Shooting Star

by Peter Temple

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so. It’s too stupid. Carmen knows his name, Anne knows Whitton’s seen her getting out of a yellow fucktruck. Anyway, the bloke’s got a trade.’

  ‘There’s that,’ said Orlovsky, starting the car. ‘Something to fall back on.’

  ‘Boxing gloves.’

  ‘I like those fat pink dice.’

  ‘On his arm. Any decent coffee around here?’

  ‘What do you think these Brighton moneypuppies do on a Sunday morning? Sit in the park with a stubby?’

  He was right. The sleek inhabitants of the bayside suburb were in the shopping area eyeing one another, drinking coffee, having breakfast, reading the Sunday Age through dark glasses, talking on their mobiles. We found a table on the pavement outside a place called Zacco, ordered coffee.

  ‘The verb to earn,’ said Orlovsky, looking around. ‘The very concept of earning.’

  ‘What?’ Since he didn’t bother with preambles, it was often hard to work out what Orlovsky was talking about.

  ‘Nothing that someone whose entirely non-productive life has been paid for out of the public purse would grasp.’

  ‘Earning? I grasp the concept with ease. They want it, you do it, they pay you, you’ve earned it.’

  He closed his eyes and shook his head in a pitying and dismissive way. ‘Stick to killing people, Frank, that’s what you’re good at.’

  A young woman wearing a long white apron such as might be worn on the Left Bank in Paris put our coffees on the table.

  Orlovsky put twenty grains of sugar into his short black, stirred it with the stem of his spoon. ‘You don’t seem to be considering the possibility that this is the second grab by the same people,’ he said. ‘Can I be privy to your thoughts, master?’

  I took a sip, burnt my tongue. ‘No point in considering it,’ I said. ‘Got any idea what the cops would’ve thrown at the Alice kidnapping? They’d have turned over every last person and dog with a possible grudge against the family. Down to the sacked Carson office boys and the miffed Carson hairdressers. That leaves people just doing it for the money. I’m taking the eccentric view that people like that don’t wait seven years and then have another go at the same family. They move on. World’s full of rich families.’

  Orlovsky thought about this for a while, then he nodded in an unconvinced way and said in a musing tone, ‘A tradesman called Craig. How many would there be? Thousands, probably the name of choice for tradesmen.’

  ‘A boxer called Craig,’ I said. ‘How do you find a boxer called Craig?’

  We drank coffee. Orlovsky took on his meditative look, gaze upwards, hands in his lap. There was a quality about the tranquil Orlovsky that made people look away lest he come out of it and catch them looking at him.

  I looked away, studied our fellow members of sidewalk society. A table within earshot were behaving as if being filmed, assuming poses, bursting into fake laughter, talking with hands, touching hair and skin. A plump man in an advertising agency’s idea of yachting wear was in charge, conducting the ensemble.

  A boxer called Craig. There would be a boxing association, a federation, some body that registered boxers. He might not be registered now. About twenty-five, Mrs Neill thought. Get all the Craigs for the past ten years. Would our Craig live on this side of the city? How far would a tradesman drive for a quickie in the back of his van? In the case of Anne Carson, going by the photograph, to the ends of the earth, probably.

  ‘Heraldic,’ Orlovsky said, still looking upward.

  I paid no attention, had the last sip of black, the last tablespoon. ‘Give me that little telephone of yours,’ said Orlovsky. ‘And a pen.’

  I gave them to him.

  He pulled out a paper napkin from the dispenser, laid it flat, punched numbers. ‘Melbourne,’ he said, ‘Boxer, that’s B-O-X-E-R, business, yes. Boxer something. I don’t have an address.’

  He waited. I waited.

  I shook my head.

  ‘That would be it,’ he said. ‘Dandenong. Right.’ He listened, wrote numbers on the napkin, shut down the mobile, closed the flap, gave it back to me. ‘You see gloves, you think boxer, pugilist. A literal mind, best suited to mundane tasks like killing people.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘The key,’ he said. ‘The heraldic key.’

  12

  We parked on the stained tarmac apron of a firm called Dollakeen Kitchens in the light industrial area of Dandenong, a part of Greater Melbourne that doesn’t get mentioned in the newspaper suggestions for ten fun places to go on a Sunday. Orlovsky chose Dollakeen because its front gate was open and telephone inquiries had no number for it.

