by J. M. Green
‘Deck me, bro?’ He asked, with a creepy giggle. ‘Not if you’re fuckin dead.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Alpha kicked the desk and got to his feet. ‘Fuck it. Okay. Go get her.’
‘In here?’
‘Yeah.’
The Kiwi came over to the door I was standing behind. He rattled the doorknob. I lurched and lost my balance, wheeled my arms, and stepped back off the tub.
‘It’s locked, ay.’
They hadn’t heard me. I breathed again. Phuong gave me a small apologetic smile. I don’t know why she felt the need to say sorry. We might be about to die, sure, but it wasn’t her fault. Poking around a known murderer’s ice factory had been my stupid idea — up there with the dumbest. But the situation hadn’t gone completely south. Besides the Glock, there was something else on our side. I held up the keys and wiggled them at her.
‘I know, dickhead. Look for the key. Try the drawer.’
I heard both desk drawers open and close. ‘Not here.’
‘Shit.’
I tiptoed over to Phuong and sat on the pile of sacks beside her.
‘There’s a second set in the house. Go get it.’
‘You go get it, ay.’
‘Fuck you, you piece of —’
There was a deafening gunshot in the office, followed by a loud grunt and harsh rapid breathing. I heard a match strike, then footsteps, then the swivel chair squeaked.
‘That’s for the Kiwi bashin, ay.’ A deep, sucking inhale; a pause, and a long exhale. ‘All you Aussies are fuckin racist.’
‘Dickhead.’ Alpha’s voice was hoarse now.
‘Dickhead? Me? I’m not the one lying on the ground pissing out blood.’ More giggling.
‘No … That’s right. You’re a big man … A great big fuckin Kiwi dickhead.’
I wondered at the wisdom of Alpha using his final moments to be antagonistic — but each to their own. There was a hard thump, not unlike a booted foot meeting human flesh. ‘And that’s for Trevor Chappell. We don’t forget shit like that, bro. Aussies are bad fuckin sports.’
A grunt. A cough. ‘Still angry about losing … are we?’
Another sickening, ringing blow. ‘One all, bro. Series ended in a tie.’
‘Time you moved on.’ Alpha was breathing more slowly. ‘Happened before you were born.’
‘Time you moved on.’
I braced for another gunshot, but it didn’t come. The sound was of struggling — the chair being knocked over, muffled grunts. Then quiet. He had a gun and he hated Australians. We had a gun and we were in a locked room. But what if he went for the keys? If he found us, it wouldn’t help matters to explain my shame about bowling underarm, or to tell him how much I enjoyed Jane Campion movies.
He was moving around again. The chair scraped across the floor, heavy boots clomped around the office and went outside, and then footsteps tramped on the screenings.
Phuong had the gun in her hand. She cocked her head in the direction of the door. ‘Open it,’ she whispered.
He would be coming back, coming in here. My hands shook as I pulled out the keys. I rose and the top sack moved with me. Phuong looked down, then at me, her eyes wide. I looked back. An arm stuck out from under the bags. A long slender human arm — blue-grey, with the hand bent, fingers curled, so I could see glossy, red nails. And one bruised, enlarged knuckle. Tania.
Now I moved fast. I scrambled away as far as I could, to the opposite side of the room. I tried to suppress it, but an anguished howl escaped me.
‘Stella, calm down. He’s in the house. Let’s go. Open the door,’ Phuong said.
I stood on tiptoe, found the brass key, and put it in the lock. Then I froze. He was back. Keys jingled. He was humming the riff from ‘A Slice of Heaven’.
I could see Phuong under the table. She shook her head at me, a signal I took to mean change of plan. She flashed the gun.
He was coming in and I needed a place to hide. I moved behind the door, squatting, ready to catch the door before it hit me.
The deadlock turned and the door swung open, nearly smacking me in the face. But my fingers were under it, holding it still by my fingernails.
The single fluorescent tube flickered, washing out the room with glare. He walked straight to Tania’s body and, in one effortless scoop, picked her up, sacks and all. He lifted her to his shoulder, turned, and walked straight out. Through the crack in the door, I watched him go. A stubby troll with bison shoulders in a yellow hoodie.
