by Peter Corris
'Yes, yes.'
'You remember her?'
'And I remember your colleague. A most interesting face.'
Dunlop drew in a deep breath and tried to make his manner more pleasant. 'You have a good memory, do you, Mr . . .?'
'Penny, Colin Penny. I do, and a good eye.'
'Okay. The woman took brochures for the Oasis Resort at Port Douglas, right?'
'That's so.'
'Tell me about the man you called my colleague.'
Penny focused on a wall poster showing an outrigger canoe cutting through white foam towards an even whiter beach. 'Six feet tall, lean, fortyish. Light suit. Don't remember the tie, but he wore one. Brown hair. Very square shoulders. A military bearing. A hard face. Humourless. I made some light remark which he didn't seem to understand. Look, words don't work. Would you like me to draw him?'
'You can do that?'
Penny nodded. 'A hobby.' He took a sheet of stationery, plucked a pen from the clutch in his shirt pocket, and sketched rapidly. A face emerged from the quick, deft strokes—longish-jawed, thin-nosed, eyes deep-set and rather close together. Narrow forehead, short hair falling forward. Penny added a little shading that suggested a prominent Adam's apple and handed the sheet to Dunlop. 'That's him, close enough. I quite liked the woman. She was pleasant. I hope she's not in any trouble.'
'No,' Dunlop said slowly, studying the drawing. 'Do you remember anything else about this bloke?'
'Not really. Abrupt, official-sounding. Like you when you first spoke.'
Dunlop smiled. 'I'm sorry. You've been a very great help.'
'Australian,' Penny said. 'Definitely an Australian accent. I'm a New Zealander and I can pick 'em. A country-born and -educated Australian from a southern state, I'd say.'
'Have you got a photocopier?'
Penny took the sheet to an alcove and returned with four copies. 'A dollar,' he said.
Dunlop paid.
'Thank you. He wasn't a real policeman, was he?'
'No.'
'I wondered, when I saw the car.'
Dunlop was folding each copy of the sketch separately. He swallowed. 'You saw his car?'
'Yes. I wandered out into the street when he left. Just idle curiosity. He got into a dark blue Subaru sportswagon. Four-wheel drive job. I'm sorry, I didn't get its number.'
Dunlop grabbed Penny's hand and shook it vigorously. 'Mr Penny, you've done wonders. Many thanks.'
Vance Belfante had used cocaine before, in his soccer days and after. But his experiments with the drug had always been social—a line or two before a game with another player so inclined, at a party, with a girl or preferably with two or three girls. Most times there had been other drugs in his system simultaneously—alcohol or marijuana. The coke hits he remembered as great but be didn't have a memory of a specific cocaine high—an emotional and physical experience amounting to pure pleasure. This was what he felt after using the coke he'd taken from Geoff Caulfield.
Candy, he recalled, had called it great stuff. Maybe that was it. The coke he'd had as a kid must have been heavily cut. This was purer, maybe Bolivian. Great stuff. He floated for a while, looked at the books again and they didn't seem so bad. He closed the ledger and picked up the plastic packets. Hadn't there been more? He looked around the desk and on the floor. Two opened, nearly empty, three left. That bitch Candy! Then it struck him as funny. Good luck to her. He laughed until his ribs ached and he was on the verge of hysteria. He looked at his pudgy fingers and noticed that the knuckles on his right hand were bleeding. The punches he'd landed on Caulfield. He laughed again. Everything was funny, even the bad smell from the burned carpet and the smell of come and spilled liquor were funny.
Then the wave of euphoria broke and he felt himself sliding off it, going down into the trough, getting dumped. The smell was bad, very bad. And depressing. His skinned knuckles hurt. He sucked them and the blood tasted bitter. His clothes were a tangled mess on the floor; he was in his jockeys and singlet with his belly flopping and his limp dick hanging out. He felt like crying. He missed Ava and Shelley and his little boy. Peter. He wanted to see Peter, and he didn't even know where Peter was.
