by Luke Preston
‘Who is it?’ he called.
A few moments of silence were followed by a few moments more. Bishop took his weapon from the top of the fridge and moved up to the door.
‘Who is it?’ he called again.
A high-pitched voice pierced through the wood. ‘Hey, Bishop. Bishop, it’s Two Dog, man.’
Bishop, sighing with annoyance, let his gun hand drop.
‘It’s okay,’ he called back to Alice as he slipped on his leather jacket. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
Two Dog’s eyes avoided everything, and when he spoke his shoulders spoke with him, bouncing up and down with the staccato rhythm of his speech. ‘I, yeah man, I was looking into that, you know that thing. With the guy, from the thing, you know that you busted—’
‘Relax.’
Two Dog’s gaze fell to his filthy sneakers and lingered there a moment. His appearance alone told the story of a life on the street. The slumped shoulders, the hardened skin from a decade of nights in the winter and days in the sun. The scars from the beatings he didn’t start or have a say in. The clothes stolen from second-hand stores, none of which fitted. He was an informant, a rat. Bishop knew twenty guys just like him. They were people with an ear to the street and their whole lives in the gutter: prostitutes, junkies, thieves. They all heard little pieces of this and that and sold off what they heard for a fee or suspended sentence. Over the years Bishop had built a football team of human intelligence and a couple of weeks ago he’d sent word that he was looking for the person who’d run the brothel at the Oak Park Apartments. All he’d got so far was bullshit and dead ends. He figured Two Dog was armed with one or the other.
Two Dog looked up and down the empty hall and over his shoulder, as if the nothingness that had been there the whole time suddenly frightened him. ‘I got something,’ he whispered, holding out a scrunched-up piece of paper.
Bishop took it from him, read the name written on it and shook his head. ‘Bullshit.’
‘Nah. Nah, the guy that told me, known him for ages. He’s on the level, deadset. Used to run bitches with this one. Up in Fawkner five, six years ago. But this prick …’ He pointed to the tattered paper. ‘This one done him over and he did a stretch. Got out couple of weeks ago.’ Two Dog danced without moving his feet. Bopping from one side to the other, rubbing his hands together as though trying to keep warm. Aching for a hit. ‘Can I have my money now, please?’
‘Goodnight, Dog.’ Bishop turned to go back inside. He was halfway through the door when Two Dog stopped him dead in his tracks:
‘I swear this Justice is the man you want.’
Bishop turned back on him. ‘What was that? What did you say?’
‘I don’t know; it’s what my man calls him.’
Apart from the sounds of gunfire and screams, the word Justice was the only thing Bishop had heard that night at the Oak Park Apartments.
He looked again at the piece of paper in his hand. It was the type of information that was best forgotten; if you couldn’t forget about it, then you’d need to be prepared to lay your balls on the line, because your balls were what it was going to cost.
The name on the paper was Judge James Jenkins.
*
‘I always thought you’d drive something with a little more grunt,’ Two Dog said.
He had taken Alice’s hatchback instead of his own car. Bishop had picked it up second-hand a few weeks before and she had been complaining that the engine was shuddering whenever she took it past third gear. It was pink.
Bishop gave him a filthy look.
‘Not that there’s anything wrong with it,’ Two Dog said. ‘I was just sayin’.’
They picked Ellison up from her parents house. It was her dad’s birthday but she said she didn’t mind leaving. The three of them didn’t say much on the ride over and twenty minutes later they were in Flemington.
The commission flats loomed overhead as they climbed out of the car. Bishop craned his neck, trying to take in the enormity of these decaying structures. Twenty storeys apiece, complete with smashed windows, they had the same fuck off attitude of the people who lived in them. Bishop dug his hands into his pockets and started forward, then after a couple of steps turned to find Two Dog lingering on the kerb, shuffling his feet and mumbling.
‘What are you doing?’ Bishop asked. ‘Let’s go.’
Two Dog looked away, fixing his gaze instead on the shell of a Volkswagen dumped across the street in what used to be a playground. ‘I’m not going up, man. Fuck it.’
Bishop lit a cigarette. ‘Just an introduction.’
