Shore Leave

by David Whish-Wilson

  Swann watched Cassidy grow larger in his wing mirror. On top of everything else, being seen with Frank Swann would do Cassidy no favours among his peers, and he was careful, looking around the carpark for observers. He leaned down and placed a folder in Swann’s lap, still warm from the photocopier. He looked harried, but determined. ‘Dennis Cord did his time for aggravated sexual assault. It’s in there. Found a girl asleep outside the pub up in Seabird. Raped her, and when she awoke, shut her up by bashing her. Ralph Cord just got out after a three-year stretch for aggravated assault. He’s ex–Junkyard Dogs. Kicked out of the club, would you believe, for being too racist. Took issue with another club member who he suspected of being part-Aborigine. Got a tattoo on his forearm of a lynched black, which didn’t go down too well. Never handed back his patch.’

  ‘Lovely family. Please tell me there are only two brothers.’

  ‘Only the two.’ Cassidy tapped the roof. ‘Got to go. The minister’s reached into his pocket. We’re announcing a hundred thousand reward for information relating to the McGregor and Brayshaw murders. The minister, the commissioner, me. TV tonight.’

  ‘There’s a coffee stain on your tie. Might want to change it.’

  Cassidy looked down his nose at the stain, shaped like a head on the silver and blue striped tie. ‘Smart-arse. Thanks. And by the way, thought you might like to read this, page three.’

  Cassidy reached into his jacket and withdrew a folded Daily News, dropped it in Swann’s lap, turned and left. Swann looked at the picture of the Brayshaw crime scene, over another headshot image of Bernier, appearing every bit the proud new recruit in his pristine whites, a dutiful confidence in his eyes, the black neckerchief tied with a square knot, now marked with a superimposed red arrow.

  Swann turned to page three, saw the sketch done by Maddie of Francine and her cat, the rose and poem. Instead of a description of Kerry Bannister, and her brothel, as he expected, the piece started with, ‘My guide is Frank Swann, ex-detective and superintendent. Mr Swann grew up in the streets of Fremantle, employed first as a newsboy before graduating to working as a runner for the brothels on Bannister Street, taking orders for sly grog, condoms and cigarettes. Mr Swann takes me to the Ada Rose brothel, where he’s a good friend of the proprietor, Ms Kerry Bannister, a formidable woman in her sixties with a sharp sense of humour. The pair met when Frank Swann was a ten-year-old sly-grog runner and she was a prostitute in a brothel called Aphrodite’s …’

  Swann folded the paper and tossed it onto the seat beside him. It wasn’t a problem, Maddie saying all that, although Swann was going to have to be clear with her about what was, and wasn’t, on the record. She had asked him the questions on the walk to the brothel, and he’d answered them, not realising that he was part of the story.

  Still, Kerry was going to like the trip down memory lane, despite the sad circumstances, with the piece going into some detail about her history. Maddie had been respectful and matter-of-fact rather than sensationalist, and Kerry’s portrait of Francine McGregor gave a good picture of the complicated person behind the worker in the oldest profession.

  38.

  Devon Smith heard Lenny’s cartoon chuckle inside the kitchen entrance and checked his watch. The last three trips Marcus and Lenny had made with the service trolley had taken forty seconds, thirty-five seconds and fifty seconds. Devon dragged another pork-heavy tray and got it ready to transfer. The pair exited the entrance with their rolling hustler walk now amplified, and Devon saw why. A young white female kitchenhand in the universal check trousers and apron followed behind, pushing a service trolley that was large enough to take two trays, at least.

  Bitch.

  Now Devon had two sets of potential witnesses to worry about. His heart rate increased and he felt the pressure of blood in his cheeks. His palms were clammy and his mouth was dry. There were only five trays left and two of them were his. He couldn’t help glancing again at the parked Ford transit van two spaces down from them, as arranged with the biker chief. Devon looked deeper through the alley but he couldn’t see anyone watching. There were no security cameras covering the service alley. Marcus and Lenny pushed the trolley over and Devon lifted the trays one at a time, the two sailors sharing a joke with the young Aussie woman who Devon noticed was glancing at him, his muscular arms taut when he hefted the trays. She was cute, but Devon knew that if he showed the slightest interest then the two sailors would start ragging on him. He had other priorities, and didn’t meet her eye, even as Marcus and Lenny began to lead their trolley away. She pushed her trolley closer and waited for him to load the final three trays. Devon loaded the first, making sure that it wasn’t marked with his X, then nodded her toward the door.

