Sucked In

by Shane Maloney

  ‘Earning you a seat in the Senate,’ I said.

  ‘Indeed,’ he said, acknowledging the point with a courtly dip of his head. ‘Indeed. And Charlie a place in the Reps. A most fortuitous outcome all round.’

  One worth killing for? It would have been impolitic to ask.

  Quinlan put his hand on my sleeve, signalling his departure. ‘Just before I go,’ he said. ‘There’s nobody out there in your neck of the woods looking to make an issue of Phil, is there? He’ll be a real asset, you know.’

  ‘These things are rarely uncontested,’ I said. ‘Nature of the beast.’

  ‘Anybody in particular?’

  ‘Nobody you need worry about, Barry.’

  ‘But you’ll keep your ears open?’

  ‘I always do.’ It was simple anatomy.

  ‘Good man.’ He patted me again and started for the door.

  ‘Matter of fact, I did hear something might interest you,’ I said. Quinlan paused mid-stride and turned. ‘Apparently Sid Gilpin has resurfaced. He’s trying to peddle some story about corruption at the Municipals, something involving you and Charlie.’

  Quinlan creased his brow. ‘Sid Gilpin?’ He tried to place the name. ‘Cutlett’s off-sider? What story?’

  ‘Dunno,’ I said. ‘He approached a journo I know, reckons he’s got evidence of dirty deeds. Won’t specify what until he sees a cheque-book.’

  Quinlan made a world-weary face. ‘Sounds like he hasn’t changed. Your journo mate buying?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Somebody should tell Gilpin we’ve got defamation laws in this country.’

  ‘Specifically designed to protect politicians.’

  ‘My oath,’ said Quinlan. ‘Who do you think made them?’

  The aide approached, displaying her wrist to urge haste. Quinlan took the folder and gave me a parting nod. I watched them get into the back seat of his Comcar and drive away.

  You can’t defame the dead, I thought. Not within the meaning of the act. Once a man is gone, you can say anything you damned well like about him. And if you say it loud enough or long enough, it’ll find its way into print. And if it’s in print, it must be true.

  A row of cabs was waiting outside the hotel across the street. I headed for the start of the line, hand raised, and gave a whistle.

  The entire area between the waterfront and Spencer Street railway station looked chewed up and spat out. The shunting yards had been uprooted, the cargo sheds demolished, the oily earth churned by bulldozers.

  From this blasted heath a glorious future would soon arise. The sod had been turned on an astroturf colosseum with a receding roof and fifty thousand pre-warmed seats, due for completion in 1999. The docks were destined for transformation into luxury apartments, high-rise mortgages with water views. Surprise, surprise.

  The old nissen hut was virtually the only remaining evidence of the area’s industrial past, a hump of curved tin marooned between dead-end roads and freeway feeder ramps. Grimy engine blocks, gutted washing machines and doorless refrigerators stood out the front with their hands in their pockets, looking bored and propping up weathered signs spray-painted on warped bits of plywood. CLOSING DOWN SALE. ALL STOCK MUST GO. LAST DAYS.

  The big double doors were shut, so I gave the cabbie a twenty and asked him to wait.

  A Docklands Authority notice-to-quit was tacked to the splintery timber of one of the doors. Its plastic sleeve was torn and the ink had bled on the tenant’s name, rendering it illegible. From inside came the sound of machinery, a cutting or drilling device of some sort. A heavy chain hung loose, dangling an open padlock. I pushed at the door and it moved inwards.

  The vaulted interior was lit only by filthy safety-glass windows. Worthless crap of every variety was laid out in aisles on the concrete floor. Obsolete computer monitors. The carapaces of busted stereo speakers. Rough stacks of chipped crockery. Milk crates and plastic baby-baths overflowing with disembodied chunks of kitchen appliances. Cracked wash-tubs. Scaly coils of perished garden hose. Rag-stoppered oil bottles and drip-encrusted paint tins with lids hardened on.

  The aisles terminated at a chain-mesh partition running across the rear quarter of the shed. On my side of the wire, a figure was hunched over a bench, his back to me, working the screeching machinery. I waved off the cab and went inside.

