Crooked

by Camilla Nelson

  ‘I reckon we ought to throw them over the Gap,’ said Chooks, after they’d dumped the guns on the back seat of the Valiant and driven off.

  ‘Christ, no, you dopey bastard. People are jumping off that thing all the time, and divers are always going in to gather up the corpses. I reckon they’d pull out them guns in less than a week.’

  ‘I was only trying to help,’ said Chooks, suddenly glum.

  It was almost dark when they approached the bridge over the Georges River at Milperra. Johnny yanked the steering wheel round and swung the car off the road. He got out and immediately started checking the ground along the edge of the water.

  Chooks ran after him. ‘Why are we stopping here?’

  Just then a cloud seemed to slide off the moon and pour light on Johnny’s face, with startling effect. ‘Did you bring the axe?’

  ‘Maybe I did,’ said Chooks, feeling unaccountably as if the axe was for him. ‘What do you want it for?’

  Johnny pointed a finger at the water. Lights from the nearby bridge picked out strange objects in the darkness. Here, a rotten stump in the mud. There, a fallen-down jetty with a dinghy tied up to a pole. There were also large patches of blackness with no light at all.

  ‘I’ll break up the guns with the axe,’ said Johnny. ‘You drive the Valiant out over the bridge and I’ll toss them in the river.’

  Chooks felt a surge of relief. He did as Johnny said, and several minutes later they were driving out along the bridge. Halfway across, Johnny got out of the car and swung under the railing onto the furthermost ledge. Clutching an iron cable in one hand, he stretched as far as he could and let the guns drop. Chooks heard a long silence, followed by a series of soft muffled sounds as stock, barrel and cartridge were swallowed up in the blackness.

  ‘Whacko,’ he yelled, as Johnny clambered in. ‘Why don’t you stay at our place tonight? We could sit on the veranda and crack open a couple –’

  ‘No offence, mate. But I’ve got my hands full. Maybe we could stop off at South Sydney Juniors.’

  ‘Marge always gets angry if I drink on a weeknight,’ Chooks stammered. But Johnny didn’t respond. Chooks said, ‘Well, I guess we could stop off for a few.’

  Chooks drew the Valiant into the lot behind South Sydney Juniors. Johnny went straight up to the bar, ordered a round and drank his right off. Chooks took a long pull from his glass, and glanced at Johnny sideways.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Johnny, and ordered another round.

  Chooks took a dubious slurp from his fresh glass of beer, and put it down beside his half-empty old glass on the counter. Johnny seemed distracted. He started conversations and failed to finish. He kept ordering drinks, buying one for Chooks, one for himself, and emptying Chooks’ glass as well. Chooks felt the urge to intervene, but seeing his friend caught in the grip of an emotion that was much larger than he was, decided it was prudent to stay quiet.

  ‘There’s something else.’ Johnny drained off another pint. ‘I reckon there’s coppers at the bottom of this.’

  Chooks said, ‘I reckon you’re making too much of it.’

  Johnny confided, ‘Tomorrow I’m getting another gun.’

  ‘I don’t reckon you ought to be getting any guns. I reckon you don’t understand what you’re saying.’

  ‘I’ve got feelings, don’t I?’

  Chooks ventured, ‘Just because you’ve got feelings, doesn’t mean you understand them. A bloke can be mixed up more than he knows.’

  ‘You telling me I’m mad?’

  ‘Hell, no. I wouldn’t say that. Just a bit stressed.’

  Johnny reached out and gave Chooks a hug. Chooks grinned back at him, though he couldn’t conceal the concern in his eyes.

  Johnny said, ‘I reckon I’m going troppo. I can’t take it any more.’

  ‘Chin up,’ said Chooks, taking a long, embarrassed slurp from his glass.

  But Johnny was on the high road to nowhere. He just couldn’t stop. ‘I can’t provide for myself, can’t provide for my family. I’ve sunk lower than a lizard’s belly. I hate myself, and I dunno what to do. I can’t see a way out.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Chooks, and ordered another round.

