Roll With It (5 page)

Today it had been a snap to ring Barry at home at about 7.30 am and croak that he thought he’d better have a day in bed to try and kick whatever it was. Barry hadn’t sounded too thrilled, but bought the story – and now Jake had the whole morning to finally see what the Legs looked like out of the water and in real clothes.

Here came the wall again with some resting legs in sight. Hairy, thick calves. Definitely not hers. Tap, turn, right hand, left hand, away Jake went again. His thinking was that she would be a blonde. Not with dark roots and a perm or anything, but a genuine blonde, maybe with a slight wave going through her shoulder-length hair. She’d probably wear a knee-length dress, some Country Road kind of thing, as she came home for dinner at his house. She’d even love his mother, although she’d whisper between courses, taking his hand under the table, that she thought they should escape back to her place after.

Jake had been dreaming about this day all week, and had been lucky not to ruin the sheets before he woke that morning. The dream where she was on top was his favourite, kind of familiar, and this morning he had finally realised he was reworking one of the sex scenes from that TV series,
True Blood
. Sookie Stackhouse turned into the Legs and he, lucky Bill the vampire, was lying back and enjoying the show. Jake pictured the Legs as a middle-class queen with a bad girl underneath, all style and poise but not hung up with the kind of snobbery that would look down on an honest, hard-working career like, say, for example, assistant supermarket manager.

It was time to get ready. He had to be dry and dressed before she was so that he’d be ready to spot her when she did the same. Jake practically launched himself out of the pool and within ten minutes was cold-showered and dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt – cool and absolutely fashion-safe. Nobody could take offence at that outfit. He kind of wished he hadn’t gone with his usual running shoes. He should have gone with his Blundstone boots, even if they were shiny and hardly worn. Too late now.

Jake sauntered out of the men’s dressing room to check she was still in the pool. There she was, gliding down the lane, so he ducked back into the men’s and got some gel in his hair. He combed it back so that the slightly too-long dark-brown wave was pushed back, but free to fall, just so, over his forehead once it dried.

Now he walked out for real, his eyes drawn to the fast lane.

Which was empty.

Jake froze. What if she’d just thrown on a tracksuit or something and headed straight home? What if she lived so near that she showered at her place?

What if he’d missed her?

The clock said it was 8.37 am. He should have been at work by now but here he was, staring at an empty pool.

Jake, struggling not to run, hurried onto the street where he tried to look in every direction at once. Okay, she wasn’t walking towards Brunswick Street. She wasn’t heading towards Smith. She wasn’t in the car park set into the wide median strip on Alexandra Parade. She couldn’t have crossed the street already, with two separate sets of pedestrian lights to navigate. She hadn’t had time for anything like that.

She wasn’t at the bike rack, which only contained a couple of state-of-the-art road bikes and an old, battered purple bike that looked about a century old – the equivalent of a biplane to a space shuttle when compared with the other two-wheelers sharing the rack.

Jake took a deep breath and almost relaxed. She was still inside. She had to be, unless – holy crap! – he’d forgotten about the other exit, near the baby pool on the other side, near the park.

Now Jake looked like a hostage let loose on the green line in Beirut. He didn’t know which way to run. Leaving the entrance was risky but if he didn’t, there would be absolutely no doubt she was heading away from the other exit. Jake took a last look at the pool’s front door and bolted back through the pool’s main area to the grassy expanse to the east where you could see the small park. Apart from a guy throwing a ball for his dog, some kind of terrier, there was nobody there.

Jake was on the run again, his damp hair banging on his forehead as he came back to the pool’s main entrance. ‘She couldn’t have left that quickly,’ he told himself, heart pounding. He was shaking. It had taken him – what – two minutes, maybe three, to gel and comb his hair. There was no way she could have left the pool, dried and dressed herself even superficially in that time and disappeared. She had to still be in there. Just relax.

He walked down the steps onto Alexandra Parade and moved the twenty or so metres east to a place where he could also keep an eye on the opposite exit through the park.

