by Berry, Tony
TWENTY-SIX
ARRIVAL at Tullamarine was the usual protracted routine masquerading as efficiency. Bromo slotted into the long trudge along narrow corridors that broadened into a downward sloping concourse funnelling everyone towards an abrupt stop at a wide barricade of immigration checkpoints.
There were two customs officers at the desk, one seated, the other standing close by. The seated one, bearded and swarthy, took Bromo’s passport and gave him an unblinking stare. Bromo stared back, offering a facial blank page he hoped was free of blemishes or suspicions. The other officer, lean and lugubrious, leaned forward and whispered something. The seated one listened but retained his stare. Bromo held firm; he knew the tactic; it was designed to unsettle and unnerve.
The standing one eased back, tall and erect. The seated one handed Bromo his passport and gave the faintest glimmer of a smile.
‘Enjoy your stay, Mr Perkins.’
Bromo bit back a rebuke. I’m not a bloody tourist; I live here. It would serve no purpose. It was the sort of comment they loved; an excuse to make a tedious process even more tardy. Bromo passed through the gap between desks, making for the slope down into the crowded baggage hall. The tall customs man leaned towards him yet still looked straight ahead.
‘Welcome back … and mind how you go.’
The words were squeezed out from the corner of his mouth. Bromo only just heard them. It was enough: a message, or a warning; he wasn’t sure which, but either set his nerves on edge. It showed the watchers were still on to him. He caught a glimpse of his nerdy travelling companion over to the left. The man had come through the express clearance lane and was striding purposefully towards the exit accompanied by an older, thick-set man in a dark blue raincoat, unbuttoned and flapping its tails behind him. Bromo watched them weave their way through two bunches of aircrew and turn left just before the passenger exit. That way lay the administrative offices, the nerve centre for immigration, customs and security. Bromo’s anxiety level edged up a notch. He scanned the baggage hall for possible observers but saw no likely candidates. The carousels started to move, people crowded forward, sniffer dogs walked among the luggage, bags were loaded on to trolleys. Ahead was yet another queue to be endured as flight-weary passengers wheeled their way past more dogs and quarantine officers, humping their bags from trolley to conveyor belt and back on to their trolley. The couple behind Bromo whinged loudly about the tedious procedure and let everyone know how they had breezed through the “Nothing to Declare” channels at Heathrow.
‘Just think yourself lucky you’re in Melbourne, not Sydney,’ snapped Bromo. ‘It can take two hours to get through there.’
‘Yeah, well …’ muttered the man behind him.
Bromo smirked, surprised at his little outburst. He understood the couple’s annoyance and frustration but had little patience with critics of his adopted hometown. They should try fighting their way past some of the aggressive bureaucrats he’d had to deal with at airports where harassing travellers had become a national pastime. Melbourne’s unsmiling customs officers and a couple of sniffer dogs were soft yakka compared to that lot.
Bromo fought against an errant wheel on his trolley and steered his way through the sliding doors into the throng waiting to meet-and-greet new arrivals. His eyes obeyed the natural tendency to scan the mass of faces. It was an action of caution rather than expectation; there would be no waiting friends or relatives waving cards or bouquets. Nonetheless he scanned the crowd. So much anxiety, cheerfulness, grief, apprehension, joy, optimism, intrigue, romance and chicanery intermingled in such a small space. So much noise of cheers, laughs, shouts and screams. Hugs and kisses, handshakes and embraces surrounded him. He put his head down and looked ahead, ploughing a furrow through the crush.
‘This way, Mr Perkins.’
The man appeared as if from nowhere at Bromo’s side. He rested a hand firmly in the small of Bromo’s back; the other grasped the trolley handle and helped him steer it towards the exit doors. The man smiled broadly, a band of white teeth gleaming in a swarthy face, as if greeting an old friend. His voice was soft and calming but his words were a command.
‘We have a car waiting.’