  I was reading the paper and Orlovsky was leaning against the driver’s door smoking one of his stolen Camels when the vehicle drove in the entrance and pulled up on his side, a few metres away.

  The driver got out and walked around, came between the vehicles, a young man in a silky tracksuit, medium height, big shoulders and a bodybuilder’s neck. I got out and stretched, walked around and leaned against the driver’s door.

  ‘G’day,’ the man said. ‘My old man tell youse I need some ID before I open anythin? Like somethin with the business name on it, somethin like that.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Orlovsky, putting his right hand into his jacket. ‘And your name is…?’

  ‘Craig Boxer,’ said the man. ‘Boxer Locks.’

  Orlovsky was close to him, side-on, getting closer. ‘Craig,’ he said, looking into his inside pocket. ‘Now what have we here. Wallet…ah.’

  He brought his right hand out of his jacket, nothing in it, fingers half-closed, punched Craig Boxer under the nose with the heel of his hand. Boxer made a noise, a yelping sound, fell backwards against the yellow Ford van, rocking it. As he was bringing up his hands to the blood pouring from his nose, Orlovsky kicked his legs out from under him. Craig hit the tarmac hard, banging his head against the van. Blood went out from him in an arc.

  In the van, I could see the little gloves hanging from the rearview mirror. They were swinging.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Craig, through his hands. He sounded like someone with a bad cold. A bad cold and a bad nosebleed.

  ‘That’s a little hello from the Carson family,’ I said. ‘Anne’s family.’

  Craig was trying to get up. He took one hand from his face, put it on the ground, put some weight on it.

  Orlovsky kicked him just above the elbow, not very hard. Craig’s arm went behind him and he screamed in pain and fell over sideways.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Orlovsky said. He walked around the body carefully and put his left foot on Craig’s head. ‘Just answer when you’re spoken to.’

  ‘Where’s Anne?’ I said.

  Blood was pooling under Craig’s head. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Jesus, fuck.’

  ‘Anne’s missing,’ I said. ‘She’s been kidnapped. But you’d know that, Craig.’

  ‘No,’ he said, visible eye showing lots of white. ‘No, fuck no.’

  ‘Fifteen-year-old schoolgirl. Fucked and kidnapped by you,’ I said.

  ‘Christ, fuck, no.’ He had good clotting power. The blood flow had stopped.

  ‘No?’ said Orlovsky. He ground Craig’s face into the tarmac, into his own blood, with his sole. ‘No? Did I hear you say no?’

  ‘Said she was seventeen,’ Craig said from under Orlovsky’s shoe. ‘Christ, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Kidnapping,’ I said. ‘You’re going to be in the papers, Craig. On TV. Go to jail for ever. Where’s Anne?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ he said, eye rolling. ‘Dropped her on Thursday, was gonna pick her up Tuesday. Jesus, I don’t know, please.’

  I didn’t say anything for a while. Quiet place on a Sunday, the Dandenong light industrial area, just the even murmur of traffic on the Princes Highway, somewhere a yard dog barking.

  ‘I’m going to ask you once more, Craig,’ I said. ‘If I don’t like the answer, the man standing on you is going to kick your head off. It’ll take a coupla k
icks but he’ll get there.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Where’s Anne?’

  ‘Swear to God my witness don’t know. Please. Went around the corner in Armadale, that’s…’

  ‘She phone you, Craig? Get any calls from her?’

  ‘No, no, no calls, just pick her up Tuesday and Thursday.’

  Orlovsky was grinding him again, grinding him but looking at me and shaking his head in sorrow.

  ‘Nothing, done nothing, no calls, I swear, oh Jesus…’

  I nodded at Orlovsky. He took his foot off the man, stepped back. ‘Sit up, Craig,’ I said. ‘Lean against the van.’

  For a moment, he was too scared to move. Then he raised himself fearfully to his hands and knees, turned his face towards me. The right side and his neck and chest were dark with blood and bits of grit and grime were pressed into his skin.

  ‘Sit back,’ I said.

  He sat back, torso rigid, hands to his face, looking at Orlovsky in fear.

