Ecstasy Lake

by Alastair Sarre

  He leaned back. ‘If you say so. It’s a piece of piss; the security there is lame as. If you’re the first person there in the morning you key in a code and a little metal door opens in a panel. Inside that is a key. You swipe your security card to get into the foyer, and then you use the key to unlock the office.’

  ‘Okay. So how do we break in?’

  ‘Not “we”, me. You aren’t going anywhere near the place, you fucken amateur. You and your personal gang war can stay right away.’

  ‘Fine, I’m happy with that. Tell me anyway.’

  Shovel stared at me for a moment, or more accurately at my nose. Then he leaned forward again. ‘Well, after you left last night to get your fucken nose relocated I hung round for a while and watched. The cleaner we saw finished at eleven. He cleans all the offices. He probably has his own security card, which he uses to get through the sliding door into the foyer. Once he’s inside he turns off the alarm. He must turn off the main alarm and the individual office alarms at the same time because he just unlocks each office when he’s ready to clean it. He has keys for all the offices. He cleans the two upstairs first and then the two downstairs. He does Black Hill last. So all I gotta do is get inside while he’s upstairs, do my stuff and get out before he comes downstairs.’

  ‘That’s assuming he uses the same routine every time. For all you know he alternates—does upstairs first one day, downstairs first the next.’

  Shovel shook his head. ‘No, people tend to stick to their routines. I bet he does it the same way every fucken day. But even if he does change it round, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘So what’s your plan?’

  ‘The first thing I gotta do is get the Black Hill key. To do that I need the code.’

  ‘How do you get that?’

  Shovel smirked. ‘Already got it, haven’t I? Last night after the cleaner left I set up one of them cameras you gave me so I could watch the keypad. I just mounted it on the wall of the entranceway. I parked right out front, in me van, and watched it all on me little screen. The first person to arrive this morning was a sheila with frizzy orange hair. She’s got a face like a fucken dead fish. She arrived on foot; probably she catches the tram and gets off at the Greenhill Road stop. She keys in a code and the little panel springs open. I’ve got the camera in the perfect spot and can see everything, down to the colour of her fingernails. Orange, by the way. They match her hair. And I can see which numbers she presses. Then she swipes her card and the sliding door opens and she unlocks the Black Hill office.’

  ‘So to get the key, all you have to do is key in the code.’

  ‘Correcto.’

  ‘And how do you get into the foyer?’

  ‘I get meself a security card.’ He smirked again, suspiciously.

  ‘How would you do that?’

  He reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a plastic card. ‘Already got one, haven’t I? Ask me how I got it.’

  ‘Jesus, Shovel, I didn’t realise giving you ten thousand dollars was going to be such hard work. How did you get the damn thing?’

  ‘Well, I watched Dead Fish Girl from the window of me van and I saw that she put the card in her handbag. I hung round and waited to see if she went out for lunch, and she did and she brought her bag. She didn’t even zip it up. She went to the local caff and had a sandwich and read a magazine. I engineered a little diversion and while she was looking at that I nicked the card from her bag. It wasn’t hard.’

  ‘Not for an artist like you.’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘What was the diversion?’

  ‘You don’t want to know. Look in the paper tomorrow.’

  ‘Fine. So you’ll install the gear tonight?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll do it while the cleaner is upstairs. As I said, that’s the best time for it.’

  ‘But if you have the security card, the code and the key, you could do it anytime. You could do it in the middle of the night, and then you don’t risk being sprung by the cleaner.’

  Shovel gave me a smile heavy with condescension. ‘Yes, I could do that. But did you hear me when I said the cleaner turns off the alarms? I don’t know the codes for those. Even if I use a key, the alarms will go off as soon as I go in.’

  ‘Alright. Sorry.’

  ‘Plus if anyone looks at the entry logs and sees that someone went into the office at two in the fucken morning they’re going to want to know why. If I go in when the cleaner is there, no one will raise a fucken eyebrow.’

  ‘Fine, Shovel, you’ve got me.’

