Black Glass

by Mundell, Meg;

  An old man’s grocery trolley snags on the kerb, celery waggling as he struggles to pull it free. Two Asian kids, probably students, stop to help. The old man is chattering, waving his hands in thanks, but they are already gone. The street vendor sells three magazines in rapid succession. Now the madwoman on the milk crate is gazing up at the lights; her face remains blank but her moans have stopped, and the crowd makes only a shallow detour for her. Then lights flash red–blue: two cops are pulling on latex gloves, pointing to the west, moving her along. She goes without fuss, retreating into the misty drizzle, her milk crate dangling at the end of one slack arm as the cops approach the Big Issue vendor. A cab pulls away, the driver laughing back at something his passenger has said. The footpath is a gentle tide of commuters. They give each other room and do not shove.

  Almost a pity, thinks Milk, that no one is consciously witnessing this little research project. Working like this — unobserved, no pressure, no one keeping score or calculating the night’s take — is almost relaxing. He’s just an anonymous donor to the public good, an invisible benefactor watching his spell take hold. He doesn’t need thanks or recognition (although a little recognition, just now and then … it wouldn’t hurt). You can’t manufacture empathy from scratch, he knows, but you can fan it back to life: it’s like blowing on embers, increasing the sum total of wellbeing in the world, adding tenderness without expecting anything back. It feels good.

  Milk catches himself: You’re getting sentimental. He smiles, pulls his collar tight, watches the ebb of people heading home. The glowering sky begins to spit down specks of ice, a rattle of hail on the pavement. People exclaim, look up at the sky, at each other: nothing like a hailstorm to bring a sense of camaraderie. No more for him to do here; time to go.

  Milk does not see Luella rise from a couch in the glassed-in foyer just behind him, navigate the revolving doors, and raise her umbrella over her face as she steps into the street.

  [Operations Section, Civil Monitoring Division, SensCom Building, Civic Zone: Damon | district security monitor, zone 42]

  ‘Check out this kid, the one in the baseball cap.’

  ‘Wow, he’s got some moves alright. They busking?’

  ‘Yeah, see the capture point on the ground. If we just zoom in …’

  ‘Capture point?’

  ‘The jumper, the hoodie or whatever they’ve got there to stop the coins rolling away … Five, six, bit over seven bucks. Pretty lame, they’ve been there an hour. Cops’ll chase them off soon.’

  ‘What happens to all the footage?’

  ‘Stored in a big mainframe. Cops and Polbiz clients can order segments — date, time, location. When we get a request in our zone we just punch in the details and hit release.’

  ‘It’s all archived?’

  ‘Only for two weeks. Then zap, it’s gone.’

  ‘It all gets wiped? Permanently?’

  ‘Yep. Else where would they put it? You’ve got almost three thousand cameras going 24/7, every day of the year. Can’t keep all that footage.’

  ‘I guess not. So the system just covers the city and immediate surrounds? Nothing out in the subzones?’

  ‘Nah, they got private security firms out there, ’specially the gated places. Hey, check this out. Nice.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Intersection down the south end of King Street. Probably headed for the casino. Cold night for a skirt that short.’

  ‘I think it’s a dress.’

  ‘Okay, sweetheart, you just stand there for a bit. Nice build, hey?’

  ‘Uh yeah …’

  ‘And if you want a front view … we just switch cameras. Hey presto.’

  ‘Wow. That’s pretty cool.’

  ‘No harm in looking. Ah bummer, she’s a Monet.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Looks good from a distance, but a mess up close. Shame.’

  ‘Seems kind of quiet out there.’

  ‘Yeah, Tuesday nights are pretty boring, especially after one. Weekends are okay, you see some funny shit Saturday nights.’

  ‘Sorry to get formal, but exactly what do you do here, as the, ah — District Security Monitor?’

  ‘Stuff all, to be honest. But don’t quote me on that. Hey, you’re not quoting me on any of this are you?’

  ‘No, no, of course not — you’re one of my expert contacts, a background info-source. We’re on the same side. Nothing to worry about, totally anonymous.’

  ‘Good, good. Just checking.’

  ‘So what exactly do you — how does the whole monitoring system work?’

