Reggie was AWOL from the army, having met Cameron in a bar in Wagga. Cameron was headed to Perth to see his three-year-old son, and the impromptu trip had seemed to Reggie like a good idea. They had picked up Des this side of Kalgoorlie, where he’d had his finger out for three hours, with no luck. They’d skidded down the hard shoulder and nearly off into the jam-tree scrub.
Des could see that they were tanked, but their being out-of-towners suited him. Des’ face was well known around Perth, despite his beard and long hair.
And they were clearly in a hurry.
It was all fun and games for the first few hundred k’s, until the wheatbelt receded around York and Cameron started to rant.
His three-year-old son, stolen by his fucken ex. The stolen TV on the back seat was for him. Cameron was going to shower and shave and sleep it off, then visit him, take the little fella the TV, say sorry for scaring him that last time.
But the closer they got to Perth the more agitated Cameron became. There was no talk now of sleeping it off. He was going straight over. If she didn’t let him in, that TV was going through the fucken window, and he was goin’ in after it. Where the fuck in Perth was Thornlie?
Des kept his mouth shut.
That fucken bitch. That freckle-faced moll. If she says a fucken word. Thinks she’s smarter than me. But I’ve tracked her down. Like every time.
Cameron began punching the dash. What he intended doing to her head. Fucken improve her looks. Little facial reconstruction. Reggie bellowing like a wounded bull, getting off on Cameron’s wildness.
It was none of Des’ business, he told himself, once. But not twice. He was through lying to himself.
Instead he looked down at his hands, which were clenched.
The car was swerving as Reggie laughed and battered the steering wheel. Cameron getting off on what he was gonna do to his ex, recited at the top of his lungs, so mad it had a rhythm now, a beat punctuated by his punching the dash.
This wasn’t good.
Des was one of Australia’s most wanted. The Good Morning Bandit. Named after his habit of entering banks through side walls and ceilings and waiting for the manager to arrive. ‘Good morning’ was the first thing they heard. He was out of there by the time any punters arrived. No-one ever got hurt.
The mutts in the front seats were too drug-fucked to recognise him, but any copper would ID him with a passing glance.
That wouldn’t do.
He wasn’t going back to jail. He was polite to civilians but would shoot any copper who looked twice. And he was never going back to jail.
His only mantra.
Wanted in four states, and they all had a prison cell waiting for him. He’d do time in one state then they’d send him along to the next. He’d never get out. And it wouldn’t be easy time. It’d be super-max and solitary, after his last escape from Pentridge.
They were getting close now. Five kilometres ahead, Des saw the crest of the Darling Scarp over the grey ribbon of the Great Eastern Highway, the marri and jarrah forest on either side.
It wasn’t unusual to have a copper stationed before the peak, to observe the behaviour of the long-haul truckies coming home. Hundreds of tons bustling along at a hundred k’s headed for a sudden forty-five degree decline. The odd truckie asleep at the wheel, or with busted brakes. One or two going off the road and taking out a whole street of brick homes the other side.
‘Pull over here, Reggie. I’m home.’
Surprisingly, Reggie heard him over the noise. Des had spoken quietly but firmly. Perhaps the AWOL corporal had sensed it, trained to be hyper-vigilant.
‘Thought you lived near the coast?’
Cameron ceased his pounding of the dash.
‘Aren’t you gonna come over with us, see my son?’
Des didn’t dignify it with an answer. ‘I always walk the last part home. A thing I do. Let me out at the next turn right.’
Down a winding street into John Forrest National Park.
‘Keep going. Here.’
Des got out and hoisted his duffel bag, leant it against the trunk of a giant marri, white flowers scattered in the dust at his feet.
He heard the driver and passenger doors open, as he knew they would. The view from the little carpark on the western edge of the scarp was always a treat; the city of Perth sprawled across the vast sandplain, the wide blue dome of the Indian Ocean curved across the horizon beyond, but the two travellers weren’t getting out to appreciate the view.
Cameron and Reggie were a long way from home. Stealing the car and driving west was a spur-of-the-moment decision. They’d driven off from the last two servos without paying. They were living off the land.
Des closed his hand around the cool, cracked butt of the Browning pistol in his duffel bag and turned, kept it concealed. Like a game of statues the two men froze, tried to relax their hunter’s posture into something more deceptive, rictus grins on their dials and hands on hips and arms folded.
Des took a deep breath and turned to look at the view. Wanted to know if he still had it – that radar he’d learnt in the borstals as a kid, and had honed in all of the prisons since.
He sensed Reggie come at him from behind and sidestepped and clocked him with the butt of the Browning and allowed the man’s momentum to carry him over the edge of the granite cliff face, down into the nothing.
That felt good. Good enough to put a round in the breech of the pistol and, before Cameron had a chance to wipe that mincing look of shock, Des had crossed the distance between them and kicked out his legs. Des knelt on Cameron’s back, so that he was facing the man’s feet.
‘You know, mate, you remind me of my father. My mother raised me up on her own, and my brothers too. She kept my father out of it, until we were old enough to keep him out of it. He was a nasty cunt, just like you …’
Cameron was getting his breath back, starting to struggle.
