Old Scores

by Whish-Wilson, David;

  There was blood in the young man’s face, pinned by the weight of the older man. ‘Now you, on your back, on his back.’

  The man on the bottom had to translate, and when the third man looked reluctant, Swann pointed the gun at his tackle. He rose to his feet, and draped himself over the fat man, facing up, grunting with the effort. Swann directed the last man to take his place on top of the pile, looking down into his mate’s eyes, his toes gripping the carpet.

  ‘Don’t look so unhappy. People pay good money for that. Don’t move an inch.’

  The three matching pairs of jocks, the fat man’s flaccid tackle, a sweaty pile of angry, incapacitated men. Swann finished the tower with an ice bucket on the final man’s back into which he stuffed the empty bottle of Dewar’s and three nearby glasses. If the men moved, it was going to tip off.

  He rummaged through the empty cupboards in the kitchen, the oven, the fridge, but he needn’t have bothered. The youngest man on the bottom of the pile was struggling to breathe. The smug look had gone. He looked stricken.

  ‘In the leather suitcase. The Louis Vuitton … bedroom, on bed.’

  It was there as he promised. Swann kept an eye on the four sets of feet, one of them trembling to hold the pyramid together, and opened the latch. All of the luggage was matching leather, and expensive, as you’d expect from a theatrical troupe impersonating high rollers. The cash was banded in packets of ten thousand, stuffed into cotton bags stamped with the cheesy faux-imperial logo of Conlan’s Harrowgate Investment Bank. All present and accounted for. Swann did a scout looking for weapons in the suits hanging in the wardrobe and in the other suitcases; he found nothing more offensive than cheap aftershave and dirty jocks.

  He snapped the suitcase shut and walked into the lounge. Not a drop of the ice-water had been spilt. He moved to the door but changed his mind. He went back into the bedroom and took the four passports, sealed in a plastic bag, and their Cathay Pacific tickets, leaving their wallets and loose change. The men could make their way out of Perth overland, or hide out and wait for more forged passports. None of his concern. He was no friend of Charlie Le’s, but the young man’s arrogance had pissed him off. Their adventure in a foreign land was only just beginning.

  ‘Wait. No. I tell you something.’

  The man on the bottom of the pile, pinned down, only one hand free. He used it to wave Swann back towards him. ‘I tell you something good.’

  Swann laughed. ‘I don’t want any of the money, mate. It’s not mine, it’s not yours, it isn’t even Charlie fucking Le’s. You feel blue-balled now, but you’ll be right after a cold shower.’

  ‘We don’t want the money either.’

  There was something in the man’s voice. ‘Good, then everyone’s happy.’

  ‘Give us passports back, I tell you something. Charlie Le.’

  Swann walked to the pile of reddening flesh and toppled them over, stood back. ‘Go on then …’

  The young man crawled away from his colleagues, straightened his skewiff undies, cracked his wrists. The others crawled over to sit alongside him, leaning back against the couch, four in a row, their faces strangely earnest.

  ‘Charlie Le, we didn’t come to take his money. We work for a different company …’

  Triad, he meant, but Swann wasn’t about to correct him. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Charlie Le, he buys from Hong Kong. We are from Singapore.’

  ‘Buys what?’

  The man looked at him strangely. ‘You are not police?’

  Swann laughed. ‘No, I am not.’

  The young man muttered in Chinese to his colleagues, who looked at each other, then looked at their feet.

  ‘Heroin. I am surprised you do not know this. He is become one of Australia’s biggest buyers.’

  ‘Ok, how does he get it in?’

  ‘The port. Merchant sailors. All Chinese. They walk off the ship. Like that.’

  ‘And you wanted a cut of his business. You counted on him losing big, so you could own him.’

  ‘That is correct. But he fears Hong Kong too much. He refused to join us.’

  Swann looked at the bag in his hand, the money. The men looked sheepish, refused to meet his eye. Taking the money wasn’t the plan. The men weren’t killers, he could see that. That would come next, perhaps, involving other men. But in the meantime, the bag of cash, the look on the men’s faces …

  ‘You weren’t planning on telling your bosses about this, were you?’

