by Brian Cain
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Monday the second of August. Jason had spent the four days door-knocking in his electorate. He found everyone appreciative of his efforts and found everyone to be more worried about federal politics than local affairs, which worried and pleased him at the same time. He thought that helps his cause running federally but was concerned on local issues just as much. Most were happy with their last member’s efforts for the region; they felt his death was sad and untimely. Expressing his views and intentions had seen one hundred percent support from all he spoke to, his spell was the bearer of good wherever he went.
Beagle, unbeknown to Jason, had been pressing the council for some answers to the question of some non-existent resurfaced roadways. Jason dropped Tammy off at school on his way his electoral office.
“Have you seen the old man lately Tammy?”
“No, but he talks to me sometimes now, he comes into my head and we talk. He says you don’t need him anymore, so he’s with me now.”
Jason gave her a big kiss. “You won’t find out how much help he is until he’s gone. Be good, Mary will be picking you up.”
Tammy climbed out the Rolls. “Okay daddy, I love you.”
When he pulled up outside the office, it was eight forty-five. A well dressed, middle aged man with a receding hairline paced nervously outside his door.
“May I be of some assistance?” asked Jason.
The man offered his hand to Jason. “Martin Bell, I am senior accountant for the council, may I have a private word?”
“Certainly, come this way.” Jason unlocked the door of the office; Martin followed and they sat down at his desk. “You look rather worried, is there anything I can do for you?”
“It’s regarding the enquiries your aid Beagle has been making. I have come of my own accord, to explain.”
“Would it be something to do with non-existing streets, resurfaced to the tune of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”
“Yes.” Martin handed Jason some papers. “No one has taken the money. Sometimes budgets in different areas run over, others can be adjusted. In this case the local parks expansion plan required more funds. The war memorial was also in need of attention, the budget allocated was underestimated. We couldn’t pay the wages for the extra employees to do the work, in fact the budget required we lay two workers off in that area. Roadway maintenance was over-allocated, so I used those funds to fix the problem. I maintained the revenue funding on paper so not to draw attention to the changes.”
“Why?”
“Making a lot of budget changes brings much criticism, people think you can’t do your job properly. I suppose you’ll make a big deal of this, just for your campaign.”
“I find your remarks rather offensive in the light of what I want to achieve. You have done this thing which may lead to your downfall, people may consider this is not the first time.”
“We have made other changes at times.”
“I see no point in it, you’re better off doing what has to be done at the time. If people criticize something that is fact, they are as guilty as you for the impropriety. By what I see here, you saved two local people’s jobs and stopped some over-servicing, that’s something to be proud of. Running and hiding from that I don’t understand.”
“By changing what we said we would achieve, we are not being politically correct, a sure way to lose everything these days, including your job.”
“That will have to stop, it’s rubbing off on everything. Time to make a stand for the better.”
“So you won’t be saying anything about this?”
“No I won’t, you will.”
“Er, run that past me again.”
“You go tell everyone, tell them everything, come squeaky clean.”
Martin rubbed his forehead. “If you get into office, which I and everyone else I know thinks is a good idea, I think we would be leaving ourselves wide open for replacement.”
Jason smiled. “That is hardly the case, I will be endorsing such behaviour. It’s the people round here who will decide who runs their local affairs for them, I only want to help. The state member for this region is not an APP member but if I win office you may be able to change that as it will bring on a federal election.”
Martin stood up, he felt belittled in Jason’s presence. “I had judged you badly; the papers’ headlines on Saturday worried me. I thought you operated like that.”
Banks and Harrogan had been jailed Friday on evidence supplied by Jason, with further charges pending. Jason stood up and shook Martin’s hand. “We must never let misguided people get mixed up with evil ones.”
They walked into the outer office where Beagle had just started work; Jason introduced Martin and told him of their conversation. Martin left in far greater spirits than he had arrived, saying he had a lot of amendments to budgeting to inform the public of. Jason studied his diary with Beagle, setting out his agenda of meetings for that day. Many people wanted to see Jason personally; this was encouraging to them as the people were coming to him as well as he going to them.