Blonde wavy hair like hers would require some nurturing. She was probably busy right now, applying her lipstick or blush or something. Maybe singing to herself. Sighing at being alone, wondering when she was going to meet Mr Right.

Jake kept an eye on the main door to the pool. An old couple, at least in their eighties, eased down the stairs, his receding hair immaculately combed across his scalp, her bluerinse perm unaffected by the swim thanks to the miracle of the modern swimming cap. Now a guy about Jake’s age came belting through the doors, sweating from the exercise, warm water, hot shower and the fact that he was late for work. Jake knew that feeling – Barry went off his head if Jake was at work two seconds after 8.30, the inflexible prick. Nobody ever came into the supermarket until about 9.30 anyway.

He’d missed her. He was sure of it. If he took another day off work tomorrow, he would have to get a doctor’s certificate. Why hadn’t she come high-heeling out those doors yet? Here he was. Ready for her to come walking over, lips spreading into an inviting, warm smile of recognition as she put her arms around his neck and said, ‘I was wondering when you would finally wait for me.’

A punk came slinking out of the pool. Jake assumed it was female; it was always hard to tell. White-and-black hair with streaks of green and purple in the fringe cascaded from a purple ribbon on the right-hand side of its scalp, falling raggedly to the shoulders of a torn, full-length red-and-blue dress. Jake squinted. The dress looked crocheted. Jesus. Had he shared a pool with that? Did chlorine kill skin diseases?

Jake’s eyes flicked between the sad, empty exit and the punk unlocking the padlock that had chained the old purple bike. It looked like the punk had a nice figure under that abysmal dress somewhere, but it was hard to tell, what with the green stockings jarring against the rest of the outfit. She was wearing Dunlop Volley shoes that looked like they’d walked to Perth and back.

Still the Legs failed to come walking out from the pool. His agitation growing, Jake found himself taking it out on the punk. He had her pegged as a Brunswick Street wanker by now. He’d be willing to bet she hung out in Atomica Café all day writing shit poetry and spending her dole cheque on coffee.

The bike was freed and the wanker punk hitched her dress clear of the chain before she glanced his way. Grey grey grey eyes looked straight and deep into Jake’s. One of the Legs pressed firmly on a pedal as she came straight at him and then past.

And she was gone.

Jake recovered just in time to run through the park to his car as she headed off up Napier Street, moving south towards the city. He prayed the entire small block to Westgarth Street and then left at the roundabout onto Napier that she hadn’t turned off – and there she was, still cruising along about two hundred metres ahead, crossing Kerr Street. It wasn’t easy to make a slightly grimy, battered white Mazda 323 hatchback look inconspicuous driving along at the speed of a leisurely ridden pushbike, and the punk wasn’t in any hurry. Jake just hoped she didn’t look around and she didn’t, finally turning left onto Johnston Street.

Now it was harder, in traffic, to crawl, so Jake passed her, drove a hundred metres or so and parked, copping some horns from behind as he pretended to take a phone call on his mobile and watched those legs pedalling ever closer in his side mirror. As she went past him, she was approaching Smith Street and neatly picked a gap in traffic to move into the right-hand-turn lane. Jake gunned the 323 back into the flow and was one car back from her by Smith, waiting for the light to turn amber or the Carlton-bound traffic to ease. The punk stood up on her pedals, calves flexing before, in one smooth movement, she plunged neatly to the right, cutting off a four-wheel drive and a bus trundling up Johnston, its air brakes hissing furiously and its driver yelling abuse as she sailed serenely south on Smith, middle finger raised behind her.

The light turned amber and the car in front of Jake hesitated, waiting for the bus to run the red light as it got going again. The Smith Street traffic was already moving. Jake was staring at brake lights, stuck on Johnston, helpless.

She was gone.

Laver arrived on Wellington Street, Collingwood, for day
two of his new job, parking his silver Pajero in the visitors’ car park.

The day before, he had sat in the Mobile Public Interaction Squad’s bunker within the giant old clothing warehouse– turned–Victoria Police garages and watched the slick tar dance with rare summer rain.