‘You won’t be visiting your son, Cameron. And you won’t be putting no TV through your ex’s window. No more hidings for her.’
Des put the Browning against the back of the man’s trouser leg, behind the kneecap, put in a bullet. The dirt absorbed most of the blunt force, the shattered bone and the brute sonic shock, and the forest drank up Cameron’s scream. Des put a bullet through the other kneecap and stood. Took up the man’s hands and ignoring his screams and eyes drunk with pain dragged him over to the cliff face and kicked him off the edge. Heard the branches in the taller marri crash and break as he fell towards the granite below.
‘Give yer mate a kiss goodbye.’
It was a start. Think of it as training. He looked over the city, river curling like a lazy snake through his hometown. His mother was down there, getting ready to be put onto the street. That wasn’t going to happen.
He’d burn the city to the ground.
4.
Swann passed the wand of the wireless signal meter along the skirts of the wall opposite the premier, who was reclined with his feet on the desk, taking calls. Swann paused at the end of the wall, and waited for some of the staffers to move. The premier appeared relaxed but his eyes were keen, and his reddish-brown hair was parted down the side. The characteristically longer hair had gone in the months leading up to the election, as had the sideburns and moustache. He looked like a young JFK without the roving eyes.
The last two premiers had resembled military men, or even detectives – square-jawed and thickset, both tall. Rob Farrell, however, was short and what Swann’s daughters would call ‘willowy’. His blue-green eyes said mischief and excitability, but his voice was deep and modulated. Unlike the previous two premiers, who’d spoken in the mock-Pommy cadences expected of their generation, Farrell spoke the working class vernacular he’d grown up with, and the voters loved it. ‘Prime Minister, I appreciate you calling on your holiday … thanks mate, yep, straight into it. You like the haircut? Heenan, my right-hand, forced it on me. It’s the eighties, he reckons. New look for a new start. Short back and sides, lit
tle cowlick at the front … yeah, Mary did it, I wouldn’t trust anyone else. And how’s Hazel, the kids?’
There were a dozen men and women in the premier’s office, clustered in the shadows away from the lamplight. The room was all varnished sheoak panelling and heavy drawn curtains, but the premier sought out Swann with his eyes and winked.
It was an odd gesture, intimate and cheeky, although Swann was the only person in the room obviously watching the premier, and perhaps he’d sensed this. The others were all staffers, busy with paperwork and waiting to speak to him, but all of them had their eyes averted, pretending they weren’t listening to his every word.
Even Heenan, standing at the premier’s shoulder, glancing at his watch. The two of them reminded Swann of the book described to him by Louise, his eldest. The Picture of Dorian Gray. It looked like Heenan had taken on all of the premier’s exhaustion and anxiety, while the premier had never looked younger.
It was Heenan who’d called Swann a month ago. Should the election go as expected, the premier intended taking a new broom to the office staff. He was also keen to create some new positions, and Heenan had Swann in mind for one. Heenan was the Leader of the Opposition’s fixer, and he needed a fixer for himself.
Swann was in the middle of the court case on behalf of small investors trying to retrieve money from Dragic, an ex–smack dealer turned property developer who’d claimed bankruptcy and pocketed the coin. Swann’s surveillance and trailing of the money through shell companies had demonstrated the theft. Swann had since been approached by dozens of other stockmarket and real-estate investors who’d been scammed – a whole new line of work in a city where hustlers in business suits had always thrived.
The problem was that Swann didn’t like the people. Not the charming reptiles who stole the money or the victims who’d risked their life savings on something too good to be true. Both sides of the scam were greedy, but one side was cleverer than the other. He’d hated the desperate looks in the eyes of the ripped-off, and their nagging him day and night. He felt sorry for them, but he didn’t respect them.
So when Heenan called a meeting in the front bar of the National Hotel in Fremantle with the prospect of a full-time, salaried position, working exclusively for Heenan in an as yet undisclosed role, Swann was curious. Over a few middies Heenan talked of utilising Swann’s counterintelligence skills to keep the premier’s offices ‘clean’, and of other roles security-vetting new employees and the like. All contingent on the election result and the state of the coffers. Was Swann interested?
Yes, he was. He’d been living hand-to-mouth these past eight years and he wasn’t getting any younger. On the subject of why him? Heenan had been equally vague, except to say that he’d been monitoring the Dragic case and was an admirer. This last statement said with a tone that indicated its double meaning, made explicit in the searching look in Heenan’s grey eyes – Dragic was a bad enemy to have.
Any port in a storm?
There in Heenan’s eyes, behind the vague offer.
They shook on it and necked their beers.
*
‘Let’s walk and talk, Frank. Come and watch history being made.’
In the crush of the narrow corridor, Heenan and Swann fell behind, leaving the premier to stride ahead. Having spent the last half-hour receiving calls from wellwishers, the premier looked flushed and jumpy, kept running a hand over his hair and wiping his mouth, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Heenan huffed alongside Swann, looking protectively ahead, whispering to Swann as an aside, ‘The ones who’ve been calling him, owe him; the ones he’s got to call, he owes. At the moment there’s more of the former. Let’s hope it lasts …’
‘This the first time he’s spoken since last night?’
