Hard Yards

by J. R. Carroll

  ‘“Hollywood Jack”? You’re fucking joking.’

  ‘Jack’s got his share of flaws, including a terrible temper, but he is well connected. Anyhow he brought his brother, Guy, along, which I hadn’t expected.’

  ‘… I can’t believe I’m hearing this shit.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck what you believe. You wanted to hear it, and you’re hearing it. The deal was, I arranged the break-in, Guy got the stuff processed through his Mafia mates in the fruit and vegetable racket, and Jack flogged the end product in the party and nightclub scene. I needed to find a good break-in merchant, so I got hold of Ronnie Stafford, who happened to be out of jail at the time.’

  ‘Runaway Ronnie? Christ, I saw something in the paper … he’s turned up dead, hasn’t he?’

  ‘We’ll get to that. Anyhow Ronnie did a top job. It was so fucking easy. You’d have thought they wanted it done over. He went back three times and didn’t leave a trace. He drugged the dogs, switched padlocks, removed a window from a skylight, lowered himself on a rope and filled a sack. It was a piece of piss. They didn’t wake up until a week after his last visit, when they did a stocktake. By then the stuff was well and truly in the system, and no-one had a fucking clue.’

  Barrett was shaking his head. ‘Climb into bed with scum like Tucci and you get up with herpes, Ray. You of all people should know that.’

  ‘You’ve got no idea how much money was involved. If you did, it might make you a bit less holier-than-thou.’

  ‘Holier-than-though? Don’t give me that crap. So what happened to Ronnie, anyway? Something tells me his part in this was always going to be short-lived.’

  ‘Not at all. But then Klingborgs put Geoff O’Mara on the case. They wanted to keep the whole matter in-house – something to do with an insurance claim. Nothing happened for a while, then Ronnie called to say Geoff had paid him a visit and asked him some questions about the break-ins. Ronnie was shitting himself – he didn’t want to go back inside. I told him to do nothing and maybe Geoff would go away. But he didn’t; he kept coming back, chipping away at Ronnie. He was a tenacious bastard, and he knew he was onto something. So I set up another meet with the Tuccis. And this time Jack brought his bitch with him.’ He paused to swallow some beer, then continued: ‘Jack said Ronnie had to go, and that I had to do it. I said fuck that. So we argued back and forth. Then the slut, what’s her face Carla, leans over the table, pulls me towards her by the tie and gives me a nice long look right into her cleavage. She’s got this low-cut thing on, and no bra. She was showing me the fucking works, nipples and all, and I tell you what, if that doesn’t make you bar up, you’re dead from the neck down. In the meantime, old Jack’s just leaning back in his chair with a fucking toothpick in his mouth, grinning like an idiot. This Carla’s evil, I’ll give you that for nothing. She gets right into my face and breathes this perfume. It’s this … this strong spice scent, like the smell of cunt. Then she slides her fingers down my chest and says: “I’ll bet my little pink cherry you could do anything once you got a hard-on for it.” That was it. Ronnie was gone.’

  ‘You threw him over The Gap.’

  Ray waved a dismissive arm, as if brushing away a fly. ‘He was an arrogant little prick, anyway. Know what he said? “You can’t kill me – I’ve been in and out of more tight spots than Casanova.” So I shot him and tossed him over. That should have been the end of it, he should’ve been shark food, but his body became wedged in the rocks – that was a tight spot he couldn’t get out of.’ Ray allowed himself a short, bitter laugh at his own joke. ‘They found him that afternoon. Not only that, but then we discover Geoff’s been snooping around Guy Tucci’s place – taking pictures from the road, asking neighbours questions, shit like that. We reckoned he must’ve got that lead from Ronnie. Either the weak little cunt spilled or Geoff broke into his shit-hole and found something. So Geoff’s tightened the screws. Next thing I can see the bastard knocking on my fucking door. No way.’ He had another drink. ‘That’s why I was pleased when you two started going after Hickey. It gave me some breathing space for a while.’

