“He still using?”
“Been to detox. Got out two days ago. He’s back at meetings.”
Justin nodded this time.
“Slimy cunt,” Stooge Brett muttered, then looked up, his mouth open. “Fuck. Sorry. I know, I know. But, fuck. You know?”
Justin turned to Dave. “What do you reckon?” with a little upward nod on the you, part challenge, part real question.
Dave inhaled quickly, let it out slow. He and Justin had a bond. They’d jailed together. For Dave, the last three years had happened way too fast for him to keep up, to understand: a bit of dabbling, for show, to fit in, a few more lines, and a few more, then finding out too late his interest in the stuff was serious, and that he’d already crossed over, but had no one he could really confide in, go to. Then the bust, the forced detox, a charge of deemed supply, then suddenly, real jail. He was out of his depth, scared. He did his best not to be noticed, hiding away in the gym. His sports background helped, but he was rugby union, eastern suburbs, private school, and inside it was all rugby league, western suburbs, public school. Dave had started using in jail — a suicide move, and he knew it. Sometimes he worked out with Justin, who was doing two years for the hydro crop, but who had gone into jail straight, and was staying clean inside. Knew the ropes, had respect. Not running any sort of obvious manipulation, invited Dave to tag along to a jail meeting. Dave went, pretending to be open, but inside sneering at the sharing, the stories, the earnest bullshit.
Then something in him worked loose. He started listening in a different way. He still felt like a fake, but bits of what he heard applied to him, no denying it. Justin continued to show kindness.
Then later, on the street, paroled a week after Justin, he kept up the meetings. That fraudulent feeling never really faded, though he got used to being there, got used to hanging out, taking it a day at a time, not using. He made friends. He talked to newcomers, even visited jail. When Justin started the labor hire business, he kept Dave in work, mostly the better jobs. When this other thing started up, Dave was the first one Justin invited in.
Now, the rest were waiting for him to speak. Dave felt himself torn in three different ways. What was the right thing to say?
But before he could speak, Andy blurted out, “Thing is, I feel responsible.”
All eyes back to Andy now.
Andy looking from one to the other. “He fuckin’ wasn’t ready.”
Still watching.
“We put him out there too early.”
Justin nodded and looked at Dave again, still waiting.
Those few seconds had been enough. “Andy’s right. We should’ve looked after him better. He can be a bit... flaky, we knew that. Our responsibility.” Dave sat up a little straighter. “We deal with the consequences. All of us. So, I say no flogging, but obviously he can’t sell gear for a while.”
“Not ever,” Noel speaking quietly. “He’s a liability. In other ways.”
A silence.
“I mean, that we don’t know about.”
“He didn’t get busted,” said Andy.
“Not that he told you.”
Justin, looking closely at Noel now: “Something from your guy?”
Noel’s guy was a cop. They’d gone to school together, played third-grade league together. The guy was bent, cheerfully so, always had been. These days Good Bloke bought him a regular drink in return for access to the police computer system and for whatever snippets he could pass their way. Other than Noel, none of them, not even Justin, knew who he was. He was reliably crooked, though, which in their game was gold.
Noel nodded. “Timmy was pinched for racking two months ago. Department stores. Sports gear. Cameras and shit. Hasn’t come up yet. He’s still on remand. Matters pending.”
Heads shaking around the group, Brett muttering, “Jesus fuck!”
Andy went pale.
“Keeping that secret from us?” said Brett. “From everybody? I mean, how did he manage that?”
The thought in the room: what if Timmy had turned dog?
“He’s downstairs now,” said Andy. “Waiting. He wants to do the right thing.”
“So he reckons.”
Justin nodded. “Okay,” he briskly reached for the bag at his feet, put it on the desk, “we better do this now, so we can all fuck off. Timmy’s out of the rort. He’s got to square up. Straightaway. Alright, Andy?”
Andy nodded gloomily. “He hasn’t got a zack.”
“How you cover it, that’s your business.”
A slow nod from Andy.
Justin unzipped the backpack and brought out a lumpy Coles plastic bag, set it on the desk. From that he took a flat package wrapped in clear thick plastic, like a packet of Chinese noodles, neatly taped at the ends, and carefully put it down on the desk. Then the small scales, no bigger than a phone, accurate from .01 up to 500 grams, the aluminum foil, the sandwich bags.
“Alright. Let’s fuck this puppy.”
Suddenly laughter. Relief, to be getting on with it.
Later in the morning, during a lull, Maddy and Kim out fetching sushi, Di glanced out the small back window toward Darling Point — cloudy, no rain — and then down to the little lane that ran beside the building. There under the scrappy paperbarks, Bec and Timmy. Bec puffing on a ciggie, looking at her phone and talking to Timmy at the same time. Bloody long ciggie break. Or maybe Justin had told her to clear out until further notice.
Di looked across the hall toward Good Bloke. The front door still closed. Maybe sometime someone had cold-called the business to get a worker or two to unload a semi, or drive a forklift, or something. And maybe a laborer of some sort had gone out to do the job. But the punter would’ve received no encouragement to call back, and as far as Di knew, Bec — who’d just turned up one day and asked for a job, and Justin had let her stay, why not? — dealt with the legitimate side of the business pretty much singlehandedly, ringing this one or that one, anyone she knew was looking for a day’s work, and get him to bring a mate if necessary. They might’ve made enough money that way to cover the rent.
She looked out the window again. Bec was chatting to another woman now: young, light hair. Timmy was walking away, ten yards down the lane. Was he picking up pace? A green car parked there illegally.
Then the ding of the lift bell, and footsteps coming up the stairs at the same time. No one due for another half hour.
Inside Justin’s office, each one had his sandwich bag, tightly rolled, a rubber band around the outside. Different amounts — forty grams for Andy, a hundred each for Brett and Noel, eighty for Dave — the biggest whack yet. And the cleanest shit yet. But no money in the room. That was another iron law: never the drugs and the money in the same place at the same time. That too was a benefit of them sharing that atmosphere of trust: you didn’t have to act like it was total dog-eat-dog, you could count on an honest square-up later on.
Next everyone was standing up, ready to piss off. Each to make up his own smaller deals, grams or caps or whatever. Noel to Canberra, where he knew people, and where prices were better than Sydney. Brett to a pub in Chatswood and the university. Dave to Bondi. None of them to the Cross, though, where things were just too harsh. Andy was gloomy, but he had his stuff and now there was work to do.
Dave, with his deal double-bagged and stuck in his jeans pocket, was looking at his phone when they heard the knock at the door. Surprisingly gentle and tentative. Justin glanced through his office door toward the frosted glass. A single profile there.