  ‘You don’t want me to take them other two?’

  She had a singsong voice and he realised that she was the first woman who’d spoken to him in three months, except for the Vinson’s doctor when he’d burned himself that time. The doctor had seen his tattoos and kept her conversation to the minimum.

  ‘Naw, they’ve spilled a little. I’ll clean ’em up and bring ’em in myself.’

  ‘I can do that. We can do it together. Before we put ’em in the oven, to warm with the others.’

  Devon tried to be polite, but ten seconds had passed. ‘Said I’d do it, lady. You get back inside.’

  He watched the hurt expression on her face turn to hatred.

  ‘No worries. Was just trying to help.’

  She began to wheel away the trolley and he glanced at his watch. Fifteen seconds. He ran to the transit van and cracked its back door, saw the canvas bag that he hoped contained fifteen thousand dollars, as arranged. Devon ran back to the bus and took the first tray and ferried it to the van, tipping its contents onto the black carpet. Ran back to the bus and did the same with the final tray, the metal clanking of the spilling weapons loud in the alley. He looked at his watch and saw that forty seconds had passed. He heard Lenny’s exaggerated laughter, returning. There wasn’t time to take the money. He used his knee to push the transit door shut. Rushed to the dumpster across the alley and lifted the lid, pretended that he’d just tipped the trays’ contents inside.

  Marcus and the young woman were first through the door, followed by Lenny. ‘Aw fuck man, what you gone and done now?’

  Devon had meat juices down the front of his trousers. ‘The fuckin trays tipped over. Lost the whole shittin lot.’

  Lenny laughed, because of the presence of the woman, but Marcus was staring at him hard. That street-sense of his. The woman, too, was looking at the trays and the bitumen beside the bus. There weren’t any meat juices or pieces of shredded pork on the ground.

  ‘Just let me clean up and I’ll join you inside. Won’t be a minute.’

  Devon closed the dumpster lid, hoped that Marcus wasn’t going to stretch out his humiliation by coming over and looking.

  ‘Naw son, Wiggs wants us now. Runnin order and whatnot. Then we got a fifteen-minute break. Sharon here’s gonna show me an Marcus round the place. You can clean up then. Them two trays will need washin for a start.’

  ‘Yessir,’ Devon replied, letting his sarcasm hang there. He didn’t like the look in Marcus’s eyes, reading the mismarriage of Devon’s voice and his hands that were beginning to tremble at his sides. Devon wiped his palms on his trousers as though they were dirty. He was lucky that Lenny was so excited by the presence of the woman. ‘Sharon, you ever heard the expression dumb-ass Nazi peckerwood before?’

  Devon put his head down and carried the empty trays past Marcus at the door, following the others into the vast industrial kitchen where Wiggs and the Vinson chefs and their Australian counterparts were waiting for him. Wiggs looked at the empty trays and said nothing, but didn’t bother hiding the contempt in his eyes.

  ‘Now that Gomer Pyle has joined us,’ he began, ‘the running order is as follows …’

  Devon listened to Wiggs drone on, the jovial self-importance in his voice more grating than usual. Devon thought abou
t asking permission to go to the toilet, but he knew that Wiggs would refuse, and in any case, it was nowhere near the service entrance to the alley. The nerves in Devon’s chest and belly were threatening to overwhelm him. His hands were visibly trembling now and a blush had settled across his face and neck. Marcus was still staring at him with a detached curiosity in his eyes, but Lenny was on the verge of chuckling, assuming that Devon was angry as a result of his earlier insult. Finally, Wiggs put down his clipboard and began to shake the hands of the Australians while the American seamen took out cigarettes and combs and made their way toward the alley. Devon followed, sick to his stomach. He saw that the Australian woman was beside him.

  ‘I didn’t mean to make you angry,’ she said. ‘Those guys are jerk-offs. It can’t be –’

  Devon didn’t hear the rest of what she said, just felt the vibration of her voice combine with the roaring of blood in his ears as he walked into the alley and saw that the white Ford van was gone.