  ‘Yeah. You were always so helpful, weren’t you? No fucking wonder. Then that FBI fax came – must’ve been a godsend. Hickey was a ready-made fall guy, delivered into your hands. All you had to do was set it up somehow. It was a brilliant piece of work.’ Barrett was thinking back to the call from Ray, the morning of the Bayswater Brasserie lunch, when his phone battery packed it in. Even when Ray was speaking to him, he must have been planning to kill Geoff …

  ‘So it’s all about money,’ Barrett said – not to Ray particularly, but thinking aloud and making himself see things the way they were. ‘You sold out and murdered a man – two men – to cover up your dirty little love affair with the lowlife Tucci clan. You’re the shit of the earth, Ray.’

  ‘Get fucked. Listen, I’m sixty-three years fucking old, Pike. Been in the job more than forty, all up. Two years from now they’ll throw me on the scrap heap, and my pension is shit. When I pulled the pin in Queensland I copped a decent package, which I should’ve rolled over, but the marriage was shaky then and I had to do something. So we went on the big overseas adventure, no expenses spared. She wanted to stay at the Mayfair, we stayed at the fucking Mayfair. She wanted to go on the QE2, we went on the fucking QE2. And when we got home I had fuck-all left. So don’t talk to me about the evils of money, Pike. It happens to be important.’ Now he was angry again – that deep crimson was flooding his face, and his pig eyes were looking wild, as if the wheels were coming off. ‘You wait’ll you get to my age – if you fucking make it. Then you’ll see. I’m just taking what’s owed to me, and no cunt, especially not a fucking cockroach like you, is going to do anything about it.’ A fleck of foam appeared on his lower lip, and it wasn’t beer.

  Barrett decided to push him. ‘The problem is, Ray, your lowlife mates didn’t let you in on their other big scam, did they? The Hong Kong operation. Now they’re all in the deep end for that, and I’ll be very surprised if they don’t give you up somewhere along the line. There’ll be no fucking honour in that school of piranhas. They’ll be trying to cut deals any way they can. And that bitch with the nice tits will be the first one to put you in. Ronnie Stafford might have been a little scrap of dirt under your fingernail, but I don’t think you can use that as a defence.’

  ‘The Tucci clan doesn’t worry me,’ Ray said in a cold, even voice. ‘When they hit the nick, they’re dead meat. It’s all arranged. And my prints are nowhere in the whole caper. So you see, it couldn’t have worked out better for me. And I don’t see what you’ve got to mouth off about. When Jack got picked up for knocking Anthony Diaz he was adamant he didn’t do it, and I believe him. So who does that leave, I wonder? Who was it seen having a very public dispute with him in a restaurant prior to his demise?’ He finished his schooner. ‘So cool off, Pike. Anyhow, you owe me. After your little stoush outside the courthouse, Jack was desperate to fry your bacon that night. He was going to wait outside your place with a machine-gun, but I talked him out of it – it might have jeopardised our operation. So you can thank me you’re still standing.’

  It was the smirk that did it. Up until then, Barrett was wondering what his next move was going to be, how he was going to get him started, but then raw instinct took over. Ray dropped his empty schooner as the big fist crashed into his mouth with such force the shattered teeth sliced into Barrett’s hand. He punched Ray again, sending him reeling backwards towards the open doorway as patrons scattered and squealed. A generous space was made as Barrett whacked him a glancing blow on the side of the neck, and Ray hit the floor and scrambled out onto the footpath. Barrett quickly followed.

  Out in the sunny street, shoppers and tourists steered a wide berth as the two men fought toe-to-toe. Ray was swinging wildly, more in hope than expectation, but a couple found their mark. Barrett just kept walking into him, ignoring the ineffectual blows. Ray was tough, but he was sixty-three years old and in bad shape. He was quickly o
ut of breath as Barrett punched into him with some well-aimed shots. He was picking Ray off however he wanted. Ray stumbled onto all fours and tried to claw his way back up, but Barrett kicked him in the ribs and he screamed and went down, rolling over. Barrett kicked him again and again, rapidly reaching the point where he was not going to stop until Ray was literally kicked to pieces. Ray grabbed a parking meter and dragged himself half up, spluttering and swearing and swinging an arm. Barrett’s own arms were heavy, but the laps he’d swum were standing him in good stead. Dropping his shoulders he walked up to Ray, twisted his face around and crashed a looping right hand straight into his nose. Bone and cartilage collapsed and blood flew. Ray pulled away, grunting and holding his face as he lurched towards a parked Falcon. When he reached it he fell over it, arms extended over the roof and blood streaming down the dark, glossy duco and windows. Barrett came up behind him, measured off and gave him a sharp one in the kidneys to go on with. The scream of pain issuing from Ray’s blood-clogged mouth was ungodly, almost a death rattle.