He pulled on his clothes and stumbled to the nearest bathroom. He washed his hands and face and combed his hair. He felt better, but he thought he looked terrible, pale and flabby. He went back to his office resolving to get a grip on himself. Go to the gym, get fit again. Get back on top of things the way he was when he met Ava. He was slick then, had all the right moves. A thirty-four-inch waist. A thirty-eight regular. He could get it all back. He wasn't old. And Grant had told him that this Rankin business would all blow over. That made him think of Ava and her treachery. Shelley had turned against him too. He'd never see Peter again. A black hole opened in front of him. He sat at the desk and lit a cigarette, flicked ash automatically . . . The cocaine was in the ashtray. Vance opened a packet and tapped out a line.
Squeezed into a tuxedo, he was a ball of energy that night, organising the staff to clean up the club, occasionally tending the bar himself, even doing a quick comic routine with one of the strippers. He took the girl to his office as soon as the lights dimmed, gave her some cocaine and had intercourse with her on top of his desk. Within minutes he was back, shaking hands, slapping shoulders, the life of the party. He didn't seem to notice that the patrons were few and drinking sparingly. He drank almost nothing himself, smoked non-stop and made frequent trips to his office.
The club closed at four a.m. Vance crashed into a black depression when the last staff member departed. He had never felt so alone. He was wide awake, quivering with excitement and with nothing to stimulate him, nothing for his energy to feed on. He knew he should sleep. But sleep was unthinkable. He hadn't really slept the night before his release from prison. He'd gone almost forty-eight hours without sleep and with not much food. He drank a couple of Crown lagers and vomited violently. He left the club and walked in the streets until dawn, wild-eyed and muttering to himself. The street people, the human refuse, steered clear of him. When he got back to the club he collapsed into a chair and fell into a fitful, twitching doze.
In his dreams, Ava met Shelley, who was living with George Frost. Frost was the father of Shelley's baby and there was another on the way. Then Vance was back in the Bay being threatened by one of the bikies, who was accusing him of stealing cocaine. Vance begged a guard for help and the guard laughed and produced a red plastic straw and stuck it in Vance's ear. The bikie blew in the straw and Vance's head inflated like a balloon. The explosion woke him. He fell out of the chair and lay on the floor clutching his head as if to hold it together.
He dragged himself through the morning somehow, with a little coke at around eleven to help him along. He tried to concentrate on his business interests, willed himself to telephone a couple of the sex shop proprietors. His nerve failed him. He couldn't bear the prospect of more bad news. He rang the Bellevue Hill flat thinking that it would be good to see Ava. To let bygones be bygones. Ava could always cheer him up. So what if some half-arsed court said he wasn't allowed to see her? Fuck them! The phone rang endlessly and there was no answer. Vance felt himself sliding down again and had some more coke. As he snorted the last line and waited for the drug to stimulate his brain's production of dopamine and the rush of pleasure, he saw that the packet he had just opened was empty. He giggled as the coke cut in.
Two hours later he was bottoming out and really panicked. A frantic search of the desk and the floor had produced no more packets. He couldn't believe he'd used it all. He remembered that Candy had stolen some, but even so there should be more. He clawed open the desk drawers. He must have put it away for safe-keeping. One drawer after another—papers, tissues, pills, paper clips. In the bottom drawer, under a pile of glossy photographs taken the night the club had opened, he found a fully loaded .38 Ruger automatic pistol George Frost had taken away from a drunk that same riotous night. George had demonstrated its working, said it was a good gun, reliable, would
hit what it was pointed at, worth money. Vance played with the pistol and struggled to recall the last conversation he'd had with Grant Reuben.
It was only twenty-four hours ago but it seemed like weeks. What had the lawyer said?
He'll be in Centennial Park at seven-thirty a.m. Making a pick-up, riding a bike.
What kind of a hit man rode a fucking bike? But who knew with those arseholes? They were all crazy. Had to be to do the kind of work they did.
A clump of grass near the one kilometre marker on the bike track.
It'd help to know what he looked like, but what the fuck? How many bike riders would there be poking around in the grass just after sun-up?