Jason finished writing in his diary, it was five thirty, darkness was falling on the cold winter evening; it had been a busy and fruitful day. Jason’s attention turned to a seventy-one Ford GTHO as it rumbled to a stop outside the office. It sounded and looked familiar but he continued to make notes in his diary. Beagle had gone home, two minutes later there was a knock on his door.
“Come in,” Jason stood with a big smile when he saw who it was.
“Norton, Triumph, guys how are you?” He greeted the two Pagan Motorcycle Club members with the traditional palm together handshake. “Guys it’s great to see you, have you heard from Zup?”
They sat down around Jason’s desk. “First time we heard from him last week since he went to Colombia, he’s in Washington now. He‘s got some big time job with the American government. He’s with another friend of yours, The Large Figure or something,” said Norton.
“In Washington with Lance, sounds like he’s doing okay, I wonder how Lance got into Washington, he’s not American like Zup,” added Jason.
“As far as we can make out they have friends in high places. That’s not what we came to see you about, we came up in the dark expecting to find you at home but some lady there told us where to find you. We didn’t want to be seen with you, thought it may affect your standing in the election. Looked pretty quiet here so we came in,” said Triumph.
“You guys are welcome here day or night,” replied Jason.
“That’s what we hoped because we need your help,” added Norton.
“Well, I’m all ears,” said Jason.
“Yeah we can see that now you’ve cut you’re hair,” said Triumph, they all laughed. “There’s a guy in prison who shouldn’t be there, an American guy, he was framed. We took the job about six years ago. Me and Norton had to steal his car, we then picked up Mojo who disguised himself to look just like this American guy. We hid on the floor in the back of this guy’s car, to back up Mojo if anything went wrong. We had to waste a guy living in a fancy house in North Adelaide; Mojo made sure plenty of people saw him when we pulled up outside the house. He went inside and shot this guy, ran back out, got in the car and roared off. We then dropped Mojo off home and took the car back to this American guy’s place. He was arrested the next day and charged with murder, he got life,” said Triumph.
“How can I help you with this? If this comes out Mojo will get life,” said Jason.
Norton and Triumph hung their heads. “That won’t worry Mojo, we buried him last month, he hit a car on his bike,” said Norton.
Jason shook his head. “I still don’t understand, you would both go as accomplices.”
“That’s what we want, I read in Saturday’s paper that Harrogan went down for ten years. Pigs are pigs, but he was real bad. He framed a lot of our mates, we know he wasted a couple of them too. We could never get to him out here, but inside, we could make his life hell. If we turn evidence on what happened
, we may get a few years, we want Harrogan real bad,” said Triumph.
Jason nodded. “Now I see.”
Norton stroked his bushy beard. “There’s something else you should know, this American guy was a really big deal. We had a guy inside when he first went down, there was a hard time contract out on him. Anyone who bashed or gave him a hard time was rewarded, then it all changed in a few months and he got big protection, nobody knows why. After a couple of years it was all forgotten and he was just like anyone else. It’s like that in there, after you’ve been in for a while, you may as well be dead for what anyone cares. We look after our guys, but blokes like him get forgotten. We feel you should talk to this guy, don’t know why, we had a strange urge to mention it.”
“What’s this guy’s name?” asked Jason.
“Harry Briggs, he’s in Yatala maximum security,” said Norton.
“I’ll arrange to see him tomorrow. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. I’m so damn busy with this election, finding the time will be hard.” said Jason.
“Do you know someone you can trust to handle this?” asked Norton.
Jason nodded. “Yes, give me your number, I’ll get back to you as soon as I work out my timing. I’ll make sure it’s no more than a couple of days. You wouldn’t have been sent to tell me this unless it was really important.” Norton wrote a number on a piece of paper for Jason. They rumbled off into the evening’s darkness in the muscle-bound Ford, as Jason climbed into his Rolls Royce. His instinct was driving him to talk to Harry Briggs.
