Crooked

by Camilla Nelson

  Gus drifted through the waves of false memory. He covered one whole wall of the squad room with lines and arrows. Conspiracy, coincidence, frayed ends, dead ends. Plots untangling in different directions. Here was everything he knew about McPherson: a Balmain boy, the son of a perennially employed wharfie, grown up in a back slum, fly-filled and tumbledown, sleeping six to a room. He got his first conviction, age eight, for pilfering, then went on to manage the large-scale thieving of cargo by organised gangs on the waterfront. He totalled seventy-three arrests, but only five of them since the war. His last conviction was in 1949, when some bright spark nabbed him for possession of a starting pistol. His last arrest was in 1950, for the murder of a dock worker and habitual criminal on the testimony of several eyewitnesses who subsequently denied everything when the case came to trial.

  Gus got out more files. They didn’t say much, except that McPherson hadn’t seen the inside of a gaol cell since 1951. Several big pushes had been made against him, but each time a fizgig was turned he wound up missing or dead.

  Fact: in March 1960, Allan announced the theft of highly secret police documents from the monthly meeting of senior offices, containing evidence that a rival criminal had pimped McPherson to the cops. Hours later a copy of the informant’s mugshot together with a confidential police report was plastered above the men’s urinal of every gaming room in town.

  Fact: Ducky O’Connor’s greatest asset was his reputation for violence. He had a talent for killing people, often spectacularly, and leaving no trace. He was Dick Reilly’s lucky charm. Nobody could get Reilly without fearing Ducky would find them. Or was psycho enough to die in the attempt.

  Fact: Ernie Chubb was Reilly’s loyal offsider since Reilly gave him a job when he got out of Long Bay. Chubb was the only person Reilly trusted after O’Connor was shot. Only three weeks later Chubb winds up riddled with bullets on the steps of his house.

  Fact: there’d been a bunch of gangland shootings. O’Connor and Chubb were just the tail end. There was Pretty Boy Walker, killed with an Owen submachine gun. Jackie Hodder, knifed at a dancehall in Paddo. Jackie Steele, with sixty slugs cut out of him. There was Barney Ryan, Charlie Bourke and Graham Moffitt, with a car bomb planted under his Holden utility. With the clarity of hindsight, the raid on the Kellett Club almost two years before, oddly coincided with the outbreak of violence and its steady escalation.

  Hypothesis: McPherson gets O’Connor out of Pentridge and sets him up for a fall, leaving Reilly standing naked. McPherson solicits Tommy to hire Warren to shoot Reilly, and mops up behind him.

  Hypothesis: McPherson has to be the most powerful criminal in Sydney. He must be, because all his enemies have already been eliminated. Or had ‘They’?

  He thought of Dolly Brennan. ‘They’re greedy.’

  He thought of Tommy Bogle. ‘They scare me.’

  There were certain things that could not be accounted for.

  Question: nobody could operate on that scale without insider protection. Who are ‘They’?

  Gus went back to the files and the wall charts. He didn’t need to look at the name and signature of the arresting officer in every single instance. He knew who ‘They’ were.

  Gus saw a great deal now … and all of it clearly. Still, as each idea occurred to him he didn’t feel it was something new to him, but something that he’d known all along. He sat there, wrapped in the stillness, the creaking and groaning of downpipes soft in his ears. He went over his mistakes. Some of them made him cringe. Others impacted so painfully he was forced to abandon his feelings altogether. He would stay calm. He would not try to hide. The signs had always been there, they couldn’t have shone clearer. The truth was that he didn’t want to see them, hear them, do anything about them. He had wanted to believe there were other explanations.

  He thought a lot about Tanner. Hours ticked by before he finally confronted the worst – that, despite everything, he was still a little in awe of the bloke.

  The watchful stars blinked down through the window. The pearl shavings of the moon floated down the night sky. He refused to weep. Just sat there, dry-eyed and peering in the semi-darkness, under the soft glow of a solitary lamp, and failed to see how things would end.