I’d seen him loitering in my street.
After a moment his feet were stomping across the stones, and the car door opened. I tiptoed out from behind the door. Phuong was standing, gun in hand, and she nodded to me. I nodded back. We crept out into the office. There was a lot of blood on the floor, but no body. The external door was open and was swinging loose in the wind. I poked my head around it. The car was parked beside the shed, rear to the back fence, its headlights lighting the yard down to the road about a hundred metres away. The shed door was in shadow, on his blindside.
In the cool fresh air, Phuong behind me, we made directly for the side fence, not running, walking. The space between the shed and the fence was dark, and we stopped and waited.
The hooded troll was busy walking around, opening the car’s rear hatch, slamming it shut. He was muttering to himself. I heard the gate at the back of the yard — the one we’d first come through — swing open. Another minute passed and nothing happened. A cold breeze was at our backs. The wind carried the distant shoving and scraping sounds of a spade striking the ground.
I looked at Phuong. Time to go. Staying in the shadows of the perimeter, we picked our way around to the back of the house. We were standing on the compacted dirt that was the path between the fence and the house. Phuong ran now, holding the bag to her chest so the tools inside didn’t make a sound. I did my best to keep up. We stopped at the corner of the house. The front yard was dead grass, bisected by a gravel driveway leading from the gates at the front to the car park at the back: a fifty-metre dash to the open gates. I wanted to run but Phuong held me back. With the headlights shining, we were exposed — better to stay hidden until he was gone. Phuong dropped her bag. ‘Back in a tick,’ she said, and ran back towards the shed.
I paced in the dark, waiting anxiously for her return. I’d become hardened to the suffering of others. People crushed by life, bad luck, or one too many setbacks — struggling families dealt one more bitter blow. I’d been the detached observer, making stark observations about life’s unfairness. Tonight, everything had changed. Tania’s death was on me, stuck to me — and it would likely stay there. Gaetano and his gang of morons had taken Tania and kept her locked up here. That part was the most difficult to accept. These drug dealers were idiots, yet they had been able to learn that Tania came from a wealthy family, find out where she lived, and then pull off a brazen kidnapping. Until the plan went wrong and one of them killed her — just left her body there — and days later sent two imbeciles to clean up the mess.
Phuong was back, panting. ‘SUV. A Nissan. Got the rego.’
‘He’s the guy, the one who tried to break into my flat,’ I said. ‘I recognise him, the same hoodie.’
The car started. Hoodie gunned the engine, then roared through the gates, sending the gravel flying as he careened down the dirt track.
I watched the tail-lights disappear into the night. At last I could breathe. I felt giddy and light. Phuong started laughing. I chortled. Then we were both hooting and screeching, in the thrill and wonder of still being alive. And then we were running through the gates and onto the road. I was still laughing, but now I was shaking as well. We slowed our pace. Phuong walked in the centre of the road and I trotted along the verge. The clouds thinned and a thread of moon appeared. I looked back at the house. It was a compound, designed for security-consci
ous, paranoid criminals to cook crank, make pills, hide cash, deal, torture and murder in. It was a place where no one would hear the cries of a woman held against her will.
29
MY RADIO alarm woke me with the seven o’clock news bulletin and I hit the off button before there could be any mention of Tania’s murder. I put my laptop in my bag, not wanting to let it out of my sight, and headed to Buffy’s for my usual. The sun had the sky to itself, the air fresh but not cold. I avoided the pile of newspapers and stared at the walls while I waited for my coffee. My phone sounded in my bag as Lucas handed over a takeaway cup. It was work. I headed for the tram stop as I answered.
‘They’ve increased our funding by twenty per cent,’ said Boss. I could hear the joy in his voice.
‘That’s great,’ I said, and meant it.
‘So all the redundancies are off the table, no one’s getting retrenched.’
‘That’s great,’ I said, and did not mean it, not one bit.
