“I guess so.”
“What about your sister? You said she was gay?”
“She’s down this way. It’s all news to me. I never would’ve guessed. It’s not like she’s ugly.”
“Jeez, that’s a horrible thing to say.”
“So sue me,” he grunted, leaning back into her and taking the rollie.
“Why were you overseas?”
Her voice vibrated through his shoulder and chest as he inhaled smoke and let it out in a steady, deliberate stream.
“I used to work for the government.” He paused and shrugged. “ASIO, actually. I guess I couldn’t hack the pace or something. I fucked off on an assignment in East Timor and . . . well, I travelled up through Indonesia and Malaysia, wound up in northern Thailand.”
He stood up and thrust out the cigarette. “Here.”
Tess took it and looked up at him wide-eyed as he struggled into pants and then sat again heavily, forcing on his socks and boots like a man with a grudge.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ve gotta go.”
“Go where?” She glanced at the clock half-buried beneath the spilling doona. “It’s quarter-to-five in the morning.”
“I know. Don’t worry about it.”
She watched him with calf eyes until he had both Blundstones on and was stamping over to collect his carry-all.
“I could give you my number.”
“Thanks, but I –” He met her gaze deliberately. “Don’t worry about it. Thanks all the same.”
“Shit.”
“I’ll see myself out. Sorry.”
He slung the bag awkwardly over his shoulder and disappeared through the door into the rest of the dark share house. The wind was up and outside Tess’s room it was cold as a grave.
Flanagan tried not to look up at her standing in the window as he summoned the Fairmont into life in the alley outside and drove deeper into the port.
FOUR
THE COLD DIDN’T want to go with the night. As a weak front from the ocean slouched across Fremantle, streaks of deep blue appeared, resolving over the course of an hour into the first light of morning, the sun a latecomer from the landlocked east.
Flanagan abandoned the car down near the pines of the Esplanade and walked huddled among the tame jetties and walkways of the boat harbour, the whole place just a little bit more like a giant outdoor ice-cream parlour than when he was there five or more years before. Even at six am, with the storefronts and the massive KS and Chikatillo’s fish and chip emporia closed to everyone except early deliveries, the place didn’t feel like a real harbour. It wasn’t until a few of the sardine boats came in, genuine wool-clad wog seamen stern and aft, that the hobby harbour grew more lively. Flanagan inhaled the rank smell of fresh fish and brine, and walking north, ended up on a tiny beach. The quay-enclosed strand where British settlers first landed in the area. Flanagan walking just as they had in booted feet across the sand. Only the McDonalds’ wrappers ruined the re-enactment. With a growling stomach, he went into the deserted store for their cheerily renamed sausages and eggs.
He was at Gina’s when the doors opened, up on the Cappuccino Strip with the old Eyeties and Croats nodding to each other and speaking in grunts, waiting for their heart-starters to make them more social. It was years since Flanagan had walked those streets and even back then it was mostly at the other end of the day. He closed his eyes in admiration for the coffee, and despite misgivings, couldn’t begrudge the panther-like purr of caffeine in his veins.
He tried not to think about Tess and mostly succeeded. What he wanted most was to finish the bender he’d started the night before. He was too easily distracted by the prospect of human warmth, as if a little fucking was all he needed to feel normal again, which seemed like a joke. Sitting with two grand in fifties in his jeans’ pocket, he had half a mind to roust a few junkies and go find where they got their gear. Although he’d become used to the occasional taste living among the Thai, he doubted the local stuff would come even close to the evil purity living at the bottom of the Golden Triangle.
Even thinking about smack made his arms itch under the cheap fibres of the shearer’s coat. He fished Lord’s card from the pocket and checked the time when he went back for more coffee and a croissant. At a little before nine, he drifted up the strip as far as Hungry Jacks’ and found the last surviving pay phones as much like public urinals as he remembered.
“Lord, it’s Mick.”
“Flanagan,” the lawyer sighed almost in relief. “Where are you?”
“Freo.”
“Right. I’m throwing a sickie. You up for breakfast?”
