Cheaters

by JR Carroll

  17

  Gerald Kamp became a frequent client of young Selena’s at Kitty’s Wish, the fashionably renovated terrace brothel in South Melbourne. He liked Selena, liked her laid-back style and her spunk, the way she would agree to do just about anything with a careless shrug, as if it made no difference to her as long as he was prepared to pay the extra. Brazen little piece. Gerald became easily bored with conventional sex, and he had found during his years on the run that if you kept seeing the same girl on a regular basis she wasn’t averse to taking a walk on the wild side now and then. The wilder the better for Gerald, including a taste of S & M. Gerald liked to develop a relationship rather than just bang hookers one-off. He liked to feel there was a personal stake in what was happening. When they got to know you they got to trust you a bit, and then you could do things: turn them over, try some unusual moves, use devices, apply corporal punishment. Get off in all kinds of ways. Selena was so cool: she never smiled, never reacted, nothing ever fazed her and when it was over she behaved as if nothing much had gone on – she would just lie on her back with one hand behind her head, her make-up and hair a mess, smoking and studying his battle-scarred features with her expressionless grey eyes. When they were doing it her body was superbly active, but her mind was miles away – she seemed to have the ability to be two people at the same time. Gerald found it all a perverse kind of turn-on, as well as an incentive to up the ante next time, see if he could spark her up, really ruffle her tail feathers.

  ‘How’d you get the scars,’ she said, lazily exhaling smoke as Gerald, still naked, put some money under the ashtray.

  ‘These? Got ’em when I was a kid. The old man used to torture me with a red-hot poker. That was the weekend entertainment at our place.’

  ‘Rough,’ Selena said, and Gerald could see that she didn’t believe him; didn’t care.

  ‘Selena,’ he said, ‘guess what, I made that up. But if I told you the truth you’d still think I was full of shit.’

  ‘Try me. If you like.’

  ‘Fair enough. One, two, three – see? All bullet-holes, put there by a French Legionnaire’s submachine gun. Some of the lead fragments are still in there. You can feel ’em.’ He put her hand on his knotty stomach, pushing the fingers into his flesh until they came into contact with hard foreign objects buried inside. ‘See?’

  Selena nodded. ‘Doesn’t it hurt?’

  ‘Sometimes. You get used to it.’

  ‘Why don’t you have an operation and get them out?’

  ‘Shit, I’ve had heaps of operations. I could spend the rest of my life going under the knife and they still wouldn’t get all the bits and pieces floatin’ around in there.’

  ‘Were you in the army or something?’

  ‘Something.’

  Selena shrugged again, crushed her cigarette and lit another. Her interest in his military exploits, such as it was, went out with the cigarette. She was utterly uncurious about why he was fighting Frenchmen in the first place – if she believed him. Maybe she didn’t. Prostitutes were privy to the full gamut of male bullshit. It was part of the business.

  ‘So what’s your story, Selena. You’re obviously not a junkie. You got a little bambino at home?’

  ‘No fear,’ Selena said. ‘Perish the thought. Christ. No, I’m going to university, and this helps pay the bills. The day I finish my degree, that’s it, I’m gone.’

  ‘How about that. Hit the books by day, turn tricks by night.’ It explained a lot – her detached manner, the lack of interest, everything.

  ‘A lot of my friends are doing it. It’s a job, nothing more. Pays better than bar work. There’s not much around at the moment.’

  ‘Times are tough.’

  ‘They sure are, Lewis. This whole country is stuffed.’

  It was the first sign of emotion he had seen in her – so the girl did have feelings. ‘You think so?’

  ‘I know so. It’s more fucked every day, or haven’t you noticed? Don’t you read the papers?’

  ‘I do, but I don’t take much notice, to be honest. If it’s fucked, it’s fucked. So what? I couldn’t care less. It’s not even my country.’

  ‘You’re with the great majority, Lewis – that’s the prevailing attitude, and it’s a big part of the malaise. The funny thing is, I used to care, but I don’t so much now. In fact I couldn’t give a fuck any more either. Doing this job makes you so cynical. It’s the pits. You see the very worst of everything, hear all the shithouse, depressing stories. Nothing matters any more. Nothing. Christ.’ She covered her face with her hands.