  Johnny left Chooks asleep at the counter and stalked out of the pub. He ducked down the side alley that ran out from the parking lot by a corrugated iron fence. He crossed the next street without looking, and plunged down a narrower lane. Up ahead, a blue light shone down on a grey paling fence adjoining a series of buildings at the back of the pub. On instinct, Johnny stepped back behind several stacked crates of empties as a car moved towards him from the darkest end of the street. He caught the driver’s face in the window and was so astonished that, for almost a full minute, he doubted his eyes. He watched, almost paralysed with fright, as Lennie McPherson climbed out, plunging down the back alley out of which Johnny had just come.

  Johnny gathered his wits together and started to follow. He was acutely aware of sounds that only moments before he’d failed to notice. The chink of beer bottles subsiding, the crackle of electricity along overhead wires. The rapid motion of a cat crawling out of a tin drum, the shapes of things glooming darkly together. Johnny watched as McPherson stepped up onto the loading dock at the rear of the pub. The dock was elevated, with a stained metal ramp leading up to the entrance. Johnny climbed the ramp, and stepped back between a defunct automatic cigarette machine and a canister of high-octane gas.

  Five minutes later Mick Moylan arrived. He shook hands with McPherson, and the two men began talking. Johnny didn’t understand the implications of their conversation, mostly he was struck by its conspiratorial tone. Everything seemed clear! Everything seemed proved beyond any possible doubt! He went over events of the last couple of months and they all added up.

  Johnny stepped out of his hiding spot, stunned into action. Too late, he heard the click of a safety catch and swung round to see Tommy standing behind him, the mouth of his gun barrel staring straight at him. Johnny threw himself forward, forcing Tommy’s gun arm up with the surprise of his weight. A shot rang out, imprinting a seven-point star on the tin of the roller door as they went flying backwards.

  The impact as they hit the ground almost knocked Johnny unconscious, but he got up and ran towards the car.

  Johnny fumbled for the keys and revved the engine. He was swaying all over the road, but the road was lonely and clear, with no traffic coming or going in either direction. He dropped down off the highway and looked over the water, the lights of Kingsford Smith Airport reflected across it in zigzags. He parked the Valiant by the seawall in case he’d been followed and started to walk. The air was bright and got brighter still, illuminating every postbox and pothole with a heartbreaking clarity. Johnny reached his front gate and climbed the front steps.

  He saw everything in advance … Glory standing in the hallway as the gunman moved towards her, showing his revolver. Johnny ran, taking a last long stride as the gunman fired from mid-range. He watched Glory fall, a flower of blood spreading over her dress. The pain hit Johnny like a bullet in the chest. He crumpled to his knees. The gunman turned toward him, and fired again.

  JANUARY 1968

  Gus wasn’t very pleased with the way things had turned out – they’d been working the case for almost six months with almost nothing to show. He couldn’t help thinking that part of the problem was the way they were working it. They did a bit here, did a bit there. Chased something else down. It got awfully exciting up to a point, then it all petered out, like ripples in a puddle.

  Gradually the case got dropped from the front page of the newspapers, moving down the list of policing priorities almost in tandem. Secretaries and typists grew suddenly scarce. More and more detectives were returned to their regular tasks. Then, earlier that morning, they made it official. The task force was disbanded, the remaining detectives to be detailed elsewhere, a reward was put out, and the case shoved away under ‘File and Forget’.

  Gus wasn’t angry, exactly. He was ill at ease. But
Agostini was livid.

  ‘I guess they were always going to do it,’ he said, as he sorted through the large pile of paperwork on the adjacent desktop.

  Gus closed the lid of the file box he was packing, and taped it shut with a tag labelled ‘Unsolved’. ‘I know you’ve got problems with the investigation, and I reckon we’re all disappointed. But Reilly had everybody in those notebooks – gangsters, politicians and businessmen. I guess we failed to cut through that guff and get to the case.’

  ‘I don’t see anybody asking any coppers any questions.’

  ‘I thought we discussed this. Being in the notebooks doesn’t constitute any evidence against them.’

  ‘They’re such good coppers, then why are they in the books?’

  ‘Maybe Reilly tried to reach them.’

  ‘So what did they do?’

  ‘Turned him down, I guess.’

