was in the centre of all these rival warriors as Marama was making jokes about him and encouraging his people to laugh and joke about Hamiora’s family weapon and Hamiora started laughing along with them and then Hamiora, quicker than you can say “jam drop biscuit”, struck Marama across the head with his ancient family weapon they’d all been laughing about.’
I pick up a small dim sim.
‘Ol’ Hamiora could wield this greenstone club the way Viv Richards wields a cricket bat and he specialised in this forearm thrust move where he hit someone in the temple but at the point of impact he gave the club a sharp twist.’
I break the top third of the small dim sim off in one tear.
‘He knocked Marama’s whole skullcap off in one blow and the rest of the tribe was so stunned by the scene that they didn’t have time to draw their weapons when the rest of Hamiora’s men – all distant relatives of Elsie’s as well – sprang from some bushes and attacked the dumbstruck rival tribesmen.’
I drop the skullcap end of the dim sim in my mouth.
‘And as Elsie’s tellin’ this story she’s carefully unwrapping the gear and not really looking at where my eyes are and I’m saying things like, “Yeah, really?” and, “No wayyyyy!”, like I’m really engrossed in the story but at the same time my eyes are looking all over the kitchen for details. The right eye’s where it should be but I got that loose left eye darting about all over the place, taking things in.’
Lyle and Teddy sneak a brief look at each other. Lyle shakes his head.
‘When August and I duck down to look inside the fridge at Elsie’s collection of Kirks soft drinks she doesn’t realise I’ve actually got a busy eye looking at her at the bench with the gear and she takes a sharp knife and slices a few edges off the smack block like she’s shaving thin slices of cheddar from a block of Coon. And she gathers these shavings into a little one-gram ball and she scrapes it into a small black plastic photographic film canister with a grey lid. She puts this canister into the pocket of her jeans and then she wraps the block back up and takes it out to you guys in the lounge room and you guys have got your heads glued to Conan the Barbarian and she says, “All good”, and nobody says shit back to her.
‘Then she comes back into the kitchen and she finishes telling me this ancient yarn about great-great-great-great-grandfather chief Hamiora and dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb chief Marama and I’m seeing all these details, like there’s a bunch of mail by their phone, letters from the council and bills from Telecom and then there’s a piece of paper with all these names and numbers on it and your name and number is on there, Lyle, and Tytus’s name was on there and then there was a Kylie and a Mal and a number next to someone named Snapper and another number next to a Dustin Vang . . .’
‘Dustin Vang?’ Teddy says, turning to Lyle, who nods his head, raising his eyebrows.
‘Makes sense,’ Lyle says.
‘Who’s Dustin Vang?’ I ask.
‘If Bich Dang was Hamiora, then Dustin Vang would be her Marama,’ Lyle says.
‘He’s good news,’ Teddy says.
‘Why?’ I ask.
‘Healthy competition,’ Teddy says. ‘If Bich isn’t the only importer on the block, it’s good news for Tytus because Bich will have to start offering more competitive prices and maybe she won’t take such pleasure any more from fucking us in the arse.’
‘Not good news for Tytus, though, if Ezra is thinking about going direct to a new supplier,’ Lyle says. ‘I’ll have a chat to Tytus.’
Teddy chuckles.
‘Not bad, Captain Details.’
*
Nothing connects a city quite like South-East Asian heroin. This glorious month of Saturdays with the Jindalee pool shut for renovations find Lyle, Teddy, August and me crisscrossing the city of Brisbane between every cultural minority, every gang, every obscure subculture my sprawling and hot city nurses in its sweaty bosom.
The Italians in South Brisbane. The collar-up rugby crowd in Ballymore. The drummers and guitarists and the buskers and the busted bands of Fortitude Valley.
‘You can’t say a word about this to yer mum, ya hear,’ Lyle says as we pull up outside the Highgate Hill–based State headquarters of a national neo-Nazi group, White Hammer, led by a softly spoken and thin twenty-five-year-old man named Timothy who is open enough to