  ‘I thought you didn’t care now.’

  ‘I don’t.’ She lit another cigarette. ‘It’s like … watching a giant building collapse in slow motion: at first you’re scared, but then you become mesmerised, you want to see how bad it’s going to get. It’s a spectacle, that’s all, like a nightmare video – except when I think about it, I want to scream.’

  ‘Scream all you like,’ Gerald said. He moved closer, stepping right in front of her so she couldn’t miss seeing what he was thinking. ‘How about another round, take your mind off all that serious shit?’

  ‘Why not. As long as you’re paying.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind something a bit … different, this time.’

  ‘Different. Like what.’

  ‘Nothing much. Say I tie your hands up behind your back. Try on some of your nice lingerie. You know.’

  ‘Kinky stuff. All right – but no violence.’

  Gerald put his hands up, grinning. Me?

  ‘And it’s a hundred and fifty on top.’

  Two hundred and fifty, all up. Gerald knew he was being ripped off. At this rate he was going to have to get into Morg for some more work, or maybe rob a bank. ‘Fuck me, Selena. You must have to buy expensive friggin’ books. What are you studying, anyway? Economics?’

  ‘They are expensive,’ she said, staring straight at him. ‘No, not economics. I’m doing law.’

  ‘No shit. Okay. So – where are the stockings and stuff?’

  She stretched a leg, indicating a drawer with her big toe, which was painted a bright vermilion.

  Heading back to his hotel in a taxi, Gerald thought about Selena and her concern over the way the country was going down the toilet. It was all a matter of perspective, but she was the upcoming generation, and smart, so she was probably right. It seemed all go from where he stood. He wouldn’t have minded taking her out, showing her a good time, then maybe banging her without having to pay for it. But you couldn’t cross the line with hookers – it was an unwritten law of life. If you fell for them – even decent ones like Selena – you were fucked in the head. It meant you had a death wish. But Gerald had always been like that, falling for the wrong girls, getting in deep and then going too far, beating the tripe out of them when they finally jacked up.

  Running all this through his mind, staring ahead, he didn’t see the police car going the other way, travelling south on St Kilda Road. The officers inside it didn’t notice him, either, didn’t even register a yellow cab passing them, because they were too busily engaged in conversation. The funny thing was – and Gerald would have thought it was funny if he’d known – that they talking about him. The cops were Alex Grimke, Wolfgang Lutz and a young detective named Stan McLeish, who had been brought in on the case. Detective McLeish, a clean-living athletic type, didn’t think much of this Wolfgang Lutz: he gave off a smell something like animal fat, and in that bushman’s gear he looked more like a roughneck down from the high country than a cop. The three of them were on their way to interview a man, an ex-cop, who now worked in the casino as a security guard. He was ninety per cent sure he had seen Gerald Kamp several times, large as life, swanning in the casino. If he was right, Wolfgang would not find it surprising: sooner or later, everyone in town would pass through its doors. Big-name crims on the run often did that: hung out in well-known restaurants, bars, nightclubs, places you wouldn’t expect them to be – and for that reason no-one picked the
m up. He had never thought of Kamp as the gambling type, it wasn’t in his profile, but the kind of people he was associating with might well be. Where you had crims, you had gambling. Or maybe Kamp had changed. Living the way he did was expensive, and the money had to come from somewhere.

  They pulled in at a hotel in Albert Park, the Bleak House on Beaconsfield Parade. There was a stiff breeze whipping off the bay, but it was sunny, and there were a lot of cyclists and rollerbladers tearing along the bike path on the beachfront. It was after six and the Bleak House had its share of after-work drinkers – suits, mostly – in the main bar. The constant ding ding ding of poker machines came from the adjoining section. The three of them wandered casually in and Alex led the way to an Italian-looking man in his mid-thirties or so standing by himself at one end of the bar. In front of him was some change, a cigarette sitting in an ashtray and a half-consumed pot of beer.

