Hard Light- Infamous

by Warren Hately

  “You were going to tell me a story,” Flanagan said.

  “Right. Try not to roll your eyes, Michael,” he said. “I know you’re expecting some stirrin’ tale of derring-do, but that’s not it. You know cops. You’re from a cop family. I’ve got these nice men from an anonymous government department telling me you’re a national asset and the director of ASIO would take it as a personal favour if I would lever mercy on your behalf if not just accidentally misfile the whole goddamned thing. Cop families, the children of cops, it’s not pretty. Poor guys, men give their whole lives to the work, and then their own children half the time go right off the rails, like the criminals win, you know. You do know, I believe, and I’m not referrin’ to this little bout of criminality we have on our hands here.”

  “I was doing your officers’ work for you, superintendent.”

  “So Detective Inspector Doyle was trying to tell me earlier. Let me finish my … story, will you,” the older cop said, tugging at his starched collar and looking for all the world like he might just break his own code of conduct about bad language.

  “My own little boy, Dennis Vincent, Little Vince, maybe we shouldn’t’ve called him Dennis, I don’t know. We tried to do everything right with him. Had two girls as well, lost another little boy at age two, hell of a thing. The women never recover. Their babies, you know, victims of their own damned biology. Can’t help lovin’ the little things, even after the bastard things Vince done. Did.

  “Vince left school to be a mechanic, only that didn’t last too long. We grew up in Midland too, so you know the drill. The city was a big lure and it was three months after he stopped going to work we found out he was in the city, dressin’ up like a Nancy, wearing eyeliner, for Christ’s sake, shoes with little bells on ‘em. No, boots.”

  Bevilacqua ran a hand over his bulging forehead and recessive, short-cut dark hair.

  “The drugs were a given,” he said. “If we could’ve escaped with that, it would’ve been easy compared to some. But then it was heroin and a whole bunch of things I’m not proud to admit. He was no queer, but he had some queer ideas in his head, called himself a Goth. That was an architecture word, when I was at university. I was called in by Errol one night, late on a midnight shift, pulled down to the basement in East Perth. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in there. My boy has. He was there on his own, black shit down his face ‘cause of all the tears. I don’t know if he’d taken a beating, he never said, but Errol got him aside once he realised he was my boy and stayed with me every step of the way after that.

  “He’d been selling his arse on Fitzgerald Street, taking money for blowjobs in that park in Northbridge, Smells-Like-Cum Park or whatever the kids used to call it. Errol let me take him out the back door. We took him home. It’d been months since I’d seen him, my wife would slip out to this place in Highgate where they were all livin’, run him groceries and twenty-dollar notes. We washed him up and helped clean him out, I held him in my arms like the baby he once was, that beautiful olive skin.”

  The super dipped his head and Flanagan sat unmoving at the table, uncertain of the sudden confessional bent and desperate for a smoke. Bevilacqua didn’t look up.

  “The boy had AIDS. He’s still alive today. They’ve got great drugs now, but he’s not anything anyone who knew him would recognise, except for me and the wife. He’s in a hospice. It was too much for home care. Our girl Jackie was killed last year in a collision. After that it was too much to bear. Errol never leaked a word about it. I’ve never had to tell anyone, explain a damned thing, there was nothing on the record, and even the fingerprints went missing. And he never made me ask – never made me ask a damned thing, or speak of it again. That’s the sort of loyalty a cop gives another cop even when he’s a dirty, dirty fuckin’ wog and he’d strangle any dirty bastard who touched his little girl with his bare hands.”

  “I’m sorry for your son, superintendent,” Flanagan said. “And your daughter. And thank you for the story. I guess over the years there weren’t a lot of good stories we heard about Errol, least of all from my mum.”

  He was so far down the road of fake contrition now, Flanagan knew he had to apply the brakes. So he went strangely silent and mimed putting a fist to his mouth.

  Bevilacqua nodded like an automaton, till his head looked like it might just fall off, bounce hard on the table and hit the floor in pieces. He shot Frank Doyle a look and sniffed once, loudly, before returning to the typed document.

