Smoke in the Room (21 page)

Dom was in his booth at the back of the pub. His face looked more yellow than usual, but it might have been the pre-noon light coming through the window overhead. In the relative brightness, Katie noticed that shallow, elbow-shaped ruts were worn into the dark wood tabletop. How many years had that taken, she wondered. How many hours of leaning?

‘Katie. Long time no talk.' Dom signalled to the barman for a glass. ‘I was getting worried. Thought you'd –'

‘Jesus! Why does everyone think I'm going to off myself?

‘I was
going
to say that I thought you'd followed your stud back to America.'

Katie took the glass from the barman and poured herself some wine. ‘I can't believe you're drinking at this hour.'

‘I always drink at this hour. What's your story?'

She took a sip: it was warm and smooth on her throat. ‘How do you afford such good wine? You must go through crates of it. Your dad a billionaire or something?'

‘In all the time we've been drinking together you've never once asked me anything about myself.'

‘Please, you're an alcoholic. You wouldn't know what I've asked you.'

‘Yeah, but since you're a complete narcissist it seems pretty unlikely you would have. Besides which, you're pretty soused most of the time yourself, not to mention the fits of delusional psychosis. So don't talk to me about memory, you crazy bitch.'

‘You're a real bastard in the morning, you know.'

Dom filled her glass. ‘According to the wife I'm a real bastard all the time.'

‘You have a wife?'

He held up the wine bottle. ‘Now you know how I afford such good wine.'

‘You have a wife who pays for you to sit in a pub and get blotto every day?'

‘Wouldn't you if you were married to me?'

‘I'm shocked. How didn't I know this?'

‘Like I said, you're a narcissist.' Dom twisted his hair around one wrist. ‘Plus, I don't advertise the fact. Ruin my reputation as a ladies' man.'

‘Yeah right. You've never made a move on
me
.'

‘You're not a lady.'

‘Ha, ha.'

‘Anyway, I like pretty girls.'

‘Arsehole. God, I can't believe you're not allowed to smoke in here.' Katie took another gulp of wine. ‘So, talking of arseholes, this bloke I'm living with installed bars on all the windows.'

‘I knew that dude wasn't right in the head soon as you told me about the frigging Bible tattoos.'

‘What? No, not Adam. The tenant, Graeme. He put bars on the windows 'cause he thinks I'm going to jump.'

Dom shrugged. ‘Not an unreasonable supposition.'

Katie put her head in her hands and inhaled the smell of cigarettes. She wasn't used to drinking so early in the day. She dug her thumbnails into the space below her cheekbones and clamped her teeth down on the tip of her tongue.

‘What does the Yank think about all this? Or is he out of the picture?'

‘He's still around. God knows why.' Dom's face swam and she dropped her chin onto her hands. ‘I mean, it's all about his dead wife,
obviously
. But I can't figure out if he's trying to ease his survivor guilt by saving me, or if he thinks my mystical crazy girl energy will heal his broken spirit.'

Dom snorted. ‘Nothing in this world I hate more than losers who think the meaning of life is hidden inside drunks and nut-jobs.'

Katie closed her eyes. ‘Yeah, well I don't hate Adam. I'm just tired of people treating me like a puzzle. Decode Katie: peace and happiness will be yours.'

‘Last woman who tried that shit with me ended up with a broken jaw.'

Katie opened her eyes. Dom was smiling into his glass. She picked up the wine bottle and left.

The waitress with short black hair and a tattoo of a dove on her forearm stopped him as he was leaving work. She put her hand on his arm and smiled. ‘I was thinking we should go and get a drink.'

Her name was Rosa. Adam had never spoken to her, except for
excuse me
when they met in the narrow space between the walk-in fridge and the sinks, or
coming up
when she yelled for clean water glasses.

‘Thanks, but I, ah –'

She tugged his arm, leading him down the two back steps and out to the parking lot. ‘Come on, one drink. It'll be fun.'

‘I'm married.'

She let go of his arm and took a step back. ‘You don't wear a ring.'

