by Berry, Tony
The one-way tirade ended abruptly with two shouted words: ‘Ai gamisou.’ Theopoulos pushed the phone’s off button and banged it back into its cradle.
‘Bastards.’
‘Obviously,’ responded West. He decided the phone call had nothing to do with moussaka.
‘Another stroppy tenant?’
‘You understood?’
‘Sorry, Con. As they say, it was all Greek to me. You wog-boys are all the same. Excitable lot. Going like a Gatling. Waving your arms all over the place. No wonder you need those things.’ He flicked a finger at the strand of komboloi beads Theopoulos was slowly threading between his hands. ‘Too hot-blooded.’
Theopoulos leered at him.
‘And you are what, cold and calm? Cold Carl, eh? A killer ice block on legs. What’s keeping you chilled today? Any news on the Shapcott woman? And why you dressed like that?’
West removed his gloves and a straw panama with blue and green band and pushed a pile of folders across the desk in the direction of Theopoulos. It cleared a space for him to place his hat and room to perch himself, one leg firm on the floor, the other bent at the knee and dangling loosely. He decided not to explain today’s disguise, hiding himself inside the trappings of a possibly eccentric ladies’ man from another era. A different wig of graying hair curling down his neck and globs of stage putty in his cheeks ensured no one saw him as the blind man tapping his uncertain way along the street.
‘Elizabeth Marguerite Nurmi Shapcott, or the Shapcott woman as you call her, is being watched and worked on,’ said West. ‘She’s getting the message, so to speak.’
Theopoulos let his beads hang loose, frowning at West: ‘What’s with that name? The “Nurmi”. What are you trying to tell me?’
West’s shoulders rose and sank. A quick shrug.
‘A bit of information picked up along the way. Not important. Just letting you know I’m doing my job. Every little detail. You never know when it might be useful.’
‘So?’
West stared at images along the office wall showing penthouses and homes he would never afford, glaring fixedly at them as if reading an autocue.
‘Shapcott’s father, long dead, came from Finland. A mad keen athlete. He was nuts about the great Parvo Nurmi and lumbered his daughter with the name as a tribute. As I said, not important. A bit of trivia.’
The clicking of the beads resumed – calming one, irritating the other. Carl West broke the silence.
‘I’m not only letting you know I’m doing my job but also that she’s not your only worry. She’s spending a lot of time with that Mister Fixit of a travel consultant. Obviously, you’d know all about that.’
‘Perkins? Yes, I saw them having coffee. You were doing your blind man act outside. Could be she’s simply a client.’
West’s head nodded up and down, still staring at the glossy pictures.
‘That’s the one. Tricky. Yes, he does handle all her travel stuff, but the word is he has good contacts on the other side. Seems he’s not your normal sort of travel agent.’
‘What gives you that idea?’
‘Gossip. Talk. Contacts. What you pay me for – when you remember.’
West sniffed. Might as well give the greedy bastard a rundown on yesterday’s events.
‘If he’s so bloody innocent what’s he doing helping the Shapcott woman take a couple of crates of files and papers from the girl’s flat?’
West wiped his hand beneath his nostrils and watched the reaction. Mull over that, you fat slob.
He got his reaction. Theopoulos thumped one pudgy hand flat on the desk, the beads squashed beneath. The other clawed down over the top of West’s leg, squeezing, making him wince.
‘What papers? What files?’
West wriggled his leg and the pressure eased.
‘Take it easy, Con. You start squeezing my leg like that I might get the wrong idea. Or I might turn nasty, and you know what that’s like. The files were nothing – student papers, assignments, garbage. They’re welcome to them.’
He held Theopoulos’s glare, knowing the worth of his response was being assessed, putting all his old stagecraft into a look of sincerity. Maybe he might yet again get a chance to play Willy Loman; rep companies were always dragging up Death of a Salesman.
Theopoulos eased his bulk back into the chair, hands in his lap, slowly pushing the beads along their strings.
