Old Scores

by Whish-Wilson, David;

  ‘Why’s he telling you this? He stupid?’

  ‘No, Swanny, he’s real smart. A major player in the Conlan empire. I didn’t want to hear it, but he didn’t give me a choice. He’s an up-and-comer. Irons in the fire.’

  ‘One of the premier’s new breed.’

  ‘Exactly. Now I’m complicit in anything that goes down.’

  ‘That’s as good as blackmail.’

  ‘I know it. How he operates.’

  ‘Now I’m complicit too, is that what you want?’

  ‘No, I want you to … jam it up. Get to the potential shooters. Let them know we don’t want that.’

  ‘Heenan, money talks. This fella … I don’t even want to know his name, he pays right, they’ll take it. They might not do the job, but they’ll take his advance.’

  ‘Good. Tell them to do that. Rip him off, whatever it takes, but don’t do the job. I’m going to leak Foley’s presence to the media tonight, and bring the coppers into it.’

  ‘This bloke – he’ll know the leak came from you.’

  ‘I can live with that. I’ve got to protect the premier. Tell me you’ll help.’

  ‘Sure, but I’m keeping the Statesman.’

  Heenan laughed, and Swann hung up. He locked the Holden and stepped into the darkness. He heard someone approach from behind and watched his neighbour, Salvatore Picirilli, lay down his hose on the grass verge. The hose wasn’t turned on, and Salvatore was dressed in his regular garb of black stubbies and blue singlet, barefoot. A pot-bellied man with a shaved head and translucent jug ears, in the shadows Sal looked like a baby bear. He sidled up to Swann and put a hand on his forearm, peered into his yard. ‘He’s still there. I bin keepin’ an eye on him, don’t you worry Frank. But better you go.’

  Swann looked through the hedge of tangled jasmine and Hardenbergia but couldn’t see who Salvatore was pointing at with furtive, underhand movements, pushing him towards the drive.

  ‘Behind the frangipani. A big black buck. Better you go.’

  Swann thanked him and pocketed his keys, walked down the drive. On the porch, behind the stooping branches and thick leaves of the frangipani, seated on a rattan chair out of the wind next to Marion, was Gerry Tracker. They were both smoking, and holding glasses of rum and ice. Marion smiled as Swann kissed her on the forehead. She smelt of pine needles and Ponds, her forehead shiny.

  Gerry stood and thrust out a hand. He smelt of diesel and grease, and his overalls were smudged with oil. He was a big man, and seemed larger in the dark, thick at the waist and barrel-chested, his bare arms muscular and tattooed. Long black hair with greying roots pulled behind his ears. A strong grip, just like always.

  He got straight to the point. ‘Swann, like I just been explaining to Marion. Something I didn’t want to say in front of Sister Prue, good lady that she is.’

  ‘Had the feeling there was something you wanted to say. Give me a second. Top-up? Marion?’

  They both nodded, and Swann went inside and fixed himself a drink. The house was quiet. No record on the player, or conversation at the kitchen table, or daughters chatting on the phone.

  Swann tossed some extra ice cubes in his glass and carried the bottle of Captain Morgan outside.

  On the porch, Swann saw the look on Marion’s face; he turned and there was Salvatore, watching from the rose bushes, not looking where he hosed. Swann shook his head and Salvatore nodded, and stepped away. Gerry laughed, and stared down into his glass. Being a black man in the city, he was used to the scrutiny.

  ‘What’s on your mind, Gerry?’

  Gerry Tracker exhaled smoke through his nostrils. ‘Didn’t want to mention it at the Brewery, polite company and all that, but as I was just telling Marion, my boy, Blake … he’s done a bolt from Longmore. Blakey was a week shy of being transferred out of juvie into Freo Prison. Went over the wall a few nights ago. Nobody’s heard from ’im since.’

  Gerry’s voice was matter-of-fact, but his eyes were soft. Confusion and hurt in there.

  ‘I know what everybody’s thinkin’. Blakey doesn’t want to do hard time – real adult time. Don’t reckon he can cut it. But they don’t know him like me … He did a man’s crime, got to do a man’s time. Coppers ’ave been around night an’ day, but I haven’t heard from the boy.’