  Charlie stood manfully at the Long Bar of the Hotel Australia until his skinful of Bells got the better of him. He was trying hard to forget that he was in any way related to the dubious money trails surrounding the Reilly and O’Connor cases, or the more dubious ends that had come the way of both his former clients. By the end of his fifth drink, he was almost able to see himself as the decent, stalwart, upright, youngish lawyer that he was, the fresh-faced young boy from the back slums who’d made his own way in the world through his effort and intelligence. He was feeling more like himself again when his good friend Frank Browne walked up to the bar.

  Browne’s face held a pleasant pinkness, his nose sweating beneath round horn-rimmed goggles. ‘Well, I reckon we’ve done it,’ he said, by way of greeting. ‘Taken the wind out of poor Renshaw’s sails. Out there, the voters are saying that a bloke who can’t get his own ducks in a row can’t run a government.’

  Browne plunged into a seemingly endless stream of political chatter, before his eyes came to rest on Charlie, faintly amused. ‘You’re looking a touch under the weather, Charlie. Just like you killed somebody.’ Charlie started in a manner that made Browne laugh. ‘Listen, old man, why don’t we hop off to the 33 Club this evening?’

  ‘33 Club?’ said Charlie, taken unawares.

  ‘Haven’t you been there? Where have you been?’ Browne drew back his eyes so they took in the rest of the bar. ‘It’s fronted by some two-bob Pommy with a gambling habit called Michael Moylan.’

  Browne dragged Charlie down Oxford Street, alighting from their taxi outside a dingy-looking door set back between two brass-shuttered windows. Browne rang the bell, a peephole swung open, and the catch was released. Charlie followed Browne as he mounted the stairs and swept through the puce-coloured curtains that divided the first-storey landing from the rest of the club. Inside was a series of mirrored rooms run together, articulated with glazed arches and pink chandeliers. Swivel-hipped waiters wove through the crowd with trays of bright cocktails. Cones of white light shone down onto clusters of tables. From everywhere came the rustle of banknotes and the click of metal balls across chromium-edged wheels.

  Browne was talking all the while. ‘Baccarat is dead, Charlie. There aren’t going to be any more baccarat clubs like Reilly had. Now there’s manila and blackjack, kino and fantan –’ He came to a halt before a giant roulette wheel that covered the span of one room. ‘Just tell me how they got that one through customs,’ he said, genuinely impressed. ‘Of course, they’re just starting out in a small way, but I’m told the whole shebang is going to be regularised straight after the election. Speak of the devil,’ he added, nodding at the bandstand, where a bright-cheeked man in full evening regalia was swapping gags with the singer. ‘That’s Moylan. They say he was once partner to Johnny Warren, the gunman who shot Reilly. Let me introduce you.’

  ‘I don’t want to get involved.’

  ‘You’re already involved –’

  ‘But isn’t he dangerous?’

  ‘Moylan, dangerous?’ said Browne, aghast.

  ‘Well, nobody could’ve got a foot into something like this when Reilly was around.’

  Browne laughed, ‘But Moylan’s a drunkard! Why, if it was that easy to get to Number One I’d have done it myself.’

  Browne grabbed Charlie by his shirt cuff, but Charlie shook him off. ‘I need some fresh air,’ he said, and he plunged abruptly onto the footpath again, standing by the edge of the road, with the traffic shooting past.

  Mercury lights shone at fifty-yard intervals down the length of the street. Above them a bright neon sign – ‘We Buy, Sell & Exchange Anything’ – dazzled into the night. Charlie stood there, gasping for oxygen, then, without pausing to consider the consequences, he went back inside. He found the m
anager’s office easily enough. It had a sign that said ‘Private’ and ‘Michael Moylan – Manager’. He knocked, but the door gave way under his hand. Inside, the room was low and square like the backstage of a theatre, with an electric fan burrowing into the air from the top of a filing cabinet. A green metal safe with the door gaping open was set back in the corner. In front of it, Lennie McPherson was flicking through piles of banknotes.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  Charlie tried to stammer something, but speech seemed to fail him.

  ‘Tommy, who’s this silly-looking cunt you let into my office?’

  Tommy Bogle stepped out of a shadow. ‘I dunno, Boss.’

  Charlie attempted a friendly grin, but Tommy wasn’t grinning back. He brought out a clenched fist, and landed a blow square to Charlie’s chin. Charlie staggered backwards, hitting the wall with such force that he seemed to hang there, eyes flung wide, fingers extended, flat like a picture. He slipped down an inch or so, then crumpled right over, rubbing his fingers along the length of his jaw.

