by Berry, Tony
‘Well, boss, I guess I’d better get going. Lots of homework to do.’
He was halfway to the door when there were two quick knocks on the outside and it was pushed open. A fellow agent peered into the room.
‘Excuse me boss, there’s a phone call from a guy who insists on speaking to you and no one else.’
Delia turned slowly in from the window, still looking lost in thought.
‘Did he say what it was about?’
‘He said it was about diamonds and something called Sigiriya. And he said you were a hard woman to track down.’
Suddenly she was on full alert. This was close to the bone. The agent noticed anxious glances fly to and fro between her and Steve. Delia reached for the phone.
‘You’d better put him through,’ she said. ‘Did he give a name?’
‘Yeah. Bromo Perkins. Sounded like a Pom.’
Steve Maloney watched her suck in a deep breath and set her lips in a hard firm line. She raised an arm in a quick dismissive flick and pointed to the door.
‘Out!’ she snapped. ‘And don’t you dare say a word.’
THIRTY-THREE
BROMO awoke to the rapid percussion of hailstones on the skylight above his bed. He grimaced; a hint of warmth and sunshine yesterday, chill wind and icy rain today – so typical of Melbourne, the city famed for having four seasons in one day.
He was tempted to close his eyes and gather the doona around him, but after five minutes of scratching, stirring and stretching he summoned up enough energy to swing his legs to the floor and stand upright. He looked around; Liz was right – she had provided all he could need. There were three neat piles of clothes arranged on a low wooden chest. He selected a t-shirt and a tracksuit, inserted his feet into a pair of mules and shuffled towards the stairs. His nose had already sniffed out the aroma of coffee wafting upwards.
‘Black, strong and no sugar,’ intoned Liz as he planted a platonic kiss on her cheek. ‘I know the mantra.’
She drew her dressing gown tighter around her and handed him a mug inscribed with the logo of the Vittoria Coffee company.
‘Purloined or purchased?’ he asked.
‘Neither; a souvenir of one of their coffee-making classes.’
He gave a grumpy sniff in response. Liz ignored it, along with the grouchy look he flashed her. She nudged him in the direction of an armchair with a low table alongside.
‘Go and read the paper. I’ll speak to you when you’ve got some coffee into your system.’
She knew better than to do otherwise. She had struggled through too many failed attempts at early morning meetings with Bromo not to let him ease himself slowly into the day. It seemed there was no hope of easy resolution when early risers tried to commune with night owls. She watched him as his mules scuffed over the floor’s bare boards and he sank back into the armchair, gathering up the Age as he went; such a trim and taut middle-aged man, so hard and cynical yet with so many older, other-worldly mannerisms. Her face creased into a wistful smile.
‘You made the front page,’ she said.
He crumpled the paper, irritated at its broadsheet size but anxious to see if the reporters had ferreted out any information on those involved in the airport killings.
‘Surprise, surprise,’ he said as he scanned the headlines and the pictures. ‘Hard news in the Age for once. Must be a slow day in parliament.’
Again Liz smiled.
‘I’ll leave you to it. I’m going to tidy myself up.’
Bromo studied the mug shots of the victims. It was no surprise to find they were all in that category journalists euphemistically described as “well-known local identities”. In other words, hardened criminals unlikely to be mourned by all but their nearest and dearest – and those they kept supplied with drugs and the proceeds of their numerous crimes. Mystery, it seemed, surrounded the names and whereabouts of those responsible. The impression given was that the police were completely bewildered by the killings and the reason behind them. Bromo knew, however, that the story of a baffled homicide squad was probably far from the truth. It was more likely to be a neat piece of media manipulation designed to lull the perpetrators into a false sense of security.
Police reporters strong on rhetoric and weak on facts advanced a mish-mash of theories. One inevitably saw it as the continuing saga of Melbourne’s notorious gangland wars; another, equally predictable, portrayed it as a drug deal gone wrong. A third tried unsuccessfully to get a panel of academics and other theorists to support her view that “international terrorism has arrived Down Under”. But she maintained her opinion despite their denials of any such thing. Bromo sighed and set the paper to one side. He picked up his coffee mug.
