Cheaters

by JR Carroll

  Michelle got out of the car.

  ‘I’ll need the keys,’ she said.

  He switched off and passed them through the opened passenger-side door. Through the mirror he watched her open the boot. Then there was a considerable wait while she rummaged about, after which he heard the case and Kenny’s pack being lugged out. The boot lid came down hard.

  She re-appeared at his window, which he had wound down. She was close: he could smell her. Not just the perfume, but her. She reached inside her jacket, and he wondered for a moment if she was going to shoot him too. But no: she would have done it at the mine shaft.

  ‘Thanks, Robert,’ she said, giving him the keys back and pushing several thick bundles of cash at him. ‘I said there’d be a reward. Here it is. Take it.’

  The money was sitting on his lap. It looked like a substantial sum. It had weighed heavily in his hands. It was thousands, tens of thousands. Well, she could afford it.

  ‘Thanks, Michelle,’ he said. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Enjoy the rest of your life,’ she said.

  He started the car. Michelle was standing on the footpath with the suitcase and the pack, watching him as he turned the car around and drove away. She didn’t wave, she didn’t do anything: she just watched him go. Saw him off. Robert watched her in the mirror until he couldn’t see her any more, then got on with business. This car had to be washed, then trashed.

  He was sitting in a fashionable city bar, Coco’s, feeling very much as if he belonged. The day before he had visited David Jones and stocked up on quality gear: suit, sports jackets, slacks, an armload of shirts, shoes, the works. Even some Ferragamo ties, at $89.95 apiece. Today he had on a teal green blazer, cream polo shirt, beige pleated pants and tan loafers. He had also been to an expensive hairdresser. The transformation was remarkable: he even felt better wearing this kind of stuff. The cramps still hit him hard and often and he was a long way from home free, but it was a start.

  He was topping up his glass of Bisleri when Victor came in – looking, as always, like a prince. He was carrying a Louis Vuitton attache case. Robert stood, they shook hands.

  Victor ordered: ‘Glass of something French – a white burgundy, if you have a good one.’ Then he got down to business.

  ‘Well done, old man,’ he said. ‘Official pat on the back and all that. Top stuff.’

  ‘The place was crawling with cops and customs men,’ Robert said. ‘I got the impression they were expecting a bit more than pictures and primitive carvings from deepest, darkest Peru.’

  ‘But that’s all there was, wasn’t there? They were merely doing their job. No harm done.’

  ‘So it seems, Victor.’

  The white burgundy arrived: Victor tasted, and was pleased. ‘You can’t beat a decent white burgundy,’ he said. ‘The perfect drink for spring, in my humble opinion.’

  ‘I would say your opinion was anything but humble, Victor.’

  Victor smiled broadly. Christ, he was handsome. ‘I see you’re still on the water wagon.’

  ‘So far, so good.’

  Victor touched his arm. ‘I’m pleased, Robert. Pleased you’re well.’

  ‘I’m well enough, I guess.’

  ‘Good.’ God damn it, he actually meant it, too.

  Victor finished his drink, then rose. ‘Give me a call. Any time. Let’s not lose touch again.’

  ‘I have your card.’

  Smiling like a benevolent lord, arm raised, Victor took his leave.

  ‘Wait,’ Robert said. ‘Your case.’

  ‘Ah,’ Victor said, and returned to the table. ‘Sorry, forgot that little detail. The case is yours, old chap.’

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘Your wages.’

  Robert hefted the case. He knew that whatever scam Victor was pulling, he would never deal in small numbers. He also knew that, as soon as he accepted his so-called wages, he was an active player and not just an innocent pawn in that operation.

  ‘I have a favour to ask,’ he said.

  ‘Of course. Whatever.’

  ‘This is entirely unrelated, and may seem strange, but … there is this young woman, an acquaintance of mine. Her name is Florence Buzza.’

  ‘Yes,’ Victor said.

  ‘She’s on serious charges. Murder charges, in fact. She’s in a lock-up somewhere as we speak. The thing is, she has no prospect of getting a good hearing in court, because she is poor. Penniless, in fact. And legal aid is non-existent now. She will be thrown in jail for a very long time.’

