Too Easy

by J. M. Green

  She acquiesced readily. Sat, adjusted the chair height, lightly placed her fingers on the keyboard. ‘Is this a social-worker thing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For your work?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘A hobby?’

  She was worse than Brown Cardigan’s dog. If I didn’t throw her a bone, she’d never shut up. I gave her a very truncated version of events. The story of Phuong needing to find a drug courier, and how I went to his house and didn’t come home until next day, with burns, bruises, and a possible case of post-traumatic stress syndrome triggered by any Human League song. I left out names, but I gave her threads, leading up to passports for homeless children and an unofficial tour of Burma. This sent her walking around the room repeating ‘Oh my God!’ until I told her to stop.

  She finally got to work, tapping and clicking and cutting and pasting. Meanwhile, I wrote a memo to Boss. I’d got to unfortunately … when she stood at my side and coughed.

  ‘How did you do?’

  ‘The numbers were horrifying. Militias, gangs, and rebel groups, all involved. Millions of pills. Most of it goes to China.’

  ‘China? Really?’

  I followed her to the computer she was working on.

  ‘This website has loads of data. It’s by an organisation that monitors international drug trafficking. Drugs not sent to China go anywhere. Laos. Cambodia.’

  Bunny was all over that. ‘So much for the war on drugs,’ I said.

  ‘Plus, Kengtung has a roaring trade in local girls, mainly, sold into prostitution and sex slavery. They’re snatched off the street or — get this — sometimes a man comes to their village with lies about good jobs in Thailand.’

  I lowered my voice. ‘Is there a demand for Australian teenagers, can you see?’

  ‘I don’t see that. But girls of any kind are targets for the sex trade, aren’t they?’

  ‘There’s lots of poor, vulnerable humans in that part of the world,’ I said.

  ‘Wow, here’s a story about destitute people selling their kids, or their organs.’

  I read over her shoulder and there were story of bodies dumped, missing kidneys, heart, liver. A community serving as a human butcher shop.

  ‘Is organ harvesting really a thing?’

  I thought of Cory. He had hepatitis C — was that a deal breaker?

  She sighed. ‘It’s business. If you have enough money, you can buy anything. Wealthy westerners on waiting lists get desperate and go to China. They’re notorious for using prisoners on death row. Outside of state-sanctioned arrangements, the black market for organs is huge it looks like.’

  A rich person needs a kidney, do they want any old kidney, or a healthy one from a young body? Was that the Corpse Flowers’s plan? The kids Raewyn Ross spoke to were worried that Ricky Peck was a paedophile. But why send kids from Australia for prostitution?

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ Felicity asked. ‘Are you going to tell Brophy?’

  I glanced up, distracted. ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘That I’ve helped you.’

  ‘Yes. Sure. And you’ve been generous to me, too, under the circumstances.’

  She did her cat blink. ‘Have you seen him?’ She asked in a way that made me uneasy.

  ‘No, have you?’

  ‘No.’ She left the room, presumably to perform a nude Wicca ritual in the staff room or something.

  I went back to my desk and saw an email from an agency alarmed by Marcus Pugh’s HARM plan for homeless people. They’d gone over it, and it was nothing more than forced relocation. Hardly a solution. I couldn’t concentrate on this policy stuff. I needed to talk to Cuong.

  Boss had yet to emerge from the bunker in his office. To go now was, strictly speaking, earlier than the proper knock-off time. But Cuong knew more about what the Corpse Flowers had planned in Kengtung than he was letting on.

  ‘Get your stuff,’ I called out to Felicity. ‘We’re going to the temple.’

  She jangled keys and said she’d meet me outside. I finished my letter for Boss and hummed a Kenny Rogers song about playing a game of cards while I printed it out. I signed it and left it in his pigeon hole. As I left WORMS, I felt a load lift from my shoulders.

  ‘Stell-a!’ Felicity yelled from the Mercedes. I made a sign of the cross and climbed in.

