by Peter Corris
I pointed to my mouth. ‘Got a bad tooth, Paul?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘and a temper to match. Let’s stop pissing around. You know things and we know things and it makes good sense for us to work together.’
Ray hauled Bruce away and came back after a few minutes with a six-pack of VB cans. He tossed a can to me and one to Paul, who gestured for him to leave the rest.
‘Piss off, Ray, and look after Bruce. Get Hardy’s keys off him and bring them in here. If Bruce acts up you know what to do.’
I opened the can and took a drink. ‘What should he do?’
‘Bruce is an epileptic. What you did to him might set him off. He might need his medication and holding down.’
‘If I’d known that I’d have tackled Ray.’
Paul swallowed a good half of his beer in two gulps and sucked at his bad tooth. ‘Water under the bridge. Let’s get down to business.’
‘I don’t know who killed Miller.’
‘Have a guess as if your life depended on it.’
I sipped the beer and thought about it. I didn’t think my life was at serious or immediate risk. This was no mindless petrol-head hooked on speed and violence. Without having the faintest idea of what it might be, I sensed that he had another agenda. I watched as he finished his can and registered with surprise that his fingernails were clean, relatively. I wondered if his comrades had noticed.
‘Glad to see you’re thinking hard,’ Paul said. ‘Take your time.’
He fumbled in a pocket of his sleeveless denim jacket, fished out two pills and swallowed them dry.
‘Tooth bothering you?’ I said.
‘Yeah. Would you believe I’m scared of dentists? Struck some butchers when I was young.’
‘It’s painless these days. Greatest achievement of the twentieth century, along with being able to pause live TV.’
He snorted. ‘You can’t fuckin’ snake-charm me, Hardy. What’s it to be?’
I decided. I finished the beer and set the can down on the floor. ‘I’m reaching for my wallet, okay?’
He nodded, but he kept control of the pistol as he had throughout our exchange. I took Hawes’s note from my wallet, smoothed it out and handed it to him.
‘What’s this?’
I sketched matters in for him, with not too much detail and no names, enough to let him see that the police GCU was a player in a game that involved the corruption of officials and businessmen and almost certainly politicians as well. Canny man that he was, he listened without interrupting. When I’d finished he tapped the note.
‘Who wrote this?’
‘A cop, part of the GCU but not happy.’
‘Name?’
I waggled my head from side to side and took another can from the pack. ‘Have to be some mutual guarantees here, Paul. Some safeguards.’
‘Against what?’
‘Well, say, against the suspicion that someone in my position might have that you killed Dusty to get control of his gun stash.’
That got me my first real surprised reaction from him. ‘Shit, Hardy,’ he said, ‘talk about a conspiracy theory.’
‘Sometimes they’re on the money.’
He moved his head to get a better look at the half-open door and tilted it as if listening for any movement from beyond it. Then he dropped his voice.
‘You’re way off beam. I’m not interested in Dusty’s gun business. I don’t know where he kept his guns. No one did.’
‘Wasn’t it covered by the CCTV?’
‘No, Dusty was a super-suspicious bastard.’
‘I thought you blokes were more fraternal than that.’
Still speaking quietly, he said, ‘Oh, he shared the money out all right. Had to. So forget that idea. I’ve got other plans. Have another guess.’
‘It looks as if there’s a rogue element. A sort of offshoot, if you’ll excuse the expression, from this police unit. They’re not so much interested in combating gun crime as controlling it for their own ends.’
‘Again, I’d like to hear some bloody names.’
I shrugged. ‘No idea who the big fish are. The only two I know are very low level, the lowest, and not part of the deal. I’m not going to talk about them until we reach an understanding. I don’t know how to contact them anyway, and they might not even know who’s who. It might only be one or two ex-cops doing the dirty work with others covering for them.’
‘That sounds like guesswork.’
‘That’s what you asked for.’
‘Christ, you’re a slippery bastard.’
