Black Glass

by Mundell, Meg;

  The sun was down when Blue called a halt for the day. Their feet were sore from walking, and they needed to find a decent meal. Tally hesitated, but she could see that he’d had enough, was ready to head home without her. She remembered the kid with the blood all down his face, the people staggering and running, the pitch-blackness of the old tunnel.

  She could come back tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day until she found her sister. She had nothing else to do, and nothing else to care about. She would keep searching until there was nobody left to ask and nowhere left to look.

  CHAPTER 10:

  LADY WITH A SNAKE

  [Unmapped building, old industrial zone, The Quarter: Damon | fixer ds-26b | Diggy | estimated crowd: 450]

  The ring girl pranced around the hexagonal cage like a carnival pony, knees lifted high, dark hair shining under the lights. The crowd rose up to the ceiling on all sides — close to four hundred of them by Damon’s estimate, and ninety-five per cent men — hooting and cat-calling from the stands.

  Down there in the cage the girl responded to the racket, sashaying and winking under the lights, holding the number two aloft with her ribs arched out and shoulders thrown back. Her bikini was emblazoned with what looked to be the Australian flag, although through the haze of smoke it was impossible to count the stars with any accuracy.

  Damon was taking mental notes; scribbling was out of the question, and he’d been assured a minicam definitely wasn’t worth the risk. Sure enough he’d seen a hand-lettered sign near the entrance: No cameras! Phones OFF! All cameras AND PHOTOGRAPHERS will be smashed!!

  He’d arrived with his paid fixer, a stringy bogan called Mickey, just as the second fight finished. Getting here had been simpler than anticipated: a $30 cab ride to the derelict industrial area out past the far side of the Quarter, then a short walk through unlit, litter-blown streets to the venue, a low brick warehouse with blacked-out windows. The fights were held in the basement, Mickey said.

  The gateway was guarded by a sullen line of bikies, arms folded across their chests like bullbars, and more of them manned the entrance to the basement, moving efficiently about their work: taking punters’ money, checking for weapons and bottles and recording devices, directing people inside. Damon was frisked by a big Maori guy with a moko inked into the skin of his face. The man had been thorough, so thank god he’d made sure his pockets were empty, save for cash; not so much as a pen to give himself away.

  Down near the cage bodies launched into action, grappling something to the ground. Mickey laughed beside him. ‘Always some dickhead trying to touch the ring girls,’ he said. ‘He’ll get his head kicked in now, you watch.’ A man was being dragged backwards through the crowd, his feet kicking feebly, head jammed out of sight under a biker’s burly arm. A roar of excitement went up, and the ring girl flashed a high-beam smile and waved like a pageant queen. A voice growled over the PA: Alita, Alita, Alitaaaa! Doncha wanna meet-a! All the way from Sumatra, ladies and gentlemen, our own little Asian tiger.

  A minute later a bell rang, and the girl enacted a cheesecake farewell, one heel kicked out behind her as she blew a kiss, then exited the cage with her number tucked under her arm. Her smile dropped, Damon noted, the moment she’d descended the stairs, and two bouncers swiftly escorted her out of sight.

  Now a new rumble was rising in the room, a sound altogether harder in tone. The lights dimmed for a second then flared white-hot as the gates slid up and two men entered the cage from opposite sides. One fighter bounced forward on the balls of his feet, jogging on the spot and flicking his head from side to side, raising a bare fist to the crowd’s roar; the other, taller and heavier, hung back near the black wire mesh, head held low like a dog fixing on a scent. He didn’t even glance at the crowd. All his attention was on his opponent.

  Mickey was talking in Damon’s ear. ‘Guy on the left is Jasinski, kid from the Regions, scrappy little bastard and a dirty fighter. The big one’s Aziz, Iraqi guy, only his third fight, won ’em both. Odds are on Jasinski, but my money’s on the raghead.’

