Old Scores

by Whish-Wilson, David;

‘What do you want me to do?’

  The premier leaned back on his plush chair, ran his fingers over his hair. ‘Very perceptive, Frank. To the matter at hand then – I never thanked you for seeing to my father the other day. And what I wanted to ask was … Marion, your wife, would she be able to look in on him? In her capacity as a community nurse, of course. He refuses to go to the “sick-house”, as he calls it. Although he’s clearly dying. Doesn’t look after himself. I’d take it as a personal favour.’

  Swann buckled the Gladstone and hefted it. ‘Stormie … your father, he isn’t really in her jurisdiction, but I’ll ask her.’

  As Swann reached for the door, the handle turned and Heenan barged inside, his face red. ‘Jaysus. Premier, you have to see this. Swann, you’re going to want to see it too. Better still, head down to the Barracks Arch and try to head it off …’

  Heenan strode over to the bay window with a view east over the city, pulled back the heavy drapes. Both Swann and the premier winced at the burst of light. Heenan shook his head, peering over at the red-brick Barracks Arch, a couple of hundred metres to the south and across the freeway. Swann joined him, saw the television vans and gathering of interested onlookers and journalists, and massed in a wall before them, four bikies, dressed in denim and leathers, the cameras snapping them. He remembered what he’d advised Gus Riley. ‘Oh, shit,’ he muttered.

  ‘You know something about this?’ Heenan asked.

  ‘No, I just noticed that they’re wearing their colours. That’s the club presidents of the Nongs, the Bad Breed, the Barbarians and Dingo Jacks – only mob missing are the Junkyard Dogs. Standing next to one another, without killing each other. I’ll get down there and take a look.’

  18.

  It took a few minutes to walk the bridge over the freeway, and join the crowd at the Barracks Arch. Swann was old enough to remember when the Arch had fronted the Pensioner Barracks, a vast martial structure built by convicts in the 1850s for the men and their families sent to guard them. The barracks had been torn down to make way for the freeway, but the Arch still looked like the remnants of a castle wall.

  Swann jostled his way through the tourists that thronged around a bus parked near the Arch, taking holiday snaps of the four riders of the apocalypse, the four bikie presidents, fists by their sides. Film cameras from the three local stations were rolling, while telecasters did pieces to camera, and newspapermen knelt and took angled photos to magnify the height of the four already gigantic men, the great brick structure overhead. Gus Riley stood forward and nodded to the others, saw Swann in the crowd and winked, saluted. He didn’t need a microphone. Years of shouting over the strafe of Harley Davidson motorcycles had given him a good voice for theatre. And he was enjoying the moment, the attention. He tossed the ginger fringe out of his eyes and repeated himself. ‘thankyou everyone. Thankyou. I’m not going to bugger around here and waste everybody’s time. I know you’ve got less important things to do. So I’ll get to the point. My brothers here, we live the outlaw life. You don’t have to like us, or respect us, but hopefully you at least fear us …’ Riley’s grin was off-colour, and caused some nervous laughs from a couple of journalists. ‘So be it. I’m not going to give you the old line: “We’re really misunderstood men who do good deeds and give to charity and give a shit about you and your mug lives.” Fuck. That. Shit. We live the outlaw life without apology and we have a code. You keep out of our business and we’ll keep out of yours. But there are always gonna be times when our interests are the same. And this is one of those times …’

  Riley paused for effect, turned to each of the men standing beside him, who nodded for him to continue. ‘My brothers here; and all of our brothers. We’re from here. Born and raised. We were born into the same communities that you were born into. We all have family who are civilians, ordinary West Aussies like you. Sisters and daughters and mothers. So when I say to you that a new mob of bikies, not from over East but even worse, from across the fucken ditch, is muscling into Perth, a mob so low and cowardly that they make rape a compulsory part of their initiation, who unlike us don’t care if their mob use the needle, who peddle smack and who’re only a couple of generations away from bein’ fucken cannibals – I’m warning you that the fight that we’re about to take to these animals is in your name as well as ours. And I’m tellin’ you this because the local coppers, who’re supposed to be protecting you, who know all about this, aren’t doing a fucking thing about it. Why not? You might want to ask yourself the same question. Or, you might want to ask me now, in private, off the record …’

  Riley grinned at Swann. To cement the message he stepped back into the embrace of the other club presidents. They stood arm in arm, chins high and bellies sucked in, imperiously ignoring the shouted questions. Swann moved to the wings of the crowd and waited. He had to admit, it was an effective stunt, and would bring plenty of pressure to bear. Riley had handled it well. The four bikies now shook hands and prepared to depart on the four Harleys parked beneath the Arch, Riley’s own Knucklehead the lowest, leanest and most highly polished of the four.