  ‘Craig,’ I said, ‘I don’t think you kidnapped Anne. I think all you’re guilty of is screwing an under-age girl. From a rich family. That’s naughty but it’s only going to get you two, three years’ jail. Sex offender, young, some bloke’ll make you his girl. You know what they like to do? After you blow them, they piss in your mouth. It’s a power thing. Use your mouth for a toilet. Stand back and aim. Make you swallow, how’s that?’

  He closed his eyes. ‘Seventeen, I swear to almighty God she told me that. Never touched her otherwise, never, never, my old man’d kill me.’

  ‘Where’d you drop her, Craig, on Thursday?’

  ‘Revesdale Street, park in the loading zone outside the florist there. She goes up the street, down the lane.’

  ‘Lane?’

  His nose was swelling rapidly. ‘Like a lane near the end, service lane? For the shops.’

  ‘Why’d she do that? Go down the lane?’

  Craig hawked. I looked away, heard him spit. ‘There’s a door into the music place, saves goin round the corner.’

  ‘That day, see anything unusual? Notice anything?’

  He shrugged. ‘Well, y’know, we were sort of sayin goodbye… kissin, I don’t…’ His eyes flicked to Orlovsky. ‘Didn’t know she was fifteen, I swear.’

  ‘Anything unusual?’

  ‘No, she got out, come around to my side, she’s always lookin around.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Reckons she could be watched. Her family. Paranoid, she says. Like she sees this bloke, she goes, second time, that could be a Carson spy only he’s not bad lookin.’

  ‘She saw someone twice. In Revesdale Street?’

  ‘Yeah. Just a bloke, not even lookin at us.’

  ‘Where in the street?’

  ‘The other side, further down.’

  ‘Opposite the lane?’

  He frowned, hawked again. I closed my eyes.

  ‘Suppose. Yeah.’

  ‘This’s on Thursday? The second time?’

  ‘Nah. Tuesday she said that.’

  ‘You didn’t see him on Thursday?’

  ‘Nah. Like I was in a hurry Thursday. Job in Noble Park, my old man’s on the mobile, we didn’t…’ He stopped. ‘Just dropped her, like. Had to get back. I swear…’

  I straightened up, went over and stood above him. Between fingertips, I took a few hairs on his scalp, a small clump, twisted them, pulled. ‘Tell your mates about all this, Craig?’

  He winced, shook his head, found that too painful. ‘Never said a word, Jesus, never told anyone. I’m engaged, her family’ll murder me.’

  I didn’t say anything, looked around, weighed and measured the quality of the moment: three men on a strip of stained concrete, mournful wind worrying at the tin buildings around us, making them creak and whine and croon and speak of failure and loneliness, and this one man so scared that he could evacuate his bowels at any moment.

  All these things reminded me of why I’d thought I would be happier growing things.

  I let go of the twist of hair, put my hand under the man’s chin, cupped it. ‘Craig,’ I said, ‘don’t go away, don’t say a word to anyone about today.’

  Relief in his eyes.

  ‘Look at me.’

  He couldn’t look up at me, just sniffed and said, ‘Not a word, I swear, I promise you.’

  ‘Do that, your lovely bride-to-be’s family won’t have to murder you. Why’s that?’

  He nodded, eyes closed.

  On the way back, in the sluggish highway traffic, I said, not looking at Orlovsky, ‘Arsehole skills. Not too rusty, are they?’

  He took a long time to answer, lit another stolen Camel, one of the last. ‘The difference between us,’ he said, ‘is that I’m just doing this for the money. You’re another matter entirely.’

  13

  ‘One of those things with sliding doors,’ said the tweed-jacketed Malcolm Cherry of Hayes amp; Cherry, a narrow shop in Revesdale Street that sold bathroom fittings. ‘A pretty battered one with curtained windows. Tarango? Durango? A name like that. People movers, I understand they’re called. What does that make your ordinary car?’

  I looked at the price tag on an impressive piece of plumbing, chrome-plated pipes forming a sort of shower cage. Showering once a day, roughly a dollar a shower for twenty years. ‘This is not your ordinary shower,’ I said.

  ‘Nice, isn’t it? Prince Philip has one.’

  ‘He always looks clean. This vehicle?’

  ‘Parked in our loading zone. People do it all the time. Run off to get something, back in minutes. There’s a marvellous deli two doors down. Some of them are coming in here, God forbid you’d complain.’

  ‘But the people mover?’

