“I’m feeling like shit,” he finally answered.
“Yeah, me too.”
She turned, eyes afire and pouting with disappointment as she took in the juice. Instead, she went rummaging through the cupboards and found a bottle of sherry, a perfectly good liquor cabinet unlocked in the living room, and she poured them both a charge into the juice until it was stained the colour of blood. Flanagan extracted two painkillers and downed them, chasing the dry little things with the impromptu cocktail.
“Can I have one of those?”
“No,” he replied.
“Spoilsport.”
“You can have one when someone breaks your ribs.”
Allyson started unbuttoning her dress, a smile fixed in place, though when Flanagan met her eyes and firmly shook his head, she laughed, “What?” and started from the room.
“I’m only going to get changed.”
“Steal any cars today?”
“Cars?” she called from the middle room. “No.”
Allyson walked back from the third bedroom carrying a towel and wearing nothing but her black briefs and sports bra.
“Man, I have to get something to wear other than school uniforms.”
Flanagan uneasily watched her cross the room.
“I thought you did all that so you could collect your stuff?”
Allyson glanced back towards the open doorway and shrugged.
“Yeah, I did,” she said. “Some other stuff. I didn’t get all my clothes. It doesn’t matter.”
She left him pondering as she disappeared into the bathroom. Moments later, the shower was running, and with the unreliable hot water system, Flanagan knew she’d be at least five minutes.
He moved cautiously towards the ajar doorway of the middle room. Teneille had stacked her art supplies along the left-hand side and a couch-bed was pulled out like a mattress directly in front of the door. Allyson’s school uniform hung over the back of a chair, the little black dress from Carlo Franco’s shindig on a hook on the door. There was an old Myers bag full of different shoes, no more than five pairs. The only other item of baggage was a single sports bag, black with a slave labour company embroidered on the side. Checking Allyson was still in the shower, Flanagan tinkered with the zip until he had the thing undone.
There were some more clothes, though books outnumbered them, girlish fantasy novels mostly as well as a thick dictionary dedicated to her on the front page in a flowering ink pen, the name possibly a grandfather’s. An iPod, a phone recharger, a plastic bag with some AA batteries, three music CDs, loose pens, a blue vibrator and a plastic slip case jammed with photographs. The final item was a thick, spiral-bound diary with a pink cover, the pages along the edge showing hard use.
Flanagan ceased trying to sit on the edge of the mattress when he realised how much noise it would make. He opened the diary to a page in random and saw a hand-drawn map on the cartridge-quality paper in crisp black ink. The floor plan showed a house with an attached shed. Across the top of the page was an address in West Leederville, just outside the Perth CBD. Notes attached to the diagram, but after several seconds trying to focus on them, Flanagan conceded the writing looked like German. He flipped the book over to confirm Allyson’s name was inked on the front.
Outside, the water pressure eased off in the pipes earlier than he’d hoped. He flicked through the book and saw several more neatly executed maps, some lists and even a pie-chart, the writing too small to be read as a blur. She also had several business cards stuffed into it, and when one fell out, Flanagan poked it back in, squinting to read the name and logo. It was really only after he’d slipped it away and quickly done up the bag that the symbols registered, resolving into real words.
Tricia Renald, reporter, Australia Tonight.
*
THEY MADE A strange family, the four of them sitting around the dining room table eating the pasta Allyson had insisted on preparing. She’d denied having any homework, and frankly Flanagan wasn’t going to put too much thought into puzzling how the teenager was going to handle making up for months of truancy. The truth was, it was yet to be proved Allyson was really going to make a go of it anyway. School uniform aside, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she was still slipping out every day to hang with friends – ones who shaved and drove cars and shot their dogs for sport. Teneille had already suggested her sister’s school buddies were in fall-out mode over Allyson’s repeated absences.
