BECKER

by Gordon Reid

  ‘Caitlin was my mother.’

  ‘Oh, how amazing! But, please, Bob, what did she do with the money?’

  ‘It took a while. Roderick, of course, challenged the will in court. Christopher had not left a will. He claimed the letter was a fraud—that Caitlin had poisoned Christopher and written the letter. But all the experts proved him wrong. It was his handwriting and the court accepted that it his last testament.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘There were all sorts of debts left over from the great drought from 1898 that went on for ten years. The Federation Drought, they called it. Horrible, devastating. But, in the final wash up, she had some ten to fifteen-thousand pounds.’

  ‘Oh, such a lot of money it must have been in those days?’

  ‘Yes, it was. And she married Walter Elliot.’

  ‘Oh, what a lovely story! And they lived happily ever after? In the big house with the wonderful view of the Elephant?’

  ‘No, no, she sold it. They came up to the Riverina, looking for a new life. And bought a wheat block a mile or so south of Wybilonga.’

  ‘They lived happy ever after on their wheat?’

  ‘For a while, in the twenties. They bought up three other blocks, contiguous. One great big wheat farm, but things were going bad. The market in England was collapsing. They stopped buying. The farmers, the graziers too, went broke. My father and mother had to sell off three blocks in the great crash. But they survived, just survived on what was left.’

  ‘And tell me, Mister Bob, who was Caitlin?’

  Everyone laughed, or smiled politely. Anika was a bit dumb at times.

  ‘She was my mother.’

  ‘Your mother? Oh, how marvellous! And Walter?’

  ‘Anika—’ Hank said.

  ‘Isn’t he wonderful, Hank? He tells such beautiful stories. Oh!’

  She jumped up and ran across and hugged and kissed old Bob, kissed him on his perfectly combed hair and even on his forehead and on his nose. ‘Thank you, thank you—’

  ‘Annie, it is four o’clock!’

  ‘So sorry! So sorry!’

  She ran to Robyn and kissed her and then to Becker, who hadn’t said a word or moved an inch during the telling. Then to Muriel—shy on a settee, pale in her summery chiffon, flowers of reticent green and gold—with more hugs and kisses and finally to the children. And seized her own two boys, saying, ‘Now, off! Now off and sank you!’ But remembering, running back to Robyn for another kiss, but also whispering. ‘I am so happy for you, darling!’ Then they were gone, all four. Into the dazzle and delight of the diminishing day.

  Robyn was passing with a tray, cleaning up. Becker said: ‘What was all that all about?’

  ‘What, dear?’

  ‘The whispering?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. I’ll tell you tonight.’

  ‘Why not now?’

  Just then, his phone went off. ‘Hullo?’

  ‘Can you speak?’

  ‘What? Oh, yeah, in a minute.’

  ‘We have to meet,’ Chook said.

  ‘Where?’ he said.

  He stepped away, turning a little as if seeking a better signal. He did that often. She was not offended. She never would be. As a girl, only fourteen of fifteen, she’d once watched an old movie on TV called All This and Heaven Too. She liked to think that was what she had now. She didn’t mind his secret calls. He was a man of mystery, but it did not matter. That was half the attraction. She’d known he was mysterious when she’d first seen him. They’d got talking at the checkout and he’d baulked as if about to say something. His body had stiffened. Then relaxed. He’d tried to smile and said: ‘How much is that?’ She’d taken his money and given him the change. Watching him, amused. Men were always asking her for a date. But she could not, because of Martie. Then he’d finally got it out: ‘Would you like to have coffee somewhere?’

  And she had said, on an impulse: ‘Yes, I would.’

  Surprising herself.

