Bright City Deep Shadows

by Graham Storrs

  I’d previously only known the area as a long row of retail outlets and engineering works on the main road and the small airfield tucked away behind them. Archerfield Enterprises Ltd., was a two-storey, white-painted building, with a dozen or so cars in the car park in front of it and a massive plastic archer logo that was way too big for the building. I drove past, slowly, telling myself I was doing reconnaissance, but, in reality, just stalling. There was a very nice Jaguar saloon parked near the entrance, as well as a couple of other expensive-looking European cars. Anning and Chelsea may have stinted themselves to build their businesses, but I had the strong impression that was not the case with Mr. Lee.

  Telling myself to stop pratting about, I parked near the Jaguar and went into the building. Instead of the relaxed, open-plan office I was used to, I found myself in a small reception area with a desk, a gorgeous young receptionist, another outsize archer logo and, to my left, a solid, windowless door.

  “I’d like to see Noah Lee,” I said, pleasantly.

  “Do you have an appointment?” the receptionist asked, just as pleasantly.

  “I’m afraid not. Could you ask him if he’ll see me anyway?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Lee doesn’t see anybody without an appointment.”

  “I’ve come a long way,” I lied. “Could you at least ask him?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Lee is out at the moment.”

  “Really? When will he be back?”

  “If you would just make an appointment...”

  “It’s all right, I’ll wait.” I looked around but there were no chairs in the little room.

  The solid door clicked and opened. A young Asian man came through and closed the door behind him. He was dressed in a black suit and red tie but he did not look at all like a businessman. His brows were heavy, as was his build, and his nose seemed not just to have been broken but mashed repeatedly. If he’d had the word “Bouncer” tattooed on his low brows, he could not have been more obvious. He didn’t look at me but at the receptionist.

  “This gentleman would like to see Mr. Lee,” she said, pertly. “I told him Mr. Lee was not available without an appointment.”

  The bouncer turned to me, looked me up and down and said, “What’s your name, mate?”

  “Alfred Whitehead.”

  “You a cop?”

  “No.”

  “You press?”

  “No, I just wanted to talk to—”

  He stepped forward. “OK, you should go now.”

  I thought about arguing but not for very long. “Fine,” I said and left. The bouncer stood in the doorway and watched me drive away. I went back to the café and mulled over what had just happened while I ate a soggy muffin and drank a surprisingly good cappuccino. Perhaps Noah Lee was chronically shy, or chronically busy. More likely, the business he was in involved setting bouncers on uninvited guests. Maybe Lee was Mr. Big.

  It occurred to me that it was exactly this kind of blind, intuitive leap that I’d been berating Ronnie about the last time we met. All I actually had on Lee was that his company did business with Anning and he was in the gambling business – an industry I had always associated with corruption and crime. It really wasn’t much. The bouncer’s behaviour had been weird but maybe they had some legitimate reason to keep Lee away from random callers with no appointments. It was also true that Archerfield didn’t actually do the bookmaking – as far as I knew – they just processed the bets with their software. There was probably some big, legitimate bookie behind them, setting the odds, handling the money, covering the risk. I should probably look into that and find out if that was true because, if the next step in the chain was Ladbrokes, or Golden Casket, or some other corporate giant, my whole house of cards came crashing down – unless Lee had some way of skimming the bets that the corporate auditors hadn’t noticed.

  I decided to make some notes. The café didn’t have wi-fi but I had a good strong phone signal. I downloaded the app I’d seen Ronnie using – it was as good a recommendation as I could get, I reckoned – and fiddled about, learning how to set up folders and make simple notes. By the time I was ready to write down my thoughts, I’d forgotten half of what I’d wanted to record. In the end, my only note was, “Gambling license?”

  I bought one of the soggy muffins and another cappuccino to take away and went back to my car. There was a plumbing place, just opposite Archerfield Enterprises, the kind of place that is mostly for tradies but which has a bit of a showroom for the public too. I parked in their car park, facing the road. I was a little far away but I had an unobstructed view of the entrance and what I guessed was Lee’s Jag. I put my phone on the dash in front of me, ready to take pictures and settled down for a wait. My muffin was long gone, as was the coffee, and I was seriously in need of a pee before anything at all interesting happened. But, when it did, it was a whopper.

