Draw the Brisbane Line (14 page)

‘Is that a bright side?’

‘Sure it is.  At least we know roughly where she is.’

A loud crash broke through the steady rumble of the Hummer’s engine, rolling over them from somewhere further up the road.

‘Jesus, that did not sound healthy,’ he said.

‘No it did not.’

‘What do you think it was, a head-on?’

‘We’ll find out soon enough.  Whatever happened is only a couple of clicks away.  Do me a favour, reach around the seat behind you?’

‘What am I reaching for?’

‘A ballistic vest.  I want you to put it on.’

‘You don’t think it’s any kind of fighting do you?’

‘I don’t know what it is, but we’re not taking any chances.’

Thick black smoke curled up from the road, not far ahead, and deep at its core was a dark amber glow.  He found the vest and put it on.

Biff lost himself the swirls and whorls of the tiny boat on the blue and red sea.  If he stood too close he lost it, but from a few large strides away, it swam into focus.  Any further and the riot of colour, the swipes and the spatters, drowned it.  He didn’t know the painting’s name, but he liked to think of it as just
the boat
.  The boat was a massive canvas, as big as the side of a shed, perfectly filled by reds and blues and greens and greys and blacks.  It was one of the most impressive things he’d seen in his life.  He reached out to touch a blue ridge of paint, and he could feel the subtle grooves where the painter’s brush had passed through.

He started to consider how he might be able to take it with him — perhaps cut it away from the frame with a carving knife and roll up the canvas, he’d seen that done in a movie once — when Epoch stepped in front of him, lifted the painting down and angled it between wall and floor.  He looked to Biff, then to the painting, and he drove his heel right through the middle of it.  Biff felt the blow reverberate through his chest, and a weak grunt slipped out of him.

‘Why?’ he said.  He wanted to strike out at Epoch, knock him on his skinny arse and put his foot through him the same way he did to the painting.

‘You can’t fence this shit,’ Epoch said.  ‘Yeah?  What are you going to do, cart it down to Cash Converters and ask em
what’ll ya give me for this
?  Stick it up on eBay with a buy-it-now of fifty grand?  No, unless you’re well connected to an underground art-appreciation circle of millionaires and billionaires, you might as well wipe your arse with it.’

‘But why … but why bust it up?’

‘What did I say as we were leaving the real estate agency?  Can you remember that Brendan?’

Biff screwed his eyes tight shut and tried to replay what Epoch had said to him — his eyes always let in too much noise, made it difficult to focus.  ‘You said watch out for the broken glass on the way out, there’s no triple-oh to call if I cut myself today.’

Epoch laughed, a short sharp machine gun bray.  ‘Yeah, yeah, I said that.  But what did I say after that?’

Biff felt around in the cluttered space behind his eyelids, looking for the answer to Epoch’s question.  It was relatively easy to find, close to the top and more or less intact.  ‘You said we’re at war,’ he said.

‘That’s right Brendan, that’s right.  We’re at war.  But it’s not a conventional war, is it?  What’s happening here is a lot more than that.  This is a class war.  You know what I mean?’

‘Um, you mean like a school thing?  I read The Chocolate War once, they made us.’

Epoch almost kept the smile from creeping onto his face, but he couldn’t quite hold it at bay.  It tickled the corner of his mouth, blew lightly into his eyes.  ‘Kind of a school thing, in a way, yeah, I suppose, in a way.  Yeah, nah, but what I’m talking about is a battle between the rich and the poor.  The popular successful kids and the ones who don’t do so well, who get into trouble for mucking up because they can’t follow what the teacher is talking about, because the teacher isn’t really trying.  So yeah, a class war.’

‘But why now?’ Biff said.  ‘With all the fires, and the pamphlets from those QTA guys making people twitchy?’

Epoch leaned in close to Biff, eyes gleaming.  ‘Chaos, Brendan.  Chaos breeds chaos, anarchy, rioting.  That’s what’s starting now, and it’ll probably continue on for at least a few days.  Maybe as long as a week.’

Biff rubbed his head.  ‘But what’s that got to do with the painting?’

Epoch let the smile right in.  ‘The painting,’ he said, ‘is typical of the kind of extravagant spending habits of the bourgeoisie upper classes.  It’s typical of the kind of look-how-much-money-I-have attitudes which pervades their ranks, the attitude which they use to try and keep themselves above everyone else.  This painting, guys like you and me can’t sell it, can’t make money from it, while they can.  Hell, they keep selling them for more and more money, and before long the painting costs more than the house it’s hanging in.  But you wait and see Brendan, you wait and see.  Over the coming days, this kind of wealth, inequitable wealth, is going to go up in flames.  This looting and destruction, it’s all going to be given a label, or a brand.  The Queensland Riots, maybe.  Anything that happens over that time, which is consistent with the branding, will be given the branding.  Fires, looting, property destruction … even the senseless destruction of otherwise valuable art.  You see what I’m getting at here Brendan?’

