THE WOOLLOOMOOLOO WHARF is one of the oldest parts of Sydney Harbour. Behind the warehouses and piers is a maze of narrow streets, alleyways, dilapidated buildings and 19th Century terrace houses. It was a place where the press gangs of the 19th century forcibly recruited unsuspecting drunks into the Royal Navy or onto cargo ships, if the whores, pickpockets or muggers hadn’t got to them first. These days it was a place of small bars, a bordello or two and plenty of drug dealers … still a paradise for thieves and cutthroats, and always a sanctuary for men on the run from the law, themselves or anything else. No one asked questions of you here. The dark energy of the place attracted Alice. Here, he could be in touch with the real essence of the struggle of life.
As Alice moved deeper into the old town, street vendors offered everything from jewellery to fresh meat pies. Girls offered only variations on one standard thing, repeatedly approaching him. Beggars pleaded for alms, an old witch offered to tell his fortune. None of them recognized him. In a full-length back trench coat over a white shirt and black pants, wearing a black Fedora and scarlet boots, Alice mixed with the street folk in relative anonymity.
He was thinking about how he didn’t want to forget Stain, just the fact that she was dead, when he heard a familiar voice.
“Hey Al!”
He looked up at the balcony of the old terrace house he was passing and saw it was packed with Goths. Then he recognized the face of his bass guitarist.
“Hey Ratsso. What’s happening?”
“Just having a few cones with friends. Come on up buddy, it’s good to see ya.”
“Nar, not in the mood for slumming it.”
“Come on mate, it’ll do you good. They’re cool people. Goths, and mostly musos. Its Lou-gash’s birthday.”
Alice thought about it for a second, then relented and entered the house.
The smell of dope in the living room was overwhelming. The room was dimly lit by a colourful revolving laser ball, Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here was playing on the entertainment console. Half a dozen same-sex couples were slow dancing to it.
Ratsso came rumbling down the staircase and embraced Alice on the landing.
“Good to see ya finally surfaced man. How are ya?” He held Alice at arms-length and studied his craggy face. He hesitated to mention Stain’s death.
“Running like a well-oiled engine,” Alice quipped, bitterly.
“Hey, how about all them riots?” Ratsso said, trying to think of a subject that might interest his friend. “Boy, the Octagon have missed you. Been getting pretty ugly without you at the helm.”
He placed a consoling arm around Alice’s shoulders and led him to the staircase. “Come on buddy, meet a couple of nice folk and chill for a bit. Me and the band have missed you big time.” He led Alice up the stairs.
“The song is doing well, eh?”
“Got no idea. Don’t give a shit.”
Ratsso tried: “Did you hear about the government planning to bust biker gangs out west for having fallout shelters and shit?”
“Nup, haven’t heard anything. Why would that make ’em a threat?”
“Oh, they reckon they’re planning a rebellion. They’ve got the guns and ammo, ha! Pardon the pun.”
“Lock up the street and houses.” Alice shot back another line from their current hit, but there was no life in it. “They’re paranoid.”
There was nothing else for it. Ratsso realized he’d have to broach the subject.
“Horrible what happened to Stain, mate,” he said, carefully.
“Yeah…,” said Alice, sadly. “Still can’t cop it.”
“What do you mean mate, didn’t she OD?”
“No way, she was okay when the medics took her. She bloody died in hospital.”
Ratsso stopped three quarters of the way up the staircase, turned and eyeballed Alice intently. “You thinkin’ foul play?”
“Reckon,” said Alice, gravely, “couldn’t have died from the fix.”
They’d reached the top landing, and found loads more people.
“No one’s wearing masks.”
“Yeah, no one gives a crap.”
A dude in a serious Goth outfit handed Alice a joint. He took a long toke and passed it on. The grass lightened up his mood a modicum.
At first the party seemed Goth hedonistic to Alice. Voices were overloud, competing with the music, and faces were over-animated. It was the way of the world, so much more amplified than before. The room was big and purple with a bar at the back. All the way around it grooved the bloodshot-eyed, stoned throng.
A young girl was up on a coffee table, most of her clothes gone, shaking herself to solitary ecstasy in a fuzz of jiggling boobs and gyrating hips. Her hands moved over her body, stroking and caressing, partly in invitation but mostly in self-obsession.
Ratsso dragged Alice away from her and the vociferous crowd out into the relative calm of the balcony to introduce his friends.
“Caught up with Mal yet?” said Ratsso on the way.
“Nar, might drop in on the Units gig tonight.”
