by J. M. Green
‘Is this one of your little jokes?’
‘I don’t have time for your denials. Just hand over the cash and the photos, too, and I’ll be on my way.’
‘I’m not falling for it. Peter told me all about your overactive imagination.’
‘He …’ My face became warm. Overactive imagination, not a phrase he would use. Her interpretation perhaps. ‘What did he say about me, exactly?’
‘He said you possessed a highly imaginative aesthetic, something like that, I don’t remember exactly. Basically, implying you’re deluded.’
It sounded like Brophy had said something complimentary. I decided he had. It felt good. ‘He told me you stole money from him.’
She looked stricken. ‘I did no such thing.’
‘Money went missing and you went into hiding. Coincidence?’
‘Hiding? I’m right here.’
‘Why were you unable to be contacted?’
She scoffed. ‘I dropped my phone in the toilet at the Drunken Tweet. It’s been sitting in a bucket of rice for two days. It only started working again this morning.’
‘But you did steal the money.’
She folded her arms. ‘No.’
This was a pointless exercise. ‘Give me the money or I call the cops.’
She screwed up her face at me. ‘I don’t believe that Peter would even think I could do such a thing. I’m calling him.’
‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘I dare you.’
A second of indecision, then she pulled out her mobile and hit it once. Brophy was on speed dial. I gritted my teeth. She put the phone on speaker and held it out for me to hear. A child answered. ‘Yo!’
‘To whom am I speaking?’ Felicity said.
‘It’s Marigold, Brophy’s twelve-year-old daughter,’ I said. She didn’t know anything.
Felicity shrugged. I moved closer to her phone. ‘Yo, Marigold, it’s me, Stella.’
‘S’up, shorty. I ain’t seen you since we was gettin jam in the joint.’
The horror on Felicity’s face was priceless. I felt I should explain. ‘She means since we bought doughnuts from the Olympic Donut van. Which is about a month ago.’
‘Is she American?’
‘Pfft. No. She’s young.’
‘Hey, Marigold, is Brophy there?’
‘Nah, he’s taking care of his own, know what I’m sayin’? Hangin’ his shit, yo, for Tuesday night.’
‘Are you home by yourself?’
‘Mos def.’
There were laws against leaving children unsupervised. ‘When is Brophy coming back?’
‘Didn’t say. Been gone for hours. He’s all, like, the exhibition, it’s the only thing. That’s how he be.’
‘True that. Stay there, and don’t start any fires. I’ll come over as soon as I can.’
An unsupervised Marigold was a hazardous state of affairs. My suspicions about who had taken Brophy’s money now took a new direction. That meant that, ugh, Felicity may have been innocent. She slid the phone in her back pocket and raised her eyebrows at me.
‘That didn’t help matters,’ I conceded.
‘If only Peter had a mobile.’
That thought had crossed my mind many times. ‘Felicity, er. I may have … that is, Peter might have made some assumptions about you.’
‘Peter said that?’ She looked heartbroken, I felt bad. I’d been pretty horrible to her.
‘Don’t get upset, here’s a tissue.’
She took it from me with a sniff.
‘Peter thinks you’re a very good artist’s model,’ I said.
She gazed at me. ‘Really?’
‘Sure, yeah. I guess.’
‘Come inside,’ she said. ‘I’ll make some tea.’
‘Thanks, Felicity, but I better go hail a cab and get Marigold.’
‘A cab? Where’s your car?’
‘I had a bingle, it’s in the shop until … forever. That’s not important. Thing is, I have to go.’
‘Don’t do that. I’ll drive you.’
45
MRS SPARKS’ ride was a white two-door Mercedes, six-speed manual with black interior. I estimated it cost more than I earned in a year. Felicity drove it like someone unused to the idea of forward motion. We jerked and kangaroo-hopped for five hundred metres before I said stop. ‘What the hell, Felicity.’
‘I can’t drive a manual. Don’t tell my mum. She thinks I’ve had lessons.’
‘Are you kidding me?’
‘Manuals are hard.’
‘You wuss.’
She shrugged.
