Tow 83A

“Bureaucracy doesn’t guard with teeth or claws—it guards with clipboards and fees, and somehow that’s worse.”

By the time I finally stepped out of the airport complex, the Prado’s absence had settled low and heavy in my chest — not sharp like panic, not hot like outrage, but dull, immovable, the kind of weight you stop fighting and simply carry. It was inevitability, pure and simple. Of course it had been towed. Of course the one piece of the puzzle I actually needed had been plucked neatly out of reach. The universe had that kind of humour — a dog with a stick, always snatching back what you thought you’d finally caught.

Franklin Street. Eastern Suburban Vehicle Recovery. Tow 83A. The woman on the phone had rattled it off like a litany, every syllable coated in bureaucracy. The name alone itched at my teeth. You could hear the boredom in it, the way the words had been designed to herd you through corridors and counters until you gave up.

Getting there was never going to be glamorous.

For one reckless minute, I toyed with the idea of a taxi. Until I saw the rank, the neat line of cars idling like predators, and the price board that might as well have been painted in blood. Adelaide wasn’t Sydney or Melbourne, but the cabbies clearly hadn’t missed the memo on extortion. I had cash, but not enough to justify returning to Paul with the excuse that his rescue mission had bankrupted me before I’d even touched his car.

So — public transport it was.

I followed the signage out of the terminal, shoulders hunched against the winter air. It had that dry, metallic bite that slipped under collars and cuffs, turning skin raw without ever delivering the satisfaction of actual cold. The sunlight, meanwhile, was all hard glare — no warmth, just reflection. The pavement glittered faintly with frost that hadn’t yet melted.

The bus interchange sat sprawled in its usual mix of order and exhaustion. A thin line of commuters stood at the stop, faces tipped toward phones, as if salvation might scroll into existence at any moment. I slotted myself into their rhythm, hands deep in my jacket pockets, blending into the shape of a person who absolutely had somewhere to be.

When the bus finally lumbered into view, it hissed against the kerb with all the enthusiasm of a tired dragon. I climbed aboard, fumbling coins into the machine with expected clumsiness, and slid into a seat halfway down.

The air was its own cocktail: vinyl and disinfectant at the base, cut through by the greasy sweetness of someone’s forgotten chips. Passengers spread themselves in familiar patterns — solitary travellers pressing against window glass as though the view might deliver escape; mothers with tired eyes and overstuffed bags corralling children into stillness with snack bribes; men in high-vis slouched deep into the kind of silence that only came after twelve hours of labour and not enough pay.

And me. Wedged into it all, a stranger with someone else’s car keys in her pocket, trying not to look like she was on her way to commit a very minor crime.

I watched the suburbs stutter past as the bus shouldered its way along the arterial roads. Warehouses first — long, low boxes painted in colours that had once been bright but were now sun-bleached into apathy. Discount tyre shops followed, their fluorescent signs buzzing like they were trying too hard. Then clusters of weatherboard houses appeared, yards hemmed in with chain-link fences and washing lines strung taut, shirts and towels flapping like flags of endurance.

Every so often the window caught the light just right and threw my reflection back at me: pale, tired, hair pulled back in a way that said function over style, satchel wedged across my lap like it might save me from drowning. I almost didn’t recognise myself.

The bus juddered over a pothole, and the Prado’s keys rattled faintly in my pocket — a tinny reminder of the absurdity of it all. I had the keys, neat and solid, the promise of ownership clinking with every movement. But the car itself? Gone. Like some cosmic joke where the punchline had been written entirely at my expense.

By the time the bus rolled into the city centre, the quiet hum of travel had swollen into a cacophony. A school group piled on, all elbows and noise, their voices ricocheting off the bus’s vinyl walls. Backpacks swung dangerously, colliding with knees and shoulders. A girl dropped into the seat across from me, cracked open a compact mirror, and immediately began applying eyeliner with the unwavering precision of a surgeon mid-operation — all while the bus lurched and swayed. I wanted to applaud. Instead, I just watched her in awe, feeling very much the amateur in every department of life.