He really didn’t, but Biff nodded anyway.

Epoch probably sensed that, and decided to explain further.  ‘Anything we do, Brendan, we want to make sure it’s branded.  Because as long as it’s branded, it’ll be harder to single us out and scrutinise what we do.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Brendan, we’re going after the
good
stuff.’

Nine News Brisbane
@9NewsBrisbane

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@9NewsBrisbane, Wi-fi hotspots, bitches! #classcrash

Yvette Winterson was about to take the first bite of her porcini, truffle and goat’s cheese fritter when she got the call from Miller’s office.  She saw the name flashing on her phone as it vibrated on the table beside her plate, and she left the crispy morsel of food dangling in the air just inches from her lips.  Her wrist lost tension, and the fritter tumbled to her plate along with her appetite.

Calls from Miller’s office only ever meant something very good, or something very bad.  She wasn’t sure which flavour this call would bear — she wasn’t expecting any particularly good news.

She answered the call before it could go to voicemail.  ‘Yvette Winterson.’  Miller hated going through to voicemail.

‘Yvette,’ the network CEO’s voice rumbled down the line.  ‘What are you doing for lunch?’

She glanced at the barely touched forty dollar fritter on her plate, the avocado garnish not even disturbed, and said, ‘Nothing.’

A ten minute taxi ride later and she was in the lift of the Grosvenor Street building, climbing towards Miller’s office.  She blew lightly on her mildly damp palms and tried not to think about them getting damper.  Every surface in the interior of the lift was mirrored, affording her a view of the back of her head normally limited to the privacy of a hairdresser’s chair.

‘Yvette,’ Miller rumbled after his assistant led her into the office.  He shook her hand, gently but with stone hardness.  ‘Take a seat.’

Yvette sat in the brown Eames chair in front of his tank-sized desk, while Miller himself remained standing.

‘Crazy times,’ he said after the assistant closed the door with a muffled yet solid click.

‘I’m sorry about Cain,’ Yvette said.  ‘I know you too were … close.’

Miller grunted.  ‘Dull bastard.  His suicide was the most interesting thing about him.’  He scuffed his Church brogues across the carpet and poured himself a glass of Scotch, neat, from the Danish teak drinks cabinet in the corner of the room.

Yvette looked at him and thought, what a cliché.  What next, a cigar?  Call me doll and tell me how pretty I look?  She knew his collegiate relationship with Cain was little more than an occasional professional association, blown up by the media to something much more than that; but she also knew it was dangerous to assume that the truth was acceptable to be spoken out loud.

And of course, he didn’t offer her a drink.

‘There’s a lot of rumbling coming out of Queensland,’ Miller said.  He rested his shapeless arse on the edge of his desk and looked down at Yvette.  Smells fell over her, sour whiskey and body odour and a musky cologne.  ‘A lot of discontent.  The combination of mine closures, state government cuts, and now the CBA crash, people there have been hit hard.  Harder than down here.  It’s a powder keg, and sparks and fires are springing up all around it.’

‘QTA are certainly jumping into it with both feet,’ Yvette said.  ‘Stirring up the emotion of the state.’

‘Yeah, they’ll push for a no-confidence vote soon enough.  When the dust settles.  A lot to happen between now and then though.  A lot to happen.’  He swirled the Scotch in his glass, apparently contemplating something profound, or maybe just the single malt.  ‘Yvette, I’m going to play something for you now.  This has to remain between us for the time being.  Okay?  Then we can go and get some lunch.’

Yvette nodded, maybe a bit too eagerly.  This was the first clear signal that she wasn’t in Miller’s office to be fired, and her heart lifted an inch in her chest.

Miller slipped a phone out of his pocket, a slender rectangle of glass and brushed aluminium, and brought up a media player.  He tapped the large white triangle in the middle of the screen, and background static hissed out at the room.  It fluctuated in volume, that static, and Yvette recognised it as the sound of wind hitting a microphone.  A loud bang, a thump, broke the static, followed by another crash and a loud jumbled obscenity:
Jesusfuck
.

For the next five minutes, Yvette forgot all about Miller and his invasive smells and mouth-breathing, the rumbling in her stomach, the headache which had been stretching its legs in her skull for the past three days.  None of those things mattered.  All that mattered was the incredible conversation being carried on by the recently-deceased CEO of the Commercial Bank of Australia with one of the country’s most beloved sports personalities.