  Swann held it up, just long enough to catch their eyes, let it fall.

  It made sense. There were two young Western Australian men on death row in Malaysia, waiting for the noose. Italian money was behind that. As a result, using mules was on the nose, for the time being. The arrest of Clifford and Welsh had seen to that. But Swann hadn’t heard which opportunist had stepped in to fill the void.

  Charlie Le.

  ‘Start talking. Everything about Le. Then you might get your passports back.’

  The young man spoke for ten minutes. Swann heard about the officer at customs Le owned, a fellow gambler, a big loser. The quantities and quality. And then the familiar name, the one he was waiting for. Benjamin Hogan, Chief of the CIB. Some of his fellow officers. There to smooth things over, to gather intel from within the force, to keep the Feds at bay, to take their cut. The kind of friends that strangers couldn’t buy. The reason the Singaporeans needed Le, and needed him alive. For the time being.

  Swann tossed the young man the bag of passports, their tickets. Getting back to their masters, on time, to deliver Le’s response, was more important than the money they’d taken. The young man said nothing, but the other three thanked him, in Chinese, their red drunken faces breaking into smiles, grateful that he was taking the money away, and with it the temptation to ruin their lives. Swann guessed that the youngest man had talked them into it, and he added a wink to his goodbye.

  11.

  Swann drove along Great Eastern Highway, towards the city that glittered under the first rays of dawn. The river was calm and slick under the Causeway. He dialled Heenan and gave him the word. Heenan didn’t want the money, and he didn’t want it returned to Charlie Le either. ‘The man’s a degenerate gambler. I’ve organised for Conlan’s bank to take it back. Go and have a coffee at Bernie’s, and call me in twenty.’

  Swann did as suggested, if only because he hadn’t seen Bernie for months. The fry-up shack at the foot of Mt Eliza was an institution, and he’d eaten there for most of his life. Bernie was at his grill, frying eggs and bacon, gammon rounds and slices of minute steak, with tomatoes and onions bubbling in pans beside. He was old now, shrunken inside his leather apron. His blue eyes brightened when he saw Swann, and took his order of coffee and a cheese and tomato toasted sandwich. Swann chatted to Bernie, whose hair had long ago turned the colour of smoke. He was a Tobruk Rat, deaf in one ear from an explosion, and he angled his face to listen. They talked about the coming footy season. Bernie was a Cardinals man, and Swann backed South. They both agreed that since the Krakouer brothers’ departure for Victoria, Claremont was ready to be taken. When Swann’s order was ready he thanked Bernie and went out to the Statesman, drove around Mill Point Road and up into Kings Park. He sat the car beneath lemon-scented gums and watched the sun rise over the corrugated ridge of the Darling Scarp. After he’d finished his toasted sandwich he placed the coffee between his legs, lit a cigarette and dialled Heenan on the car phone.

  ‘Don’t worry, there’ll be someone to meet you, at the rear entrance. Backs onto the alley between Murray and Wellington.’

  Swann answered Heenan’s next question in the negative. He hadn’t seen the protest site at the Old Swan Brewery, around the corner on Riverside Drive, when he’d gone to Bernie’s. His mind had been on breakfast. Heenan apologised for keeping Swann up all night, and congratulated him on retrieving the money. But Heenan still wanted Swann to accompany him when he visited the protestors in about an hour.

  Swann cruised the Holden
down from the higher ground of Kings Park into the city, past the remnant gates of the old Barracks, marooned above the vast moat of the Mitchell Freeway, streaming with morning traffic. Looking down St Georges Terrace he could see cranes across the horizon. The old buildings of his childhood had been torn down as the corporations moved in and the people moved out.

  The building that housed Harrowgate Investment Bank was a case in point. Built to replace the weatherboard tenement slums at the top of Murray Street, the long row of two-storey brick bunkers were beautified only with a coat of white paint, long since stained with soot. Harrow’s Footwear had been one of the first tenants, and for whatever reason, upon converting the retail enterprise into an investment bank, Larry Conlan had chosen to stay in the original building. He’d tarted it up with new aluminium window frames and a brass nameplate above its doors, and had fitted out the interior to resemble a modern office, including a vast steel safe imported from the US, but it didn’t look much different from the era when the building housed brogues, boots, loafers and golf shoes.