  49

  BEFORE LONG I was being kangaroo-hopped in the convertible Mercedes down Churchill Avenue, in central Braybrook. Wealthy middle-class Melbourne regarded this part of town as a socio-economic blemish on its otherwise flawless complexion, where manufacturing gasped its final breath, community workers outnumbered the residents, and hoons in muscle cars were followed by the police chopper. It was decided, by captains-of-finance types gathered in gentlemen’s clubs, that it was better for the country (i.e. them) to lower the minimum wage, because people here in Braybrook weren’t living close enough to the edge. Payday loans weren’t offered in Toorak, nor were there pawnshops, with shop windows full of wedding rings.

  I’d been here often over the years, and I liked its mess of contradictions: one part public-housing ghetto, one part aspirational immigrants, one part greenie first-home buyers. This was where Phuong’s family had lived when they first arrived in Australia. It was her hood, her primary school was in the next block. Hard to find a more different childhood to mine. The security and predictability of my home life, with homogeneous white faces of the small Mallee town of Woolburn, against the hectic, vandalised volatility of Braybrook. Most public structures — phone boxes, bus shelters, kids’ playground equipment — had at one time or other been set on fire.

  Before they moved from the area, Phuong’s family had frequented a local Buddhist temple. It was a converted house, formerly RAAF accommodation for the family of a worker at the nearby depot, later sold as a first-home-buyer opportunity, and finally bought by the local Vietnamese Buddhist congregation. It was a modest place compared to its famous rival, the Chua Quang Minh — a vast compound of temples, shrines, and housing for the monks, less than a kilometre away. The Dalai Lama had stayed there once.

  ‘Turn here,’ I said.

  Felicity hit the indicator, lurched around the corner, and we had arrived.

  The place looked much the same as I remembered it from visits with Phuong when we were students, back when we were both single and she still lived with her parents. It was a more fun, more simple time when all we had to worry about was having beer money. We could remain friends, despite any changes in marital status, if she didn’t move too far away. Copeland would drag her away to the outer limits, some country residence in the hills that took two hours to get to. I shook off that line of thought and went to check out the temple. There’d been some improvements since I was here last. The community had installed a special roof with up-curved corners. And new decorative concrete lotus flowers adorned the brick fence. But the statue in the front yard, surrounded by pots of marigolds, was the same.

  Phuong had been waiting in the temple doorway, and was waving us over.

  ‘Inside and behave yourself,’ I said.

  ‘I just got here myself,’ Phuong said, and directed Felicity to a rear garden.

  Once Felicity had gone, she looked both ways down the street. Then she leaned in. ‘Were you followed?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but Gorman knows I’m alive. One of his people rang me at work.’

  ‘Shit. You can’t go home.’

  I’d worry about that later. ‘Is Cuong here?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The monks said he could stay for a while.’

  I nodded and we went inside.

  Wooden shutters kept the interior cool and dark. Some walls had been knocked down, save load-bearing posts, opening the space up. Less was more — it was uncluttered and swept clean. The altar was elaborate, with many tiers and lights. At the o
ther end of the temple, a large Buddha reclined, and all around him were offerings of flowers, groceries, and copious burning incense sticks.

  ‘What about the Raw-Prawn investigators?’ I said. ‘They might be following you, too.’

  ‘I often come here. It’s not out of the ordinary.’

  I could see why. Years of quiet contemplation seemed to have been absorbed into the structure. Calm came up from the floor boards, spread out from the walls.

  Phuong linked an arm through mine and walked me out into the rear garden. Pathways meandered around shady trees and bonsai plants in earthenware pots. Felicity had wandered off to look at a life-sized Kwan Yin statue. A monk in blue robes and matching beanie gathered empty cups and ashtrays and stacked them on a tray.

  ‘Hey,’ I said to Cuong. He was reclining on a concrete bench under an old loquat. He was clean-shaven, wearing a fresh t-shirt.

  I brushed back a stray hair.

  ‘Stella found Ricky Peck’s hiding spot,’ Phuong said. ‘We have the passports, the kids’ files. Cards on the table, Cuong.’