  Chapter 15

  A man and a woman were sitting on a bench in the Memorial Gardens. Men had died here, metaphorically speaking. Golden roses were fading to creamy at the tips. Lushly beautiful like Evelyn, when she’d been standing at her kitchen bench, making toast and coffee for him, glancing at him. He’d just got out of her bed, surprised he was still alive, and had gone to the kitchen. She had tried to be bright and sparkling, but he could see she was worried. She’d had a call from Melbourne. Something happened? he’d asked. Giancarlo is dead, she’d said. Giancarlo was Alfredo’s young brother, the one who talked too much. He’d been popped in Sydney Road by a kid on a motorbike. A kid wearing a full helmet and dark glasses. Like in the movies, except that the kid did not have a driver. He’d done it all himself, just hopped off the bike a few yards along the street and waited for Giancarlo to come up, and smiling at him. A nice matey smile…

  ‘What do you think?’ Chook said.

  She was leaning back, waiting for an answer. Becker was sitting forward, fiddling with his hands. And thinking there was no way out. It was a matter of honour.

  ‘It’s dangerous,’ he said.

  ‘Not if we’re smart. You’ve got to remember, mate, this is the Federal Police. There are a lot of us. We have the organisation, the equipment and the authority.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d fall for it. And, even if he did, it might take a long time to get through to the capo.’

  ‘So what? Either we go after him, or we don’t. You know what I’m saying?’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘I mean, if we do get to the capo, we can cut the balls out of the whole fucking organisation.’

  ‘You’re taking on the Mafia,’ Becker said.

  ‘So what? We’ll take ’em on. We’ll do to them what the Carabinieri and the investigating magistrates did to the fucking Mafia in Sicily. They cleaned ’em out. We’ll do the same. Right out of this country.’

  ‘What if Barnes doesn’t play along?’

  ‘Look, Harry, I said we’ll get him by the balls. He’ll have to play along. He’s got no alternative. We’ll use him to find his supplier, then we move on from that little maggot to the next maggot and then the next until we get to the capo dei capi. Then bingo! a big raid. Twenty or thirty going in. Big pictures on TV and in the press. Federal Police Smash Mafia in Australia! Great headline, eh?’

  Becker sat up, hands on hips, stretched a little. They’d walked in the gardens, looking at the memorials to the dead and the not yet entirely forgotten. And the relics, like a field gun and a mortar and a three-bladed propeller off some warplane on a stand. And listened to the band from Kapooka playing to the Sunday afternoon crowd. Getting a big round of applause. But other sacrifices, other memories, hung in the air. On walls around the Eternal flame were plaques bearing more than two-thousand names. He’d gone again to one of them, moved in close, peered at the words: C V Becker, KIA, Vietnam 1962-75. It was always the same and told him nothing new. Not how it felt to know you were shot and you had only seconds to live. He’d been shot once, in a shoulder. But he’d had a terrible feeling that he was going to live. At that, this was the beginning.

  ‘Barnes is a piece of shit,’ Becker said. ‘He’d go to pieces, tell them what we’re doing. He’d be more frightened of them than of us. Anyway, his wife would soon wake up—if he co-operated.’

  Chook laughed. ‘She already knows.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Knows he’s dealing. She’s the one who fixed it for him. How to get into it, how to solve his financial problems. Her family’s notorious in the Griffith area. They are supplying it to him. And he’s fixing it with truckies. All those big interstate trucks, B-doubles some of them, taking stuff out of the farms and the wineries.’

  ‘How do you know all this about her family?’

  ‘Maria Terracini? We have a contact there.’
/>
  ‘A mole? In her family?’

  ‘Not exactly her family.’

  Becker thought about it. ‘They kill them, you know. If they talk.’

  ‘She’s a pretty game girl.’

  ‘A girl?’

  ‘Well, not exactly a girl now.’

  ‘She has a family?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Who is the mole?’

  ‘You don’t need to know, mate.’

  ‘Okay,’ Becker said. He could not get out of it, not after what Chook had done for him and his wife and the baby now on the way. ‘So, this mole gives him a packet?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘And he thinks it’s coming from someone big in Griffith?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘But it’s really coming from confiscated stuff you have in bond?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Then you nab him?’