  39.

  There were a few Nongs working on their bikes in the shadows of the clubhouse walls, but one by one they stood and wiped their mitts on oily rags, began to give Swann the slow handclap. Swann had been buzzed in almost as soon as he pulled in front of the clubhouse gates painted with the skull and double piston symbol of The Nongs.

  The handclapping continued on his walk to the clubhouse bar and offices, and included a few unlikely bows and doffing of imaginary hats. The Nongs were clapping him because they believed that he’d almost single-handedly destroyed their main rivals, the Junkyard Dogs, in a shootout those five years ago. A detective inspector, Ben Hogan, had been killed in the same shootout, and those Dogs who weren’t wiped out in the gunfire were cleaned out by Hogan’s colleagues following his funeral. Fitted up and locked away or exiled interstate, never to return. Some had just gone missing. That Swann carried Junkyard Dog buckshot in his body was well known, as reported in the papers at the time. The Nongs had swooped in and taken over most of the Dogs’ financial infrastructure: the tattoo parlours, bike shops, hotels, speed labs and grow houses. The Dogs endured as a one-precenter club, but their membership had shrunk to fewer than a dozen men.

  The truth was that Swann was so injured by the shotgun blast on the Kwinana Freeway that he’d only played a small part in the shootout, but The Nongs and in particular their president, Gus Riley, didn’t need to know that. Riley, like most people in their world, also believed that thirteen years ago Swann had gunned down the head of the CIB, Donald Casey – another false belief that had served Swann well.

  The door to the clubhouse bar and offices was opened by Gus Riley himself. His red hair was combed wet and his goatee beard was trimmed.

  ‘Never seen you so cleaned up,’ Swann said as he was led into the bar, pointed to a table. Gus Riley read Swann’s face, took the comment as genuine, and decided to share. ‘Things are looking up, Swanny. I’ve been wearing lounge suits, meeting with banks. With the opening of the new casino, the Italians are moving out of Northbridge, looking for the next Noah’s ark.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘International operations. Closer ties to the old country, the old families. Instead of laundering money at their gaming tables, they’re reinvesting it overseas. Cocaine into Europe, mainly, I hear. Big new market that they’re determined to own. Leaves us clear to move into the stripper and nightclub scene in Northbridge. Licence to print money, mate.’

  ‘… and launder it.’

  Riley shrugged, took his seat, turned to the young woman at the bar and pointed to the table.

  ‘Not for me,’ Swann said.

  ‘Was wondering. You’ve lost weight. Cancer, or has your liver finally blown up? You used to drink the Jameson like water.’

  It was Swann’s turn to share. ‘Lead poisoning. Those dozens of pellets still in my body, breaking down.’

  Riley whistled. ‘Didn’t know that could happen, Swanny.’

  ‘Me neither. Took a Yank doctor to diagnose it.’

  ‘Makes sense. Now, why you here? I won’t ask what you’re doing with the Yanks, though I can guess. Hope they catch the nigger bastard.’

  It was like that with Riley. Just when you thought you were talking to someone reasonable …

  ‘I’m here about an ex–Junkyard Dog, name of Ralph Cord. Was kicked out of the Dogs, sent down for assault. Just got out of Fremantle.’

  ‘Yeah, I know of Ralph. We looked at him for a while. Why you askin?’

  ‘He was a witness to something, possibly. Cops haven’t been able to interview him, so …’

  ‘… he’s not wanted?’

  ‘No, he’s not. Is he with you? I heard he refused to hand his patch back to the Dogs. Figured the only way he’d survive three years in Freo Prison is if he was protected.’

  ‘We looked at him, like I say. Gave him protection for a few months, but no affiliation. Just wanted to see how he went. We watched him pretty close. He was a good earner for the Dogs, and we thought –’

  ‘Earning how?’

  Riley took a cigar from his denim vest, already guillotined. Put flame to it and huffed, smiling behind the grey smoke. ‘Guns and ammo.’

  ‘Alright. So you watched him swim the goldfish bowl. You take him on?’