  ‘Serge, this is Wolfgang Lutz and Stan McLeish,’ Alex said, and when the handshaking was over and everyone had a glass, Wolfgang said, ‘So, Serge. How come you’re so certain the guy you saw was the man in question?’

  Serge gave them a self-satisfied smile: he was prepared for this one. ‘The answer is, a few years ago when I was in the force, working out of Springvale CIB, I began to take an interest in this bloke. I had a mate, a journalist, who wanted to write a book about him. He was going to call it The Hunt For The Golden Condor. Great title. He was a gun writer, too, not just a hack – would’ve done a terrific job. He asked me to find out everything I could about Kamp from the New Zealand cops, you know – background history, insider stuff, records of interview, all the nitty-gritty. But we couldn’t get any co-operation. They wouldn’t wear us.’

  ‘Why not,’ Wolfgang said.

  Serge shrugged. ‘They said it was none of our business, he was their man. This was long before he came to Australia. But there was more to it than that – mainly, our cousins across the Tasman hate our guts. Plus, I found out there was a local journo putting a book together, so they weren’t giving us any favours. But anyhow I was hooked at this stage. I read everything I could about this amazing guy, this … this renegade fly-boy who slept with a gun under his pillow. He was such a living legend.’

  ‘He’s a cold-blooded, murdering son of a bitch, is what he is,’ Wolfgang said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Serge said. ‘I know all about that. But you gotta hand it to him – he’s a fucking good cold-blooded, murdering son of a bitch.’

  ‘All right,’ Wolfgang said. ‘Skip that shit. Tell us about this dude in the casino.’

  Serge had a long drink, then set the glass down on the bar towel. ‘I noticed him one day, just walking past. It was like, I had all these snapshots in my mind – Kamp standing next to a four-wheel-drive in the bush, Kamp singing in a karaoke bar, Kamp playing with this big sheila’s tits on a couch – and when he turned towards me I could see a likeness. It just … clicked in. He had no hair on top, but you could see it was shaved, not naturally bald. The rest of his hair was dark, a bit too dark, as if it had been dyed. But it was his mouth that really got me.’

  ‘His mouth,’ Wolfgang said.

  ‘That’s right. He was talking to someone, and he moved his mouth in a certain way – pushed his lower lip out a bit and to the side, like a Humphrey Bogart type of thing, you know? Tough guy. I remember from the photos that he always seemed to have that expression on his face. It was a kind of smirk. And he raised an eyebrow. There were creases on his forehead to indicate he did it a lot. Gerald Kamp usually had that expression.’

  ‘What else about him,’ Wolfgang said.

  ‘Had his left arm in a sling. Very smartly dressed – reefer jacket, slacks. Round shades with gold metal rims.’

  ‘You took a lot of notice, Serge,’ Alex said.

  ‘Couldn’t help it, mate. Once a cop, always a fuckin’ cop. You stand around all day, you have to notice people. What else am I going to do?’

  Another round of pots arrived as they continued to question Serge. He was a good witness, that was apparent, but a reluctant one when pressed. His employer would not be pleased if they knew he was operating as a casino snout for the police, and he was adamant that he would not be involved in any investigation beyond this point. Would he help them do a sketch or photofit for the media? Sure, Serge said – but keep my name out of it. That was agreed.

  On the way back they discussed the next moves. If it was Kamp – and that seemed likely – and they ran a photofit, that would immediately alert him, and he would do his disappearing act. On the other hand, if they got a good response from the photofit – say, from a hotel concierge or someone like that – they could grab him. Maybe. It all had to be balanced up. It had to be done right.

  Wolfgang said, ‘We really need to make sure it’s him first. Serge might be playing with himself a bit.’

  ‘He might be,’ Alex said, suggesting he didn’t think so.

  ‘If we could see the casino videotape, that might help,’ Wolfgang said.

  But Alex was shaking his head. ‘You got any idea how many security cameras there are in that place? How many miles of tape? It’d take us about a year and a half to go through it all, even if we had the resources. Which we don’t.’

