Shooting Star

by Peter Temple

  That wasn’t enough for Noyce. He breathed out hard, nostrils flaring.

  ‘Point taken? I’m not sure it is. I think I’d be better off walking out now and sending you my…’

  ‘Graham,’ said Barry Carson, his voice emphatic but entreating. He had come across the room, put his back to his brother, extended a hand to touch the sleeve of Noyce’s jacket.

  Noyce didn’t look at Barry, didn’t take his eyes off Tom. He had the look of a bullied schoolboy, scared, but determined to look his tormentor in the face.

  Barry moved to block Noyce’s view of Tom’s face. He didn’t want Noyce to leave. ‘Don’t take Tom so seriously, Graham,’ he said. ‘It’s just that he’s a man born to command. Pity they timed the wars so badly.’

  ‘What the hell’s goin on?’

  Pat Carson was at the door, leaning on a walking stick. Standing, grey suit loose on him, he looked closer to his age, but not much. He looked at Tom.

  ‘Don’t bother to tell the old man what’s happenin? That’s the attitude, is it? I have to come to find out?’

  He turned back towards his study. ‘Frank, come and tell me,’ he said over his shoulder.

  I waited until he was well away, then I said to the Carson brothers, ‘Would you like me to do that?’

  Barry said, ‘Yes. Thank you, Frank.’

  Noyce cleared his throat. ‘A sports bag,’ he said, pride put aside for the moment. ‘There must be a sports bag somewhere.’

  ‘Tell Lauren to find one,’ said Tom, tone a little less military this time.

  I went down the passage, knocked on the open door. Pat was behind his desk again, chair swivelled sideways. The shutters were open and he was looking out at a paved, walled courtyard, a secret place, with low hedges and lemon trees growing in big pots. Without turning, he gestured for me to enter.

  Standing, I told him about the phone call.

  ‘What about lettin her go?’

  ‘Tom asked. He said: “You’ll hear from us.”’

  Pat swivelled to face me, rubbed his jaw, studied me. Finally, he said, ‘Don’t be a policeman tomorrow, Frank. No police work. Just give em the money.’

  I nodded. ‘I’m in a giving mood.’

  ‘And on the money subject, the advance on the fee, Graham give you that?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was in my jacket pocket: a hundred new hundred-dollar notes in an envelope. I didn’t want to but I said, ‘Thank you.’

  He waved a hand dismissively, a hand like a big plucked wing. ‘Mind you do what the bastards tell you. Nothin more. Then we’ll settle with em. By God, we will.’

  6

  Two hundred thousand dollars in fifties in a sports bag doesn’t weigh much, a few kilos. In the VIP carpark under the Great Southern Stand, tense in the stomach, I took the soft-leather Louis Vuitton bag out of the boot of Noyce’s Mercedes, felt for his tiny mobile phone in my inside jacket pocket.

  ‘Mr Calder?’ A fair-haired young man in a business suit, club tie. He put out a hand. ‘I’m Denzil Hobbes. I’ve been asked to meet you.’

  Noyce had arranged the parking and the reception. It seemed a Carson company had a corporate box in the stand. Orlovsky was doing it harder. Not a Mercedes but his old Holden Premier, not a VIP parking spot but a long walk from across the river to a public entrance.

  ‘It’s pretty much a full house,’ Hobbes said. ‘I’ve got someone holding a seat for you. We can go up in the lift.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ll walk. Just show me the stairs.’

  ‘They’re ramps actually,’ he said. ‘One in ten incline, very easy climbing. You haven’t been here before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll show you the one to take. Ramps take eight abreast. In an emergency, we can clear the stand in twelve minutes.’

  I nodded approvingly. It would be nice if people behaved that way, serried ranks of the terrified moving steadily downwards, eight abreast.

  ‘I’ll give you a card,’ said Hobbes. ‘Ring me if you need anything. Anything at all. When you get to the top, your seat is to the right. First seat to the right. Not the best view. The aisle seat in the back row. Just tap the man in it on the shoulder and introduce yourself. He’s expecting you. Obviously.’

  Obviously. This was Carson money talking.

  ‘What about my colleague?’ I said.

  ‘He’s up there. To your left, also on the aisle.’