  ‘Well, we’re all fully trained in incident detection and ranking. There’s a range of Notable Incidents we keep an eye out for, all ranked at different levels, one through to twelve. Twelve being your full-scale terrorist attack, bombs detonated, all that.’

  ‘Right. So two would be …’

  ‘Two might be your run-of-the-mill snatch-and-grab — no bashing, just robbery. Or criminal damage, which is mostly graffiti. Three is the same thing in the Commerce Zone — bag snatch, vandalism. Gets a higher ranking there, more at stake.’

  ‘So you log all this?’

  ‘Nah. We got a quota. Weeknights on average each District Monitor has to log one incident per hour; weekends it’s higher. Get a few ones and twos, it’s not so hard.’

  ‘What’s a one?’

  ‘Well, say if nothing else came up, technically those kids busking could be a one. Suspicious loitering, commercial trespass, unauthorised solicitation. But we don’t go overboard, just creates backlog. Eight’s my favourite: stolen cop car. Don’t get many of those. Had a seven last week — crazy dude running round with a knife. Now that was a good show.’

  ‘That guy was yours? They got him, right?’

  ‘Yep, darted him, went down just like that, pop.’

  ‘What are these areas, these shaded bits on the map?’

  ‘That’s what we call a blind spot, or a grey spot — meaning either no cameras, or not enough to get any decent coverage.’

  ‘Fair few of them. Why are they not monitored?’

  ‘Either nothing to see, or cameras kept getting shot out. Eight hundred bucks a pop, adds up after a while. Anyway they’re mostly dero areas, street kids and that. Whole Quarter’s a grey zone. Keeps all the trouble in one place, out of the city proper.’

  ‘This section here — you know this bit?’

  ‘Old Docks, blind spot. Shortcut through to the Quarter they reckon, some old tunnel.’

  ‘Yeah? And it’s not monitored?’

  ‘Nah, it’s all boarded up, everyone takes the main tunnel, the one with the walkway. Not worth watching I guess, it’s all dead ground down there. Look at this guy, what a knob. Nobody’s worn bum-bags since the ’80s.’

  ‘Yeah. Wow. Not a good look.’

  ‘Got a great view of that crazy hailstorm the other day — bird’s-eye view, streets all piled up with ice, looked like a blizzard.’

  ‘Yeah, that was insane. All the leaves torn off the trees, shops flooded, cars all dented … they reckon the insurance bill hit $14 million.’

  ‘Gotta love global warming, never a dull moment. Hey, Damon — it’s Damon, right? Look, I’m dying for a smoke. Can you keep tabs while I duck out for a sec? The day chick cracks it if she smells smoke in here.’

  ‘Ah, sure. Great.’

  ‘Take my chair, you can see better. This is your zoom. And here’s track, and pan … Have a play if you want.’

  ‘Thanks. Looks like fun.’

  ‘Yeah. Everyone says that at first, but the novelty wears off, believe me.’

  [Notebook entry: Tally]

  Missing persons cases well they can be tough. If you get your hopes up too high, stare at a photo for too long, you st
art to see stuff that’s not really there — some face hanging round in the background, some shape that’s maybe familiar. You start to think every shot is trying to tell you something like a code you got to crack, you got to concentrate on till your brain nearly explodes.

  You got to keep your head on straight, don’t get all carried away. Don’t kid yourself.

  Can’t keep every shot, gotta cull the ones that are no use. But then you don’t want to miss anything either, wipe a shot that might turn out to be a clue. It’s nerve-wracking this stuff, really it could drive you nuts.

  This shot, the old bridge — looks like Paris or some other fancy place with all the lights and buildings behind. Like a place a person stands when they’re thinking something over or modelling a flash dress. Good backdrop, Grace’d say. Keep that one. Dunno why I took this next one though: Pedestrians use other footpath. They always pulling this place to bits and putting it back together again. No use, delete.

  Those ladies having a night out, should wipe that too. But I kinda like it with that one laughing her guts out jamming her friend’s hat down. The giant Ferris wheel, yep keep that, Grace would love that thing. Bright lights head for heights that’s her. Guards down there cos it’s a Landmark Site, but they let tourists take photos that’s what landmarks are for. But too bad if you don’t look like a tourist, yeah you gotta be speedy in this business. That fat guard with the Nazi hat turned out to be a whole lot faster than he looked. But not fast enough ha-ha …

  You gotta follow your hunches. Like that time one Christmas when I knew Grace was about to turn up outside the chip shop, I said Greetings young lady, knew she was there without even turning around like I had eyes in the back of my head. And that time we got a flat tyre near Toowoomba, I see a burned-out car I say to Max we’re gonna get a puncture on this road, and he goes bullshit Tally just make sure that wing mirror’s not slipping I gotta see behind me. Two minutes later: Bang! That’s how you build your case, out of clues and signs and omens and I got a bunch of them by now.

