Cheaters

by JR Carroll

  ‘So you have said goodbye to teaching,’ Victor was saying.

  ‘I have,’ Robert said. ‘It’s goodbye to all that, old chap.’

  ‘And goodbye, Mr Chips.’

  ‘I don’t think I ever qualified as Mr Chips. That was a tough exam.’

  ‘Tough exam. They were all tough for me.’ They were still gripping each other’s hands: not shaking, but holding on firmly. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t cut out for education,’ he went on. ‘I was always attracted by a more … how shall I say, irregular life. I don’t have a clue what I want to do when I grow up. Never did. All I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to spend my days pushing wine barrels around, or pruning grapevines. Completely irresponsible of me, but there you are. I guess you could say I’m a total failure in the career stakes. I had my chances, but I chose the wrong path, every time.’

  Robert said: ‘“Two roads converged in a wood, and I – / I took the one less travelled by,/And that has made all the difference.”’

  ‘Who said that?’ Victor said as their hands came apart.

  ‘Robert Frost. He was that rare thing: a wise American.’

  ‘Poetry. Not my long suit, I’m afraid. It is one of the many things about which I understand nothing. Poetry for me is a royal flush, or seeing the horses pass the post in preferred order.’

  ‘Much of it is forgettable. At least, I have forgotten it.’

  Victor seemed to be sizing Robert up, as if his words had triggered a new line of thought.

  ‘We had great times, didn’t we,’ he said. ‘The sport, the parties, the girls – we seemed to split them up between us, if memory serves.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘It was a close-run thing, but I think you had your nose in front most of the time.’

  ‘Not on the track. You held a distinct advantage there. I recall seeing the underside of your spikes as we crossed the line on more than one occasion.’

  ‘Must have been the steroids. It was my ambition to run in the Moscow Olympics, you know. I almost made it, too.’

  Robert said: ‘The only running I do these days is to catch a tram. And I usually miss it.’

  Victor frowned as he looked more closely at Robert and ran a finger along his lips. ‘Look, don’t take this amiss, old fruit, and tell me to pull my head in if I’m out of order, but … I have the impression that the years have not treated you very kindly.’

  ‘Your eyes do not deceive you, Victor. I am indeed ill-used and sorely abused. Not to mention flat on my bumpers. But all at my own instigation – I’m afraid I can’t point the finger anywhere else.’

  Robert could hear the wheels turning in Victor’s head as he gazed off, appearing to think something through. ‘I was wondering,’ he said distantly, and the thought seemed to trail away.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s difficult,’ Victor said. ‘Believe me, I have no wish to insult you. But you see, I don’t forget a favour. I’m referring to that rather foolish lapse of mine, back in our green days, when you stepped in and averted police action.’

  ‘Good God, Victor – a mere bagatelle. That is a dim and distant memory.’

  ‘As I said, not as far as I’m concerned. You never knew my father. Strict is not the word. If he had been living in the Fatherland at the time, I have no doubt he would have rushed to join the Hitler Youth as basic training for the Gestapo, so that’ll give you some idea. For besmirching the family name, I would have certainly been disinherited – or worse. Now it’s my turn to help you out – if you’ll be good enough to allow me.’

  Robert gave no indication of a response either way, which Victor apparently took as a signal to elaborate. He explained that he had business links with an old friend, and that one of their interests was art. A collection of pieces from Peru was due to arrive by container shortly – paintings, carvings, sculpture, artefacts of various kinds – all very exotic, and original. There was going to be a show, he explained, after which they were planning to sell everything. South America was the flavour of the month in the avant-garde art world, he said. There was what he called a ‘nice earn’ involved.

  Robert was wondering what this had to do with him, but he kept a blank face.

  The thing was, Victor said, they needed someone reliable to oversee the first stages. This entailed going to the docks when the collection arrived, taking possession, checking the pieces off against the manifest, noting any damage for insurance purposes, dealing with the customs officer, seeing that everything was loaded into a moving van, accompanying the van to a warehouse for temporary storage, unpacking and so forth. It was a day’s work. Victor said that his friend was indisposed, and that he himself had other commitments. So – was Robert interested? Naturally, a fee was payable, but Victor wasn’t vulgar enough to mention a figure out on the street.

