by Jon Cleary
Malone and Bremner walked across to the low building where the workers’ amenities were housed. The big canteen room was almost full, but the two men found a table apart from the crowd and sat down. The talk in the room had been subdued when Malone and Bremner walked in, but as soon as Malone was identified as a cop a silence fell, as if everyone in the room had suddenly become deaf and dumb. Heads turned, eyes stared: when staring at a cop, Malone had noted, few people ever tried to be discreet. He was a public object.
“It’s the meal break,” said Bremner. “That’s why there was practically no one out on the wharves when this must of happened.”
“Roley, this is off the record. D’you think White and The Dwarf could have done this to Jimmy Maddux? Why? What’s the prize if they win the election from you?”
Bremner sipped his tea. “I been trying to puzzle that one out. It don’t matter as much as it used to, running the waterfront. Back in them days, the days of your dad and my early days, there was political power on the wharves. The Commos, they had clout then and they ran the Seamen’s Union and they could tie up the whole country, right around, if they wanted to. But that’s not on these days. There’s something called micro-reform, whatever the hell that is. Blokes like me, no education, just experience, we got no clout in union affairs these days. Snow White and The Dwarf, they’re even dumber than me when it comes to what’s needed to get on in the unions today. I had a twenty-two-year-old kid down from Unions Hall the other day, he kept talking about learning curves and level playing fields and more interface with the bosses, his head was about ten feet above his bloody shoulders. In the end I threw him out. Snow White and The Dwarf, they’d of probably broke his neck.” Then he shook his head. “Sorry. I shouldn’t of said that.”
“Righto, let’s say those two are not looking for political power. What about smuggling?”
Bremner raised a ginger eyebrow. The crowd was no longer paying attention to them; the room was now a buzz of talk, though there was no laughter or argument. These men were rough and tough, but death still touched them. A thousand deaths in Baghdad or Bangladesh was just news, but a mate’s death was a tragedy.
“My dad told me what it was like in the old days,” said Malone. “There was drug smuggling, not as much as today maybe, but it went on. Gold. Emeralds and diamonds, before we discovered our own diamonds. I’m not accusing you of anything, Roley, but how much drug smuggling comes in by ship these days?”
“You’d have to ask the Customs blokes that, or the Federal cops. Most of it’s been coming in by air, they run mules, I think they call ’em, outa Singapore and Bangkok. But I heard some talk they been switching to ships lately, that way they bring in bigger shipments. You think Jimmy got on to something there?”
“Where’s that ship—the Southern Pacific?—come from?”
“I dunno. Hey, Chicka, where’s the Southern Pacific from?”
One of the men at the next table turned around. “Auckland. Before that, Suva, I think.”
Bremner turned back to Malone. “There you are. You better check with Customs, see if Jimmy called them, too.”
There is nothing a cop likes more than to be told how to do his job. “Yeah, that might be an idea. Would Jimmy Maddux have a locker here?”
“Sure. Why?”
“Roley, he had his neck broken. Now it could’ve been an accident, but just in case it wasn’t . . . I’d like to look through his locker, see if there’s something there that might explain why he called you to get over here urgently. You’d like this cleared up, wouldn’t you?”
Bremner looked down at his empty cup. “I dunno, tell you the truth. This’s kicked me in the gut. If they was going for me, I wouldn’t mind—I wouldn’t like it, sure, but I’d be able to handle it. I been through it before.”
“Murder?”
“A coupla times, about twenty, twenty-five years ago. But now . . . I dunno.” He looked up. “I got a coupla years to retirement. I was gunna fight Snow White in the election, just for—well, decency’s sake.” He was one of the old school, Malone recognized, just like Con Malone: any mention of the virtues was an embarrassment. “But if it’s gunna come to this—I’m a married man, with kids . . .”