‘So are you. What’s your game? You’ve got something going. If it’s not to do with guns, what is it?’
He opened another can and took a drink. ‘Pills’ve kicked in, thank Christ. All right, I’ll tell you this much. I . . .’
‘Easy,’ I said. ‘Sure the room’s not bugged?’
For a split second, with his pain easing, he reacted, his eyes flicking around the shabby room before he recovered.
‘Fuck you. Dusty was more than just a brother—he was the boss. Now I’m trying to be chief of the Bravados because I’ve got some plans. Long-term. I’m okay for now but I’ll be rock solid if I can nail whoever killed Dusty. So I’ll guarantee your personal safety and the safety of anyone you say is okay if you help me with that.’
‘And how can you help me?’
‘Point us in the right direction. We can watch people, follow them, frighten them.’
‘Maybe, but you can’t go around killing cops or even ex-cops.’
‘Accidents happen.’
It was my time for meeting hard men to read, like Greenhall, like this one. Against all outward signs I had an impulse to trust him—at least to see where doing that took me.
‘So they do. You’d better keep that in mind yourself. How do we stay in touch?’
‘We’ve got this lawyer in Sydney—through him. Here’s his card.’
‘Where are we now, Paul?’
He grinned. ‘Penrith, but it’s not somewhere I’ll necessarily ever be again.’
‘Won’t it look like weakness if you let me go?’
‘It would but that’s not what’s going to happen.’ He gestured with the pistol. ‘Finish your beer and come outside.’
There was too much in the can for me to finish it quickly so I kept it in my hand as I left the room. Outside, a group of Bravados was gathered around the edges of a patch of scruffy grass about the size of a boxing ring. One of them bore a close resemblance to Bruce but was shorter and wider. Paul pointed to him.
‘This is Terry. He’s Bruce’s brother and he reckons he’s got a score to settle.’
Paul snapped his fingers and Ray tossed him my car keys. Paul lobbed them so that they fell at Terry’s feet. ‘There’s your way out if you can get ’em.’
‘You’re a romantic,’ I said.
Paul shrugged. ‘And you’re a wanker.’
His voice had resumed the roughness that had fallen away when he’d been talking to me privately. The man was an actor.
Terry said, ‘You took Brucie by surprise.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. I threw the can hard at his head, closed the gap between us in two steps and kicked him solidly in the crotch. He screamed; I pivoted and slammed my right elbow into the side of his head. He went down as if he’d been hamstrung. I scooped up my keys, walked to the Falcon and reversed it fast down the track with my hand hard on the horn as a parting insult.
12
They could easily have jumped on their bikes and come after me but they didn’t. I spun around at the end of the track, took the first turn I came to and the next two until I found myself on tarmac. I fought the urge to speed and slowed down through the suburban streets. A few more turns and I was signposted to Penrith’s CBD.
I drove slowly, enjoying what felt like the comradeship of the traffic, until I spotted a pub. Parking spaces galore. I pulled in and took a deep breath. The light was fading as the sun slipped down towards the moun
tain barrier from where the sunlit plains extended. I realised I was mentally babbling with relief. What if Paul hadn’t retrieved and positioned the keys? What if Terry had got the better of me? What kind of arrangement had I entered into?
I went into the pub, got a double scotch and ordered a steak sandwich. I needed the comfort of the alcohol and the blotting effect of the food. Then coffee, plenty of coffee. Looking back, I had to admire Paul. He’d orchestrated things perfectly, put me under pressure but not to an extreme point. I’d kept my wallet and my mobile phone and he’d arranged for me to get to my car if I was up to it. He said he knew a few things about me; maybe he knew that someone who’d boxed, soldiered and survived in my profession for so long could handle a couple of angry, unprepared bikies.
