The Big Smoke. Jason Nahrung
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like a snake that had eaten building blocks. She passed the sword to him. 'Let's go.'
'To see the Needle?'
She shook her head. 'First, you need to see Blake. He vets all of the Needle's appointments. Sorry.'
'Why "sorry"?'
She grimaced. 'It's poetry night.'
EIGHT
'We're going into the city?' Kevin asked, following Mel's directions, Greaser perched in the back seat.
'You can read,' Mel said. 'Excellent.'
'VS is in the city.'
'I'm not taking you there.'
'But it's risky, right?'
'Moderately. Blake won't come to us, so we have to go to him.'
Pollution-stained sandstone buildings held their shadowed ground amid modern towers. Storefronts on the ground level were closed except for the occasional 7-Eleven. There weren't many people on the streets, though once they reached the city centre, things livened up with clots of bodies outside pubs, a taxi rank, waiting to cross the road toward a train station.
'What can you tell me about Thorn?' Kevin asked.
'You don't want to go there.'
'It's heavily guarded,' Greaser offered. 'Green Shirts, Black Shirts, cameras, the works.'
'You carrying a grudge, Kevin?' Mel said.
He didn't answer, and they drove in silence until Mel told him to take a parking spot wherever he could.
They were on a sloping street lined with stone buildings. An intermittent line of straggly trees poked out of the footpath. A shopping centre near the bottom of the hill blazed a neon P, but he was able to find a street park.
'The car,' Kevin said as they got out. 'I can't risk losing it.'
'We won't be long,' Mel said. 'Promise.'
'You want me to watch it?' Greaser asked.
'If the police check it—'
'Didn't think it'd be yours. Thing's worth a buck or two, eh. Give me the keys and I'll see no one takes it.'
He hesitated.
'Dude, you bit me. You're not dead. I think you can trust me not to nick your wheels.'
He handed her the keys.
'Why, thank you.'
Her gleam of delight filled him with doubt again.
Mel grabbed his arm and tugged him away. They entered an arcade, passed clothes shops and cafes with shuttered windows and barred doors. At the top of a narrow flight of stairs was a tattoo parlour — one he hadn't got to in his quest — and a record store proud of its vinyl, both closed, and another clothes shop with a gargoyle perched above the lintel. The windows glowed with candlelight.
Mel led him inside. The air was warmer, thick with sweat and perfumes, with incense and candle wax and liquor. The racks were crowded with black splashed with burgundy and emerald, rare patches of white. Jewellery glittered in display cabinets. Little angels clung to the walls side by side with black-and-white photographs of black-clad people in cemeteries. A large painting of a sad woman lying in a rowboat surrounded by water lilies hung behind the cash register. Candles cast flickering shadows across the group of perhaps twenty swampies spread across two antique-looking sofas and a scattering of cushions in one corner.
There was a polite round of applause as Kevin and Mel entered, but he quickly realised the two things weren't related. A young fella was just sitting down on a cushion, a book in his hand.
Standing centre stage, like a circus ringmaster, another man was gesturing to the youngster with an open hand, saying 'very nice, very nice'. The MC wore a long black coat with a velvet vest over a lacy white shirt, the ensemble capped off with top hat and cane.
'Blake,' Mel told him.
The ringmaster greeted them with a flourish. 'Ah, my dear Melpomene. So glad you could make it. And you've brought another poetry lover to our little murder; how kind.'
Murder? Kevin baulked, but no one seemed to notice his confusion.
A girl squealed and juggled over, her tits barely restrained by a corset, to smooch Mel on the cheek.
'Hi,' she said to Kevin, looking at him from behind a comb of thick lashes. 'I'm Bella. As in Belladonna.' She pouted, as though daring him to take a bite.
Others shouted greetings. Blake struck his cane on the timber floor and the group settled. Kevin leaned on a counter next to Mel. He was aware of kohl-rimmed eyes regarding him. Bella hovered, quivering on knee-high boots with two-inch heels. Her eyes caught the light, reflected red like a dog's in headlights: one of Blake's favourites then; or Mel's. How many more red-eyes were there in the group? The leeches would be hard pressed to match a vampire one on one, but their presence emphasised to Kevin that he was on dangerous ground.
Blake recited some verses about a lost girl. The gathering seemed to be into it, and while Kevin couldn't doubt Blake could tell a story, he couldn't help feeling he was missing something. Maybe it was the old language the poem was written in, or the rhyme, or just that fact that the swampies seemed to hang on every word.
When the applause ended, Blake said to him, 'What about you, young man? Want to give it a shot?'
'I don't write poetry.'
'No? Well, that wasn't one of mine, more's the pity.' A polite chuckle from the audience. 'Where are you from? What do you do?'
'I'm from out of town. I am — was — a mechanic.'
'You want a look under my hood?' one asked, a tall, pale lad with a goatee, his clothes all lace and velvet. Looked like he'd snap in a strong breeze.
'I could use an oil change,' said Bella, so much cleavage you could rest a stubby there.
'Give it a rest, Bella,' another said.
Giggles and teases rippled through the audience.
'Share your good things, Mel,' Bella said, her tone more pleading than seductive.
'Give us a poem, just a short one,' said another.
'Now that you're here, go right ahead.' Blake waved magnanimously with his cane. 'Your audience demands it!'
'Sure,' Mel said, and they fell quiet. 'In honour of our new guest. But we can't stay.'
She put a hand on Kevin's chest, right on top of the AC/DC logo on his T-shirt, and began to recite. Bon had never sounded like this. Nor Brian. Without music, with her emphasis and spacing, her non-rock beat, her woman's voice bragging about dirty deeds, offering to be a back door man. Whoa!
'Well, that was different,' Blake said as the applause died away. 'We might as well get down to it. Talk among yourselves while our guest and I have a chat. Melpomene, lead the way.'
They went to a back room where the main feature was a sewing machine. A couple of limbless dressmaking dummies stood in various states of undress. The room was littered with cloth, the walls decorated with pages torn from magazines and pencilled patterns.
'You lose your phone?' Blake asked Mel as he shut the door behind them.
'Greaser needed me. A spot of bother in the Valley.'
'So I gathered. No reason not to call.'
'I'm here now.'
'You taste him yet?'
'We've been busy.'
He raised his eyebrow at that, swept his gaze over Kevin. 'Well, get to it. Let's see what he's got.'
She turned to Kevin. 'Do you mind? I have to taste before you can see the Needle.'
'You didn't mention that.'
'Didn't want