  I walked down the central aisle past a row of derelict Space Invader machines. Cracked screens, holes punched in their chipboard carcases. Inside the fenced section of the shed was a roofless room, its interior visible through an open door. Television sets were stacked haphazardly on a bench inside. One was running, its volume inaudible. Jerry Springer was working his audience. In front of the sets was a sagging sofa, a repository of yellowed bed linen. A boxy electric radiator glowed red, sending its heat upwards to a row of lights that hung from the ceiling. Their globes were screwed into basin-shaped enamel shades. Probably the only marketable objects in the place.

  An open door led out the back. It had a Yale lock on the inside and a heavy-duty bolt on the outside. Standing just inside it was a slide-top ice-cream chiller. Magnum. Cornetto. Paddle Pop. Through the door I could see the tray of a ute and a 44-gallon drum, lidless and toppled. Flattened hessian sacks lined the drum and bleached dog turds surrounded it.

  The din filled the shed, amplified by the curve of the walls. Its source was an ancient electric grinder bolted to an oily bench. The hunched figure was oblivious, engrossed in his task. He was picking tarnished brass pipe fittings out of a milk crate, polishing them on a spinning wire brush, then tossing them into another crate. He worked with the pointless mechanical monotony of a man shovelling mercury with a pitchfork. A can of beer sat by his elbow. From time to time he took a slug, maintaining a constant pace.

  I stood at the end of the bench, trying to catch his eye. He wore leather work gloves, a frayed Collingwood beanie and a grot-marinated gabardine raincoat. When he’d finished the brass elbow-joints, he pushed back the armature, fitted a grinding wheel and started on a rusted pair of hedge clippers, sending out a spray of sparks. The bench was strewn with similar detritus. Corroded shears, rusted machetes, the heads of mattocks and axes. At this rate, I’d be waiting all day.

  A lead ran from the grinder to a power board at my feet. I reached down and pulled out the plug. The motor shuddered to a halt, its bearings screaming. The bent figure straightened up and turned.

  It was Gilpin all right, although it took me a moment to be certain. He must have been about sixty, but he looked at least ten years older. Time had not dealt well with Sid and little of the spivvy cockerel remained. Patchy stubble covered his cheeks and his eyes were half-buried in sagging pillows of flesh.

  He tore off his ratty gloves and glowered at me.

  ‘This is fucken harassment,’ he exploded, spit flying from his lips. ‘You lot, you think you can just barge in here any time you like. I’ve got until 5 p.m. Friday. Until then, I’m legally entitled to quiet possession. Now fuck off or I’ll have the dog on you.’

  I looked around reflexively. The dog was nowhere in sight.

  ‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick,’ I said. ‘I’m not here to evict you.’

  Gilpin peered at me and wiped his mouth with the back of a bloated hand. His arm swept the merchandise. ‘You want something?’

  ‘I’m not a customer, Sid. I was at the Municipals when you worked there.’

  He narrowed his gaze, trying to place me. Eventually, a tiny spark flickered.

  ‘Talbot’s bum boy? Whadda you want?’

  ‘I’ve just come from Barry Quinlan’s office,’ I said. ‘Senator Quinlan. He’s heard you’ve been talking shit about him. Charlie Talbot, too.’

  ‘Quinlan.’ He spat out the name. ‘Arsehole.’

  ‘You’d be making a mistake to aggravate him.’

  ‘He’s the one made the mistake.’ Gilpin raised his chin and widened his stance, the old Sid coming back. ‘Sending some goon down here to intimidate me.’<
br />
  Nobody had ever called me a goon before. Perhaps my new exercise regime was bearing fruit already.

  ‘I’m not here to intimidate you, Sid. I’m here to deliver some free advice. You shouldn’t go round telling porkies, trying to flog something you haven’t got.’

  Gilpin’s breath was a laboured wheeze. For a long moment, we stared at each other. He hadn’t just aged badly. He was not a well man. His eyes were filmy and jaundiced. He was mixing his medication with alcohol.

  ‘Fucken Quinlan,’ he said. ‘And that weasel Charlie Talbot, you’d think he was Christ almighty, the stuff they’ve been printing about him in the papers. They’ll be singing a different tune when they see what I’ve got.’

  ‘And what’s that, Sid?’ I said. ‘Water on the brain?’

  He took a gulp from the can on the bench. In the sullen silence that followed, I could hear the slosh and stew of some half-formed idea slithering into life.

