Washed Up

by Berry, Tony

  ‘Just sticky-beaking. Wondered if you had any answers.’

  ‘Ask someone who cares.’

  ‘You don’t, presumably. Not one of your regular haunts, eh?’

  Carl West gave Bromo a sidelong glance, uncertain whether his questions were innocent chatter or deliberate probing. This was the last person he wanted to talk to. There was something unsettling about him – a look in the eyes, dark and unblinking. Penetrating his mind. He tried to edge away but they were wedged in a corner, Bromo’s bike against his thigh, the crime site tape at waist level, a police truck to his right and the press of other bystanders behind and around them. It was imperative he stayed here, close to the scene, yet there was nowhere he could move away from Bromo and still be close. Again he was trapped between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Twice in one day.

  ‘It was a knocking shop, wasn’t it?’ said Bromo.

  West’s head whipped round.

  ‘How d’you know that?’

  It was a reflex action – defensive, too quick, too interested. Bromo noticed the return of that startled look, anxious and nervy, flicking across the man’s face. He was getting the feeling he’d seen him before somewhere, but couldn’t place him.

  ‘You a local?’

  ‘No,’ said West.

  ‘Customer?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘Just curious. Passing the time. Don’t know much about these places myself. Thought you might fill me in. You know, boy talk, locker room stuff.’

  He took a hand off his handlebar and extended it towards West: ‘Hi, Bromo’s the name. Bromo Perkins.’

  The movement surprised West. He responded almost without thinking, taking Bromo’s hand in his own, briefly, lightly, and quickly letting go.

  ‘Hi, yeah, well, um,’ he blustered. ‘I’m Maurice. Morrie for short.’

  He bit on the words as they started tumbling out, stuttering in his haste to pull them back and preserve his anonymity.

  ‘Sorry if I upset you, Morrie,’ said Bromo, noting the lack of a surname. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest you were a brothel-creeper.’

  He gave the man another once-over. Something definitely odd about him, and it wasn’t only the hairpiece. It was as if he was other than a mere bystander. Too nervy, twitchy. More like he was expecting something, or someone.

  Bromo glanced over towards the house. Two small groups of police were stepping carefully through the rubble towards the road. Three of them veered off towards the media huddle where cameras began clicking and boom mikes swung into positions where they could capture the formal statements the police would feed them. The other four gathered on the footpath, one uniformed, three plainclothes, clipboards in hand, dusting themselves down their suits as they emerged from the debris. The shortest, broadest of the quartet – a square-jawed, swarthy man with a flattened nose and a thin line of a moustache that looked like the remnants of a drink of hot chocolate – glanced across to where Bromo and West were standing. He made a quick gesture in their direction – thumb raised, fist clenched.

  ‘Friend of yours?’ asked Bromo.

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  It seemed a strange answer, yet it matched his manner – flustered and evasive.

  ‘Thought he was pointing at you,’ added West.

  ‘Never seen him before,’ said Bromo. ‘Must be someone behind us.’

  ‘Yeah. Gotta go.’

  West moved to edge away. As he turned in towards the crowd, his jacket snagged on the handlebar of Bromo’s bike.

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Sorry mate. Here, let me.’

  Their four hands fumbled with the jacket. West’s were frantic in their haste, Bromo’s more leisurely as the two of them bowed their heads over the problem. There was a sound of tearing cloth as the lining ripped and West jerked the jacket free and pushed his way back into the people behind them.

  ‘Bit of a problem?’

  The words were pitched midway between question and comment, uttered by a slow, drawling voice with rough edges. Bromo looked up at the unsmiling face of the man who had signalled to them from the huddle of police moments ago.

  ‘More of a snag,’ punned Bromo. ‘All solved. Nothing a needle and thread can’t fix.’

  ‘And where’s my friend Carl West disappeared to? I thought he wanted to have a chat.’

  ‘I don’t know any Carl West. Anyway, who’s asking?’

  ‘Take it easy, mate. You don’t want to go getting yourself into trouble.’

  ‘And there’s no reason for you to be so aggressive.’

