‘Have you got a location on file for the fish farm?’ I asked.
Cradock flicked through his folder. ‘It appears to be … ah, somewhere outside of Darwin.’
‘That’s a lot of territory,’ I said. ‘You got anything more specific?’
He flicked through the notes again and shook his head. ‘Sorry, no,’ he said, standing up. ‘I hope I’ve been of some help, Alby. The briefing note that accompanied your request for this meeting indicated you have the highest level of security clearance, which I assume means you are some kind of security operative.’ He grinned. ‘Of course, I also assume we have one of those situations where you can’t confirm this.’
‘Can’t confirm or deny, Crash, you know how it goes.’
‘Because if you did then you’d have to kill me, right?’
I shrugged.
He made a shooting motion with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. ‘Gotcha, Alby, stay cool.’
‘Thanks, Crash,’ I said as I shook his hand.
Deep down, I wanted to kill him anyway, just for the hell of it.
FORTY
I made it down to Old Parliament House while there was still some finger food left, so maybe my luck was changing. Whoever came up with the idea of using the Old Parliament House building to host exhibitions deserved a pat on the back, as did the design team that had hung the show.
The giant photographic prints on display were mounted on the walls or suspended from the ceiling, and already there must have been a couple of hundred people milling about. Smartly uniformed wait staff were circulating with trays of drinks and hors d’oeuvres. I took a glass of champagne from one bloke and a delicate curry puff from a waitress I knew from attending way too many Canberra receptions.
‘Good evening, Kellie,’ I said. ‘Uni going well?’
She smiled. ‘Very well, thank you, Mr Murdoch. One more semester and then hopefully my waitressing days will be over.’
‘We’ll miss you at these bunfights,’ I said, ‘but God knows the national capital needs as many psychologists as we can get. You remember the plan?’
She smiled. ‘Of course, Mr Murdoch. Anything that looks extra tasty comes straight from the kitchen to you.’
‘Is the Prime Minister here?’
She nodded. ‘He arrived about twenty minutes ago. I’m sure he’ll be very understanding about dropping to second place on my list.’
I scooped up another of the curry puffs and headed into the melee. The party was in full swing by this stage, and I couldn’t miss Gudrun Arkell because being six foot tall and gorgeous with red curly hair she was pretty unmissable.
‘Security around here must be pretty slack,’ I said, ‘letting people like you in.’
‘Lesbians?’ she said.
‘Journalists.’
‘Ouch, Alby,’ she said, ‘low blow. I’m shattered.’
She bent down and planted a kiss on my cheek after flicking a little something curry-puff-related off my lapel. ‘Nice suit,’ she said. ‘If I wasn’t gay, I could go for a man like you. Only younger, and more handsome, and with a little charm, perhaps.’
I guess I’d asked for that. ‘So, Goods,’ I said, ‘you off the clock?’
She held up a glass of champagne.
‘Don’t get too plastered,’ I said, ‘and don’t leave. I may have a big story for you.’
‘How big?’
‘Really big.’
She smiled. ‘That’s nice. A girl can never have too many Walkley Awards.’
Queen of the Canberra Press Gallery, Gudrun knew about my double life, but we went way back and I knew she was someone I could trust with a secret. She was also my ‘go to’ girl when I needed to know what was really happening in the corridors of power, or when I wanted to dish a little dirt on anyone who annoyed me. Call me petty and vindictive, and I’ll show you my T-shirt that confirms it in bold type.
Gudrun flagged down a passing waiter and switched from champagne to mineral water, and I went Ambassador hunting. I clocked Gwenda Felton smack-bang in the middle of the hubbub. The peroxide, crimson lipstick and chiffon fashion catastrophe was chatting with my target, the US Ambassador. For security reasons, Gwenda had no public link to WorldPix but she couldn’t resist showing up at our functions. I’d tried to warn her she was going to get someone killed one day but she wouldn’t listen.
