Alan McQueen - 02 - Second Strike

by Mark Abernethy

  ‘You’re a dad, mate,’ she chided gently. ‘Now you get to sit in front of a lawyer, tell her whether it’s burial or cremation.’

  Mac did the yeah, yeah - I’ll do it, and Jenny said that was just as well because she’d already made an appointment to see Sian next Tuesday at ten o’clock.

  Mac groaned. Sian Elliot was a former federal cop who was now in general practice in Southport. As a rule, Mac steered clear of people who asked too many of the right questions.

  ‘So, Mr Macca,’ said Jenny, giving him the look that told him she knew something was eating him, ‘what’s up?’

  Mac had spent the year commuting down to Sydney to do his classes at the University of Sydney. He’d had them scheduled on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and by putting everything on the rewards card it had become viable. The fact that his mate Scotty from the Service had arranged a Commonwealth apartment in Pyrmont for him had pushed the idea into profi t. As a family they’d got used to it, even though Mac sometimes ached to see Jen and Rachel. Now things were changing.

  ‘I’m not going back,’ Mac said quickly. ‘I’m marking assignments but that’s me, I’m done.’

  Jenny gave him the patient look. ‘Not going back where?’

  ‘Uni. Lecturing. That shit.’ He couldn’t look at her, fi ddled with the bottle.

  ‘Oh, that shit?’ smiled Jen.

  Mac felt himself getting nervous. There were two women in the world who could get him on the back foot. The other one was his mother.

  ‘Look, Jen -‘ he started, before running out of words. He’d done his best with civvie life and he liked teaching South-East Asian politics to postgrad students. But the academic world had moved on since he was at UQ and it was no longer enough to put themes to students, get them to do the reading and then insist that they formulate their own arguments in essay form. Modern students had been trained to adopt the right pose rather than construct arguments, and what he did felt more like preaching than teaching to Mac. The fact he couldn’t do it made him feel like a failure.

  Finally he looked up at Jen, who was still smiling.

  He smiled back, surprised. ‘Not angry?’

  Jenny laughed, stood up against him, held both his hands. ‘Angry?!

  Christ, Macca, I’m amazed you’ve lasted as long as you have.’ She roughed his hair, kissed him on the cheek. ‘You’ve been very brave about it.’

  Slightly boozed, they walked along the Esplanade to the Umi restaurant where Mac had a reservation for seven-thirty. He told Jen what she needed to know and left everything else vague: there was some freelance work for the government and he’d technically keep his gig at the uni as one layer of cover. He’d go onto half wages, paid by the Commonwealth, and be paid per diem for any contract work they gave him. Mac didn’t want to lie to Jenny, but there were good reasons to keep things non-specifi c. You didn’t want the wrong people making links back to your family.

  The maitre d’ came over with two menus, spun on his heel and led the way through a narrow bottleneck near the bar.

  Mac almost ran into the back of Jen as she suddenly stopped. He felt her tense through her upper back and he looked down to see a pair of legs and expensive cowboy boots in her path. They belonged to an Italian-looking bloke with lead-guitarist hair and a black Tex-Mex ensemble.

  Mac pushed alongside Jenny but she jammed her arm back to stop him coming too close.

  The bloke looked her up and down and, nudging the heavyweight Thai thug sitting beside him, said, ‘Well, well, well. If it isn’t little Miss Toohey.’ He smiled, fl ashy but lopsided. ‘Oink, fucking, oink!’

  ‘G’day, George,’ said Jenny conversationally. ‘Free at last and the fi rst thing you do is audition for The Three Amigos. Nice.’

  Seeing violence fl ash in the bloke’s dark eyes, Mac pushed through in front of Jen and tapped George’s leg with his foot. ‘Coming through, champ, if you don’t mind.’

  George kept his legs where they were and the Thai eyeballed Mac.

  Mac looked straight back at him, wondering why Thais wore their gold chains on the outside of their T-shirts. There was a brief moment of bristling silence during which Mac decided the fi rst one to stand up got a straight right in the teeth.

  George broke the deadlock and, pulling his feet back, motioned them through like a courtier, saying, ‘Have a nice night, folks.’

  Mac grabbed Jen by the hand and pulled her into the dining area.