  Damon scratched at his newly sprouted moustache, a handlebar affair that was sparser and itchier than he’d expected, although it did the trick aesthetically; the disguise lent him a whole new persona, he thought, a kind of ruffian chic. He’d even gone without shampoo for the past few days, and tried as hard as possible to resist his usual over-generous scoop of hair product. He’d shown up at the last editorial meeting looking like something out of a Carnie back lot, complete with torn truckie singlet and Blundstone boots. ‘Sorry,’ he’d gestured downward dismissively as the other journos filed past him all nondescript and neat, ‘didn’t have time to change back into civvies.’ This wasn’t strictly true, but the editors had seemed impressed, both with his story pitches and his incognito get-up. ‘Back to the gritty stuff, eh, Damo,’ George had said, nodding in approval. ‘Getting in there amongst it.’ Everyone seemed to have forgotten his misfire with the stunt-rat story, and Damon was silently grateful. He tried not to glow when the boss shortened his name.

  The bell rang and the two fighters were at each other. Damon suppressed a wince as bare knuckle smashed into flesh, shinbone thwacked into rib cage. He’d always been squeamish when it came to actual violence, blinking out the more graphic scenes in films; being behind a camera made it so much easier to face, placed the whole scene at one remove, but right now there was nothing between his eyes and the fighters down there in their cage. Catching a wave of noise he half rose in his seat, roaring along with the crowd; Mickey had warned him to join in or risk rousing suspicion.

  He’d been surprised how many of the punters wore good suits and flash watches. Maybe he’d overdone it with the scruffy act — the crowd was largely biz types, just like Mickey had said. ‘There’s big money in this game,’ he’d assured Damon. ‘They don’t muck around. Winner tonight walks away with five grand.’

  ‘What about the loser?’ he’d asked.

  Mickey had shrugged. ‘Depends,’ he said. ‘He’ll get a few hundred just for showing up. And if he’s lucky the ref’ll step in before he’s pulp.’ A few months back, apparently, eight men had shown up for the fights but only seven had made it home again. Nothing got out, of course, there was no police report: all the fighters in this racket were undocs, and desperate for a buck. The risk came with the territory.

  Now Mickey was hopping around, swearing. His man was down, curled on his side on the mat, fending off blows to the head; Damon knew better than to turn away, but that didn’t mean he liked what he was seeing. Blood splashed out across a bare chest — then suddenly the man on the ground was striking out with his feet, clipping the other man on the underside of his jaw, sending him reeling back.

  The crowd was on its feet so Damon rose to join it: he was caught up in a fug of aftershave and sweat, the meaty roar of male voices baying for blood, fists in the air, expletives and saliva flying. Women too, he saw, caught up in the bloodlust of it: well-dressed women, like you’d see down at one of the casinos, with the manicure and the silky jewel-coloured dresses. Not many, but more than he’d expected. Women like to gamble too, he reminded himself. And why shouldn’t they? Mind you, he thought, the women here could just as easily be hired for the evening.

  The bell rang to signal the end of round one. Five minutes had seemed like twenty to Damon. He began to run through the storyboard in his head: a slow-mo re-enact with voiceover, he decided, plus some exterior shots at night; a disused building that could easily be this one. He could shoot the thing himself. Talent was simple enough to recruit, Bloodhound had a contractor to handle that. Still, he’d need interviewees. Mickey had already declined and warned him not to approach anyone while the two of them were out together. He might have to write his own script, he thought as the fighters bobbed around each other, catching their breath before the bell rang again, the big man moving clumsily now. Whack it through the voxcoder.

>   In the lawless underworld beyond the city’s edge, he mouthed, men fight to the death as women bet thousands on the outcome … No, no, too cheesy. Two men enter the fighters’ cage, but only one can leave … Brute force rules and mercy is in short supply … Er, cliché alert … Bloodlust, brute force and cold hard cash rule the fighting underworld … Better. Then something about the rules: bare knuckles, no eye-gouging or groin shots, no kicks to the head when your man’s flat-out down, otherwise no holds barred. Was there anything to eat around here? He could swear he smelled fried onions.

  Put some money on the next fight, he thought, that was the thing to do. See how that side of it works. ‘Hey,’ he said to Mickey, but the guy waved him away impatiently, fixated on the cage, the two figures at the epicentre of the room; his man was gathering himself for the final round, chest heaving wet and red under the lights.