“I will be in a bit.”
“Great. You know that bench in front of Gina’s?”
“I was just looking at it.”
“See you at ten.” He paused and there was a stifled laugh. “You almost gave the old man a heart attack.”
For a confused moment Flanagan thought Lord was referring to his own father, and then the facts of Oliver’s death came back twice as hard. He stayed speechless.
“I’ll see you at ten,” Lord said and hung up.
*
THE SEAGULL WAS picking carrots from a spray of dried vomit on the pavement on the other side of the road when Tennyson appeared, waving from in front of the hotel before hoisting his long legs over the safety chain and crossing the street.
“Long time since we sat here,” he said, shaking Flanagan’s hand and throwing himself down on the bench with enthusiasm.
They were poised on an island of pavement where Market Street split in two. Though the Federation buildings were only double storey, they sat as tall as three, long windows of upper floors obscured by curtains and flower pots and business posters. At ground level it was all cafes and Italian ice-cream joints, the last surviving café-cum-grocery store across the way beside the hotel it partly owned. The funeral parlour at the next corner down was stripped naked, waiting transformation into a surf shop. One more block down and there was High Street, wisely pedestrianised on one side, and lifeblood of the historic West End on the other. He hadn’t been there since he was failing his Arts degree and trying to drown his sorrows in German beer and Dutch backpackers.
“I’m sorry about your father-in-law,” Flanagan said. “I guess I just lost my block. I’m trying to cut down on that sort of thing.”
Lord gave him a funny grin and paused a moment, a Robert De Niro impersonation in the making, curiosity and doubt framed in squinting eyes.
“Who are you, really?”
“What?”
“The Mick Flanagan I knew was a clever bloke,” Lord said. “Read books, quoted Sartre to get up girls’ skirts and fucking succeeded, prickly . . . prick. You sound like you’ve been hanging out with farmers or metalheads or something. Are you alright, mate?”
Flanagan tried to ignore the prickling sensation of heat sweeping across his scalp and palms and took a breath.
“I guess I done changed some,” he replied in a corny Yank accent and they laughed. “I guess it’s the crowd I’ve been with, meatheads and utter cocks for the most part.”
“Where’s this? Tell me about it.”
“No, you were going to tell me about this family emergency.”
“It’s just Teneille’s sister, mate. Nothing for you to worry about.”
“She’s got a sister, has she? Married?”
“Sixteen.” The number came with all due seriousness. “It’s fucked up. Teneille and I met about three years ago, and we were on, you know, pretty quick. There’s ten years between the sisters. Old Mrs J, she likes to take it slow.”
Flanagan gave him a look and Tennyson blanched.
“Well, OK, the kid’s a mistake. Maybe in more ways than one. Teneille says the old lady never got over giving birth, still blames her for the awful labour.”
“It’s a shit idea, childbirth.”
“If you’re lying on your back waiting for the drugs to kick in, it sure is.”
Flanagan shrugged. “This kid?”
“Allyson,” Lord sighed. “She’s run away. The last few years, Jacobsen’s been a high-flyer. Owns a string of car yards, means they’ve got money around like they never did when Teneille was young. The old lady’s got class – the worst kind – but Darryl’s, you know. . . .”
Lord shrugged and sighed.
“Allyson’s been fucking off to nightclubs since she was fourteen. Looks every bit of it, but never mind. It’s a bad scene these days. Even if you ignore the Asian gangs, there’s drug dealers and bikies and fucking footballers mixed in with everything.”
“And?”
“Now she’s just gone,” Lord said. “Her parents had a blow-up last week after some guy in an Alfa Romeo dropped her at the house.”
“Where’s this?”
“Highgate.”
They watched a pair of cutesy office girls walk past with nary a flicker of amusement, advance scouts for the commuters streaming from the distant train. Out behind the white-painted station, its old clock forever stuck at eleven, a frigate leaving port sounded the horn. An odd moment since the city’s new ruling class had outlawed the traditional ambience of the harbour.