  ‘So I go in while the cleaner is upstairs. Alright? I should have about an hour. There’s only a couple of security cameras and they’re easy to get round. I’ve even got hold of an outfit like the cleaner’s so if the cameras catch me or anyone sees me through the window they’ll just think I’m tidying the fucken place.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘As if.’

  ‘And what happens when Dead Fish Girl looks for her card in the morning?’

  ‘For no extra charge I’ll put it back in her bag before she notices. Just a matter of bumping into her when she walks to the office.’

  ‘You’ve got it all figured.’

  ‘I have. As opposed to you.’

  We arranged to meet again the following day so that Shovel could tell me in painful detail how well the job went and I could pay him the rest of his fee.

  Back in the office, Tasso was nowhere to be found. Fern was steaming quietly.

  ‘I don’t know where he goes,’ she said. ‘He just disappears.’

  I thought it likely that he was in a hotel room somewhere getting steamed up with a woman he’d met in a lift or a bar, but didn’t say so.

  ‘That’s the problem with multimillionaires, you can’t keep track of them,’ I said.

  She mumbled something. It sounded like, ‘One day he’ll wake up minus a ball.’

  Tasso turned up an hour later and poked his head into my office.

  ‘Not busy tonight, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. We’re having dinner with the minister.’

  ‘Alright. By the way, can I have a bit more of that cash you were handing out yesterday?’

  Tasso hardly changed expression. ‘Sure.’ I followed him to the safe.

  Fern somehow got me a place at the head of the queue for an ear, nose and throat specialist, probably by paying a significant sum of money. He took one look at my nose and told me it was broken.

  ‘How did it happen?’ he said.

  ‘Headbutt.’

  ‘I see.’ He didn’t ask any more questions. He used a device to look into my eyes, and made me move my eyes from left to right and up and down.

  ‘Your eyes are alright,’ he said.

  He used another device to look into my ears. Then he looked up my nostrils with a third device that looked and felt like a mediaeval torture instrument, and with his gloved fingers he felt my nose and the bones on my face. He probed inside my mouth to see if any teeth were loose. He thought for a while and then told me he could straighten the nose on the spot. He gave me a local anaesthetic but it still hurt when he shoved it back into place.

  ‘You’ll feel pain for a few days,’ he said. The thought seemed to bring him pleasure.

  16

  The Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, who was also the Deputy Premier, carried weight, physically and metaphorically. He wasn’t obese, but he had substantial middle-aged padding and a fat face. His short, dark hair looked dyed, and he had the air of someone who was enjoying his moment in the sun. Tasso, Fern and I met him and his adviser, a serious-looking man with the complexion of an oyster whose name I didn’t catch, at the city’s most prestigious restaurant. It specialised in food and wine sourced solely within the state. We commandeered a private room and sat at a round table.

  ‘Call me parochial,’ said the minister, ‘but I think this state has the best food and wine in the world.’

  ‘That doesn’t make you paroch
ial,’ said Tasso, ‘just a good politician. But I’ll back you up. We eat and drink well in this state.’

  The minister patted his belly. ‘You can tell I do.’ There was some jolly laughter. We studied our menus. I ordered Coffin Bay oysters and Coorong flounder.

  ‘I know you can’t allow me to pay for you tonight,’ said Tasso. ‘But at least let me get the wine.’

  ‘Sure,’ said the minister, without looking up from the menu. ‘I’ll probably be mainly on the water tonight, anyway.’

  ‘I’ve asked the waiter to prepare separate bills,’ said Tasso.

  ‘Great,’ said the minister, still not looking up. I was watching Tasso and he winked at me and I cottoned on. To avoid corruption, the minister and his advisor would pay for their own meals—or at least for their modest mains and maybe a couple of bottles of mineral water. Tasso would order everything else and probably double up on a few things. The minister and his sidekick would end up with a sumptuous feed, plenty to drink, and a modest little receipt they could wave around to prove that not only were they above corruption, they were also frugal in their habits. Tasso had the wine list, and he rattled off the names of three McLaren Vale reds to the waiter. He also ordered every entree on the menu and a couple of extra mains. Soon we all had food and wine in abundance. The minister gave up the idea of sticking to water early on, and he assumed a monopoly on a two-hundred-dollar bottle of wine.