‘I hope you’re right,’ he said. ‘Make enquiries. Could be you’re on to something about him not being a normal travel agent.’
West gave a smile one stop short of being a sneer.
‘But then, Con, you’re not the normal sort of real estate agent, are you?’ He smirked: ‘It sort of evens things up a bit.’
Theopoulos ignored him.
‘You got anything else to report or have you just come here to annoy me?’
‘I think the kid could cause trouble. He’s getting twitchy.’
‘What’s this “twitchy”? Explain.’
‘He’s saying he doesn’t want to do the jobs anymore. Wants me to find someone else.’
‘Okay, find someone else.’
Theopoulos took one hand off his beads and waved it dismissively at West.
‘Don’t tell me your problems. That’s not what I pay you for.’
West leaned across the desk, low down, threatening.
‘I’m telling you because if we ease up on this little toe-rag there’s every possibility he’ll start talking to all the wrong people. And that includes Liz Shapcott. He somehow feels he owes her something for getting him off the streets and into a decent job.’
‘I thought she’d found some softie employer who knows all about his past. Bloody do-gooders. Can’t stand ’em.’
West slapped a hand down on the desk’s surface.
‘Precisely.’
He sat up and scratched among the hair curling down the back of his neck.
‘That was the hold I had over him. His past was out in the open but if word got out about him starting up again and spraying nasty messages around town, things wouldn’t look so good. He keeps the job if he goes straight.’
Theopoulos sighed. He leaned over and opened the bottom drawer, extracting a tall gunmetal Thermos and a small china coffee cup. He filled the cup and put the flask back in the drawer. West glared at him.
‘What happened to that famous Greek hospitality?’
‘Special brew. You wouldn’t like it. I’ll get the girls at reception to get you one from the kitchen.’
‘They wouldn’t know a decent coffee from goanna’s piss. I’d rather do without.’
West slid back off the desk and began inserting his long, slender fingers into his gloves. He checked the knot of his tie and centred his hat on his head.
‘Don’t say you weren’t warned, Con. If the kid decides he’ll come clean and tells Shapcott what he’s been up to, there’s a fair chance he’ll start pointing fingers in our direction. You’d better decide what you want done about him.’
West watched as Theopoulos sipped at his coffee and the semblance of a smile turned to a snarl. The Greek made a play of replacing the pile of files and brochures in the space where West had been sitting. He lounged back in his chair, the beads dangling between his hands held just below chin level.
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Carl. You decide, not me. He’s your problem, not mine. If you’ve been doing your job properly, there’s no way he can link any of his messages back to me or this agency.’
His voice dropped to almost a whisper – slow, deliberate, with every syllable and nuance fully stressed.
‘If that’s not the case, then I suggest you do something about it. Quickly. Firmly. Like you did with that Melissa O’Grady. Otherwise …’
His beads clattered to the desk as he spread his arms wide in a gesture that left little room for misunderstanding: it’s not my problem.
Carl West took it in. Theopoulos had distanced himself from everything he did. Everywhere W
est went, every new contact he made, was done with a different identity, a different story. There were all these characters floating around acting in the interests of Theopoulos. Yet none of them was linked and not one could be traced back to the man himself. They were West’s own little playlets with himself as creator, director and sole cast member. Even the people running the brothels where he collected the payments loosely referred to as rent had little idea who he was or of his connection to Theopoulos. And when things went wrong only he could ring down the curtain – the final curtain. He opened the door and looked back at Theopoulos, once again steadily moving his beads around their rope:
‘Worry not, my friend. All will be fixed.’
As he passed the reception desk he doffed his hat to the girl behind it.
‘Another good deal well done,’ he said. ‘And thanks for not bringing me a coffee. You saved my kidneys from any further damage.’
TWELVE
Bromo guessed there were at least two of them. Female. The footsteps coming up the stairs had a light tread, with intermittent clicking. He imagined loose fitting sandals, or perhaps high heels. There were voices outside the door – loud giggly whispers, anxious perhaps. None of his usual clients. There was a knock on the door, gentle and tentative. Bromo swivelled his chair to face the door.