  A voice came from behind. ‘What are you doing?’

  Tanner was standing in the doorway in front of the light. Charlie eyed him with a deep sinking feeling, three heartbeats from panic.

  ‘I was just getting rid of the bloke,’ said McPherson, defensive. ‘Well, this isn’t some bloke. Charlie’s the lawyer who’s been helping me out. Isn’t that right, Charlie?’

  Charlie, almost against his will, began to nod back. ‘I was just introducing myself. I guess I’d better be on my way, then.’

  ‘You do that,’ said Tanner.

  Charlie stumbled out the side door into the adjacent alley.

  Outside, the houses along the alleyway were all shuttered up. Here and there, a chink of yellow light shone through, drawing him along. Charlie was shaking all over by the time he reached the Oxford Street intersection and stood there a moment, inhaling lungfuls of complicated air. Strange faces stepped towards him out of the night. There were soot-faced sailors, beggars with swollen, toothless gums, a drag queen with a face like an Uki-yo courtesan, and a wiry-haired bloke squatting on a puddle of cardboard, waving a chair leg like a Chungara spirit stick.

  Charlie didn’t notice the faces disappear as he staggered into Hyde Park. He didn’t notice anything until he blundered onto the road on the other side. Cars whooshed passed him out of the gloaming.

  ‘Psst! Charlie! What are you doing there? Come here!’

  Charlie stared at the fat figure in a floppy fedora, reclining against the tiger-striped upholstery of a convertible white Mustang. ‘Sammy,’ he said gladly, staggering forward.

  Sammy had spent the last six months in the States.

  ‘Want a drink? Sure look like you could use one.’

  Charlie suspected that Sammy was right and the best thing to do might be to get well and truly soaked. He climbed into the Mustang and circled the city streets before alighting with Sammy at the door of the Latin Quarter.

  ‘I’m opening again in the next couple of weeks. I’m calling it the Cheetah Room,’ said Sammy, as he switched on the lights. Charlie took in the clouds of white building dust, the smattering of cigarette butts, and the dank smell from a burst main in the kitchen, before his eyes alighted on Sammy again, squinting at him in the unaccustomed brightness. Sammy was dressed in a lemon checked sports coat, with an open-necked silk shirt of a slightly darker yellow hue. He righted an upturned chair, and set a bottle on the table between them. ‘Business was never so good after Ducky got shot.’

  ‘Why did you leave in such a hurry?’

  ‘They told me I had to.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘They did,’ said Sammy. He lifted his chin, as if mulling over something important he wanted to say.

  Charlie spoke first. ‘I saw you the night O’Connor got shot. The coppers were giving you a regular walloping.’ He flushed, embarrassed by his admission. ‘I didn’t think it would do any good. Me getting involved, I mean.’

  Sammy let out a melancholy laugh. ‘No worries. If it was me, I probably would’ve run a mile too.’ Then Sammy got on with what he had been intending to say. ‘I probably should’ve told you in the first place that I’ve been paying these blokes for a very long time, which I don’t mind, so long as they don’t make any trouble for me. Of course, it used to be that I did mind, way back when I couldn’t afford the sorts of sums they were asking. Back then it wasn’t pleasant, but now I can afford to pay, and I do.’

  Charlie said, ‘Organising something like that … Lennie McPherson. He must be bigger than the New South Wales police force.’

  ‘You reckon this is McPherson I’m talking about?’ said Sammy, astonished. ‘It’s Tanner who’s been organising things in this town and has done for years. It was Tanner who arranged for Reilly to get shot. It was Tanner who shot Ducky. God help me, I was standing right at his elbow, bringing some fresh jugs of beer to the table, and he comes up from behind. He didn’t speak to the bloke. He just goes, “Here’s yours –” and sticks a gun to his head.’ Sammy lifted his face, which was pale and sweat-streaked in the brightness. ‘There’s nothing that bloke wouldn’t do. There’s nobody bigger than the New South Wales Police.’