  ‘Hear you were at White Pointer during the brawl the other night,’ he said through a quantity of Gawler River quail. Tasso raised an eyebrow. The minister downed his mouthful with the help of a swig of wine. ‘I was police minister for nearly five years and I know the police commissioner well. He lets me know when things happen that might affect my portfolio.’

  ‘Steve and I were there,’ said Tasso. ‘But we left before the worst of it.’

  The minister looked at me. ‘Is that how you got the nose job?’

  ‘I guess it’s related.’

  ‘Well, be bloody careful. You don’t want to get mixed up in a gangland feud. They can get nasty.’

  ‘No doubt. That’s what I told the cops. I don’t want to get mixed up.’

  ‘It’s all about drugs, of course.’ The minister dabbed the corners of his mouth with his serviette and reached for his wine glass again. ‘Drug manufacture and distribution requires organisation, which requires gangs. Gangs spring up, and then they fight among themselves over who controls what.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s personal, too,’ said the advisor. ‘Rules are violated, gangs split up, girlfriends swap partners, mates turn on mates.’

  ‘And we have the best gangs in the world,’ said the minister, ‘although that might just be me being parochial again.’ We all laughed, the minister most of all. ‘What’s your involvement, Steve? Drugs, or personal?’

  ‘Personal, Minister.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ The minister looked at his advisor. ‘A woman. Fighting over a woman is even more dangerous than fighting over drugs.’ The advisor nodded. ‘What do you think, Fern?’ The minister had been eyeing her for a while. ‘I suppose you have men fighting over you all the time.’

  ‘Not really, Minister,’ she said. She flicked her eyes at Tasso.

  The minister gave a loud laugh. ‘Of course you do.’

  ‘Perhaps drugs should be legalised,’ I said. ‘Might stop a lot of crime.’

  ‘Ah, don’t go there, Steve,’ said the minister. ‘It’s not going to happen, not in our lifetimes, or at least not until the Americans do it, and that’s not likely. Not with the right-wing loonies they have over there.’ He made a show of looking under the table. ‘Any microphones around here?’ He looked at the advisor, who gave a shrug. ‘I can’t say I disagree with you, but it’s complicated.’

  There was more chat, more eating and especially more drinking. Then Tasso said: ‘Thank you, Minister, for taking the time in your busy schedule to meet with us.’

  ‘Spare me the crap, Tasso.’

  Tasso laughed. ‘I just wanted to meet with you informally to get to know you a bit better. We’re not looking for special favours.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said the minister. ‘And none will be granted. But, as you know, my government wants to encourage investment.’ He gave a fat-cheeked chuckle. ‘There you are, I’m talking crap now. Just let me say, assuming again there are no microphones under the table, I am prepared to do all I can to help you on your way. If it will benefit the state, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Not so long ago we were on the cusp of a mining boom here.’

  ‘So I heard.’

  ‘Then it all turned to shit.’

  ‘Just our luck,’ said the advisor. ‘Our mining boom was over before it started.’

  ‘Tasso, you just moved here from WA, right?’ said the minister.

  ‘That is correct, Minister.’

  ‘So you’ve seen a mining boom up close.’

  ‘I have. It was a beautiful thing. Before the bottom fell out of the iron-ore price.’

  ‘It did the right thing by you,’ I said.

  Tasso grinned at me. ‘It did.’

  ‘Well, I’m sick of watching my bloody counterparts from Western Australia and Queensland swagger around as if their shit doesn’t stink and their dicks are a foot long,’ said the minister. ‘Pardon the language, Fern.’ Fern smiled in a way that suggested she hadn’t been paying much attention. ‘I want my own boom if it’s not too fucken late, pardon me again.’

  ‘Boom boom,’ said the advisor, I wasn’t sure why.

  ‘We will do our best to give you one, Minister,’ said Tasso. ‘A mining boom, I mean.’