I’d turned my mobile off when I’d left home. Now I turned it on and saw there were a couple of calls and texts. Megan had called asking when I was likely to visit. I rang and told her I’d try to visit in the morning. Viv Garner wanted to know if I’d got my gun back. I left the message that I had. One text was from Frank Parker. Hilde had evidently told him I’d called. All he said was that a shake-up was in progress and to keep my distance.
The other was from Cathy Carter, asking me to ring her urgently. I speared and ate a last chip and looked thoughtfully at my empty glass before pushing it aside and calling her number.
Her voice, previously low-pitched, was several notches higher. ‘Mr Hardy, we need your help.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Colin and me. He’s been assaulted . . . bashed.’
‘How badly?’
‘Not sure. I’m at Casualty at RPA. He’s having tests.’
‘Are the police involved?’
‘Think what you’re saying. I’m using a throwaway phone. I hope yours is secure.’
‘Who knows? Stay there. I’m in Penrith. It’ll take me a while to get to you. What’ve you told the staff there?’
‘That he fell. It’s true, as far as it goes.’
‘Is either of you in uniform?’
‘No. They’re incredibly busy here. There’s been some kind of street brawl in Camperdown.’
‘Good. Stick close to other people. I’ll get there as soon as I can.’
Casualty at RPA was buzzing with doctors and nurses rushing around while people waited to be seen, some bandaged, some with heads drooping towards their laps and nodding off from fatigue or drugs or alcohol, or all three. Cathy Carter, in jeans and a rugby shirt, was hunched over her iPad. She was at the end of a row of seats and I squatted down next to her.
‘Hello, Cathy, have you heard any more?’
She nearly fell out of the chair and the tablet would have fallen if I hadn’t caught it. She reached for me and our heads almost bumped.
‘Fractured skull with pressure problems. They’re going to operate. They’re amazed that he was upright when I got him here. He collapsed during the examination.’
The woman sitting next to her moved away to give me her chair. I nodded my thanks and sat, putting my arm around Cathy’s shoulders.
‘Take it easy. A bloke like him’ll come though it okay. What happened?’
‘He was bashed. He said two of them, in balaclavas, broke into my place. I wasn’t there. They bashed him with . . .’
‘Batons?’
‘No, those bloody great torches that weigh a ton. He said they only got in one good hit before he fought them off. He says he nearly crippled one of them and was about to deal with the other one but then he fell. The one he hurt was bleeding and moaning and the other one took him away. When I got back Colin was bleeding himself from a bad cut.’ She touched the top of her head. ‘He said he was all right but his eyes went funny and I drove him here. Jesus, those bastards!’
It wasn’t the time to ask her how much she knew about what Hawes had been doing to bring this on. We waited and waited the way you do in Casualty. You can go up to the window and ask for more information as much as you like but they’ll tell you only what they want to when they decide they can, and you’ve got no comeback.
The crowd thinned but others trickled in, now the people of the night—male and female, the very old and the very young. The weird thing was that, whatever the disparity between them in terms of sex and age, there was a sameness. They were damaged and the ones that brought them in sometimes looked only a little less damaged themselves.
I bought coffee from the machine twice and we drank it, although it tasted more of the plastic it came in than of coffee. Cathy started to wilt and she slumped against me, apologising for her weakness.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘You’ve saved the man’s life.’
‘So I’ve saved my husband’s life,’ she murmured. ‘That’s what a wife’s supposed to do, isn’t it?’
‘Husband?’
‘We’re married and you’re the only other person in the whole fucking wide world that knows, Cliff Hardy.’
‘I’m honoured.’
‘You’re honoured,’ she said. ‘What are you, a fucking knight of the round table?’
‘Exactly,’ I said.
She laughed. A doctor in scrubs and an anxious-looking nurse approached us.
‘Ms Carter,’ the nurse said. ‘This is Doctor Selim Bashir.’
‘I’ve operated on Mr Hawes,’ the doctor said, ‘and he’s been put in an induced coma. I’m afraid we just have to wait and see how he responds from this point on.’