‘Holy shit,’ she whispered when the recording ended.  ‘Holy shit.  Did he just ...’

‘It appears he did.  But you know what we need, don’t you?’

Yvette nodded.  ‘We need him to say it.’

‘Yvette, you have a good rapport with Holden, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Absolutely,’ she said without even a breath of hesitation.  ‘Yes.  I’ve known him for years, professionally.  And we both have places in Byron.’

‘And what about Jennifer Lucas.  You on good terms with her?’

‘Oh, I adore Jenny.  We have so much in common.’

Miller pushed himself off the desk and shuffled back over to the drinks cabinet.  He drained the remains of the Scotch and almost banged the empty glass against the wood.  He turned back to face her, the bags under his eyes swinging almost as far as his grey-bristled jowls.  ‘Good,’ he said.  ‘Good.  So, here’s the plan, if you’re up for it.’

Yvette had to restrain herself from shouting
I’m up for it
before she’d even heard the plan.  Instead, she just nodded.

‘You,’ he said, ‘will take a crew up to Queensland.  I’ve got a small plane which can get you up to Brisbane.  If anyone asks, you’re there to cover the rioting, the looting, the mess.  You can use the news helicopter up there if you need to, I’ve already made some calls.’

‘What about the Brisbane team?’

‘They’re stranded up in the Bowen Basin.  They were covering the mine closures, the impact on the community, etcetera etcetera.  Got stuck there when it all kicked off.’

‘Perfect,’ Yvette said before she could think.  ‘I mean, shit.’

‘From what we can tell, Holden’s heading north, presumably to link up with Lucas.  She’s heading down from Noosa.  There’s a whole ocean of shit in the middle.  You think you can pull a story out of that mess?’

Yvette didn’t feel nervous, she didn’t feel stressed.  She felt hungry.

‘You fucking bet I can.’

Stupid phone.  For a moment, Jenny thought she was going to get through.  Instead of the flat hostile beep which seemed to be the only channel Banksia’s phone could receive, the ear-piece hissed a short second of snowy static before emitting the more familiar tune of broken blips.  She immediately tried again, a tremble making its way into her hands as she held the phone and her breath, but the service had returned to that long flat bastard beep.  ‘I think I made a connection just then,’ she said, ‘but I got an engaged signal.’

‘Maybe he’s trying to call you,’ Banksia said.

‘Or maybe he’s on the phone to a radio station giving a
we are Australia
speech.’

‘Does he give a lot of those?’

‘Only when he speaks.  Often when he’s talking to me. 
Jenny, I owe a debt to this country, its people.  I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for them
.’

‘That was uncanny,’ Banksia said.

‘I’ve had a lot of practice.’

‘Dave Holden’s a good bloke,’ Tait muttered from the back.

‘Sounds like Tait’s on Team Holden,’ Jenny said.

‘He’s just a good bloke, that’s all.’

‘No, he’s not just
a
good bloke,’ Jenny said. ‘He’s
the
good bloke.  He is the paragon of blokeishness to whom lesser blokes aspire.  Give you the shirt off his back, Dave Holden will.  He’ll chip in, he’ll lend a hand.  He’ll do his
bit
.  He’ll represent the country for the rest of his life, tie himself to it, work for it and work for it until he’s paid back all it’s given him.  Australia, Australia, Australia, I fucken love ya.’

Jenny took a steadying breath as her heart started bouncing the sweat off her chest.

‘Let it all out why don’t you?’ Banksia said, laughing hard at Jenny’s outburst.  Crow’s feet stretched from her eyes to her ears, and a mouthful of whiter-than-pearly-whites illuminated the inside of the car.

Jenny lost her grip on anger and laughed with her, she couldn’t help it.  Banksia was one of those people who seemed to carry a mood and pass out samples to anyone within range.  ‘Sorry,’ Jenny said.  ‘Bit of a sore point.  He acts so … fucking …
true blue
, you know?  Like he bleeds Vegemite.’

‘Yuck,’ Banksia said.  ‘What a horrible image.’

‘Nothing wrong with being patriotic,’ Tait said.  ‘Especially during all … especially these days.’

A sigh escaped Jenny.  ‘No, nothing wrong with being patriotic.  But what Dave is, it’s more like subservient.  He is Australia’s bitch.’  Then in a lower voice, ‘Which would probably be OK, if it were true.’  And then, pretending it had just occurred to her to ask — though it had been worrying her since they met at Jim’s house — she said, ‘Oi!  Why exactly are you walking around with a pistol strapped to your hip?’

Banksia gave a single shrug.  ‘Because my tits are too big for a shoulder holster, they get in the way.’