  ‘I understand,’ Victor said.

  ‘I want to ask you to ensure that she has proper legal representation. There are important mitigating circumstances in this case which need to be brought to light. I don’t mean a local solicitor, I mean a top man, barrister, the lot. The works. Remembering she can’t pay a cent.’

  ‘Got you.’

  Robert waited while Victor thought it through.

  ‘This wouldn’t be the young lady I saw you with at the casino, would it?’ he said.

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘I see.’ He produced a card. ‘Just write the lass’s name on the back of this, will you? And consider it done. I’ll find out what nick she’s in and make arrangements this afternoon.’

  Robert caught a taxi home, sitting on the back seat with the attache case on his knees. The driver was concentrating on traffic, trying to get through a congested patch. Robert opened the case, and was dazzled: neat rows of new notes, in bundles. All green hundreds. He shut the case. He could not help but laugh, attracting the driver’s attention.

  ‘How long has this been goin’ on,’ he said, and laughed again.

  ‘Gettin’ worse every day,’ the driver said. ‘Roadworks. Yesterday it took me twenty minutes to go one fuckin’ block in Victoria Street. I had this Asian fare and he offered me two hundred bucks to get him to the airport on time. You would not fuckin’ believe it.’

  ‘No, you would not,’ Robert said, and gazed out the window, enjoying the smell of his skin bracer and his new jacket. He was feeling high, as if he was on a dry drunk, a bender without the benzine.

  His mind returned to the contents of the case sitting on his knees. This was dirty money. It was tainted. Christ, money in this quantity – it had to be dirty in some way. But so what? It was in good hands now.

  For his part Victor was laughing too. One hundred thousand was a nice day’s pay by anyone’s standards and what Robert didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. It certainly couldn’t harm him not to know that the Peru deal had always been a decoy duck, that Sigmund, being the cunning fellow he was, had known for a long time that he was being closely monitored, and simply played the watchdogs at their own game by feeding them a stream of misinformation, making it look as if the Peru thing was suspect, even to the extent of coding the communications, the e-mail, everything, in drugspeak. That was a nice touch. While Robert was innocently occupying the forces of law and order, in reality the deal had happened elsewhere: ship from Hamburg to Sydney, via Genoa. On arrival, a brand-new Mercedes station wagon was unloaded, cursorily examined by a bought customs man and, import duty paid, driven overnight by Sigmund and Victor’s hired agent to Melbourne, right into the secure garage of Keith Morgan’s palatial Harkaway residence. There the upholstery and fittings were stripped away to retrieve its valuable – and highly illicit – cargo. The quantity was vast: already it was being filtered through to street level, into the veins of junkies. A cap of high-grade heroin could now be had for as little as twenty dollars. Addicts were curling up and dying on footpaths in the central business district and ambulance officers were having a tough time coping with the surge in the number of overdose victims littering the place like refuse.

  28

  When police responded to a call from a block of apartments called Cricklewood Close in Flinders Lane, they could hardly have anticipated the bizarre nature of the crime scene that awaited them. Upstairs, on the landing outside the apartment in question, a well-dressed, visibly shaken
man holding a mobile phone, who identified himself as Victor Wineglass, took them inside. Police took in the scene: a spacious, contemporary office-cum-living quarters, a kitchen area, computers and other office equipment, moveable partitions, a studio with a raised platform set against the far wall. There was a big-screen TV, switched on with the sound down, showing a morning live-audience program in which everyone was laughing and clapping. On the platform, a chair, centre stage, on which a man sat.