  Conlan had the money to move to the exclusive Terrace, but the barely renovated building was part of the joke, as far as Swann could tell. Whose expense the joke was on depended upon who you asked. The Conlan brothers were either local boys done good, loyal to their working-class roots, or smart-arse shonks, playing fast and loose with other people’s money.

  Swann knew the stories, and had seen firsthand how Conlan’s money was used to inflate the worth of stockmarket scammers and their penny dreadfuls, not to mention inveterate Chinese gamblers. He turned the Statesman down the narrow brick lane that ran beside the bank, and into the carpark at the rear of the building.

  Ringed by asbestos fencing, the carpark had been laid with new macadam. Wild oats grew in the spaces between the fence and the car bays, and blocky fluoro graffiti covered the face of the red-brick building across the alley.

  Swann parked as close to the heavy steel door of the bank as possible, which was the only place in the carpark not in shadow. He noted how little security there appeared to be, beyond motion-detecting lights and a lone security camera, precariously hanging on a rusted frame. He rolled down the car windows and let the sunshine warm his face. He must have dozed off because when he awoke a long black Bentley had entered the carpark. It gleamed in the sunlight, making guzzling sounds as the engine idled. Swann had expected that a bank worker would meet him, or more likely the bank manager, but it was Larry Conlan himself who stepped out of the chauffeured car, still in his pyjamas and slippers, snug in a white terry-towelling dressing gown. He too looked like he’d just woken, rubbing his eyes in the morning glare. Conlan didn’t approach Swann; instead he leaned against the Bentley and yawned.

  Swann got out of the car and popped the boot and removed the cash, which he’d transferred into a garbage bag. The flash suitcase that he’d taken off the Chinamen would make a nice present to one of his daughters. The black plastic sagged and stretched as he lugged the cash over to Conlan, now joined by his chauffer, who Swann recognised as Pete Griswald, a local jockey whose career had ended in a three-year prison sentence for carnal knowledge. Swann was amused to see a bulge in the armpit of Griswald’s black suit jacket.

  Larry Conlan didn’t recognise Swann, although Griswald did, and he caught the bemused look on Swann’s face.

  ‘Boss, this is Frank Swann. Y’know, the ex-copper. Just fucked Trevor Dragic in the arse.’

  Conlan’s jowls shaped his face into a doughy circle, his skin the colour of batter. His eyes tightened, and he smiled. ‘Superintendent Frank Swann. How the mighty have fallen. Count it.’

  The words were directed at Swann, so he dropped the bag. Packets of cash spilled out. Griswald reached over by Swann’s legs and scooped up the packets, hefted the bag. ‘No need to count it, Boss. Swann’s not like that.’

  Which to Griswald was no compliment. Not to Conlan either, judging by the little sniff and shrug, adjusting his balls in his striped silk pyjama pants. He looked Swann up and down, taking his measure. Griswald tossed the bag of cash through the Bentley’s window onto the driver’s seat.

  ‘You aren’t going to bank that?’ Swann asked.

  Conlan laughed. ‘What, in there? Nah. Don’t think so. None of your business anyway.’

  It was Swann’s turn to stare at Conlan, weighing it up. He could smell the piss on Conlan’s silk pyjama pants, which meant that he leaked at night. He thought about making a comment, but decided against it.

  Swann turned, and walked to the Statesman, aware of their eyes on his back. Conlan was right, it wasn’t Swann’s business, but there was more to it. Conlan’s need to standover Swann was familiar. Swann had met plenty of men like Conlan, although none had risen so high. Swann had brought some of them down, if only a peg or two. He’d delivered some of them to prison, had even broken one or two with his bare hands.

  It was a sign of the times that men like the Conlan brothers were lauded in the media, mentioned in the same sentence as the premier. Larry Conlan, after all, hadn’t tried to milk Swann for information. He didn’t need access to the premier, like Corvo, Riley and the others. That prize was already his. Never mind the premier doing personal favours for a Chinese businessman who traded in smack. Swann doubted the premier knew about this latter fact, but either way, it didn’t matter. Swann decided that he wasn’t going to tell Heenan about Le’s heroin, or about Conlan taking personal delivery of the cash. That was the reason he walked away from Griswald and Conlan, and their sneering eyes. He didn’t want to show his hand. Instinct and experience told him that it was better to be underestimated.