Tait let out an adolescent’s chuckle.

Banksia could see Jenny wasn’t going to be mollified by cheap jokes, so she put on her serious face.  ‘We were shooting an episode, revisiting some of my earlier adventures.  It’s the theme for the new season, a bit of a retrospective.’

‘Short on new material?’ Jenny ventured.

Banksia let out a breath like a slashed tyre.  ‘I am fucking exhausted, is what it is.  I wanted to do a special season called
Banksia Mackie: World’s Deadliest Day Spas
, but the studio wouldn’t buy it.  So we travel around visiting old places and faces, splice in some flashbacks … money for old rope.’

‘OK,’ Jenny said.  ‘So the gun’s part of the uniform, I get that. But why are you still wearing it around?  And why is it still loaded?’

Banksia rubbed her eyes.  ‘Oh, it’s just a bit of a fucked up habit, I suppose.  A lot of places I go to, I actually do need it.  Nasty places, lot of random violence about.  But yeah, point taken.  I was going to stash it, but I saw news of all the looting and vandalism breaking out, and I thought to myself: is this place any safer?’

Jenny started nodding her head.  And then rolling it.  And then shaking it.  ‘Sorry, no.  Not buying it.’

Banksia growled.  Actually growled, like a dog.  ‘Fine.  Fine.  I like carrying it, OK?  It makes me feel safe.  It’s saved me more times than I care to think about, and I get nervous without it.’

‘So,’ Jenny said.  ‘When you’re on talk shows …’

‘Fully loaded.’

‘The guest appearances on the Wiggles?’

‘Hollow-points, one racked in the pipe.’

‘Seriously?’ Tait said.  ‘On the Wiggles?’

‘Dorothy the Dinosaur,’ Banksia said, ‘creeps me out.  So, I don’t think we’re going to get much further in this mess.’  She nodded through the windscreen at the near-stationary traffic choking the Bruce Highway.

It had taken them more time to get back onto the highway than it had to get off it, crawling through the queue at the slip road, but Banksia didn’t like the idea of taking those back roads while Jim Templeton was in such a pissy mood.  Jenny didn’t argue, neither did Tait, but this
traffic
.  It was easy to see how patience could lose out to recklessness.

A couple of motorcycles weaved past the car, big hogs carrying bikies wearing de-badged denim and leather.  They were the only things making any real progress.

‘You think one of them might double me if I ask nicely?’ Jenny said.

‘I don’t think that’d be such a good idea,’ Banksia said, looking into her rear-view mirror.  ‘They have some friends coming.’

That’s when Jenny was able to distinguish a rumble below the Range Rover’s engine, a motor’s growl which she’d attributed to the two bikes ahead — but the sound was now more than anything those two could produce.  Her arse was buzzing in the seat as half a dozen hogs weaved past them through the traffic.

‘Quick, lock the doors,’ Tait said.  ‘Are they locked?  Good.’

‘You don’t like bikies?’ Jenny asked.

‘I maintain a healthy fear of bikies,’ Tait said.  ‘This is already what I’d consider to be an unsafe distance.’

‘Wise approach,’ Banksia said.  ‘Look, what do you see all the other cars doing?’

‘Ah … nothing?’

‘Exactly, nothing.  A lot of them were slightly nudging forward, inches for the sake of it, but now they’ve all frozen still.’

‘So?’ she said.  ‘It’s not like we were making any kind of real progress.’

‘And we’re not going to now.  Those guys are a mobile traffic jam.  Everyone’s shit-scared of bumping one of them.  This highway is now dead.’

‘What about the northbound lanes?’ Tait said.

Banksia shook her head.  ‘Have you seen some of the crazy bastards driving down that side of the road?  There’ll be death in the northbound lane today, and I don’t want to be rubber-necking that shit.  No, we’re going to go to
my
plan B.’

‘And what’s your plan B?’ Jenny asked.

‘Wait until these bikies are past us, then get off the highway altogether.’

‘You mean go off-road?’ Tait said.

‘Bit of off-road, bit of back-road.  You OK with that Jenny?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?  It’s what we were doing with Al before you brought us back to this damned highway.’

‘Oh, you want me to take you back to Jim’s?  I can do that if you want me to.’

‘Don’t be snippy.  Come on, let’s get this show off the road.’

Banksia scowled.  ‘You stole my line.’

‘Sorry.  I saw it sitting there, just waiting to be picked up.  I couldn’t resist.’

‘Just for that, I’m going to aim for the bumpy bits.  I’m going to give that foetus of yours a shaking up.’

‘Do your worst.  I do Power Plate with this thing in me.’

‘Hold onto something, here we go.’