Vance's eye fell on a photograph that showed Ava dancing the can-can on the opening night. Her red dress was raised almost to her waist, showing her terrific legs. She wore black stockings and a suspender belt. Her breasts were almost falling out of the top of her dress and her face was vivid with the joy of life. Ava, his wife. And that bastard had raped her. Vance knew Ava, knew her capacity to hate. If he killed the man who'd raped her she'd respect him, do anything for him. They could start again, him and Ava. Shelley was out of the picture. An enemy. Ava was an ally and always would be. He could do it! He had to do it!
But not like this. Not down this far and sinking. He leafed through the office diary until he found the number. He lit a cigarette, coughed and dialled.
'Geoff? Vance Belfante. Look, mate, I'm sorry. I just got out of the slammer and I was real upset. You know? Look, Geoff, can you get me some of that coke? I'll pay you, mate. I'll pay you for all of it.'
16
Dunlop faxed a copy of the travel agent's sketch through to Waterford at the Paddington house. He did this from the flat above a vacant auto-electrician's workshop in Little Charles Street, two blocks away, where the three-man backup team was stationed. He received a phone call from Ann ten minutes after the fax had gone through.
'Ava says it's him to the life. Unmistakable. How the hell did you get it?'
'A lucky break,' Dunlop said. 'We were due for one. The man drives a dark blue Subaru sportswagon, or did a few weeks ago. D'you know what they look like?'
Dunlop heard Ann repeating the words and a muted response from Waterford. 'No,' she said. 'I don't, but Roy does.'
'I'll get a picture of that kind of car through to you as soon as I can. It gives us a possible line of attack. We can cross-check registrations with diabetics holding driving licences.'
'Are they a special category?'
'I'm told that they have to pass a medical every year. It's a bit of a long shot. The car might be registered to a company or something. It could even have been a rental. But it's worth a try. How're things going?'
'Are you asking about me, Ava or Roy?'
'All of you. You especially.'
'I'm glad you said that. Did Roy tell you Ava's got the hots for you?'
'Yes, but I don't believe it. She's probably just randy generally. I don't suppose Roy . . . Is he there now with you?'
'No, he went next door. And you don't suppose correctly. That's not Roy's preference. In fact, I think he's interested in you, too.'
Dunlop laughed. 'Come on, Annie. This isn't a French movie.'
'Don't call me Annie! I hate that.'
'I'm sorry. I'll remember. Everyone's bound to be edgy. Are you and Ava getting along okay?'
'Yes, fine. I quite like her. I hate the bloody cigarette smoke though. She never stops. Who do I cite in a passive smoking damage suit?'
'How's Roy's impersonation?'
'Spot on. He can even walk like her. You know, with the bum roll. It was really weird this morning. He came in, blonde wig, negligee and all, and we had an arm wrestle. I'm strong but he put me down instantly. No problem. He'd puzzle Mario.'
'Who's Mario?'
'My dad. He taught me to arm wrestle. Come to think of it, Roy'd probably beat Mario, too.'
Dunlop would have liked to hear about Mario and everything else that made up Ann's life. At moments like this he felt keenly the penalties he paid for the variety, excitement and unorthodoxy of his job. Wife and family, even a steady relationship, were close to impossible. Opposite him on a sofa lay a flak jacket and a pump action shotgun. He looked at them and knew, if he was really honest with himself, that he wouldn't exchange them for nappies and soft toys.
'Luke, you still there?'
'Yeah, well, it's a strange world. I'll be around when you're walking out with Ava tomorrow. If you see me you can kick me up the arse when this is all over.'
'You're on.'
'I wonder if you could beat me at arm wrestling.'
'We'll see,' Ann said.
Dunlop cut the call. He spoke briefly to one of the team and left copies of the sketch. He saw no reason to hang around the flat and drove home. Ava, Ann and Roy were staying in that night and would be safe. The danger would come on the expeditions into the outside world. As Dunlop drove he tried to form a more coherent portrait of the assailant. The sketch helped. A resourceful man with contacts. He must have picked up Ava's trail in Balmain and followed it intelligently. The chances of him getting information on the newly exposed Ava had to be reasonably high. Dunlop was confident that the security arrangements were well-concealed and effective. Why, then, did he feel so uneasy?