I took Cathy back to my place and went very carefully through my security procedures. She almost smiled when she saw me load the .38 and leave it where I could grab it quickly as I checked everything twice.
I showed her the spare room that Hawes had slept in a couple of nights back. I gave her a towel and a T-shirt and she reached up and kissed me on a cheek that would have been like a wire brush. I took the .38 with me and stretched out on the bed, shoeless but otherwise fully clothed. After the long and eventful day I was tired but my head was buzzing with the developing problems and dangers and I couldn’t sleep until the beginnings of the early morning traffic noise lulled me off for a few hours.
Cathy slept late. I rang Megan and told her I couldn’t get there that morning because something had come up.
‘Very informative,’ she said. ‘Something hard?’
‘Hard enough, as the actress . . .’
‘Don’t. Any way Hank or I can help?’
‘Can you hack into a very, very secure police data repository?’
‘Of course not. Why are you so often at odds with the cops, Cliff? Aren’t you supposed to be on the same side?’
‘I wish I knew,’ I said. ‘The force seems to have nourished some rough players.’
‘What’s it all about?’
I was upfront with Megan on a lot of things but not on this, not with guns and bashings in the mix. ‘Money,’ I said. ‘Tell Ben I’m reading up on dinosaurs.’
‘I have to warn you, he’s taking an interest in aeronautics now.’
I heard Cathy showering as I made coffee. She came down looking fresh, the way small, blonde women with short hair can. My four-burner toaster only works on two slots. I busied myself preparing four slices of toast and heating a small jug of milk in the microwave and judging when to lower the coffee plunger. Cathy sat and watched me.
‘Domesticated, aren’t you?’
She was all set to take out her worries and frustrations on me. Some people are like that, but I wasn’t going to let it happen.
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘so domesticated I spent most of yesterday being kidnapped by a pack of bikies because I suspect some of your colleagues, or ex-colleagues, had offed their leader with extreme prejudice. It was all about guns.’
She said nothing while I finished what I was doing and just nodded when I offered her coffee. We sat drinking hot flat whites and eating toast for a few minutes, thinking our own thoughts.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to sound so shitty. You’ve been very good. Can I use your phone
to call the hospital?’
I nodded. She went to the phone in the living room and came back quickly.
‘No change.’
‘There was no media around when you went in, was there?’
‘No, or if there was it was concentrated on the brawl victims. It was low-key for us at first and then everything went pear-shaped in the examining room. You think he’s still in danger from . . . whoever?’
‘I don’t know, but I’ve got a rich client who could afford a guard if it became necessary.’
She pushed her mug and plate away. ‘You’d better explain that. And what’s this about bikies?’
‘It was on the news—Dusty Miller, the Bravado boss, killed in Katoomba.’
She closed her eyes. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘It fits.’
She explained that the GCU was originally divided into geographically based areas of command—northern beaches, western suburbs and Blue Mountains, city and eastern suburbs, and south.
‘Colin survived the big 2013 bust-up in the unit because there was nothing against him and he was so good at the proper job. He thought things would be better but he became concerned about . . . other stuff.’
‘I know a bit about this, Cath,’ I said. ‘From what he told me.’
‘Okay. He was very stressed when we . . . got together. He had to talk to someone and he told me things about the cover-up of what the unit had done before.’
‘And?’
‘Particularly bad stuff in the Blue Mountains.’
I had to be careful. I didn’t know how much Hawes had told her. Obviously something, but what?
‘What stuff?’
‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t say.’
‘Bad stuff previously or still going on?’
Her glance was angry. ‘Do you think I’m stupid? I know there’s something bloody awful going on. I just don’t know what. Colin wouldn’t tell me. He just said the western division officers had been the real cowboys.’
‘He talked a bit wildly,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t sure how to take what he said. I liked him well enough, but he was . . .’
‘Just a uniform. I know how contemptuous people like you are about us.’