The Brush-Off

by Shane Maloney

  Eastlake was wearing the same Mickey Mouse tie as when I had first met him. He’d pulled it down a little and undone the top button of his shirt. Close up, his eyes were distracted, a little wild. His skin was the colour of putty. His forehead glowed with the slightest patina of perspiration. It was the closest to dishevelled I could imagine him.

  ‘I heard about Karlin,’ I said. By that time, it could hardly have been a secret.

  ‘The bastard,’ said Eastlake, flat and expressionless, almost without rancour. ‘ “No hard feelings.” That’s what he told me. “No hard feelings. It’s just business.” Can you believe that?’

  Karlin was right, I thought. Concentrate on the basics. I wasn’t there to console Eastlake. I had problems of my own. ‘What does this mean for Obelisk?’ I said. ‘For the funds Agnelli invested last Friday?’

  Eastlake seemed not to have heard me. He was leaning out over the edge of the guard rail, looking straight down. ‘See that?’ he said.

  Immediately below us, a drop of two storeys, was a section of mosaic flooring. The newly laid tiles were bright in the half-darkness. The pattern was a cornucopia spilling forth the fruits of abundance. ‘Public art,’ he said. ‘As a major investor, I was able to insist on the inclusion of murals, sculptures…’

  His voice trailed off. He turned and picked up a terracotta tile from the pallet behind him. Casually, he tossed it over the balcony. Twenty-five metres below, it hit the horn of plenty and exploded like a grenade. ‘So Angelo wants his money back, does he? Well, you tell him that he’s not alone. I want my money, too. And I’ve lost a damn sight more than he has.’

  Eastlake threw another tile, then another, flinging them out into the void. Four, five, six he hurled, rapid fire, grunting with the venomous exertion of it. They bounced off scaffolding, struck columns, ricocheted downwards. The harsh clashing of hollow metal and the shattering sound of breaking glass filled the air. Across the reverberating emptiness, well out of range, one part of the shadows seemed lighter. A shape like a man stood immobile, watching.

  As abruptly as it began, Eastlake’s cathartic rage halted. Taking a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, he placidly wiped his hands. ‘Obelisk is finished. As Karlcraft’s principal unsecured creditor, it will be lucky to get ten cents in the dollar.’ Despite his pretence at composure, he was wound tighter than a spring. ‘Obelisk customers, I’m afraid, have done their dough. All thanks to Max Karlin’s cave-in to the banks.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘And to think that only yesterday I was concerned about maintaining the value of his art collection.’

  We had moved to the reason for our meeting. ‘Giles Aubrey died of a fall,’ I said. ‘Or that’s what we’re supposed to think. Personally, I have my doubts.’

  Eastlake smiled thinly, continuing to wipe his hands. ‘And this is why you insisted we meet? Face-to-face, as you put it. So you could share your doubts?’ He put his handkerchief away, did up the top button of his shirt, straightened his neck and slid the knot of his tie into place. The obscure inferences of a nut-case were the last thing Lloyd Eastlake needed at a time like this. This meeting, a pit stop in the journey of life, was now at an end. He turned to go.

  I could see his point. Time to start getting down to detail. ‘I intend to share my suspicions with the police. And, unfortunately, you are involved.’

  That stopped him in his tracks. ‘Me? How?’

  ‘Because of your ownership of a company called Austral Fine Art,’ I said. ‘And because of the political implications arising from its dealings.’

  ‘What’s Austral got to do with Giles Aubrey? What political implications?’

  It was a long story and I had to begin somewhere. ‘This afternoon,’ I said, ‘purely by chance, I discovered that one of the paintings in the Combined Unions Superannuation Scheme art collection is a forgery. A painting supplied by Austral Fine Art. It is quite likely that other works sold by Austral are fakes. Further, I suspect that the person who organised the fraud was responsible for the deaths of both Marcus Taylor and Giles Aubrey. We both know who I’m talking about.’ I leaned back against the guard rail and let the implications of my words sink in. ‘Don’t we?’

  Eastlake stared at me with frank amazement. He tilted his head and searched my eyes, as though attempting to discern my motives. He appeared to conclude that I was stark raving mad.