  There it was. Not the fact that Blake Tracker had gone over the borstal wall, like so many boys before him, but that he hadn’t made contact.

  ‘It’s only been a few days, Gerry,’ said Marion. ‘Maybe he just wants some time, before handing himself in.’

  Gerry looked at her and nodded. ‘P’raps. But I doubt it. He’s been around my place. The other night, while I was asleep. Knows where I keep the spare key. Nicked that and took himself some food and money, some of his clothes. A sleeping bag.’

  Swann lit a cigarette and topped up Gerry and Marion’s glasses, and his own. Sure now where this was leading. ‘There’s miles of bush out your way. You looked around?’

  ‘Yeah, I walked the whole southern swampland yesterday. All the lakes right over to Murdoch. Nothing. But when I find him …’

  ‘I can do that for you Gerry. No problem. But the sooner you get him back, the easier it’ll be.’

  Marion looked to Swann and Gerry, didn’t understand. She would know that Blake Tracker was in for stealing cars and assault on a police officer, but that was only part of the story. The detective that Blake had beaten up and disarmed after a car chase through Como and Melville had been humiliated by the ordeal. A thirty-five-year-old detective sergeant had been beaten up by a fifteen-year-old Aboriginal youth, who’d then stolen the detective’s .38 handgun and turned it against him, threatening him with it before fleeing, leading to disciplinary action. That D and his mates would very likely love to get their hands on Blake Tracker. The gun itself had never been recovered, part of the reason Blake’s sentence had been so severe – four years – to be served in juvie until Blake reached a majority, then the rest to be served at Freo jail, with the general population. So they would be looking for an Aboriginal youth with access to a handgun. They would call Blake Tracker an armed suspect. The boy would have to turn himself in eventually, but after what happened last time, who he handed himself over to might mean the difference between life and death.

  ‘I’m not giving him to any bloke except you. I know you’re out, but Blakey’s a man now. And that copper he done over, since his demotion back into uniform he’s a turnkey at East Perth Lockup … I been askin’ around. He’s there alright, on the night shift.’

  ‘Blake didn’t leave a message, anything? This is just between us.’

  Gerry Tracker shook his head. Swann had seen Gerry fight, had learnt the hard way how tough an opponent Gerry Tracker was. He’d stand alongside his son. Trouble for Blake spelt trouble for Gerry, and potentially another long stretch inside.

  Gerry tipped his glass and crushed the last shards of ice in his teeth. He stood and shook Swann’s hand, then Marion’s. Marion and Swann both stood and watched him leave, his bulky figure ducking beneath the branches of the bottlebrush that hung over the drive, fists thrust deep in his overall pockets, long hair bouncing off his shoulders.

  Swann sank into his cane chair, let his neck loll, sucked on ice and felt the booze in his limbs. The moon was rising to the east, and the garden was cast with a satin sheen. Marion sighed, sipped on her rum. ‘You think the boy is in real danger?’

  ‘Yeah, he is. They’ll call the TRG at the first sight of him. Shoot him down. Unless he hands himself in to someone sympathetic, or we get hold of the gun somehow.’

  ‘Nothing you can do though, is there?’

  He heard the concern in her voice, picking up on his exhaustion. ‘Not at the minute, no …’

  Swann felt a weight in his lap, knew that it was one of Marion’s feet. He put down his rum and took her foot by the ankle, started to rub with his other hand, gently knuckling the inner sole like she preferred. Marion lifted his legs from the floor, one after the othe
r, and took off his shoes and socks, caressed the tops of his feet, began to stab her nails into the sole around the toes, just as he liked.

  ‘Dinner at the Capri?’ she asked. Whenever Swann rubbed her feet, caressed the silky skin of her calf, Marion’s voice thickened. There was a time when this cue meant they had to wait, to get the girls asleep, or out of the house, but no longer. Marion’s fingers made his skin tingle. It would be nice, exhausted as he was, to make love beneath the ceiling fan in their bedroom. His mind was quiet but his senses were awakened, and there was no hurry, already on the feathered edge of sleep. In the meantime, a bottle of house red and whatever looked good at the Capri. A cold shower and change of clothes. He felt the weight lift from his lap and followed Marion with his eyes. She was smiling too, tweaked his ear as she brushed past his chair, her bare legs catching his hand.

