by John Bishop
team. It would make him sad I’m sure.’
‘You’re a monster,’ Judith said.
‘Please, no clichés, Mrs K. And you’re wrong anyway. If you open your eyes to the realities of life you’ll see I’m no monster. I’m a fairly typical human being; a human being “with attitude” as one of my young colleagues says. Darwin’s theory is correct; but wrongly stated. It is not the fittest who survive, it is the most determined.’
‘The most ruthless, you mean.’
‘I won’t deny ruthlessness helps. I’m so glad we ungagged you. Aren’t you, Reverendness? She enlivens the debate no end.’
Max said nothing. Lenny continued speaking to Judith. ‘Often, what determines who survives and who doesn’t is a question of the degree of ruthlessness. Take your husband, for instance. Some years ago, he came close to killing an associate of mine. With his bare hands. Now there’s a ruthless act, wouldn’t you say? The name of the fellow your husband attacked was Estoban. I liked Estoban. Later, Estoban disappeared from the scene and Brody as good as accused me of killing him to keep him quiet. Accused me of killing a man I had helped when others had abandoned him. There is no end to the bias some of us have to endure. The Reverend Max Kingsley was the person who came close to killing Estoban. It was a sad story. You see, Estoban was not an Australian citizen. He was a deckhand whose ship had left port without him. I gave him a job until he could join another ship to take him back to his homeland. Your husband bashed him unmercifully for injecting young people with heroin. Injecting kids is not the way I operate. I don’t try to create addicts, I simply cater for a demand. But Estoban came from a country where things are done differently. It’s a story I’ve not been able to tell anyone before; but the prospect of imminent death frees a man from constraints. I believe Charlie Magro discovered the same thing when he crashed out there on the highway. I believe he told someone what mission had brought him to these parts. A good catholic, Charlie—well, not a really good one; he probably hoped he’d get a better spot in purgatory by telling all. We’re very big on confessing. Though, in his case, you might call it a Clayton’s confession.’
Lenny paused and contemplated the thought before continuing. ‘You know, if I decided not to end my life in the lovely surroundings of Banabrook, I could, after shooting the Reverend Max, go running to my parish priest, make a deathbed confession, swear I truly repent my sins, and get absolution. And do you know what? The stupid idiot would bury me in consecrated ground and tell the assembled company I am in God’s care. It’s all nonsense of course. Even the most pious know it, deep down. But it helps sometimes if you can get a priest to tell the court you are a regular at Sunday Mass. And I’ve never thought going to church a waste of time. I like to sing. Hymns delivered with gusto are great fun.’ Lenny took a sharp breath and again shifted in the chair. ‘But I think I will have to finish it here, because I’d be kidding myself if I thought I could go running anywhere. In fact, Your Reverendness, I suspect I’ve got you here with just enough time for the happy ending.’ He paused and smiled. ‘I do like a happy ending! Odd the way things happen. I put out a generous enough contract; but it’s hard to find good help these days, so here I am in person.’ He frowned and changed his position again.
‘What illness do you have?’ Judith asked.
‘I have cancer of the pancreas. I’m forty-two and I have advanced cancer of the pancreas. The doctors say my condition is unusual for my age; so I’m a bit pissed off.’
‘Will killing Max give you much relief?’
‘Not relief. Relief would be nice, but it’s not why I’m here. It’s satisfaction I’m after. Laugh if you want to, but ego is a funny thing. I like to imagine my colleagues in bars around Sydney saying: “You have to hand it to Lenny, he was a man of his word to the very end.” But it’s even better to imagine my enemies saying those things. And there’s a practical side, Mrs Kingsley. I’ve spread the word that Lenny d’Aratzio would never die leaving his family vulnerable. Nobody knows exactly what I mean, but they will know it’s no idle boast. They’ll think twice before they try a move on any of my family. I’ve told my wife she should go to church in black and weep like those widows in Mafia movies. Then she should sell her story to Woman’s Day. I suspect she has other ideas. I tried to talk her out of doing anything silly. We said our goodbyes and I love yous. I will give you time to do likewise. Quite soon I’m afraid.’
During Lenny’s dissertation, Judith had heard a sound in the hallway. Now she yelled: ‘Tony, don’t come in here. It’s Lenny d’Aratzio. He’s armed. Keep away.’