  ‘You go back to Quinlan,’ he said. ‘Tell him I’ve got evidence he’s a thief and a liar. Maybe worse, even. Talbot, too.’

  ‘What sort of evidence?’

  ‘Doc-u-mentary evidence,’ he said. The can tilted high, almost empty. It wasn’t much past noon.

  ‘Doc-u-mentary evidence?’ I said. ‘Like what?’

  ‘The sort I can stick in an envelope and send to the coppers. Really give them something to think about.’ He licked his lips with relish. ‘Maybe they’ll begin to wonder if those two didn’t have good reason to want Merv Cutlett dead. And who knows, maybe I’ll get my memory back? Tell the coppers a few things that slipped my mind last time I talked to them.’

  I felt sorry for him, the wretch. Flat broke. Sick as a dog.

  High as the Goodyear blimp on a cocktail of ill health, pills, booze and malice.

  ‘Let me get you to a doctor, have someone take a quick look. Maybe some income support.’

  His face hardened into a snarl. ‘Don’t you fucken patronise me.’

  Abruptly, he scooted backwards, coat-tails flapping, through the gate in the Cyclone partition. He swung it closed and shot the bolt, securing it with a twisted coat hanger.

  ‘I’ll show youse all,’ he sneered through the wire. ‘Just you wait and see.’

  Prancing around and rubbing his hands like he was auditioning for the role of Fagin in a Julius Streicher production of Oliver!, he reached into the ice-cream chiller, pulled out a fresh can and disappeared into the roofless room, shutting the door behind him.

  He didn’t just need a doctor. He needed the burly chaps in white with the butterfly net.

  The door flew open and he emerged with something in his hands. Small items bundled together with a rubber band. He stripped off the band and advanced towards the fence.

  ‘Know what these are?’

  I hooked my fingers on the links and peered through the chain mesh. He held two thin booklets, one in each hand.

  ‘Passports?’ I ventured.

  ‘Bankbooks.’ He stuffed one in his pocket and opened the other, extending it towards me at eye level.

  I hadn’t seen a savings passbook for years. They were obsolete, gone the way of the whalebone corset and the Betamax VCR. Gilpin shoved it at my face, close enough to read. Commonwealth Bank, 341 Victoria Street, Melbourne.

  I remembered the branch. It occupied the building on the corner of Lygon Street, an august two-storey structure from the 1880s. It was something else now. Luxury apartments, probably. The side entrance of the Trades Hall was straight across the street.

  The account holder’s name was typed in a punch-card font. Barry Quinlan, it said. The columns showed a sequence of deposits over a six-month period, the first in February 1978. The amounts varied, averaging between one and two thousand dollars. The total balance was $18,022.07. It was withdrawn in a lump sum, all but the small change.

  He held up the second passbook. The name at the top was Charles Talbot. The sum withdrawn was $14,225, leaving a balance of $2.04.

  ‘More than thirty grand all up,’ he said. ‘Big bikkies in those days.’

  I nodded. A year’s wage, pre-tax, for a specialist tradesman or a mid-level manager. My own income that year would’ve been lucky to reach fifteen grand. He wrapped the rubber band around the passbooks and stowed them inside his coat, swapping them for his fresh can of beer. He popped the tab and foam oozed out. He licked it off his hand and waited for my reaction.

  ‘They had bank accounts,’ I said. ‘So what?’

  ‘And they cleaned them out on 27 July,’ he said. ‘Recognise the date, do you?’

  I shrugged. ‘Should I?’

  ‘It’s the Monday after Merv Cutlett went down,’ he sneered. ‘Interesting, eh?’

  It was. Unfortunately.

  ‘You’ve lost me, Sid,’ I said. ‘I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Quinlan will, though.’ He took a long swig. ‘So you get on your bike, sport. Go tell the senator that unless he sees me right, I’ll make sure these little babies come to the attention of the coppers.’

  I stayed where I was, fingers threaded through the wire. ‘If these bankbooks are such hot property, how come Quinlan and Talbot let you get your mitts on them? It all sounds like crap to me, Sid.’

  He flicked his wrist forward, shooing me away. I was merely the messenger, and a dumb one at that. ‘Off you go, then. Scoot.’

  ‘What do you want, Sid?’

  He sneered. ‘What do you reckon I want?’