  But this only made Agostini laugh harder. He gave Gus a look not so much of anger but pity. He picked up the packed box and carted it down the stairs into storage.

  Gus scrambled to his feet and tugged at the blind. He went back to his desk and was idling through paperwork, lost in thought, when the dull clatter of the telephone rang him out of his stupor. He clambered to his feet and dived for the telephone.

  ‘They told me you’re the bloke to speak to about the Reilly case.’

  ‘Then I guess they were right,’ said Gus. ‘Have you got something to tell me?’

  ‘Yeah, Reilly was shot by this bloke that I know of.’

  ‘Has this bloke got a name?’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m not telling you his name.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Gus answered sceptically.

  ‘I also got proof.’

  ‘So tell us about the proof.’

  ‘Well, for starters, I know that the bloke was shot first with a sawn-off and then with the cannon.’

  ‘Cannon?’

  ‘That was only Johnny’s name for the thing. It was a Parker Hale safari rifle with a telescopic sight.’

  Gus felt prickles. He wrote the name ‘Johnny’ on the desk blotter beside him. ‘Can you lay hold of these guns?’ he said, cautiously now.

  ‘He broke them down and dumped them in the river. But I reckon the rest is worth money.’

  ‘I’m happy to talk about that. Is there somewhere we can meet?’

  ‘Do you reckon I’m stupid? First up, I want an ironclad guarantee about the reward with the pardon. I’ll call back in five.’

  Gus stood with his hand on the telephone, listening to the line flatten out. Ideas assembled themselves in his head and he considered their possibilities. He remembered a bloke named Johnny who he’d interviewed way back in the case, and immediately began pacing up and down between the packed boxes of paperwork trying to recollect the details. He unpacked the filing boxes stacked across his desk, then unlocked the steel cabinets where the unsorted file notes were kept. He ran his finger down the index of frayed ends, dead ends and abandoned inquiries, and came up with a name, Johnny Warren.

  Gus dimly remembered interviewing Warren at his Brighton-Le-Sands flat, but seemed to recall he was alibied up. He leafed through the record of interview, and found a roneoed copy of the register from South Sydney Juniors at the back of the bundle. It seemed to bear out the truth of the alibi, but in light of the telephone call it could stand further scrutiny. He also found a note stapled behind the entry, cross-referenced to a set of crime sheets from the Rockdale Police. The note said that one night in January, just three weeks ago, Warren had returned home after a night at the pub, shot his de facto wife Glory and turned the gun on himself. Glory died instantly, with Warren passing away under police guard at St George Hospital several days later. There was also a child concerned in the case, who had been sent on to the Strathfield Girls’ Home for Orphans.

  Gus put the superfluous files back in the cabinet, nudged the drawer shut, and was deeply absorbed in the record of interview, when the telephone started ringing again. He ran down the room and dived for it. But Agostini was already there.

  Gus skidded to a halt on the far side of the desk. ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Wrong number,’ said Agostini, hanging up with a frown.

  Chooks was standing in a telephone booth on a corner in Greystanes with his finger frozen to the dial, unsure what to do and too scared to decide. He put down the receiver, peered up at the sky through a tangle of electrical wire. The clouds were edged purplish. They gave off a green kind of light. It was raining in earnest before he got home. Several minutes later he was ensconced in the kitchen, chewing the end of a pencil and writing a letter to Marge’s dictation. ‘Dear sir,’ he started, with Marge peering over his shoulder, making corrections. He continued:

  I may be in a position to supply information about the murder of Dick Reilly, and other murders also, but in doing so I may incriminate myself. I therefore request, before going any further, that I be given assurance direct from the government that I will be given both the pardon and the money referred to in the reward notice. Faithfully yours – X.

  Chooks put the letter in the back pocket of his trousers and took the bus into town. He clattered out at Central, trudged up to CIB, where he handed the envelope to a uniformed copper, and came home undetected.

  Gus sat on the edge of his desk talking to Agostini, who was pacing the room in tight star-shaped patterns, socking a fist into the palm of his hand. They both looked up as Tanner walked in. He headed straight for his office, then backed up a few paces.

  ‘Rum-looking bastard left this for you,’ he said, extracting an envelope from his outside coat pocket.

