‘Just because I’m sixth generation doesn’t mean I can’t speak Cantonese.’
‘Of course not,’ agreed Conan, following him into the building, still uncertain whether Loongy was weirdly paranoid or brilliantly pulling his leg.
The foyer was a shambles of piled up garbage bags, a scatter of small vials and discarded building materials. The elevator shafts were two gaping black holes and obviously not working.
‘It’s on the fifth floor,’ said Loongy, entering a dim stairwell that was lit from several floors up and stank of urine. ‘I bet you’re wondering: how do people live in this?’
‘Not really,’ lied Conan, trying not to breathe with all the piss stink.
‘This is what they’re used to in Asia,’ explained Loongy. ‘This is what they bring with them … this, and Habal Tong.’
‘You’re not a fan?’
‘You come to Australia, you assimilate!’ insisted Loongy, raising his voice. ‘You don’t like our ways … fuck off back to Asia! Fuck off!’
Conan kept waiting for Loongy to grin, to acknowledge he’d been joking, but Loongy was muttering fiercely to himself, seeming more Chinese every second.
On the fifth floor, they left the stairwell and passed along a corridor with damp carpet that stank of mould. A dog barked from a darkened doorway and faces, old and young, mainly Chinese but at least one family of Indians, or Sri Lankans, peered at them as they strode past until they turned a corner and found two uniformed officers sitting outside a door taped across with blue and white checks.
The two officers leapt to their feet, one of whom was Agent Ping who’d been reading an old paper-style book, which he half hid behind his back.
‘Chairs,’ remarked Loongy, irritably. ‘Where you get chairs?’
‘Neighbours,’ said Ping. ‘They’ve been very helpful.’
‘They better not be from inside,’ said Loongy, producing a key as Ping pulled the tape away while giving Conan a look of amused sympathy.
‘Well … here it is,’ said Loongy, as they stepped across the threshold into a small and cluttered room, dominated by a large black poster with orange lettering: ALL IS NOTHING AND NOTHING IS ALL.
Conan stood quite still – breathing slowly and feeling his way around the room – trying to imagine what it was like to live there. The walls were crowded with book shelves and football posters, one of which was a picture of a supremely athletic-looking Chinese in the yellow and red of the Ord City Pilgrims, shooting at goal.
‘Feng Nine,’ said Conan.
‘You a football fan?’ asked Loongy, a bit less irritable.
‘Not really.’
‘You should be.’
Conan turned his attention to a huge table under the only window. It was dusty, littered with old-style books and papers, the inevitable Crimson vials and two old lap-top computers at either end.
‘Why should I be a football fan?’ he asked, noting that one of the laptops was still turned on.
‘Football is everything in Ord City. If you want to understand us you have to understand football.’
‘Us?’
Conan tapped a key but the screen was frozen.
‘Yes … us! Just because I’m sixth generation doesn’t mean I can’t be part of Ord City.’
‘I guess it might help the newcomers to assimilate.’
Loongy peered suspiciously at Conan.
‘Yes … it does help.’
Conan ignored him for a moment to read the frozen screen with a large black and red field covering most of it. In the middle of the field were the words: Access Denied and a pair of keys crossed over each other.
‘Locked out,’ said Loongy.
Only part of the URL was visible in the address field and seemed to be written in Italian. Conan copied down the part of the address he could see and Loongy laughed, ‘Oh look! Sydney investigator finds a clue. What you think it means, Tools?’
Conan ignored him and continued to look among the books and papers covering the desk. Most of it seemed to be scientific or religious. Conan glanced at a book on chaos theory, then picked up a large bible and noted its margins were covered in scribbled notes.
‘These guys were pretty churchy.’
‘Brilliant deduction, Tools,’ laughed Loongy. ‘You seen enough yet?’
Several of the pamphlets were glossy plastex Army of God publications. Conan flipped open one with a confused-looking Chinese on the cover, entitled: Can You Be Christian and Habal Tong Too?
‘Let’s go!’ said Loongy, suddenly irritated. ‘I’ve got real work to do.’
‘Okay,’ said Conan and, as Loongy turned his back, slipped the pamphlet into his pocket.
The door was locked and resealed with tape, and Loongy headed for the stairs without another word to the two uniformed officers. Conan gave Ping an apologetic salute and followed Loongy toward the piss-dank stairs. As he did, one of the neighbouring doors opened and a Chinese woman of quite striking beauty peered out, but immediately lowered her eyes when she saw Conan and closed her door again.
‘Now you can write your report,’ said Loongy, ‘… and fuck off back to Sydney.’
‘Can I?’ asked Conan, still seeing the woman’s sad and frightened face in his mind’s eye and wondering about the life she had found in Ord City – wondering also whether she knew the murdered men.
‘Of course! Two dead Habal Tong … killed by Dedd Reffo. Happens every day. Now fuck off back to Sydney and drink latte by the Opera House!’
Conan laughed and Loongy turned on him fiercely.
‘You think I’m funny?’
‘Yes, very,’ grinned Conan.
Loongy stared again, then stormed down the stairs, somehow leaving Conan with the impression that he was in the presence of a Master Piss-taker.
• • •
The pamphlet didn’t say much. It answered its own question in the negative, which is what Conan would have expected. It did, however, give the addresses of a few local Army of God chapters, so Conan decided to visit the one closest to the flat where the two friends had lived.
The streets on the map bore only vague resemblance to the streets and lanes threading the mad jumble of buildings and other temporary dwellings that metastasised throughout the city, but Conan managed to pick his way through teeming hordes of provisional citizens to the Army of God chapter house on the corner of Kerr and Whitlam Streets.
The