Gwenda spotted me at the same time and waved me over. ‘Ah, Murdoch,’ she said, her smile as white and artificial as her teeth and pearls, ‘this is the American Ambassador, the Honourable Vaughan Crockett. Mr Ambassador, this is Alby Murdoch, one of the many talented photographers working for WorldPix.’
We shook hands. I can be polite when I have to, even to people who’ve been trying very hard to have me killed.
Taller than me by a couple of inches, Crockett was all spray tan, capped teeth, hair plugs and that ersatz bonhomie so beloved of media moguls and powerful politicians. I had the better dinner suit, though.
Just behind the Ambassador were a couple of burly blokes with buzz cuts, loose-fitting suit jackets and discreet earpieces. Usually bodyguards came from the US government’s Diplomatic Protective Service, but there was something about these guys that said they might be freelancers. And not very nice freelancers at that.
‘Wonderful show, Murdoch, wonderful show,’ Crockett said, gripping my hand for not one second longer than was absolutely necessary. Being the Yank Ambassador, I was pretty sure the CIA had him well briefed on WorldPix and what went on behind the scenes.
Crockett’s face was Botoxed smoother than a baby’s bottom. Botox is a bad move for actors, since it destroys their ability to show subtle emotion through facial expression, but for politicians this actually works a treat. Together, Crockett and Gwenda looked like a couple of Victorian-era plaster death masks.
‘Do you have a favourite picture in the exhibition, Murdoch?’ the Ambassador asked. He had that consummate politician’s skill of feigning intense interest while displaying utter contempt.
‘My favourite arrived a little too late to be hung,’ I said, ‘but I’d love to show it to you when you have a moment. It’s in the Cartwright Annexe.’
Even Botox couldn’t conceal the change in the Ambassador’s expression at the mention of the name Cartwright.
Gwenda was looking at me warily. ‘Perhaps the Ambassador —’ she started to say, but I cut her off.
‘I think the Prime Minister is looking for you, Gwenda. Last time I saw him he was standing next to the portrait of Lenny deCarlo.’
Gwenda suddenly had that deer-in-the-headlights look I so love to see. Lenny deCarlo was the radio shock jock who’d accidentally left the mike open during a commercial break in an interview with Gwenda while she was still a member of parliament and a minister in the previous government. A couple of nasty comments about immigrants she thought were off-air had led to her forced resignation, and deCarlo’s ratings bump after the incident made you wonder how accidental it really was.
‘I wouldn’t keep the PM waiting, Gwenda,’ I said.
Crockett followed me across the main exhibition room with his bodyguards in tow. The exhibition’s curator had made some interesting choices in the hanging of the photographs and we passed through a succession of images of smiling politicians, starving refugees, victims of landmines, famine, deforestation, religious intolerance, political repression and that noble all-too-human desire to become world famous by eating as many hotdogs as possible in just twelve minutes.
I found the doorway I was looking for and suggested that maybe we should have this viewing in private. The Ambassador seemed amused at my suggestion but told his bodyguards to wait outside.
The small anteroom held a couple of armchairs, a side table with a bottle of whisky and two glasses, and a picture on an easel. The picture was about a metre square and covered in bubble wrap.
‘You want a drink?’ I asked, indicating the whisky.
The Ambassador shook his head and glanced at his watch.
‘I’m just back from Vietnam,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘so I understand. I’m sure things have changed since I was there. It was a very dangerous place back then.’
‘Still is. Or maybe I’m just accident-prone.’
Crockett was studying the picture on the easel, trying to work out what was under the bubble wrap.
‘The past is the past, Murdoch,’ he said, ‘and sometimes people who won’t let sleeping dogs lie get bitten.’
‘Sometimes those sleeping dogs have rabies, Mr Ambassador, and need to be put down for the common good.’
‘I’m not sure your Prime Minister would appreciate someone like you calling the United States Ambassador a mad dog.’
‘If the flea collar fits …’ I said.
Our discussion was turning out to be more a battle of idioms than a battle of wits.
