He went to the weight rack wearing a singlet and shorts and loaded fifteen kilos onto the hand weights. He moved rapidly through six sets of fifty bicep curls, dissociating through the pain, then hit the showers. He held his face under the water, eyes open, breathing in the steam.
He could see only Cutter.
He changed into jeans, a dark tee-shirt and runners. And for the second time in two days, Joss went back to his old world. He caught the train from Central to Cabramatta. Isobel had grudgingly told Joss the things she'd learned about Henry Nguyen.
'I don't see why you need to know this stuff,' she'd protested. 'The police have it now.'
In Cabramatta two days before, he'd visited a medical centre. Isobel had found Cutter's medical records and they showed monthly visits to the centre, mostly on Thursday afternoons. The timing was about right, but Joss, waiting at a bus stop directly across from the front door, had seen no sign of Nguyen. He'd had no firm plan as to what he would do if he did. All he knew was that his life had changed completely since the home invasion, and he was not going to let it fall apart without doing everything he could to stop it.
He considered staking out Cutter's grandmother's house. When they were kids, he, Fuzzy and Esterhase had dropped Cutter there at around five one morning using a car they'd stolen the night before. Half asleep, they'd driven the car over a couple of streets and dumped it at a soccer field before walking home. Joss remembered that he'd helped his drunken mum from the lounge up to her bed before he'd gone to bed for the rest of the day. He shook his head. What a way to grow up.
He decided against the trip to Cutter's old home. He could think of no obvious information he could get from the family at this point. It was unlikely Cutter still lived there anyway. Joss needed to know more about his associates – who he hung out with now. Maybe he could find out the name of the arsehole that'd stood on his head at Andy Wu's house.
He got off the train at Cabramatta station and the smells of his past slapped him in the face. The area had been predominantly Italian when he was a kid, but since then Asian, and particularly Vietnamese, communities had been steadily migrating to the suburb. Now, most shop signs were in both English and Vietnamese. The rest were in Vietnamese only.
He made his way to the pub closest to the station. Back then, he and his friends had sold stolen watches and cameras, typewriters and aftershave to the patrons of this pub. It could be that some of the old crew still came here.
The ground felt gummy out the front of the hotel. Because of too many broken heads from the bashings and paralytic falls, the council had replaced the pavement with the rubber material used in children's playgrounds.
Joss left the last of the warm twilight behind him and stepped inside the pub. Like most hotels, it was always the same time once you entered those doors. Ten a.m. or midnight, it all felt the same, with the aim of aiding the punters to forget the troubles of the outside world, kick back for a while, lose some more money.
Cigarette smoke already impregnating his tee-shirt and whispering its way down his lungs, he took a seat at the end of the main bar, facing the door. Determined to ask for a light beer and sit back to sip it slowly, he found himself instead ordering a schooner of full-strength VB. Ten minutes later he asked for the same again and for two packets of chips. He hoped the grease would counteract some of the alcohol.
Tragedy performed a series of vignettes around the hotel. A woman sat with two men, her features sliding off her face with her lipstick, gazing with naked desperation from one man to the other as they spoke the inscrutable language of the drunk. Her expression altered to one of begging appeasement when she had their attention. He twice watched her flinch when one of the men moved his arm suddenly to sneeze, to make a point.
A bloke in the fluorescent shirt that was the uniform of unskilled labourers kicked his workboot in disgust against the base of the poker machine he was feeding. When he stood up from his stool, Joss was surprised to see he looked no older than twenty or so. He made his way to the front of the room, but instead of leaving, he withdrew two fifties from the ATM near the door. He returned to his stool, slid in a note, his jaw slack, his eyes on fire, as though he was watching pornography.
A wizened man laughed into his glass on a stool next to Joss. A section of greasy hair that had long abandoned its comb-over position slipped in and out of his beer as he drank. The bald spot on his head was beaded with sweat, despite the refrigerated air. A dark area at his groin signalled that he'd found the trip to the toilet a waste of good drinking time. He's probably a digger, thought Joss, draining the last of his beer. The thought made him want to order another, but he figured he'd use the toilet instead. He swayed a little when he got off the stool.
He splashed his face with cold water before leaving the bathroom.
Eyes always on the door, he saw a face from his past walk into the pub.
Fuck, what was his name?
The man walked towards the bar, not looking in Joss's direction. Joss ordered another beer and took it back to a small table; he angled his chair towards the bar. The man looked around the room after he'd ordered his drink. His eyes moved past Joss, then whipped back again, his obvious movement almost comical to someone trained in surveillance.
Joss sipped.
'Hey, man,' the bloke had his drink and was making his way over. What was his frigging name? 'Aren't you Joss?'
'Yeah. Rodney Harris?' said Joss, remembering at the very last moment.
'Yeah, man! How the fuck have you been? What are you doing back in Cabra, dog?'
Rodney Harris was a wannabe back in the day. He would try to hang around whenever he saw Joss and his friends, and sometimes they'd let him. Other times they'd tell him to piss off, or make him steal them some food before he could stay. Today, his features were blurred, his once-blond hair thin, translucent. He spoke in the nasal gaol-whine of the streets. The heels of his shoes were rounded with wear.
'Oh, you know, nothin,' Joss tried to dumb down. 'Thought I'd come see if there's any action around here, you know.'
Harris looked at him sidelong, and took a sip of his dark-coloured drink.
Joss pushed out the chair opposite with his foot. 'You're not still drinking Jackies are ya?' he said.
Harris laughed. 'Yeah, man, always.' He took the seat.
'So what have you been doing?' Joss asked before the other man could. 'I haven't seen you for years.'
'Since we were kids, dog. Not since Fuzzy died. How fucked up was that, man?'
'Yeah.'
'I've been doing shit. You know, this and that. I got a coupla kids.' He put his hand-rolled cigarette on the edge of an ashtray on the table, pulled out a flat, shredding wallet and showed Joss a green-tinged laminated photo of a young girl and boy. 'Course they'd be older than this now,' he said, looking at the photo. 'Their slut mum took off with them to Queensland when I was inside.'
'Yeah?' said Joss. 'Bitch. They're all the fuckin' same.'
'Too right, dog.' They drank together. 'So what about you? Where'd you piss off to? We heard your mum killed herself. Sorry, man.'
'Nah. Crazy bitch. She just threw herself in front of a car, but she survived. Probably dead now though, for all I know. Who cares? I got locked up for being uncontrollable.'
'No waaay.' Harris laughed. 'Unlucky. So what brings you back to the 'hood?'
Joss inwardly cringed at the American gangster-speak. Didn't these idiots ever grow up? Harris drained his drink, crunched the ice.
'Let me get you another one, man.' Joss stood and made his way over to the bar. He shouldn't have another, but this was a critical point. He had to ask about Cutter. He ordered another beer, and, overly careful, carried the drinks back to the table. The rigid walk of the almost drunk.