  16.

  He awoke groggy with sleep, relaxed but for his aching jaw, where he’d been grinding. It was minutes after sun-up but the day was already hot. An easterly was blowing off the desert. Swann rolled out of the low bed and scratched his shins, his belly. He still wasn’t used to the early mornings, wasn’t getting to sleep any earlier. He padded down the empty corridor past the empty rooms and put the kettle on, stared blankly into the backyard and began thinking about the morning and the tasks ahead. The premier’s office, followed by a visit to some of the heavy-hitters likely to field a call from a disgruntled businessman offering a contract to kill. The list wasn’t long, but few of the men would be easy to find.

  The Statesman put her nose down. He accelerated off the Canning Bridge ramp onto the freeway, began weaving between the smaller sedans while heading towards a convoy of trucks returning from the Burswood site near the city. The trucks had been plying the same route now for weeks, hundreds of them, mostly at night. He assumed this was to avoid traffic, although he had no idea where the infill was coming from. He looked at the drivers as he passed them at speed. They all wore the same grey truckies cap and grey work shirt, but the trucks were unmarked by any company logo. With the buckets on the tray empty, the wind rang against the steel hulls and whipped at the remnant soil and Swann changed lanes to avoid the spray of sand that burned on his forearm. He had passed a dozen trucks and there were dozens more ahead. Soon the Burswood site would be levelled and re-contoured and the tendering stage would begin. When he’d passed all the trucks Swann wound down his window again, smelt the baking limestone and stewing algae on the easterly, watched the pennants on the South Perth foreshore batting the hot air.

  He took the opportunity to dial the central Perth police station, Homicide desk, and ask for Terry Accardi. It’d been a few days since Swann checked in with Terry, although Swann had mentored Accardi ever since he was a tough neighbourhood kid. He’d continued that role when Accardi joined the force, although by then Swann had been publically disgraced and their meetings took place in secret. Lately, the arrangement was of mutual benefit. As a young detective, Accardi was a good source of information about matters in the force. Ambitious and capable but smart enough to fly beneath the radar, Accardi didn’t belong to any of the cliques. Acting on Swann’s advice, Accardi knew which door to listen at, which hand to shake and which men to avoid. The fact that he’d not only survived but thrived in the tough political world of the force showed how shrewd he’d become.

  Accardi picked up the phone. He sounded tired and harassed, but his voice sharpened when he heard that it was Swann, going with his agreed alias of Peter Drake. Swann gave him his number and waited for Accardi to call back from a secure line. Swann’s phone rang, and he launched into telling Accardi about the Good Morning Bandit, Des Foley, and the fact that the man Foley was stalking wanted him dead, not arrested.

  Swann had nothing against Foley, but if the country’s most wanted man was stupid enough to return to Perth and get himself arrested, he wanted Terry Accardi to be the one to bring him in. Terry was Homicide, but because of the threat of murder he could work the case. Swann wasn’t able to give Terry any information on the businessman who’d put the contract on the street, but every cop in WA knew about Foley. If the bikies and the Italians were hunting him, there was every chance of bodies in the streets. If they got Foley first, he’d be disappeared, but if Foley fought them off he’d make the corpses public, as a warning to others. This alone would be enough to guarantee police resources sufficient to the case, compounded by the inevitable media circus – something that happened every time Foley was rumoured to be home.

  Swann told Terry the word about the new commissioner being delayed, which was old news to Accardi. The new commissioner was supposed to be coming to clean up the force, but according to Terry the rumour was that his delay was more about giving them time to clean shop. Files were disappearing everywhere. Work orders the same. Threats were being made to potential informants, on the street and in jail. All coordinated by the head of the CIB – Ben Hogan. By the time the new commissioner arrived there’d be nothing to investigate. Heenan and the premier would be disappointed, but Swann should have guessed.