  Bromo held the man’s stare – antagonism met by the antagonism it aroused. He recognised the type: a petty dictator, a misuser of authority to whom diplomacy was an unused and unlearnt, skill. The man gave a smug half-smile and raised an ID card suspended from a ribbon around his neck. He waved it briefly in front of Bromo, not giving him time to see anything more than a blur of a photo with a name beneath.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Vern Rosen, that’s who’s asking. I saw you two jawing away like a couple of old pals.’

  ‘Wrong man,’ said Bromo. ‘I don’t know any Carl West. The guy I was talking to said his name’s Maurice or Morrie – and I’ve never spoken to him before.’

  Rosen sniffed and gave a poor imitation of a smile.

  ‘That’d be right. Another day, another name.’

  Rosen began turning away.

  ‘So if I see him should I say you’re looking for him?’

  ‘You could do that,’ said Rosen, throwing the words over his shoulder as he began walked back to his colleagues.

  ‘But I wouldn’t recommend it,’ he added. ‘Better for your health to steer clear of Mr West.’

  Bromo weighed the detective’s words – part advice, part warning. Why was he not surprised? He realised the ingrained training he’d endured in that other life was still working after all these years: the edgy demeanour of the man called Maurice or West; the evasive answers; that odd wig; the haste to get away and what seemed to be a habit of using false names. It all added up. Well, almost. The equation needed a couple more additions if he was to arrive at a neat and unarguable solution. On your bike, Bromo old son; there are questions to be answered.

  He wheeled his machine back through the bystanders, threw his leg over the saddle and pedalled off along the narrow laneway running parallel to the gridlocked traffic of Chapel Street. He sliced a zigzag path between cars and trams on Toorak Road and headed for the bike path mimicking the river’s bends and turns all the way to Richmond. Sightseeing cruise boats trundled upstream. Rowing eights and fours were being bellowed at by their coaches cycling along the riverbank. At Como Landing, the café overlooking Herring Island was bustling with the ladies who lunch, track-suited walkers with sleek dogs and a sprinkling of businessmen using it as an al fresco alternative to their air-conditioned high rise offices.

  Like most others of his breed, he ignored the sign telling him to dismount to cross the narrow footpath on MacRobertson Bridge and sped on around the newly asphalted Yarra Boulevard. He stopped briefly at the Hawthorn Bridge turn-off, opposite the green and white wooden-framed boathouse of the rowing club, and used his mobile to make three quick phone calls, asking questions and setting up appointments. He struck lucky – the responses were all good. Liz would use her Town Hall contacts to research his queries; the girls were packed and ready for pick-up; and Sergeant Grant Mayfield had a free moment right now. Which meant he’d have to pedal fast along the cyclist’s battleground of Bridge Road to make their meeting. Mayfield had made it clear he had little time to spare and wouldn’t be hanging around waiting to do anyone a favour.

  TWENTY

  His bike parked and locked, Bromo scurried across Bridge Road, zigzagging towards the Plaza Shopping Centre between trams, cars and trucks. The shopping centre is a squat rectangle of cement slabs and glass anchored to a prime site at the corner of the suburb’s two busiest streets. Externally it is devoid of any architectural meri
t. Inside, a mix of small traders spruiks and bargains with customers compelled to do the bulk of their household shopping at the plaza’s main tenant, a giant supermarket promising much but delivering no more than is provided by its hundreds of multi-national clones.

  A clutch of senior citizens brought Bromo to an abrupt halt on the footpath bordering the plaza. They were being helped out of the community bus on their weekly excursion for provisions. Their stumbling procession, aided by Zimmer frames and walking sticks was in sharp contrast to the thumping beat coming from the aerobics class one floor up. As Bromo threaded his way through them, he was reminded of the lumbering turtles he’d once watched on Heron Island, determined and focused and letting nothing get in their way.

  He passed through the automatic doors, away from a street that, even in the early days of the supermarket’s arrival, he recalled housed a rich mix of butcher shops, fishmongers, greengrocers and milk bars. All were long gone. Older residents he talked to still rued their passing. The rest were content to fill their environmentally correct green shopping bags with plastic-wrapped food in portions geared to large families and gluttons.