‘This is hopeless,’ I said. ‘Take the car home. I’ll get a taxi.’
‘No, you drive it. It’ll be quicker.’
I’d have to take Felicity home afterwards, which was a drag, but she had a point. We needed to hurry. I couldn’t believe he’d leave Marigold alone in his studio. Brophy had been distracted lately, but that was negligent.
I drove the fancy ride like I drove my old Mazda, and like the Mazda, it went like the clappers. Unfortunately, the trip was spent in traffic and the whole sports-car experience was wasted. Maybe on the open road this thing would be fun.
‘You took your time,’ Marigold greeted me in the Narcissistic Slacker gallery with her hands on her hips. She stepped back. ‘Oooh, look at you, all dressed up.’
‘Is Brophy still not back?’
‘Your face is a mess, girl.’
‘I know. Is Brophy here?’
‘See for yourself.’
‘Answer the question.’
‘Chill, yo. You seriously need to chill.’
I found some paper and scribbled a note to him saying I had his child and was taking her home. That, I figured, would get his attention.
‘Okay, Marigold,’ I said. ‘Let’s go. Downstairs. Now.’
‘Um …’
‘What is it? I’m not in the mood.’
‘Don’t leave that note.’
‘Why?’
‘Dad doesn’t know I’m here.’ She sounded as close to contrite as I’d ever heard her.
Her clear blue eyes blinked at me. She was hiding something. ‘Tell me.’
‘I broke in. You can get in from the car park at the back, there’s an old ladder that goes to the roof, then I climb down the hole and I’m in. It’s easy.’
‘Sounds like you’ve been breaking into your dad’s studio a lot.’
‘I get bored at home. Mum’s boyfriend’s a flog. She’s all lovey-dovey, but I can’t stand him. You should see the way he chews his food, the noises, ugh.’
‘Where does your mother think you are?’
‘At a friend’s. When Dad comes back, I sneak out through the roof and go down the ladder. Don’t tell. Please.’
‘We’ll talk about this later. For now, you better come with me.’
‘Can’t I just stay here?’
‘No, now move.’
She didn’t like this turn of events, and petulantly stomped her brand-new Doc Martens on each step. I knew nothing of parenting, but I imagined the way to deal with this child was to say no to everything, take away all electronic devices, and feed her on gruel for a week.
When she saw Felicity’s mother’s car, Marigold whistled. ‘Sweet ride.’
Felicity pulled a lever, and the front seat shot forward.
‘Nuh uh!’ Marigold said and folded her arms. ‘I call shotgun.’
‘Get in the back or so help me I’ll give you the first proper hiding you’ve ever had.’
‘A proper what?’
‘Get the fuck in!’
‘Whoa, Stella, seriously. You need to chill.’ She-who-must-have-the-last-word crawled into the backseat and put on her seatbelt, and, thankfully, shut up.
I checked the time. If
I took Marigold to her mother’s, there’d be enough time to drop Felicity home and take a taxi to Phuong’s.
I headed for Marigold’s mother’s place, and on the way gave her a lecture about not talking things that didn’t belong to her. Of course, I felt like an A-grade hypocrite for haranguing Marigold. I knew something about taking things that didn’t belong to me. Thousands of gangster dollars to be precise. Not to mention that today was not the first time I’d done something like that. I was pleased to discover that it was considerably less harrowing the second time around.
46
I PULLED in at Marigold’s mother’s house. The Mercedes’s tyres clipped the gutter, and we rolled up and off the nature strip.
‘Way to park,’ Marigold said.
‘Quiet, you.’
‘There is no cool way to mount the kerb, know what I’m sayin’?’
‘We say “gutter” in this country.’
‘I think kerb is also acceptable,’ said Felicity.
‘Oh, for the love of —’
‘Off you go, Marigold,’ Felicity was saying.
The child was stubborn. ‘I hate it here.’
‘If you need a break, you can come and visit me. We can make kaddu bharta.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Mashed pumpkin.’
She groaned and slid out of the car like she was heading to the gallows.
