‘He didn’t believe he could trust any of the people involved in the operation. Thing was, if this top detective was bad, who else was in it with him? There’s no way of knowing. But since I was an outsider, an old mate, I wasn’t tainted. He felt he could confide in me. He told me about the detective, who was an inspector in CI—Criminal Intelligence—and about his cosy arrangement with Salisbury. Could I go to someone about it? Vincent was scared of this detective—he believed the inspector had made the threatening phone call with the disguised voice. He had a reputation, this particular cop—didn’t fuck around. So, I said I’d see what I could do. I asked him if he wanted to stay at my place for a while, but he said no, he’d hang in there. He was relieved just to have someone to talk to, I think.’
Jo said,‘This is all going to end badly for Vincent, isn’t it?’
With the wineglass held up at eye level Shaun was studying the rich ruby-coloured liquid. ‘I’ve been over it and over it many times, trying to see how I could have handled things differently. The guy was desperate, he came to me for help, and I did the best I could. I still believe I did the only thing possible.’ He brought the glass to his lips, sipped, swallowed, and turned his gaze to Jo. She was lying on her side, propped on an elbow, legs folded behind her: watchful, patient. ‘But as I said, I was naïve. Unwittingly, stupidly, I triggered a chain of events that changed the whole world into a crazy place—a madhouse.’
‘Maybe it was a madhouse anyway,’ she said in a flat voice.
‘In the robbers,’ he said,‘we worked in three-man crews. My crew boss was a sergeant named Mitch Alvarez. He was about the smartest guy I ever met. Could’ve been anything. Mitch was a veteran of the squad, seemed to have been around forever, but he wasn’t that old. Great detective, feared and respected in the underworld, a well-read, intelligent man, big on opera. He had a law degree, some other degree . . . He had this unusually domed forehead, so prominent he almost looked deformed. People used to call him the man with two brains, but he just loved being a cop. The thrill of the hunt, you know? A dedicated crimefighter. Mitch was always first in the door after the sledgehammer, he personally ran down bank robbers, made the hard arrests, dodged bullets, dealt with death threats, everything. He wasn’t a big bruiser by any stretch— quite the opposite—but he could walk into a low dive and hoodlums would call him Mr Alvarez. He had a way about him that made people trust him and want to cooperate with him. That guy was an inspiration.’ His glass was nearly empty; he reached over for the bottle and topped them both up.
‘Mitch Alvarez,’ she said. ‘Name’s familiar . . . Raydon’s probably cross-examined him a few times.’
Shaun continued as if she hadn’t said anything. ‘I went to Mitch and explained Vincent’s situation, told him who this corrupt inspector was and asked his advice. The third guy in our crew, Andy Corcoran, was there too. It wasn’t exactly our territory, but . . .’ He gave a half-shrug. ‘You have to understand that working the way we did, in that job, we formed tight friendships. We were like brothers, only more than that. No-one was more important than your partner when you were about to go into a house full of tooled-up cop-haters who were crazed on booze, smack and speedballs. Can be a wild ride.’
‘I’ll bet,’ she said. She was watching him with appreciative, unblinking eyes, piecing together the lurid fragments of a foreign life that had somehow fashioned this man, her lover, and cast him across her path in Buzzards Hut. If she had known all this at the start, would she still have gone for him?
‘We had long discussions,’ Shaun said. ‘Mitch wanted to be sure about this corrupt inspector’s identity. When he was finally convinced—and he did some homework of his own—he said, right, this bastard’s got to go down. Turned out he always suspected the guy was dirty. He went to an assistant commissioner about it, armed with every scrap of evidence he could muster. Surveillance photos of the inspector in the company of Morris Salisbury, recorded conversations, dates when he had signed in at the storage facility, quantities of drugs that had mysteriously gone missing on the same days— Mitch was thorough.
‘Nothing happened straightaway. I don’t know what I expected to happen, but there was just this dead calm. I had a bad feeling that certain action was being taken, and we were being kept in the dark. I couldn’t contact Vincent—the deal was, he’d ring me. It was safer that way. A long time went by, but no word from him or anyone else. Nothing from the assistant commissioner, a guy named Paul Harcourt. I felt we were being isolated,cut off. I thought I’d caught some of Vincent’s paranoia.’