Malone said, “Roley, I don’t know if White and Schultz had anything to do with this. Maybe it was an accident . . .” He shrugged. “But Normie Grime’s death wasn’t an accident. So Sergeant Clements and I will be coming down to the waterfront again. And maybe again and again.” He stood up. “Let’s go and have a look at Jimmy Maddux’s locker.”
The meal break was finishing as Malone and Bremner walked out of the big room; men who had stood up to leave their tables paused as the two men went by. They resent me, Malone thought: for the moment none of them sees Maddux’s death as murder, so why am I here? The wharves were union territory; outsiders were not welcome, especially outsiders who thought they had authority. He wondered how many of these men would vote for Snow White on election day; how many, for decency’s sake, would vote for Roley Bremner. He suddenly felt political, a dangerous state of mind for a policeman.
As they came out of the main room they met Clements, face streaked with sweat, his jacket over his arm, a small plastic bag in his hand. “The locals have arrived, I let them take over. The Crime Scene fellers are on their way.” He held up the plastic bag. “I got these off the body. A notebook, pretty pulpy from the water. Car-keys, a house-key, two small keys—”
“One of them looks like his locker key,” said Bremner.
“Any sign of our friends?” Men were filing past them, so Malone named no names.
“Nobody’s seen them.” Clements was equally circumspect.
But when the three of them walked into the locker room, White and Schultz were there, The Dwarf sitting on a bench and White standing in front of an open locker. There was no one else in the room, but Malone had the feeling it was crowded; then he realized it was Bremner who was giving him that feeling. The shorter man had edged closer to Malone as if for protection, almost pushing the detective up against the lockers. It was a shock for Malone to realize just how terribly scared the tough little man was.
“We just heard the bad news about Jimmy Maddux.” White ignored the two detectives, spoke directly to Bremner as if the latter was alone. “How’d it happen?”
“He had his neck broken,” said Malone and looked at The Dwarf for a reaction. There was none: being slow-witted sometimes makes one a good actor.
“Tough titty,” said White. “Did they call you guys in, for an accident?”
“No, we were looking for you. We went to Number 9 wharf, but they said you’d come over here. You just get here?”
“My car broke down. The heat stuffed up the fuel pipe, a vapour lock. I get elected next month, I think I’ll see we get undercover parking for the workers. Come on, Gary, time we clocked on.”
“What ship are you working on?” said Malone.
“The Southern Pacific, right?” White looked at Schultz, who nodded and stood up, adding to Malone’s impression that the room was crowded. Beside him, he felt Bremner tense. White went on, “You wanna talk to us, you better come out there. I can’t afford to bludge on my mates, let ’em do all the work. Not while I’m running for office, eh, Roley?”
“We’ll see you in a few minutes,” said Malone and had to lean back hard against the lockers as Bremner stepped back to allow White and Schultz to go past him.
Malone looked at Clements, who said, “This is when I enjoy being a mug copper.”
“You gunna pinch ’em?” Bremner looked suddenly hopeful.
“We’ll do our best,” said Clements and avoided Malone’s warning eye. The big man thought positively, sometimes too much so; he never manufactured evidence, but only because Malone had never given him a licence. He knew, too, that manufactured evidence, so often in court, showed its trademark. “We’ll vote for you.”
“Let’s look at Jimmy’s locker,” said Malone, before promises got out of hand.
“That wouldn’t be Jimmy’s,” said Bremner. “He was dead scared of the water, he couldn’t swim across this room if his life depended on it. We used to joke about it, if he fell in the harbour.” Then his face went stiff. “He did that, didn’t he? Fell in the harbour.”
Clements, a travelling supply store, took another plastic bag from his pocket and dropped the mask in it.
“Could he have found it out on the wharf?” Malone said.
Bremner shrugged. “Maybe. I dunno why anyone would be diving around here, there’s only muck on the bottom.”
“That ship, would Customs have cleared everything on it?”
“The Southern Pacific? Probably. I dunno for sure. They check the papers of the ship out in the stream, before it berths. Then when the containers are unloaded, they check the seals on the containers before they pass ’em. You wanna go and talk to ’em? They got an inspector’s office here.”
