by Peter Temple
No more.
The legs stopped. He had seen Neckhead’s legs.
‘Jesus,’ he said, came down the steps in a rush, swung onto the landing, sawn-off shotgun in his right hand, its ugly pig-nostril muzzles coming around to face me.
I shot him in the chest, twice, a third time. His eyes registered something, he bounced against the railing, mouth open, made a sound, cheerful, surprised sound, fell over sideways, slid.
I stood there, pistol in hand, feeling sick. The dishcloth was still around my neck. I took it off, used it to wipe the pistol, put it back in Neckhead’s hands again, pressed his fingers, utmost care.
I listened. Nothing but the growl of traffic on Hoddle and Victoria and Wellington Parades, and Miles Davis.
I left the scene of the crimes. Left carefully, in case Bobby had sent more than two people to get me. Not that taking care would make any difference in the long run, the short run even.
He who says Hill says Scully.
I couldn’t kill armies of people.
I went out on the Tullamarine freeway, suddenly hungry, bought a hamburger in the drive-through at a McDonald’s in Keilor, sat in the car park, appetite gone, system flooded with adrenalin, mind lurching between clear and blank.
I hadn’t listened to the Bianchi tape.
I didn’t want to listen to it. I’d left the Radomsky house with it in my hand and what I had done was to telephone Anne Karsh. All the effort to find it, lying to decent people, and then I put it in my pocket, put it out of my mind.
I took the slim plastic box out of my coat pocket, took out the cassette, slid it into the tape player, hit the buttons.
A voice, counting, humming, whistling. Darren Bianchi’s voice.
Silence.
What was he doing?
Testing a wire, that’s what he was doing.
Noise, traffic noise, tinny music, scratchy sounds.
So what’s she supposed to know, I mean, what do I…Bianchi’s voice again. Barely audible against the background sounds.
Know the absolute fucking minimum, anything goes wrong, she knows close to fuckall. Scully’s voice.
Bianchi is wearing a wire, sitting in a car with Scully. His boss, Scully.
Dennis will ring…Bianchi’s voice.
Then Scully: If Howie goes for his walk, only if he’s out of there. Doesn’t go, we wait till he goes somewhere. He goes, we see him, Dennis rings, says he’s coming round. At eight thirty. Now she’s got to wipe that from the tape, get it? Howie hears it, we’re fucked. It’s for fucking Faraday’s benefit.
So Howie doesn’t know. He’s gonna think, who’s at the door?
Darren, don’t worry about that, right? My department. Just one thing the bitch’s got to do, right. Open the garage door at eight thirty on the fucking nail. You make sure she understands that. No fucking margin for error.
Yeah, eight thirty.
Yeah, eight thirty. It’s just a run-through. She keeps her mouth shut, she gets wrapped up, they’ll be out of there, five fucking minutes, less. No way Dennis will know she’s not as surprised as he is. Okay?
Okay.
Something else. You make sure she knows, change of mind now, she’s meat. Too fucking late for that. She’s fucking in. Doesn’t want to do it, she’s seen fucking Daimaru for the last time. She’s fucking sushi. Doesn’t do it right, same thing. Applies to you, too. And me. And fucking Bobby. You don’t know this fucking El G, fucking mad. I know him from way back, kill anything, kill anyone, come in his pants while he’s doing it. Totally fucking crazy, makes snuff movies. Fuck it up, we’ll be fucking snuff stars.
Scuffling noises, car door slamming, Scully saying something inaudible.
The next five minutes of the tape were recorded somewhere noisy with background voices, laughter, scratchings, scrapings, bangings. The pub in Deer Park? Bianchi, low voice, giving Carlie Mance her instructions.
I listened with my head back on the seat, mouth dry, wishing I had something to drink, a cigarette.
Carlie showed no signs of fear, no desire to call it off. Bianchi told her what would happen to her anyway. Her last words were: Darren, tell ’em make sure they don’t put anything over my nose-can’t bear that, can’t even have a pillow over my nose.
Bianchi said: Not a problem. Won’t happen. I’ll tell ’em.
I ejected the tape, put it in its box, put it in my pocket.