  “How did it all come to this, son?”

  “There’s a girl who’s dead, sir,” Flanagan said. “She shouldn’t be. If your men had taken me seriously, instead of writing her off as a runaway like Charlie Franco wanted, like Brett Hopkins wanted, she’d be alive today.”

  “Forensics are suggesting the girl’s been using for some time.”

  “It would be hard to prove it’s any longer than the period she’s been missing for,” Flanagan said. “It’s a fucking set-up, chief.”

  “And the guns?” The cop raised a hard-to-miss eyebrow.

  Flanagan flicked his gaze to Doyle and then to the table. “I’ve got nothing to say on that. No proof I shot anyone.”

  “At Franco’s house or elsewhere in the city. Police were called to reports of shots in East Fremantle,” Bevilacqua said, referring briefly to the first of the pages.

  Flanagan shrugged.

  “The vehicle was sighted by police fleeing a blockade,” the superintendent said. Then he glanced towards Doyle again before adding, “But apparently those coppers you dropped in North Freo can’t put together an exact description.”

  “Between you and me, superintendent, I don’t mind saying I was there. That’s where they killed Allyson. They murdered her, just as surely as they doctored the fucking lease. Have someone ask into it.”

  Bevilacqua sniffed. “And there’s a diary?”

  “It was under the seat of my car.”

  The cop looked at Doyle and stood, his chair juddering on the new carpet.

  “Then we’d better have a look. You mean what you say about testifying?”

  “Against Franco? Absolutely,” Flanagan said. “But you’ve got to get Hopkins. Or let me get him.”

  The super watched him for a moment, eyes downcast from his height advantage. “Grand Final in two weeks, Michael. Gotta be hard to play with you gunning for him.”

  As Bevilacqua filed from the room, Doyle hung back.

  “I thought I told you to say nothing?”

  He shook his head, gave one formal tsk, and slammed the door behind him. Flanagan leaned back and cradled his head with interlocked fingers and wished for a smoke.

  THIRTY-ONE

  FINALLY, THEY LET him sleep. And smoke. Night turned into day and a full breakfast tipped up into the cubicle toilet before Flanagan managed to keep lunch down. They got the doctor in and there were some blessed painkillers. He slept most of the afternoon and the next night like he was in a morgue, not a gaol cell.

  Early the next morning, two cops escorted him back to another interview room, décor identical, a trace of mint in the air. The bruising at its worst had receded, leaving Flanagan’s face a mottled, piss-yellow mask looking back stunned and begrudging at him from all the shiny surfaces the station offered.

  He was left cuffed to the desk for ten minutes before the door opened and Mahmoud Pringdegar walked in, a folder in one hand, take-away coffee in the other. He barely looked at Flanagan, emanating disdain for the whole operation, and he did the reversed chair thing and settled on the opposite side of the grey table.

  The Sikh held his gaze for a long while. Flanagan felt the other man’s composure straining, and wondered, internally, what the hell was about to erupt next. And then from his pocket, the detective produced a Dictaphone and a ball-point pen, which he clicked loudly.

  “Mr Flanagan, I have been instructed to take your statement in regards to the death of Allyson Jacobsen. I may as well inform you, before you say anything else, that you are not
being charged with any offence and if you are able to co-operate and surrender your passport, you will be free to go home once we have settled this and several other small details.”

  Flanagan couldn’t control the huge grin, and Pringdegar didn’t like it.

  “Victory at last, eh, Mr Flanagan?”

  Flanagan’s jaw-line hardened and his grin became a sneer.

  “Say that to her family, detective.”

  *

  HE ASKED FOR Doyle, but Frank was from the city station and it was after three o’clock by the time he’d nailed down his account of events. They released him through the stylish glass front doors of the Cockburn station, the shadows of artful palm trees shielding him from daylight’s forgotten glare.