At my desk I read a few emails, made a few calls. The JUNKIE project was in full swing and the Flemington cops were keen to be onboard. Raewyn Ross had arranged a meeting with me, and was waiting in our staff room on the dot of eleven. But when I sat down with two mugs of International Roast and a plate of Milk Arrowroot — left over from yesterday, the most unloved of all biscuits — she didn’t want to discuss the project.
‘They call me “the Khaleesi”,’ she said.
‘Really?’ I acted shocked. ‘Maybe they mean it in a nice way; as in, she’s as awesome as …’
‘No.’ She dunked her biscuit despondently; the end broke off and sank. ‘They mean it in a mean way.’
‘Can you speak to your senior sergeant about it?’
‘Yeah,’ she sighed. ‘But then everyone’d know it bothers me.’
‘How about I tell them how great you are on the JUNKIE project, how you’re down with the kids and considered cool among the community workers. Stuff like that?’
She made a dubious face and started to scoop up the soggy biscuit with a teaspoon. I stared at my watch, stretched. ‘Sorry, Rae,’ I said, standing up. ‘Gotta get back to work.’
Ross sighed, and leaving her cup for me to wash, headed for the door. ‘By the way,’ she said. ‘Clacker’s out on bail.’
When she’d gone I quickly sent a text to Phuong, and she fired one back. In fifteen minutes I was waiting in front of WORMS with my scarf around my face and my Department of Justice ID in my bag. The little, blue clown car pulled in and the door opened. ‘He’s home with his mum. In Deer Park,’ Phuong said.
The car smelled like a bakery. I fastened my seatbelt. ‘I need to see someone, get professional help.’
‘You’ve been through a rough couple of days. Last night was —’
‘I’m fine.’ If I had to talk about last night, I’d cry. ‘I mean, I need someone like a lawyer. Corporations law, finance, joint ventures — that kind of thing. Just a five-minute chat. Know someone?’
Phuong put on her indicator. ‘Something you’re holding onto? Another bloody book or something? I can’t trust you now.’
‘I’m not hiding anything,’ I said, hugging my laptop. ‘I’m just curious about corporations law.’
Phuong rolled her eyes.
‘So,’ I said. ‘What’s the latest?’
‘The Diggers Rest place is rented in the name of Gaetano’s cousin. Lives in Italy.’
‘That’s not news.’
She sighed. ‘She died night before last, our blokes reckon. About thirty hours ago.’
That was while I was having dinner with Brophy. Before that, in the late afternoon, Mabor had been there, at the Diggers Rest house. ‘How did she die?’
Phuong hesitated. ‘Beaten.’
‘Was she raped?’
‘No.’
‘Why beat her? I don’t get it, those dickheads had guns.’
The corners of her mouth turned down. ‘There’s no logic to it. Don’t even try. Can’t comprehend these people.’
I could feel her looking at me.
‘Stella, I have to tell you something.’
‘Is it about Bruce Copeland?’
Phuong put her head to the side. ‘You know?’
‘That you’re seeing Copeland?’ I shrugged. ‘Everyone knows.’
‘Stella, there’s something else.’
‘Copeland’s married.’
Her cheeks reddened. ‘Actually, the marriage is over.’
I said nothing.
‘He’s been in his own place for months.’
‘Right,’ I said. I didn’t feel vindicated, or even smug.
‘I made you these.’ She reached behind her to the back seat and brought out a wicker basket full of muffins. I took one. It was still warm, no doubt made with organic oat husks. I bit into it, tasted the sweetness of blueberries. It would do.
The roller-shutters on Clacker’s mum’s house were down. The weeds were high, and two chained-up staffies in the front yard were barking their heads off. Clacker answered the door with: ‘Not youse a-fuckin-gain!’
He sat at the kitchen table and rode the chair, legs akimbo; the back of it came to rest against the wall, with Clacker’s feet dangling, twitching. ‘Must be in love with me. Wanna suck my cock?’
‘No thanks,’ said Phuong. ‘Darren, we know you were at an address in Diggers Rest where the manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine took place.’
‘Say what you like, gook.’ He took on a frozen look, swinging both feet to kick the table. ‘Nothing to do with me.’