Flanagan wasn’t much into the pasta, chewing a few more painkillers as Allyson swept the empty dishes from the table and started rinsing their mugs for coffee. Lord’s eyes kept slipping to the back room until everyone tacitly understood the lawyer had a late night of work still ahead of him. Flanagan couldn’t envy him anything, especially not his frustrated wife who sat smiling glassily through the meal and answering Allyson’s small talk with monosyllables. The younger sister seemed surprisingly unaffected, though Flanagan figured it for yet another act.
He eyed the vacant doorway to the kitchen and pitched his voice low.
“This might be a strange question, but does Allyson know any German?”
Teneille regarded him blankly, the reply when it came, unable to be strained of condescension.
“She’s on the school’s German scholarship.”
“Oh.”
“Next year she goes for three months to Berlin, if she behaves,” Lord added.
Allyson waltzed back in with bowls and a tub of yoghurt.
“Who’s behaving? Not me, I hope.”
“Lord was saying you might get to go to Berlin next year,” Flanagan said.
“Oh, that.”
“My sister’s moving to Berlin in a few weeks,” Flanagan replied.
“Is she the lesbian, or do you have another?” Teneille asked.
Flanagan turned his gaze robotically towards his hostess and felt his eyebrows tighten.
“Yeah. She’s gay.”
It was silent for a minute until Allyson elected to speak again, cheerfully spooning bacteria from the carton into her bowl and then licking the same spoon.
“Lesbians rock. I think I’m going to become a lesbian.” Her eyes flicked Flanagan’s way and she throatily laughed. “Girls are definitely better in bed.”
“Thanks very much for that, Allyson,” Teneille said and stood. “I don’t think I’ll have any dessert.”
“I’ll get to that work that needs doing,” Lord stood, doffing an invisible hat and leaving the table for the back room.
Flanagan remained slumped back in his seat, ribs relegated to a dull background roar. His hands lay on the table in fists either side of the bowl. Allyson chuckled again and gave up her pretence and started eating yoghurt straight from the tub.
“You want some?”
“No,” Flanagan replied.
“What’s your sister’s name?”
“Nuala,” he said eventually.
“Is she younger or older?”
He sighed. “Older.”
“That’s a shame. If she was like a girl version of you, she’d be hot.”
“Christ.” He stood up, stood staring down at the table. “I’m going to bed.”
“Can I come?”
“No.”
He sighed painfully again and shuffled out of the room, closing and wishing it was possible to lock the bedroom door behind him. He knew sleeping with the girl was possibly among the least brightest things he’d recently done. Time would tell if it would make the all-time list.
*
IT WAS MIDDAY by the time Flanagan managed to get away from the house with Allyson’s diary wrapped inside a newspaper under his arm. The blustery weather hadn’t improved, though the day was dry and ostensibly fine. He could almost feel winter’s fingers prised free of the trees and fences of the Mosman Park homes as he hunkered down behind the wheel of the Fairmont. It took several tries before the bulky sedan coughed into life.
He refuelled along the way to Fremantle, eventually pulling into his sis
ter’s house at a little before one. Having pilfered Allyson’s diary, he knew he had to be quick in case she came right home from school to update the curious tome with her even more curious German code.
And yet no one answered. Feeling jittery already, Flanagan forewent a coffee and took a place in the beer garden of the increasingly familiar Whale & Tanker. A waitress with a limp and a spray of cute freckles took his order for a club sandwich, fries and a pilsener. The meal went as quickly as it came and after checking how little time had elapsed on his phone, he ordered a Guinness and tried to sit patiently, no concentration for the magazines at hand. Instead, he unfolded Allyson’s diary like a lost Michelangelo folio, as mystified about the oblique drawings as anyone could be. He came to Tricia Renald’s business card again, and after raising it to the light, a sense of dread pervading his liquid lunch, he tucked the card away in the top pocket of his button-up shirt to contemplate for later. Allyson could always assume she’d lost it.