  The car across the road gave a discreet beep, not enough for Flanagan to miss it, and he masked his eyes from the sun and noted government plates as Nigel rose from the passenger’s seat and crossed the busy road.

  “Nigel,” Flanagan said, shaking the taller man’s hand.

  “Flanagan. How’s freedom smell?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “No ride?”

  “Afraid not,” Flanagan said. “I think I used up all my favours.”

  “I’m glad you realise that,” the other man said. “Then I don’t need to give you the sermon I prepared earlier?”

  “No,” Flanagan said, “but you can give me a fucking gun.”

  “Jesus, Mick,” Fields said. “I thought you might’ve learned something. You start with tolerance. Lenience on the first offence. If you fuck up again, the director will not be interceding on your behalf.”

  “I can live with that, Nigel,” Flanagan said. “If everything goes right, firearms won’t be needed. But you know better than that.”

  “You’re dreaming, Flanagan,” Fields said. He regarded him a moment through his polarised sunglasses and smiled his burly, faux handsome smile.

  “I’m glad to know you’re still around. You’ve burnt pretty much every bridge you ever built, in case you didn’t know. I hear they’re trying to close the files on Manilla and Jakarta once and for all. You want to help with that, maybe save some face, some career?”

  Flanagan shrugged. The sun was harder on him than he wanted to admit and he had a cracking thirst, a near alcoholic urge to find a shady pub and a cold beer. Once, he would’ve taken Nigel with him. The over-riding urge to get away now cancelled that forsaken past.

  “I can’t seem to remember much myself, Nige, sorry.”

  “I bet you are,” Fields replied, shaking his head in that way he had that seemed admiring, but really showed nothing but his own arrogance.

  “You know we cleaned up this spill for you? There’s no need to keep it up, to testify against this Franco character. You’re a blank sheet, Micky boy.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Flanagan grimaced, smiling into the sun.

  Fields lingered only a moment longer.

  “Don’t get yourself killed, arsehole.”

  “Yeah,” Flanagan said. “You too.”

  Then the flashy suit was bolting across a gap in the incessant traffic, his offsider with the engine running. The dark car took off amid the clangour of oncoming horns and Flanagan turned to stare back into the alluring cool of the police station.

  “Need a cab,” he muttered.

  *

  MIKE DROPPED HIM on the street’s verdant edge having asked a merciful minimum of questions, however many that’d still been. It was good preparation for slipping back into the world of consequences, instead of the fantasy land of good graces in which he’d been constrained.

  The Tennyson home was locked. Thinking better of lounging on the front step and bringing the lawyer and his fine wife into any further disrepute, Flanagan moved through the brilliant dark foliage to the back of the house, past the barbecue pit where he had only lately resisted the charms of the willowy Margot, and up onto the back porch. A brimming ashtray bespoke of recent events and prepared him, somewhat, for Lord’s return.

  Smoking quietly on his own, it was only a little while later Flanagan heard the European engine slow along the street and purr to a halt. He dusted ash from the thighs of his jeans and stood, waiting long, awkward moments until the tall form of the lawyer appeared through the wooden blinds, too tired to be gawky. What could only faithfully be described as a true ghost of a smile appeared on Lord’s worn and now lightly-bearded face.

  “Ah, there you are,” Lord said. “Not too afraid to face Teneille after trashing her Civic?”

  Flanagan moved across the wooden verandah with a deep nervous tic in the side of his neck, taking the lawyer’s outstretched hand and then bursting into deep and ferocious tears.

  *

  HE WOKE IN the dark and could smell her.

  Allyson’s perfume, her natural scent, the thing that made girls nice and boys bad, seemed to permeate the small bedroom. One moment to remember why and Flanagan groaned deeply, rolling onto anxious ribs and moving his hand, unconsciously, like a newborn, to his lips to gnaw his knuckle.

  When his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, Flanagan sat upright, annoyed as ever at the insistency of his bladder that meant he couldn’t just lie there, sleep-wrecked, waiting till he was ready to rise on his own terms. Outside the room, he could hear multiple pairs of footsteps on the Tennysons’ polished boards.