  ‘Correct again.’

  ‘And put the screws on him?’

  ‘To put it mildly, yes.’

  ‘Half a kilo of happy dust? Wouldn’t Barnes think that was too much? That’s a lot of dust for a peripheral player like him.’

  ‘His wife will tell him it’s okay. And they’re going to be rich, very rich. No more money troubles.’

  ‘And she has connections?’

  ‘Let’s say her relatives have.’

  ‘A long way up the line?’

  ‘Far enough.’

  Becker did not like it. ‘Where do I come into this?’

  ‘You’re the supplier.’

  ‘What?’ Becker nearly jumped over the moon. There was one, a few days past half full, a bright white moon up there in the blue sky.

  ‘That’s right. You hand it to her.’

  ‘The mole?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And the mole gives it to his wife?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And his wife gives it to Barnes?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Where does this happen?’

  ‘In Griffith.’

  ‘Exactly where?’

  ‘In a motel. The mole works there. It’s a big place, very pretentious, called The Capriano.’

  ‘Why the hell is she doing this?’

  ‘She has her reasons.’ Chook stood up. ‘I’ve got things to do, Harry.’

  They walked back together. In the background, through the trees, the band was playing the famous Eric Bogle number. No-one was singing or cheering or chatting, not even the kids. They’d been told to hush up and listen very respectfully to a very sad song even if there were no words today, about men coming back from a war, some of them legless, some eyeless and some hopeless. All shot out. The tune was: And the Band played Waltzing Matilda…

  Becker was not happy.

  ‘Why bring Barnes into this at all?’

  ‘In case the big deal goes wrong.’

  ‘You’re gonna make him talk? That’s why he has to have the dope?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Dope which you supply, the police?’

  ‘Right again.’

  ‘Isn’t this like entrapment?’

  ‘It sure would smell of it.’

  ‘He could wriggle out of any charges.’

  ‘Right again. That’s why we have to offer an inducement. He tells us what he knows and we drop charges.’

  ‘But if it goes to court and it is revealed that you have supplied the dope, you’ll be in the shit.’

  ‘Perfectly expressed, old boy. What’s why it won’t go to court.’

  ‘And what if he doesn’t talk?’

  ‘We simply tell the press he has been charged. Make him sweat for weeks, months. That will ruin his career.’

  ‘Or drive him mad.’

  ‘There is that possibility.’

  ‘He’s a puffed up little phoney, a bully boy, a crook at heart.’

  ‘I love kicking creeps like that.’

  Becker was not impressed. ‘Ah, gee, Chook, this sounds too risky to me. Anything could go wrong.’

  ‘It usually does, dear boy. But, with a little bit of luck, it won’t.’

  They had reached the Harley parked in the street.

  ‘Why don’t you hand the coke directly to this woman? Why bring me into it?’

  ‘She is watched night and day. And they know us, we’re often in Griffith, talking to people, valuable contacts. But, the same people talk, trying to make double deals. You never know whether you can trust them. But, they don’t know you, Harry.’

  ‘So, how are you going to do it?’

  ‘Right under their noses. Out in the open, with them watching.’

  ‘How will she know where to find me?’

  ‘You’ll be staying there, Room No. 12.’

  ‘She’s gonna come to my room?’

  ‘That’s right, after dinner.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To have a bit of nookie.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘But really to pick up the dope.’

  ‘Ah, Jesus, I don’t like this.’

  ‘You worry too much for a cop.’

  ‘I’m not a cop. I’m out of all that.’ They walked on a few paces. He was not out of it, he knew. He would never be out of it. ‘How will I know her?’

  ‘She’ll find you. She’ll have a photo. And another thing, the top button of her blouse will be undone.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To show her crucifix. If you can see the crucifix, it’s okay to go ahead. If you can’t, the whole deal’s off. That’s why we need Barnes, as fall back.’