  ‘Fucken hang on,’ said Mickey, who’d now dropped all pretence of being a gracious host. ‘I got fifty riding on this guy.’ He stabbed his finger at a long table set up near the cage. ‘I can see me bookie from here, smug little prick. One with the dog.’

  Damon followed Mickey’s finger, letting his eyes escape the ugly mess the fight was quickly becoming. A handful of bookies were seated at a long table, each with a heavy bodyguard planted behind him. His eyes fixed on the smallest figure: a young guy wearing glasses and a clean white t-shirt, the light bouncing off his lenses, sitting calmly with a cashbox in front of him, watching the fight cage with what looked like polite interest. At his feet was a small black-and-white puppy.

  The bigger fighter was down again, and the room itself seemed to be screaming now. ‘NO!’ Mickey roared. ‘Don’t fucking tap out on me!’ The man’s hand flopped feebly against the mat; you had to squint to see it. The other fighter can’t see it, Damon thought. The other fighter kept going. He looked away. A buzzer sounded and it was over.

  The crowd sank into their seats, and the volume of the room dropped as the beaten man’s limp body was carried out through the back gates, raising a chorus of boos in its wake. Mickey had his head in his hands now. The victor held one fist aloft but he looked beaten too, the fingers of his other hand hooked into the mesh like it was holding him up. Whistles rang out, and the PA crackled to life: The Jazz-man does the deed, ladies and gentlemen! Jasinski the Fist comes out on top once again! A portly man bustled out with a mop and began slapping it back and forth, the white bud of its head soon turning red under the lights. Damon watched him clean up the blood, spray the mat with disinfectant, dry it off thoroughly with a towel. Hip-hop music bounced out over the PA and people were getting up from their seats, heading for the bookies’ table or the food queue. Now Damon could smell barbecued meat, hamburgers or sausages by the whiff of it.

  He wondered if he’d seen enough. Work aside, on a personal level, brutality did nothing for him. But, no, you couldn’t have it both ways: complain when the stories are thin on the ground, then whinge when they get too brutal. What kind of attitude was that? Remember, he told himself, you’re an information-retrieval machine, a scanning eye, a story collector. Those kids in the ring were undocs, making a decent living no doubt, and the crowd was enjoying itself. He’d stay and watch the whole show. He should be grateful: if he kept his eyes open, this city would always produce enough trouble to keep him fed.

  He reached into his pocket and leaned over to Mickey, who was still looking sour over his loss. ‘Hey man,’ he said, holding up two fifties. ‘You wanna go again? I’ll join you this time. On me.’

  Mickey’s face lit up at the sight of the cash and he gave an eager nod. ‘Too right,’ he said. ‘Next fight’s a good one, couple of ex-cons with a long-term grudge.’

  ‘Mind if I come down with you to place the bet?’ Damon asked. ‘I’d like to see how the bookies do their thing. I’ll stay quiet.’

  Mickey shrugged. ‘Diggy won’t give a fuck how much noise you make, long as you got the money. Come on then.’

  Damon bit back his surprise. As the announcer asked the crowd to welcome their next lovely hostess, Louise-the-main-squeeze, Damon and his fixer picked their way through the crowd towards the betting tables. You chase after a lead for long enough, he thought, and it’ll end up coming to you. He smoothed down his moustache and nodded coolly at a woman in a silver halter-top, who ignored him. So what, he told himself. What would she know anyway? Believe it or not, people, underneath this stupid moustache, I’m a somebody.

  [Intercept, telecommunication, private number/phone booth MB614: Violet | Diggy]

  ‘Hello? Is that, uh, Digmond?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Hi, it’s … we met about a month ago, down the Carnie district. I’m Violet.’

  ‘Violet … right. How’s your day going?’

  ‘Ah, okay. Do you remember me?’

  ‘Course I do, Violet. You’re …’

  ‘You gave me your card. I work for Merlin. We were talking about some work, some film work, maybe adverts or something.’

  ‘Aha, sorry, of course. You’re the performer, black hair, right?’

  ‘No, it’s … well, yeah, that’s me.’

  ‘Nice to hear from you, Violet. How you been keeping?’

  ‘Not bad, thanks. How’s Zorro?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your puppy, Zorro.’