She turned the wheel hard to the right and guided the Range Rover into a service gap between the barricades along the median strip.  A car behind them, maybe two or three back, honked its horn.  Jenny didn’t know if the honk was one of anger, approval or encouragement, but Banksia paid it no attention as she eased them over the small hump at the edge of the road.

‘Whoa!’ Jenny said.  ‘Whoa!’

‘Whoa?  Really?  Am I supposed to neigh or whinny or something now?  I was never very good at role-play.’

‘Where are we going?  What happened to
death in the northbound lane
?’

‘Relax, we’re not going to drive down it, we’re just crossing it.  I know the roads better along the western side of the highway, and there’s not much on the eastern side but trees and houses.’

The Range Rover nosed up to the edge of the northbound lane just as a dark blue semi flashed past, trying to blow them over like the Big Bad Wolf, but it was mostly all noise.

‘Our car is made of
bricks
,’ Jenny muttered.

‘What was that?’ Banksia asked.

‘Nothing, just crazy pregnant lady talk.’

‘You don’t want to start talking to yourself, therein lies all kinds of madness.  Before you know it you’ll be stealing cars, driving headfirst down the northbound lane shouting
I am the night-rider
to your drug-addled toy-boy in the back.’

‘He’s not my toy-boy,’ she said.

‘And I’m not on drugs,’ he added.

‘Not yet, but you will be if your sugar-momma here keeps talking to herself.’

‘As a pregnant lady, I’m allowed to hit people.  Did you know that?  It’s a law.’

Banksia was laughing and shaking her head.  ‘Sorry, sorry.  I keep myself sane by winding people up.  Everyone needs an outlet.’

Jenny couldn’t help but notice that Banksia’s trademark ocker twang had been progressively softening with every passing minute, like creases under the steady pressure of a hot iron.  Her accent drifted from outback Australia into a neutral space, its edges occasionally skimming over red brick British and Hollywood American.  Jenny gave her a slight sideways glance.  ‘You really do bung it on for the cameras, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Jenny cleared her throat and attempted to channel the Crocodile Hunter.  She sometimes brought it out to piss off Dave.  ‘Strewth, look at the size of that croc!  Crikey, that’s the fattest water buffalo I’ve ever seen, and she hasn’t even eaten yet!’

‘The croc comment sounds familiar enough, but I can’t say I recall anything about a water buffalo.  Wouldn’t rule it out though.’

‘Wow.  Just, wow.  I am officially disillusioned.’

‘Oh, please don’t be disillusioned.  Here: Holy smokes, did you get a gander at the size of that truck?  He nearly blew us off the road like we were just another bug on his windscreen!  Is that better?’

‘I don’t know, that just didn’t seem …
ocker
enough.’

‘Fair dinkum Jenny, what do I have to do to get you back into me good books?  Race a flamin’ kangaroo around a billabong?’

‘Better.’

‘Although where one would find a billabong in this terrain I haven’t the faintest clue.  Would a moist culvert suffice?’

‘And you’ve ruined it again.  No going back now.  You’re a fraud, Mackie, a fake.’

‘I’m a performer, an
actress
.’

‘Same difference,’ Tait said.

‘Oi!’ Banksia and Jenny said in unison.

Tait just smiled and said, ‘When you’ve finished bickering, would you mind telling me exactly where we’re going on the other side of the highway?  All I see is trees.’

‘Look closer dear boy,’ Banksia said.  ‘Now, what do you see?’

‘Um … still trees.’

‘Me too,’ Jenny said, ‘I can only see trees.’

Banksia squinted at the far side of the road.  ‘Well, where you two urban rats see only trees, I see … Ah, crap.  We’re too far up.’

‘Too far up for what?’ she said.

‘There’s a track maybe another kilometre down the road.’

‘OK,’ Jenny said.  ‘So we go back to the southbound and wait until we get there, right?’

They all turned to look back at the road they’d departed.  There was no space left for them to return to in that logjam of automotive impatience.  She could see the gap they’d left behind sliding north up the southbound lanes like a ripple in a great snake, dragging forward its steel segments six feet at a time.

‘Can we drive down the median strip?’ Tait said.

Banksia shook her head.  ‘If it were possible, there’d be cars all the way down there.  No, there are ditches, barriers and drains.  Too much even for this beast to take on.’

‘So what do we do?’ Jenny said.

‘We’re going to have to drive down the northbound for a bit, just until we hit the track.’

‘Oh Jesus, we’re going to die, aren’t we?’ she said.

‘We’ll be fine.  I’ll stick to the shoulder, make sure I give any oncoming traffic a dose of the beams if they don’t get over.’