  Charlie was shocked by Sammy’s words, but not so shocked he was unable to think of himself. He knew that he’d blundered very badly, and immediately began wondering if he could make himself square. His one great object should be to conciliate with Tanner – and with this in mind, he found himself mounting the stairs of the 33 Club once more, entering the gaming room with a strong sense of embarking on something so dark and dangerous that he wanted to run, but Tanner had already seen him and was moving towards him.

  ‘I think there might be a problem,’ Charlie started abruptly, before plunging on. ‘I ran into your mate Gus Finlay a few hours ago, and I’m afraid I might’ve cocked up. I’m worried he’s taking things the wrong way, and might make some trouble –’

  Charlie came gradually to a halt, but Tanner didn’t respond in the way he’d expected. There was no angry flare, no burst of deadly threats, only absolute blankness.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Charlie added. ‘I thought he was onside.’

  It took a complete second for Tanner to break out of the trance he was in. He fixed Charlie with a look. ‘I reckon I can set everything straight, but I need to know, Charlie. Are you fully with me on this?’

  Charlie hesitated, feverishly imagining all sorts of trouble, then he shook his head twice, and nodded three times, leaving Tanner to take away whatever answer he pleased.

  ‘Okay then,’ said Tanner. ‘I’ll see you in my office at nine o’clock sharp tomorrow.’

  A drinks tray went by. Charlie deftly took a glass and emptied it, before turning back to face Tanner, except Moylan was standing there in his place. Moylan winked at him cock-eyed, cheeks bursting with colour. He swept out a hand to indicate a path, and Charlie set himself dutifully in Moylan’s wake, coming to a halt before the giant roulette wheel with the crowd gathered round them. Moylan spun the wheel hard, sending the small marble skittering along the chromium ridges over the numbers. It bounced a few times, and fell in with a click. And suddenly the croupier was raking up a flurry of polychrome banknotes, adding three wads of the bright stuff from under the table. Charlie fanned out the money in his hands. It seemed to his drink-fuddled mind that the banknotes were multiplying, transforming themselves into molecules of pure colour. They swirled about the ceiling in a dazzling display before raining down on the cut cards and the chromium-edged wheels, sticking to the palm fronds and the shimmering lights, making them a world within a world, where nothing could touch him.

  Charlie floated up through the tumbled clouds of unconscious and lay for a moment on the flat of his bed, trying to rearrange his thoughts and make some adjustments. After the shocks and upheavals of the previous night he had expected something cataclysmic to happen, but now the sun shone in through his window, casting a net of pleasantness over the w
orld, he was conscious only of a sense of anticlimax – nothing had changed, and there was no tangible sign that things wouldn’t go on as they’d gone on before. He showered and shaved, and raked a comb through his hair. He swallowed his coffee, and his brain seemed to brighten. He kissed his wife dutifully on the doorstep, and swerved his way through the early morning traffic towards CIB.

  Charlie drew his car into the kerb and stood on the footpath, swinging his gaze over the iron-barred windows. He nodded at the duty sergeant as he entered the building, following him down a tangle of corridors littered with fag ends and burned matchsticks. He sat down on a chair of washable plastic upholstery and waited. Hearing only the clatter of typewriters, the boots of the duty sergeant moving sullenly off and, dimly, the distant anguished burr of the city beyond the window.

  Until a noise like a shot charge shattered everything into silence.

  Charlie clambered to his feet and ran down the hall in the direction of the sound. He burst through the door to the Gents washroom, his eyes swinging wildly over the scene.

  Gus Finlay lay blasted back against the white-tiled wall, his spectacles disentangled from one ear and cocked off to one side. Tanner was standing under a ganglia of downpipes at the foot of the corpse, a gun slipping out of his grasp, clattering to the shiny tiled floor. He looked down as if in painful curiosity at the hand that had fired the revolver, and saw the hand tremble, as if it wasn’t any part of him. His upper lip inflated as he attempted to bring himself under control. His mouth worked. He said, ‘He knocked himself. He didn’t have to do it.’

  Looking back, it would always seem to Charlie that he had never had a choice, that he could never be other than what he was, do other than what he did. Standing there, among the steel splashbacks and glimmering metal basins, with endlessly repeating wall mirrors pressing the carnage against him from every direction, he felt only a deep and sudden tiredness well up inside. He levelled his eyes, held his voice steady, and said, ‘No, I guess not.’