‘No. We – ah –' He pulled his shirt up, showing her the entwined crowns above his navel. ‘We got these instead.'

Rosa gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘That is
so
romantic.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Does your wife have as many tatts as you, then?'

‘Nah, she hated them. Really hated them. Early on she wanted me to get rid of them. A couple of days after I proposed, we were supposed to be going shopping for a ring and instead she gets in my car and hands me this drawing she's done. And she says, “Promise you won't tease me if I pass out.”'

‘Wow. And did she?'

‘Nope. Hardly even winced.'

‘She sounds cool.'

‘She was.'

Rosa frowned and Adam inhaled spiced lamb and rotting garbage. ‘Was, yeah. So . . . she died, actually. I should have said, at the start. I was married. She was very cool.'

They had a drink at a bar across the street from the restaurant, and then another at Rosa's apartment. She talked about her love of travel, the trip to Russia she was planning and the one to Sri Lanka she had just returned from. He told her about his time backpacking through Indochina the summer before he met Eugenie. They kissed for a while, but when she started undoing his belt, he stopped her.

‘I can't get into a relationship right now.'

‘Sure. I understand. You're grieving.'

‘No, I mean, yes, I am. But that's not . . . Things are complicated. I know that's a cliché, but it's true. I'm involved with this other – god, involved isn't even the word. And I have some legal issues and financial stuff and once all that's sorted, well, I'm going back home.'

‘Right.' Rosa sat back and closed her eyes.

‘We could still . . . As long as you know that it's not going to be anything more than –'

‘Yeah. I'm sort of over the one-night stand thing, actually.'

‘Okay. Sure. I understand. I mean, me too.'

‘So why did you come back here?'

He paused. ‘You asked me.'

‘Do you do everything someone asks you?'

‘Pretty much, yeah.'

She stood up, took his hand and led him to the door. ‘Go and sort your shit out, man. Then next time someone asks you out, you won't be such a dick about it.'

He gazed down at her neatly painted red nails, her glossy hair and healthy pink skin, at her clean white sofa and vacuumed carpet and shelves crammed with art books and novels. He imagined her bedroom: a brightly coloured quilt and cool, fresh-smelling sheets, a line of cosmetics running across the back of a solid dresser, more shelves with more books.

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘Can we start over? I'd really like –'

Rosa smiled, baring her straight, white teeth. ‘See you at work, Adam.'

When he got home, Katie was sitting on the bathroom floor with her back against the vanity, her blood streaked legs stretched out in front. By her side was a packet of bandaids, a box of tissues and a small bottle of mercurochrome. When she looked up and smiled he noticed the streak of red across her cheek.

‘Don't look so terrified. I fell down some stairs. There was broken glass on the ground. My phone smashed, but I'm fine.'

Adam crouched down beside her. The blood was mostly dry and none of the scratches looked deep. ‘What stairs?'

She dabbed at her legs with a mercurochrome-soaked tissue, wincing. ‘Train station. I think it was Town Hall. Somewhere in the city, anyway. How was
your
night?'

‘Fine. Seriously, sure you're okay?'

‘Yep.' She sat staring at her legs. ‘Actually, no. I'm not okay. No.'

‘What do you need?'

She bent at the waist and fanned her shins with both hands. ‘I saw these girls tonight, on the train. They were sixteen, I guess, so pretty. Their skin looked all shiny and they had this sparkly stuff on their eyelids and they both wore these teeny little dresses and enormous, clunky shoes. Then this bloke got on. About your age, nicely dressed, and he sat across from them and started talking. I couldn't hear what he said, but I knew it was sleazy because of the way he was leaning towards them and mumbling his words. I wondered if I should move closer, but these girls – god, they were wonderful – they told that creep where to go and they did it so
powerfully
, you know?
I
was scared of them! I just sat back and smiled and smiled and then I started thinking about this thing that happened when I was young. Young like them, I mean. I was at this party and feeling like those girls must have felt tonight: like I was everything anyone could want in the world; like there was no one who wouldn't kneel at my feet and lick my boots if I asked them to. And I remember meeting this bloke who acted just like I expected him to –
like he was drunk from looking at me. I spoke to him like those girls spoke to the man on the train and he stepped back, he told me I was incredible, strong. He called me a goddess. Then later, when we were alone, he almost choked me to death.