  A white Holden RS Cosworth pulled off the road into the Archerfield car park, its big engine growling like a caged leopard. It prowled across the tarmac to the main door and stopped, disdaining the marked spaces. The engine grumbled into silence and the driver and passenger doors swung open. Two men got out. They wore jeans and T-shirts. One had long hair and a beard, The other had a shaven head. They strode into the Archerfield office as if they owned the place. I could just make them out through the glass. Once inside they turned left, towards the inner door, and disappeared from view.

  Well, I guess they had an appointment, I thought.

  Too late, I realised I hadn’t taken their picture. I grabbed my phone, fumbling in my excitement. I launched my news reader by accident, had to wait infuriating seconds while it loaded before I could shut it down again, and finally got the camera going. Hairy and Baldy were already coming out of the door. They were carrying a holdall they had not gone in with. I snapped as many pictures as I could as they got back in the car, revved the engine, made a turn and drove back to the road. I ducked down as they approached, holding the phone up above the dash and kept clicking like a paparazzo until they were gone.

  I scanned through the pictures as soon as they were clear. Most of the ones of them getting into their car were no good. The two thugs were tiny and, when blown up, too blurry. There were a couple, taken with me cowering below the dash, that were just smears or nice shots of clear blue sky. But there, right at the end, was the money shot. Hairy and Baldy, in their car, about to turn into the road, both facing forward and with the registration number perfectly legible. I hadn’t even thought about getting the rego, but there it was, and it was a thing of beauty. I sat in the plumber’s shop car park, grinning at it, my heart still pounding, feeling on top of the world.

  I had to tell someone. I had to tell the police. They’d know what to do with this. They’d look up the rego, find who owned the car, bring in the two thugs for questioning, unravel the whole case. I’d give them the Archerfield connection. They’d give Noah Lee the third degree. They’d get Mr. Big. This time… this time it really was over. And I’d done it. I’d cracked the case.

  In your face, Ronnie Walker! And yours, stupid Reid!

  I looked at the photo and felt a twinge of anxiety. I sent a copy to my cloud storage. This was an incredibly important piece of evidence. I knew I should take it straight round to the cops but, I have to admit, a small part of me wanted to take it to Ronnie, get him back on the case so we could work it all out together and take it to Reid all wrapped up in ribbons. But it was a pretty small part. The rest of me was starting to think my phone had become a hot potato and the sooner I could drop it, the better.

  The rap on the window made me jump like a cartoon cat with its tail in a mousetrap. A man was staring in through my side window. It took me a moment to realise it was Hairy himself. My heart stopped, my breathing stopped, but my body went into overdrive. I lunged towards the other door, only to find Baldy peering in at me. I pressed the starter. I had to get out of there. I yanked the stick into reverse and an alarm went off. I looked at the rear camera and the view was fi
lled with the front end of a white Holden saloon. I was blocked in. How had I let them sneak up on me like that?

  The driver’s and passenger’s doors opened at the same time and I realised that I should have locked them before I started trying to escape. I had the presence of mind to drop my phone onto the floor as a meaty hand grabbed me by the front of my shirt and dragged me out of the car.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Hairy asked, pushing me back against the car.

  “I – I – ”

  “I’ve got the phone,” Baldy called from inside the car.

  “Well?” Hairy insisted, giving me another shove.

  “I’m a reporter,” I said. “I’m doing a story on the gambling industry. Do you work for Noah Lee?” I was so proud of myself for a moment to have invented a cover story and got in character so smoothly. Then Baldy strolled around the car, holding the phone and I realised my invention wasn’t going to last five minutes.

  “Says he’s the press,” Hairy said.

  In reply, Baldy held up my phone to show his friend the photo of the two of them in their car.