Scully. The bastard. Scully and El G. Scully, the deputy commissioner-to-be. Scully, the man who investigated Ned’s complaint. Sitting in that car, talking to Bianchi, he knew that someone-El G, someone-was going to murder Lefroy and Carlie. Murder them, rape Carlie, enjoy it. Film it for future pleasure.
The tape might be enough to nail Scully, but I doubted it. I sat motionless for a while, uneaten hamburger on my lap, staring sightless.
Unfinished business.
I shook myself. Ian Barbie’s suicide was unfinished business. His letter to his daughter said he’d left a suicide note. Where? At his surgery? He hadn’t. Where he lived? He hadn’t. Where he committed suicide? People often did.
I got out the Melways, put on the inside light and found the quickest way to Footscray.
Varley Street, Footscray: one streetlight, icy wind pinning the newspaper pages against the container depot fence, somewhere a door banging in the wind, lonely sound.
I thought I heard them as soon as I stepped into the old loading bay: the sound of a classroom where the teacher has stepped out for a minute, not loud, but unruly, a jostling of voices.
I knew where the sound was coming from. I went across the loading bay, out into the courtyard, turned right and walked towards the glow coming out of a big doorway.
There were four of them upright, around a smoky, spitting fire. Other bodies lay as dead outside the circle, one face down. The fire cast a cruel russet light on wrecked faces, shapeless clothes, a swollen blood-filled eye. Two men who could have been a hundred years old were fighting weakly over the silver bladder of a wine cask, speaking incomprehensible words, neither strong enough to win possession. Someone who could have been a woman was nursing another person’s head in her lap, drinking beer from a can, golden liquid running down a cracked chin, dripping onto the long, greasy grey hair.
‘Robbo here?’ I said.
Only two heads turned, looked at me without interest, looked away.
I went a few steps closer. The smell was overpowering, smoke, wet clothes, other animal odours.
‘Boris here?’ I shouted.
This time a figure to the right of the fire looked at me, dirty bearded face under a beanie, filthy matted jumper like an animal skin. He was drinking a can of Vic Bitter, two more held between his thighs.
‘Fuck you want?’ he said.
I went over to him. No-one paid any attention to me. ‘You Boris?’
He drank some beer, looked into the fire, spat. It ran down his chin. ‘Fucksit you?’ he said, rocking back.
‘You found the bloke hanged himself here?’
He looked at me, trouble focusing. He wasn’t more than thirty years old. ‘Course I fuckin did,’ he said. ‘Fuckin hangin.’
I knelt down. ‘Boris, you took his watch.’
He blinked, looked away, put the can to his mouth, half missed it. ‘Fuckin,’ he said.
‘Boris,’ I said, ‘I don’t care about the watch. Did you take anything else? From the man? From the car?’
His eyes came back to me. ‘Whar?’
‘Did you take anything else from the hanging man? Understand?’
‘Fuckin,’ he said, looked away, head lolled.
I stood up. Some other time perhaps. Not tonight.
I was on my way out when Boris said, quite distinctly, ‘Pay me.’
I stopped and turned, went back. ‘Pay you for what?’
He was holding himself together with great effort. ‘Pay me ’n’ I’ll show you.’
I got out my wallet, found a twenty-dollar note, waved it at him. ‘Show me and I
’ll give you this.’
Boris focused on the note, craned his neck towards it, fell back. ‘Fiffy,’ he said. ‘Gotta be fiffy.’
I offered him the twenty. ‘Show me and I’ll give you another thirty if it’s worth it.’
He put out a hand, black with dirt, fresh blood on the inside of the thumb, and took the note, stuck it somewhere under his jumper. Then he lost interest, studied the beer can.
‘Boris!’ I shouted. ‘Show me!’
His head jerked around, some life in his eyes, drained the beer can, threw it over his shoulder, put the other cans under a coat on the floor. ‘Gimme hand,’ he said, trying to get up.
I gripped the shoulders of his jumper and lifted him onto his feet. He weighed as much as a six-year-old.
‘Over there,’ he said and began to stumble towards the dark left corner of the big space.