  It was a perfectly understandable reaction. Not only had he just suffered a reversal of his financial fortunes. Now he was being told that the woman he loved had been taking advantage of him, and that she was suspected of murder.

  ‘These are remarkable allegations,’ he said at last. ‘Can you prove them?’

  I did my best to look sane. ‘The evidence is largely circumstantial at the moment, I admit. But once a proper investigation begins, the outcome will be inevitable. If I felt I could hold off taking my suspicions to the police, I would. But you understand that I can’t be party to concealing activities of this nature.’

  ‘Why are you telling me all this?’ Eastlake was genuinely perplexed.

  ‘Don’t be dense.’ Did he want me to spell it out for him? ‘Think about the political implications of your little peccadillo. You’ve set yourself up as Labor’s man in the arts. You’ll have to immediately resign from the Visual Arts Advisory Panel, the CMA chairmanship and the various other government appointments you hold.’

  Eastlake was utterly incredulous. ‘Have I got this right?’ he said. ‘You’re telling me that you’ve held off informing anyone of your suspicions until you had the chance to ask me to resign my official positions?’

  Not strictly true, but I nodded anyway. ‘I know it’s a case of shutting the gate after the horse has bolted,’ I said. ‘But I think you’ll agree that your position will be untenable once this gets out. The sooner you act the better.’

  Eastlake seemed to give this suggestion some thought. He bent his head and ran a hand slowly through his hair. We were standing about three paces apart and I could see the bald patch on the crown of his head.

  Suddenly, it came towards me. Eastlake’s shoulder rammed full-strength into my upper body. His leg went behind my heels and swept my feet out from beneath me. I tilted backwards, off balance, and felt myself pivoting over the guard rail. One arm flew out wildly, scrabbling for equilibrium. The other shot desperately towards my attacker, my fingers raking the air.

  ‘Oumphh,’ I said, caught in a wave of vertigo. Then I toppled backwards over the rail and pitched weightless into empty space.

  My right hand closed around something soft and smooth. My shoulder joint wrenched violently in its socket, jerking me upright. I was no longer falling. I was dangling in mid-air.

  ‘Urrgh,’ said a voice above me. The thing in my hand was Lloyd Eastlake’s Mickey Mouse tie. Somehow I’d managed to grab it as I went over the rail. I hung from it, one-armed, swinging like a pendulum. My feet scissored the empty air. My free arm flailed upwards. ‘Urggh,’ said the voice again.

  Lloyd Eastlake’s face stared down at me. His lips were purple. His eyes bulged. His windpipe was pinned against the horizontal bar of the rail. My weight was dragging him down, strangling him. The fingers of my left hand found the tie and gripped it. I held fast, two-fisted, and felt the silky noose tighten further around Eastlake’s neck.

  His arms flew over the rail. He grabbed his rodent-infested neckwear and started hauling it upwards, desperately fighting to relieve the pressure. The thin fabric began to slide from my grasp. My elbows sawed against the raw concrete lip of the balcony. My feet windmilled helplessly, two storeys above the hard floor.

  As Eastlake pulled upward, the clenched knuckles of my right hand struck the bottom pipe of the guard rail. I let go the tie and lunged for it. My fingers wrapped themselves around smooth metal. It took my weight. With my left hand I immediately refastened my grip on the tie. But the pipe was too thick for my fingers to encircle. It was already slipping from my grasp.

  All this was happening very quickly. I tri
ed not to look down. I looked up, past the Mickey Mice. Eastlake reared above me, his throat now clear of the top rail. One hand was tugging at the middle of his tie, the other was clawing at the knot. Spit was dribbling from his lips. His eyes were utterly whacko. He had tried to kill me and now both of us would die.

  Not if I could help it. I released the tie with my left hand and grabbed the bottom rail. Eastlake flew backwards, out of sight. Now I had the rail by both hands, I began to haul myself upwards. Overarm chin-up. Never my best event. My bicep muscles quivered. They felt like jelly. My cheek grazed the concrete rim. Then my chest. Then my sternum. It was like trying to climb out of a swimming pool without the resistance of water to push back against. I twisted and jived in mid-air, struggling to swing a leg up over the edge of the balcony.

  Now I could see Eastlake. He had collapsed on his backside. His hands tore at the garrotte around his neck. He sucked at the air and wiped his spit-flecked lips with the back of his hand. His palms went flat to the floor and he began to lever himself upright. His mouth was a smear of murderous intent. One swift kick and I’d be cactus.

