though. Since he'd been old enough to understand, and probably before, she'd been placing curses upon him, damning him to the devil to burn for anything naughty he'd done. That's what's going on, he realised now. One of those curses. That had to be it.

  He tried to clear his head and think more rationally; to sum up his situation. I'm a drug manufacturer working for a gangster. Great. Even better, I am now also supposed to spy on this gangster and report to a nark and the Feds. If I fuck around with Kasem Nader, he'll kill me. If I don't do what the cops ask they'll lock me up. And if I don't pass my half-yearlies, I won't get into Honours next year. And I've got a class presentation due next week.

  Damien's stomach insisted that he evacuate his bowels. Problem was, that process had finished twenty minutes ago, and there was nothing left with which to oblige.

  He bent double on the bowl, moaning in agony.

  'Well, that went well,' said Gabriel. 'Our own little double agent. Fun.'

  'You reckon he's going to be okay?' asked Jill.

  They sat in Gabriel's car beside the park near Merrylands McDonald's. Her Magna waited in the spot next to them. Jill had another half hour before she had to be back to pick up Ingrid and Mrs Dang.

  'Well, that depends on what you mean by okay,' he said. 'I think you're going to get enough on Nader to put him away for a long time, so from that perspective, Damien will be great. The thing about doubling someone is that the more you make them do, the deeper in they get, and then you can make them do even more again.' Gabriel stretched his neck from side to side and turned to face her. 'But the suicide rate's above average.'

  Jill gave him a hard look.

  'I'm kidding,' he said. 'We'll look after him.'

  'I'm thinking that I'll arrange to meet him for debriefs at his uni,' she said. 'I don't want Nader to see me with Damien. I guess there would be nothing really wrong with Damien knowing someone like me – as Krystal Peters – but we don't need to complicate this any further.'

  'Agreed.'

  Jill took her time with her next comments. She realised that she was growing used to having Gabriel to rely upon again and she really wanted him involved in this case. More than that, she wanted to spend time with him generally, and she had spent a good deal of last night wondering why. Was she just lonely for close contact after three months of false and potentially treacherous relationships?

  'I wanted to thank you for helping me out with this, Gabe,' she said.

  'You
already did.'

  'Yeah, I know. It's just that you've been so great in helping me set all this up. I just wish there was some way we could formalise it, so we could work this Nader thing together.'

  'Well, I was meaning to say something about that.'

  She did a double take. Waited.

  'I was hoping you wouldn't mind,' he said. 'When I got home yesterday, I called Last and asked him to get me written into it.'

  'What'd he say?'

  'He's hooking it up.'

  Jill did a mental fist pump. 'So how will that work?' she asked.

  'I'm not going to go undercover with you,' he said. 'I'd get made as a cop. It takes me a while to get into that zone; your people would be able to tell that I'm not one of you guys. We'll just keep it as it is. We'll meet, do this kind of thing. I'll stay in the loop with you and Damien.'

  'That's great,' she said, smiling.

  'There should be a Fed connection in here. It could be that Nader's just a blow-arse and he's spinning shit to Damien about having a big operation. But it could be real and maybe he's linked in with others that we can round up with him. The Pacific islands thing also needs to be followed up. Why's he been visiting? Could be that he likes a good suntan, or little brown boys; but on the other hand it could be that he's importing precursor chemicals.'

  'Okay, sounds good,' she said. 'I talked to Last too, last night. He didn't say a word about you, but I did get him to okay me buying a private mobile phone to use only to take Damien's calls. I don't want Damien calling me on my work phone; I don't want to get confused about whether I'm Krystal or Jill, and I want to know immediately if it's him when he calls.'

  'Good thinking.'

  They watched a cyclist fly by. 'What's that, his fifth lap?' said Gabriel.

  'Sixth,' she said. 'Listen, I was thinking last night about what I'd say if anyone from the block saw us here together.' Her cheeks felt suddenly hot. She reached out and started to pick at the registration sticker on Gabriel's windscreen. 'I kind of told Ingrid and some others that I was seeing my boyfriend again. So we can use that.'

  'So, I'm your boyfriend?'

  'Well, I know you're not coming in undercover. I know we're not going to deliberately get noticed or anything, I just figured that if anyone saw us . . . And also I have to explain why I'm away from the unit block more than usual. You have to talk a lot about stuff with these people. They want to know everything.' She was rambling. Was she rambling?

  'So if we get noticed, should we kiss?' Gabe suggested, with a grin. 'Maybe we should role play a little.'