‘And Mitch?’ Jo said.‘Was he paranoid too?’
‘I found it hard to talk to him about it, in case big brother was watching and listening. Cars seemed to cruise by my flat all the time. There were strange static noises on my phone. I started searching for hidden microphones and cameras. One night when I came home, I had the distinct feeling someone had been there, but there was no sign of a break-in. I couldn’t really tell Mitch about these things in case he thought I was . . . delusional, or losing it. I was beginning to believe that myself.’
He took time to sip, then got up to light a cigarette from the pack of Luckies on the dresser. In the mirror he saw her twist around so she could see him properly.
‘But you weren’t,’ she said. ‘Delusional.’
Still watching her in the mirror he said, ‘They came predawn, smashed their way in, dragged me out of bed—there was screaming, guns and flashlights in my face, the whole deal. I was thinking, shit, I usually do this—what’s going on? Is it a fucking nightmare or what?’ He dragged on the cigarette, looked around for an ashtray. ‘In my apartment they found commercial quantities of heroin, thousands of dollars in cash, illegal guns stashed in the wardrobe . . . they kept showing me this stuff, and all I could do was shake my head. They read me my rights, handcuffed me and took me in.’
Sitting up in the lotus position now, Jo narrowed her eyes and placed an index finger under her chin. ‘I seem to recall something like that, some disgraced detectives or something.’
‘Same thing happened to Mitch and Andy, all on the same night. In Mitch’s place they found a big bag of amphetamines, a stolen credit card and cash. And just for variety,Andy’s garage contained some hot electrical goods and other contraband. And in the boot of his car was a travel bag full of cash, for which he had no explanation. They also dragged up allegations of rape against him. They did a terrific job, managed to come up with a range of offences so it wouldn’t look too neat, as if it was a fit-up.’
‘I do remember it,’ she said.‘Three detectives—it was a big scandal. The chief commissioner himself went on TV.’
‘To assure the public that any corruption in the force would be torn out, root and branch. I believe that was the expression he used.’
She poured more wine. The bottle was nearly empty, and he passed her the second. ‘For a year or more I spent all my time with lawyers or internal investigations people. Round and round and round we went: interrogations, consultations, bullshit sessions of one sort or another. I even had to do psych tests. We were all suspended without pay, so it was a pretty tough time. Just as well I didn’t have a wife and family.’
‘Yeah,’ she said brightly. ‘Just as well.’
Smiling, he said, ‘Good point. Anyway, in the end this internal investigations goon, a real piece of work called Burns, offered us a deal. Resign, forfeiting benefits and entitlements, and they’d withdraw all charges. We were called in individually, and first we all said to shove the deal, since it amounted to an admission of guilt, but then, it just wears you down, the whole process. Burns knew that. We came around eventually.’
‘Between a rock and a hard place,’ she said.
‘Yeah. In hindsight we should have boxed on,because I now believe they were never going to proceed against us. How unlikely was it—three detectives with unblemished records all going bad to that extent, and at the same time? I think they were shit-scared the whole scam would blow up in their faces
if it got to court. I wish we’d called their bluff now.’
‘Easy to make rational decisions with twenty-twenty hindsight vision,’ she said. ‘Done it a bit myself.’
He was sipping and smoking—chain-smoking. ‘No convictions against our names,’ he said.‘But we were effectively out of business job-wise. Our careers—Mitch’s especially,for Christ’s sake—were simply flushed down the john. Gone. I drove a taxi. The others did various menial jobs. Mitch worked in a pub for a while, pulling beer. Andy rode shotgun on a garbage truck and drove a cab nights. Mitch’s wife cracked the shits and left him. Andy had a wife and two young ones and a mortgage. We were a real bitching society whenever we got together for a session on the booze. I sometimes thought that Mitch blamed me for involving him in the first place. He was so . . . intense.’
‘What about this assistant commissioner, the one Mitch went to? Could he have set you up?’