  The man had his hands handcuffed behind the chair, which was tilted backwards, so that the top of it leaned on the wall. He had been shot in the face at close range: it had to be point blank, since there was no face left. It was the shattered remnants of a face – shreds of flesh, bared teeth, shards of cheekbone exposed – that greeted police. There were three powerful studio lights on tall stands, all switched on and positioned so that the man on the chair was in the spotlight. Because the chair had tilted back – possibly due to the impact of the weapon used – his feet were dangling in mid-air. The bright lights dramatised the tableau immeasurably: the shocking injuries, the careful arrangement of the scene, in particular the spray of blood and brain matter that fanned out on the wall behind the victim. It was, as one of the investigating detectives remarked, like a set-up for a special effects scene in a Quentin Tarantino movie. It was some kind of weird, off-the-wall still-life artwork.

  The victim was identified as Paul Sigmund Barry, aged forty, a former businessman from Adelaide who had been the subject of intense police interest since his arrival in Melbourne. He had become almost a recluse and something of an enigma, but police were convinced he was active in a major criminal network operating on an international scale. They had not, however, been able to pin anything on him.

  Clues abounded: he was wearing a tracksuit and runners, sweat stains on which indicated he had been on his usual early morning run just prior to his murder. There were no signs of forced entry through the two deadlocked doors leading to the apartment, so he must have known his killer. The handcuffs, which were of a distinctive kind, used for bondage and S & M, were only available in kinky sex shops. There were smudged fingerprints on them, but the .45 calibre revolver found on the floor, from which a single shot had been recently fired, produced a better result. There was a perfect thumb-print on the cocking hammer, which tests would later show matched those of New Zealand’s most wanted criminal, renegade commando Gerald Kamp. In addition to the gun – from which the serial number had been filed – there was a backpack, the contents of which were spilled all over the polished wood floor. There were garments bearing New Zealand labels, toiletries, a short-bladed hunting knife, ammunition, maps, scissors, bottles of hair dye, make-up, wigs, stockings, masks, other interesting items including a mobile telephone, which was subsequently found to be an anonymous subscriber phone of the kind favoured by criminals. The question was, why would Kamp, presuming he was the killer, leave a feast of leads behind? There was no logical answer. But a New Zealand detective hunting Kamp, Wolfgang Lutz, was brought in. He suggested that everything indicated Kamp was completely losing control, he was a runaway train that had left the tracks. By leaving all this information behind, he was asking to be caught, or killed. He had had enough, and wanted to be terminated. Possibly he had already committed suicide somewhere.

  When Robert took his first sip of cappuccino the spasms of pain racking his body were suddenly so intense he could no longer ignore or make light of them. His face contorted, he gasped, clutching his midriff; his forehead hit the table hard.

  ‘How bad is it,’ Patti said, and put down her cup.

  ‘Shithouse,’ he muttered. He was hugging himself, shaking, grinding his teeth audibly.

  ‘What does it feel like?’

  ‘Feels like … something trapped inside me, trying to stab its way out with a blunt fucking knife.’

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I know this doctor in Kew.’

  ‘Will … will he see me without an appointment?’

  ‘He’s a friend. Yes, he’ll see you. Can you walk?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think I can even crawl, Patti. I might have to lie down in the gutter and … die.’

  ‘Cut that self-pitying stuff, Robert – it doesn’t become you. Come on. I’m parked just around the corner.’

  She put money on the table, took his arm and led him awkwardly out. Robert felt on the brink of fainting: his head was whirling and his body shaking so much he was starting to hyperventilate. And his mouth was filling with saliva.

  Somehow she got him into her car: a sleek black Saab 9000, a limited edition model with the gold badging. He noticed that the upholstery on the doors was still covered in plastic, and the interior smelled brand-new. She pulled into the traffic, glancing at Robert, who was hunkered down in the seat beside her, groaning, sighing and holding himself so tightly it looked as if he was trying to make himself smaller. She knew him: he would not fake this. He would wisecrack about it if he could. But he was blinded with pain as his system tried vainly to cope with the lack of intravenous drugs. Sweat-beads had popped out all over his face. His skin was taut, colourless; his breathing wildly erratic. There was heavy traffic: half the road was up ahead. She edged forward, trying to make headway, but was stymied for a clear run.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ he said, throwing his head back. ‘Please hurry.’

  ‘Here, take my hand. Squeeze it when you have to. Squeeze as hard as you like.’