  ‘Jesus, this is getting serious.’

  Chook nodded. ‘It is.’

  ‘So, after pretending we’ve had a bit of nookie, she departs with half a kilo in her bag?’

  ‘Yeah, after she’s handed over a certain document.’

  ‘What document?’

  ‘Ah-ha!’

  ‘I don’t like this. Anyone watching would be suspicious.’

  ‘Yeah, suspicious that she’s gonna run away with you. Big scandal, she’s gonna run away with a bloke who’s nobody knows, who’s not Italian and not even Catholic. Shock and horror running through the community! What is Angelo going to do about it?’

  ‘You mean he might kill me?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘What?’

  Chook laughed. ‘Don’t worry, mate, once we have that document, he won’t want to touch anybody.’

  Becker laughed. Or he tried to laugh. In fact, he was scared stiff. ‘This idea is so corny it’ll never work.’

  She was mounting the Harley. ‘Don’t worry, old boy. It will work because it is so corny. Italians love romance, especially an intriguing romance with a touch of danger. But it’s all part of a trap.’

  ‘For her father?’

  ‘Yeah, her father.’

  ‘Jesus, what has he done to her?’

  ‘Not to her, someone else.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Her sister.’

  ‘What happened to her sister?’

  ‘Maybe she’ll tell you, while you’re having a bit of nookie.’

  ‘I’m not going to have a bit of nookie with some strange woman.’

  ‘Pity. She’s quite beautiful. I wouldn’t mind screwing her myself.’

  ‘Who is this woman?’

  Chook hesitated. ‘Promise not to tell? Not even Robyn?’

  Becker nodded.

  ‘Angelica Cosco.’

  ‘What?’ This time Becker did jump over the moon. Or his heart did. ‘You mean Angelo’s daughter?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Jesus, he’s the capo in Griffith.’

  ‘Not quite. O
ld Mario Pescii is the capo in this part of the world. Angelo’s the hard man, the enforcer.’

  ‘You’ve penetrated that high?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘She came to us.’

  ‘Angelo Cosco’s daughter came to you? Why?’

  Chook pressed a button on the Harley.

  ‘He killed her sister.’

  Chapter 16

  And that, more or less, is what happened. Becker arrived about seven and checked in. He’d told Robyn he’d been called to give evidence at a court hearing called for Sunday, which any fool knows is almost never held on a Sunday, unless there is some urgency. You can’t hold someone for more than twenty-four hours without one. But she’d not queried it, she being she. He’d asked her, as he’d paused at the door, as if realising he had not asked her something he should have asked long ago, early in their marriage, instead of taking her for granted: ‘Do you love me, Robbie?’ Surprised, starry-eyed, she answered: ‘Love you? I revere you.’

  As Chook had said, it was a big room, already crowded. He was met at the door by a woman in a long red skirt and a cream blouse, standing behind a lectern, checking reservations, who showed him to his table some distance from the door, handing him the menu with a smile. He felt alone, very obvious and very set up.

  A waitress came, bustling. You could see it was going to be a bustling sort of night. Already a group at a near table was shouting, laughing and saluting each other. They looked Italian, Italians from the far south. They had the heavy, stocky and almost featureless aspect of the assiduous farmer, the noble but dogged peasant and the get-rich graspers of a hard-working and hard-drinking tradition.

  ‘Now, sir, what would you like?’

  She didn’t look like any sort of woman who was going to suggest they get together after dinner, or sooner. She looked perfectly ordinary, not Italian at all. Fair and tawny, a hard-working woman with sunburnt arms. He had noticed that saltimbocca was on the menu. Evelyn had said she was going to make it. Gnocci too, if she had time. Would he like to dine with her? He had declined, not wanting to get so close to her. She had dangerous friends.

  ‘I’ll have the saltimbocca,’ he said. ‘Do you have gnocci?’

  ‘No, sir, not normally. We could make it, but it takes about twenty minutes.’