“I had no idea I was walking in on a family crisis,” Flanagan said, aware he was speaking a tad more crisply for Tennyson’s sake. “I guess old Darryl had a reason to be shitty, even if he should watch that fucking finger.”
“He’s not used to dealing with . . . whatever sort of bloke you are,” Lord slowly said.
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know,” the lawyer replied, eyes on Flanagan’s awkward profile. “You’ve changed. I don’t know what it is.”
“I could drop a few kilos.”
“It’s not that, but it’s true, you do look like a footballer yourself.”
“A bit old.”
“What, thirty?”
“In November.” Flanagan cleared his throat and resisted spitting. “What were you going to do about this girl?”
“Her father’s notified the police,” Lord said. “I was thinking about visiting a few clubs.”
“OK, look, I’d like to help,” Flanagan said, swivelling back to brave the conversation. “Maybe I flew off the handle. It’s something I’m trying to . . . get a handle on, pardon the pun. There something I could do? Has anyone gone to see this bloke?”
“The boyfriend? No.”
“He might think she’s on the level.” Flanagan waited until he had complete eye contact. “What do the parents say? I could put on the frighteners.”
Tennyson reacted slowly. “Yeah, I bet you could.”
“Don’t be a pussy, Lord. The car – did the parents get the rego?”
“Yeah, it was one of those black private numbers. S-M-O-K-I-N. Got it?”
“We’ll see if I’ve still got some friends in this town.”
“Are you thinking about doing this kind of thing professionally?” Lord asked. “It was never any secret you were picked up by the government when you went off to Canberra. The recruiters were always sniffing around the campus.”
“We’ll just see how I go on this one, eh? Or do you reckon I should hit the old man up for a retainer?”
“After last night, I don’t reckon you should go anywhere near him.” Lord coughed and winced into a Jimmy Cagney accent. “You could say you’ve hit him up enough.”
“You’ll have to grill your in-laws again for me, then,” Flanagan said. “Whatever names and numbers you can turn up, especially this little toe-rag’s friends, alright?”
“Alright,” Lord said. “Just remember this toe-rag is technically my sister-in-law, Flanagan.”
Knees apart and slumped on the bench, Flanagan nodded, suitably chastened.
“Alright. Now fuck this for a game of soldiers. Let’s eat.”
FIVE
THE PAWNBROKER’S YIELDED two important finds: a second-hand mobile phone in a leather case, and a mid-thigh leather coat in passable condition. Flanagan dumped the shearer’s get-up in a public bin. With the phone in hand clinging to the last of its ancient battery, he threaded his way through the tan brick maze of an 80s piazza, headed vaguely back along the strip and Market Street to the ye olde post office overlooking the station and the Puppet Theatre with its park full of listless, disaffected natives.
Once he’d sorted the phone and written the new number on his hand, Flanagan dipped into the café across from a crappy brick church on the main street. He sat outside watching visitors file across from the train station.
The struts of cargo cranes on the wharf framed the view as newcomers to the port got an eyeball of Freo’s unofficial ambassador to visiting tourists and blow-ins the world over, a New Age and witchcraft bookshop called The Alchemist. As Flanagan ordered coffee and sat outside to smoke, a threesome of Goth girls stomped across in platform boots and bustled inside. He eased back the lapels on the jacket, thoughts lost momentarily to a sense memory of tropical heat.
Cigarette and pen in the same hand, Flanagan transferred the numbers from his improvised address book to the inside cover of a new pad. He almost felt like a student again writing his name on the cover, so he left it blank. He was relieved to see he still had Frank Doyle’s number, though these days the hotshot Detective Inspector would have a work mobile too. When Flanagan dialled the Perth station he was told as much, though the switchboard lass offered to take a message instead of giving up the private number.
With his antennae twitching for signals, Flanagan borrowed a phone directory and started looking through the names. Off the case for a moment, the first one he found in Fremantle was a Ms Flanagan N on Norfolk Street, which he knew was close by. Chewing that over, he noted down the Jacobsen number in case he needed it, then transcribed Lord’s business card, finishing up by giving the lawyer’s mobile number a call.
