Heroin Annie by Peter Corris

can do about it?’
    â€˜I can take you out of here. I know some people who've worked the cure. Your mother wants to talk to you, your parole officer's not too happy. The way you're going your life's rotting away in front of you.’
    She sagged against me into what I thought at first was a fit, then I realised she was laughing. The spasms shook and twisted her; she was leaf thin and impossibly light; I put my arm around her and could feel the sharp bones poking through the tight skin. I got hold of a morsel of flesh on her upper arm and pinched hard.
    â€˜What's funny?’
    â€˜Everything.’ She cut the laugh off with a deep breath which she expelled slowly. She looked over my shoulder into the room. ‘We've only got a minute. Look, Hardy, I'm working for the narcs. I don't want to, but they've got me by the tits. Understand?’
    I nodded.
    â€˜There's a guy coming here tonight with some smack, a lot of it. It's a set-up. When Doc pays him, he's going to bust them all. It's arranged.’
    â€˜What do you get out of it?’
    Her tired features worked their way up into a sort of smile. ‘Freedom’, she said. ‘That's what they've promised me. They say they'll wipe my slate.’
    â€˜Any money?’
    â€˜Some, enough to get out of this bloody place. It's my one chance, Hardy. If you butt in now you'll screw it for me, and they'll come down hard on me. You know what they're like.’
    I did. I knew what they could do to people who got caught in their dirty world, a world in which the narcotics agents themselves were not the least dirty part. I squinted at her in the soft light, trying to gauge her levels of truth and reality, but you can't assess junkies on the normal scale—their habit over-rides everything else, straightens out their curves and throws in new ones. Anything was possible, but there was a note in her voice that cold be taken for sincerity and she was Ma Parker's daughter.
    â€˜I'll buy it’, I said. ‘When's he due?’
    â€˜Soon, any minute. I'm trying to come off it, I'm badly strung out. It has to be soon, has to be. Shit, I really didn't need you in the scene.’
    â€˜We'll see. Look on me as your insurance. Why did they agree to let me come along if they've got this big score lined up?’
    â€˜Greed. Look, we can't stay out here, and I need a drink bad. I'm going back.’
    She moved away and I let her go. Inside new drinks were being poured and cigarettes lit. The television was still on; tennis players in coloured uniforms moved around on a red court under a blue Texas sky. Dean had slit open the sachet with a razor blade and his face was showing a little awe as he looked at me.
    â€˜You say you've got a lot of this stuff?’
    â€˜I may have exaggerated a little.’ I looked him up and down and let my eyes drift off over Doc and Paul. ‘I've got as much as you can handle anyway.’
    Doc spoke quickly. ‘We'd need to see more of it, Dean. Anyone can get hold of this amount of good shit. There's something about this that worries me … this packet.’
    Paul and Sam were working on a big joint, rolling it with a number of papers and giggling. Paul was singing a song about Rio. Dean sneered at them and went over to where Annie was standing; she had a cigarette burning and her face was drawn tight and stiff.
    â€˜What do you know about this guy, Annie?’ Dean said.
    â€˜I had a girlfriend in Silverwater’, I improvised. ‘She…’
    â€˜I was asking her!’ The scars on Dean's skin showed out white and malignant-looking as anger pumped colour into his face. Doc was staring at the square of plastic in his hand and it was an altogether nasty situation when a soft knock sounded on the back door.
    â€˜That'll be him’, Annie whispered. ‘This is it.’
    â€˜Two big scores in one night,’ Sam said putting a match to the cigar-sized joint. ‘Let's