As they came out of the locker room, Malone saw, in the distance, the Physical Evidence team just arriving. “You’d better get over there, Russ. Tell the locals and the Crime Scene blokes we’re treating it as murder till the GMO tells us otherwise. Give me the diving mask.”
Clements handed over the plastic bag. “It’s bloody hot out there. I heard one of the wharfies say it’s just topped forty degrees.”
“If it has,” said Bremner, “they’ll be knocking off. Weather like this, it gets bloody unbearable down in the holds. And the ironwork gets too hot to handle. They’ll knock off, it’s in the award.”
“When’s it get too hot for cops to work?” Clements asked Malone, but went trudging off across the wide concrete apron towards the three police cars and the van parked at the foot of the big mobile crane.
“When does it get too hot for you?” said Bremner.
“When the politicians start breathing down our necks. Where is the Customs office?”
The Customs officer. Bill Dibble, was middle-aged, stout and balding, a dynamo run down; in his youth, he told Malone, he had been a cross between a bloodhound and a greyhound. “But when you don’t get support from Canberra, when the government, doesn’t matter which one, doesn’t give you the money to do the job . . . You know what I mean?”
“Stop bellyaching, Bill,” said Bremner. “Tell the inspector what he wants to know. You got anything suspicious on the Southern Pacific?”
Dibble leaned back in his chair, gestured at the sheets on his desk. “Those are copies of the manifest. Any of the stuff listed there could have prohibited stuff, drugs, gems, gold, hidden in it,” He pulled out a sheet, ran a sausage of a finger down it. “Whitegoods—refrigerators, stuff like that. They don’t try hiding it in those any more—it’s old hat, they know we’d be on to it. Canned foodstuffs—that could be a possibility. We’ve found paddles of cannabis hidden in tins of chick-peas, ten to a tin. But that was on a ship from Tripoli, in Lebanon. Sure, there could be something hidden in the cargo. But we go on risk assessment, it’s all that we can afford to do unless we get a definite tip-off. We look at the general profile—what country it’s come from, who sent it, who it’s going to. In this case, all the containers are for reputable firms, the Customs agents have sworn for them. The agents work with us, they don’t want to lose their licences. And the ship’s from Auckland, not a usual source for drugs. The Kiwis work pretty closely with us.”
“It was in Suva before Auckland,” said Malone.
“It didn’t take on any cargo there, just discharged.”
“Has any of the cargo left the wharf?”
“No, the freight agents will have their trucks here first thing in the morning. It’s all been released. I can get our fellers down here with the sniffer dogs if you think there’s any drugs in the containers—”
“How long can you hold a cargo?”
Dibble spread his plump hands. “As long as we like, if we suspect something. But you hold up cargo, the receivers suspect something and just don’t turn up.”
Malone put the plastic bag containing the diving mask on Dibble’s desk. “Don’t touch it—there may be prints on it. Jimmy Maddux had something important he wanted to tell Roley here. We found this mask in his locker. He did no diving, in fact Roley says he was dead scared of the water. Does that suggest anything to you? As I understand it, you Customs blokes are born suspicious. Be suspicious now.”
Dibble grinned at the insulting compliment, or complimentary insult, and stared at the diving mask. Then he nodded. “Yeah, it does. We’ve never had it happen here, not so far, but there was a memo sent out about six months ago, a reprint of something the Drug Enforcement guys in Washington had sent us and the Federal police. The drug gangs, the Sicilians and the Colombians, they’re packing the drugs, heroin and cocaine, into metal boxes. Then they send a diver down at the home port and he clamps the boxes to the hull of a ship with magnetic clamps. They stay there till the ship docks at the destination port. Then at night the receivers send down a diver, he releases the boxes . . .” He spread his hands again. “There was a series on Channel Nine about three weeks ago—”
“I saw it,” said Bremner.