‘Your friend Wayne Anthony Gage is dead.’
Clacker laughed. ‘Who?’
‘He was murdered by Tapahia Maurangi aka Titch. Heard of him?’
Clacker shook his head, but his Adam’s apple bobbed.
Phuong took a folder from her bag and opened it. She shuffled through the papers. ‘Cooperate now, it will help you in the long run.’
‘About what?’
‘About the drug operation of Gaetano Cesarelli. About the kidnap and murder of Nina Brodtmann. Her body was found last night at his meth lab. It’s all over the news.’
Clacker sucked in his cheeks. ‘Cesar? Wouldn’t know. I’ve been in remand for the last two weeks. In case you hadn’t noticed. Until today.’
‘You and Wayne Gage were working for Cesar. Right?’
‘Nuh.’
‘You went there, though, didn’t you? Diggers Rest. You were a part of Cesar’s crew.’
‘Who says?’
‘Your DNA says.’ She leaned towards him. ‘You like to leave your snot on things.’
The DNA of the snot we found smeared across the table in the shed had not yet been analysed. But Clacker looked stricken, and his chair came crashing forward.
‘Oh, snap,’ I said. ‘Busted.’
Phuong put her hand out to curb my behaviour.
‘In the light of these developments, now would be a good time to tell the truth. Would you like to make a statement?’
‘I told you. I don’t know shit about some girl.’ He made a fist and cradled it with the other hand, cracked the knuckles.
‘Come on. Cesar must have been planning it for months. Was it him or Gage? Or was it you who knew the girl had rich parents? A girl who lived on her own, no security, easy to grab and shove in the back of your car. Someone made a secure room to hold her in. Wrote ransom notes.’
Ransom notes? I hadn’t heard about that. Phuong was probably making that up too. Clacker fidgeted.
‘If you were in on it, it’s conspiracy.’
‘Big whoop,’ he sneered.
I cleared my throat. ‘Maurangi — he’s Funsail, isn’t he?’
‘Who? Hahaha. That’s funny.’ But he kicked
his foot harder and faster.
I looked at Phuong. ‘Maurangi doesn’t know where Clacker lives, does he?’
She shrugged. ‘Probably. But so what? Clacker has nothing to fear. He was never there, not involved. We can’t offer protection if he keeps denying everything.’
‘Jesus, youse don’t ever give up.’ His freckles stood out against his white face. He started mumbling.
‘Sorry?’ Phuong could be a stone-cold bitch when she wanted. ‘Louder please, Darren.’
‘I went to that shit hole. Okay? Only a couple of times.’
‘Mr Cesarelli’s meth factory?’ Phuong clicked a pen and wrote it down.
‘Yeah.’
‘What were you doing there?’
‘Collecting. Logistics, he called it. Thought he was a businessman or some shit.’
Phuong unclicked the pen and folded her hands on the table. Now she was acting friendly. ‘How’d you come to work for Cesarelli?’
‘Gage introduced us. He was working for Cesar and I ended up there too, driving around, putting the hard word on cunts, making good money — and I’m thinking this is all right.’
‘He trusted you.’
‘Yes. Gage and I were trustworthy.’
‘He asked you to help when one of the kids in the flats was a problem.’
‘Yeah,’ he admitted. ‘One day, he’s got a different kind of job. This kid who’s been selling, but now Cesar reckons he’s a problem.’
Phuong kept her cool but I was gritting my teeth, wanting to smack him.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
Clacker’s eyes darted around the room. ‘If I say, youse can offer me protection or something?’
‘Of course.’ She nodded.
He wavered, then he shook his head, like that was his big mistake.
‘Come on, Clacker,’ I said. ‘Explain it to us.’
He sniffed. ‘I’m supposed ta meet Gage at that bar.’
Phuong was nodding. ‘Adut Chol was there in the laneway. Then what happened.’
Darren shrugged like he didn’t recognise the name. ‘Fuckin Gage set me up.’ He kicked the table. ‘That’s all I fuckin know. That lawyer made me cop this bullshit.’