  Robert said that he didn’t know anything much about art, and Victor said that wasn’t a factor. It was a humdrum exercise, and the degree of tedium depended mainly on the customs man – if he wanted every individual piece uncrated and examined, if anything had to be quarantined, for instance, it could take hours just getting the stuff into the truck.

  In the end Robert said, ‘You can count me in. Unless I get a better offer in the meantime – like a week at Hamilton Island with Elle Macpherson.’

  Victor said, ‘If you get an offer of a week at Hamilton Island with Elle Macpherson, I will let you off the hook with my blessings. Until then, we have a done deal, as they say in the corporate world.’

  ‘A done deal, Victor. Thank you.’

  They shook on it, chatted a little more, then went in opposite directions along the narrow street, which was heavily congested with vehicles and people hurrying between the gaps. Everyone was on the move.

  Normally after a lunch like that Robert would have hit the bars and wiped himself out. At some point in the evening’s drinking, merriment would have been overtaken by objectionable behaviour, verbal altercations, physical ejection, disgrace. The next day’s fragmented memories would consist of loud ructions, glass breaking, a firm hand on his shoulder, a fist being thrown, the taste of bitumen grit, vomiting, aimlessly wandering around in the early hours, being dazzled by the beam from a passing police car and told to move on. He would wake up partially or fully dressed, cuts and scrapes on his face and hands, sporting a shiner perhaps, with torn, soiled clothes and absolutely no knowledge of how he managed to find his way home. He would be filled with a yawning horror and a self-hatred so intense it could only be tempered, then obliterated, with the hair of the dog, taken as soon as his hands would stop shaking enough to pour from the bottle without spilling most of whatever was in it. Normally – but not today.

  Thinking about this as he walked, he paid no attention to the dark blue Commodore with the smoked windows which was illegally parked opposite Lorenzo’s. In it were two men, one of whom was operating a movie camera.

  ‘Who’s that geek, I wonder?’ the cameraman said, switching it off.

  ‘Don’t know,’ his partner said. ‘Never seen him before. Low-life.’

  ‘Why would Victor want to spend quality time with scum like that?’

  ‘That’s the question.’

  ‘Love to know what they were talking about.’

  ‘They seemed like good friends. I mean – Victor was in no hurry to fuck off.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t. But I don’t see Victor having a friend like that geek.’

  ‘He’s got mule written all over him.’

  ‘I guess,’ the cameraman said, massaging his eyes.

  ‘Do you want to follow Victor, or the geek.’

  ‘Victor. Fuck the geek.’ He put the camera away as his mate started the car, then they snapped on their seatbelts and cruised. It wasn’t hard to spot Victor in the crowd as he sauntered along, pausing to look in shop windows. Then he hailed a taxi. The surveillance team waited directly behind it until he got in, then tailed him the short distance to the casino. Lounging comfortably in the back seat of the taxi Vict
or didn’t bother looking through the rear window. There was no point, since he knew they were there.

  The drug squad watchdogs would have had a more interesting time had they chosen to follow Robert instead. He had only gone a couple of blocks east when, near the corner of Queen Street, a man with wet slits for eyes, a mangy beard and clothes worse than Robert’s appeared from nowhere and confronted him with a knife: a switchblade knife.

  ‘Give us your fuckin’ money, cunt features,’ he muttered. There were scabs on his lips, his skin was appalling, and the hand holding the knife, also scabbed, was far from steady.

  Robert didn’t say anything, but instead delivered a straight right to the man’s throat. He went down instantly, gagging, spluttering, clutching his throat, and the knife fell from his grip and clattered onto the footpath. Robert leaned over and punched him hard, flush on the cheekbone, feeling the clean snap of bone. The man’s face hit the ground, and he stayed quite still. Witnesses skirted around the unpleasantness and hurried on. Robert picked up the knife, retracted the blade, put it in his pocket and continued on his way, catching the Bridge Road tram in Flinders Street.