‘Yep. I was up all night writing it. It’s about starting on the promises he made. The best way forward. Some of them will affect you. There are the security cameras he wants around the city. An Australian first. I want your oversight on that. There’s the new police commissioner, a Victorian – I might want you to liaise. Then there are the big-ticket items – the big promises. Look, the place is packed …’
In the atrium of Parliament House, the busts and portraits of premiers past lining the walls, cool Donnybrook stone underfoot; the gathered journos filled out the hall, waving their cameras and fluffy mikes.
Heenan stood beside Swann while the premier took the stage. The glare of the lights didn’t seem to bother him. Swann loosed the top button of his jacket, straightened his cuffs. The faces in the crowd were eager. After decades of terse, wooden premiers the journalists had a new, younger and more flamboyant leader to work with.
The premier cleared his throat, drummed his fingers on the sides of the podium, shared a smile with a familiar face in the crowd. ‘Ladies and gents, I’ll be introducing my cabinet this afternoon. Tomorrow, I’m recalling parliament to get the death penalty abolished, as promised. And that’s just the start of the legislation we’ll be putting forward. With both houses in our control, there’s no time to waste. But first, in line with my core election promise of looking after our workers and maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit of our big end of town, I want to talk to you about infrastructure. I’ve been scant about the details, and I apologise for that, but I have a vision for reshaping our beautiful city for the following generations that I think you’ll be excited by – and I think our first premier, Big John Forrest over there, would be excited by, too, were he with us today …’
The premier’s smile was sincere but the wave of his hand towards the bronze bust of John Forrest was peremptory. The son of an indentured servant, Forrest had been an explorer and surveyor in the years before Australia was born as a Federation. With the wealth of the first gold boom he’d built most of the state’s rail networks, the Fremantle port, the weirs and the pipeline out to the goldfields while his brother, also larger than life, ran for mayor and made his money dividing up Peppermint Grove into some of the country’s most valuable real estate.
The premier’s comment and gesture were casually made, but they sparked a new frenzy of camera whirring and snapping, painting him in hot flashes of light. Was he seriously intending to be as vigorous in his nation-building as the first premier, who had transformed the city from a small colonial outpost to a booming young metropolis?
‘I don’t pretend to know what Big John would make of me personally, but he’d sure be an interesting bloke to have a beer with. What I aim to have in common with him, however, when my time is done – is for people to say that my government also capitalised on the current mining boom and built the city we need for our children, and our children’s children. What I have is a new vision of the role of government. To lessen the burden on Western Australian taxpayers, this government is going into business. I don’t mean nationalising industry or any such thing, but actively putting taxpayer money to work in the financial and industrial and mining sectors, reinvesting all profits into infrastructure and state services. Thinking of the government as a profit-making entity is revolutionary, folks, but is something that will characterise this government. As a first priority I aim to redevelop large parts of Burswood and East Perth into desirable residential and office zones, fix up the city’s derelict buildings, including the Old Swan Brewery. As of an hour ago, the tenders have gone out to local construction businesses first, because I intend to see these plans fast-tracked. Life is short, people …’
The premier stood aside to allow the cameras to fix him to the wall with little spears of light. ‘In a conversation recently with a major figure of the Western Australian business community, I was paid what can only be described as the highest compliment – when the man in question described me as a businessman at heart. I embrace this compliment wholeheartedly …’
Swann nudged Heenan with his elbow. ‘That speech you spent all night writing. This it?’
The barest shake of his head. ‘This is going to be hard to sell. Damascene conversions always are.’
An
aide sidled up to the premier, whispered into his ear. The premier’s face became grave, and he turned to the journos and spread his hands wide. ‘That’s all, folks. No questions I’m afraid. Something’s come up. I’ll be back here in a few hours with the new cabinet, when you can ask all the questions you like. There’s tea and coffee set up in the room over there and, as always, the parliamentary bar is open. Thankyou.’
He turned his back to the audience and slipped off the stage, sauntered over and took one of Heenan’s lapels, leaned into his ear. Heenan rolled his eyes, reached into his pocket and passed Swann a set of car keys. The keys to the Statesman. ‘You can’t use the Commodore for this. Take these. We’ve got a small problem that requires the utmost discretion …’ Remembering that some of the journalists were still milling around, hoping to catch the premier’s eye, Heenan backed into the corner. ‘It’s the premier’s father. You need to stop him. I’ll call you on the car phone while you’re headed over. Quick, this is urgent …’
The premier watched them, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets.
*
Swann was on the freeway, as directed, when the car phone began to trill in the centre console between the deep leather seats of the Statesman de Ville. He was enjoying the ride so much he’d forgotten why he was headed to Salter Point. The arctic-white Statesman surged towards the horizon like a great land yacht. There was the legroom, too, and the fact that Swann could ease back into the seat and spread his shoulders and enjoy the audio-extravagance of the Bose stereo system, tuned to a classical station that he’d never heard before, but the bass and the treble and the female soprano voice so clear that it felt like she was singing to him alone.
‘Maria Callas,’ said Heenan by way of hello. ‘And very loud.’
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