  ‘I know,’ Wolfgang said. ‘Life’s a proper bitch.’

  ‘They wouldn’t give it to us, anyway. The casino doesn’t like cops sticking their noses in its business. Uniforms can’t even do a walk-through. It’s bad for the public image.’

  ‘So scratch that idea,’ Wolfgang said. ‘But if he is here – let’s work on that assumption – there are other ways of get ting at him.’

  ‘Such as.’

  ‘Legwork. Lots of. We check all the hotels and motels, using Serge’s description. He’s got to be staying somewhere.’

  ‘He might be shacked up with friends.’

  ‘It’s not the way he operates. He’s a loner. He gets off on it. It’s a fucking game to him.’

  ‘Thinks he’s Humphrey Bogart,’ Alex said. Stan McLeish, who was driving, laughed.

  ‘Fuck that Humphrey Bogart shit,’ Wolfgang said. ‘People here talk about him as if he’s a hero, but if their daughter or sister crossed his path they’d change their fuckin’ tune. I’ve seen what he’s done to the faces of girls who used to be pretty. He might be a rogue animal, but he was like that before he got gut shot – it just hadn’t got to the surface until then. The man was born a mongrel. Best thing can happen is I get downwind of him and finish the cunt right off. Get him in the crossed hairs. One clean shot’ll fix it. Bang.’

  ‘All right. We check out all the budget hotels and motels. Stan.’

  ‘Right,’ Stan said.

  ‘Something else,’ Wolfgang said. ‘Kamp is an incurable pants man. He cannot live without female companionship. I mean, he is the slave of his dick. I suggest we survey all the knock shops and escort services. They should remember him – he’s hung like a fuckin’ stallion for starters, and he goes in for some weird, disgusting practices. The man is a fuckin’ sexual deviant. A genuine, all-round, world’s champion dirtbag.’

  ‘Maybe we should try the Hellfire Club,’ Alex said.

  ‘No,’ Wolfgang said. ‘He’s the man to dish it out – not the other way round. He likes to give ’em hell.’

  Back in his Spencer Street accommodation, Gerald was sitting on his bed watching the news on TV. He removed the mobile telephone – his lifeline – from his inside pocket, switched it on and put it on the worm-eaten drawers next to his bed, its tiny red light blinking. It wasn’t much of a room – small, cheaply furnished, a view of a brick wall and a lane through the one window – but it was ideal for his purposes. Low-budget tourists came and went in places like this all the time, and he was just another face in the crowd. It also had a fire escape exit close by if the need arose for a sudden departure. He had calculated that, if necessary, he could reach the fire escape landing by climbing along the external PVC plumbing that criss-crossed the back of the hotel. Gerald always
made sure there was an escape route before taking a room: in fact, he never entered a building without checking the exits. Right now he was thinking it was time to blow this dump. His backpack, which held all his possessions, hung on a hook behind the door, fully packed. There was nothing of his lying around the room, or the bathroom, so if he had to get out in a hurry he just had to grab the pack and disappear out the back door and down the steel staircase, along a lane and then lose himself. There was never anything left behind – not even a fingerprint or a single hair in the handbasin or the shower recess.

  In his hand was a half-bottle of Dewar’s, from which he took a swig every so often. Gerald was aware that he was drinking more these days, but it didn’t seem to affect him much. He could knock off this bottle tonight – and would, probably – then sleep for six hours and wake up feeling fine. He had always been a solid, even a heavy drinker, going back to his army days – Christ, who wasn’t – but that was usually social, or blowing off steam, not medicinal. This was medicinal – a painkiller to keep his devils at a distance as much as to dull the fierce, throbbing pain that periodically flared in his abdomen. Sometimes it felt as if there was a fire raging in there. There were times when Gerald believed that his intestines were infected, that he was going to lapse into delirium and die an agonised, lonely death, stuck in a cheap dive somewhere, fucked and far from home. Then the cops would come and pick over his remains and have a great time at Gerald’s expense. Hence the Dewar’s.