  ‘Money won’t help if you’re too crook to spend it. Let me get you to a doctor, eh?’

  He sucked his breath inwards sharply and his eyes went hard. ‘Fuck your doctor and fuck you and fuck Quinlan.’ He pounded the front of his coat with the flat of his hand. ‘These are going straight to the coppers.’

  There was real menace in his voice. The guy was barking mad. Maybe the kennel and the chalk-stick turds were his.

  ‘The senator’s in Canberra for the next few days,’ I said. ‘Is this something I should talk about on the phone? Calls to federal parliament are recorded, you know.’

  Gilpin’s paranoid cunning was racing ahead of itself. Whatever his plan, he hadn’t thought it all the way through. ‘When’s he coming back?’

  ‘Later in the week.’ I had to say something. ‘Thursday.’

  ‘Tell him he’s got until Wednesday, close of business.’

  ‘You have a figure in mind?’

  ‘Tell him to make me an offer.’ He fixed me in his yellow, puffer-fish gaze, an idea crossing his eyes like a fast-burning fuse. ‘And while you’re at it, take the same message to whatsername. That stuck-up bint from the office. The one Talbot had his tongue out for. Married her, didn’t he? She must be worth quite a few bob now. Careful bloke like him would’ve been insured to the hilt. And the super. Politicians have always got a shitload of that.’ He chugged on his can. ‘Oh, yeah. She’d pay almost anything, I bet, to preserve Charlie-boy’s good name.’

  He stayed in his cage as I walked up the aisle of worthless trash. As I neared the door, he called out.

  ‘Don’t get any smart ideas. They’re well stashed. And if I see you or anyone else around the place, the deal’s off.’

  When I looked back at the shed from the kerb, he was standing at the back corner, his coat drawn around him, watching me go.

  Fliteplan Travel operated from a low-rise art deco apartment block in St Kilda Road, the vestige of a bygone era on an avenue of glass-clad office buildings. The elms were shedding their foliage and eddies of brittle brown chaff swirled around the angular metal sculptures in the granite forecourt of the advertising agency next door.

  I climbed the stairs to the second floor, found the flat with the sign on the door, gave a light rap and went straight in.

  Fliteplan did most of its business over the phone, so Margot hadn’t wasted any money on décor. The living room doubled as her office, and I could hear muted female voices and computer tapping noises from the direction of main bedroom. A big w
indow overlooked Fawkner Park, level with the treetops, and the wall of the kitchenette had been replaced with a laminex bench.

  Margot was sitting at her table, working her way through the mail. She’d painted up and fluffed her hair, but her face was still drawn and a bit emptied-out. She looked up and gave me a convalescent smile.

  ‘Murray, love,’ she said. ‘What a pleasant surprise.’

  ‘A surprise,’ I agreed sombrely, ‘but not too pleasant, I’m afraid.’ I shut the door leading towards the rooms where the staff were working. ‘I’ve just been to see Sid Gilpin.’

  Margot cocked her head sideways and stared at me, mystified.

  I sat down at the table. The neat piles of envelopes were the same sort as I’d seen at the house. Condolence cards. Margot had been slicing them open with a letter opener and making a list.

  ‘He’s all hopped up,’ I said. ‘Mad as a cut snake. He showed me his so-called evidence of corruption at the Municipals. It’s a couple of old bankbooks. One in Charlie’s name, the other in Barry Quinlan’s. Substantial sums were deposited in the months before Merv Cutlett’s death, then withdrawn immediately afterwards.’

  Margot gave me a blank look and shrugged.

  ‘You don’t know anything about this?’

  She shook her head. ‘You told me nobody was taking Gilpin seriously.’

  ‘That might change.’ There was no point in pussy-footing. ‘A journalist, Vic Valentine, has taken an interest.’

  The thin wash of colour drained out of Margot’s face. ‘The crime reporter?’

  ‘He’s not a bad bloke, as journalists go,’ I said. ‘Gilpin tried to flog him the corruption story but Valentine gave him the bum’s rush. Since then, unfortunately, another angle has come up. Valentine’s got inside information on the state of the remains. The forensics suggest that Cutlett was shot, then dumped in the lake.’

  Margot furrowed her brow. ‘Shot?’

  ‘There’s a hole in the skull, apparently.’

  ‘A bullet hole?’

  ‘It’s absurd, I know.’