  12.

  Mostel was an easy man to follow. He drove a silver Porsche 911. The air-cooled two-door had a small hole in its muffler and roared under acceleration. And yet Mostel was a cautious driver, something that made him easy to tail.

  Going on the address supplied by the real estate agent, Foley started his day in bushland near Kings Park. Mostel lived in a tall apartment complex that looked out over Crawley Bay, the wide stretch of river at the base of the park. It was pleasant hiding among the grevilleas, flowering banksias and blackboys, with the wattlebirds and pink-and-grey galahs, honeyeaters and magpies loud through the bush. The place reminded him of the swamps by the river where he’d grown up; setting fires and building cubbies, where the local schoolkids had their daily prearranged fights; got his first root there too, when he was older, aged twelve.

  He smiled at the memory, his cockiness at that age a product of his anxiety, not knowing what to do, or where to put his thing. He couldn’t remember the girl’s name, except that she was black, and older and more experienced. She’d been stoic while he poked away, the half-bottle of green ginger wine retarding his orgasm.

  The clothes in the bag owned by the real estate agent were a good fit, as were the leather-soled loafers. Foley was deep enough in the bush to avoid the eyes of passers-by. He’d heard some leaves rustling, and had been pleasantly surprised to see a western brown bandicoot doing its business on a nearby trail, until it saw him and darted off. A large feral cat passed along the bandicoot’s trail minutes later, nose to the ground. Foley reached for his pistol, and without thinking shot the animal in the side, making it jump vertically before scampering off, looking behind for its attacker. The sound of the .22 pistol wasn’t too bad, and he knew that the bullet had passed through the beast. It took more than a .22 at close range to stop a wildcat, but he didn’t regret it. The noise hadn’t alerted anyone, and it would remove the cat from the area. Most likely, it would die alone in the bush, just as it had lived. He felt sympathy for it – living as he too had become accustomed to living – hated by some and admired by others.

  Mostel, on the other hand, was a different kind of animal, and Foley had no respect for him. The old saying of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Mostel fitted in among the flock, invisible, useful even. There were reasons for that, and they weren’t a credit to the man.

  Foley recognised Mostel for wha
t he was. He had known some of Australia’s hardest men, had lived by their code.

  That code was about respect.

  Hustlers in suits preyed on the weak, and retreated behind the law when threatened, used the law and lawyers to do their dirty work, to break people financially.

  Hustlers like Mostel – well, he doubted his mother’s advice, that the man couldn’t be stood over. Foley doubted that Mostel had ever been truly alone, or knew what that meant. For sure, he’d never been hungry, or hunted, or afraid.

  Foley turned off the voice in his head. He recognised it as the voice that kept him alive in prison, building up his motivation to lay a surprise attack, or strategising on how to outwit an adversary. But on the streets, obsession was dangerous if unchecked. He might do something foolish, miss something on the periphery, and there was no margin for error.

  *

  At first, it felt good to drive around the city on Mostel’s tail. The sun was hot and the Fairlane’s air-conditioning was frosty. He even saw some familiar faces on the street, although he couldn’t stop to reminisce. His disguise was sufficient, as long as he kept moving.

  The one exception was when, out of curiosity, he’d parked the Ford and followed Mostel into a shop. Foley checked the addresses off as he went, on the estate agent’s file. He didn’t know why Mostel was visiting his rental properties, instead of attending his accountancy firm offices, and they weren’t linked by location. Some were in North Perth, some in West and East Perth, until he saw the common factor. In every case the lease had nearly expired; the same as with Foley’s mother’s lease. When he understood this, Foley wanted to get close.

  He entered the florist’s on Outram Street in West Perth a minute after Mostel, drifted to the back of the shop, paused in front of a display of funeral wreaths, a mirror panel before him. He stroked the petals of a white lily and looked into the mirror.