  Or maybe all I got is a bunch of stupid pictures and a shitty old notebook full of scribbles and stupid little diagrams that don’t make any sense. Maybe I got exactly jack shit.

  Start thinking like that and you’ll get nowhere, Sherlock. Think positive think sideways think latterly or whatever, never surrender. If at first you don’t succeed fricken just make a new plan. But how long can a person keep on doing that for? Well that’s the question really isn’t it.

  [Table 12, Dive Bar, The Quarter: Violet | Macy | Lena | Sherri | est. 120 undocs]

  Their first cocktails were barely sunk when Violet ran out of cigarettes. She shook her empty packet, made to get up. ‘Just smoke these,’ said Sherri, waving red nails at her own full pack, ‘got cartons of the bloody things at home.’ But it was still early, and apparently Violet wasn’t buying: when she’d reached to pay for drinks, Macy gave her hand a playful slap, said tonight was her treat. Surely it was rude to start scabbing cigarettes as well.

  ‘Back in a sec,’ she said, heading for the bar.

  ‘Send that drinks waiter over, sweetheart,’ Lena called after her. ‘The cute one. We got a drought here.’

  Violet wove through the crowd, tight groups and couples huddled around rickety tables, laughter rising over the clanky piano music. The basement club had no windows, and the air was thick with smoke, but no one seemed bothered; even security was smoking, and there were none of those warning signs you saw everywhere. Over at the pool table a girl no older than her leaned down and squinted the length of her cue, lining up a shot.

  ‘But I’m underage. And I’ve got no ID,’ Violet had said when Macy announced plans for a girls’ night out. Macy just laughed: ‘Trust me, you won’t need it where we’re going. I’ll do your face if you want, make you look nineteen.’

  An ancient cigarette machine teetered near the bar. Violet tried to catch the bartender’s eye, but he was busy manhandling a pink drink into a high glass, stretching the liquid into a long thin stream, plonking in some berries and leaves, hands dancing fast and flashy. Putting on a show, she thought, just like Merlin. Suddenly the guy was in front of her, drying his hands on a towel, eyebrows raised in a helpful way. ‘Hi,’ she yelled over the music, pointing to the cigarette machine. ‘Does that thing work?’

  He nodded, mouthed a question: ‘You need change?’

  Violet held out a twenty. In one smooth movement he whipped the note from her palm and dropped a heap of gold coins in its place. ‘Thanks,’ she said, allowing a faint smile. Lena was right, he was kind of cute: young, Italian-looking, metal-band t-shirt and a barbed-wire tattoo round one wrist. Bit of a show-off though.

  ‘Can I get you anything else?’ His smile aslant but eyes round and innocent: definitely flirting. Watch out.

  She drew back and pointed over to their table, a circle of light on the far side of the room. ‘My friends asked if you, or someone, could maybe come over. I think they want more cocktails.’

  Beneath the spill of the downlights, the three women seemed posed on a tiny stage. Macy was demonstrating something lewd, her mouth stretched wide, jaw almost unhinged; Lena was thumping on the table, her face contorted in mock horror; Sherri was slumped to one side laughing, hat askew, missing tooth a black pixel in her smile.

  The bartender turned back. ‘Those your friends?’ he asked coolly. Violet nodded. ‘I’ll send someone over,’ he said, already turning away to his next customer.

  In his place the bar mirror now showed a striking young woman with black bobbed hair, wine-red lips and a lost look on her face. No, she thought, that expression was all wrong: she looked like a guilty kid playing dress-ups, like she didn’t belong here and expected to get kicked out any second. Violet lifted her chin, set her face tougher, began shoving coins into the cigarette machine, punching the worn buttons hard till the pack dropped into the tray below. Who was he, anyway? Just some dick pouring drinks in an illegal bar. He didn’t know anything about her, or her friends. The phrase came unbidden: neither do you.