  When he got off at his stop and was about to turn into the street where he lived, he pulled up short and moved back behind a high brick fence. Outside his block of flats was a red Ford Falcon, early eighties vintage, and alighting from it were Larry Wolper and the black man, Richie something. Larry locked the car, they scanned the street and walked down the driveway of the flats, heading towards Robert’s place. Robert knew they would not be able to see the Falcon from his flat. He also knew there wasn’t much time. He came swiftly down the street, blade drawn and held alongside his leg, punctured the walls of all four tyres and then retreated to a coffee shop in Bridge Road, which served as an excellent vantage point. Choosing a table by the window he ordered a cappuccino, then picked up a newspaper to flick through while he waited.

  In a couple of minutes Larry and Richie re-appeared. They did not look at the car at first, still focusing their attention on the flats and the street, hoping no doubt that Robert might magically wander into their arms. They loitered for a while. Then, when they had finally given it away, Larry moved around to the driver’s side with his keys in his hand. The first thing he seemed to notice was that the car’s roof was much too low, then he looked at the wheels. That was when the fun started, as Richie looked at the wheels on his side too. Robert watched with a smile, stirring his cappuccino, while Larry went out of his mind, storming up and down the street, flinging himself about and swearing so loudly Robert could hear him. Richie was just standing on the nature strip with his hands on his hips, looking bemused. In his rage, Larry kicked the side of a parked tradesman’s van, severely denting a panel. Robert sipped his coffee: this was so petty, and so satisfying. Neither man seemed to know what to do. They were both circling the Falcon, checking and re-checking, Larry kicking the wheels and screaming and looking around for someone – anyone – to punch out. After about ten minutes of this they walked down Bridge Road, repeatedly glancing back at the car. And that was the end of the show. It meant Robert could not go home for a while, hours maybe, but the experience was worth the inconvenience many times over.

  24

  Detective Stan McLeish had never worked so hard in his eight years on the force, the last two of which had been in plain clothes. He didn’t have any illusions about police work: it was all just grind, long hours of leg-work, interviewing suspects until they gave in or sitting at your desk mechanically sifting through information, and when you cracked a difficult case it was usually from a tip-off rather than brilliant deduction. Still, door-knocking all the city hotels and motels with photofits of Gerald Kamp on the off-chance that he’d been in one of them and that someone would remember him was as dreary and soul-destroying a job as he could imagine. There were times when he felt like a damned salesman: signs stating No Hawkers or Canvassers Allowed seemed to be pointing the finger at him. And always the same story: a shrug, a shake of the head, thank you and goodbye. Next.

  Even though Kamp was New Zealand’s most wanted criminal, the resources allocated to the task of finding him were not great: half-a-dozen detectives, with uniformed back-up, scouring the lesser establishments in the central business district, where it was felt Kamp would most likely think he could lose himself. They had discounted top-ranking hotels, which he wouldn’t be able to afford, and the cheap doss-houses that catered mainly for homeless men and nearderelicts. That still left a lot of places and, with staff absences and shift changes, you were up against it even finding a desk clerk who might have been on duty when Kamp, or someone looking like him, checked in or out. According to Wolfgang Lutz, Kamp would be likely to keep on moving and that made the job so much harder. Realistically, you couldn’t expect busy hotel staff to remember a single face from the hundreds of guests who came and went, week in, week out. But he pressed on. If by some miracle he did manage to arrest Kamp, his career prospects would look very bright indeed.

  He and his uniformed partner, Ron Gellie, arrived at the Jolly Jumbuck in Spencer Street, leg-weary and nearly fed up, at five in the afternoon, when city workers were spilling into the streets and heading home. The Jolly Jumbuck was one of those medium-range hotels that had been a dive before some enterprising person bought it, renovated it as cheaply as possible and started catering for tourist groups and backpackers who were a bit more upmarket than most. There was even a gift shop inside displaying souvenir gimcrack: boomerangs, koalas, bush hats and the like. When McLeish and Gellie walked in there was a small group being attended to, vouchers in their hands and baggage all around their feet. As far as McLeish could tell, they sounded French and they seemed to be arguing the toss as to who was having which room – keys with large, different-coloured tags were being shuffled around on the desk, as if they were playing a game with them. Eventually everyone was happy, some questions were asked and answered, then the group moved away to the lifts.

  ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’ the clerk said. He was an older man of the polite, old-fashioned school, with curly grey hair and a pink, benign face. McLeish showed him his police badge, then explained that they were looking for a man who may possibly have been a guest at the hotel.

  ‘He has a New Zealand accent, is aged thirty-six and looks something like this,’ he said, showing the clerk the photofit. The clerk adjusted his spectacles and examined the picture, saying nothing as he held it out at arm’s length.

  ‘New Zealand accent,’ he said. ‘We get a lot of that here.’

  ‘I imagine. The man we’re looking for is 180 centimetres tall, medium build, fit-looking. Travelling alone.’

  ‘Travelling alone … There is someone … It’s quite a good likeness, but …’ He looked sharply from the picture to McLeish. ‘He’s not some kind crazy killer, is he?’

  McLeish’s heart jumped, and he heard Gellie’s leather webbing creak as he tensed, shifting slightly. McLeish said: ‘We just want to talk to him, Mr Blencoe.’ The name Arthur Blencoe was on the tag pinned to the clerk’s jacket. ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Blencoe said. ‘I’m not even sure if he’s still here.’ He reached for the registration book.

  ‘Still here?’ McLeish said, swallowing.

  ‘It probably isn’t him. I don’t know about the accent bit, since I haven’t heard him speak much, but he’s on his own, I believe. Nothing on top.’ Running his finger over the page he said, ‘Doesn’t seem to have checked out. Let’s see, room 18 …’ He turned and inspected the rows of room keys hanging on hooks behind him. ‘Key’s there. He should be in.’

  ‘What name?’ McLeish said.

  ‘I’m not saying it’s him, mind you. I wouldn’t want to give you boys the wrong impression.’

  ‘The name. Mr Blencoe. If you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Looks like … It’s not that clear. Stockhouse, or Stackhouse, I think.’

  The name meant nothing to McLeish, but it didn’t sound fake. ‘Mind if we
take a look at the room, Mr Blencoe?’ he said, and Blencoe handed him the key. ‘It’s on the first floor. There’s the lift.’

  Outside room 18, McLeish and Gellie stood with their hands hovering over their revolvers, listening through the door. There was no sound coming from inside, nothing at all. McLeish tried the knob, very carefully, but it was locked. He slid the key noiselessly into the knob and turned it to the right. The door was now unlocked, but he needed two hands to hold the key in place and turn the knob at the same time. He pushed the door slightly open, just a crack, then returned his right hand to his revolver, which was holstered high on his hip. Gellie was right behind him, his hand on the butt of his .38. McLeish nodded to him once, Gellie nodded back, then McLeish unholstered his firearm, swung the door wide open and rushed inside screaming, with Gellie hard on his heels.

  McLeish didn’t see anything at first, then a shape seemed to spring from nowhere and McLeish felt a slash across his face and then another series of slashes on his arm, which he had brought up to protect himself. He had no time or opportunity to distinguish what or who it was that had attacked him. It was all a blur. There was just this split-second sequence of high-speed images and wild slashing from a glinting, razor-edged blade that whipped audibly through the air, slicing his face open to the bone and then doing the same to the arm he was using as a shield: five, six, seven times, too quick for the eye to see or the senses to absorb. Then he felt a tremendous kick in the stomach that hurled him backwards into Gellie. The two policemen reeled into the hall, McLeish screaming with horror as he hit the floor and saw the bloodied shreds of his jacket-sleeve and then became aware that there was also blood running from an open wound to his face. The door to room 18 slammed shut as McLeish, on his knees, watched and felt his blood run freely onto the dun-coloured carpet. There was so much coming from his arm, a major vein must have been cut. He was in trauma and panicking as Gellie, also screaming, tried to comfort him somehow as he too was hit with the shock of seeing McLeish cut up and bleeding like a pig, seemingly from everywhere. His whole face was dark red, even his eyes. The front of his clothes and his right arm and the hand still holding the .38 were awash with the stuff. And it had all happened in five seconds.