‘Come in. It’s open.’
Too late he remembered the last time he acted with such flippant bravado. On that occasion three of Gerry Nuyen’s heavy squad had burst in and carried him off for some persuasive mauling in the firm hands of a tough little blonde martial arts expert suffering from repressed ball-tearer syndrome. He grimaced at the recollection of the pain she inflicted on his intimate body parts.
The memory ebbed away as two young women squeezed warily into the room, clearly wondering whether they’d come to the right place. Bromo guessed their ages as early 20s, one slightly taller than himself, touching 6ft in old money, big boned and busty, yet trim and unflabby, with the bearing of a sportswoman, her height helped by flimsy shoes with spiked heels long enough and narrow enough to harpoon a whale. He imagined her crashing through on the netball court. A wide-brimmed floppy hat covered her head, giving no clue to hair colour or style. Sunglasses with enormous round frames hid her eyes and much of her face. Luminous, high-gloss purple lipstick outlined her mouth. The other woman would hardly reach his shoulders in her low-heeled sandals, an almost waif-like Asian, compact and precisely proportioned. The taller did the speaking.
‘Mr Perkins?’
‘Could be. Depends who wants to know. If you’re from the taxation department, I’ve never heard of him and the name’s Smith. On the other hand, if you’ve come to pay that $50 you owe me …’
They hesitated, looking blank, mystified. As he thought, humour was wasted on the young; they took themselves far too seriously, too literal by half. He relented, confirmed his identity and took two folding chairs from where they were leaning against the wall. He set them up on the other side of his desk. Bromo indicated the chairs.
‘Please.’
The women sat, gingerly. The taller slung a large woven shoulder bag on to her lap. She rested her hands, wrists crossed, on its intricately patterned side panel.
‘I’m Adriana,’ she said.
Bromo nodded, assessing her. He saw her more like a creation than person, a special effect designed to catch the eye. She gestured briefly towards her companion.
‘This is Lotus.’
‘Call me Lottie,’ said the other woman.
She ran a hand across her forehead as if to align the long fringe of coal black hair that almost met eyebrows plucked finer than a violin string.
‘Everyone does. Lotus was my mother’s idea. She was hanging on to memories of home. Vietnam.’
Bromo smiled.
‘Nothing personal, but I didn’t really have you down as an Anglo.’
She smiled back.
‘I was born here. I’m Australian even if I don’t look it.’
Bromo accepted the gentle rebuke. His fingers tapped on the armrest of his chair. He studied the women. They were not his usual type of client, much younger, more economy than business and definitely not first-class. Holiday package buyers rather than planning a working trip with a bit of tourism on the side. He leaned forward across the desk.
‘So Adriana and, er, Lottie … what’s it to be? A trip to the Gold Coast or bungee jumping in New Zealand?’
They exchanged glances, although what was going on behind Adriana’s sunglasses was anyone’s guess. She nodded to Lottie and twisted her head in Bromo’s direction. The gesture said ‘you do the talking.’ Lottie tugged at the shoulder straps of a white tank top, made all the whiter by the deep natural tan of her skin.
‘It’s about Melissa O’Grady,’ she said. ‘Jude Barton gave us your name. She suggested we should talk to you.’
Bromo’s fingers stopped tapping. Nice surprise. Well done, Jude. She’d must have purged whatever doubts she had about him and passed his queries on. The nervous looks on the other side of his desk made sense. He may be a travel consultant but they were in unknown territory. Caution was the key.
‘So, this is about Melissa. What’s your connection? Friends, fellow students?’
‘Both. For a while, she slept at our place. On the lounge. Until she got her own flat.’
Adriana was now the spokeswoman.
‘We met at the college, doing the same course. We used to chat during the breaks. Then we found we had the same objectives.’
Lottie broke in: ‘That’s when it got serious.’