  Violet headed back to their table. Beneath a glitterball a very fat lady was waltzing with a boy half her age. They were laughing into each other’s faces, their movements surprisingly graceful. Graceful: a coldness ran through her, and she sat down fast, tore the pack open and offered it around, Macy shooting her a wink like some old vaudeville dame as she lit up.

  Smoking. The scrape and flare of the match, the tip’s warm glow, relief swirling through her like water, all this was long familiar — but there was always something else too: a rumble of dread or guilt, a half-buried reflex that sprang to life with every flash of sulphur, that first hit of nicotine. Ashes to ashes.

  How do you delete a memory? You try to forget but something — a ritual, a smell — yanks it back, out of nowhere. Like the other day, that burning smell just before the hailstorm came. The woody stink of a whole house gone up in flames. Cigarettes too: Aw, Tallyho … pleeease. Violet tilted the pack until the bio-hologram leaped out at her, a gory close-up of wrecked tissue, greyish-pink and blackened with disease, a lung cut out of some poor dead person. She stared down at it and drew hard on her cigarette, feeling her chest fill with smoke.

  ‘Hey, dreamboat!’ Macy was snapping her fingers above the image. ‘Don’t look at that stuff, too much information,’ she said, turning the pack face down. ‘Hello, is anybody home?’

  Sherri was asking Violet a question, leaning forward and smiling. With her drawn-on beauty spot, her full red lips and the fedora hat perched on that perfect hair, she looked like a 1950s B-movie actress; the missing tooth only added to the allure, a dental prop for a character who’d taken a few knocks. Lena was waiting too, blowing smoke out the side of her mouth; something faintly vampire-like about her, gunmetal fingernails and slinky black dress, dead-straight hair framing a face that was almost gaunt.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Violet. ‘I drifted off
for a sec.’

  ‘So where are you at, darl?’ repeated Sherri. Violet looked around her — at the tables of drinkers, the people lined three deep at the bar, the odd couple doing their dignified waltz. The music died out for a moment; the low roar of booze welled up, and a load of pool balls dropped into the table’s guts with a muffled thunk. Where was she again?

  Macy came to her rescue. ‘Violet’s in showbiz,’ she said. Lena laughed, said, ‘Ain’t we all,’ but Macy shook her head, said, ‘Not the game.’ The women looked at Violet, waiting. Her head felt fuzzy.

  ‘Not really showbiz,’ she said. ‘I work for this old magician guy down the Carnie District, in the Quarter. We do four shows a week. We go on just before Esmeralda, the snake lady.’

  Sherri leaned in closer, the trace of a frown appearing. ‘You mean old Merlin — you work for him?’ She shot Macy a sidelong look, but Macy just shrugged, like she had no opinion on the matter.

  ‘You know Merlin?’ Violet asked, a note of wariness in her own voice now.

  Sherri shook her frown away. ‘Not really. Friend of mine used to work for him, that’s all. You know, as his sidekick. Sorry, I mean stage assistant.’

  Why hadn’t she thought of this before? Merlin was old, claimed he’d been doing magic his whole life. Of course he’d had other assistants, she couldn’t be the only one. How many had there been, she wondered, and where did they all go?

  ‘Your friend,’ ventured Violet. ‘Did she work for him long?’ Perhaps the girl had gotten fired.

  ‘A year, maybe bit longer,’ answered Sherri. ‘Zoe reckoned the guy’s a cold fish, and that doll of his creeped her out. But she always said the money was the deal-breaker. Still, like she said, there are worse jobs. And in the end she took one too.’

  ‘That’s why she left — the pay?’ Violet was relieved.

  Sherri said her friend had felt trapped and she wasn’t getting any younger. ‘That old scam artist makes a good living. With him calling all the shots, and her stuck on some dead-end wage —’ Sherri caught herself. ‘Sorry, love. It’s a straight job, I know, and they’re near impossible to find when you’re undoc. Don’t listen to the likes of me.’ Violet shook her head, smiled, waited for Sherri to finish. ‘In the end Zoe asked him for a raise but the tight-arse wouldn’t budge. Said she was lucky to have the job at all, reckoned he had a whole army of gorgeous girls lining up to take her place. So she quit. That’s it.’