Free Black Ice by Leah Giarratano Page A

wanted more. Despite the busts of numerous clandestine laboratories, there was still a huge amount of crystal methamphetamine on the streets. Although her brief was to try to find ice and ecstasy dealers, it was the proliferation of dodgy ice cooks in particular that most worried the authorities. The manufacture of ecstasy was quite an art. Getting it right could be tricky, and production was most often a large-scale affair by professionals. Ice was another thing altogether.
     
Locking the door to her unit, Jill thought about the massive proliferation of this drug over the past five years. The problem with ice, she thought, is that half the country knows how to cook it. Theoretically. She knew that she could go to the internet today, and within five minutes collect twenty recipes. But most people manufacturing it were taught face to face by a friend. She knew that there were plenty of small operations making enough to service a local group of ice addicts, but large-scale production generally originated in Asia. The source ingredients required were tightly controlled in Australia, meaning that major meth production was rare. But there was certainly plenty on these streets, and Jill and everyone else around here knew that someone had a bloodline to a major supply. So far though, no one had been able to give her any useful links to the really big players.
     
Today, she would be meeting someone she hoped could hook her up to a bigger supplier. Jelly. Jelly owed her. Or at least he thought he did.
     
Jelly was a regular on the Fairfield street scene. An easy target, he was rolled regularly for his cigarettes, phone, and any money he had. Jill's best guess was that Jelly was aged around twenty-five, with the IQ of an eight-year-old. She was guessing some sort of hormonal abnormality accounted for his problems: Jelly seemed to be pumping too much oestrogen. Jill knew she could never hope to have breasts as impressive as Jelly's; the skin of his face was smooth and hairless, and when he spoke he sounded a lot more like a girl than most of the chicks he shared the streets with. As far as she could tell, Jelly didn't seem to have sexual proclivities that leaned either way. When left to his own devices, he was more than happy to swap dumb jokes, shoplift lollies – or any other food he could get his hands on – and attempt to skateboard. At six foot, and a hundred and twenty kilos, he looked pretty stupid on a skateboard, but Jelly didn't seem to realise that, no matter how often the kids at the skate park told him.
     
Even without the contacts he had, Jill would have kept an eye out for Jelly; he might as well have had a big red target painted on his rounded back. So, when she'd found him curled up in the railway carpark being battered by four youths obviously not from around the area, she'd jumped in. Actually, it had been kind of fun. She hadn't had a chance to practise her kickboxing for real for a long time, and discovering that she had lost none of the power from her roundhouse kick was gratifying. The melee had ended disappointingly quickly. The youths were evidently weekend warriors, fearless only when their prey couldn't fight back.
     
But Jill knew that Jelly had another guardian angel. Kasem Nader. The only reason Jelly hadn't long ago been kicked to death for sport was that most people around here knew that Kasem Nader would come find them if they hurt Jelly too badly. Nader had had a long association with Merrylands police, dating back to his primary school years. Since then, he and his brothers had collected an impressive criminal portfolio, from stick-ups and standovers to weapons charges and abduction. Jill had heard that the boys now had an impressive meth lab up and running and were looking to expand their operations.
     
She had met Jelly for the first time one morning in Ingrid's kitchen, where he was trying to bake cupcakes. Ingrid told her that although he lived in a neighbouring unit block, he was in her