I pressed the button and disembarked near Victoria Square. The city unspooled around me: broad streets lined with plane trees skeletal against the pale winter sky, glass facades flashing sharp light from the low-hanging sun. Adelaide had that strange quality of looking almost staged — freshly ironed, pressed neat, as though someone had brushed the creases out before presenting it to the world. Too tidy to be entirely innocent, but not sterile either. There was graffiti tucked into laneways, angry curls of paint on otherwise perfect walls — small rebellions that proved somebody here still cared enough to deface perfection.

I switched to a city connector bus that rattled its way toward Franklin Street. When the stop names began to look uncomfortably close to where I needed to be, I pressed the bell and stepped off two stops early. My boots hit the pavement with a thud that felt deliberate. Better to approach on foot. Better to look like someone who had business being here, rather than someone arriving precisely at the place she wasn’t meant to be.

So I walked, blending into the slow rhythm of midday foot traffic, each step bringing me closer to Tow 83A.

The impound yard wasn’t hard to find. It squatted along Franklin Street like an afterthought, the kind of place designed to be as unwelcoming as possible. High cyclone fencing rose around it, topped with a few messy coils of barbed wire that looked more decorative than effective. The gate was wide enough for a tow truck, and a pair of faded floodlights loomed over it, inert in daylight but no doubt blinding at night.

Inside, rows of vehicles sat in neat, silent grids, their windscreens marked with chalk codes. Some looked barely touched; others bore the scars of minor disasters — dented panels, shattered mirrors, bumpers held together with cable ties. They weren’t cars anymore, not really. They were paperwork made manifest, waiting for signatures, fines, release fees.

And somewhere among them, if the woman on the phone had been telling the truth, was Paul’s Prado. Tow 83A.

I lingered on the opposite footpath, phone in hand, my thumb swiping across a blank screen in a performance of distraction. In truth, my attention was locked on the yard across the road, every detail catalogued, every movement measured.

Cameras first. Always cameras. I counted three. One mounted high on a pole at the gate, angled just-so to catch number plates as they rolled in. Another inside, sweeping in that lazy pendulum arc that suggested automation — relentless, indiscriminate, patient. And a third tucked tight into the far corner of the fence, its black dome reflecting a distorted sliver of the street. That one bothered me. Watching not the cars, but the people. Watching me.

The office was hardly imposing: a fibro hut just inside the gate, paint curling off in tired strips, corrugated tin awning drooping like it was weighed down with regret. A hand-painted sign leaned against the wall, “RECEPTION” scrawled in guilty capitals. The kind of sign that made you feel apologetic before you even crossed the threshold, as if stepping inside meant confessing to some small moral failing.

Through the mesh of the flyscreen door, I could see him. The gatekeeper. Not Cerberus, but close enough in spirit. Middle-aged, belly pushing against the fabric of a faded polo, boots propped on the desk like he’d claimed dominion over every tyre in the lot. A clipboard rested across his lap, more prop than tool. A small radio burbled beside him, the thin static of an AM station rattling off share prices and weather updates no one cared about. His hair was thin enough that the blotchy sunburn of his scalp showed through. He had the air of a man who’d found his life’s equilibrium in sitting still and waiting for the world to come to him — and charging a release fee when it did.

I ducked into the shade of a plane tree, shoulder pressed against the bark, posture casual but eyes sharp. The kind of loitering that, if you got it right, looked like waiting. If you got it wrong, it looked like intent.

The rhythm of the yard unfolded in front of me. A tow truck lumbered in, carrying a dented Commodore like a reluctant offering. The driver hopped out, hi-vis vest flapping in the breeze, scrawled his name on the clipboard, and whistled his way out again. The man in the hut barely stirred. Only the pen in his hand moved, a twitch, a scratch, a tick.

Minutes later, a woman in steel-capped boots arrived, clipboard tucked to her chest. Another brief exchange. Another scrawl. Another car admitted into the metal graveyard.