  ‘Repeat offender. Not the vehicle, the people in it. Before they were in an old stationwagon. White.’

  ‘The same people. You’re sure? How many?’

  ‘Absolutely. Two. The vehicle pulls up, passenger gets out, well, falls out is closer. He could use a shower. He’s always in a tracksuit.

  A garment not too familiar with the Surf, I can tell you. And a baseball cap. Red.’

  ‘Anything on the cap? A logo, anything?’

  ‘Makita. And he wears these huge runners. Big plastic things. Like boats. Grotesque. And off he goes. Then the driver has the effrontery to think he can lounge around until the other creature comes back.’

  ‘Did you get a look at him, the driver?’

  ‘Not a good look. Too much facial hair. And dark glasses and some kind of headgear. It looked like a back-to-front cap with the peak cut off. Strange.’

  ‘The passenger. Wear glasses?’

  ‘Those ghastly black frames like Buddy Holly. Or is that Roy Orbison?’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Hard to say. Fifties. More.’

  ‘And this happened again on Thursday with a different vehicle?’

  ‘Again, only worse.’ Malcolm Cherry flicked a finger at something on his tie. ‘This Tangelo thing pulls up and, lo and behold, the older dero-type gets out. Wearing the cap. I thought, bugger this, this time I’m ringing the council, get the bloody parking inspector around here from wherever he’s hiding. I’m at the back, on the phone, waiting for someone to answer, when the vehicle leaves.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Just before five, I suppose. But hold on, hold on. A minute later, the young fellow who works part-time here goes out and what does he find?’

  I could feel the tiny pulse in my throat. I shook my head.

  ‘The bloody vehicle’s in the lane. Someone’s reversed it into the lane. That’s private property. Only three businesses are entitled to use the lane. Us, the record store and the florist. I said to James, that’s it, and I’m out the front door.’

  He paused. ‘And at that moment, out comes the Tarango or whatever and off it goes.’

  ‘Didn’t get the rego, did you?’

  ‘No. Didn’t really think about it. Get it next time.’

  ‘What was he doing in the la
ne? Young fellow see anything?’

  ‘James says the driver was just closing the sliding door when he walked by. Wasn’t picking up anything from the shops, checked straight away. Business vehicles only, that’s the agreement.’

  ‘James,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t mind a word with him.’

  Malcolm looked at his watch, a big chrome-plated deep sea diver’s instrument, the sort of thing you wouldn’t be scared to wear in the Prince Philip shower cage. ‘He went off for a coffee just before you came in. Be back any minute.’

  I went for a walk down the street, around the corner, in the glass side door of TRIPLE ZERO! the record store. I was in a small vestibule, pulsating music audible, facing another door. I opened it and the sound was like a blow to the whole upper body. It hit you, then it invaded you, stuck probes up your nose, into your mouth. My fillings seemed to be transmitting sound and I could taste them. I subdued the impulse to flee, stood my ground. When my brain accepted that it could function in these conditions, I went around the bend into the long leg of the store. It didn’t look like a place that sold recorded music. It looked like a series of minimalist lounges separated by Art Deco pillars, teenagers sitting around, standing, in groups, in pairs, alone. Near the entrance was what looked like a bar from some fifties film. It was all so casual, not a store, a hangout. But when you walked around, you could see there were clear lines of sight from the bar and from a glass window in a partition wall and there were camera pinholes everywhere. Management didn’t want their radical store to also serve as a shootin and rootin gallery.

  I walked around. No one paid any attention to me. With a bigger crowd, you could lose sight of another person in here, no doubt about that. But Carmen hadn’t lost sight of Anne because on Thursday she wasn’t with Anne. She was waiting for Anne to arrive from trucking with Craig. Then they would step out the front entrance and into Whitton’s double-parked car and get home at the expected sports day time. Conspirators all.

  There was no point in looking for Anne on Thursday’s security video because she was never in the store. Anne didn’t get to the end of the laneway, to the delivery door into TRIPLE ZERO! There was a vehicle in the lane. To reach the door, she had to pass between it and the wall. Perhaps the vehicle’s sliding side door was open. Perhaps someone came around the back as she was abreast of the door. Perhaps the person took her by the shoulders and pushed her into the vehicle. Perhaps there was someone else inside, someone who dragged her in, put something over her face, prevented her screaming…