Draw the Brisbane Line (24 page)

Jenny tapped Banksia on the shoulder and made the universal
click-click
gesture for a photograph.  Banksia immediately switched to pose-mode and threw her arm around Tait’s shoulder.  Jenny held the phone out at selfie distance, took the picture and attached it to the message. 
Friendly guy named Al, he’s in some kind of club.  Like Neighbourhood Watch for Queensland
.

Banksia mouthed
Dave?
  She raised a thumb and her eyebrows.  Jenny nodded, gave the thumbs-up.  The gesture seemed woefully inadequate to convey the relief she felt.  Fiancé not murdered or killed in a road accident: thumbs-up.  Love of her life still desperately worried for her, despite stupid yet possibly relationship-ending argument: thumbs-up.

The next message popped onto the bottom of the thread. 
Pia says QTA.  Dangerous people Jenny.  The guy she shot was QTA.  You need to get away from them!

The helicopter began to climb, but something inside her was left behind fifty feet below. 
The guy she shot was QTA
.  Fuck!  Her heart scaled its way up out of her chest and started pounding hard as it got stuck at the base of her throat.  She tried to think what this would mean for her right then, what the implications might be, but her thoughts were like tadpoles swimming in a muddy pond, small and slippery and fragile and hard to pick out from the muck.  What was Al doing?  Did he want to use Jenny to get to Dave, to get to this Pia girl?  Was Jenny a hostage?  A prisoner of war?  How could she be either of those things
and
pregnant?  The ideas were incongruous.  She wished she had more of a bump, firmer evidence of her condition, proof of her passenger.

Another message from Dave flashed onto the screen:
I spoke to Kirsty.  She has your phone.  She and Doyle are fine, but stuck on the highway.  Her coordinates are -27.060043, 152.976723.  Tell someone who can get her.

Damn, stuck on the highway.  She’d naively hoped her sister had beaten the crush and was out of the state by now, but as she looked out on the infinite traffic snake lighting the road beneath them, she knew there was no way that could have happened.  But at least Dave had managed to get a lock on their position.  He must have used that tracking app he installed on her phone, the one he thought she didn’t know about.  God bless him and his fucked-up control-freak paranoia.

There was movement inside the helicopter.  She looked up to see Al making his way towards them from the cockpit.  He pulled himself along with overhead hand-holds, and his eyes were fixed with grim concern on the phone in Jenny’s hands.

Jenny suddenly didn’t care about being discovered talking about the QTA.  She didn’t care about Al seeing Dave’s warning, or his confirmation that Pia had killed a QTA guy — he probably already knew about that. The only thing she cared about in that moment was the numbers on the screen.  She thrust the phone at Al, and despite knowing that he probably wouldn’t hear a word she said, she shouted: ‘We need to go here!’

Epoch Jones
@epoch

Sydneysiders think they’re safe from the revolution. We’re going to prove them wrong.  We’re going to hit them where they holiday, over the border in Byron. This party is crossing the border! #crosstheline #hitthemwheretheyholiday

Dean Bossman
@deebo27

@epoch, YES!  Come on, Queenslanders, push south!  Make those fucking cockroaches feel it! #drawtheline #hitthemwheretheyholiday

Tom Holden
@tomholden

@epoch, you are a brainless, aimless sprog. You’ll be arrested or killed if you push ahead with this.  You realise that, don’t you?

Epoch Jones
@epoch

@tomholden, aimless? Really?  Did I mention all the obscene wealth in Byron Bay?  Why the fuck do you think we’re heading there?

Billy Billy Moore
@b_billybilly6

@tomholden, @epoch, and the chance to kick some cockroach head in! QUEENSLANDER!!!!

They reached the coastal towns a couple of hours before sunrise, re-joining the Pacific Highway just outside Ballina against a twitching snake of southbound traffic.  The only vehicles driving north seemed to be police cars, army trucks and media vans.

‘This is the worst possible convoy we could be travelling in,’ Dave said, resisting the urge to avert his face as a highway patrol car passed them on the left.

‘Relax,’ Pia said as she choked-out the steering wheel.  ‘They’ve got bigger things to deal with.  The army, the police, it’s the rioting and looting they’re on the road for.’

‘They’re not the ones I’m worried about.  If one of those news vans catches sight of us they’ll be harder to shake than any police car.’

She stretched in her seat and yawned.  Dave caught the yawn and heard tiny bones popping in his ears as his jaw stretched wide.

‘I need to sleep,’ he said.  ‘When was the last time you slept?’

Pia checked her watch, a simple olive green analogue piece.  ‘Three days ago,’ she said.