Since the walk back to Norfolk Street was so close, Flanagan went for a stroll down the Strip before turning around at the bend into Market Street, where he contemplated another beer at the Port. Salubriousness got the better of him and he walked back up the street trying to find a spiel he could offer Nuala to explain the situation with the diary.
As he walked, a sign caught his attention and he paused, at the entrance to a narrow red brick laneway beside the Roma Pizzeria. Behind a potted street plant stood a glass door with a small sign, ‘office for lease,’ followed by a mobile phone number. It took Flanagan several minutes to program the digits into his phone, his first-ever attempt, and he continued the walk back past the pub and on down to his sister’s place with a pensive, rationalising air.
He was still crouched in the doorway, arse half-supported by a decorative rock, when the phone in his pocket lit up. The colour window said it was a private number calling, immediately putting him on edge.
“Flanagan,” he answered softly.
“Flanagan, it’s Carlo.”
“Carlo Franco,” Flanagan said as much for his own bemusement as for the sake of any wire-tapping cops. “It’s been a while.”
“You missing a few days, are you, pal?”
Flanagan stretched his gums into a soundless sneer at Franco’s mocking laugh. Rising, he walked slowly down his sister’s very short brick path and stopped with his arm resting over the rendered column to one side of the gate.
“I remember things pretty well, Charlie. How about you?”
“Oh, look, Flanagan. Let’s not fight. You don’t know Hoppy like I do. There’s nothing I could’ve done to stop him, I’m sorry. RJ got you out of there before there was too much damage. You know that, right?”
“And you want me to be grateful to you?” Flanagan asked, sounding almost as astounded as he actually was. “I think I owe RJ a beer.”
“I’ll put him on, shall I?”
Flanagan ignored the sarcasm and cleared his throat.
“Why are you calling, Carlo?”
“Look, I won’t bullshit you, Flanagan. I was impressed by what I saw. You and I know you nailed Brett. In a fair fight, you’d have him any day of the week. That’s nothing to sniff at. This business with the girl’s all done, as far as I’m concerned. I thought you might be interested in some work?”
“For you?”
Flanagan laughed long and low, the only trouble being the part of him that felt vaguely tempted.
“You’re having a lend of me, Carlo.”
“I understand you lost some money at the track,” the gangster coolly replied. “I might be able to help you out with that. That and more. Interested?”
“Maybe,” he replied grudgingly.
“Just listen to me talk, that’s all I ask.”
“Alright. When and where?”
“I’ll send someone to pick you up.”
“I’ve had enough of that,” Flanagan replied. “Name a place and I’ll see you there.”
“Sheesh, OK, big guy. You know the Muesli Bar down near the boats there in Freo?”
“I’m right near by,” Flanagan replied.
“See you in an hour.”
Carlo clicked off without any confirmation. Flanagan sighed between his gritted teeth and stared down at the inert phone, the strong desire to force his thumb through the leather and plastic only diverted by the sound of the gate. He stepped back, face-to-face with Nuala and her girlfriend. His sister smiled while the other woman looked merely uncertain, eyes clouded.
“You’ve been waiting for me?” Nuala asked.
“Yeah, sorry,” Flanagan said. “I’ve just got something here I need one of you to have a look at.”
Nuala raised an eyebrow at the phrase, but said nothing. Karen, turning back to watch them from the doorway, busied herself with unlocking the dark front door. Nuala and Flanagan followed. Flanagan produced the diary and his sister flicked on the light, the current dipping almost straight away.
“What’s this?”
“It’s my friend’s sister’s diary,” Flanagan explained. “She’s messed up with some guys, druggies and low-lifes. I told my friend I’d look into it.”
“You’re an expert on that sort of thing, are you?”
“Nuala. . . .”
His sister frowned and wiped hair from her eyes.
“OK, give me the book.”
She took to the couch, shoeless already, legs tucked beneath her sensible brown hemp skirt. Flanagan stood in the middle of the room, bladder trickling full almost audibly. The girlfriend entered behind him, and as he switched about, their eyes locked uncomfortably, the German woman looking away as if pretending he didn’t exist, fingers pulling at her short but unruly red hair like camouflage.
