The Speechwriter by Martin McKenzie-Murray (latest books to read .TXT) 📗

in 30.’ And he hung up.

I’d always suspected one of the cleaners. Poorly paid, terrible union.

‘You won’t believe this shit,’ Jason said when we’d arrived. John and I were standing behind Jason in his office, slurping coffee and watching him start the surveillance program on his computer. You could have threaded Jason’s pupils with a bratwurst.

‘Are you high?’ I asked.

‘I’ve got the fucker,’ Jason said proudly.

Since the cameras, Jason had developed an ultra-zealous commitment to the prawn case. For weeks, the footage had been streamed live to Jason’s phone, which he believed it was his holy duty to monitor. Unwaveringly. He was helped by heroic quantities of methamphetamine.

‘So for weeks, you’ve been staring at a live feed of our empty office?’ I asked.

‘Only at night.’

‘In what world are these prawns sufficiently important that you would torch the precious few brain ce—’

‘What have you got?’ John asked irritably.

Jason enlarged a small square so that it filled the screen. Then he pressed play.

‘Holy shit,’ John said.

‘Wow,’ I said.

‘He must really hate you guys,’ Jason said rapidly. ‘And I don’t blame him.’

It was Stanley. And from the footage we could figure out his MO. He’d wait for the cleaners outside, flash his parliamentary badge, and piggy-back on their entrance without registering his own. Then, in his blue suede yacht shoes, he’d sow hell’s scent.

‘I’ll kill him,’ John said.

‘I can waterboard him,’ Jason offered.

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ I said.

Given their pique — John’s emotional, Jason’s principally chemical — I anticipated sympathy for my plot. At least temporarily.

‘What is it?’ John asked.

‘We blackmail him.’

‘Blackmail?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘To what end?’ John asked.

‘That’s for us to decide.’ But I’d already decided for myself. Stanley was tight with the Prime Minister’s advisers — I wanted a job in the PM’s office.

‘Hang on,’ Jason said, ‘blackmail is bad, yeah? I came here to do good.’

‘And what good have you done?’ I asked.

‘I’ve found this cunt, haven’t I?’

‘On a diet of meth.’

‘Got the job done, mate.’

‘You screen employees for drug use.’

‘I’m still waiting for the gratitude.’

‘Thank you,’ John said.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘You’re welcome,’ Jason said, and he removed a bag of speed from his pocket and emptied it on his desk. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Jason, when was the last time you slept?’ I asked.

‘Friday.’

‘Which one?’

Jason looked at me blankly, then snorted a line through a tightly rolled Post-it Note.*

[* ‘You’ve given no shits about Jason’s turmoil here, mate. He’s heartbroken. He’s inhaling gear like a fucken scuba diver. He’s haunted, mate. And you’ve got no curiosity about this. He’s always blamed those prawns for his lady pissing off, and now they’re back. Was he still single then?’

‘Was he single?’

‘That’s what I’m asking ya.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You dunno. Did you ever fucken inquire about his health, mate? Did you ever fucken ask him how he was doing?’

‘No.’

‘And you reckon I’m a callous prick. The man was in fucken turmoil, Toby.’

‘I was heartbroken too.’

‘Not now you’re not. And now is when you’re writing this fucken thing, right? Jason’s just a prop. A fucken meatball with eyes. You haven’t cared to get inside his head, mate. Haven’t cared to make him a real man. Cause this book’s just you, mate. It’s six pounds of Toby in a four-pound bag.’

‘Garry, it’s a fucking memoir.’]

‘We’re professionally immortal, right?’ I said. ‘So the question is: what do we want? Let’s demand an upgrade.’

‘I want to be one of those dudes protecting the Prime Minister,’ Jason said.

‘Needs to be realistic,’ I said. ‘Blackmail isn’t a fucking genie’s lamp.’

‘Bro, you don’t think I could do it?’

‘No.’

‘I bench a hundred.’

‘They’re sworn officers,’ I said. ‘Specially trained. Stanley’s influence doesn’t extend to making you either of those things.’

‘Then I want to protect Parliament House.’

‘Like, a security guard there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Okay. Let’s work with that.’

‘John?’

‘What the hell are we doing?’

‘We’re exploiting our professional immortality.’

‘That clause only covers incompetency, Toby. Not criminality.’

‘Well, let’s see.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘I’m very comfortable where I am.’

‘Because of the Wizard?’

‘Because I’m not a fucking criminal.’

John was fuming. I called Stanley anyway.

‘Hello?’

‘The jig’s up, Knuckles.’

‘Who’s this?’

‘Toby.’

‘Toby?’

‘The fucking speechwriter.’

‘It’s 4am.’

‘You don’t choose the time of your reckoning.’

‘What?’

‘Check your email. I’ll wait.’

I put him on speaker. We waited a few minutes while he watched the footage. There was a long pause. ‘I don’t want my parents to see this.’

‘They don’t have to, Stanley. But we have some demands.’

The Prime Minister is under renewed pressure today, after it was discovered he criticised water polo in a bizarre 1975 column for his university’s newspaper. The then-20-year-old wrote: ‘Of the many noble student groups our university can fund — our debate team, say, or this very publication — our administrators have decided to give a significant amount to a group of thick brawlers devoted to a vicious and obscure sport. I say “sport”, but it’s hard to confer that title here. When one designates something a sport, one might expect excitement and strategic coherence, rather than primitive thrashing. If our university continues to fund The Swordfish, it is not hard to imagine Australian society, in our lifetime, regressing to a state of violent Hobbesian disorder.’

By afternoon, my criminal delirium had waned. I no longer felt like a brilliant liberator. Unlike Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, my sense of rectitude was weak, ultra-contingent. Twelve hours earlier, I was surfing silver waves of adrenaline. Now I was broken on the reef. I was going to work for the Prime Minister, but I was also a crook. A blackmailer.

Fingers of self-disgust gripped my throat, and I needed some booze to loosen them. Maybe confession. As Archibald was clearing his desk for the day, I asked him if he would join me for a drink. We hadn’t done this before, but I think he intuited my need.

‘Okay, Toby. Where’s good?’

Good’s relative, and I’d defined it perversely when it came to my new bar. I didn’t tell Archibald that, though. In fact, I knew that I probably wouldn’t tell him anything.

‘Let’s try The Goose Pimple,’ I said.

Conventional wisdom pegged the Goose as the coolest bar north of the lake, but only because it was a refuge for young public servants