‘Are you going to join us?’ asked Ashley McGregor, one of the youngest and keenest rookies on the bike squad, as he strapped on his helmet. He was already wearing his fluorescent green police-issue rain jacket.

‘What do you reckon?’ said Laver, eyes not moving from the window.

McGregor gave a nervous laugh, as though he was hoping there was a joke buried somewhere in Laver’s response. Then he’d decided there probably wasn’t, and fled.

There were twelve other officers on the squad, led by a dry, no-bullshit cop called Henry Slattery. Word had it that Slattery had been one of the best cops on the street ten or fifteen years ago – before he had children, decided he wanted to live to see them grow up, and lost his nerve. It had obviously been a good decision to step out of the firing line. Now he looked younger than his age, even looked respectable wearing riding shorts, and his job stress amounted to making sure none of his rookies got lost in the Fitzroy Gardens.

Their initial meeting hadn’t been encouraging, Laver walking in, a backpack slung over one shoulder, carrying a cardboard box with a few bits and pieces in it and gazing at the man with lycra-clad legs walking back to his desk, cup of instant coffee in hand.

‘Tony Laver reporting for duty. Which desk is mine?’ Looking pointedly at Slattery’s legs, he added, ‘And do I have to wear shorts like yours?’

Slattery had sat and leaned back, putting his hands behind his head. Gazed at Laver for a long moment. Finally saying, ‘Tony. I’m sorry to hear about your bit of strife.’

Laver noted the ‘your’: nothing to do with us, mate.

‘Shit happens,’ he said.

‘That’s not all I’m sorry about.’

‘Oh?’

‘No. I’m even sorrier you’ve been sent down here for isolation. You must be pretty down on the world right now, and I’d prefer it if the kids you’re going to be partnered with didn’t take that attitude on board, if you know what I mean.’

Laver gave him a look. Slattery returned his gaze, calm and unblinking.

Laver shrugged. ‘Yeah, fair enough. I’ll try not to kick any dogs unless I know I’m alone.’

Slattery gestured towards an empty desk. Laver went over and started dumping the contents of his box in the top drawer. He carefully fixed his prized original 1960s Mr Potato Head figurine to the top of the computer monitor with Blu Tack. He and the Spud had come a long way, up and down, together. Lately, mostly down.

Slattery was still watching him. Taking in his lean shape – more a boxer’s physique than that of a gym junkie. A surfer’s shoulders maybe. Probably in his mid-thirties, standing about 180 centimetres – average height for a cop – and with laugh lines around the eyes, softening that slightly haggard, hard-edged look veteran cops couldn’t help but get. But mostly, Slattery noticed Laver’s eyes. They had that undefinable something that marked a man as somebody who had killed. It was a look Slattery had worked hard to drum out of his own face, to drain from his own eyes, by taking on this softer job three years ago. A look he hoped his kids would never notice.

‘What rank were you in the majors, Laver? I assume you were a D, but what flavour?’

‘Senior sergeant. I got promoted about eighteen months ago.’

‘And you’re still on full pay. That means you’re on more than me, you prick.’

‘Yeah, but you look like you get more sleep, mate.’

‘True. You married, Tony?’

‘Nup. I’ve got a fiancée. I think.’

‘You think? Just starting up or just hanging on?’

‘What do you reckon?’

Slattery’s chuckle was a wheezy, rattling sound within his chest. Former smoker, thought Laver instantly.

‘Shit, you are kicking goals, Tony.’

‘Like I said, shit happens.’

Slattery stood and picked up his helmet, walked over to Laver’s desk. ‘Listen, I want us to understand each other, because then I hope we can get on well. I’m happy not to interfere too much in your life if you’ll stay out of mine. Just clock on and clock off regularly enough not to attract interest from head office. Take a bike, ride around, keep your eyes open, help people where you can. Obviously this branch is more public relations than hard-core criminal justice, so go with the flow. Broadbent’s been on the phone and I promised to give you some elbow room while you get your head around what’s going on. All I ask in return is that you don’t open the window on too much baggage. The kids are impressionable.’