‘Paul Harcourt? I didn’t know him, except from his public profile. He was too far up the ladder for me. But when someone is that senior, you naturally assume he’s straight— rightly or wrongly. I would certainly never make that assumption again. It’s possible he was dirty, but if he was, God’s right hand, where does it all end?’
There was no satisfactory answer to that.
‘So what happened to Vincent?’ she said.
‘Vincent never called,’ he said. ‘Never heard or saw anything of him again. He just vanished.’
‘Murdered,’ she said softly.
‘Seems so. His premonition was apparently spot-on.’ Gazing unfocused at a picture on the wall he said, ‘Premonitions, gut feelings . . . they’re nearly always right. And that guy, the CI inspector, was later promoted for his sins before retiring on a million-dollar super payout. That just about sums it all up, don’t you think?’
‘I do,’ she said.‘So the world seems to turn. But I still don’t see what this has to do with two point eight million in a treasure chest, or the guy missing up at Buzzards Hut.’
‘Patience,’ he said.‘I’m getting there. Story’s not half over.’
8
‘One night the three of us were in a hotel in Hawthorn,’ he said. ‘It was the White Lion, our usual hangout. We used to meet there once every few months or so. And out of the blue, Mitch came up with this scheme. Said he’d been mulling it over for some time and was convinced we could do it. He’d worked out all the angles, or thought he had.’ He was looking intently at her, giving her to understand that they were about to enter a horror stretch of non-reclaimable territory. Was she up to it?
‘Jo, I want to tell you everything. I want to talk like I’ve never talked before. Why? I don’t even know you.’
‘That is why,’ she said, and he knew it was the answer a nanosecond before she said it.
‘You’re a very private person, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Keep your own counsel.’
‘Up until now,’ he said.
‘Fine. So go on, Shaun. Share your worst secrets. I assure you I’m no faintheart, if that’s what you’re concerned about.’
He drank, looking straight at her. ‘Okay then. Did you ever hear of George Petrakos?’
‘Hmm—no, not really.’
‘Wealthy car dealer. Had a huge property in the country, near Lancefield.’
‘No bells ring,’ she said, and sipped.
They will soon. ‘He was married to Stephanie Small.’
He saw comprehension dawn on her face. Her eyes widened, but did not waver from his. ‘That George Petrakos.’
‘Stop me if you don’t need to hear this, Jo. I can pull up anytime.’
‘On the contrary,’ she said. ‘Too little information is infinitely worse than none at all.’
‘Well, years ago Mitch’d had dealings with George, knew a fair bit about him. His story wasn’t a particularly happy one. First wife died in a chopper crash—’
‘Shit, I remember that,’ she said. ‘Back in the seventies?’
‘Yeah. Seventy-three, I believe. Anyway, they had two sons. The older, George junior, killed himself at the age of twelve by tearing open his throat with a power saw.’
‘Christ.’ She shut her eyes, put a hand over her face.
‘The younger son found the body in George’s workshop. Seems the kid couldn’t handle the loss of his mother. But even so it was a pretty emphatic statement—something seriously screwed up in the family, you’d have to say. And the other son, the one who found the body, he is this waste of space called Stan. Stan went off the rails as a teenager, rebelling against the old man, no doubt—he apparently ruled with a fist of iron. George was always bailing him out of strife—car theft, assault, this and that. He was always riding for a big fall. Then he graduated to armed robbery. Mitch was running the case when I arrived at the squad. It was how he came to know George.’
She was looking at him, impatient for the whole story to unfold, but knowing it could not be hurried.
‘Stan had held up a restaurant in broad daylight, made off with the week’s takings. But it turned out to be a set-up. He was acting in collusion with the restaurant owner, who planned to claim a highly exaggerated loss from his insurance company. Later on Stan would return the money and they’d split the proceeds from the insurance. It was a sweetheart arrangement, but it didn’t pan out right. Stan, the fool, was caught splashing wads of cash around the same afternoon as the robbery, the restaurant guy eventually owned up and everything turned to shit. Next thing George comes in with his lawyers, screaming, waving his arms around, claiming his son is innocent, threatens to sue Mitch for wrongful arrest and police brutality. George always made a big noise. He was a bad-tempered little shit—always mouthing off about his rights. He’d had a tough time in Greece during the war, apparently, and believed this entitled him to be a self-righteous prick forever afterwards.’