‘Then we’ll get you your cash,’ Ellison said.
Two Dog straightened up. He ran his fingers through his mangy hair, grabbed at his balls. Apparently they were still there. ‘Lets go, then.’
They followed him through the yard of broken glass while the teenage wannabe gangsters decorating the lobby stared them out.
Going after a judge was not something to be done lightly. Especially Judge James Jenkins; back before he was head of the room, he was one of the most notorious defence attorneys in the city. He once proved a man innocent of murder after two eyewitnesses had already proved him guilty. His notoriety was only heightened when he became a judge. He was relentless with details and any cop who stood before him did so with a lump in their throat. No one fucked with Jenkins because, in the end, they knew they were the ones who would end up getting fucked.
The elevator doors opened and they stepped out with the stench of piss following them. The eighteenth floor was no different to the rest, with one long external walkway that wrapped itself around the building. It was empty except for Bishop, Ellison and Two Dog, but they weren’t alone; from behind the doors, music and voices faded in and out, while the curtains of every second window shifted as they passed them.
Reaching a door at the far end, Two Dog knocked.
‘What’s this guy’s name?’ Bishop asked.
‘Domino.’
‘He got a last name?’
‘If he does, I don’t know it.’
Halfway through a second round of knocking, the door opened a crack and a bloodshot eye peered out at them. ‘What you want, Dog?’
‘Yo, man, I brought some people to see yer.’
The bloodshot eye looked Bishop up and down. ‘They look like cops.’
‘We are cops.’
The door slammed.
Two Dog wasn’t impressed. He looked at Bishop, shook his head.
‘Well, we are,’ Bishop said matter-of-factly.
Two Dog banged on the door again. ‘Yo, this pig wants to know ’bout Justice, man.’
They waited. At last, again, the door opened a crack.
‘You know Joe’s Fish ’n’ Chips down the road?’
Two Dog nodded.
‘Alley, out the back. One hour.’
Chapter Thirty-One
A couple of headlights emerged from the mouth of the alley, lighting up the mangled shopping carts and trash that lined either side. Then Bishop caught sight of Domino’s silhouette moving through the darkness. He was the size of a refrigerator and could probably punch a hole in the side of one if need be.
‘Sit in the back,’ Bishop said to Two Dog, his breath visible in the cold night air.
‘What? Why?’
‘Because he said so,’ Ellison said. ‘Now get in the back.’
Two Dog jumped into the back seat. The door opened and Domino climbed inside. He had a wound across his face that ran from his chin to his hairline. It was no more than a couple of days old and looked like it had been stitched by Frankenstein.
‘What happened to you?’ Bishop asked.
Domino shot him a glance that would make most men shit their pants. ‘Same thing that’ll happen to you if you don’t watch your mouth.’
‘Relax. You can hardly notice it.’
Two Dog hung between them. ‘Can I have my money now, please?’
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Domino snapped. ‘I s
hould kick your arse all over the flats for bringing these pigs around.’
Two Dog slumped back in his seat and kept his mouth shut. Domino turned his attention to Bishop.
‘So what are you going to do for me?’ he asked.
‘To be honest, probably not much,’ Bishop said. ‘Depends on what you know and what you want.’
Domino flicked the sun visor down and looked at the new addition to his face in the mirror. He ran his fingers over the lumpy scabs.
‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘I’ll just tell yer. The more people gunnin’ for this motherfucker, the better.’ He flicked the visor up. ‘Seven, eight years back, I got dicked on this agg assault thing. Jenkins was me mouthpiece, got it played back to a suspended sentence. A couple of months later, he came at me with this business arrangement. Said he had access to high-class, under-age arse. Runaways and whatnot that were working the street and gettin’ beaten up an’ shit. He wanted me to run the cunt and he’d provide fresh girls and keep the fuzz clear.’
‘How’d he do that?’
‘Fucked if I know. But we never had any problems. All I know is, I kept the girls in line and that was my end.’
‘What was Jenkins’ cut?’
