THE YOUNG BUCKS RUNNING with Sorensen and the police commissioner slow down as the afternoon closes out. The men are all drunk by then. They put the feelers out for a palate cleanser. Is anyone carrying? Who’s got the gear? A boozy Mike feels the air buzz around him, like a miracle is about to happen. He slips a hand into his jacket pocket and brings out the leftover cocaine from Fantasyland. ‘I can pick us up,’ he says.
Everyone’s eyes light up.
‘Mate, you are under arrest,’ says one of them, scoring a laugh.
Mike does a line in the Silver Fish bathroom with three CIB detectives and an office clerk. He regales jittery men with political intrigue and who’s fucking who in the Nationals. Back at the bar, he orders gin and tonics. ‘This will liven us up.’
And just like that, he’s in. It’s only the ground floor, mind you—the old boys aren’t having any of it—but it’s enough. The detectives start talking to him. They tell him about brothels in the big smoke and illegal casinos, and which pubs have the biggest counter meals, and which undercover cops have the best weed. They talk about another party tonight and tell Mike he’s invited. There’s also an after-afterparty and, ‘Yeah, we can probably get you into that too, mate, if you can sort us out with some more of this marching powder. It’s going to be a long one.’
Mike doesn’t look the gift horse in the mouth. He immediately goes and buys an eight ball of coke from Allan in the Silver Fish’s kitchen. Allan knows the drill, but he’s shocked all the same. ‘You’re good at this,’ he says. ‘Beating me at my own game.’
‘I live to serve.’
They do a line together.
‘You know,’ Allan says, ‘some of those blokes out there are drug police, right?’
Mike’s feeling good now. ‘I know.’ He wipes his nose. ‘I can sell ice to Eskimos when I’m like this.’
The follow-on party is in a tavern upstairs from the Silver Fish. It’s more of the same, but the cast expands. Commissioner Lewis and Deputy Sorensen have retired elsewhere, leaving their men to mingle with the regulars. Mike keeps the day going at light-speed, working every angle, fishing for cop scandal, Fantasyland juice, and the lock on an invitation to the after-after shindig. That is where the real action will be.
To shore it all up, he sneaks off and uses the bar phone to get a connect on some working girls. Half an hour later they arrive, chaperoned by a familiar face: the redhead from Fantasyland. The one with the cigarette-box camera.
The photo.
‘Just a little souvenir.’
The redhead walks right up to him, her eyes fixed on his eyes. ‘Hello, stranger.’
Behind them, the CIB boys cheer.
Glasses get clinked.
Fake giggles echo.
The redhead takes in the scene, then looks back at Mike. ‘This is interesting. I hope you’re paying.’
‘It’s covered,’ says Mike. ‘You wouldn’t have a little souvenir you’d like to give me, would you? I’m a bit worried about it.’
She smiles at that, gently leans against him. ‘Maybe there’s a little souvenir you’d like to give me?’
Jesus.
‘Little?’ he says.
‘I’ll need to have another look at that photo.’
Mike checks in with the detectives. They’re all coupled up, drinks in hand.
‘Come on,’ says the redhead. ‘It won’t take long.’
They roll around on the floor of an apartment in the same building. The woman tells him it’s what the place is for. Naked, in the fading dusk, Mike drinks her in. Her pale thighs wrapped around his waist, hair splayed out, bright red and iridescent against the cream shag-pile carpet. She moans and touches herself while they do it, completely uninhibited.
Mike feels big.
The woman is everything, all-encompassing.
And when it’s over, she hangs around this time. She walks to the bathroom nude, a hand cradling herself. On the way back, she grabs a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and pours it into two coffee cups.
‘What’s your name?’ Mike says.
‘Oh dear.’
‘Are you offended?’
‘No. I just thought you had more pull than that.’
‘Maybe I do? Maybe I like the mystery?’
She rolls over onto her stomach. ‘The only thing men like is mystery. I’m Colleen.’
‘Colleen what?’
‘Vinton.’
‘Uh fuck. I walked into that, didn’t I?’
He knows the name. Knows it well. Colleen the Queen. She owns the Strip. Has the local pollies in her pocket. Fingers in the Gold Coast police. The driving force behind the first legal casino they’re building down here. Rumour has it that Robert Emmery—the casino’s frontman—is her puppet. She works independent of the Brisbane mafia, but she’s still plenty dangerous in her own right.
‘How does that grab you?’ she says.
Mike shrugs. ‘I’m in politics.’ He collects his coat from the floor. ‘I might have a bump.’ He chalks up the powder on a hardcover copy of Noble House and they each do a line.
‘Is this Allan’s stuff?’ asks Colleen.
He nods.
She grabs her purse and takes out a photograph. ‘Here. For services rendered.’
It’s the picture of Mike with his pants around his ankles. It’s as unflattering as he imagined. Drunk off his arse, his flaccid dick is fleshy and alien under the flash. On the back, Colleen has stapled the film negative. ‘Thanks,’ he says, pocketing it. ‘Have you been carrying this around?’
‘I recognised your name when the order came in. Unlike you, I know who I’m sleeping with. Why are you down here?’
‘I’m working on Fantasyland.’
‘Figures.’
‘Does it?’ Mike runs a hand through her hair, teasing out a long strand. ‘Are you involved with it?’
‘Not as involved as I want to be. It’s the biggest game in town at the moment. What’s your angle?’
‘I need to get it back on track. I’m working for the minister.’
‘The minister of what?’
‘Everything.’
‘Oh. So we’re both playing with fire, then? Do the Nationals think partying with the Brisbane police is the best way to get Fantasyland back on track?’
‘I don’t get paid to think. I just go with the flow.’
‘But it doesn’t stop you thinking, does it?’
Mike laughs. ‘Colleen, are you working me?’
She slides over. She straddles him.
Mike runs a hand over her thigh. ‘I want this to happen again, but if you’re working me, I figure we should just get it out in the open right now.’
‘No, I’m not. But maybe I should be? Maybe we can work each other?’
Colleen moves back and forth.
‘How much trouble does that get me into down the way?’
‘I think you like trouble,’ she says, slipping him inside.