‘But the son, Stan, was guilty.’
‘He was red-hot. Full of denials, but the evidence against him was overwhelming. Any jury would have convicted. Restaurant patrons identified him for openers. Eventually, however, George succeeded in having the charges watered down. In the end it was a no-bill, and Stan walked. An indefinite stay of proceedings, it was called. Gave Mitch the finger as he left the courtroom.
‘It left a nasty taste,’ he said.‘Mitch had put a lot of unpaid hours into that brief, and they pulled the rug from under him. It was an executive decision, nothing to do with justice. You have to understand that this was at a time when police and the underworld fraternity were not seeing eye-to-eye. There was a lot of hostility in the air on both sides. Anyway, Mitch and his partner in the case, a top detective by the name of Brent Wollansky, went on a pub crawl and wiped themselves out till the early hours. They finished up being thrown out of Bobby McGee’s after trashing the place. That really rubbed it in.
‘So, we jump a few years, the three of us are shafted, Mitch saw something on TV, one of those home and garden shows, and George’s place was featured on it. That’s what gave him the idea.’ He drew deeply on the cigarette and swallowed some wine without tasting it.‘It was believed that George kept large sums of cash in his house, always had. And in the White Lion Mitch outlined his plan. It seemed to Andy and me that we’d been royally fucked over and had nothing left to lose, so we signed on straightaway. We were still pretty burned up, especially Andy. So we agreed to hit the Petrakos property and rip off whatever he had squirrelled away.’
‘Which was . . .’ she said, her eyes wandering in the direction of the open chest.
Shaun looked at it too.‘Two point eight million—our self-funded retirement scheme.’
‘I know about the Petrakos break-in,’ she said. ‘I remember it now . . .’ Her voice trailed away, and he saw that in her mind she was racing ahead of him.
He said,‘Somehow Mitch obtained blueprints, a floor plan. We had a stolen van that was fitted out like a plumber’s. There was always work being done at the property, so that was our cover. It was going to be a lightning raid, in a
nd out, George wouldn’t know what hit him. Then we’d stash the proceeds somewhere safe, go our separate ways and not see each other until exactly a year later, when things had cooled down. We’d retrieve the money, whack it up and live happily ever after.’
‘It went wrong,didn’t it?’she said in her flat,knowing voice.
He took a gulp of Chateauneuf. At that moment it could have been a supermarket quaffing red. Her eyes were all over his face, switching from one feature to another, then to his hand, observing how he repeatedly flicked the ash from his cigarette with his thumb.
‘As we expected George was a hard case,’ he said.‘Would not open the strongroom. So, extreme force was applied. I have to say I’m not proud of that, but Christ, we were committed— desperate. We were ready to go all the way. It was a crazy, crazy scene, but finally he gave it up. The strongroom was full of stuff—guns, kinky gear, money, drugs. Lots of heroin—more than I’d ever seen—and George was such a bloody righteous son of a bitch. Anyhow there was a heated argument about whether we’d take the dope. Mitch and I said no, but Andy wanted it. He went off his brain. Mitch was ready to shoot him. For a short time anything could’ve happened. Here we were, facing off, turning guns on each other in the middle of the goddamn heist. And then, during all this madness, in strolls Stephanie.’
‘On cue,’ Jo said.
‘Yeah. And it was exactly the circuit-breaker we needed. She gave us a reason to quit blueing amongst ourselves.’ He inhaled, allowing the smoke to float thickly from his mouth as he spoke. ‘She was supposed to be away, riding a horse somewhere. Stephanie was into the equestrian scene. But apparently her horse float broke down on the way, so she came home.’ He shook his head, laughing with grim humour:‘Yeah, her timing was impeccable. Even the pose and the scream— Christ, she could scream. It was as if . . . as if she’d rehearsed the scene. Anyway, we taped them to a chair each and bolted with the cash. By then Andy had cooled off on the heroin. We left the way we came, switched vehicles down the road and drove straight to Buzzards Hut.’
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