  Nine months had passed since Rachel was born and this was the fi rst time they’d gone out without her. Mac’s folks, Frank and Patricia, had been coming down every second weekend, but Jenny hadn’t wanted to use their in-law babysitting credits to go drinking. Mac said he didn’t understand that, and Jenny had replied that she wasn’t asking him to.

  They moved to wine, drank steadily, let the tension out. The altercation with George got Jenny talking about the old days, when she was working the narcotics detail out of Brisbane, and George Bartolo and his cousins were satisfying the Gold Coast’s endless desire for cocaine.

  Two penniless brothers - George’s father and uncle - had migrated from Sicily in the early 1960s, worked the concrete gangs in Sydney, bought their own truck, won the contracts for the big construction pours and then headed to Surfers Paradise to build their own dreams. By the 1980s they had a publicly listed development-construction-management company which owned hotels, apartment buildings and shopping centres across Australia and into Malaysia.

  Now they hobnobbed with politicians, campaigned winning horses at the Magic Millions and had built - as a gift to the city of the Gold Coast - a security compound for battered women and their kids.

  And between them, these two Aussie icons had fathered fi ve sons with nothing on their minds but easy money, fast cars and stupid women.

  Jenny had been part of the team that put away George, Christian and Luca Bartolo for the importation of twenty-three kilograms of cocaine. They’d fi ngered the mule - a Portuguese-Australian fi shing-boat owner - and sequestered him for three and a half days at his Southport unit, ignoring phone calls and early morning drive-bys and taking it in turns to keep the mule quiet. When a messenger masquerading as a pizza boy was sent over to pay a visit, the cops ordered the fi sherman not to open the door.

  The Bartolos held out almost until day four, but fi nally the lure of $18 million worth of drugs proved too much. They stormed the apartment, demanded the drugs, threatened the mule with handguns and almost hugged the twenty-three plastic packets that were sitting in a black Puma sports bag on the kitchen bench. Which was when Jenny’s crew stepped into view and arrested all three, the whole thing on tape and a Crown witness who stank of fi sh.

  ‘Surprised to see him here again?’ asked Mac, as the latest round of dishes arrived.

  Jenny shrugged. ‘He got nine years, six non-parole. Must’ve behaved himself.’

  Mac poured the last of the Wither Hills sauvignon blanc, dead-soldiered it in the ice bucket and nodded to the waiter for another.

  There was a candle in a red glass between them, the dying light of day fl ickered on the Pacifi c. Around them were fl ash women in big hairdos, pearls and high-rise heels, but looking at Jen in her Levis Mac reckoned he was ahead on points.

  Jen’s face had changed slightly since Rachel was born, a little less plump but with a lot more laugh lines. She was still very pretty. She was on twelve months’ maternity leave from the Feds, the end of which was eleven weeks away. Every bone in Mac’s new-father body wanted his wife to stay at home with Rachel, but he knew Jen was ready for that fi ght; ready like he was never going to be.

  ‘Sorry about uni,’ mumbled Mac. ‘And the freelance stuff - it’s routine work. Nothing to worry about.’

  Jenny smiled, sipped the wine. ‘It’s me you’re worried about, isn’t it, Macca?’

  He looked out over the sea and exhaled. Part of him wanted to tell her that he didn’t want her going back to being a frontline cop, not against the scumbags she dealt with. He’d grow
n up in a cop household and it was bad enough being a boy with a detective dad.

  He didn’t want Rachel having to wear all the crap that went with it.

  Mac could have done that whole song and dance - he’d sure rehearsed it enough. But he could also own up to who he’d married.

  He remembered the night he’d realised that his own family was not the neat patriarchy projected to Rockhampton. His mother Patricia had just gone back to Rockhampton Base Hospital where she was a senior nursing sister. Mac was ten and his sister, Virginia, eight and there’d been some mix-up one afternoon about who was supposed to pick up Ginny from her swimming squad. Frank had made sure the argument was all about his wife going back to work and Mac remembered lying in bed, hearing his mother say, ‘Well that’s who you married, mate. Why don’t we start with that?’

  Mac looked back from the window, they locked eyes and Jen smiled. Mac smiled back, raised his glass and felt a sigh rush between his teeth.