I walked behind him. He fell once. I picked him up.
There was nothing in the corner except a rusted sheet of corrugated iron lying on the concrete.
‘Under,’ Boris said, swaying. He put out a hand to steady himself against the wall, misjudged the distance and fell over onto the corrugated iron.
I picked him up again, propped him against the wall.
‘Lift,’ he said, waving vaguely.
I bent down and lifted the corrugated iron, shifted it. Under it I could make out some clothes, two Coles plastic bags, a pair of shoes.
‘Bag,’ Boris said. ‘Gimme.’
I picked up both bags, offered them to him. He focused, put out a hand and knocked one away, almost fell over, took the other one.
He couldn’t get it open, fumbling at the plastic. I helped him. ‘Thangyou,’ he said, put his hand in, couldn’t get hold of what was inside, turned the bag upside down and tipped the contents onto the concrete.
An envelope, A4 cartridge envelope.
I picked it up. It was unsealed. I walked back to the ambit of the firelight. Behind me Boris was making sounds of protest. I opened the flap, took out four or five pages, paperclipped, top page handwritten. I held it up to the light. It began: I am writing this because I can no longer bear to go on living…
I put the pages back in the envelope, went back to Boris, found two twenty-dollar notes, gave them to him.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Gennelman,’ said Boris.
I was in the pub in Streeton, in front of the same fireplace where I’d talked to Ian Barbie’s wife. A tired and dirty man who began the day coming out of fitful sleep in a motel in Penola, out there in the flat vine country, far from home. Sitting in the warm country pub, I could smell myself: sweat, sex, cordite, wood smoke. All curdled by fear. I drank three neat whiskies, dark thoughts.
‘Listen, Mac, I’m closin.’
It was the publican. I knew him, welded his trailer for nothing.
‘Finish this,’ I said.
‘No,’ he said, coming over and putting a half-full bottle of Johnny Walker on the table. ‘Just closin the doors. Sit long as you like, fix it up later. Put the light out, give the door a good slam when you go. Lock doesn’t go in easy.’
‘Thanks, mate.’
‘Back roads, right.’
‘Back roads.’
I drank some more whisky, thought about Lew, Ned asking me to look after him. Lew and the dog, my responsibilities. Lew: mother gone, grandfather gone, just me now. I thought about my life, what it had been for so many years: the job and nothing but the job. Utter waste of time. I didn’t even remember whether I’d loved my wife. Couldn’t remember what it felt like to love her. Remembered that she could give me an erection with one look. What I did know was that all the self-respect that I had lost with one bad judgment had been slowly given back to me by my ordinary life in my father’s house. A simple life in a simple weatherboard house. Working with my father’s tools in my father’s workshop. Feeling his hand in the hammer handles worn by his grip. Walking in his steps down the sodden lane and across the road to the pub and the football field. And knowing his friends. Ned, Stan, Lew, Flannery, Mick, Vinnie-they were all responsible for giving me a life with some meaning. A life that was connected to a place, connected to people, connected to the past.
But now I was back in the old life, worse than the old life because then it wasn’t just me and Berglin. It was me, Berglin and the massed forces of law and order.
It was highly unlikely that my life was connected to the future.
For an hour or so, I slumped in the armchair, drinking whisky, clock ticking somewhere in the pub, lulling sound, sad sound. Fire just a glow of gold through grey. Putting off reading Ian Barbie’s last testament in the same way I’d put off listening to Bianchi’s tape.
Berglin. I needed to talk to Berglin. I got up, stretched, moved my shoulders, pain from tackling Neckhead on the fire escape. I got out the mobile, switched it on, pressed the numbers.
‘Berglin.’
‘Mac.’
‘Mac, where the fucking hell have you been? Point of having a mobile is to have the fucking thing switched on.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Been busy. This line secure?’
‘Well, as secure as any fucking line is these days.’
‘Got a tape. Bianchi, Scully, Mance. Before Lefroy. Bianchi had a wire on him. Insurance.’
Berglin whistled. ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘Where are you?’
‘In the sticks. People are trying to kill me.’
‘Again?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Must be learners. I’ll meet you. Where?’