‘Jesus Christ, really?’

She yawned again.  ‘Yeah, we really do need to get off the road and catch some zees.  Bite to eat wouldn’t go astray either.’

Dave’s stomach grumbled at the mention of food.  Should hunger even be possible?  Shouldn’t he be sick with worry about Jenny?  His head said yes, but his stomach was too busy fantasising about bacon and cheeseburgers to pay attention.  Ripe avocado, roughed up with some lemon juice and smeared on a toasted slice of sourdough.  Fresh croissants, crisp and flaky on the outside, warm and delicate under the crackling skin.   He hadn’t eaten a proper meal in over a day.  If you could call any of his hastily assembled bachelor-bites
meals
.  His last lunch before Pia came into his life was crunchy peanut butter smeared onto a celery stick. Dinner had been a boiled egg and some tuna eaten straight from the tin with a fork. 

He saw a roadside billboard for McDonalds and was almost ashamed to find himself craving a quarter-pounder.  He’d done some ads for the chain in his earlier playing days, but when he began dating a fashion model and vegetarian activist, his management decided that continuing to push Big Macs and cheeseburgers was risking a cognitive conflict among his fan base.  Not that he could have really eaten the stuff he was selling.  When he was in competition, every calorie he absorbed was first analysed, weighed, deconstructed and reconstituted before he was permitted to put it in his mouth.

He opened their last protein bar, broke off half for Pia and chewed the other half himself.  Just thinking about burgers left his palate disappointed as the artificial sweetness of the bar hovered over his taste-buds.

After about half an hour on the highway, Pia took the turn-off for Byron Bay.

‘You’re thinking of staying in Byron?’ Dave asked.

‘Yes I am,’ Pia said.  ‘Sleeping and eating.’

‘Huh.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing, it’s just … I thought Bangalow might have been a more logical choice.  More low-key than Byron.’

‘And we want low-key because?’

Dave pointed to his face.  ‘Famous,’ he said.  Then he pointed to Pia’s face and said, ‘Wanted.’

Pia pointed out into the darkness beyond the scrub at the side of the road.  ‘Isolated.  Ideal abduction landscape.  No witnesses.’

‘You’re worried about the QTA abducting us?  They’d have to find us first.’

‘I’m not worried about the QTA abducting
us
, I’m worried about the QTA abducting
you
.  Me they’ll probably just try to kill.  And finding us shouldn’t be all too difficult.  After all, you did speak to them with your phone.’

‘I didn’t speak to them, I spoke to Jenny.’

‘And Jenny’s with …’

‘If you’re suggesting I fucked up by taking a call from my fiancée, you might want to think about why you didn’t —’

She cut him off with a raised palm.  ‘I’m not suggesting anything.  It’s a good thing if they come looking for us, but we need to be ready. 
I
need to be ready.  We can catch some food and some sleep in Byron.  They’re not going to risk a grab in a place like that.’

Dave’s stomach started to confuse hunger with nausea.  All of a sudden he was a kidnapping target?  They drew closer to the heart of Byron, the traffic hardening around them like cholesterol and slowing their progress to an eventual crawl.  He became hyper-aware of the lightly-tinted windows in the car, exposing him to anyone who might want to wander up to the car and take a peek.  He’d never understood celebrities who got around in baseball caps and sunglasses, as though that somehow made them less conspicuous.   He was beginning to think he could relate to them a little better now as he slid low in his seat.

‘You’ve done your research, right?’ he said.  ‘On me?’

‘I’ve read your file, if that’s what you mean.’

‘I have a file?’

‘Shit yeah, you have a file.  Your brother’s on the UN Security Council — your
children
will have files.’

Dave suddenly felt very itchy as little spiders prickled his back.  He shook them off.

‘So you know about my house here, don’t you?’

‘You have a house here?  How nice for you.’

‘I use it probably three months in the year.  I was hoping Jenny and I might move in here eventually, with our … Anyway, it’s pretty well stocked up, and —’

‘We’re not staying in your house.’

‘But it’s very secure.  I have CCTV all over the place, and —’

‘And it’s down in a little bay, very close to Wategos Beach, the way in and out of which is narrow, steep, and singular.  There’s one path into the house, and the rear backs into a vertical stone cliff.  Unless you’ve got a helicopter stashed away there, we ain’t going.’

Dave gave himself a moment to digest that before he said, ‘You’d know if I had a helicopter, wouldn’t you?’

‘I certainly hope so.’

‘So where will we stay then?  The car?’

‘You got an apartment in town?’

‘No.’