  Bromo wandered along the tiled and angled passageways where skateboards, dogs and smoking are banned – and two cigarette stalls do a steady trade amid the smoke-free environment. Somewhere he would find Grant Mayfield stepping out from the police station across the road for a lunchtime snack. Just like so many of the suburb’s residents and visitors who had come to regard the plaza as a social hub. Day or night a steady stream of people drifted through. Even at three in the morning Bromo had found himself queuing at the supermarket checkout as if caught in the Saturday morning rush.

  Today it was situation normal: a parade of people buying bread and veggies, meat and poultry, grabbing a bottle of wine or carton of beer. Others were seeking a lottery ticket fortune at the news agency, selecting flowers for lovers and anniversaries, filling out prescriptions at the pharmacy or sampling the dips at the deli. Bromo noted few bagwomen. They’d be there later in the week – shapeless, track-suited females from the distant ’burbs, toting huge carry-alls that they crammed with clothes and linen bought on highly organised shopping ‘safaris’ around the discount stores.

  Eyes wary, Bromo strolled past a line of plump and elderly migrant men squeezed on to the plaza’s one wooden bench where every day they sat to discuss events in the old language. To them, the plaza’s shops meant nothing. It simply provided warmth in winter and air-conditioned escape from summer’s searing heat. Bromo dodged a couple of down-and-outs and low-lifes stumbling into the bottle shop for a takeaway alcoholic lunch wrapped in brown paper.

  He heeded Mayfield’s message that their meeting had to appear accidental and casual – two friends happening to bump into each other. This should be no problem in a place where hundreds of such contacts occurred every day.

  Bromo headed towards the bread shop. A pizza slice or a cheese and mayo twirl seemed the most likely snacks for the bulky Mayfield. Second choice would be steamed dim-sims at the deli. A healthy tuna and salad roll at the vegetarian snack bar would come a distant third. He drew a blank at the bakery and stepped into the sergeant’s path at the deli.

  ‘Fancy meeting you here, big boy. A bit of carbohydrate-loading? Bulking up to heavy some poor motorist?’

  Mayfield didn’t look at Bromo and inched his way towards the counter. Every time they met it was a sparring match.

  ‘It’s hungry work chasing crims,’ he growled.

  He gave Bromo a sidelong glance.

  ‘What trouble have you got yourself into this time?’

  ‘Trouble? Me?’

  He reeled back in mock surprise.

  ‘Helping a friend, that’s all.’

  ‘Yeah, like you helped Aurelia Nuyen.’

  The barb hurt. Bromo drew away while Mayfield collected a grease-proofed brown bag of the doughy snacks. Aurelia’s death at the hands of her berserk husband wasn’t something anyone could have foreseen but he still blamed himself for arriving at the bloody scene minutes too late to do anything.

  ‘Sorry mate, bit below the belt,’ said Mayfield, visibly contrite.

  Bromo silently accepted the apology. Maybe the dim-sim Mayfield was stuffing into his mouth had eased hunger pangs and mellowed him. Funny how appetite affected some people, making them cranky unless their inner furnace was immediately stoked. Bromo waited as they strolled down the aisle and Mayfield took another bite. Keep it casual. Stem the impatience.

  ‘Well,’ said Mayfield. ‘What’s the go?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Vern Rosen,’ muttered Bromo. ‘Fill me in. Anything I should know?’

  ‘Depends whether you’re buying or selling.’

  The response threw Bromo. It needed puzzling over. Too early for cryptic crosswords. He usually saved that pleasure for later – a mid-afternoon break with the last strong black of the day. They stepped around a couple of bent elderly women, trundling shopping trolleys down the aisle oblivious to anyone in their path – two Nella Dans cracking through Antarctic ice.

  ‘I need a clue,’ said Bromo.

  ‘He works the odds – AC/DC, plus and minus, bats and bowls. You work it out.’

  Mayfield’s voice had dropped. The words were coming out of the corner of his mouth, almost inaudible.

  ‘He’s on the take?’

  ‘You said it; I didn’t.’

  ‘A brothel. Number 85.’

  ‘Rosen’s. Protection racket.’

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Everyone except you, it seems.’

  ‘How come he’s still in the force?’

  ‘Friends. Politics. You know how it is. He got disciplined once.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Using unreasonable force. A charge of taking bribes got thrown out.’