I thought for a while, gave him directions. It was as good a place as any.
I took cigarettes, matches from the bar and the bottle of whisky.
Back roads, route avoiding anything resembling a main road.
As I turned the corner of the drive, the clouds parted for a few seconds, the half moon lighting up the house at Harkness Park. It didn’t look ghostly or forbidding, looked like a big old house with everyone asleep. I parked around the side, settled down to wait. It would take Berglin another half an hour. I had a sip of whisky, hunched my shoulders against the cold. Tired.
I jerked awake, got out, yawned, stretched, lit a cigarette. It tasted foul, stood on it.
Car on the road. Berglin? Quick driving.
Stopped. At the entrance to the drive.
Typical Berglin. I’d told him to drive up to the house. But Berglin didn’t do the expected. He didn’t drive the same way to work two days running.
I went to the corner of house, looked out between the wall and the gutter downpipe. Hunter’s moon, high clouds running south, gaps appearing, closing, white moonlight, dark. Waited for Berglin.
He was no more than fifty metres from me when the clouds tore apart.
A coldness that had nothing to do with the freezing night came over me.
Bobby Hill, slim and handsome as ever, dark clothing, long-barrelled revolver, man wants a job done properly, has to go out and do it himself.
And behind him, a few paces back, another man, short man, wearing some sort of camouflaged combat outfit, carrying a short automatic weapon at high port, big tube on top.
Clouds covered the moon. Too dark to see the man’s face.
Moonlight again.
Beret on the second man’s head. Turned his head.
Little pigtail swinging.
Andrew Stephens. My visitor in the Porsche.
How did he fit in?
No time to think about that.
The car door was open. I found the box of cartridges under the front seat, moved into the heavy, damp, jungle-smelling vegetation beyond the rotten toolshed.
How many? Just Hill and Andrew Stephens?
It wasn’t going to be only two again.
Escape. Which way?
Down to the mill would be best. Cross the stream above the headrace pond, follow the stream down to the sluicegates. Go around behind the mill, up the wooded embankment. Places to hide there, wait for dawn, ring Stan.
/> The mobile. I’d left it on the passenger seat.
No going back. I was moving in the direction of the site of the house that burnt down, the first house. But the growth here was impenetrable, I’d end up like a goat caught in a thicket.
I had to veer left, pass in front of the sunken tennis court. But to do that I would have to cross the top of the area we had so painfully cleared. In darkness, that wouldn’t be a problem. But if moonlight persisted, I’d have to wait. And they’d be coming…
Steady. They didn’t know which way I’d gone. They’d have found the car by now. It was coal dark. I could be anywhere.
Scully’s words on the tape came into my head:
You don’t know this fucking El G, fucking mad. I know him from way back…
Way back? How far back? From Scully’s days in the country?
El G? El Torro, The Bull. El Greco, The Greek.
The Greek? Who had said something about a Greek recently? Greek. Recently. In the past few days. The past few days were blurred into one long day.
Frank Cullen, man of contraptions: Rick’s tied up with that Stefanidis from over near Daylesford. RSPCA went there, heard he was shootin pigeons. Bloke behind a wall throws ’em in the air, Greek shoots ’em with a twelve bore from about two yards. Sticks it up their arses practically.
Andrew Stephens. Andrew Stefanidis?
Andrew’s father was a good man, fine man, fought with the Greek partisans in the war. Dr Crewe, walking around the lake, talking about Ian and Tony and Rick and Andrew.
Sudden chilling clarity. Andrew Stephens’s father was Greek. He’d anglicised his name.
Andrew Stephens was El Greco, The Greek, close-range shooter of pigeons, maker of snuff movies, organiser of murderous run-throughs.
And then the realisation.
Berglin had always known who El Greco was. Berglin had toyed with me. Berglin had given me to Scully, Hill and El Greco.
Naive. You only know about naive when it’s too late.
Absolute silence.
I walked into something, old fence, some obstacle, small screeching noise.
Something landed in the vegetation near me, sound like an overripe peach falling. And then a thump, no more than the sound of a hard tennis forehand.