Bromo took it slowly, looking puzzled.
‘Serious? How serious? In what way?’
He anticipated their pause. Too many questions to cope with. He watched as they had another silent exchange of looks that only they understood. He tagged it as mental ping-pong. Lottie lost the point and continued their story.
‘It stopped being study – completing assignments, getting marks. We found we all had issues. Things.’
She spread her arms wide, at a loss, stuck for a definition, seeking something more specific. Adriana looked at her, flapping her hand, urging her to continue. Bromo sensed tension. He stretched back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head, relaxed and casual, trying to put them at ease. It didn’t work.
Adriana exploded. She crashed her hands down on the top of the desk. Her floppy headgear, too loose for her onward rush, fell off to reveal spiky brunette hair streaked with strands dyed dark green and russet. The hat knocked over a glass jar containing pens and pencils with a stapler clinging over its rim.
‘For fuck’s sake, Lottie; get on with it. Issues! Things! Get on with it.’
She leaned further across the desk, one hand fumbling for the green mound of her hat, the other still beating the surface with her palm. ‘We’re talking about bloody murder, Mr Perkins. Melissa didn’t jump into the river. And we could be next.’
Her outburst stopped as suddenly as it began. Adriana stretched back off the desk, hands raking through her hair. She retrieved her hat and placed it firmly back in place, floppy brim low over her brow.
‘Sorry about your pens,’ she said. ‘Bit of a mess.’
Bromo righted the jar, started putting the pens back inside. It gave him thinking time.
‘No trouble,’ he said. ‘No damage done. Good to see a bit of passion. At least we now know what this is all about.’
He stood up and strolled across to the window. A short walk. No one worked up a sweat moving around his shoebox of an office.
‘If it’s any comfort, you’re not the first to claim Melissa was murdered.’
He peered down into the street: a tram sliding past, a mix of the young and slothful and the old and agile on the footpath, people lounging at café tables. The situation was as normal as it ever seemed.
‘Who else knows you were coming here?’
‘No one,’ said Lottie.
‘Jude Barton?’
‘No. She only gave us you
r card.’
‘So what makes you think you’ll end up like Melissa?’
The women batted silent glances between them. Lottie’s intensely dark eyes gave him little to go on; Adriana’s darkened moons even less. They were wary and scared. Bromo was aware of the age gap between him and them: they spoke a different language, travelled a different route, were ridiculously experienced yet terribly naïve. He leaned back against the window sill, hands in pockets, legs crossed at the ankles, desperately seeking the casual mood. Trust me, I’m your friend – even if I’m old enough to be your father, someone you probably think is a nice enough guy but a boring old fart.
‘If it helps, I know about Melissa’s past,’ he said. ‘The drugs, the modelling, all that.’
A gamble – and it worked. Better than he thought it would. Lottie wriggled in her chair and ran the edge of her hand across her fringe.
‘She’s not the only one,’ she said. ‘We’ve all got a history.’
Bromo said nothing. They were either going to speak or clam up. Nothing he said would make any difference. The women exchanged looks again. Adriana seemed to be setting the agenda, dictating how the story should unfold. She nodded to Lottie.
‘A cousin thought she was leaving Vietnam to come to a new life in Australia and ended up in a brothel,’ said Lottie. ‘The same happened to her sister. They eventually escaped, but were very damaged.’
She paused as if a painful memory was flitting across her mind. Then she picked up the thread of her story.
‘I started making enquiries in our community,’ she said. ‘I found out that it’s a big problem. So I decided to enrol in this course in social work, to get experience, some qualifications, be able to help them. And then …’
She leaned across the desk towards Bromo, hands spread wide in a gesture of despair.
He took a punt: ‘Threats?’
Her hands came into her chest, folded as she rocked slowly to and fro.
‘Lots. Phone calls. Notes pushed under the door. Even a guy brushing up against me in the street, pushing me into the wall, saying “Butt out” then running off.’