Beer, Porn & Wookies
Liz was smoking in the kitchen. Sandra would normally take umbrage at this, but given that the kitchen along with the rest of the house had been turned inside out, her housemates were overseas and Sandra was, herself, having a cigarette, she chose to not make a fuss on this particular occasion.
“I can’t believe there was nothing on Google.” Liz said, for about the third time in the last 10 minutes.
Sandra sighed, coughed, and took another therapeutic drag on her cigarette. It hurt her lungs, but it felt good. The prospect of having to sort out the incredible mess that was their terrace – or Club 51 as it was colloquially known – filled her with a sense of dread. Particularly given that, as far as she could tell, nothing had been taken. Nothing of hers anyway, which apart from her laptop didn’t really amount to much.
It took three calls to get Liz to come over. The first 50 cents went almost instantly as the call was connected, Sandra said who it was and Liz yelled at her for calling her a bitch in a message when she had, in fact, tried to call her back a dozen times. The next dollar went as Sandra explained she had no phone and Liz expressed her shock and apologised. The last coin was 2 dollars, and an expensive, short conversation:
“Please come round now.”
The great thing about Liz was that she did. She always did.
On her way home from the phone box, Sandra grabbed three pizzas, a six pack of beer and all three newspapers. By the time Liz arrived one pizza, three beers and two newspapers had gone, google had been goggled and no information had been gleaned.
“Did you try ‘dead man naked bath’?”
“I tried them all Liz. I tried ‘dead man naked bath’, I tried ‘wealthy death apartment’, I tried ‘naked girl man bath blood’ ‘throat blood bath naked body’ ‘naked bastard fuck shit bath blood jesus throat’ even ‘girl wakes up in strange place with dead man in bath.’” She flicked her cigarette at the sink, where it fell with a satisfying hiss. “It was pointless.”
“What did you get?”
“I got a lot of pornography. There’s some fucked up people out there.” She reached for her beer and chugged to wash away the tobacco. “God those things are disgusting.”
“Then don’t smoke them”
Sandra ignored her and reached for another cigarette. Liz threw her the lighter, but rather than light up she just played with the cigarette and flicked the lighter on and off, staring into the flames.
“None of this makes any sense Liz. I never forget. Never. I really, really wish I could half the time, but I can’t.” She sighed.
Liz opened another beer “Maybe we’re just getting old San. Getting close to 30 now. Getting old. Maybe we’ve hit that forgetting age.”
“Speak for yourself Liz I’m 25” Sandra retorted as she lit the cigarette in protest.
“Yes, well, whatever. Maybe you’re peaked.”
“And what about the dead guy? There was a naked dead guy in the bath.”
“I don’t know San, Jesus, what the fuck were you doing there? The last time I saw you we were at that pub with those chair things, I went for another round of shots and you weren’t there. You abandoned me.”
“I did not. You and that guy were getting along alright.”
“He left after you did. Wasn’t interested in just one of us.”
“Then it’s a good thing I left.”
There was a moment of silence between them as they reached the inevitable.
“So”, Liz ventured, as subtly as she was capable, “what the fuck happened then?”
Sandra sighed. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I keep thinking I’m there, I can remember, and then it’s gone again. Like trying to think of that song that you know but you can’t remember the words only a couple of bits of the chorus and every time you try to think of it you end up singing Abba instead.” She threw the cigarette away and sunk her teeth into a slice of extra anchovy. “Which is, incidentally, much fucking worse than any pop song you could forget.”
There was silence again. Then Liz exploded “But the guy! What happened to the guy?”
“Which guy? The dead guy?”
“Yes, the dead guy.”
“He died Liz. He died. Probably while I was naked in his bed.”
“Yeah, but how did he die?”
“I don’t know, drugged, I think. Throat slashed. I don’t really know.”
“You didn’t shag him to death did you?”
“No, Liz, I didn’t shag him at all. I think. God, I hope. I think he fell. Like, he was drugged, and fell –“
“Drugged?”
“Well yeah. It makes sense.”
“What about you. Were you drugged too?”
“Probably. It’d make sense. I didn’t feel drugged.”
“Been drugged often?”
“No, you know what I mean, there was no come down, no… meeeehhhhhh.” She unnecessarily waved her hands around, shook her head, dribbled pizza – Liz knew what she meant before she’d hit the first “meee”.
“I’m sure there’s drugs that can do that. If you know where to get them.”
With any further discussion they jumped the laptop, and hit google. It wasn’t long before they had a vague idea of what they’d need. All it took was a few choice words, ‘drugs blood undetectable’ and they found coagulants:
And after some skimming, they found key words that should have seemed obvious to them:
Which gave them a name, and before too long they knew the type of drug they’d need to do what had been done:
The internet was a magnificent beast. But it was also a terrifying beast. Sandra began to wonder exactly what had happened to her. And to the man. The man with the shaved arse, the man that had died, the man that she had no idea who he was. Someone had died, and no one had said anything. Why? What did this seem unnewsworthy? He was clearly well off, died in unusual circumstances. Some journalist somewhere must be interested in something other than the current political football.