  Traffic was light on the way up. On the long way up. At the top, I came out into the pale grey afternoon light to a stunning scene, thousands upon thousands of people around the green circle, the stand seemingly leaning over it. Then a huge explosion of sound. Something had happened on the field, some event dramatic enough to cause all mouths to open.

  CARLTON 38, COLLINGWOOD 17 said the scoreboard. Ten minutes from half-time.

  I found the seat, tapped the occupant on the shoulder. Another young man in a suit, a small galaxy of spots on his broad brow. ‘Calder,’ I said.

  He too wanted to shake hands, gave his name: Sean Rourke. Polite staff, well-groomed, the corporate box tenants would expect that.

  When he’d gone, I looked left, looked away. Orlovsky was wearing a filthy anorak and holding a radio to his right ear. The Carsons hadn’t been happy about him coming along. I took out the mobile phone, held it in my left hand, made sure I knew which button to press when it vibrated. Then, a girl’s life at stake, I tried to concentrate on the game. Collingwood were playing a strange brand of football, going sideways, backwards, kicking to empty spaces, no central nervous system in control.

  ‘Sweet Jesus, convent girls, want it, don’t want it, they get it, they don’t know where to fucken put it,’ said the man next to me, a Collingwood supporter, lean-faced, mostly unshaven, with scar tissue under his right eye and a nose set askew. He caught my eye. ‘What I reckon,’ he said to me, blast of raw alcohol in the breath, ‘piss-poor coachin, that’s what I reckon.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘That’s what I reckon.’ Why did he assume my support of Collingwood? It dawned on me: there were only two colours on display around us: jumpers, beanies, scarves, huge Mad Hatter’s Teaparty hats, all in the sacred black and white, sin and purity, evil and innocence, the colours of certainty. This was Collingwood country.

  ‘Get this inya,’ said the skew-nosed man, warmed by our mutual contempt for the coach. He was offering a litre plastic bottle of an orange-brown liquid. I took a swig, felt tears start in my eyes, a prickling in my scalp follicles.

  ‘Bottla Bundy in there,’ said the man, not taking his eyes off the game. ‘Carn ya fucken sheilas!’

  Carlton were all over Collingwood until half-time, kicking another goal and a behind just before the siren.

  We all stood up.

  ‘Jesus,’ said my new friend, ‘just lie down and let the mongrels piss on em, that’d be better.’ He drank some more from the plastic bottle. ‘Speakin of piss, I kin taste it. Comin?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ I said.

  He squeezed past me. ‘Watch the stuff, mate,’ he said, cocking his head at his army-surplus canvas rucksack.

  The tiny telephone vibrated in my hand, a sensuous feeling.

  I pressed the button.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Are you where you should be?’ The electronic voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, this is what you do…’ You do what you’re told to do. Afterwards, the crowd didn’t hinder me as I walked up the stand, bent on leaving the stadium as quickly as possible. On the last ramp before the carpark, I took off the beanie I’d paid a startled fan fifty dollars for, dropped it in a bin.

  I didn’t have any plans that included a Collingwood beanie.

  7

  ‘You might’ve hung onto a few thousand,’ Orlovsky said, getting into the Mercedes with his briefcase, bringing in cold air, brushing rain off his scalp. ‘Honesty’s a much overrated virtue.’

  ‘Not when it’s the only one you’ve got,’ I said. ‘What’d you get?’ />
  I had just finished my call to Noyce. We were on the St Kilda beachfront, near the lifesaving club, rain blowing off the bay. Only a few people out: two men in bright rain gear walking a fat and splay-footed black Labrador; an old woman, scarf tied under her chin above layers of sagging clothing; a small and threatening squad of inline skaters, indifferent to weather and fellow-humans and gravity.

  ‘Nothing. Call’s from a payphone at Royal Melbourne Hospital.’

  I was dispirited, watching the skaters. They were coming up at speed behind the men with the dog, in formation, two tight ranks of three. Just when it seemed the front rank had to crash into the walkers, it parted, two left, one right, second rank following suit, going around the men and coalescing again like water flowing around a rock.

  ‘One thing worth knowing, though.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Camel,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ I looked at him, startled. ‘What’s worth knowing?

  ‘Driver’s a secret Camel smoker.’

