The Knife Sharpener (24)

24.

The Chaddy Tavern had mostly emptied out when Lucia arrived. Only the dregs remained.  Old boys nursing pots and opinions. The staff were beginning to slowly pack down. Wiping down tables. Discreetly stacking chairs. Emptying ash trays in the smoking area. The dominant sound was the chimes of the pokies out the back.

            It was too well lit. There was no subtlety. Only sturdy wooden tables and chairs atop sticky purple patchworked carpet, like interlocking diamonds. Lucia dragged her phone across the scene from the front door. Took a slow panoramic video. Tagged it #burbslyf. Posted it to her Story. Then focused on a man at the bar. Flannel over a singlet. With faded loose jeans. Nursing a beer. She zoomed in and out on him repeatedly.

#meetinthelocals

            She pocketed her phone and donned her white skateboard helmet that she kept in her car. Looked around and stepped into the pub. The girl wasn’t here. Though, she had been.

Tracking the plates of the Toyota panel van had been easy. Merely a matter of navigating The Other Net. Making the right inquiries. Posting on the right forums. Hers was an easy, seemingly innocuous request, with some unspoken, but vaguely promised scope for a nefarious conclusion. She just wanted to know who owned the van. Maybe, how to find it. Could any of her lovelies help her? And, considering her reputation – which she leaned into – the prospect of violence was all but assured.  

Posters flocked to respond to it. Theorise what the famous KillingTime user, LuciasLuvs, was up to now. Make crass jokes. Talk of her exploits. Rumours.

OgreManzilla: you know she was is the disavowed daughter of a wind jackal & someone in Ministry, yeah?

CuntyColin_Critter: she trained with a sect of war photographers in the middle east as a teenager.

KingOfVans: loves a babez who’s into the fun vanTime stuff … lots of room for activities back there. classic, really. gotta appreciate the classics

No one called her overrated. Questioned her. Trolled her. They knew better. They had seen pictures of the (once) prominent Other Net user, TheTug, on her KillingTime account. He had called her ‘a poor woman’s Annie Leibovitz.’ He had been pictured with his head smashed in by a computer monitor. Bent over a desk. Propped up a demolished keyboard stuck up his arse. Lit by a plain desktop lamp. A computer cord dangled artfully across his chest. Caption: Hard work or hardly working? One hashtag: #benice.

Lucia had filtered through the comments and found the answer to her question. Repeated over and again from different accounts. All claiming genuine, true knowledge from official sources. Seeking to get called out and thanked individually. A touch of prestige through association. She knew that police and Ministry officials often dwelled in the edges of The Other Net. Relished the idea of getting involved in ‘dark matters’ – the underside of society (was there even a topside, anymore?) – for a touch of bragging notoriety. Supporting its little superstar. They were an easy source of free information.

And, sometimes, they delivered more than she even realised them capable of.

One user, BuddyWasRobed, revealed to Lucia that he had access to Melbourne’s camera network. A longstanding project of Ministry to create a whole-city surveillance network. Little eyes on lampposts and fence tops. Along highways and back streets. In schools, shopping centres, hospitals, restaurants, and bars. For the good of the citizens, of course. Make sure they’re wearing their stackhats, and the like.

BuddyWasRobed invited Lucia into a private chatroom and revealed to her that he had tracked the van to a pub in Chadstone City. That the van was registered to an undisclosed private business, owned by a man named, Helmut Iser. BuddyWasRobed did this amidst gushing, reverential praise. He (Lucia assumed it was a he) had to be careful at work. But he always made time to check out her latest activities, Stories, photos. She was just so creative. They were such bores at the Ministry, unable to understand what she was accomplishing. What her aims were. He had to be constantly tracking his internet, making sure they weren’t watching him. Realising that he was regularly logged on The Other Net. It was just, well, BuddyWasRobed really loved her – no, sorry admired, her. Wanted to support her. He saw so much promise in this new tracking-the-van mission. So, why was she after the van? Can you give me a few hints about what your planning? Who are they? What does Mr Iser have to do with it? A little teaser.

Lucia flirted along, keeping him on the hook. Ah, shucks, you’re too kind. You’re as cute as a bug’s ear. As nice as fresh apple pie. (She used quaint dialogue in her private messaging with fans. It hid her age and enhanced her online image as the wordy, clever, retro-fashionable female assassin’s assassin.)

            As she drove to Chadstone, however, BuddyWasRobed stopped replying. The stream of information stopped. Disappeared from their chat. Leaving her only with The Chaddy Tavern as her destination. She tried to return to the original thread, but it had also vanished. This happened occasionally on The Other Net. Generally, the work of mischievous, issue-obsessed hackers, or more likely in this case, Ministry stepping in and closing it down. Poor BuddyWasRobed had likely got busted.