Crockett glanced at his watch again. ‘I have an important dinner to attend. Why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind and then we can both go our separate ways.’
‘Suits me. All I want is for you to call off your attack dogs and then immediately retire from public life.’
Ambassador Crockett laughed out loud.
‘I’m serious,’ I said.
‘What makes you think I have attack dogs to call off? And why would I want to retire from public life?’
‘Because I asked nicely. And because if you don’t, I’ll see that you get charged with multiple counts of murder, war crimes, misuse of government property, fraud, theft and a couple of other incidents that a smart US attorney might reasonably assess as coming under the heading of treason.’
Crockett walked over and stood close to me. We stared at each other for a moment and I knew exactly what Harry had meant about those eyes. It was like looking at a cold, moonless winter midnight in Tierra del Fuego.
‘Listen to me very carefully, you little cocksucker,’ Crockett said in a low voice. ‘I have a pager in my pocket and my finger is on the button. If I press it, the two men standing outside that door will come in, and what happens after that won’t be very pleasant – well, not for you at least. I might choose to have them break your fingers, kneecap you, cut out your eyes and perhaps chop off your tongue, and then your cocksucking days will be well and truly over. And given who I am, nobody will be able to do a damn thing about it.’
Standing this close to the Ambassador, I started to wonder if he’d had a chin implant as well as the Botox.
‘Then, if you’re very lucky,’ he continued, ‘maybe I’ll let you live out your days sitting blind and dumb and crippled in a wheelchair contemplating the wisdom of fucking with people you really shouldn’t fuck with.’
The temptation to kick the Ambassador in the balls was overwhelming, but he probably did have a panic button in his pocket. The blokes outside looked both competent and crazy, and I knew Gwenda would never forgive me if I turned our opening night party into a bloodbath before the PM headed back to the Lodge.
‘Why don’t we compromise then,’ I said. ‘How about this: you call off your attack dogs and retire from public life, and we’ll call it quits.’
‘You must be out of your mind,’ Crockett said. ‘You’re talking about ancient history. That was over thirty years ago. And who’s going to believe an old Chinese gangster who dribbles or the demented ramblings of a Vietnam vet who was involved in drug running, turned his back on his own country and almost certainly has post-traumatic stress syndrome and early-onset Alzheimer’s, or will have by the time my people get through with destroying his credibility in the press. You see, Mr Murdoch, nothing ever happened – there are no reliable witnesses and no proof. End of story.’
I thought that over for a minute. ‘It’s that old philosophical conundrum so beloved by your sixties hippies, I suppose. If a B-52 drops fifty thousand pounds of high explosives in the forest and no-one survives, did it really happen?’
‘Did what happen?’ Crockett said with a smile.
‘But maybe what we’re talking about here isn’t some convenient, accidentally off-target arc light strike out in the boonies.’
I wondered if Crockett was thinking about pressing that button.
‘Ever get totally wasted at a party, Mr Ambassador, and do something you regretted?’ I asked. ‘Speaking for myself, I gave up championship-level drinking a few years back when I realised that if you hang out with photographers and get pissed and do something stupid, some bastard always has a camera handy.’
Crockett looked across at the bubble-wrapped photograph on the easel.
‘I was beginning to think you’d never ask,’ I said, sliding the protective covering off the photograph.
A picture might be worth a thousand words, but for the Ambassador I reckoned this particular one was worth around seven. Shit creek, barbed-wire canoe, no paddle.
FORTY-ONE
The Ambassador stared at the photograph without speaking. Without breathing, too, from the look of things. I knew he wouldn’t press his panic button because he couldn’t risk anyone else coming in and seeing what we were looking at. Crockett was screwed, and he knew it.
‘How do you like it?’ I asked. ‘The colours in the negative were a bit faded, but that’s understandable given its age and the storage conditions. And, of course, colour negative film was pretty crappy back in the sixties but I think the grain adds to the effect.’
Crockett kept on staring and his Botoxed face was very pale.