  ‘A toast,’ said Mac, raising his glass. ‘To mothers, wives and cops.’

  They clinked and drank, then Jenny got out of her chair, came around the table, kissed Mac on the left ear, put both arms around his neck and snuggled in. ‘I love you, Mr Macca,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘You’re a beautiful man.’

  They staggered slightly as they walked south on the Esplanade. Jenny’s right arm was across Mac’s shoulderblade and she leaned into his neck, the warm breeze off the beach blowing her scented hair and wine breath into his face. Jen was incredibly strong - she’d gone back to the pool when Rachel was one month old and was already swimming for an hour at a pace that Mac couldn’t hit for two laps.

  They made into the dark of Hedges Avenue, the beachfront road where the millionaires lived, when they both heard something and stopped as Jen put her hand up. Below the breeze they could hear a girl’s voice, pleading, sobbing. It was almost ten-thirty pm as they stared into the dark driveway of an apartment block under construction. Mac followed Jen as she started walking down the driveway. The sobbing came up again, this time with a yelp.

  ‘Hello,’ yelled Jenny. ‘Are you okay?’

  A plaintive, late-teens voice called, ‘Help me!’

  Jenny sprinted into the dark, heading towards a small light behind the builders’ dumpsters at the end of the alley. Mac followed, breathing shallow, body and brain on high alert, his instincts wanting to tell Jenny not to go in there. Further into the dark, and then under a small service lamp at the end of the alley, they rounded the dumpster and stopped. George Bartolo smiled back at them from where he was crouched beside the bin, holding a young blonde woman by the hair.

  Jenny shaped up to him as George stood and threw the girl aside, who almost fell over in her heels, the night breeze blowing her purple baby-doll dress up to her ribs.

  The girl looked at Mac, sniffed. ‘Sorry - it wasn’t my idea.’

  ‘You shut your fucking mouth!’ yelled George as Jenny moved closer, her fi sts clenched.

  Mac was putting his hand out to pull Jenny back when he felt cold, hard steel behind his left ear. Then there were three small clicks that could only come from one source. Slowly putting his hands out, Mac turned slightly to his left and saw the Thai at the other end of what looked like a silenced 9 mm handgun.

  ‘Jen,’ he shouted, but she didn’t hear him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ cried the fl oozy - manic-eyed with fucked sinuses

  - who was now panicking at the appearance of a gun.

  ‘ Jenny! ‘ yelled Mac.

  She turned, froze and stared at Mac, who gave her the look, but she didn’t run as he’d hoped.

  George moved in and stood too close to Jenny, hands on his hips.

  She turned back to face him while he made a show of looking down her muslin shirt and letting his fat tongue run along his bottom lip.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘It’s our little oinker.’

  As Jenny stood her ground, staring George in the eye, something welled in Mac. Pride and fear.

  ‘George is it?’ said Mac, keeping his hands where the Thai could see them, though he felt the silencer go in harder behind his ear.

  ‘What’s it to you, pig-lover?’ snarled George, not taking his eyes off Jenny.

  ‘Forget him, George. This is you and me,’ said Jen.

  The cocaine skank muttered something and her hand went to her face. Blood fl owed freely down her wrist.

  ‘Those Dunns or Lamas?’ continued Mac, nodding down at George’s silver-tipped, red and black boots.

  George fl inched for a split second, wanting to get vain about his fancy footwear but quickly snapping back to the hard-man.

  ‘Are you relating to me, eh, cop-fucker?’ George shifted his gaze to Mac, his bottom lip full and wet like a spoiled child’s. ‘Fuck’s sake, mate, I spent six years in fucking Woodford being related to every day

  - now you’re a fucking shrink too?’

  ‘Leave him out of this, George,’ said Jen, but Mac wanted eye contact, wanted to goad George into a comment that would make his wife snap. It wasn’t entirely risk-free, but a simple diversion was all he had to work with.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Mac. ‘Didn’t mean to insult you with the Charlie Dunn thing. They’re Tony Lama, right? Couldn’t be anything else.’

  George took his eyes off Jenny again, shifted his weight around her and eyeballed Mac. The drug lord’s eyes had that extreme paranoia that too much cocaine produces; he loved that someone had noticed his fi ve-thousand-dollar boots, but he suspected there was a piss-take in progress.