“That happened in Hamburg—the stuff was on a ship out of Karachi. It was fiction, but it was based on fact, dead true. We haven’t come across the method here, not yet. But that’s not to say it hasn’t been tried and we just didn’t catch ’em.”
“Could you get a diver to look at the hull of the Southern Pacific?”
“I guess so. I can’t authorize it, it’ll have to be okayed by head office. And the Federal cops will have to come into it, I mean if we pick up anything.”
“I’m not interested in the smuggling. All we’re looking for is anything that’ll lead us to whoever murdered Jimmy Maddux.” And Scungy Grime and, who knows, Sally Kissen. “How soon can you get a diver?”
“I could get one over here in an hour. But first I’ll have to check with our CET—the Contraband Enforcement Team. If there’s a chance of something being there underwater, they wouldn’t want to check it in daylight. That could tip off whoever’s supposed to pick it up. No offence, Inspector, but drug-busting is our territory, not yours.”
The territorial imperative, the old barbed-wire boundaries between bureaucracies: but Malone knew they had to be respected. Murder had no priority, not unless a bureaucrat was murdered.
“We’d rather do the job after dark,” said Dibble. “Just in case, you know what I mean?”
“Call me as soon as you know something one way or the other,” said Malone and left his card with Dibble.
Outside, in the yellow glare that seemed like a soft physical blow against the eyes when one stepped into it, Malone said, “Roley, could you find out for me if Normie Grime was working at the weekend? And Snow White and The Dwarf.”
Bremner seemed to go a shade paler, but he just nodded. A moment, then he said, eager to be gone, “I gotta go now. I don’t want Jimmy’s missus to find out on the radio what’s happened, not before I get to her. That’d be too much for her.”
“Where does she live? We probably will have to come and have a talk with her.”
“Jesus, is that necessary?”
“I’m afraid it is, Roley.”
Bremner squinted at him in the sun; then he nodded reluctantly. wYeah, I guess it is. Jimmy lives over in Balmain.” He gave Malone an address; the detective made a note of it. “Will I drop a hint you’ll be coming? Sorta prepare her?”
“Not at this stage, Roley. Don’t mention murder to her yet. One shock
at a time is enough.”
Bremner went off to his car and Malone, careful not to exert himself in the heat, walked across to the group congregated around the body of Jimmy Maddux. As he passed his and Clements’ car he dropped the diving mask on the front seat; he had glimpsed White and Schultz coming away from the side of the Southern Pacific towards the police team. Behind them other wharfies were clattering down the loading ramp.
Clements and Romy Keller detached themselves from the police group as Malone approached. The GMO was wearing a large straw hat and a sun-dress with narrow shoulder-straps; she looked the coolest person in sight, adding even a touch of glamour that, Malone thought, was incongruous in the surroundings. The sole woman member of the PE team, flushed and sweaty in her blue shirt and woollen skirt, cap pushed forward over her eyes, looked envious of Romy.
“His neck was broken by a blow from the side,” said Romy. “Possibly a karate chop.”
“No accident?” said Malone.
She shook her head; the wide brim of her hat rippled like a straw wave. “I wouldn’t say so. If he’d broken his neck in a fall, there’d be contusions to his head—there are none. It’s a clean blow. Do you want me to treat it as murder?”
“I think so. The Glebe detectives will do the paperwork, but you let me know if you come up with something else. Call Russ. You’ve got his number?”
“I’m not sure,” said Romy and gave Clements a smile that doubled the meaning of what she had said.
Clements walked across with her to her car and Malone moved quickly to White and Schultz as he saw them turning to go. He manoeuvred himself in front of White, preferring not to be stepped on by The Dwarf.
“You leaving, Mr. White?”
“Yeah, I decided it was too hot. It was over fifty, down there in the hold.”
“You decided?”
“Yeah, I’m the temporary union delegate. They just elected me, the guys.”
“That was pretty quick, wasn’t it?”
“Us wharfies, we make up our minds real quick. We don’t hem and haw like the rest of the country.”