boy nods. Darren nods his head at a senior gang member to his right, who nods in turn at three other members who rush out of the bunker.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘Fuckin’ BTK crew walking down Grant Street,’ Darren says. ‘They’re not supposed to be walkin’ on fuckin’ Grant Street.’
Darren is frustrated, impatient. He looks down at my bag again.
‘How much?’ he asks.
‘Sorry?’ I say.
‘How much?’ he repeats. ‘What are you asking?’
‘For the gear?’ I clarify.
‘No, Tink, for you to blow my Charlie dick. Yes, how much you askin’ for the gear?’
‘That’s the gear your mum sold Lyle almost four years ago,’ I say.
‘You don’t say,’ he says, dry and sarcastic. ‘I thought you might have started up your own import business out at bumfuck Bracken Ridge.’
I make my sales pitch. I rehearsed it six times in our bedroom yesterday, but there weren’t fourteen intimidating Vietnamese men in sunglasses staring at me in my bedroom.
‘I figure with the focus Queensland Police have put on the heroin trade of late that prices for gear of that integrity . . .’
‘Ha!’ laughs Darren. ‘Integrity? I like that, Tink, sounds like your sellin’ me an English butler or something. Integrity.’ The gang members laugh.
I soldier on.
‘. . . gear of that quality, I figure, would be tough to come by and so I’m thinking, for the amount we have in that bag there, a fair price would be . . .’
I look into Darren’s eyes. He’s done this before. I’ve never done this. Five hours ago I was drawing my stick portrait as a knight holding Excalibur in the heat mist on Dad’s bathroom shower door. Now I’m making a heroin deal with the sixteen-year-old leader of the 5T gang. ‘Ummmm . . .’ Damn it, don’t say ‘ummmm’. Confidence. ‘Er . . . $80,000?’
Darren smiles. ‘I like your style, Eli,’ he says.
He turns to another gang member. Talks in Vietnamese. The gang member rushes into another room.
‘What’s he doing?’ I ask.
‘He’s grabbing you your $50,000,’ Darren says.
‘Fifty thousand?’ I echo. ‘I said $80,000. What about inflation?’
‘Tink, the only inflation I can see right now is the hot air blowing up your arse.’ Darren smiles. ‘Yes, it’s probably worth at least $100,000, but as much as I love you, Eli, you are you and I am me and the problem with being you right now, aside from the fact you can’t bowl a cricket ball to save yourself, is the fact you would not have the faintest clue where to take that gear anywhere beyond that door behind you.’
I turn around and look at the door behind me. Fair point well made.
Darren laughs. ‘Aaaaah, I’ve missed you, Eli Bell,’ he says.
Three gang members burst back into the office barking frantic words at Darren.
‘Fuckin’ gook cunts,’ Darren barks.
He barks at his gang members in thick Vietnamese. The gang members all rush to an adjoining room and re-emerge just as fast carrying machetes. Another gang member emerges from a separate room holding my $50,000 in three brick-shaped blocks of $50 notes. The men with machetes file down the hallway with military diligence, clanging their machetes excitedly against the hallway walls as they exit the bunker.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ I ask.
‘Fuckin’ BTK have broken the peace agreement,’ Darren says, opening a long drawer in his desk. ‘They’re about two minutes from my fuckin’ house. I’m gonna cut their fuckin’ BTK heads off like the catfish cunts they are.’
He brings out a gleaming gold-coloured custom-made machete emblazoned with the 5T logo.
‘What about me?’ I ask.
‘Oh, yeah,’ he says.
He leans back down to his drawer and pulls out another machete, tosses it to me.
I fumble for the handle and the blade nearly lodges into my foot on its way to the ground. I quickly pick up the weapon.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I mean, we need to finish the deal.’
‘Tink, the deal’s fuckin’ done,’ he says.
His helper hands me my backpack. The drugs have disappeared from the bag and been replaced with blocks of cash.
‘Let’s go,’ Darren says.
Darren rushes down the hallway, a warrior’s bloodlust across his face.
‘I think I’ll just wait in here till you guys are all done,’ I say.
‘’Fraid not, Tink,’ he says. ‘We got enough money in this bunker to feed Big Rooster to the people of Vietnam for six months. We gotta lock this joint up.’
‘I’ll just slip out over the back fence,’ I say.
‘We got barbed wire walls on all sides. Ain’t no way outta here but through that front gate,’ he says.