‘Nice touch, Mrs Kingsley,’ Lenny said. ‘I’m not buying it. But it wouldn’t matter anyway. Even the army bursting through the door wouldn’t stop me getting a shot away. I only need the one. And if there is anyone out there… well it will save you waiting ages to be freed. Someone has to find us, some time. I never claimed to work miracles.’
‘But at least he won’t get Tony,’ said Max. ‘Well done darling.’
‘Who’s Tony, anyway?’ asked Lenny.
Max and Judith looked at each other and said nothing.
‘Well I don’t really need to know. If he is there, I hope he has a strong stomach. You won’t look pretty, Your Reverendness.’ Lenny again adjusted the way he was sitting. Max thought he looked to be in considerable discomfort. If so, he might not want to wait long. If Tony or anybody else was in earshot when Judith yelled, they would probably be using their mobile telephone to call for help. But Lenny was a professional and Max didn’t doubt he could fire several shots even if an army did burst through the door. It occurred to him, however, that any additional time they could buy gave cause for hope.
Max said, ‘If I am about to die, you might satisfy my curiosity about something.’
‘What?’
‘The way you’ve set yourself up gives you a clear view of the room and the verandah and no threat from behind.’
‘You noticed. Clever, don’t you think?’
‘I was wondering how a person like you acquires strategic skills.’
‘Tactical,’ Judith said.
Max shook his head. ‘No, darling. Sorry to disagree but, as I understand it, strategy is anything you do to dictate the conditions for engaging with the enemy. Tactics is what you do after the engagement has started. Mr d’Aratzio chose to come to Banabrook rather than to engage me elsewhere, and he chose that corner as the position from which he would operate. Those are strategic decisions.’
‘Does he always go on like this?’ Lenny asked.
‘What I was curious about,’ Max continued, ‘is how a small time crook comes by those skills. Were you ever in the army?’
‘Small time crook? I’ll have you know, young man, the Sydney press refers to me as one of the Mr Bigs. And that shows gross ignorance too. I’m not a Mr Big I am the Mr Big.’ Lenny waved his gun.
‘I’ll retract “small time crook” if you answer the question.’
‘How very big of you!’ Lenny sat up in his chair. The effort obviously pained him.
Max continued. ‘I’m assuming there isn’t a training course for this sort of thing, but from the moment I entered the room I could see you knew what you were doing.’
‘I am not lacking in intelligence, Your Reverendness.’
‘Nor education,’ Judith said. ‘Not if your accent is any indication.’
‘I’m a Joey’s boy.’
‘St Joseph’s!’ Max interpreted for Judith. ‘Upmarket private school in Sydney. Run by the Marist Brothers.’
‘Not bad, some of them, for men of the cloth,’ Lenny said. ‘Though you’re all bloody hypocrites. At least the Marists were better than the pretend priests.’
‘Pretend priests?’ Judith asked.
‘My first school was a Christian Brothers College.’
Judith frowned and said, ‘I don’t understand.’
‘The Christian Brothers is a lay order. Any bugger who wanted to dress up in a frock could get himself a job as a Christian Brother if he
put his mind to it. That’s where I started to learn strategy Reverendness. They taught me a lot, those Christian Brothers; and not much of it divinity. I learned what it is to feel powerless. But I also learned to value being in control. As I am now.’
Max shifted in his seat. Lenny raised the gun. Max could see it was steady and aimed directly at him. ‘As I am now,’ Lenny repeated.
There was a prolonged pause during which nobody spoke. Lenny smiled and lowered the gun before continuing. ‘My real education came later. Finding a good mentor, can give a lad a start in life. Mine wasn’t a hypocrite priest. I found my mentor in the back alleys of Woolloomooloo. Direct, no nonsense stuff is what I learnt there. And there are other ways to learn survival skills. My mentor taught me to listen and to think. You listen to stories about how things went down when a job’s been successful. You listen specially hard when blokes talk about the things that go wrong. These days, the TV is worth watching. You know, backing around door-jams muttering “clear” “clear”. If you are intelligent you see bits the director gets wrong. You think: there’s an idiot who’d be stone dead in real life.’
Judith said, ‘I don’t believe you’ve come to kill Max because he beat up an itinerant seaman. There has to be something else.’
‘I knew you were intelligent.’
‘It’s obvious you don’t like priests, and you don’t like