‘If only they knew,’ he mused out loud.
‘If who knew what?’ asked Liz, startling him from his reverie as she walked barefoot up behind him.
‘If the idiots who write this stuff were even half aware that this is not some piddling spat between a couple of steroid-fuelled minor crims.’
Bromo flicked his hand at the newspaper.
‘It’s about time they got rid of their petty parochialism and looked at the brutality and horror that’s behind all this.’
Liz leaned over and patted him gently on the shoulder.
‘My, my, we are steamed up, and so early in the day. But I do know what you mean.’
Bromo subsided under her touch.
‘I hope you do,’ he said. ‘We’re going to need all the information you can squeeze out of those larrikins down at the town hall.’
He reached back and briefly rested his hand on hers. He stood up and drained what was left of his coffee.
‘I’ll go and shower and change. We have places to go and things to do before the Feds take an interest and start hinting at what really happened to the local cops.’
Liz smiled.
‘Ah, I’d forgotten about the delightful Delia.’ She paused. ‘But I’m sure you haven’t.’
Bromo threw a quizzical look in her direction and kept walking to the stairs. Was that a hint of jealousy or a gentle tease? He shrugged. As the kids would say, whatever. There were more pressing issues nagging at him. His fiery arrival at Tullamarine had raised things to a new level. Mr Blood was pressing him for results, the Sri Lankans were on the loose somewhere in Richmond, reprisals were inevitable – and then there was Jess, oblivious to danger as she flitted around the world seeking fiery hotspots of trouble and likely to push herself too close to the flames.
Bromo heard his phone trilling its La Donna e Mobile theme from the bedroom as his foot stepped on the bottom rung of the stairs. He hurtled upwards, stumbling over the first few steps in his haste before coming upright and taking the steps two at a time. He almost fell on to the bed as he grabbed for the phone.
‘Yes?’ he gasped.
‘Fitness level not what it used be, eh?’ chuckled Jason at the other end of the line. ‘Better get jogging or do a few sit ups.’
Bromo ignored him.
‘Cut to the chase, Jase. What can you tell me?’
‘Plenty.’
Bromo tapped a hand against his thigh in frustration. Jason was being his usual laconic self. Words had to be dragged out of him.
‘So?’
‘Fokisi’s trouble, mate. Big trouble. And he’s got trouble, too. Bucket loads of it.’
There was a noise from downstairs, a single solid thump. Bromo tensed, his attention diverted from the phone. There was no follow-up sound. Only silence. Then he realised it was the hefty wooden entrance door banging shut. He assumed Liz had left without telling him, probably in a bit of a huff. So be it; he just hoped she had taken his hint and was making her way to ferret out information from her contacts at the town hall. He focused back on the phone.
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘He does bouncer shifts at a couple of night clubs and has gone berserk on a couple of occasions. Seems he’s on notice from the police.’
‘So what’s new?’’ said
Bromo. ‘The story’s the same for every bouncer in town. It’s steroid city out there in club-land. And the cops would rather stand back and let the bouncers sort out the drunks than take a beating themselves.’
He held the phone away from his ear, still tense, sensing a faint intermittent noise from downstairs. It stopped. The silence was intense. Jason’s booming voice brought his attention back to the phone.
‘But Fokisi is different. He’s got money problems too. Gambling. In deep to the bookies. There’s talk of big bills at the casino. He’ll do anything for money.’
Bromo sighed with impatience.
‘Yeah, him and hundreds of others. The Melbourne malaise. And he’s probably got some poor sucker of a wife who reckons he’s just a big-hearted softie working three jobs to help make ends meet. The city’s full of them. I need more than that, Jase.’
Bromo sat down on the bed, his body tense, his reactions split down the middle. One ear was cocked towards noises from downstairs, the other absorbed Jason’s summary of Fokisi’s activities. A sense of defeat washed over him: angry wives were not sufficient ammunition against thugs on the warpath, unless … He needed more.