  ‘Oh great, same as always, crazy little guy. He’s doing good.’

  ‘He’s so cute.’

  ‘Yep. So Violet, what can I do for you? Sounds like you’re looking for some work, yes?’

  ‘Well, yeah, but not just any work. You were saying something about …’

  ‘I remember, sure. You still doing the magic show with the old man?’

  ‘Not exactly. Merlin’s hurt himself, he has to take some time off.’

  ‘So you need something fast.’

  ‘Well, not fast. Soon, maybe. But not fast.’

  ‘Then you need an agent, perfect. I’m sure I can set up some interviews for you.’

  ‘For ...?’

  ‘We can talk over the details in person. Just to get things rolling, can we run through some prelims?’

  ‘Prelims?’

  ‘Sorry, preliminary questions. Just to get a sense of the range of options we’re looking at. I’m forgetting you’ve never had an agent before. Just stop me if you don’t get something, okay?’

  ‘Alright.’

  ‘So let’s grab some details. I’m making some notes here, for the clients. Okay, age.’

  ‘Uh, eighteen.’

  ‘Really? You looked younger.’

  ‘That’s just my face, I’ve got one of those faces.’

  ‘Sure. Had a medical lately?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. But I know I’m healthy.’

  ‘You’d be prepared to undertake a full medical though, right?’

  ‘How much is it?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, it’s covered. You smoke? Drink?’

  ‘Not that much.’

  ‘I’d keep that to yourself. Let’s say you don’t smoke, not ever, and you have a drink now and then. Say once or twice a week.’

  ‘Alright.’

  ‘What about drugs, huh, the fun stuff? You’ve experimented a bit, right? Everyone our age has.’

  ‘I don’t like drugs, I’ve seen what they do. I’ve never used them. So no.’

  ‘Great. Just remember they’ll check your arms. And there’ll be blood tests too.’

  ‘What? What’s this for? Look, forget it, I just thought —’

  ‘No, no, I’m sorry. I keep forgetting you’re new to all this. It’s totally standard, promise. Let’s take it back a step: I think we should discuss your career prospects in person.’

  ‘I’m not doing any of that skin stuff.’

  ‘Like
I said, I don’t deal in that industry. That game’s purely for low-lifes and lost causes. I leave that to the pimps.’

  ‘Okay. I just can’t do that. I have to make something out of myself.’

  ‘Yes. I could see that from the first second I spotted you on stage, Violet. Are you free to meet up sometime over the weekend and discuss the options — say, Sunday at four?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘And, don’t worry, I’ll coach you through the whole interview process. With your genetics, you’re already off to a flying start. You take vitamins?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  ‘Buy some tomorrow, multivits, executive strength. Drink lots of water, eat well, get eight hours’ sleep. And lay off the booze and smokes. We need you in tiptop condition. Look, I have to get off the phone now, but —’

  ‘Digmond?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I don’t want anyone touching me.’

  ‘Don’t worry. That’s not what this is about.’

  [west foyer, silvacom tower, Elizabeth Street, Commerce Zone: Milk | Luella]

  There was no mistake: it was her, alright. The ultra-short hair, that direct gaze, the diminutive build. For a second, Milk was unsure how to play it — but only for a second. He stood where he was and let her walk the length of the marble foyer, let her reach him, let her extend her hand first. As they shook, a smile flashed across her face and was gone. Her handshake was strong for a person of her size.

  ‘Mr Dabrowski,’ Luella began.

  ‘Milk,’ he corrected her.

  ‘Sorry — Milk.’ She flashed that smile again, like a light flicking on and off. ‘Luella.’

  ‘Dabrowski is the name on my docs and accounts. But everyone calls me Milk.’

  ‘Unusual name. Where does it come from?’

  ‘A nickname from school, it just stuck. Tall and pale, I guess.’

  ‘I like it. And milk is good stuff.’ Her gaze was unblinking but warm. She had a way of making you feel at ease, he noted straight off, a skill that would stand any Polbiz wheeler-dealer in good stead. This woman might be government, but clearly she was bright and not entirely conventional; the Beige label was hardly an accurate fit.