  There was nothing else to report to Accardi, and Swann hung up and pulled the Statesman into the parliamentary parking lot, beside the sad-looking Commodore with its layer of dust and purple flowers. Swann took up his staff lanyard and bag of tools, made his way through a platoon of magpies working the perimeter of the parliamentary lawn.

  17.

  The premier’s office was dark and smelt of tung oil and filtered coffee, and the heavy door muffled the sounds in the corridor. Swann knelt with the wireless meter and wafted it across the wooden desk. The premier was on a call and so Swann couldn’t check the phone just yet. He worked the wand across the walls, over the paintings that had become familiar, all gin-soaked faces and mutton-chop sideburns and oily eyes, along the architraves and window frames. Heenan wasn’t in yet, or was out doing the premier’s bidding, and the premier didn’t seem to mind Swann listening as he went about his business. Whoever he was talking to, the premier was on a charm offensive, laying on the flattery with a trowel, though his eyes told Swann his heart wasn’t in it.

  Farrell Jnr sounded sincere as he talked his way through a list of the benefits that would accrue to his interlocutor, namely the prestige of being associated with such a project, and finally the satisfaction of doing something good for the state. Swann caught Farrell’s eye, who winked. Whoever was on the other end of the line was being invited to eat a shit sandwich, but Farrell got his way, hung up the phone, jotted something in a black notebook that he filed away in the top drawer of his desk. Farrell watched Swann work the wand over the light fittings last of all, then took the black notebook out of his desk and opened it again. ‘Frank … I can call you Frank right? But Heenan tells me you prefer Swann …’

  Swann raised a thumbs-up over his shoulder, and the premier continued. ‘Your wife, Marion, Heenan tells me that she works with … community nursing outreach. Is that correct?’

  Swann turned off the electronic device that looked like a cross between a coathanger and a TV aerial, folded its arms and placed it in his Gladstone bag. He turned to Farrell and nodded. ‘Yes, that’s correct. It’s a good program. Really makes a difference.’

  Farrell tented his fingers, gave Swann a shrewd stare. ‘Must be useful to you, given your line of work. Needing to keep an ear to the ground and all that. She’d have a pretty good idea of what’s going on in the criminal community, wouldn’t she?’

  It was a strange line of questioning. ‘Sure enough.’

  ‘And what about you, Frank? You’ve spent a lifetime with criminals, enough to form an opinion. I’m curious as to your impression, as this affects our current discussions around the policy on law and order. We’re always under pressure from the community, to lock ’em up and throw away the key. Like there’s no point rehabilitating. So, what’s your opinion – nature or nurture? If it’s the former, well, I guess there’s little that we can do except take criminals off the streets. If it’s the latter, well, ther
e’s always hope …’

  The look in Farrell’s eyes was genuine interest, and his hands were motionless on the leather blotter of the old jarrah desk. But it wasn’t the kind of question asked by someone who’d grown up among ‘the people’. Rather, someone who’d been cosseted in Catholic boys schools, been on the school debating team, gone into law straight after school.

  ‘My experience of crims,’ Swann began, ‘most of the ones locked up at least, is that they’re either stupid, unlucky or they’re lashing out. Most of them aren’t dangerous. The ones that are, sure, they belong in jail.’

  ‘Not worthy adversaries for an intelligent detective, then …’

  Swann ignored the statement, didn’t like the look of complicity in Farrell’s eyes. Farrell wanted something from him.

  ‘But with the men you’ve been chasing recently,’ Farrell said, ‘is it the hunt that motivates you, the money, or both? After all, it can’t be as satisfying bringing down a company director, as compared to locking up a bank robber?’

  ‘I wouldn’t agree with that, having seen the damage they’ve done.’

  A line of muscle tightened in the premier’s jaw. ‘I’m surprised to hear that from an ex-copper. So forgiving of thieves, hoons, violent criminals, and so cynical about the wealth generators of this economy. The men who build companies and create jobs …’

  The premier was on his feet now, looking for an explanation. But just as suddenly he sat, smoothed his hair, looked at Swann and smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile, but there was no heat in it either.

  ‘Sorry, Frank. I’m tired. Didn’t sleep at all last night. Got another hard day, hard years ahead.’