‘Sixty. And he had this thing where he always wanted to know if the girls were safe, if they needed anything. Fuck the sluts, I always thought, but he was funny like that, as if he was some sort of whore caseworker or something. At one stage we had twenty-five bitches working for us, then the motherfucker got his greed on. Wanted a seventy/thirty cut; I mean, fuck that. Just for bringing in snatch and keeping the pigs at bay? I told him to go fuck himself.’ Domino’s heavy head shook from side to side. ‘Motherfucking cocksucker,’ he mumbled. ‘He put me the fuck down. Pigs kicked the door in. Found this thirteen-year-old piece of tang I was keepin’.’
‘They tend to frown on that type of thing.’
‘Did six for stat rape.’
Bishop tried to put on a sympathetic face, but wasn’t quite pulling it off. He lit a cigarette instead. ‘You’re saying it was Judge Jenkins you were working with?’
‘Hell yeah, I’m saying that. Motherfucker’s still live, too. Bigger then ever. Got bush all over the city. Heard one of his beaver holes got busted up a couple months back.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Two Dog chimed in.’ That was Bishop here, man.’
Domino was impressed. ‘That you? All Rambo an’ shit.’
Bishop nodded.
‘Well, in that case I’d like to shake your hand.’ He held out his and Bishop shook it. ‘Still, motherfucking pigs bust up my pussy, better watch out I take that shit to heart. Like with this Jenkins prick: I would have dimmed the fat bastard years ago, but nobody believes my type and, besides, I ain’t no fucking rat.’
‘What are you doing now?’ Ellison said. ‘You sound like a rat to me.’
Domino sized her up. ‘Mmm. I reckon I could get a hundred and fifty an hour for you. Maybe even two hundred.’
‘Well,’ Ellison said. ‘If this throwing scumbags and pimps in jail gig doesn’t
work out for me I’ll keep that in mind.’
He shifted back to Bishop. ‘I’m telling you, this motherfucker’s got a monopoly on the market. I’m just out for what’s mine. Anyway …’ He cast a glance in the mirror again. ‘I’ve already played it the street way. I figure, throw you into the mix and maybe it’ll make my job a little easier.’
Bishop sucked back one last drag and put out his cigarette. ‘Well, Domino, that’s an interesting story.’
‘You sayin’ I’m full of shit?’
‘Nope, I’m not saying that. I’m not saying that at all. But you’ve told me a story. What am I meant to do with a story? I need evidence.’
‘I’ll give you evidence. Get me a pen.’
Bishop motioned to the glove box. Domino opened it and rummaged through until he found a pink fluffy pen which matched the colour of the vehicle.
Domino looked at it sideways. ‘Have you thought about maybe getting a new set of wheels?’
Two Dog stuck his head between them. ‘That’s what I was saying.’
Bishop stared Two Dog down until he leant back into the chair and kept his mouth shut. Domino got to work writing as fast as he could.
‘What are they: your memoirs?’ Bishop asked.
‘It’s the name of every bitch Jenkins ever brought me, and I’ll bet you a slab they all had the same shitbag of a lawyer.’
‘You remember all of their names?’
‘Never forget a cunt,’ he said. ‘Never forget a cunt.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ellison’s fingers attacked the keyboard and cross-checked every name Domino had written on the back of the fuel receipt in his childlike handwriting.
When she was finished she leant back in her chair and looked to Bishop. ‘It checks out. All the girls had one thing in common: their counsel was James Jenkins.’
Bishop stood up and paced a couple of steps through the empty office. His mind raced with a thousand ways this could go wrong.
Ellison stood, stretched out her legs and leant against the desk. ‘So, what do we do?’
Bishop gathered the files and they headed upstairs to the eleventh floor.
Patrick Wilson’s office was a mess of manila folders stacked waist high and boxes of three-day-old Chinese takeway that was about to turn.
He pointed at the folders under Bishop’s arm. ‘You better not be leaving those fucking things in here.’
‘I wouldn't want to mess the place up.’
‘I don’t want to be hearing anything out of your mouth about no whorehouse conspiracy, you hear me?’
Bishop stepped forward. ‘I’ve got something you should see.’
Wilson threw up his hands. ‘I’m begging you. I’m fucking begging you, Bishop. Please, tell me you’ve walked in with a kiddie porn beef or something, because I can’t hear any more about this obsession of yours.’
