Shooting Star

22

I got on at Museum Station, sat in the second row from the doors. Just before Flagstaff, Vella sat down opposite me. He put a Myer carrier bag between his feet, looked at his reflection in the train window, fiddled with his tie. I looked at his reflection too, examined his long-nosed face, eyes and hair and suit too black to show up against the underground darkness outside.

‘What the fuck’s this you’re doing?’ he said, barely audible.

‘Making ends meet, that kind of thing.’

‘Out of ten-year-old kidnaps? Someone’s paying?’

‘Not the kidnappers. I’ve taken a decision not to work for kidnappers.’

‘You should be inclusive,’ he said. ‘They’ve got their rights.’

We were cruising into Flagstaff, a soft hand on the brake. A young woman sitting opposite us got up and hung on the bar, hips canted. She was wearing high heels, a red suit with a short skirt, and pantyhose that gleamed like the skin of a fresh flesh-coloured fish. Vella looked at her, lechery betrayed only by long fingers stroking the hair on the back of his right hand. Her eyes flicked to him, held, she tossed her head, if a movement so minute could be a toss. Then she concentrated on the door.

The train stopped, the doors opened and she got out. But, on the platform, she turned her head and looked at Vella, lifted her chin, winked at him, a wink an audience would be able to see on a stage. It was an audacious wink, sexy. Then she was gone.

‘See that?’ said Vella.

I nodded.

‘What’s it mean? I jump off, go up to her, what?’

The doors closed, train shrugged and moved, gained speed. I said, ‘You tell her you’ve got a loving wife, two lovely kids, but, hey, what about a drink or something, we can just talk. That’s one possibility. Or…’

‘One’s enough,’ Vella said. He looked around. There was no one close, mid-morning lull, the commuter frenzy far away. He pushed the carrier bag over to my side with a foot, leaned forward, put his head down. His shoulders came up like a big black bird roosting.

‘Frank, getting this, offence number one, is taking my life in my fucking helpless hands. Giving it to you, number two. They will blow me away. There won’t be a foreskin to bury.’

I was grateful, but an unbeliever. ‘That bad? Shit, just the other day any prick could buy a file in a pub in St Kilda.’

He shook his head and pulled a face, looked around. ‘A file? A file? You think this is a file? There’s no file to get. There’s no paper. Files like this are history. I had to get you the whole SeineNet.’

‘The what?’

‘SeineNet. It’s what used to be ZygoNet.’

‘I thought they scrapped that.’

‘They did. Threw money at it and it couldn’t do half of what it was supposed to, so they canned it. Then it turns out they’ve been reinventing sex. Some secret Defence outfit in Canberra’s already done something much better for the Feds, version of a military logistics program.’

‘That’s not a promising pedigree,’ I said. ‘So now ZygoNet’s SeineNet. What does it do?’

The train was easing into Spencer Street.

‘Organises this massive abduction and missing persons database. Brought together after the Chee girl and the other one, forget the name. Took fifty million man, woman and person hours. Everything’s in it, known offenders, statements, interviews, doorknock sheets, every warrant, every suspect’s bio, all known addresses, bank statements, phone records, gas bills, electricity, you name it.’

He leaned closer. ‘But the bad news is it doesn’t come with a manual. So this may be of limited use to you. Whatever the fuck it is you’re doing.’

‘I’ve got better than a manual,’ I said.

Vella got off at Flinders Street. I went all the way back to Museum, rode the almost empty escalators up, everyone going the other way, black- and grey-clad people, faces pale in the hard underground light, people taken ill at work, going home early, going down towards home, an aspirin and a good lie-down.