  He’d brought a plastic bag with him from the police station and he emptied it out onto the floor beside the mattress hoping to find more cigarettes. Instead, the unfamiliar phone seemed to glare at him. The recharger for his old phone, lost now, was still jacked into the wall, and he didn’t even have to reach to see the new and the old were a miraculous fit. Without thinking too much about it, he plugged in the porn star’s phone and moved across to a small pile of mail Teneille and Lord had left on the room’s pine table. Had they found anything to incriminate him in there? He sorted the mail and saw the settlement documents for the house. Signatures were required, were way overdue. A shame his attorney could not have signed in his absence.

  Flanagan hauled himself across to the bathroom and then inched, awkward, post-apocalyptic, not unlike the first time alone with Lord’s wife, going into the pine kitchen with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his black jeans.

  Teneille turned from sorting among the sugar bowls and spoon caddies, embracing him completely, careful of his hurts, but determined to embrace, and in so doing, accept him. Flanagan rested his head on her shoulder a moment more than even he wanted, desperate for the sense of acquittal he wished would come.

  “I’m so fucking sorry, Teneille.”

  “I know. You’ve done everything you can, Mick. Nearly killed yourself in the process. Even mum and dad know that.”

  “You think they can forgive me?”

  “I think my dad’s moved on from you whacking him, if that’s what you mean.”

  Flanagan sighed. “It’s not.”

  “Of course not,” Teneille replied. “I don’t know, Flanagan. We’ll just have to see.”

  They broke apart and she retrieved a business card from the sideboard.

  “A policeman called here for you. Frank Doyle?”

  “Yeah, I know him.”

  “Did he help you out of this mess?” she asked.

  “Did he? I’m not sure.”

  “Do they know what happened now, the police? And do they understand?”

  Flanagan pulled a chair from the table and sat heavily. The boards seemed to creak, exhaling beneath him.

  “Some of it. The rest, well, I’m not sure I’m going to tell. Grounds I may incriminate myself. Carlo Franco is behind bars. I’m going to have to testify to help keep him there, I think.”

  “Is that dangerous?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “I know you may have all sorts of mob scenarios going through your mind right now. But this is Western Australia. I don’t think the guy inspired such loyalty. Right now, there’s probably too much of a scramble to stake a claim to his turf. Allyson’s jo
urnal is pretty damning. There’s a lot of real estate out there now without anyone to collect the rent.”

  He went quiet, thinking about the bald Welshman.

  Lord entered. He had the look of a man expecting bad news. It was hard to imagine the news could be any worse than what they’d endured during the last few days and weeks.

  Outside, the wind picked up, leaves throwing themselves like suicides against the glass of the French doors to the back veranda. Teneille seemed to sense the change in the weather and shivered. Flanagan only hung his head, tired with the sort of exhaustion that only comes after a too much sleep.

  “Her funeral is on Sunday,” Lord said, almost unexpectedly into the sudden silence.

  “Allyson?” Flanagan’s head sunk lower yet. “And what is it today?”

  “Friday,” Teneille softly said.

  “Friday night football?” he asked.

  “No,” Lord replied. “Hopkins? Tomorrow night, at home.”

  “OK,” Flanagan said. “OK.”

  *

  HE WASN’T FAMILIAR with mobile phones at the best of times. It took a while, notepad and pencil beside him, to get the information Flanagan wanted. Then he moved back into the kitchen, Teneille in a black sweater, her husband with a whiskey. Another sat on the table, waiting for him.

  “Phone,” he said.

  Teneille brought the cordless. Flanagan dialled the mobile number and sat, resisting the drink, until the ring went on and on and then he had a mouthful of whiskey when RJ answered.

  “Who is it?”

  “Flanagan,” he said.

  “Jesus. You made it out alive, did you?”

  “Of course. Same as you.”

  The Welshman sniffled deeply in agreement.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “Where are you?”

  “Halfway to Melbourne. What about you? You sending the bloodhounds after me?”