  Orlovsky had opened the glovebox. Packed with packets of cigarettes, it glowed like a Walt Disney cave. With two fingers, he extracted a packet, put it in his inside jacket pocket.

  ‘Yes, honesty’s a much overrated virtue,’ he said. ‘There’s something else. My original opinion was this dickhead thinks he can hide his voice with some primitive piece of shit from a mail-order catalogue. Wrong. He’s no dickhead. That’s worth knowing.’

  Orlovsky’s thumbs released the briefcase catches. The lid popped up. A laptop computer hidden in a battered leather briefcase.

  ‘I borrowed this,’ Orlovsky said. ‘Box of tricks.’ He switched on, did some key tapping.

  Are you where you should be? said the electronic voice from the laptop speakers.

  Yes. Me.

  Okay, this is what you do. If there’s wrapping on the money, take it off. Then walk down to the front of the stand and throw the money off. All of it. Understand?

  Yes.

  Don’t talk to anyone. We’ll know. Just do it. Now.

  My voice: First tell us when we get the girl back.

  Do as you’re told. Or the girl dies. Understand? Just do as you’re told.

  Mick tapped. Now a different electronic voice said the last words. He tapped again. Yet another eerie nonhuman voice. Then another one. And another.

  ‘This is smart stuff,’ Mick said. ‘The boy didn’t buy this machine anywhere. The Feds’ voice ID software can’t crack it.’

  ‘You know that?’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘You’re hacking into the Feds’ system. What’s the penalty for that?’

  ‘I’m not hacking. This is legitimate access.’ He paused. ‘Someone else’s legitimate access.’

  I sighed. ‘We’d better get back to the Carsons. Maybe these pricks will let the girl go tonight.’ I didn’t think that was likely. To put it mildly.

  ‘So they just did it to give the fans a treat?’ said Mick, closing his briefcase. ‘Wow. Maybe the two supporters’ clubs got together and arranged it. Kidnapping. Could become a regular thing for clubs.’

  ‘Get out,’ I said.

  ‘Sir.’

  In Kooyong Road, in heavy traffic, he blinked his lights at me. I pulled over. He parked behind me and came to my window.

  ‘This Merc’s transmitting,’ he said. ‘Why would that be?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘My box of tricks says so. Playing with it at the last lights.’

  A tracking bug in Noyce’s car? I looked at Mick. We had the same thought at the same instant. I reached into the back seat and got the empty leather sports bag, gave it to him.

  In the rearview mirror, I saw the interior light go on as he got into the Holden. It went off for a few seconds, went on and off as he got out again.

  He gave me the bag back through the window. ‘Maybe they’re standard in bags like this,’ he said. ‘Sewn in by hand in Paris by an ancient Frog craftsman. Some cunt lifts your bag at the Hilton gym, you track him down, send your personal trainer over to kick the shit out of his personal trainer.’

  All the way back to the Carson compound, cocooned in German steel and leather, wipers treating the drizzle with quiet contempt, I thought about Pat’s study the day before, the grim faces, Pat’s words:

  This time, we’re just payin. What they ask, we’re payin. It’s only bloody money, it’s nothin. The child safe. That’s what we want. That’s all.

  A bug in the money bag. Someone hadn’t embraced the philosophy of This time, we’re just payin. Someone wanted to know where the money went. Someone wanted to do police work.

  Noyce was on the terrace. As I opened the car door, he said, ‘They rang a few minutes ago. It’s a bit frightening.’

  8

  This evening, the Carson boys had been joined in the elegant library by a woman. She was thin, in a loose sweater and jeans, blonde hair on her shoulders, sitting upright in an armchair, arms folded, whisky glass on a drum table. At first glance, she looked like a teenager, but then you saw the lines bracketing her mouth, the little frown pinched between her eyes. She was probably in her early thirties.

  ‘Stephanie, this is Frank Calder,’ said Noyce. He frowned as Orlovsky appeared in the doorway. Mick was neatly dressed and clean-shaven but he always managed to give the impression that he’d escaped from somewhere.

  ‘And this is his associate, Michael Orlovsky. Mrs Chadwick is Tom’s daughter, Anne’s aunt.’

  Stephanie Chadwick stood up and shook hands. She was tall, Orlovsky’s height, only a head below me. When you knew the relationship, you could see her father in her, in the eyes and the jaw and in a certain arrogance of carriage.