  In slow motion, Mac watched George reach into his pants, coming out with a large stainless-steel clasp knife.

  ‘You think I’m a joke, eh, pig-fucker?’ said George, opening the knife.

  ‘Leave him, George,’ said Jenny fi rmly as the knife came round to her heaving chest.

  ‘Nah mate,’ winked Mac. ‘Just spotting the boots. Or maybe they’re those Korean knock-offs. Been to the Penang Markets lately?’

  George’s eyes narrowed as Mac leaned forward slightly, hoping the Thai would lean with him, get him off-balance.

  The Thai leaned.

  ‘So, oinker,’ George said to Jenny, his eyes now homicidal. ‘This must be little Rachel’s dad? Cheeky cunt, isn’t -‘

  That’s all George got out before Jenny hit him in the mouth with a fast right hand. Mac swung up with his left hand, spun and pulled the Thai’s right gun-hand down, twisted it anti-clockwise. Whisking his right hand down, Mac grabbed the silencer and wrenched the handgun back on the Thai’s forearm as fast as he could, breaking the Thai’s fi nger and tearing his wrist tendons. The Thai dropped to his knees and, twisting the Thai’s gun-hand, Mac pushed the silencer right down past the forearm, put all his weight into it, breaking the Thai’s wrist joint and another fi nger as he went. The whole manoeuvre was over in two seconds and the Thai fell sideways, in shock.

  Mac threw the gun over the rear fence and turned to see the clasp knife spinning through the air, Jenny throwing a side kick at George’s left knee joint and the knee collapsing inwards as Jen followed through with a right elbow across the bridge of George’s nose. Blood sprayed everywhere as George went down, Jenny kicking him in the balls before he hit the ground. As Mac reached her, Jen kicked the drug dealer’s chin, snapping it back. Jenny was going for another kick when Mac grabbed her around the waist, lifting her as her foot snapped out at a point two inches short of shattering George’s jaw.

  ‘That’s enough, mate,’ said Mac as he pulled her away, her arms and legs still fl ailing.

  ‘Fucking let go of me!’ she screeched. ‘Let go!’

  Mac put her down as she swung a reverse-elbow at his head and turned on him. Eyes ablaze, nostrils fl aring, Jen tried to get around him to have another shot at George.

  ‘It’s over, Jen. Let’s move,’ he rasped, heaving for air.

  Jenny looked into him as her breath came ragged and hoarse like a cornered animal. ‘Can’t threaten a girl’s family, Macc
a. Not how it works,’ she said, then turned and stomped into the night.

  Mac surveyed the scene as he caught his breath. His training had different imperatives to Jen’s, like: don’t leave a trail, don’t get caught, don’t draw the cops, don’t give a government anything to go on.

  He looked at the coke skank, blood smeared around her mouth and chin. She looked back at him with drugged blue eyes, shaking all over despite the warmth of the night.

  Mac looked down at George, who was unconscious, and the Thai, who was weeping and writhing on his knees, his right arm mangled.

  The girl pulled a weird narcotic smile. ‘Shit, man - that your wife?’

  Mac shrugged, wondering if he should fi nd that gun and wipe it.

  ‘Fucking awesome,’ nodded the skank.

  Mac walked the babysitter home, only half listening as she chattered on about which senior cert subjects she was taking, the uni entrance marks she needed, which university she wanted an offer from and what career she was hoping to follow - all the stuff they loaded onto seventeen-year-olds these days. At her door Mac slipped the girl two twenty-dollar notes, thanked her and went in search of the nearest bottle-o.

  When he got back to their townhouse, Jenny was on the back balcony, slugging on a VB, staring out over the trees that fronted the roaring sea. ‘I spoke with Frank. He’s sorting it,’ she said softly, looking at him.

  Mac nodded, not quite understanding how it worked between cops. All he knew was that Frank had contacts in the Queensland Police and if he’d told Jen to sit tight and let him do the running, then that was probably the way to go.

  Jenny said she had to step out, get some things, but Mac had beaten her to it. He threw the smokes and the lighter on the balcony table. Jenny mouthed the word thanks but didn’t look at him.

  ‘More beers in the fridge,’ he said, the adrenaline still washing out of him.