It was mechanical. Predictable. The whole place thrummed with procedure — not vigilance, not suspicion, just process. Routine layered on routine until even the interruptions felt rehearsed.

The sort of rhythm you could interrupt. If you hit the right note.

I moved along the fence with the kind of careful aimlessness that only looks casual if you’ve practised it. My fingertips brushed the cyclone mesh as I walked, tracing the diamond gaps while my eyes stayed busy on the angles. The cameras swept like bored sentries, their arcs neat but imperfect. Every swing left a slice of silence, blind spots that opened for a breath before closing again. The parked cars inside — a line of dented sedans, hulking utes, a caravan that looked one stiff wind away from collapse — threw their own shadows, long corridors between metal shells. If I’d had bolt cutters, a sprint-worthy set of lungs, and a complete disregard for my own survival, I could probably make it from fence to Prado without anyone so much as blinking.

But that wasn’t the game. The game was subtler.

At the corner where the fence butted against the laneway, I stopped. A battered sign hung there, bolted crookedly, its white paint curling into flakes, the black lettering half-scoured by weather.

Eastern Suburban Vehicle Recovery
All visitors must report to office.
No unauthorised access.
Vehicles will only be released upon proof of ownership and payment of fees.

I gave a soft snort, the sound scraping out of me like it didn’t want to exist. Proof of ownership. Payment of fees. The sort of phrasing that already assumed your defeat. I had one of those things, technically — Paul’s licence, still tucked in Luke’s carefully labelled zip-lock bag in my satchel. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? I wasn’t Paul. I didn’t look like him, didn’t sound like him, didn’t have that square-jawed, shoulder-rolling energy of a man who could talk a parking inspector into giving him an extra week without so much as a frown.

And even if I pulled it off — even if I convinced Clipboard Man in the hut that I was, in fact, Paul Samuel Smith, long-lost friend of bureaucracy — I’d still be staring down the release fee. And there was no universe in which I was paying Adelaide Council a cent.

Still, I pulled the licence out. Held it flat in my palm. Studied the picture. Paul Samuel Smith. The photo caught him in that strange DMV lighting — jaw set, mouth thin, eyes fixed with the grim patience of a man who knew precisely how much of his life had already been wasted in queues. The lamination had bubbled at one corner, a faint air pocket under the plastic.

“Not much use to me, is it?” I murmured, words smudged by the breeze.

But still, I slid it back into my bag. Because paperwork had weight. Not truth, not proof, but presence. Half the time, people didn’t read the details — they just saw the shape of authority and moved out of its way. And sometimes, that was enough.

Back at the fibro hut, Clipboard Man had managed a feat of endurance that would’ve impressed statues. The only movements in ten whole minutes were a slow scratch under his polo and the delicate unwrapping of a packet of mints. He chewed with the air of a man who had long ago stopped being surprised by anything life threw at him — tow trucks, complaints, maybe even the odd hysterical car owner. Everything slid past him in a haze of routine and peppermint.

I stayed in the shade, watching. Ten minutes stretched, pulled taut, each second hammering a little louder in my chest. Not panic — panic was wild, messy. This was sharper. A hum low in the ribcage, the particular note that told you the line between outside and inside was paper-thin, and one wrong move would tear it.

The Prado was in there. I could feel it, irrational and certain, like a pulse. Metal, rubber, glass — just a car, but more than that. Paul’s silent rebuke, sitting behind cyclone fencing like a hostage. A week abandoned in short-term parking, carted off, now held ransom by signatures and fees.

I let my head tilt back against the tree, bark rough through my hair, and allowed the corner of my mouth to twist into a smile. Dry. Small. The sort of smile you give yourself when you’ve already stepped past the sensible options.

This wasn’t going to be pretty. It wasn’t going to be simple. But one way or another, I was walking out of here with that car.

And if it took a performance? Well. I’d always had a taste for theatre.