Liz had also brought beer with her, and as they made their way through the rest of the drink and cigarettes they hit the google hard, sourcing and downloading streams of information about drugs, coagulants, the depth of neck skin, how to slice a throat – essentially anything they could link to the murder of the unknown naked man.
Every hour they’d check again to see if a new news article had been posted about the murder; and again, all they ended up with was an increasing bizarre variety of pornography, from bathroom sex to acts involving baths, toilet brushes and cisterns that Liz, shocked at what she saw, could describe only as:
“Unnecessary.”
Which summed it up really.
By the time the sun rose the next morning Sandra had a laptop full of more research in one night than her three pathetic years of University; shuffled across her desktop and in random folders in a system of organisation that required its own brand of research to sort out. The machine rested screen down on the head of Liz, who was curled up on the kitchen floor using pizza boxes as a pillow. Sandra had made it to the remains of her room, and when she woke to the sound of banging on the door she was unsure if she’d passed out on her bed, clothes or a wookie. She’d been dreaming about wookies. It was nice. She used to have a dog called Chewbacca, but he’d been hit by a car and died in a most undignified un-wookie like manner. Her good dream made her sad as she remembered this, and vowed to take it out on the person banging on her door.
She wrenched it open with the type of vicious energy reserved only for a person who has not quite completed their business sleeping.
“WHAT?”
The two police at the door didn’t blink. They didn’t flinch. They probably weren’t even real.
“Ms Walker?” said the she-police.
Taken aback, Sandra squinted in the light. Where the hell did all that sun come from?
“Yeah, I think so.” She mumbled. All the energy she’d had in reserve was spent on opening a door and a wasted ‘what’. Now she felt like a junkie coming down trying to explain why he needed 10 bucks to call his mum in Bendigo to someone who wasn’t going to give it but he was damned if he was going to give up trying fuck I should just bash him but I don’t have the strength and shit man can I just have a couple of bucks I need to get a bus…
She steadied herself on the wall as she nearly fell. The police people didn’t move.
“Are you sure?” asked the he-police. His face was chiselled in a way that could only be described as chiselled. It was both amazing and terrifying. She wanted to poke it with something to see if chimed like bronze.
The she-police leant into her view.
“This is just a courtesy to let you know we’ve removed you from the persons of interest list in the Daniel Camerons murder.”
“Daniel Camerons” she repeated.
She-police handed her a piece of paper.
“This is an official piece of paper from the police people”, she said. Sandra accepted it without questioning, then actually listened to what she said.
“Official piece of paper”, she repeated, then turned to the he-police. “Why do you look familiar?”
He-police cocked his head ever so slightly to one side.
“I am not a wookie”, he said. “But you always treated me so. I respect that.”
“Chewie? Is that you?” Sandra reached up to touch the bronze, but before she could touch him he began to bang on the door, three times, hard with his fist. “What is it boy? Are you thirsty?”
Without realising she was doing it, she put the piece of paper in her mouth as Chewbacca the he-police banged on the door once more. She rolled over on her pile of clothes, roused by the sound of banging on the front door, the sunlight trying to get through her front window and the wet newspaper she inexplicably held in her mouth.
Spitting the paper out she stumbled to her feet, fell through her door into the hallway and limped to the front door. This time there was not sudden burst of energy. It was all total exhaustion. The deadlock clipped limply as the last knock ended, and the real world shone through onto her face. It was momentarily reassuring.
“Excuse me.” Said a voice in a suit with sunglasses. “Are you Ms Sandra Walker?”
It was neither chiselled nor wookie-like. She couldn’t really make out much in the glare, but the suit seemed nice. The hair was very well done. Despite the sunlight behind, there were no strays. How did he do that?
“Yeah.” She croaked. “Yeah that’s me.”
“My name is Sebastian Pohler. I’m a lawyer, and I represent someone who would like to meet you.”
“You’re who with the what now?” she asked, still slightly transfixed by his hair.
“There is someone who would like to meet you, Ms Walker. He sent me here to pick you up. I have a limousine waiting.” He stood aside, and gestured towards the limousine parked on the street, right outside her front. How did he do that? No one ever managed to get a park there. Not even in her little Astra.
“Who the fuck is it?” Liz cried from the back of the hallway, staggering towards the light like a troglodyte emerging for the first time and not terribly impressed with what they saw.
“It’s a man in a suit.” Sandra replied. “He has a limo. Says he wants me to meet someone.”
Liz didn’t even hesitate.
“Oh”, she said. “Cool” and went towards the car, but the man stopped her.
“Sorry Miss” he said, in a polite but firm and yet reassuring tone that he must have rehearsed. Like, a lot. It was very convincing. “But the invitation is for Ms Walker only.”
Liz swayed for a moment.
“Ah”, she said. “Good”, and then vomited on the porch, and passed out in the hallway. Sandra saw how the lawyer had, without any break of suave, deftly avoided any bile on his shoes, and yet seamlessly moved back into a respectable position in the doorway. Then she looked at the disaster that was the house. Then she looked at her best friend fast asleep in the hallway. Then she looked at the vomit on the porch.
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