  ‘God bless you, Tasso.’ A waiter flitted in and refilled our glasses. Tasso asked him to bring another couple of bottles. The minister turned to Fern again. He had no fear. ‘I suppose you would like a nice boom, too, Fern?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Do you always say no?’ An attractive leer was happening on the minister’s pudgy face.

  She smiled sweetly with a trace of cyanide. ‘Only to boors, misogynists and overweight arseholes.’

  ‘Be nice,’ said Tasso. But the minister was unfazed and his leer was undeflected. ‘Doesn’t that rule out just about all men?’ he said.

  ‘Just about.’

  ‘So young and so cynical. And so beautiful, if I may say so.’

  ‘You may not, Minister.’ Fern gave him another cyanidal smile. The minister turned back to Tasso and waggled his eyebrows at him in what he might have thought was a collegial way. Tasso didn’t waggle back.

  ‘So tell me,’ said the minister to Tasso, ‘what’s the story with your mate? The one who died, I mean. Everyone is assuming that you and he made some sort of deal.’ He belched into his serviette. ‘Sorry he got killed, of course.’

  ‘Thank you, Minister,’ said Tasso. ‘Mick Hiskey was his name.’ He repeated the line he had given Tarrant about Hiskey wanting work.

  ‘No one seems to believe it,’ said the minister.

  ‘I can’t help that.’

  ‘There’s a theory going round that Hiskey found something. Something big.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Yes. Is it true?’ He held his hands up. ‘No, you don’t have to answer that. Actually, I don’t want to know.’

  ‘I’m happy to give you an answer, Minister. I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t know when I say that Hiskey was a heroin addict. It made him unreliable, shall we say. But he was a friend and I was trying to help him out.’

  ‘Good for you. And you’re right.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me anything new.’ He laughed, more loudly than he needed to.

  The waiter brought the new bottles, and Tasso signalled for him to give the minister a refill. ‘Let me assure you, Minister, that I’m back in South Australia for the long haul and I’m going to do my bit to make this a wealthy state.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ said the minister. We all
drank to it.

  ‘I want to help make this a great city,’ said Tasso.

  ‘I’ll drink to that, too.’ We all drank again. The minister appeared to reflect. ‘You think this could be a great city?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘The problem with Adelaide,’ said the advisor, ‘is water. We don’t have any.’

  ‘And with climate change we’re going to have even less,’ said the minister. ‘Fucken climate change. What’s with the weather this summer, anyway?’

  ‘Without water we’ve never had much agriculture,’ said the advisor. ‘Therefore, we’ve never got rich. We’re thousands of miles from anywhere. And we’ve missed the fucken mining boom, too.’

  ‘Stop saying that,’ said the minister, shooting him another look. Then he chuckled and winked at Fern. She stared at him without expression.

  ‘Sure, water is a problem,’ said Tasso. ‘But we can solve it. We need to be smart. Smarter, I may say, than we’ve been in the past. We need someone with vision.’

  ‘Which is where you come in,’ said Fern.

  The minister laughed. ‘Touché, Fern, touché.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Tasso. ‘Not to be immodest, but this state needs me. I have the vision.’

  ‘Well, I’ll drink to that, Tasso,’ said the minister. ‘And maybe we should have a chat about your vision one day.’

  ‘Any time.’

  ‘What makes a city great?’ said the advisor.

  ‘History, architecture, natural beauty, culture,’ said Tasso. ‘Any or all of those things.’

  ‘None of which Adelaide has,’ said Fern.

  ‘Now now,’ said the minister. ‘We’re working on all three, let’s say.’

  ‘Four,’ said Fern.

  ‘And let me also say this, Tasso.’ The minister swayed in his seat, just a little. ‘If you need any help, any help with your current venture, juss lemme know.’

  ‘I will, Minister,’ said Tasso.

  ‘We stand again on the cusp of a mining boom in this state,’ said the minister grandly, raising his glass. ‘Not withstanding gloomy dick over here.’ The minister waved his hand at his advisor.