            It didn’t matter. Lucia had found people with less.

            ‘Last call,’ said the bartender as Lucia wandered over.

            ‘A glass of red. Something light,’ she said.

            He poured a pinot noir for her that smelled sour and acidic. Tasted like overripe cherries steeped in lemon and liquorice. She payed and leaned into the bar, surveying the room. Waited. Not bothering to again taste the wine she had brought for show. An unspoken invitation for conversation. What brings a lady like you to a place like this?

            She wore tight fitting practical clothes. A smart leather jacket over her holster. All in black. Dresswear that stood in contrast to her pleasantly inane housewife chatter online. Showed off her refined, athletic physique. Curves she knew how to project in whatever direction of allure she chose. Add the red lipstick. Short cropped curly red hair. Huge eyes. They always came to her.

            Sure enough.

            ‘I’m Calvary,’ said a man with beads in his beard. A cologne like cloves and weed. He plopped down next to her on a stool. A half-finished pint in his grip.

            ‘Hello, Calvary,’ she said. ‘What brings a man like you to a place like this?’

            He laughed. ‘That was my cheap, uninspired line. Fine lady, you surprise me already with your wit and candour.’

            ‘Characteristics I have in high dosage, Calvary.’

            ‘Of this, I am sure,’ he said.

            ‘So …’

‘Of course, you must have an answer. I am a storyteller. My Thursday evenings are spent at The Chaddy regaling the slack faced locals with tales of bravery, love, tragedy, and the grotesque.’

‘I do appreciate a good story, well told,’ said Lucia.

‘My dear, you would appreciate me very much. My voice and presence have filled spaces as cavernous as the great Spring St theatres and kept their audiences in captive thrall to every twist and turn of narrative.’

‘I can hear their gasps.’

‘And sighs, tears, and laughs. The booming silence of their anticipation, anxiety, and imaginative joy. Then the release,’ said Calvary.

‘You must be quite the craftsman,’ said Lucia. She looked around the emptying Chaddy Tavern. The bright TVs. The cigarette and condom machine side by side. Fried bread crumbs scattered on all surfaces.

Calvary saw her gaze. ‘Absolutely. One of Melbourne’s finest,’ he said. ‘But, alas, the art of storytelling – it is no longer appreciated as it once was. People are too caught up in their immediate moment – their own Medias, to care much for myth and legend. For fact and history. It is difficult to compete with the allure of the dreaded machines. Their bells and whistles and filters.’ He sighed dramatically.

Lucia’s phone buzzed with KillingTime notifications against her thigh.

‘It’s a crowded world,’ she said. ‘A lot of competition for a storyteller.’

‘Ha, indeed, there is. If only we could cull some of it off, hey.’

‘Slay it?’

‘Sure.’

‘Oh, yes, that would be fun.’

Calvary took a thoughtful sip of his beer. The friendliness of their banter was unfamiliar for Lucia who was used to much more vulgar intentions and/or violent culminations. This fellow just loved a chat. She forcefully stopped trying to envisage how she would pose him for her KillingTime account. Arm swept out, at the climax of a story, beard bristled and glistening, body bullet riddled, his life stories dribbling out of him.

‘Enough of me, though. My windbagging only blows so far. Such homely surrounds do me no favours. What of you? Why on this evening, do you trespass into the halls of The Chaddy?’

‘Looking for my friends,’ said Lucia.

‘Are they here?’

‘No. I think they already left.’

‘A terrible shame.’

‘And my phone is flat. I have no way to reach them,’ she said, patting her phone in her pocket. Disguising its soft, silent vibration.

‘A modern tragedy,’ said Calvary. ‘This has all the features of a truly epic story.’

‘You’re making fun,’ said Lucia.

‘Never.’ He sipped at his beer and winked. ‘Can I help find them for you at all? Give this story a happy ending?’

‘Maybe. Would you have seen them?’

‘It is likely, yes. If they were indeed here.’

‘Do you pay such close attention to your audience during a performance?’

‘All great storytellers do. Our job is not just the words we say, but how we say them and who we say them to. Reading the room in the act of verbal composition,’ said Calvary. He pointed at the man on the bar Lucia had videoed earlier. ‘That gentleman, there, for example, he was sitting directly in front of me when I was telling them of the Last Duke of Camberwell. Eating a parma, despite it being pasta night. He listened attentively. Winced at the hubristic downfall of the Duke, run down by a city tram on land he had claimed as sovereign.’