  Some of the journalists around Swann paused their pointless question-throwing and cocked their heads, becoming stiff and aware, like a family of meerkats. Swann turned. A lone Ford LTD with a flashing roof beacon, siren off, nudged its way up the Terrace through the tourists and the gathered businessmen and pulled alongside the Harleys. Four doors cracked at the same time. Out of the driver’s door climbed CIB Chief Benjamin Hogan, dressed in a black linen suit with high padded shoulders and pushed-up sleeves. He ran a hand over his side part, smoothed down his golden hair, adjusted his aviator sunglasses and strode over to the journalists. The rest of the detectives, all Hogan lieutenants, still wore the long hair and beige and grey sports jackets and leisure suits of the seventies. They gathered behind Hogan as he prepared to speak, all of the journalists and television crews having abandoned the bikies and clustered before the detectives.

  ‘What a disgrace! What a bloody disgrace!’

  Hogan’s words silenced the chatter and gossip. Riley and the other bikies nodded to one another, pushed through the crowd and around the Ford, took to their bikes, cranked the ignition and revved loudly. Hogan’s face flushed red, hiding his anger beneath a smirk, and a casual gesture with his hand that said let the children play. The revving grew in volume; rolling thunder, clouds of exhaust and dust. The four bikies dropped clutches and rode up Malcolm Street, towards Kings Park, their middle fingers raised.

  Hogan shook his head patiently, waiting for the noise to clear. He looked across each of the faces in the crowd, finally settling on Swann. His eyes turned to slits, his posture stiffened. Hogan stared at Swann for so long that the journalists began to notice, turning to him, until Hogan saw this and made an oily little grimace that he replaced with a look of mock indignation. Swann knew that look – it was the look that every station sergeant cultivated when there was arse-kicking to be done.

  ‘A bloody disgrace. Good thing my colleague Jeffrey here had his radio on. Gave us time to get here, to set this story straight. Because what I have to tell you is that the media stunt you just witnessed, complete with libellous allegations of police incompetence, has not only ruined an ongoing investigation into the activities of the aforementioned and aptly named Outlaws, but also put the lives of two of our undercover operatives at risk. So we’ve had to proceed hastily against the targets of Operation Golliwog, before we’ve had time to properly make the case for prosecution. A raid is in progress as we speak, and we hope to make arrests, but because of the charade you’ve just witnessed, and yes, because of the part you’ve played here too, my guess is that only minor violations will be recorded against these interlopers from across the ocean. I hope that some of you feel ashamed for the part you’ve played today, which has severely weakened our operational capacity to protect this city. That is all. No questions.’

  Hogan replaced his sunglasses and stared confidently into the television cameras. Journalist
s had begun shouting out questions, but he waved them away. One question repeated by all of them, eager for the next thing: ‘Where is the raid taking place?’

  Swann lit a cigarette and shuffled his feet. There was no raid taking place. There was no operation, or undercover operatives. But Hogan had convinced them otherwise, and Swann had to admit – it was a performance that would please the bosses, not to mention the premier. What did the journalist in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance say, after tearing up his notes? ‘This is the West … when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.’

  Swann’s beeper began to pulse its insistent chirp. He didn’t need to look – he knew it was Heenan, wanting the low-down.

  19.

  Swann parked on James Street, in front of the Greek café whose tables were crowded with musicians in leather jackets and old men in fedoras playing cards. A dero crouched in the nearby doorway of a nightclub, keeping as far from the fierce light as possible. Swann bent and passed him a dollar note, told him to keep an eye on the car. He lit two cigarettes and passed one over and watched a group of teenage Nyungars make their way down the street towards the train station. He looked for Blake Tracker among the kids dressed in jeans and tight tee-shirts and flannel but he wasn’t likely to wander along the most highly policed street in the state, even during daylight hours.