‘So we’re staying in a hotel.’

Dave covered a yawn.  He realised by now there was no arguing with her; and that arguing with her was, to understate things a touch, not a great idea.  That handgun was just a latch-flip away.  So he held his tongue all the way to Byron Bay, his home away from home.  He took them up through the winding roads which climbed up high into the hinterland behind Byron, the journey familiar to him like memories of childhood road trips.

Jenny used to love the trip up through here.  At least he thought she did.  She claimed she could smell the calm in the trees.

He slowed down as they passed through Bangalow, the sleepy town still out cold so early in the morning.

‘You sure you don’t want to stop in here?’

‘I’m sure,’ she said, flipping around on her phone.

‘Texting someone?’

She twitched her head.  ‘Browsing Twitter.’

‘What’s news?’

‘Well, we’re trending.’

‘But I sense not in a good way.’

‘No, not in a good way.  And it looks like we’re not the only ones headed to Byron.’

‘Yeah, who else is going to be there?’

‘Hashtag
Byron burn
.  Whaddya think that means?’

Dave felt an unfamiliar heat stir in his chest.  What was that?  Heartburn?  Anger?

‘Rioters,’ Dave said.

Pia nodded.

‘They wouldn’t.  The locals, the tourists … that doesn’t make sense.’

‘I don’t think they’re locals.  I think they’re coming from the Gold Coast, and they’re bringing the riot with them.’

The descent from the hills levelled out, and as they drew closer to the town, coming from the south through Suffolk Park, the traffic slowed them down to jogging pace.  By the time they reached Byron proper they might as well have been walking.

It felt surreal to Dave to see so much traffic in there at such a late hour, the town alive like it was New Year’s Eve.

They found a parking space down the quiet end of Lawson Street, away from the shops and restaurants — many of which were open, to Dave’s surprise.  He looked at his watch and had to double-check the time on the car’s display.  It was just after three in the morning.

‘This is not normal,’ he muttered.

‘No?’ Pia said.  ‘Byron Bay isn’t normally the town that never sleeps?’

‘No, not really.  It used to be the town that never quite woke up properly, but that was a long time ago, before they discovered money.  But this … this would be unnaturally busy in King’s Cross, this time of day.’

The chatter of the late night diners and shoppers, and the big city white noise of cars moving slowly along the busy street, was abruptly beaten down by the unmuffled rumble of a pack of Harley Davidsons.  Dave counted ten of them as they slowly stalked past their car, eyeing off everything and everyone they passed, as though they’d mugged royalty and claimed its sense of entitlement as their own.  The lead bikie stared at their car as he drove past, seeming to hold eye contact with Dave.  He was all belly and beard, his bramble-bush hair doing its best to conceal the scars on his face — some of them caused by acne, but only some of them.  Loose coins rattled in the car’s redundant ashtray as the big hogs growled past.

‘This is wrong,’ Dave said.   ‘They don’t belong here.’

Pia stared after them, then looked back at Dave with a flat stare.  She got out of the car and lifted her bag from the boot.  ‘They don’t belong here?  Who does?  Is this place for wealthy WASPs and backpackers only?  Come on Sportacus, let’s go get ourselves a room.’

Pia led the way, walking towards the beach with just a bare imbalance in her gait hinting at the lethal bulk of her luggage.  Dave followed behind, but found himself frequently having to skip a few steps to catch up to her as his attention strayed to the uncommon early-morning buzz around him.  A pizzeria with a normal closing time of 10pm was blazing bright, flooding the small space so thoroughly with the aromas of baked cheese, tomato, oregano and pepperoni that it spilled onto the footpath.  One of the staff, a dark-faced thin guy with a shaved head, whose face was almost as much steel as it was skin, grabbed a box and thrust it in front of Dave’s face.  The small heat-escape hole in the corner of the box hooked his nose and held him in place.

‘Free pizza mate?’

‘You kidding?’ he said.  ‘That’s easily the best offer I’ve had in days.’  He looked at Pia, stopped a few feet away from him and glaring at him in irritation.  ‘Easily the best,’ he repeated.

‘No worries,’ the pizza guy said.  ‘We’re just trying to stay open.  Have a seat inside if you like.’

‘Thanks, but …’

A heavy hand dropped onto Dave’s shoulder from behind.  ‘Why don’t you go on and sit inside?’ a tired and tense man’s voice said.  ‘And take your girlfriend in with you.’

‘She’s not my …’ Dave started to say as he turned around.  He stopped when he saw the panic-inducing blue of a policeman’s shirt and the stern copper’s face above it.