  Gus sprang eagerly forward and examined the note. Agostini clattered anxiously over.

  ‘Is the bloke still here?’

  ‘Out like a shot, I’m told.’ Tanner eyed Gus and frowned. ‘Maybe you ought to tell me what this is about?

  Gus waved the letter. ‘I reckon this is from an informant who rang me this morning. He says he can finger the gunman in the Dick Reilly case.’

  ‘Another bloody comedian?’

  Gus gave a prim tug to his spectacles. ‘His information was pretty good, I reckon. He knew the make and calibre of the guns, and the style of the shooting. He says he can give us the actual weapons.’

  ‘Does this bloke have a name?’

  ‘He wouldn’t say. He rang up this morning and says he’ll ring back in five, but then he gets scared.’

  ‘Well, I reckon you’ve got to do a lot better than that. Because this case is closed. On Allan’s instructions.’

  Gus said, ‘He mentioned the name “Johnny”. I reckon he might have meant this bloke Johnny Warren, who was mentioned in the books –’

  ‘Warren never done it, Warren is an idiot.’

  Gus wasn’t so easily put off. ‘I read in the crime sheets that Warren is dead. It could be that’s why this bloke’s stepping forward –’

  ‘Okay,’ said Tanner, making it clear that it wasn’t okay at all. ‘I want you to get this informant’s name and bring it to me. It’s down to me whether it goes any further. Is that understood?’

  ‘One more thing,’ said Gus. ‘It could’ve been this bloke was in on it –’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said I reckon the bloke might’ve been in on the shooting.’ Gus coloured slightly, but went boldly on. ‘He says in the letter he wants the pardon as well as the money. He was very particular about it. He won’t give us a name without an official guarantee.’

  ‘The bugger he won’t.’

  Tanner grabbed hold of the letter and read it through twice, then walked out the door without saying a word.

  Tanner found Allan at the Commercial Travellers’ Club, where he was banging the political drum on the Premier’s behalf. Tanner grabbed him by the elbow and steered him between tables of wood-grained plastic laminate, past palm fronds, cigar smoke and walls covered in men’s photographs, into an anteroom, where he was careful to drop the door-latch behind him.


  ‘I’ve got a few things that need talking about.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Allan, grinning pleasantly. ‘But first up I want you to tell me about the gaming clubs. I take it you had a word with those blokes?’

  ‘Yeah, I did it on Thursday.’

  ‘Yesterday?’

  ‘No, the one before that.’

  Allan waved at a chair, but Tanner declined the invitation. He stationed himself between the door and the table. ‘I met with those blokes down at South Sydney Juniors, only it turns out that there’s a problem. McPherson is telling me that things aren’t going as smoothly as we would’ve liked in the last couple of months, with everybody in a quandary whether to stay open or shut. Some are staying open, but with the lights off. Others are staying shut. McPherson says, “Everybody’s paying me, and getting no protection.”’

  ‘McPherson, he’s an all-right sort of bloke?’ said Allan.

  ‘He’s okay as far as crooks go.’

  ‘But you like him, don’t you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t trust him with his own mother.’

  ‘But sometimes we need to deal with people we don’t like. We’re not working in an antiseptic environment.’

  ‘No, we’re not.’

  ‘So why don’t you tell me what you said to the bloke?’

  ‘I told him, “There’s no protection at the moment and you’ve got to be careful.” McPherson says to me, “Careful? For what I’m paying?” So I say, “Yeah, but there’s nothing to worry about. We’re not doing anything. Just giving publicity to the fact that we’re doing things.” I tell him, “Soon as the state election’s out of the way, I reckon you’ll find there’s a certain relaxation in the clampdown.”’

  ‘So they’ve agreed?’

  ‘I had to talk them into it. I said, “I reckon we’ve always had a good understanding in this town, we’ve always worked well together and always gotten on.” McPherson says, “Nobody’s complaining about the old system, just about the raids, and also getting stood over for additional sums.” So I say, “The new system will be more organised than anything in the past. Pigeye will be the collect boy. The fees will have to go up, but I reckon the sum to be reasonable on account of the murders and so on.”’