  “What the fuck is that then?” Hairy said, slamming me against the car yet again.

  “I was just taking a few pictures. For the piece I’m writing.”

  A fist hit me in the stomach like an explosion. My breath left me in a rush. My legs turned to spaghetti and I fell to my knees.

  “Hey! What the hell’s going on?”

  I turned to look at where the voice had come from but my eyes were watering so much I couldn’t make anything out.

  “Fuck,” Hairy said. “Some fucking do-gooder.”

  “There’s a couple of blokes come out of the shop, too,” said Baldy. “What do you reckon?”

  “Time we were gone.”

  Without another word to me they both walked away, back to their car. I climbed to my feet and wiped my eyes. There were, indeed, two men in the doorway of the plumbing shop. One was making a phone call, presumably to the police. I looked for the other man and had to do a double-take. Ronnie Walker was striding towards my two attackers.

  He reached Baldy, as he was opening the door of the white Holden and, without a second’s hesitation, thumped him hard in the kidneys. Baldy, who had a good few inches on Ronnie and was forty years younger, to boot, turned to face his assailant looking more surprised than injured.

  “Deck the bastard,” Hairy shouted, impatient that his exit was being delayed by what was obviously such a minor inconvenience. Baldy, who was clearly a bit of a body-builder from the way his muscles bulged under his tee, pulled back a fist like a sledge hammer to do just that. I started moving. Ronnie was going to be pulped and some insanely suicidal part of me decided I needed to be there when it happened. Even as I broke into a run, feet skidding on the car-park gravel, I watched in fascination as Baldy’s fist began its strike. Ronnie seemed as mesmerised as I was, he kept his eyes fixed on Baldy’s, as if he was oblivious of the doom that was about to descend on him.

  I blinked and everything changed.

  Ronnie somehow had a hand up, blocking Baldy’s blow. His other hand flashed out and back and Baldy froze, eyes wide, mouth open. Ronnie stepped back a pace and Baldy clutched his throat and sank to his knees, gasping for air. There was a roar from Hairy. The big bruiser leapt over the bonnet of his car and reached Ronnie at about the same time I did. With a forearm that felt like a log, he brushed me aside, sending me sprawling to the ground. I landed close to Baldy who was choking, his eyes bulging. Hairy charged at Ronnie like a bull, a long knife blade glinting in his right hand. Ronnie watched him with that same unnatural calm with which he’d faced Baldy. As the knife came up towards his chest, he swung an open hand, almost casually, and moved Hairy’s arm aside, stepping away to let the bigger man go stumbling past. Ronnie was some kind of martial arts expert!

  The realisation seemed to shake me out of the terror that had gripped me. I glanced at Baldy. He was on his knees, red-faced and coughing. My phone was on the ground beside him. I scrambled to get my feet under me and ran towards him, snatching up the phone as Hairy came back at Ronnie with a wild swing of the knife. The old man didn’t flinch. As soon as the blade passed him, Ronnie stepped in close and hit the big guy in the ribs with a short, fast punch. I wasn’t sure but I thought I heard a rib crack. Hairy staggered back two paces, pain on his face. Ronnie took a fighting stance, feet apart, one slightly back from the other, fists drawn up to his chest, both clenched and ready. He looked like he was made of granite. Hairy, took a long, desperate look at him and made up his mind.

  “Get in the car you useless fucking dick,” he shouted at Baldy, who was just getting to his feet and still not breathing well. Hairy ran round to the driver’s side, clutching his ribs and hung on the door while Baldy climbed in. “Youse bastards are dead men,” he yelled. He got in and they drove away with a lot of engine revving and flying gravel.

  In the sudden quiet, I looked at the two men in the shop doorway. They had been joined by three women. All of them had their phones up and were filming us. All of them were staring at Ronnie. The old copper was still standing as if he was waiting for the two thugs to come back but, with a big sigh, he unfroze, dropped his fists and relaxed. Turning to me, he said, “You OK?”