  'Would you stop fucking around, Delahunt?'

  'I'm just thinking maybe we should practise, that's all. I mean, we've got to look authentic if someone sees us. We're talking about some heavy people here.'

  'I have to get back to the shops,' she said. 'I'll set a time to meet when Damien calls in. I'll get back to you.' She pushed the door open, stuck one foot out.

  'Okay, darling, we'll talk soon then. I love you.'

  'Idiot,' she said, and ducked her head to hide her smile.

  38

  Thursday 11 April, 2.30 pm

  Seren thrummed her fingers against her thigh and waited. Hurry up and wait. She'd heard that war veterans described deployment that way. Lots and lots of waiting for the action; as a recent excon, she felt she could relate.

  She'd been in this room twice now, and already she could close her eyes and describe every feature. Diarrhoea-coloured walls and industrial carpets, the latter always some hideous classroom-blue, or synthetic-grass-green. These places all looked the same. She could've been waiting in the emergency department of St Vincent's Hospital, the visitors' reception at Silverwater gaol or her local medical centre. How did they get these places so dispiriting? Was there some sort of secret awards ceremony, where designers could submit their best effort at creating urban depression? If there was, she could nominate a good MC. Welcome everybody, if you could please take your seats, I'd like to introduce your host for the evening, Ms Maria Thomasetti!

  'Seren Templeton.' Flat, dead-fish voice.

  Seren opened her eyes and looked over at the people in the cage.

  'Yo,' she said.

  Muster. She was still in gaol, and now her son was in lock-up too. You're a total fuck-up, Templeton, she told herself, walking over to meet her probation and parole officer.

  'You realise, Ms Templeton,' said Maria Thomasetti, 'that I could be transporting you back to Silverwater right now?'

  'Yes, Ms Thomasetti, I do. And I'm eternally grateful that you have chosen to give me a pass, given that I managed to pay my rent first thing this morning.'

  'Yes, well, there's that,' said Thomasetti. 'Another P&P might have given you a hard time about how you could come up with a hundred and ninety-five dollars at such short notice, when all of your cash was supposed to have been stolen from your flat.'

  'So good of you not to do so,' said Seren. 'Of course, another P&P might have at least found out what was going on before handing someone's kid over to DoCS.'

  Thomasetti coughed.

  'And I'm curious,' said Seren. 'Did Fiona from the real estate call you? It's just that I did explain to her that I'd get her the rent this morning.'

  Maria Thomasetti studied a crease in her skirt; she smoothed her chubby palm across it, and then looked up. 'Why no, Ms Templeton. I'm your P&P. I told you that I'd look after you. I called Fiona to make sure that you were keeping up to your obligations. I've got a job to do – and I'm doing it. She told me that things had gone awry, and, of course, I had to take action. You'll find that I do things like that pretty swiftly around here.'

  'Oh, I can see that.' Seren smiled sweetly across at the woman who could lock her up with Crash and Little Kim for the next hundred days. 'It's obvious you're more than up to your job. But you'll excuse me if I'm in a hurry to piss into your cup? It's just that I need to go and pick up my child from DoCS.'

  I guess it makes sense, Seren thought, sitting in yet another waiting room. Why wouldn't they put a DoCS office in the middle of a suburban shopping centre? Go to where the people are. That way, you can visit your kid and pop into Franklins to pick up some Coke and Doritos at the same time.

  She clutched her arms to her chest, pretending that she was holding Marco in her lap. She didn't mind at all what Maria Thomasetti thought of her, and she couldn't care less about what the woman behind this desk was thinking. What Christian felt about her would matter not one iota in a couple of weeks from now. Truth be told, she could even live with it if Angel was disappointed in her. No, when Seren stared into someone's face, there was only one person whose appraisal mattered to her: a ten-year-old's.

  The door opened and Marco emerged with his school backpack over one shoulder, his eyes on the floor.

  She rushed forwards. 'Baby, I'm so sorry! Come on, let's get out of here,' she said.

  Marco sidestepped every attempt she made to touch him and she decided not to push it. Of course he was furious at her, but not as angry as she was with herself. How could she keep hurting this little boy when she would do anything to make him happy?

  'I thought maybe we could pick up some yummy things and go back home for a feast,' she said. 'Or maybe we could go to see a movie?'

  They stopped outside the DoCS offices, opposite a chicken shop. Marco just stood there.

  'You don't have to worry about the money,' she said. 'I got a loan from a friend. We'll be fine until payday next week.'