  ‘The old rubber ball treatment.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Tough chick, huh?’

  ‘I’m tough. Tough enough.’

  ‘Always thought so … ah, fuck.’

  ‘Try and think of something else. Get your mind off it.’

  ‘My mind? Christ.’

  He fell silent, eyes tightly shut, squeezing her hand occasionally while she inched her way through the snarl. Then he said, between sharp intakes of breath: ‘I must say … a nice angora farm looks pretty good right now. Why didn’t I take any notice of you … when it counted, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘Because you’re stupid, that’s why,’ Patti said.

  ‘Oh, charming,’ he said, and a severe attack made him cover his mouth and choke off a scream. When the pain had ebbed he said: ‘What kind of doctor is this guy, anyhow?’

  ‘He’s a feelgood doctor. A very obliging one. He’ll give you something short-term for the pain, then we have to make arrangements.’

  ‘Arrangements. Sounds like a funeral coming up.’

  ‘It will be if you don’t do something. Now. Today.’

  It was true. If he had what it took, if he had the right stuff to see it through, there was just a glint of a chance that he might make it. Patti hadn’t come back into his life for no reason, just as the guardian angel hadn’t. He had given this much thought and had made up his mind: all right, he would join AA, get with the program, fix things with Atholl if the old man would let him … even take this miracle cure Patti was so keen on. There was a lot to talk about, a lot to do, but first they had to get to this fucking feelgood quack before he went out of his tiny mind …

  ‘What are you thinking about,’ she said. She could feel his violent spasms through the hand contact. There was a workman holding a Stop sign in front of her.

  ‘I was thinking … Christ, the mind wanders, doesn’t it … you know that old photo, the one of Atholl and his mates sitting around their camp at Sandakan … Diver Derrick’s in it, it was just before he was killed, and they’re all grinning, stripped to the waist … you know the one? It used to be on the crystal cabinet at Malvern.’

  ‘I remember it. What made you think of that?’

  ‘Oh, I dunno … Crazy stuff. I was just thinking … what a fucking world. They don’t make men like that any more, do they, Patti?’

  Patti turned and flashed a smile at him. ‘If they do, I can’t find ’em.’

  Robert laughed, then convulsed in pain, squeezing her hand so hard he was nearly crushing her fingers. She winced, but s
aid nothing. Then the workman put up the Go sign, and she took off like a shot, haring down the road with one hand on the wheel, deftly weaving between cars, switching lanes, finding gaps where there were none, finally accelerating into a long, open stretch leading into the Kew cutting.

  ‘We’ll be there in five minutes,’ she said. The speedometer was nudging ninety, but it didn’t feel it.

  Sitting there shivering, biting back bile as the steep cutting escarpments rushed past, Robert thought: She’s a fucking good driver. Must’ve got that from Brand too.

  Epilogue

  As soon as the Air France 747 touched down at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Michelle breathed a sigh of relief: not because she was nervous about flying for the first time – she had found the experience exhilarating – but because it had taken so long, and now she was here at last. She unbuckled her seatbelt as the plane began taxiing, then did some eye-stretching exercises. She had hardly been able to sleep at all during the night, despite travelling first class, and was feeling more than a little peaked. But she was here – in Paris.

  She looked out the window. The tarmac was glassy with early-morning rain, the sky looked bleak, men in overalls were driving airport vehicles every which way. It looked chaotic. Finally they came to a stop and Michelle took her hand luggage and was first to disembark, saying au revoir to the smiling cabin staff assembled at the door as she entered the tunnel.

  She didn’t have long to wait at the carousel – five minutes – before the Samsonite suitcase came into view, then her other case. She stacked her three pieces of luggage on a trolley, then headed for immigration and customs. While she was standing in the queue she could not help but think about Danny. She had tried several times to read his letter – three pages of neat handwriting – but had not been able to get past the first sentence without crumpling inside: My Darling Mischa, it went, If you are reading this it means I am not with you … And that was as far as she had got. So far. She would make a determined effort to read it in full in the comfort of her hotel room.