“Got a pen handy?” he barked into the device once Lord answered, firing off the ten-digit number he’d already committed to memory.
“Entering modernity,” Lord chuckled.
“Postmodernity, Alf. Didn’t you learn anything at uni?”
“I did law, mate. I just memorised a heap of shit.”
“Sad if it wasn’t true.”
“You know the phones record incoming numbers, right Flanagan?”
Mick laughed. “This kid sister of yours, do you have a photo handy?”
“Oh, nice one,” Tennyson came back. “Didn’t think of that. I’ll have a dig. But mate, are you sure about this?”
“Lord, shut up,” Flanagan said. “Now this argument with the oldies: what is it that tells them she’s done a runner? What’s missing? It’d be bloody handy if she had a diary or a mobile phone or something she’s left behind.”
“The phone wouldn’t be likely.”
“She doesn’t have one?”
“No, she’s never off the fucking thing.”
“Should be a goldmine then,” Flanagan said.
“You pose a fine question, Mr Flanagan,” Lord said. “It might be a bit tough for me to explain myself to Darryl and Glenda. My wife Teneille’s pretty keen to meet you, said anyone who walks into a strange house and clocks her dad within five minutes has got to have a few interesting characteristics. ‘Characteristics,’ you’ll note I said. Her words. An educated girl.”
“You’ve done good, mate,” Flanagan said. “You can drop the ‘my wife Teneille’ too, by the way. Unless you’re trying to make me jealous, I’ve cottoned on that you tied the knot. I suppose my invite was in the mail?”
“Another one of those return envelope jobbies,” Lord said. “Look, how about dinner tonight? I’ll put up a few Claymores to keep the Jacobsens away. Teneille – she’s my wife, did I mention? – Teneille will cook.”
“Well I’m, yeah . . . OK.”
“Oozing enthusiasm, Mr Flanagan. See you at seven. Bring me beer.”
“But I heard you called in sick today?”
Flanagan laughed and hung up.
>
*
DESPITE THEIR COLOURFUL banners, the Fremantle Markets were shut during the week. Apart from a little activity around the auto-teller, white, wannabe gang-bangers scratching their initials into the ancient green paintwork, the huge iron-roofed building was an oasis of calm in the mid-week fervour.
The entrance to Norfolk Street was across from the limestone-and-brick church jutting out behind the markets. Across the way, the latest in a series of failing cafés occupied Fremantle’s one and only synagogue, though the Jews had ceased their worship in the 1920s to move closer to Perth. Flanagan almost felt like giving to charity himself as he crossed the street from the deserted Mariani’s, the staff inside playing cards at an empty table, but he didn’t think he could handle any more adrenalin. The idea of seeing his sister already had him scratching like a monkey.
Instead, he walked alongside the very old pub known as The Pines, a shearing shed-style building sheltered behind tasteful convict-era limestone-and-brick walls and an open-air beer garden. A drink sounded good, though it’d just gone eleven-thirty. Flanagan had to remind himself he might be unemployed, but at least he had a job to do.
With the sun shining and only scraps of the recent storm left in the sky, Norfolk Street was a moist, cool and shady stretch running down to Marine Terrace and its inevitable rendezvous with the sea. On his left, a long row of faux-limestone townhouses built for the America’s Cup sat crumbling amid the rising damp, things not helped by the tropical ferns and greenery which festooned each front yard.
Flanagan re-read the unit number he’d scribbled down for Nuala, letting himself in through a tall jarrah gate to reveal a half-finished goldfish pond, dislodged reticulation, and a stack of landscaping rocks dominating the small courtyard. Nuala wasn’t able to finish a good joke let alone her law degree, so the oasis of disarray seemed like her handiwork.
She stood in the doorway before he could even knock, a copious wool jumper pooling off bare shoulders, a steaming mug of tea cradled as if her only source of warmth. Flanagan froze and looked up the path, the black carry-all as ever in his grip.
Hard Light- Infamous Page 3