  My stomach felt like it had been pushed out through my spine, my hands and knees were grazed and bloody where I’d fallen, and there was an electric current echoing around inside my body, but I didn’t even think of complaining.

  “Fucking hell, man,” was all I said.

  Ronnie walked quickly to the car, tipping his head towards the crowd in the shop doorway. “We should probably go. Are you OK to drive?”

  “Yeah, no probs.” I actually felt light-headed and was beginning to tremble all over.

  “Let’s go then.”

  We climbed in and I started the engine. I reversed out of the parking spot but, as I stopped, there was a banging at the window on my side. I almost jumped out of my seat. I turned to find one of the shop guys. I didn’t open the window. He waved a phone.

  “It’s the police. They’re on their way. They say not to let you leave.”

  Ronnie leaned across me. “Wind down the window.” I did. To the man outside, he said, “Tell them thank you for their concern but we won’t be pressing charges.” He smiled a grim smile. “And we won’t be hanging around for those two thugs to come back with a bunch of mates with sawn-off shotguns.” The shop guy went pale and stepped back. I drove way. In my mirror I saw him running back to the shop.

  Chapter Sixteen

  By the time Ronnie and I had reached a café, far from Archerfield, and the waiter had brought over two coffees and two muffins, I was feeling too sick to touch any of it. Ronnie tucked in. He looked and sounded for all the world as if nothing had happened. I hadn’t been beaten up in a car park, and he hadn’t taken down two big thugs like some kind of grey ninja. I was grateful that he wasn’t being chatty because I was furiously working out what had just occurred and I had about a hundred questions I was trying to get straight in my head.

  “Thanks for trying to help,” he said after a while. “I didn’t expect that.”

  I remembered running to Ronnie’s aid and being swatted aside like an annoying fly. “It was nothing,” I said drily.

  “I suppose you’re wondering how come I was in that car park at just the right moment,” he said.

  “No, I’ve worked that one out. You didn’t have a single lead after Anning, so you had no way to move forward. But you knew I wouldn’t really give it up, so you thought your best bet was to tail me and see where I went. Am I right?”

  “Spot on. Nice little park that. The one with all the black swans.”

  I shook my head. He’d been watching me even there. “What I want to know is how you took down those two blokes. They were big and you’re no spring chicken. No offence.”

  “Something I learned a long time ago. It’s like riding a bike.”

  “In the Navy, I’m guessing.”r />
  “The Royal Navy.” He had clearly decided he was going to tell me something about himself for a change. “The Special Boat Service. Heard of it?”

  “Not really. They’re like the British version of the American Navy Seals, hey?” I honestly didn’t know if there was an Australian version. “So you were, like, special forces?”

  He nodded. “I joined the Navy from school. Went into the Marines. Few years later the SBS recruited me.”

  “So you know all that stuff, like, fifty ways to kill a man with just your thumb and all that?”

  He gave me his grim smile again, “It’s only five ways but, yeah, stuff like that.”

  “And now you’re like Mr. Miyagi, or something?” I don’t know why I couldn’t get my head around it. I’d always thought he looked tough enough to pull the heads off grizzlies but this special forces stuff was just too much to take in.

  “If you mean the guy from Karate Kid, I suppose you could say that. Anyway, it’s lucky for you I still keep up the training. Not like I used to, of course, but enough to keep myself fit.”

  “And how does that square with all the pictures of you at dog shows, grinning like a property developer on election night?”

  “What? Trained killers can’t have hobbies?”

  I suppose he was trying to be funny but I wasn’t laughing. “Do the cops know your background?”

  “If they bothered reading my application form, they know I was in the Navy.”

  “So you’re all ‘Who Dares Wins’ and notches on your machine gun?”

  He looked at me darkly. “The motto was ‘Not By Strength, By Guile’ back when I was in the field. You are going to have to get past this.”

  He didn’t mention the notches, I noticed. But he was right, however creeped out I was by Old Moocher suddenly transforming into James Bond’s granddad, I needed to focus on the pressing matters – like the potential repercussions of our little dust-up.