  Riley shook his head. ‘Nah. We put him through his paces. He bridged up ok, when threatened. Was staunch with the screws. Did his time like a man.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Yeah, the but. The guy’s no good. A psycho, but not in a good way. Didn’t know he was being watched. Kept trying to play one of us against the other, if you know what I mean. Not for any advantage, though, which is a skillset I admire. Just for his own amusement. When we figured him out, we cut him loose.’

  Swann thought about that. ‘How’d he make it through then? He find new brothers?’

  ‘I’d have to ask.’ Riley turned to the young woman wiping glasses. ‘Bethany, Darryl here?’

  Bethany got the rabbit-in-headlights look.

  ‘Fuck me, Bethany. Go and fuckin look for him.’

  Riley turned the cigar on the edge of the table, peeling ash. ‘The strippers. They aren’t the brightest. We get ’em to do a shift here a week, remind ’em of who they work for. But Darryl, he’s your man.’

  ‘She looks like she knows him. Doesn’t like him.’

  Riley laughed. ‘Well, the Dazzler just got out of Freo too. He’s makin up for lost time, shall we say.’

  ‘Right.’ Swann stood, turned to Bethany, who was nearly at the door. ‘Bethany, don’t worry about it.’

  She paused with her hand on the doorknob. Swann’s not the voice of her employer. Riley stood and pushed in his chair.

  ‘It’s alright, girl. Back to drying glasses.’

  ‘When Darryl surfaces,’ Swann said, ‘let me know. I want to –’

  The phone behind the bar rang. Bethany rushed to it, relief on her face. She picked up and pointed to Riley, who smiled, the look of a man expecting good news, more good news.

  Swann took a step to the door, but Riley put up a hand. Swann watched the confidence on his face drain away, replaced by a flush of red anger, rising from his neck to his cheeks. The thing about redheads, Swann thought, watching Riley’s face fill with blood – there’s always fire with the smoke.

  Bethany stood clear as Riley began smashing the receiver on the bar top.

  40.

  When Tony Pascoe called Lightning Resources using the number listed in the White Pages, he got a surprise when Tremain took the call himself. The man’s voice was wary, and his breathing was audible. He sounded a little drunk, at two in the afternoon. Pascoe didn’t know anything about Tremain or his company, although Mark Hurley’s description was there in Tremain’s mouth-breathing and shaky voice. Pascoe didn’t waste any time. Without introducing himself, he told Tremain that he could help ‘with his problem’. Did Tremain want to meet in person?

  There was a long silence. Finally, Tremain’s fear got the better of him. ‘If this is from Page
or Gooch, I don’t need to be tested. I just need more time.’

  Pascoe laughed. He’d soaked himself with oxygen. His voice was clear and firm. ‘No, mate. Page and Gooch are scum. They’re the problem, and I’m the solution. Now, do you want to meet?’

  Tremain wanted to meet. At his office. Soon as possible.

  Pascoe couldn’t wear the white overalls. Sarani led him into the room she shared with Sat Prakash. Pascoe didn’t know why he expected otherwise, but it was clean and uncluttered, all bare wood and white-painted surfaces, flowers on the dresser. Sarani didn’t want him to leave the house after his morning’s near miss, but he didn’t have a choice. She showed him the clothes in their cupboard, took out a white dinner jacket and put it against him. Pascoe shook his head and she laughed, passed him a clean white shirt and a light grey suit. Sat Prakash was tall and thin, like Pascoe, and the suit wouldn’t look too baggy on his old bones.

  Pascoe checked his face in the rear-view a final time. There was no blood on his lips but he could taste it in his mouth. He climbed out of the van and slipped into the jacket, looked down at his polished boots. He wasn’t kidding anybody, but the clothes fitted well.

  Tremain’s Subiaco office was on the ground floor, indicated by a cardboard insert in the postboxes by the entrance. Pascoe went inside and found the room at the end of a dingy corridor, knocked twice and entered. Again, he expected a secretary but there was only Tremain, who looked exactly like Pascoe remembered him, berated by Page and Gooch at Page’s restaurant those nights ago – short and nervy, hoops of sweat under his armpits, the room smelling of breath mints and cheap deodorant.

  Pascoe braced himself for Tremain’s once-over. He’d put on his most assertive voice on the phone, and he carried it now in his posture, the look in his eyes. Tremain didn’t need to know that minutes ago Pascoe was sucking on an oxygen bottle, coughing into a tissue.