  Swann inhaled deeper on his cigarette, blocking out the sour smells of chip oil and griddle fat from the burger joints. He said hello to a few faces as he walked towards Corvo Snr’s gambling den on the corner, quietly cursing Heenan under his breath. It was Heenan who’d tipped Hogan to Riley’s antics, and there was something in the telling that made Swann wonder – how much did Heenan know about Hogan’s relationship with Riley? It was Heenan’s advice to the CIB Chief to not only front the media pack but also deflect blame from the premier and the police service by mentioning the imaginary investigation.

  Either way, there was the job at hand. Stormie Farrell. Swann saw the Thunderbird angled across two parking spaces. The convertible’s roof was up, and he peered inside, noticed the rabbit and the rooster looking near-dead on the back seat. He opened the door and wound down the windows, let in some air.

  The floorboards in the darkened corridor that led to Corvo Snr’s casino – the grandly named Mediterranean Club – were freshly washed, and smelt of Pine O Cleen and mouldy mop. He climbed the creaking stairs to the second floor and knocked on the anteroom beside the frosted glass doors of the casino floor. Gregory Corvo answered, and let Swann in. He didn’t look particularly happy, waving a hand at the couch where Stormie Farrell sat drinking from the neck of a carafe of red. By way of greeting, Farrell Snr burped and wiped his mouth with his hand, blinked and grinned.

  There were dirty ashtrays stacked on a table, a bag of wine-stained tablecloths next to the bucket and filthy mop, the bottle of Pine O Cleen, but the room smelt only of Stormie Farrell. He was wearing the same safari suit, and his feet were still bare.

  Corvo grunted. ‘He slept on the couch. My … partners wanted to drag him out the back and give him a hiding, set him on fire was one suggestion, but when I heard who he is …’

  ‘Thanks Greg, you did the right thing.’

  ‘If you’re wondering why he’s got a black eye, he urinated on one of my bouncer’s legs. We wouldn’t let him in. He’s got bare feet.’

  ‘I’m a fucking Muslim convert! I’ve got a religious dispensation.’

  Swann ignored Farrell Snr, took Corvo by the arm, led him out into the hall.

  ‘What was the other thing?’

  ‘Oh yeah. It’s bad enough we got to make payments to the CIB, the council. But twice this week – an old bloke who claims he represents your boss, and the ALP, has tried to shake us down. Came in at closing with a big brown envelope. Said he’d be back in the morning to collect it, and that it’d better be full, if we want to keep operating. Said it’s a donation to the party.’

  ‘He have ID?’

  ‘Nope.’

  There was a loud bang from inside the room, the sound of Stormie Farrell trying to stand and hitting the drywall.

  ‘I can hear youse, ya mugs. You lock me up here, Swann, you work for my son, but you don’t even recognise my little brother? Graham, the fucken bad son? The sperm that crawled off the street and got into my ma?’

  Farrell took the sides of the doorway and made a frame for himself. ‘The bastard have dyed hair? ’Bout a decade younger than me? Gut like a bag of footies?’

  Corvo looked Farrell up and down. ‘Hard to tell how old you are, mate. Look like one of those fuckin’ … mummies.’

  Farrell laughed. ‘If wit was shit, you’d be bloody constipated, son. Answer me question, playboy. He look like Barry fucken McKenzie after a six-day bender? Suit like he’d just been demobbed? Built like fifty pounds of shit in a twenty-pound bag? Slicker than snail-snot?’

  Corvo waved away Farrell, hadn’t understood a word. ‘Was about seventy, I reckon. Fat bastard. Had a big gold ring.’

  ‘Ha, yair, that’s Graham. Grae’s ring. You want his advice, you gotta kiss it.’

  Corvo turned his back on Farrell, made an unpleasant face. ‘What do you reckon we should do? My father said to ask you.’

  ‘Sounds like he might be legit. I’ll find out. Meanwhile, do me a favour and ask around, see if he’s been hitting up anybody else on the street.’

  ‘Do I pay him?’

  ‘Leave it with me. And thanks for not laying into Stormie – he’s not well.’