There was no time to resist. Another man emerged, falling into step on his other flank and placing a hand on the trolley handle. Bromo felt hemmed in. He glanced quickly over his shoulder. Another man, of similar dark appearance to the others, was close behind. He was being forced forward with no outward signs of pressure or violence; just another dazed long-haul arrival being welcomed and helped by close friends. He was hemmed in by three nondescript men in casual clothes, two in jeans and t-shirt and the other in a classy tracksuit. They were four mates making their way through the failing light of evening over the pedestrian crossing and towards the multi-storey car park. They were waved on by traffic marshals controlling the frenzy of taxis, private cars and coaches that were forbidden to stop for more than a couple of minutes.
Bromo flicked his eyes to right and left, seeking escape across the open space before they entered the concrete labyrinth ahead. There was none to be seen. He jerked the luggage trolley suddenly to the left, hard across the ankles of his escort.
‘Sorry, guys, but I’d rather take the airport bus,’ said Bromo, reaching for his bag.
The man stumbled forward but kept his grip, pushing hard to his right. Bromo felt a bump as the man behind walked into him, leaving no room to move. He winced as something compact and unyielding was pushed into his lower ribs.
Bromo took his hands off the trolley hand and rested his wrists on the bar, palms spread upward and forward, a gesture of compliance.
‘Okay, okay’ he said. ‘I get the message. Let’s just cool it and perhaps you can tell me what this is all about.’
Bromo flinched from another jab in his ribs. The voice of the man behind whispered low and deep in his ear.
‘Walk. We talk later.’
It was beginning to sound like a good idea. Bromo inched forward towards the lift doors, past a woman in a burka fussing over a blanket-wrapped man in a wheelchair while a male nurse in white uniform, his back turned to Bromo, leaned in to help.
The lift doors, tall and wide, opened on to a spacious and empty compartment. Bromo’s escorts nudged him onwards, wedging him to the far corner. The man at the rear pushed a button and they waited for the doors to close, all eyes on Bromo.
He wasn’t sure what happened next. As the doors slowly slid shut he felt an immense rush of air and bodies. The male nurse bulldozed the wheelchair and its patient through the narrowing gap. As he rammed it into Bromo’s trolley the patient threw off his blanket and nimbly stepped to one side, an arm swinging fast and upwards to the jaw of the track-suited escort. The male nurse grabbed a short, thick truncheon from the wheelchair and swung it round in a devastatingly smooth arc that crunched into the second escort’s lower rib cage. Behind them, the woman in the burka had her hands on either end of a metal bar she was levering into the third man’s throat. Bromo looked on stunned. Everything was happening at fast-forward pace.
The male nurse thrust a small canvas package into his hand. It was not much bigger than a wallet and clasped shut.
‘Open it and hold it while I deal with his,’ ordered the nurse.
Bromo fumbled with the package, fingers twitching from nerves, the man’s voice ringing bells in his memory. He undid the clasp and the wallet unrolled to reveal a pouch with six stitched slots, each containing a syringe. The nurse smoothly removed one of the instruments from its slot, tapped it and plunged it deep into the side of the man choking under the burka woman’s grip. The man from the wheelchair reached out and extracted another syringe and jabbed it hard into the tracksuit man as he nursed his jaw. As the third escort started to unbend from the blow to his ribs, the nurse tugged out another syringe and thrust it into the man’s abdomen. Bromo watched his previous escorts sink to the floor, fast losing consciousness.
The woman inserted a key into the panel of li
ft buttons and pushed hard at two of them. The overhead indicator showed they were bypassing lower levels. The lift juddered to a halt. The nurse hoisted Bromo’s bag off the trolley.
‘Quick, get ready to run,’ he urged.
‘You must be joking,’ grunted Bromo.
‘It’s not far. The car’s waiting,’ said the nurse. ‘It’s your choice.’
Bromo realised where he had heard that voice before. And now, as daylight streamed in through the lift’s open doors, he recognised the face. Bromo looked at the three figures slumped on the floor. There was no movement; not even the slow rise and fall of a body drawing breath. This was not a good place to be seen. Somehow his body found hidden reserves of energy as it responded to his mind’s sudden urgent call for action.