From the room layout, the photograph might actually have been taken in a suite at the Hotel Indochine Luxe Royale, way back before the renovations. Chloe Ransome, our senior retoucher in the Sydney WorldPix office, had carefully scanned the old negative before cleaning up and sharpening the resulting digital file in Photoshop. She’d brought out most of the original colour and detail, and had done an amazing job considering I’d instructed her to do it with her eyes shut and to forget she’d ever seen the image after it was printed and mounted.
In the photograph, several half-empty bottles of Cutty Sark whisky sit on a table amongst bundles of greenbacks and plastic-wrapped packages of compressed white powder with Chinese characters on them. Old Peng had been a good-looking man thirty some years back. He was wearing a nicely tailored sharkskin suit and sitting on a couch with three young Vietnamese girls, all smiling, all topless. Crockett, probably then in his early twenties, was smoking what appeared to be a very large joint and was naked except for a towel around his waist. He was posing with a Smith & Wesson submachine gun in one hand, a Colt semi-automatic pistol tucked into the towel at his waist and his spare arm around a girl who was also topless and looked about twelve.
I figured Old Peng had organised for another girl or one of his henchmen to casually take the picture when Crockett was too bloody stoned to care. Old Peng looked as sober as a judge and he was smiling into the camera as someone snapped his insurance policy.
I turned back towards Crockett. ‘I’m thinking of calling it “Future US Ambassador and potential vice-president with booze, under-age Asian hookers, guns, heroin, bundles of cash and nasty Chinese gangster”.’
Crockett looked like he might be about to throw up.
‘Good thing you were wearing that towel, Mr Ambassador,’ I said. ‘If they fuzz out the girl’s tits they’ll be able to run it on the cover of Time and Newsweek. You want that drink now?’
Crockett nodded. I poured him a triple. The whisky was Cutty Sark, the same brand as the bottles in the photograph. Cutty’s a blend, and it isn’t something I’d usually drink, but I reckoned a little nostalgic touch might be appropriate.
I studied the picture for a moment, trying to visualise it with the Time or Newsweek logo at the top. If they did run it, they really would fuzz out the tits. That was America for you: they could show a venal politician caught in the act of consorting with criminals, under-age girls, guns, illicit drugs and wads of illegal cash, but the sight of a nipple would bring in millions of letters, phone calls and emails from a morally
outraged citizenry.
Crockett had finished off his whisky. ‘There was a war on back then, Murdoch, you know.’
‘Great,’ I said, ‘that explains the guns. Now all we have left are the half-naked teenage hookers, the piles of cash and all that heroin. And the Chinese mobster. Even your spinmeisters at MB&F won’t be able to help you wriggle your way out of this one. And speaking of MB&F, I hope Brett Tozer’s family got a nice little remuneration package after his untimely demise.’
‘Brett who?’
‘Tozer. He worked for you at MB&F. I’m guessing he was on the movie to look out for your interests.’
Crockett was looking confused and the bluster and bombast was gone. He was even speaking softly.
‘My people had instructions to buy off or shut down every attempt to film Cartwright’s story because of the questions it might raise, but this production somehow got past us while I was concentrating on securing the vice-presidential nomination. I figured we’d just invest in the film and leverage our position to put someone in to keep an eye on things. I didn’t even know the name of our man.’
That was probably true. People like Crockett just issue general instructions to their underlings and then stay well clear, purposely ignorant of the specific dirty work that ensues. Qualities like those, of course, made Crockett well suited for high government office.
‘So what’s your price for the negative, Murdoch?’ Crockett asked.
I shook my head. The Ambassador thought for a moment and then he decided to go with the approach that usually worked for him.
‘You’ve seen what my people can do. I could set them the task of finding that negative, whatever it takes, no matter who gets hurt.’
‘C’mon, Crockett, get with the programme,’ I said. ‘This is the digital age. The negative means nothing. There are multiple copies of that picture stored all over the world as data files. I’m the only one who knows where they all are and who can make them go away.’
Dead and Kicking Page 16