  They’d reached the end of the aisle, where it turned at right angles towards the exit, the police station across the road. Bromo was running out of time. Mayfield wasn’t going to hang around. Questions had to be quick, concise.

  ‘The Melissa O’Grady murder – what’s the word on that?’

  ‘Case closed. Rosen was the investigating officer.’

  ‘Two names – Carl West and a Mr Morris.’

  ‘Never heard of them. I’ll see what I can find out.’

  The automatic doors slid open and they stepped into Church Street. The sky was darkening under lowering clouds. A lean, mangy dog tied to a “No Parking” sign leapt forward on its leash, pleased to see anyone. A police patrol wagon pulled into a space across the road. The driver hit the horn and waved at Mayfield. The sergeant waved back. He stuffed his empty dim-sim bag into a waste bin and patted the dog.

  ‘Gotta go, mate,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a call on those names if anything comes up. Watch your step and be careful who you’re dealing with.’

  Bromo gave a slight shrug.

  ‘Yeah, sure. Bit late for that. I think that’s what Rosen was trying to tell me, too. Thanks, anyway. I’ve got to go and rescue some damsels in distress.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Bromo scurried back to his office ahead of the looming storm. A nagging in his gut made him realise he’d watched Mayfield scoff down his dim-sims yet he’d done nothing about sating his own appetite.

  He paused at Jimmy’s bakery-café and pushed aside the coloured plastic strips of fly-screening hanging across the doorway. The glass-fronted display cabinet looked depressingly bereft of the usual enticements. A couple of coffee scrolls sat alongside an apple Danish, a vanilla slice and two rather tired looking focaccias. It was the debris of a busy lunch trade waiting to be sold at discounted prices to late-coming desperates. Bromo slotted himself into that category. He caught Dom’s eye.

  ‘I’ll relieve you of one of those sad focaccias if you can add a couple of fresh lettuce leaves,’ he said.

  ‘And I suppose you still expect to get it at half price.’

  ‘Of course,’ Bromo confirmed. ‘I’m doing you a favour. Poor thin
g has nearly died waiting for some sucker like me to come long. And a coffee, the usual, please.’

  Dom leaned across the counter-top as he gathered a pair of tongs to pluck Bromo’s choice from the cabinet. He glanced around, eyes scanning the room, wary, a sneak thief on a mission. Bromo grinned and played along, content to be the butt of this piece of furtive play-acting:

  ‘It’s all right, Dom, coast’s clear. Grab it now and no one will notice. Mind you, I don’t really care if someone sees. The hungry have no shame.’

  Dom waved the tongs above the twin slices of bread, stretching closer across the counter, the sinews in his neck showing taut against his olive skin, his voice becoming the whisper of a conspirator.

  ‘How d’you go at Reno’s?’

  Ah, so that’s what the cloak-and-dagger act was all about. Nothing to do with snaring his snack. Instead, smutty boy talk. A bit of the old nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

  ‘Sorry, Dom,’ said Bromo. ‘Not my scene. You got it all wrong.’

  Dom shrugged, closed one eye in a mad man’s wink and grinned the grin of the unconvinced.

  ‘C’mon, mate, you can tell me. I saw you going through the ads. Did you try somewhere else?’

  Dom set the bread on the bench, removing the top slice and lifting out the limp lettuce. His voice stayed low and collusive, hinting at the dark side.

  ‘The boys rate the Purple Lounge as pretty hot,’ he said. ‘The footy team went there for a bonding session.’

  Bromo switched on instantly at the mention of the Purple Lounge but stilled any outward reaction. He concentrated on watching the remaking of his lunch. Dom added two extra slices of tomato along with the fresh lettuce leaves as he warmed to his second-hand account of the lads’ night out.

  ‘Geez, some bonding,’ he said. ‘Twosomes, threesomes, spa parties, you name it. And a bunch of the girls screaming and having a cat-fight out the back. Full on, it was.’

  ‘Sounds like fun. What upset the girls?’

  ‘Don’t know. At first the boys thought it was a raid, but nothing happened. Most of it was foreign – Chinese, Vietnamese, something like that – and one Aussie bloke telling them to shove it. Whatever they wanted, there was nothing doing.’