The woman turned the key in the lift’s control panel. The doors remained jammed open. The wheelchair patient rose out of his seat and shoved his conveyance to one side. He rushed out through the lift door, the other man step for step alongside him. Bromo could hear the woman sprinting behind him as he trailed the other two across the car park roof to a mud-spattered white Commodore wagon, its engine already turning over, a driver in place, the doors all open.
They tumbled into the car, the two men and Bromo in the back, the woman alongside the driver. Doors slammed, rubber squealed and the car hurtled towards the down ramp and the exit. The woman put a restraining hand on the driver’s left arm.
‘Slow down, CJ. Don’t attract attention.’
Bromo swayed forward at the sound of her voice as the car spiralled floor by floor towards the exit. He planted his hands firmly on the seat behind her. He almost shouted as exasperation overcame his fatigue.
‘Dayani. It’s you inside that garb. I should have guessed. What the hell are you playing at now?’
She unwrapped the head covering and slowly turned to face him, her lips turned up in a soft smile, her eyelashes fluttering in mock innocence.
‘Which role would you like me to play? Maid Marion coming to the rescue of Robin Hood. Perhaps Lady Guinevere rushing to save Sir Lancelot? Or maybe—’
Bromo didn’t wait for further suggestions. His hand thumped at the seat back as CJ checked their parking ticket at the barrier and the exit arm lifted to let them out into the stream of traffic heading for the Tullamarine freeway. Bromo heard his voice croaking with tiredness. Or maybe it was too many in-flight whiskies. He spewed out the words: ‘Stop it. Stop right there. This isn’t some bloody fairytale, Dayani. Unless I’m mistaken there are three very dead bodies back there in the car park and an almighty great manhunt is going to hit this city within a couple of hours. And I’m going to be right in the middle of it.’
He paused for breath and looked to right and left. Traffic streamed by on either side. They were cruising in the middle lane, approaching the Hume Highway flyover and with the old Essendon airport coming up on their left and a row of car repair workshops, tyre dealers, spray painters and discount warehouses on their right. His two companions were settled back into the seat, eyes closed, non-participants in the spat going on around them. Bromo recalled their names from his explosive meeting in the curry house – Duptha and Rani. Duptha had somehow slid out of his male nurse’s uniform and was now wearing plain tan slacks and a lightly patterned check shirt. Rani, the make-believe invalid in the wheelchair, was almost identically attired but had managed to drag the blanket with him and had it wrapped around his knees.
Bromo sniffed; they looked for all the world like a couple of indolent layabouts with not a menacing thought between them.
He felt the soft touch of Dayani’s hand on his. He turned to look at her. She’d stopped doing that flirty thing with her eyes. Her face had hardened but was still without lines. What was it with these Eurasian women; never a crease in their skin, ageless until well into their dotage?
‘Shush, Bromo,’ she said. The girl soldier had returned. ‘It had to be done. Surely by now you must realise how deadly this business has become. It was you or them.’
She leaned forward, holding his gaze, their foreheads almost touching. She closed the gap and kissed him gently on the lips.
‘And I’d rather it was them, not you.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
CJ drove like a man determined not to attract attention as he chauffeured them towards the city. His hands stayed correctly positioned on the steering wheel. His eyes flicked regularly between side mirrors and rear vision mirror. No one remarked on the screeching stream of police cars and ambulances racing down the freeway in the opposite direction. They treated that as something beyond their concern. CJ kept well below the speed limit but not slow enough to score a blast from impatient drivers zooming past on either side. Occasionally he changed lanes, signalling each move well in advance. Bromo leaned forward and tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Keep this up and you’ll have the traffic cops pulling you over.’
CJ threw him a puzzled look.
‘You’re too bloody correct,’ explained Bromo. ‘No one drives like this in Melbourne. Show a bit of aggro. Cut someone off. Try a bit of tailgating.’
The irony of his remarks left CJ confused.
‘But I—’
‘It’s all right, CJ,’ Dayani broke in. ‘Take no notice. Mr Perkins sometimes has a strange sense of humour.’
Bromo settled back into his seat.