  ‘Wait,’ I wheezed. If I could buy a few seconds, I might get my arm over the rail. ‘Fiona Lambert’s not worth killing me to protect. She’s just using you. She got a cut of the Szabo deal. Karlin was in her flat this afternoon, just before you. Making the pay off. She knew he was leaving the country and didn’t tell you.’

  Eastlake was back on his feet, dusting off his pants. He took two steps towards me and raised his foot.

  ‘You wanted proof,’ I grunted, my knee finally finding the edge of the balcony. ‘Look in her flat. You’ll find a Karlcraft shoebox full of cash.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ Eastlake’s voice was a rasp. His heel came down hard on the knuckle of my right hand.

  ‘Arrgghh,’ I screamed and felt my fingers begin to loosen. Scrabbling to shift my balance onto my knee, I heard the sound of running feet. It was coming from below and behind. ‘The cops,’ I winced through gritted teeth, pain throbbing up my arm. ‘I told them I was coming here.’

  It was no use trying to bluff him. Eastlake was beyond reason. His face was a blank mask. His eyes were empty. The sound of running footsteps became a high-pitched twittering. Bats, I thought. The squeaking wheel of a supermarket trolley. A choir of heavenly angels come to carry me aloft. The bells of hell.

  I had, I realised, got it all horribly wrong. Eastlake wasn’t doing this to protect Fiona Lambert. He had his own reasons for wanting me dead. Austral was just as much his scam as Lambert’s. Maybe more so. It was he who had killed Taylor and Aubrey. And I was next on his list. That’s why he wanted me to meet him here. You stupid idiot, I thought. You’ve brought this on yourself. You deserve to get yourself killed.

  Eastlake’s heel came down again. One. Two. Both hands. I was going to die. All I had left was a vindictive lie. ‘Your darling Fiona’s fucking Karlin, you know.’

  ‘Liar!’ He pressed the sole of his shoe flat against my chest. His hands curled around the guard rail. With a great heaving grunt, he pitched me backwards. The pipe slid from my faltering grip.

  Once again, I plummeted into the abyss.

  My whole life began to flash before my eyes. It’s true. It happens. A great soft tit filled my mouth. My mother stabbed me with a nappy pin. My first day at school. Sister Mary Innocent raised the yard-long blackboard ruler and brought it down with a mighty whack on the back of my bare legs. My knees buckled and gave out beneath me. I crumpled into a heap.

  I was on a small platform of loose planks. It was the top of a mobile scaffold, the kind painters use to reach really high ceilings. Someone had pushed it beneath me while I was clinging to the railing above. That squealing noise was the rolling of castors. I had plummeted a grand total of perhaps four metres. From above came the sound of running feet. The scaffolding tower began to tremble and sway. Either we were having an earthquake or someone was climbing rapidly up the ladder braced to its side.

  Adrenalin surged through my veins. My fight or flee reflex went into overdrive. There was nowhere to flee to. Rolling up into a crouch, I grabbed hold of the nearest cross-piece of scaffolding. Wincing at the jolt of pain in my fingers, I braced myself for action.

  A hand closed around the top rung of the ladder. Then another. I saw a chunky gold pinky ring. Spider Webb was coming to finish me off.

  Webb’s head appeared, sunglasses pushed up on top of his sleek hair. Bobbed down like a Cossack dancer, I kicked out at his head.

  I missed. Spider put his forearm up and easily deflected the blow. ‘Fuckwit,’ he snarled. ‘Thought I told you to stay out of this.’ He cocked his head, motioning me to silence. Rapidly retreating footfalls reverberated off plywood walls. Eastlake was high-tailing along the access walkway. Spider’s head disappeared. He was clambering back down the ladder. It was all very hectic and not at all self-evident.

  ‘Wait,’ I blurted. Would somebody please tell me what the hell was going on? Creeping forward on hands and knees, I peered over the edge of the tower. Spider slithered to the floor. Weaving his way between drums of pre-mixed grouting, he sprinted towards a stairway leading to the upper concourse.