  Barrett got right into his ear, making sure he could hear every word, and said, ‘This is just the start, Ray. I’m going to beat you up every day. I’m going to beat you into your grave, you murdering, butchering bastard.’

  He turned then and walked away, aware of the sound of approaching police sirens. He didn’t care about that. If he’d planned it for a week, he couldn’t have dreamed up last words that were any better than the ones he’d delivered. Then he heard a beep, a car being de-alarmed, and glanced over his shoulder. Ray had got into the Falcon. How the fuck … Barrett suddenly saw it was Ray’s car. He had unknowingly beaten and kicked him all the way to his unmarked police Falcon. Ray was rummaging in the glove compartment, and when his battered head appeared again, Barrett saw he was bringing up a revolver, leaning on the open car door and steadying the weapon with his left hand as he aimed straight at Barrett.

  Ray didn’t speak; he just opened fire. But Barrett had seen it coming in enough time to scream a general warning and hit the deck as the bullet cracked overhead. A woman shopper coming out of a boutique store carrying bags was not so lucky: the round ripped into her smart red Saba jacket, stunning her and causing her to drop her bags. She fell to her knees, wondering what had hit her, what was causing this hot, piercing sensation in her stomach and why she was bleeding all over the foothpath.

  Barrett got up as Ray levelled the gun again. He didn’t seem to know or care that he’d hit an innocent woman. People were screaming and running in random directions as Barrett ducked between two parked cars. Ray was lurching towards him, using parked cars for support with the revolver held straight out in front of him. The shriek of sirens and screeching tyres filled the air. Barrett put his head up as Ray came on, and instantly a bullet thunked through the metal skin of a sleek new Celica behind him. Barrett figured Ray would run out of steam soon – either that or the cops would cut him down – so he decided to make a break for it across the road. Ray fired at his back, then followed and walked straight into an oncoming taxi that had slammed on its brakes.

  From the safety of the other side Barrett watched the drama unfold. There was a bunch of a dozen flak-jacketed cops further along the road, taking up positions behind their vehicles, which were blockading the road. Ray was repeatedly shouting, I’m a police officer, but the cops didn’t seem to be buying that. With a pulped face, a bloodied shirt that was ripped apart and hanging loose and pants that sagged below his waistline, he didn’t look much like a cop. He looked like a crazed killer on a rampage. There were many guns trained on him now as the order came via a bullhorn to throw down the weapon and surrender with his hands in the air, in plain view. But Ray wasn’t having it: he opened the taxi door, grabbed the driver and pulled him out, jamming the gun against his head and screaming blue murder at the cops.

  Suddenly Ray seemed to have second thoughts about a hostage scenario, as if he’d lost patience and snapped. He pushed the driver away, fired a couple at the cops to give himself cover, then jumped into the taxi and gunned it towards the police blockade. There was room there for him to get through with a slice of luck. He stomped on it, swerving to miss the cop cars and, as he careered past in swirls of acrid smoke, the police firepower blew out every piece of glass in the taxi. It continued on at full tilt in a straight line, smashing into the front near side of a stationary bus before somersaulting and spinning over parked vehicles and finishing upside down inside a hot bread kitchen in a shower of exploding glass that sounded like a bomb going off. The citizens of Double Bay had never witnessed anything like this before. One person was crushed and three others were seriously hurt in the shop, and it took an emergency services team three hours to free Ray’s body from the wreck.

