BRUNO STANDS IN THE corner of the nightclub, a ghost-like figure in the strobe lights. He’s up in Brisbane city, in the Valley, deep in the red-light district. It’s not safe, exactly—nothing is completely safe—but the city offers a type of cover. He’s not from there. People don’t know his face on the streets. No one has seen him in uniform.
He takes a sip of his drink.
Watches the dance floor heave to Ultravox.
Guys come past and keep going.
Some girl asks him for a light.
It’s the tail end of a late night, the witching hour where a hundred lonely souls like Bruno pray for relief and get this instead: a crowded mess, sweat condensation dripping from a basement ceiling.
Bruno orders another gin and tonic and pays the barman. Turning back to the crowd, he finds a man waiting. Early twenties. Thin toned arms. A rolled cigarette slipped behind his ear. The guy is looking at the liquor shelf behind the bar, but his eyes pass over Bruno and he smiles.
‘You want something?’ says Bruno.
‘What are you drinking?’
He orders another.
The two of them find a table and there’s an attempt at conversation. Bruno doesn’t dance, so he watches the man go out. He orders another round.
Later, the guy kisses him lightly and says, ‘Come with me.’
They hit the bathrooms and find a cubicle. The guy’s hands are on him immediately, in his hair, pulling him close. Bruno slides a hand over the guy’s crotch, finding a thick, tight bulge. He rubs at it with his palm.
‘Get out of it,’ the guy says, taking Bruno’s hand and pinning it to the cubicle wall. He kisses Bruno’s neck as he unzips him, sits on the closed pedestal and works on Bruno with his mouth. Bruno closes his eyes and tries to block out the bathroom and the overhead lighting and the music.
It doesn’t take long. ‘I’m gonna come,’ he whispers.
‘Show me,’ he says, and they both watch as Bruno ejaculates. Then the man gives him a rough kiss on the cheek and says, ‘That was fun.’ With that, he’s gone.
Bruno takes toilet paper and wipes up after himself, mentally preparing to step out of the cubicle. He sets his eyes dead ahead, opens the door, makes his way to the sink and slowly washes his hands under the tap.
Behind him, another cubicle door opens.
A man steps out, just a shape in Bruno’s peripheral vision.
The tap runs in the sink beside Bruno, water pouring out.
Pouring and pouring.
The water keeps coming.
Annoyed, Bruno looks over.
Pete Reynolds is standing there in a blue silk dress shirt.
‘Fuck,’ says Bruno. He moves, almost runs.
‘Wait,’ says Reynolds. ‘Stop.’
Bruno is already at the bathroom door. ‘We never—’
‘Hold on.’ Reynolds finally slips his hands under the running water. ‘We better have a chat.’
Reynolds knows a late-night bistro on Ann Street. They get a table up the back. Reynolds slumps sideways in his chair, his back against the wall. They order coffee and sit there waiting, ashing their cigarettes in the same ashtray.
‘You serve up here?’ asks Bruno.
‘My posting before the coast.’
Bruno leans in. ‘Look, we both could have been down there for all sorts of reasons.’
Reynolds shakes his head. ‘I’m sure you’ve got a lot of shit going through your head right now, but …’
‘I could have been down there with anyone.’
‘No, don’t do that.’
The coffee arrives. They wait it out as the waitress sets the cups down.
Bruno says, ‘So what do you want to talk about?’
‘Give me a minute.’ Reynolds looks around the bistro, a sullen glare.
‘I guess I don’t need to worry about you dobbing me in.’
‘No. But …’ Reynolds swallows deep. ‘There is something I need to tell you, and it’s not entirely unrelated to all this. That kid from the other night, the—’ Reynolds draws his thumb across his neck. Jamie. ‘I knew him. You asked me the other day how I ended up in the shitter at work. Well, Jamie is how it happened. He does a bit of side-work for Colleen Vinton and … there’s pictures of us together. So now I work for Vinton as well. Her and the boys up here. It’s all much of a muchness. Once you’re tarred with the brush, you’ve got to clock on for whoever wants you.’
Photos.
Bruno’s stomach clenches. ‘You could leave?’ he says.
‘You mean, quit the Force?’ Reynolds fiddles with his lighter. ‘I’m not fucking quitting. The job is virtually all I have. It took me a long time to work out what was going on with me. I’ll be forty fucking years old next year, and let me tell you, you don’t end up at The Terminus at my age if you’ve got someone waiting for you at home. My life is a mess. I take it you don’t go out much at home?’
‘No.’
‘Your family know?’
‘No. Maybe. I’ve never said anything.’
‘It’s not easy.’
‘I was going to tell my dad before he went, every day for weeks on end, but you know …’ Bruno lays his palms gently down against the tabletop. ‘Ran out of weeks.’
‘I never told my old man. Or my mum. I don’t even know if I regret it. I guess I do.’
‘It’s late,’ says Bruno. ‘I’m driving back tonight. What are you doing?’
‘Can I get a lift?’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’ Reynolds gently rubs his forehead. ‘I want to show you something.’
Back in the car, back on the highway, two detectives driving into the night, smoking with the windows down and the radio off.
‘Take the next exit,’ says Reynolds.
They weave their way through a thin strip of suburbia lining the Pacific Highway, out into the cane country of Alberton. A few minutes later, Reynolds directs Bruno onto a dirt road. No streetlights.
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll see.’
Bruno slowly takes a hand off the wheel and drops it down by his side. He touches the place where his gun normally is, before remembering that he’s not at work.
‘Okay, this’ll do,’ says Reynolds.
They stop and Reynolds gets out of the car. He stands on the shoulder of the road and Bruno follows suit, staying on his side of the vehicle.
‘What am I looking at, Pete?’
‘See that back there?’
Bruno can just make out a house in the distance.
‘That’s where I grew up,’ says Reynolds.
‘Your family still own it?’
‘Nope. The farming life wasn’t for me. I had bigger plans than all this.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Oh yeah. I had big dreams, mate. I was going to be a policeman.’