“Oh, that’s right, they’re playing the Jungle Bar, Blue’s on kit. Hey, saw Beano the other day, he reckons he’s got a new lyric for you for a hit song.”
“Bloody Beano … he could write a lyric to a dripping tap. You work on it with him, it’ll take me a while to get back into the groove of composing … too much bitterness for now.”
The effects of the joint were kicking in and Alice felt he was fitting in with the scene a lot better.
Ratsso stopped next to two girls with wild hair, dressed in short black Tutus and black leather jackets. One of them was wearing Demonia Goth boots while the other wore black tights and black high-heeled pumps.
“Al, this is Lucinda and Vega,” Ratsso said.
Alice grunted disinterestedly and then gazed off into oblivion.
“Bored?”
The voice was girlish. Alice turned to find it belonged to Vega, the one in the black tights and pumps. He tried to push aside his feelings, treated her to a half-hearted but still wolfish grin.
“Not so much bored as stoned, smoked brain flat spin,” he said, lyrically.
“You don’t look out of it,” she purred quizzically and took a sip of her drink. “I’m a bit high myself.”
“Yeah? What can you see from up there?”
She let a frown slowly gather around her eyes that then spread to the rest of her pretty face. “Speaking of high, did you hear about that chick last week who fell off a balcony in town, landed on an Oceana official and killed him?”
“Er … Nar,” Al said, following her eye line over the balcony to the street below.
“Ten frickin’ storeys … a long way down,” she added, morbidly.
Lucinda piped up, “Try twenty storeys honey. I was there, it was seriously gross.”
Alice winced. “Must’ve made a mess. Someone shove her?”
“Nup, they say she just toppled over.” Vega giggled and playfully nudged him with her elbow. “I’ve got a friend who works at Oceana HQ. Reckons they blame the killing on the Octagon … said she done it on purpose.”
“We thought she fell but they reckon she jumped,” Lucinda added.
“What? That’s a bit far-fetched,” Alice growled. “Like, how could it be murder? She’d have to be a good aim to drop twenty floors and land directly on a bloke. That’s just a fresh serve of Oceana propaganda spin.”
“News said she was a … a suicide attacker!” Vega added, with a grimace.
Lucinda shook her head, “No way, she was probably out of it, looking at us and toppled over.”
Al reacted. “The Octagon’s a non-violent peace movement. They can’t be blamed. It’s a stitch-up.”
Ratsso butted in. “It was the same protest we took a live drone feed from for the Frenzy gig, remember Al?”
Al nodded. “Yeah, how could I forget that night.” It was the night Stain died.
“Anyhow, you can ask my friend ‘bout it, he’ll be here soon. Hey! Now I recognize you … you’re Black Alice, aren’t ya?” Vega said, a surprised expression crossing on her cute face.
Alice half-raised his hands in surrender and grinned. “Guilty as charged,” he said
“Take a sip of this, Black Alice.” She offered him her pink drink. “It’s laced with Bliss.”
Alice took a sip. He’d tried Bliss before: it was a serious turn-on.
He handed her back the glass and she drained it.
Lou-gash joined them.
“Hey, happy birthday Lou,” Alice said to the tall, outlandishly dressed woman.
“Thank you darlink,” she replied in a deep throaty Italian accented voice. “Golly Alice, I haven’t seen you for ages. We were school buddies back in Perth, you know,” she told the others.
“Yeah, I remember you winning the pissing up the wall competition in the boy’s brasco at lunch time,” joked Alice. “No-one could beat Lou.”
They all laughed.
“That was when I had a cock, darling,” said Lou-gash. “But oh, how my life changed since I had that little piece of skin removed.” She chuckled devilishly, ending with a contented smile.
“Not so little, but good for you mate,” praised Alice. “Anyhow, I’m out of here, I’ve got an appointment with Oceana Security.”
Ratsso couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “You’re kiddin’ me mate? What would you want to meet those creeps for?”
Al put a hand gently on Ratsso’s shoulder to placate him, “Some rave about wanting to make a hologram of me.”
Ratsso shook his head, “Nar mate,” he said emphatically, “give it the slip, can’t trust ‘em. Not with all this shit going on. Mate, they’re blaming the Octagon for killing that official, that’s you mate, you’re the Octagon. Besides, you gotta meet us on the ferry at midnight tonight, remember?”
Al had made up his mind. “It’s cool Ratsso, I can look after myself.”
Vega gazed sadly at Alice and said like she knew something the others didn’t, “Your life will change tonight Alice, nothing will ever be the same again for you. I feel it.”