  Corvo nodded and went through to the casino floor. Swann helped Stormie down the stairs and out into the blazing sunshine. He stood Stormie up against the shopfront of a tattoo parlour, popped the bonnet of the T-bird and looked under the distributor cap. The thing was still disabled.

  Stormie gave him a look of triumph, followed by the forked fingers.

  ‘How’d you do it, Stormie?’

  ‘Rack off.’

  Swann dropped the bonnet and the car shook. The driver’s side wing mirror slumped and the steel front fender slipped.

  Swann looked at his watch. ‘No hard feelings, Stormie. Could leave you here, of course. Or I could buy you a beer, while you tell me how you managed to get the Yank tank halfway across the city?’

  Stormie’s eyes lit up. ‘Cool as the other side of a pillow, you are, Swann. A beer would make for a suitable dessert.’

  ‘What about your rabbit and rooster, Stormie? Can’t just leave them here.’

  ‘Them? Eh? Stop having a lend. Figments of my imagination, they are. That’s what the old trick-cyclist told me. I’ll send them home with the car.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me?’

  ‘The RAC, mate. I’m a premium member. I’m entitled to five free tows a year. I told them I live at this address.’

  Swann shook his head. ‘We’ll call them from the pub, get you towed back home.’

  The promise of a drink smoothed the kinks out of Stormie’s bent frame. He stood tall, spat on his hand and rubbed it over his hair.

  ‘The Great Western, eh?’ he said, indicating the gold-rush pub across the road. ‘You know I’m barred from there. Told the manager he had a face like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle. Didn’t know who I was, of course. Nobody in this town remembers anything. Total fucking amnesia.’

  Swann guided Stormie in the side entrance of the darkened pub, sat him at a back table where his bare feet couldn’t be seen. He ordered two beers at the wood and dialled the RAC to come get Stormie’s Thunderbird.

  20.

  Swann dialled Heenan as he crossed the traffic bridge over the Swan River and entered Fremantle. The docks were crowded with container ships and tankers and ships covered with new white fleet vehicles destined for the mines. Swann had left Stormie Farrell in the company of two of his old friends from Kalgoorlie, celebrating a big win. The partners made a living out of watching the lease books of the local gold mines. When a lease expired, often an oversight, they pegged it and bought it for nothing. Yesterday they
’d pegged a lease belonging to a major player, on land containing real gold. They were in negotiations with the mine to sell back the lease for a small fortune.

  Swann was clearly in the wrong game. He’d confirmed with Heenan that the premier’s uncle, Graham Farrell – Stormie’s little brother and a man who’d dabbled in real estate, importing luxury launches and selling gold to the Middle East – was now working full-time actively fundraising for the party. When Swann had described Graham Farrell’s modus operandi to Heenan – standing over standover merchants like Corvo – Heenan seemed unconcerned. Swann needn’t worry, it was all above board and properly documented. Graham could be a little overzealous, to be sure, but then again he was a terrific fundraiser. Raising investment capital was his expertise and the party was lucky to have him on the team. Swann had to ask, however, because Graham Farrell didn’t sound the type. What was in it for the premier’s uncle? The answer was a commission of twenty-five percent on every dollar he raised.

  Swann had pulled into his street in South Fremantle when Heenan finally got to the point. ‘Forget the surveillance cameras project for the time being. I don’t know what you said to the premier this morning, but he’s requested your time on something.’

  Swann cruised the Statesman to a stop beneath the hanging arms of the flowering bottlebrush, a carpet of red across the street.

  ‘Go on.’ Swann turned off the ignition. Leant back in the seat. He was thinking about the beach. Marion’s Datsun 120Y was in the drive, and the sun on his face and arms was fierce. He cracked the door to get some air and waited.

  ‘Basically, those tenders for the Burswood development – they’re in. The premier wants your oversight on the tendering process.’

  ‘I thought the public service did that – arms-length, et cetera.’

  ‘True, but he doesn’t fully trust the public service. Most of them have links to the Libs, one way or another, which means links to the companies putting the tenders forward. I’m sure it’ll all be above board, but just in case, he wants you to look into the companies – make sure we’re getting the best value for our money.’