And once more I was heading to Williamstown. The Mercedes purred into the Sparks’s garage. ‘Come in,’ she said.
‘Things to do.’
She seemed disappointed.
‘But I’ll see you around,’ I mumbled.
‘I knew we’d get along.’ She beamed with affection that seemed almost childish. It made me uneasy, and I got out of there before the moment became even creepier.
I took a taxi to Phuong’s place in Kensington. She let me into her apartment and offered me tea, telling me how she bought it specially for me, and about its health-giving properties.
‘How kind,’ I said. ‘And I brought something for you.’ I waved the envelope under her nose. ‘But I reckon you need gloves.’
‘What the —’
‘Gloves, Phuong. You have to come out of this looking clean, like a surgical instrument. Like a comb in that purple liquid hairdressers use.’
‘What liquid?’
‘It doesn’t matter, you just need to remain above reproach, okay?’
She took a packet of disposables from a drawer. ‘What have you done?’
I tipped out the passports on her kitchen counter. She picked one up.
‘Where’d you get these?’
‘Ricky Peck’s place, the one with the hydroponic set-up. There’s a stash of documents and accounts. Crates of weapons.’
‘You broke in.’
‘I learned from the best.’
She went to the kitchen and heaped some dumplings on a plate. ‘Someone saw you.’
‘No.’
‘No one watching the house?’
‘Not while I was there.’
‘I shouldn’t have involved you. It was a mistake from the beginning. Someone will have seen you. You were probably followed back here.’
‘No. No one followed me.’
‘The Raw-Prawn people will find out. OTIOSE at Crown looking for Cuong. They’ll put this together. I’ll be sacked.’
She thrust the plate at me and a pair of chopsticks.
‘Phuong, when you get stressed you turn into a drama queen. Have you noticed that? From Zen master to nuclear-powered pessimist in five seconds.’
‘It’s easy for you to make fun, you don’t have a career.’
Ouch. That was uncalled for. I put it down to the pressure she was under. Besides, I was feeling tolerant and generous. The score at the house left me euphoric. I ate a few bites. ‘I didn’t get caught.’
She snorted, smothered a dumpling in Sriracha sauce.
After a moment I said, ‘These are fraudulent passports, supplied by the woman we saw at Crown. Marcus Pugh said she was being blackmailed.’
‘The Corpse Flowers blackmailed the woman, demanded she supply passports?’
‘Yes, and like you told me yourself, they’re all for teenagers. Those bikies do what they like. They sent the Guns and Gangs unit into disarray, then they pretended to disband. Then they quietly carry on trafficking unsuspecting kids to Burma.’
‘Trafficking?’ She chewed another dumpling, shook her head. ‘This whole thing has been a travesty. Expecting Mortimer to clear Bruce’s name is like asking Satan to babysit.’
‘Not necessarily. I mean, I can’t speak for Bruce. But it is possible Mortimer was working against the Flowers from the inside?’
She thought for a moment. ‘Why would Mortimer do that?’
‘He was the distributor for the youth demographic, remember?’
‘That was just Peck trying to sound like a CEO.’
‘Yes. But still. Mortimer was selling to teenagers. Maybe he formed a friendship with some of them. It could happen. What if he didn’t like what Peck and Gorman were planning to do with them?’
Phuong held the bridge of her nose. She looked exhausted. ‘What about Cuong?’
‘I think Cuong was in on it. He and Mortimer couldn’t go to the cops. So they undermined the Corpse Flowers’s activities from the inside. We know it was a whistle-blower who blew up the passport scam. That might have been Cuong. Which would explain why the OTIOSE officers didn’t detain him at Crown. She’d come to meet him, and brought evidence with her.’
‘If that’s true, Cuong should have come to me,’ Phuong said.
‘The Flowers have cops in their pockets. Even Blyton, who you vouched for. If Cuong came to you, word would’ve reached Blyton, then Gorman and you’d both be dead.’
Phuong was quiet. We ate in silence. Then she said, ‘I’m going to the temple where Cuong is staying tomorrow. This time I’m going to get everything out of him.’