  He avoided my gaze. ‘Peck asked me to look over his business plan. Hundreds of data sets, costs, travel, food, accommodation for the kids. I told him it couldn’t be done. But they went on, obtained the passports. So I made a call to OTIOSE, named the woman. But I didn’t mention the Corpse Flowers. And they agreed my identity had to be protected.’

  Phuong was shaking her head in wonder. ‘You couldn’t tell OTIOSE everything the Corpse Flowers were planning? Right there and then?’

  ‘Too risky. Mortimer, he hated their stupid scheme, too, and he told the kids to keep their distance. But Enright found out what he said …’

  ‘So you hid him.’

  A recording of chanted prayers started. Cuong took a drag on his cigarette. ‘I let him use the empty flat next to mine.’

  ‘And when Blyton went there?’

  ‘Mortimer was hiding. I showed him the drug stash Mortimer had, for insurance, for income. I gave it all to Blyton and he left.’

  We heard a crash and looked around. The monk had dropped the tray of cups. He was muttering to himself as he bent down to pick up the pieces.

  ‘You gave heroin to Blyton?’ Phuong said.

  Cuong shrugged. ‘Had to. To get him to leave me alone.’

  ‘Is Mortimer still there, in the flat?’ she demanded.

  ‘No. He’s gone. I don’t know where?’

  Phuong reached out and for a moment I thought she was going to do something drastic, like flip the table. Instead she took Cuong’s cigarette and butted it out.

  I looked from Cuong to Phuong. ‘Who do we take this to? The federal police? Border force?’

  ‘Yes,’ Phuong said, then she frowned. ‘No. It’s too dangerous. Cuong’s not safe until Gorman and the rest are in custody.’ ‘Bunny Slipper,’ I said.

  They exchanged glances.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Bunny Slipper? The journalist? She’s the one you want to speak to. In fact, I’ve already made contact with her. She can come here.’

  Cuong hesitated.

  Phuong looked dubious.

  ‘Yes,’ said Cuong. ‘I’ll talk to her.’

  I rang Bunny’s number and got her voicemail.

  ‘When Bunny calls back I’ll tell her you’ll do the interview here.’

  ‘Don’t leave the temple,’ Phuong said to Cuong. ‘Don’t ring anyone, don’t go anywhere.’

  I caught Felicity’s eye, and waved her over.

  Phuong walked us out, and leaned into the Mercedes. ‘Sure you won’t come and stay at my place?’

  I gave her hand a squeeze. ‘Don’t worry.’

  50

  FELICITY REVERSED the Mercedes, skirted boot-first around a roundabout. And turned the wrong way into a side street. ‘Where to now? Drop you at your place?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Hastings, Western Port Bay.’

  Without a word of query or the slightest hesitation, she hit the accelerator, revved the German engineering. She put it into gear. ‘So Monash Freeway?’

  I entered what information I had into my phone. The name of Copeland senior came up as the owner of a boat-hire place in Somerville.

  After an hour, as dusk turned to night and the street lights blinked on, we entered the marina. A faded sign told us we were in the home of ‘gummy shark and whiting fishing’.

  A few floodlights swamped the dark in places, and left it alone in others. A café and a restaurant were still serving customers. Copeland Boat Hire was in shadow, but a light within told me Copeland senior had not gone home for the night.

  I told Felicity to wait for me at the café. ‘Order me some chips. I won’t be long.’ Then I walked the length of the marina. ‘Shack’ was not an inaccurate descriptor, and the shabby, sun-bleached timber door hinted that the boat-hire business was not overly fruitful. I knocked.

  Coughing. Then a whiskey-and-cigarettes voice growled. ‘We’re closed.’

  ‘It’s about Bruce.’

  The lock turned, the door cracked on a chain, and the end of two barrels were shoved at my face. ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘Phuong sends her regards.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Stand down, Dad,’ Copeland junior said behind him. ‘She has clearance.’

  The shotgun withdrew. The door was closed, the chain removed, and I was admitted into the odour of blood and guts and bait. Senior was a slovenly mess, with white hair sprouting from his chin down his neck. His bald skull was laced with blue veins, and antagonism burned in his raw eyes.