‘You may have noticed my friends, then,’ said Lucia. ‘A shortish brown-haired woman. In her early twenties. Narrow face. All in black, like me. She would’ve been with a friend of hers. A man, in all honesty, I don’t actually know.’

‘I remember a girl like that,’ said Calvary. ‘Stern looking thing. Her friend was an older gentleman. Bit homespun. Had a greying ponytail. Slinty eyed and suspicious. Quite the appetite, though. He huffed down an enormous bowl of the decidedly average – I suspect bottled – carbonara they serve here on Thursdays for “pasta night.” Odd couple. They sat over there with three motoboys. One of whom was real solid for a motoboy.’

‘Motoboys?’ asked Lucia.

‘Yes. You don’t usually see them mingle like that. There might have been a bit of tension at the table. But I was just getting started when they sat down and was surveying the rest of my audience,’ said Calvary. ‘Anyway, they all made friends, it seemed. Left together just as I launched into my second story for the night.’

‘Right,’ said Lucia. ‘They must’ve dumped me for a better option.’

Calvary laughed. Lucia knew where to go next. Chance Pistol was involved. For some as yet unknown reason.

‘They are missing out, then,’ said Calvary. He finished his beer and raised his hand for another. The bartender glared and poured him another.

‘Last one, Cal,’ he said.

‘Sure, sure,’ said Calvary. ‘So, you never told me your name,’ he said to Lucia.

‘Do you know the story about the Gorgon of Geelong?’ asked Lucia. She had time. Chance was a cautious man. She needed to plan. Figure out his stakes. Or, fuck his stakes and go in gun blazing.

‘A classic tale.’

‘It’s my favourite.’

Calvary leaned into a confidante’s pose. Up close, nearly whispering. ‘Long ago,’ he said, ‘there lived an artist in Geelong. She was a gifted artist. But, much to the chagrin of her back pocket, she was renowned more for her otherworldly beauty than the quality of her work. Unwilling, though, to waver from what she believed to be her true calling, the poor woman was forced to live in squalid poverty. Refusing to allow her appearance to determine the value of her work. Refusing to sell herself to sell her art. Day by day, she chipped away. Worked incredibly hard. Tried to break into the impenetrable fortress of the artistic world. Oh, to only be in a gallery. To have her talent recognized. To find a wealthy patron, awe-inspired by the creations of her hands. She painted and sculpted. Painted and sculpted. All to no avail. No one bought into her skill. Her artistic eye. And, still, she worked. Her paintings and sculptures piling around her. Unsold. Gathering dust in the ramshackle shack she used as home and studio.

‘One day, frustrated, tired, and hungry, she finally wept and cried out for help, and in front of her a demon appeared. The demon looked sad for her and offered his condolences. She tried to shoo him off. Tell him he wasn’t welcome. She was not a religious woman, yet she knew of the tricks of demons. Their tendency for deceit and destruction. He wore his sad face like a mask. But, weakened by her poverty, she fell into a crumbled heap. Unable to resist. The demon, seeing his moment, leaned over and whispered into her ear, “you need to show them your true self. I can help you. We can make art together.” The woman was entranced by the promise in the demon’s voice and buoyed by the idea of collaboration. She rose.

‘Over the course of the day, watched closely by the demon, the woman cleaned off the dirt and grime that had congealed upon her. Wiping the muck away to reveal a face of rare splendour. A face she had been trying to hide. She arranged her work around her shack. Presented it as it should be presented. And, happy with what she had, how she felt, she left with the demon stashed in her dress to find a buyer for her art. It did not take her long. A young, well-heeled gentleman, quite taken by her breathtaking beauty consented to see her pieces and followed her back to her shack. The demon chittered excitedly.

‘The man, however, found no merit in her paintings or sculptures. She was bitterly disappointed. Hurting as doubt about her skill gnawed at her. Worse, he could not take his eyes from the artist. And in those eyes, she recognized an ugly, familiar hunger. “Now,” said the demon. “It is time to show your true self. Remove your skin.”

‘The woman did as the demon instructed and as she peeled away her skin, she revealed an enormous, grinning serpent, with fangs like daggers. Terrified, the man shied away, and as he did, he slowly turned to stone. The demon, quick to action, grabbed the man and adjusted him as he turned. Forcing him into position as though closely considering – appreciating, finally, one of the artist’s works.

‘When it was done, the snake turned back to the woman. She looked at the stone man admiring her picture. “It’s beautiful,” she said.’

Lucia listened. Sipped her wine a little.