There was no warming up to it, so Bishop didn’t bother. ‘There’s more to it than what we wrote up.’
Wilson’s face dropped. ‘Why do you give a fuck? It’s closed. And you’ve got plenty of others to keep you busy.’
‘There’s no way those imports could’ve run a set-up like that, not a chance in hell and you know it. It was too well organised.’
‘It’s finished. Forget it.’
‘If it’s finished then who’s Justice?’
‘A bloody myth, that’s who.’
‘Just have a look at what we’ve found.’
Wilson shot a glance at Ellison. ‘He’s got you in on this as well?’
She avoided the question with a shrug.
He turned back to Bishop. ‘Don’t you dare try to bring this case back from the dead. Look around.’ He motioned to the stacks of folders surrounding them. ‘Every one of these is some horrible piece of shit that’s in need of clearing. I can’t have you bringing back some old, already-solved shit and making it unsolvable.’
Bishop nodded to the folders under his arm. ‘Just have a look,’ he said. ‘If you think it adds up to nothing, you won’t hear another word about it.’
‘Never?’
‘Not a syllable.’
Wilson sat down and for the next fifteen minutes didn’t say a word. All he did was watch and listen as Bishop told him everything. From Two Dog to Domino, to the prostitutes, Judge Jenkins and back down again. When he was finished, Bishop was out of breath and covered in sweat. He lit a cigarette, pulled back and waited for Wilson’s response.
Eventually he spoke and when he did it was to Ellison. ‘Where do you stand on this?’
‘I think we should forget all about it.’
Wilson turned to Bishop. ‘You should listen to your partner.’
‘Thirty girls are probably dead by now. Surely—’
‘Even if you’re near anything resembling the truth, and I don’t think you are, you can’t go after a judge.’
‘Why?’
‘You�
��ve got no evidence. All you’ve got is a couple of dead girls, maybe. Go down to Homicide and see how many decomps they’re dealing with. Besides Chloe Richards, you don’t even have bodies, for Christ’s sake. Just disappearances. You go at Jenkins with this weak shit and he’ll put you to sleep.’ He pointed a yellowed finger. ‘Be smart and don’t fuck around.’
‘And if I get more evidence?’
‘There is no more evidence. This is a coincidence. Do you know how many criminals there are? They have to be represented by somebody. You’re grasping at goddamn fairies in the air, Tom. And you know what? Fairies don’t fuckin’ exist.’
‘What if I—?’
‘Jesus fucking Christ. I feel like I’m talking to myself here.’ Wilson let out a long sigh. ‘I’m asking you as a friend not to go after this judge, and I’m telling you as chief inspector: don’t go after this judge.’
*
They parked outside Dorsey and waited. A tram rattled down Spring Street, blocking his view, but once it passed, Bishop’s gaze settled back on the art deco building. All the stations programmed on Alice’s radio played songs he didn’t recognise and were giving him a headache so he turned it off.
‘This is a bad, bad idea,’ Ellison said. ‘I’m going to go home, drink a bottle of wine and forget about everything. I think you should do the same.’
Bishop hardly noticed when she climbed out and slammed the door.
The Dorsey was filled with some of the most powerful people in the city. Bishop counted three politicians, two CEOs, and one Judge James Jenkins sitting in a booth against the black velvet-draped wall.
As Bishop entered, the maître d sized him up in his jeans and leather and held up a bony hand. ‘Sir, I’m sorry. It’s going to be a forty-five-minute wait.’
Bishop shut him up with a flash of his shield and stepped into the dining room. Somewhere a violin sent soft notes floating over the chatter of the city’s elite, all of whom fell silent as Bishop made his way between the tables. Judge Jenkins was a big man who had let himself go, but Bishop doubted the extra weight had slowed him down any. He took his time lifting his gaze from his glass of port. Despite his title and stature, he was one of the few men of power to hardly ever wear a tie, only expensive shirts from London and even more expensive suits from Milan. Both made him look ten years younger, but Bishop could see the age in his eyes. ‘Can I help you, son?’