The couple started up in what probably passed these days for the native language, and they went on talking as Karen smoothed her slacks down and sat, as if fearful Flanagan might be checking out her action, the conversation clearly centred on the book Karen soon held.
“Michael,” Nuala said finally. “What is this girl mixed up in?”
“I told you, it was pretty bad news. She’s kept some kind of ledger, hasn’t she?”
“I’m not sure what you would call it. At university, I think they’d call it life writing. Maybe . . . citizen journalism?”
Karen put down the book with her thumb in one of the pages containing a map.
“This girl, Allyson? At one moment, she sounds like a journalist, like she is recording the . . . activities . . . of some criminal people. The next moment, she is a teenage girl.” The redhead looked down at the book. “A teenage girl who is out of her depth.”
“Could you translate it for me?” Flanagan asked.
Karen blew out her cheeks, but Nuala took the book from her expressive hands.
“I can do it, but I’ll need some time.”
“I have to get the book back . . . and I have to meet some of those very same crims in just under an hour. Maybe I could photocopy the pages or something?”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
Flanagan’s head went up and down like some cheap markets novelty.
“Yeah. I could do with an office down here, couldn’t I?”
TWENTY-ONE
THE BREEZE HAD picked up to be like something from the end of the world, coming in off the sea in great buffeting squalls that made the canvas awnings and brightly-coloured flags snap and groan like crucified thieves. The boat contingent of Fishing Boat Harbour was well represented, several dozen craft in different sizes tied at their moorings across from the contemporary walkways slick with wind-blown moisture and gull shit. At the big Chikatillo’s complex, which accounted for the first hundred or so outside tables, only a few Japanese war veterans with their sensibly-dressed nurses stood up to the elements. The old men were shrivelled inside their crisp and new-looking Western clothes.
Raisin eyes like from gingerbread men followed Flanagan as he came across the train line and down onto the clattering walkway. The
Muesli Bar was adjacent, the smoked glass and iron of KS’s dominating the skyline behind, perched right on the limestone groynes separating reclaimed land from the sea. One of Fishing Boat Harbour’s smallest establishments, the Muesli Bar only had a single waitress on the blustery afternoon, something in her demeanour at odds with the feel of the afternoon.
It only took one glance for Flanagan to confirm why. He was cradling his throbbing ribs already, and seeing the famous footballer Brett Hopkins astride the counter, big hands wrapped around salt and pepper shakers as if waiting for a photo shoot to begin, only reminded Flanagan just how sore their last encounter left him. Drawing closer, he could discern not only the blonde girl’s blush, but the bruising around Hoppy’s split lip and one of his eyes.
“Flanagan.”
Hopkins turned on the high stool and weighed one of the metal-bottomed shakers in his hand, gauging the throw and Flanagan’s likely reaction. The blonde remained unaware, and Flanagan’s aching ribs redoubled their alarm as his heart started thrashing ahead of a growing series of realisations.
“This is a fucking set-up,” he snapped.
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Hopkins crooned, stepping gingerly down from the stool and coming towards Flanagan through the scant tables and chairs.
“Where are your mates?” Flanagan asked, actually looking for them.
“No mates needed.”
“That’s not what Carlo reckoned,” Flanagan replied. “Said your arse would’ve been grass without your pals.”
“He’d tell you anything, Flanagan, you dim cunt.”
Hopkins laughed and glanced back, smiling winningly at the girl behind the counter and laughing even more loudly when she demurely dipped her head.
“You’re lucky my adoring public are here to watch out for you, Flanagan.”
“Lucky you’re sober, more like it,” Flanagan snapped. “From what I’ve seen, you lose your temper pretty easily, Bretty-boy. I wouldn’t put it past you to try and go me again, even though you should know better.”
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