Her warning sent chill ran through Alice’s nervous system but his covered the reaction by giving her a gentle peck on the cheek. “That happens with me baby. Hey Lou, Lucinda dudes, later.”
Vega gazed at him sadly. “Bye Al. Be safe.”
“See you later tonight — on the ferry,” Ratsso said despondently.
“Chaa!” said Alice, and with a sharp wave of his hand he vanished into the crowd.
As he made his way out of the house he was feeling much better about himself. He stood out front and looked back up at the balcony. Vega was staring down at him with a sad look on her sweet face. He shot her a wave. He didn’t know if he was feeling better because of the dope or the Bliss, but it didn’t matter. What did matter was that he couldn’t ignore the feeling in his gut that there was something in the story Vega had told him, the story about the girl falling off the balcony, and it being blamed on the Octagon by the Oceana government.
Wheels were turning in Alice’s brain. Somehow, Vega’s story about the jumping girl and the circumstances of Stain’s death, seemed linked. He couldn’t put his finger on how. He turned up his collar and trudged off into the blustery night. While walking his mind was cast back to his last night with Stain.
After getting the text message and interview with Kent, he’d met her for a midnight snack at the Bourbon and Beefsteak Bar in Kings Cross. He was always hungry after a gig, and that was his favourite watering hole. He remembered sitting in the near-empty restaurant, and noticing a dude in the corner eyeing him off. It was hard to tell if he was malevolent or not, because Alice was often recognised, sometimes by fans, and sometimes by detractors. But this dude seemed quite different.
He’d nudged Stain, who was sipping on a bloody Mary. “Hey Stain, don’t look now, but there’s a dude in the corner pegging us. You know him or something? Coz he’s looking at me like I’m wearing something of his.”
Stain had taken a sneak peek and turned sharply back at Alice with a frightened expression. “Oh hell, it’s Drago! We need to get out of here!” she said, panicking.
“Hey, hey, I’m not finished eating, and I’m not about to let some old boyfriend put me off my grub … just settle down.”
Stain leaned forward and with teeth gritted whispered harshly, so Drago couldn’t hear. “He’s not an old boyfriend! the guy’s a serial killer or something. He stalked me a bunch of times so I had him arrested. When they busted him, he got done for other stuff, drugs probably. I had to go to court. He shouted he’d square with me. They put him away for two years. Must’ve just got out. I’ve been dreading the day.”
Alice could tell the dude had genuinely freaked her out. He glanced over to size him up. He was a big, broad-shouldered mother, short-cropped black hair, a big square jaw, full-sleeve tatts on both arms, and a mean, take-no-prisoners scowl in dark, soulless eyes. He had ‘iron bar challenge’ written all over him.
Alice let out a sigh, patted his lips with a napkin and then slowly stood up.
Stain grabbed his arm, “Where are you going hun?”
“Back in a flash,” he said.
“No Alice please,” she pleaded.
It was on deaf ears, Alice cruised over to Drago, pulled up a chair at his table and sat down opposite him. Taking a toothpick from the jar on the table he put it between his teeth and said, “You’re freaking out my babe, and that’s giving me indigestion.”
The big man drilled Alice with an ice-cold stare, “So?”
“Have you got a problem?”
Without blinking Drago growled, “You. Fuck off.”
“I was having a New York Cut Steak, what about you?” Alice said casually.
“What the stuff has that got to do with anything?” he snarled.
“Well, feel this?”
Drago felt something and looked down under the table at a steak knife Alice had precariously pressing against his crotch.
“I got a steak knife … you got a spoon … now what does that tell you about what we ordered?” Alice snarled.
He was taking a huge risk that Drago wasn’t armed but figured it would be unlikely, seeing he was fresh out of the big house and probably on parole.
“You’re Black Alice aren’t ya?”
“You got that much right.”
Ignoring the knife, quick as a lightning flash, Drago grabbed the hand holding the knife and squeezed. The knife dropped from Alice’s grip. Drago continued to squeeze. The strength of his grip was crushing.
In a move Drago hadn’t expected, Alice let go a powerful left cross that hit him flush on the chin. The big man slumped forward onto the table, his face plunging into his bowl of lobster bisque soup.
Alice stood up, massaging his right hand and flexing his fingers. It was another trick he’d learned from the foreman in the West Australian mines – use something to distract your opponent, then make a haymaker a moral. It had certainly worked, but he wasn’t about to hang around for Drago to regain consciousness.
He gave the man a wave and snarled: “Chaa!”