‘That all, Jase? No other gossip; change-room chatter?’
He reckoned he could almost hear the cogs grinding inside Jason’s head as the big fellow raked over moments spent in Fokisi’s company.
‘Seems he’s on to a good thing with the boss at his day job,’ offered Jason. ‘That’s how he got his nickname. She can’t get enough of him.’
‘Half his luck,’ muttered Bromo. ‘Until the wife finds out.’
‘No worries there, mate. She’s still back in Tonga with the kids and the coconuts.’
The words were a shaft of light. Bromo slapped a hand down on the bed in exhilaration. He tried to control the excitement in his voice. He kept it slow and even.
‘Tell me Jase, would I be right in assuming our Mr Fokisi is over here on a temporary visa and that he’s hoping to get residential status so he can settle down and bring out the wife and kids and maybe even become an Aussie citizen?’
There was silence at the other end of the line. So much for Jason to digest. Bromo curbed his impatience. Again he fancied he heard noises from below and slowly shuffled towards the top of the stairs. He heard Jason clearing his throat.
‘Yeah, well, I guess that’s the plan,’ confirmed Jason. ‘I s’pose he wants to be here with his mates. There’s a whole mob of them living over in East Melbourne. Bloody good front row forwards.’
Bromo clenched his fist in a sharp jab of triumph.
‘Thanks, Jase. That’s it. Catch you later.’
He cut the call and snapped the phone shut. Suddenly he could see a way forward. But first there were other problems. If the shutting of the door he had heard was Liz departing, who was downstairs now? If it marked the entry of an intruder, what had happened to Liz?
Bromo stood at the top of the stairs, ears straining. The lack of voices disturbed him. The noise from below was intermittent and indistinct, low and furtive. He slowly put one bare foot ahead of the other, descending at an even pace, praying there were no creaky stairs to give him away. He realised he would have no view into the room until he was halfway down. And by then his legs would be visible to anyone glancing in that direction. He reckoned his chances of creeping downwards and taking them by surprise were no better than 50-50.
There was only one way to turn the odds in his favour. He hurtled forward over the last few steps, a banshee yell escaping from his lips as he leapt into the open space between kitchen and dining areas. He let the momentum carry him forward, curling up into a ball, head and neck down and underneath as he did a tumble roll that ended in a sudden halt out of sight behind the settee.
He gasped for breath and waited. Nothing. No movement, no voices. A moment frozen in time. Then the sound began again – a slow whirring and clicking. Bromo tensed and strained upwards, aiming to peer around the arm of the settee. Behind him, he heard the creak of a hinge as the front door swung open. He whirled round, fists clenched, arms bent. Liz stood halfway through the entrance, clutching a leather satchel.
‘What the hell are you doing Bromo?’
His whole body went limp. He slumped forward and shook his head.
‘I heard noises. I thought—’
His explanation was overrun by a loud laugh from Liz. She continued on her way into the room from a side door that led into her garage. She dropped the satchel on the table and extended a hand to help him up off the floor.
‘Perhaps you’d better stick to water from now,’ she chuckled. ‘It’s getting serious when you start hearing noises.’
‘But I …’
He looked around the room in the direction of the sound. It had resumed and was getting louder and coming from a cupboard in the far corner. He pointed and grinned sheepishly. Liz laughed.
‘You can relax now. The washing machine’s quite harmless and it’s just about on its final cycle. I’ll fix you a coffee to steady your nerves. Then you might like to look at what I found in the council files.’
Bromo rubbed a hand slowly to and fro over the back of his neck.
‘Yes, and you might like to hear what Jason’s told me about the lovely Mr Fokisi. I think we have a plan.’
‘And I think you have a relaxation problem,’ said Liz.
She handed him a mug of strong black coffee.
‘There’s always an easy cure for that,’ he said.