  33

  Barrett checked his wristwatch: ten after two on a sunny Palm Beach afternoon. On his table were numerous empty glasses – hard evidence of the two-and-a-half hours he had been sitting in the hotel lounge. For some reason, the bar staff appeared to be avoiding his table as they went around cleaning up. He finished off the remains of the Stolichnaya glass and lined it up next to the others. Then he made the decision that if there was no show in the next half-hour, he would make a move before he was incapable of getting up, let alone driving anywhere.

  In the three weeks that had passed since the ‘Double Bay Stand-off’, as one paper put it, he had not made it back to the office. A sympathetic doctor had given him a certificate for two weeks, which had now become four. He had spent many hours being questioned by police during that time. In the aftermath of the shooting, when they had found out that Ray Ward was indeed a police officer – not only that, but an inspector in charge of the Criminal Intelligence Department – they went about their investigations with the utmost rigour and thoroughness. Barrett knew they were desperate to charge him, but it was difficult to hit someone with assault and battery when the alleged victim has been subsequently blown to pieces in a hail of police gunfire. There were plenty of witnesses in the Sheaf to say a violent argument was in progress for some time before Barrett threw the first punch, but in the end all they could do was to make life uncomfortable for him. And they were very good at that.

  During a question-and-answer session with the homicide detectives, Barrett made a determined attempt to explain what the argument had been about. He went through it chapter and verse, stating and re-stating his view that it was Ward, not Edward Hickey, who had murdered Geoff O’Mara. The detectives were greatly interested in what he had to say, especially since Barrett himself was intimately connected to both violent deaths. When he had finished his spiel they simply looked at him, unmoved, and Barrett suddenly went ice-cold all over. An element of self-doubt entered his mind. Did Ray actually confess to killing Geoff? He couldn’t honestly remember now. Shit. Had he got it wrong? Had he developed a mindset, and made everything fit it? No, no … But why were these cops looking at him this way, as if he were a … a specimen? They were intelligent men – surely they could see …

  One of them said to him: ‘Are you seriously trying to make these allegations against Inspector Ward, who is not in a position to defend himself – or is there something else you want to tell us about these matters?’ Then he leaned closer. ‘Is there something you would like to get off your chest? If so, now’s the time.’ Barrett knew it was all over then. They waited for him to answer, staring hard at him as if he were some sort of terminal nut case. They think I’m mad, he thought; they think I’m paranoid and delusional. A violent psychotic … And then he thought: Shit. What if they were right?

  They tried to sweat him, but he wouldn’t wilt and eventually they had to let him go, making noises about reviewing his suitability to hold a licence to operate as a private investigator. Now, in hindsight, he was convinced he had been right – that, perhaps understandably, they were intent on protecting the good name of a colleague who had died in tragic circumstances. So be it.

  With a fresh round of drinks in front of him he settled back and lit the first ci
garette from the pack he’d just bought from a machine. At least this one didn’t talk to you. Then he took a decent belt of the Stolichnaya. It was sliding down very nicely. Right now he felt he could consume the stuff indefinitely without feeling any ill effects. He was slightly light-headed, but otherwise quite numbed to the symptoms of raging alcoholism. He dragged hard on the cigarette and drank from the schooner, filling the top of the glass with smoke from his nostrils. When he put it down, he glanced at the doorway – and there she was.

  Today Andrea was wearing her Ray-Ban sunglasses, faded and frayed jeans, a nifty mauve top that shimmered in the light and a matching scarf tied around her neck. Her lipstick, too, was mauve. Typically her hair was swept back and held untidily in place with combs, in a style that had always appealed to him. She saw him straightaway, and he noticed her eyes fall on the array of empty glasses that clearly were his.

  ‘I had almost given up on you,’ he said, half standing and resisting the unexpected need to grip the edge of the table.

  ‘Looks as if you’re settled in for the long haul,’ she said – but not nastily. ‘So what are you doing up here?’

  ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Let me get you something.’

  She sat opposite, but not next to him, and dropped her hand-tooled Mexican bag on the floor. Barrett went to the bar and returned with a bottle of Bollinger in an ice bucket and two flutes. He poured carefully, maintaining a steady hand, then replaced the bottle in the bucket.

  ‘What am I doing here? It’s a lovely day – perfect for Palm Beach. You got my message then?’ he said.