  Whatever the hell was happening, I had no desire to be left alone. Not with Eastlake still rampaging around the joint. Not this far from terra firma. I swung myself down onto the rungs of the ladder and gingerly climbed to the ground.

  The ground was good. I liked it a lot. I let its reassuring presence seep upwards through the soles of my shoes. I was shaking like a leaf. The memory of Sister Mary Innocent had always affected me that way. At the bottom of the stairs was a skip overflowing with carpenters’ off-cuts. As I went past, I grabbed myself a club-sized length of timber. It was only lightweight pine but it had some tremendously reassuring nails sticking out the end. Nobody was going to mess with me.

  Nobody tried. The upper balcony was deserted, the whole site silent as a grave. I loped through the access walkway, headed for the exit. I took the dogleg corner wide, ready for anything. Nothing like being on the receiving end of an attempted homicide to get the old glands pumping.

  Spider was in Little Collins Street. Pedestrians were coursing around him. He’d run hard and was doubled up, catching his breath. The back end of Eastlake’s Mercedes was barrelling through a green light at the far end of the block, past the flashing No Turns sign. ‘Shit,’ said Spider, standing erect and sliding his visor back down over his eyes.

  I had no idea exactly where this big-eared lug fitted into the scheme of things. I no longer flattered myself that I had any grip at all on the scheme of things. The only thing I knew for sure was that Spider Webb had just saved my life. And that gets you a lot of points in my book. I nearly kissed him.

  ‘Fucking psycho,’ I said. ‘Your boss is a fucking psycho.’ Two approaching women, spotting the cudgel in my hand, veered to the other side of the street. A weapon was now probably superfluous. I tossed it back down the alley.

  ‘He is now,’ said Spider, like Eastlake’s behaviour was entirely my fault. ‘And Christ alone knows where he’s headed.’

  Christ and yours truly. ‘Fiona Lambert’s place,’ I said. ‘Bet you anything.’

  ‘Why there?’ Spider didn’t find the idea by any means obvious. ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I told him that his girlfriend’s been cheating.’ I was beginning to get a very bad feeling about having told Eastlake that. And the other bit. The bit about her and Karlin. I’d been thinking on my feet, so to speak. The lie hadn’t bought me any more time. But judging by the expression on Eastlake’s face when he stomped my knuckles, it had certainly hit home.

  ‘Shit,’ said Spider again. ‘No wonder he flipped out.’ His neck went up and his head radared about.

  ‘What’s going on, for Chrissake,’ I demanded. ‘Tell me.’ I was starting to sound like Claire.

  ‘Later.’ Spider took off up the street, head swivelling as he went, like he’d mislaid something. ‘Wait,’ I yelled, and headed
after him.

  The rush-hour traffic was beginning to ease, but Swanston Street was still busy. It was the main thoroughfare through the central business district and the route for all cross-town trams. A row of them was banked up at the traffic lights. I was three paces behind Spider and one step ahead of him. Given the rate the motor traffic was inching ahead, there was a better than even chance that a tram would beat a Mercedes to Domain Road. ‘Please, Noel,’ I pleaded. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’

  Spider didn’t answer. He was too busy joining the crowd of pedestrians surging across Swanston Street, weaving through the gridlocked cars towards the green and yellow trams. The foremost was a Number 8. Toorak via Domain Rd, read the destination board.

  Halfway across the street, Spider stopped abruptly and bent to the driver’s window of a black Saab. As I caught him up, he reached inside and snatched a car phone from the ear of the driver and began punching in numbers. The chinless wonder behind the wheel couldn’t believe it. Spluttering, he tried to open his door, demanding his toy back. Spider held the car door shut with his foot and clamped the phone to one of his auricular protuberances. ‘C’mon, c’mon,’ he urged. Then, quickly, ‘He’s headed for Lambert’s place. Get there fast. He’s finally flipped.’

  He tossed the mobile back into the Saab driver’s lap and sprinted for the trams. The lights went green, air-brakes hissed and the front tram lurched forward. Spider swung himself aboard just as the door began to glide shut.

  I wasn’t so fast. I raced alongside and swung myself up onto the running board. The tram was crowded. Standing room only. It crossed the intersection, gaining momentum, headed for Princes Bridge. Faces peered out at me, some amused, some alarmed. The door slid open and a rough hand hauled me aboard.