He pushed the doubt aside when he reached Marrickville. He went through his own tight security procedures—circling the block, inspecting the street, setting the alarm in his garage. Once inside, he went straight to his PC and checked for results from the registration computer talking to the licences computer. Nothing. He put on shorts and a T-shirt and jogged down Livingstone Road to the golf course. He smiled as he passed the eighteenth green, the historic site of his first and only hole-in-one.
Back in his kitchen, fixing stir-fry vegetables and rice and drinking a can of light beer, he admitted the reason for his uneasiness. Ann. Had it been a mistake to bring her in because he wanted her and could use her to deflect his growing interest in Ava? Maybe. But it had kept him on his toes. Now guilt was cutting in. He decided that he wouldn't let the operation run too long, a week at most. If nothing broke there would only be one course of action left—the application of extreme pressure to Grant Reuben.
Early rising was not one of Vance Belfante's habits, but he had got used to it while in prison and, in any case, he scarcely slept in the hours before he set out for Centennial Park. The night had been a blur of cocaine, tobacco and flesh. Vance had had sex with three of the strippers, his appetite insatiable, his stamina limitless. When the club closed he steadied himself down with some wine and unloaded and cleaned the Ruger .38. He found it surprisingly easy to do—his mind was clear, his hands were steady and the gun's mechanism was entirely logical and a delight.
He was sitting in the bar with an open bottle of chardonnay beside the machine oil, tissues and cotton buds he had used for the job. He sighted along the top of the lightweight pistol at a vase full of dead flowers and snapped off a couple of imaginary shots. The mechanism functioned smoothly. He remembered Frost telling him that the .38 wouldn't have a lot of recoil but that it was best to shoot low anyway.
Only a mug tries for a head shot first off. Head shots are for making sure.
Vance was no mug and he'd make sure. He took a taxi to the flat in Bellevue Hill. His car had been taken by the police when the gloves and spade had been found in it. He'd forgotten that. Well, the fuckers would just have to return it, wouldn't they? Ava's Honda Civic was in the carport but the battery was flat. Vance looked at his watch and calculated that he had plenty of time—enough to have a shower, change his clothes and walk to the park. Start on his fitness program.
He entered the flat which smelled musty and stale. All of Ava's stuff had gone and the place had no good memories. No memories at all. He scarcely remembered living there. He and Ava'd get another place. A better one, bigger. After a quick shower he struggled into a pair of too-tight jeans, a denim shirt, sneakers and a dark-
coloured nylon jacket. The pistol sat comfortably in the pocket. Before leaving he had two hits of cocaine. Two solid snorts of Geoff Caulfield's best. It had cost him more than he'd expected. Of course, he needed it just for now. To get this done. Then he'd give it away. Too pricey. But one of the great things about the stuff was that it made him feel lighter and younger. He felt he could run all the way to Centennial Park and not raise a sweat.
He arrived soon after the gates were opened. A couple of joggers entered and began their stretching exercises. Vance strolled between the trees, cutting across the paths towards the cycling track. The morning was cool—almost cold—and overcast, but he was sweating slightly inside the jacket and his breath steamed. He was fairly familiar with the park. He used to go there with his family on picnics when he was a kid. Real dago picnics with mountains of food and gallons of grappa. One of his mates in his younger days had been a horse fanatic and used to ride there. Vance had ridden with him a few times but couldn't see the attraction. What was that guy's name? Good bloke, too. Forgotten.
The bicycle track was merely a road loop that had been favoured by riders for years. The accommodating park management had paved another section to join up with the loop and provide a two kilometre path. Vance had twenty minutes in hand. He located the one kilometre post and the clump of thick grass. He fancied he could see something in the grass but he couldn't be sure. A big Moreton Bay fig provided cover scarcely five metres from the marker. Vance settled into a recess in the trunk. He was cold now and zipped up his jacket. Couldn't smoke, which was a bugger. The air was damp as if rain was threatening. Would the guy come out to ride a bike in the rain? Course he would. He was picking up dough. Rain didn't stop you when you had something important to do. Vance felt good—strong and confident. Nothing like a brisk walk in the early morning. Maybe he'd take up bike-riding, too. He dipped into his pocket and got a small amount of coke on the tip of his little finger. He stuck the finger up his nose and sniffed. He waited.