‘So I was thinking about that and then I noticed the train had stopped and the girls had gotten off and so I jumped up and bolted for the doors, made the platform just as they closed. I heard the girls at the bottom of the stairs and I ran to catch them. I needed to tell them how important it is that they stay fierce.' She sat upright, took another bandaid from the box and peeled off the backing paper. ‘I needed to tell them that they should always carry a knife and that if any man tried to make them feel scared and small they shouldn't hesitate to cut the bastard's throat.'

‘Katie.'

‘But I fell and when I got up I was bleeding and the girls were gone. Who knows what'll happen to them now?'

The afternoons were the worst. The pubs didn't feel safe anymore, not in the daytime, anyway. It was too frightening to be around men who had given up even trying to get through the day in their right minds. A few times she walked with Adam to work, but the sun was so harsh at that time and the streets so busy.

Inside was better but not good. The flat was uglier when the late afternoon sun beat through the windows and she could see the cigarette dust and wine rings on the table. Everything she did – making a coffee, flipping through her CDs, lighting a smoke – was loud.

Squaw
from outside and her heart was going deadly fast before the magpie even finished its call. Not just fast but loud and hard. She ran and shut the window with too much force, slammed the heel of her hand into the sill. The first time her heart had done this she'd thought she was dying. Even now, even with all she knew about heightened sensitivity and exaggerated startle response and panic attacks, it was hard to believe she would survive this. The bird squawked again. It was only a bird on a tree calling its babies home for the night. She leant on the windowsill and breathed in, out, in, out; just a bird, nothing wrong, just a bird, in, out, in, out; breathe because it's all good, it's all fine.

Adam found Katie sitting in her underpants on the bed with a pile of papers in front of her. ‘Let me guess. You got a job as a stripper but are having trouble with the paperwork?'

‘Huh?' She frowned, then looked down at her bare breasts. ‘Oh. I got hot. My shirt's on the chair over there.' She reached towards it.

‘Don't get dressed on my account.' He bent and touched her forehead. Her skin was damp. He blew cool air on her face. ‘Maybe you're getting sick. It's kinda cool out, tonight.'

She continued frowning over the papers in front of her.

‘What you up to?'

‘The old creep came home from work early and then he went out again but he didn't take his briefcase. So I cracked the lock.'

‘That was not a good –'

‘C'mon, as if you don't want to know what I found.'

Adam shrugged and lay back so his head was in her lap. He stunk of dishwater and ghee but she stunk of cigarette smoke and whisky-sweat. ‘Okay, tell me what you found, Detective.'

‘Not much so far. But I do know he's cashed up.'

‘Is he? What's he living here for?'

‘He must be involved in something dodgy, so he moves around a lot, stays in places no one would expect. I can't see him as a drug king-pin, so I'm thinking maybe slave trade. He's always going on about all those poor countries he's been to – I bet he goes to pick out little kids to sell to brothels.'

‘Do you have any actual evidence of this? Photos of him bundling Thai virgins into the back of a van, say?'

Katie jerked her knees, causing his head to slide off on to the bed. ‘Explain this then!' She shoved a document into his hands. ‘Five hundred grand transferred into his bank account in one hit. And then –' she thrust another piece of paper at him – ‘then a week later, the same amount of money transferred to a different bank. See! He's trying to muddy the trail. And who receives huge wads of dollars and then moves them around to avoid detection? Drug dealers and slave traders, right? Right?'

Adam started to point out that keeping the records neatly filed in a briefcase defeated the purpose of transferring money to muddy the trail, but then he noticed something odd. He held a hand up to Katie to shush her and examined the second statement. Although Graeme's name was on the top, the account into which the money had been transferred was the Refugee Assistance Foundation.

‘What?' She leant over his shoulder, her damp cheek against his. ‘I'm right, aren't I? He's laundering money!'