  Tom Carson was standing behind his daughter, smoking a panatella, in a dark suit now, his face clean and dry from the second shave of the day, drinking something colourless, rattling the ice in the glass.

  Barry was seated at the table, no drink, also in a suit. He nodded at us. He had the look of a man who had undergone an ordeal, didn’t trust himself to speak.

  ‘Play it, Graham,’ said Tom, no bark in his voice this time.

  Noyce played it.

  Tom Carson.

  Pause.

  So you think Carson money can buy anything, don’t you? Just money, that’s what you thought, isn’t it?

  Pause.

  Tom: We’ve followed your instructions.

  Becoming less stupid. Learning to do what you’re told and… Tom: We’ve done that. Now… Shut up. Don’t say NOW to me. I don’t take your orders. I don’t need your money.

  Tom: All we want…

  Shut up, I’m talking to you. You’re not talking to your tame cops now. You don’t have the money to buy your way out of this. You’re talking to someone quite different now. Do you hear me? Hear me, cunt?

  Tom: We’ll do whatever you want…

  I WANT YOU TO SUFFER AS YOU HAVE MADE OTHERS SUFFER. I WANT YOU TO FEEL PAIN AS YOU HAVE MADE OTHERS FEEL PAIN. I WANT YOU TO BLEED TO DEATH.

  Click.

  No one said anything for a while, the harsh electronic voice reverberating in the room. Then Stephanie took a big drink of whisky. I looked at my watch. It was just on 6 p.m. ‘Can we watch the news on Seven somewhere?’ I said.

  Noyce found a remote control. A section of panelling on the righthand wall parted, revealing a large television monitor. He clicked twice more. We watched commercials and previews before a woman newsreader with a starched and ironed face appeared. She did the There were amazing scenes today preamble. Then we saw a man wearing dark glasses and a Collingwood beanie pulled down to his eyebrows on the top level of the Great Southern Stand. He stood at the parapet, reached into a bag, threw handfuls of paper into the air. Some of the bits of paper blew backwards into the stand behind him, some fluttered down and were sucked into the packed tiers below, others drifted down onto the field, where people jumped the fence and a feeding frenzy developed. After half-a-dozen handfuls, the thrower got bored, tipp
ed the bag over the edge, shook it. Large wads of paper fell out. The camera zoomed in on the paper-thrower but my collar was up and I kept my chin down. Then I turned and walked up the ramp.

  The voice-over said:

  A police spokesman said it was a miracle that no one was seriously injured in the near-riots that developed as football fans fought over the new fifty-dollar notes. No exact figure is available on the sum of money thrown from the Great Southern Stand by the unknown man, but police put the amount at more than a hundred thousand dollars.

  We cut to a Collingwood supporter, a woman wearing a black and white sweater and scarf and holding a fifty-dollar note in each hand for the camera. ‘One bloke caught seven fifties, stuck together,’ she said. ‘They was fallin like rain.’ She had a tooth missing next to her left canine, itself a yellow, endangered outcrop.

  Noyce switched off the set, and the panels reunited at the behest of the remote.

  ‘Well,’ said Tom, looking at me. ‘A fucking novel way to redistribute wealth. What point are we at now?’

  ‘At the point where we phone the cops,’ I said. ‘You’re not dealing with the greedy. The unhinged, that’s what you’ve got here. And this is personal.’

  ‘No,’ said Tom. ‘The old man says no. I agree.’

  ‘He’s heard this person?’

  Tom nodded. ‘We’ve shown we’re willing to pay, not to bring in the police, we should take the next step.’

  ‘I’m not getting this over to you,’ I said. ‘Next step? Who says there’s a next step? If I understand the message, and it’s not in fucking code-excuse me, Ms Chadwick-this isn’t about money. It’s about causing you pain. You personally possibly, maybe the whole family. Pain. Lots of pain. It’s not a commercial transaction.

  Not buyers and sellers. They want to hurt you and the ultimate hurt is killing the girl.’

  I paused. ‘Don’t you think you should let the girl’s parents decide whether to call in the cops?’

  Silence.

  The Carsons didn’t want to look at each other, didn’t want to look at me. Finally, Barry said, ‘We’re having trouble getting hold of Mark. It may be a while before we can reach him.’