Their eyes met, neither looking away for several seconds, Bromo wondering what thoughts were secreted behind her gaze. He raised his mug slightly towards her and smiled his thanks.
‘Let the talks begin,’ he said.
THIRTY-FOUR
Bromo and Jason huddled in the glass-walled entrance to a King Street office block directly opposite the solid bluestone façade of the Cat’s Whiskers. Once a corn merchant’s warehouse, the building now proclaimed itself in gaudy neon lighting to be an “Exclusive Gentlemen’s Club and Gallery”. Frequently exposed in the press as neither exclusive nor remotely connected with any of the cultural activities that its name partially implied, it was one of the more infamous nightspots in this notoriously dangerous corner of the city. It survived and thrived thanks largely to the efforts of compliant and highly paid legal teams that devoted their time to finding and exploiting loopholes in laws designed to curb its nefarious trade.
Bromo hunched his shoulders and kept his hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets as he watched the stream of people on the far side of the street. It was an aimless, drifting parade of mostly men, mostly in small groups and mostly with a built-in, bolted-on swagger about them. A short queue of them was forming outside the Cat’s Whiskers and being given the once over by two burly security guards in long black overcoats.
Bromo threw a sideways glance at Jason.
‘Aren’t you cold dressed like that?’
‘Nah, mate.’
He flicked a finger in the direction of the Cat’s Whiskers.
‘Do you see any of that lot wearing a jacket?’ He patted his own lightly patterned blue cotton shirt, untucked from a pair of faded jeans. ‘You really should get out more. This is the gear for clubbing. You’re about as overdressed as an Eskimo in the Alice.’
Bromo put a finger up to his throat and ran it around the inside of his crew neck t-shirt. It had been a deliberate and careful choice. It was black and casual – basic essentials for almost any occasion in Melbourne.
‘I’ll take the jacket off before we go in,’ he grumbled. A gust of cold wind whirled around the office entrance. He shivered. ‘Perhaps we should do that now, before the long queues start. Wait for him inside.’
‘Sure thing,’ said Jason. ‘Standing out here wasn’t my bright idea. We need to suss the place out before Fokisi arrives.’
He was right, thought Bromo. Maybe he should have involved Jason earlier, called him in to his discussions with Liz as they sifted through the web of possibilities confrontin
g them. After all, it was Jason who had provided the information on the big Tongan; he was the one who had given them the ammunition they were sure would weaken the man as an opponent and certainly stop his usual recourse to brutal physical force.
They sidestepped their way through the traffic to temporary safety on the median strip of parched grass and drought-stricken trees before making another quick dash to reach the footpath outside the Cat’s Whiskers. Bromo slipped out of his jacket and slung it nonchalantly over one shoulder. He gave Jason a half grin.
‘Satisfied?’
‘It’ll do,’ said Jason as they strolled towards the club’s solid timber double door, a massive remnant from the building’s grain store days. Bromo glanced up and noticed several cameras beaming down, covering all angles. The two security guards, numbered identity tags hanging from their lapels, blocked their way, their faces blankly impassive, neither welcoming nor threatening, their eyes scanning the newcomers from head to foot.
‘Evening gentlemen,’ said one. His deep rough voice had all the warmth of a campfire in a rainstorm. ‘Are you members?’
‘Does it make any difference?’ asked Bromo.
‘Depends on the level of service you want.’
Bromo smiled at the euphemism. It was a catch-all word that fooled no one on either side of the law. Club owners used it to contrive a faint air of respectability by pretending that sex, drugs and standover men were not among the services traded within their walls; that the violence and bashings that spilled out on to the footpath were beyond their control.
‘A quiet drink will do,’ said Bromo. ‘One of your colleagues, Fokisi, recommended it. Thought we’d check it out.’
The security men smiled in unison with looks that contained not an iota of friendliness. They were beasts of prey poised for the kill.
‘Not a problem,’ said one and extended an arm to hold the door open. ‘He’s on duty tonight; he should be here soon.’