  ‘You’re about to get married and you haven’t told your father her name or anything about her. Where did Phuong stay exactly?’

  ‘What is she talking about?’ his father asked. ‘What’s a foong?’

  ‘Let’s have another drink,’ Copeland said loudly. When his father went to retrieve the bottle, Copeland hissed at me, ‘Phuong and I stayed in a motel. It’s not what you think. He has dementia. Thinks everyone is a threat.’

  ‘Then he is absolutely the right person to be holding a shotgun.’

  ‘It’s not loaded,’ Copeland sighed.

  ‘Drink?’ More of a dare than an offer from the old fellow. He wore short shorts and a shirt with the sleeves ripped off. Faded soldier’s tatts on his forearms.

  ‘Thank you.’

  He had the decency to tip out the dead fly from the jar before pouring four fingers of Corio Five Star.

  ‘Dad, can you take a walk or something? Go see to the boats.’

  Senior hawked and spat, muttered something about not fighting commies in the jungle so they could come over and sell drugs to kiddies. He went out with a slam that knocked the shotgun to the floor, without it discharging. Either Copeland was telling the truth or my luck was holding.

  I waited for Copeland to inquire after Phuong. Instead he went with: ‘What took you so long?’

  ‘You spread the rumour that Vanderhoek informed on Josie in Thailand,’ I said.

  He lifted his head, as though trying to identify a far-off sound. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The real informant did that to cover their tracks.’

  I scoffed.

  ‘There was a real informant, Hardy. When there’s a bust like that there’s always an informant.’ He shook his head. ‘None of it matters now.’

  ‘It matters because Vanderhoek is dead. That rumour got him killed. So let’s start from the beginning. Your cop buddy Blyton became an addict, and the Corpse Flowers supplied him.’

  Copeland sat, looked blankly at me. Then he got up and poured another drink. ‘Yes. He started on painkillers after an injury. He ends up using with Vanderhoek, and the two of them … Anyway. Whatever, right? No one’s business. They had a steady supply of heroin from the Turk. In exchange, Blyton looked the other way, did favours, gave infor
mation.’

  ‘And you turned a blind eye to this.’

  He grunted a cheerless laugh. ‘The Corpse Flowers.’

  ‘I take that as a yes. So how deep are you in with them?’

  Copeland shook his head, the exaggerated movement of a drunk.

  ‘Tell me about that night at the Spida Bar.’

  ‘The Turk cuts off Blyton’s supply. Out of the blue, there’s no more. Poor bastard’s hopeless.’ Copeland blinked, almost teary. ‘He sees the Turk at the bar, and he’s furious.’

  ‘Blyton approached the Turk?’

  ‘He goes up. Makes demands. Turk says, maybe, if you do a job. A paid job. Take care of Mortimer.’

  ‘You’d arrested Mortimer that afternoon. He was in remand.’ I was on my feet.

  Copeland watched me pace in silence.

  ‘You and Blyton agreed to do it together. You let Blyton take the evidence, knowing Mortimer would get out. And what? You just go back to Norlane and make up some story about him resisting arrest?’

  Copeland looked at me. ‘The Turk gave us half the money that night in the underground car park. In a garbage bag. Fifties. Jesus.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I’ve regretted it ever since. Jesus, Hardy, I’d never taken money from a crook before. Ever.’

  I ignored his innocent act. ‘Right, but when Mortimer gets out, he didn’t go back to Norlane. He disappeared. You couldn’t deliver on him. Couldn’t you pay back the money? Instead of getting me to try and find him?’

  ‘Money’s gone. I owed thousands to my ex-wife. I just wanted to get the divorce finalised so I could marry Phuong.’ He looked at me. ‘It was for Phuong.’

  ‘Phuong has no idea,’ I said. ‘But she’s starting to suspect.’

  ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘Phuong loves you.’

  ‘She’s not loyal,’ he slurred.

  I went over and slapped him across the face, not hard, but sharp.

  He stood up, tipped his chair over. ‘Think very carefully before you do that again.’