Later, she drove me home, and kept her own counsel. She was taking a huge risk protecting Cuong, and I guessed she was ruminating on the idea of unemployment — if she was ever found out.
Me, I was thinking about Brophy. And the cash getting cool in my flat.
47
I RACED up the stairs and put the TV on. The ABC announcer was telling viewers that Bunny Slipper’s three-part series was coming up.
There was Bunny, speaking direct-to-camera: ‘Before his death, enforcer Ricky Peck, and known thug, Luigi ‘the Turk’ Tacchini, had joined a criminal network stretching from Australia to Thailand and all the way around. South East Asia was their playground. Ice was in, and heroin was coming back with a vengeance. They dealt not only drugs but firearms and military-grade explosives.’ Bunny walked towards the viewer, hands touching lightly in front of her. The background was the Australian Federal Police building in La Trobe Street, Melbourne.
‘The Corpse Flowers are following those motorcycle gangs who have already expanded into Malaysia and have improved supply chains, after setting up in Cambodia and Laos.’ Cut to vision of big tattooed Australian men being arrested by Thai police in neat, perfectly ironed uniforms. Ring-a-ding sixties druggy music played. Shot of a Thai girl dancing in a skimpy outfit.
‘The obligatory bikini shot,’ I said out loud and sighed. Bunny lost points there.
‘Europol believes motorcycle gangs are expanding their empires, into other black-market enterprises, including the trafficking of human beings,’ Bunny continued. ‘In the meantime, the stage is set for Australia to be awash in drugs.’
When the credits rolled, I called the ABC newsroom. ‘Bunny Slipper, please.’
‘Putting you through to her voicemail.’
At the tone, I left my details and hinted I had valuable Corpse Flower information. I wasn’t going to the p
olice, and I would never endanger Cuong. But Slipper was an expert on the activities of Australian bikie gangs in Asia. If I gave her a few juicy details, she might reciprocate with some background on Kengtung, maybe have a theory for the Flowers’s scheme.
A moment later, an call came from an unknown number. I picked up. ‘Hello?’
‘This is Bunny Slipper. Am I speaking with Stella Hardy?’
Score! ‘Yes. Thanks for calling back. I have some extremely sensitive information you will be interested in.’
‘About?’
‘About the Corpse Flowers, and Victoria Police. Can we meet?’
‘I need to know the nature of the information before I set up a meeting.’
‘I doubt this line is secure. You’re going to have to trust me.’
Long pause, breathing at Slipper’s end. I held my breath.
‘Do you know the Drunken Tweet?’
I pumped my fist, and said I did.
‘If you can meet me there in half an hour …’
I replied, ‘Oh, indeed.’
As I dropped my phone in my handbag, the Carpenters sang again. It was Raewyn Ross. ‘Hi, Rae.’
‘Senior Constable Ross, actually.’
‘Right. Sorry.’
‘Those two suspects you were enquiring about. I have a positive ID.’
‘Excellent work.’
‘All in the cause of love. Young one is Conti, Joe and the older bloke is Healey, Dan. Both stationed at St Albans.’
‘Bless you, Rae.’
I splashed some water on my face, brushed my hair, and ran downstairs to hail a cab to Seddon.
‘Two Mad Fucking Witches.’
The bearded youth who had drummed his fingers on our table while we studied the cocktail menu, pronounced our order ‘too easy’ and whirled away to the bar.
‘So, you’re Stella Hardy.’ Bunny studied me.
And I studied her. She was a confident woman, with a rare form of self-possession. Not to be confused with bravado, which was everywhere, but genuine uncommon self-assurance. She, I imagined, would never look down at her breasts laced with blue veins and sigh, or frown at rolls and spots and flab. She would never rue the ancestors who bequeathed her the wide face peppered with freckles, or praise the ones who gave her the penetrating grey eyes. She embraced it all and offered it freely to the world with — I now pictured her naked — hands on hips, saying to some adoring hopeful, ‘You will never own me.’ Every line on her face was a proud souvenir of a war zone, or a long journey to a secret location, or Persian Gulf uprising.