‘Yeah, don’t worry, son. You’re doing fine. Nothing like a nice smooth ride after a quick massacre. Helps settle the nerves.’
Shock over what he had seen at the airport still racked his body. Over the years he had learnt to take death in his stride, treat it as an unreality, a drama played out upon some silver screen of his own imagining. There was never any lingering at the scene. It was a matter of cut and run and persuade yourself the victims were merely actors who would rise from their pools of blood and live to play out another day. Little wonder they talked of film shoots. Yet deep down there were always the aftershocks; the adrenalin evaporated, you became as a marathon runner who had hit the wall, all resources drained away. That was where he was right now, numb and exhausted.
Bromo gazed out at the endless stream of traffic. The Moonee Valley racecourse appeared on their right; the tag end of Brunswick, shielded by concrete buffer walls, was on the left. He was briefly startled by a sudden pinging sound from the dashboard then realised it was the cameras on the overhead gantry recording the car’s e-tag as they neared the end of the freeway. It made him wonder what else was being recorded; how much of their journey was being picked up on the Vicroads’ monitors. It was a nondescript car, one among hundreds of lookalikes, but the registration number would have been recorded as they passed under the freeway gantry. And there would have been CCTV cameras at the airport car park, too. He twitched and rubbed at his earlobe.
‘Whose car is this?’
Dayani heard his question but her eyes stayed focused on the road ahead. She answered without turning her head.
‘Stop fretting Bromo. Everything’s under control. It’s sorted, I think you would say. And, no, it’s not our car. A friend provided it.’
There was a finality about her response that Bromo decided not to contest. The word “friend” had wide connotations and he could only guess at the shadowy people dictating Dayani’s movements. They were off the freeway now and taking left and right turns up past the old Royal Park Hospital and the youth detention centre, over the tram lines and alongside the park itself. Over Royal Parade, round the back of Princes Park and the Carlton Football Club and then more twists and turns and jarring speed humps as CJ wove through the back streets of Carlton and Fitzroy.
It was a route Bromo knew well, his preferred rat run to and from the airport and one generally as free of snarls as anyone could wish for in this traffic-clogged city. Successive governments had voiced plans to solve the gridlock, but none had actually done anything; and none looked likely to. Soon they had crossed the six-lane Hoddle Street – more car park than the main road it was meant to be �
� and were threading their way through Abbotsford’s odd mix of solid Edwardian homes and multi-storey warehouses into Richmond.
Bromo gave his head a clearing shake as they turned the Church Street corner into Bridge Road. He rolled his shoulders and tidied his coat around him. He eased forward in his seat and got ready to leave as CJ steered the car down the Bridge Road hill and through the intersection with Church Street.
He was almost home, and it couldn’t come soon enough. He could slam the door on the world and its mayhem and leave the thugs and killers to wreak their violence on each other. He saw Silvio’s pizza parlour off to their right.
‘This’ll do nicely; you can pull in by Barbecues Galore,’ he said. ‘Next time I think I’ll make my own way home.’
‘And end up in the hands of those murderers and bandits,’ said Dayani, speaking softly and not turning to look at him.
Okay, she had a point. But that was history, even if it was only an hour ago and he was still in shock. He was, however, alert enough to decide he was getting well and truly out of whatever Dayani and her pals were up to. As he extended his hand towards the door handle he realised they weren’t going to stop.
It was as if he hadn’t spoken. The car rolled on past the town hall and post office with no sign of slowing, Duptha and Rani seemingly asleep beside him, CJ and Dayani looking resolutely ahead. The car was gliding into the right-hand lane at the Coppin Street lights. Bromo heard the turn indicator ticking away. CJ turned right and drove into Coppin Street with its triple line of trees. Bromo detected the quiver of panic in his voice but none of the others showed signs of noticing.
‘Stop on the corner, outside the pub. I can walk from there.’
‘Calm down, Bromo.’ Dayani spoke. Her voice was soft and calm. ‘No need to panic. You’re in good hands and we’re almost there.’
Bromo leaned forward, his chin almost resting on Dayani’s shoulder.
‘What’s going on?’